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Saturday, June 28, 2014

The Steam Summer Sale; the ACTUAL pay-to-win game

I'm a Steam fan. It's one of the first things I open when I boot up my computer and I would estimate that I get 90% of my games there. The biannual sales are holidays that I look forward to with the same childlike impatience that once accompanied the approach of Christmas.* One of the highlights, aside from cleaning up on all the games and DLC that I wasn't willing to pay full price for, has been the gimmicky "event" that accompanies the sale. Past events have included solving ARGs, incentives for playing the games on sale on a given day, and something akin to an achievement scavenger hunt (if memory serves). This year, it's a bit less satisfying.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

[Wildstar] GED: Ideas worth stealing

With the release hulbaloo surrounding Wildstar calming down I feel like I am at a point where I can discuss some of the elements I really appreciate. I decided to forgo a full review because there are plenty of well written ones out there. Plus there are some things I've not yet had the time to try out, such as adventures and instances, mainly due to my sporadic playtime that often requires sudden breaks. Still I have reached as high as level 28 and have gone through 3 of 4 starting zones.

GED posts are an idea I've stewed on for a long time. Poking fun at TED talks, I wanted to take a literary opportunity to brush away the rough of a game and look for the diamonds within because I think most games, successful or not, had a few good ideas in them. For example, I may have panned ESO back during its launch, but I think it too had some interesting ideas. However, that is a topic for another day. I'm starting with Wildstar, which after consuming 95% of my free time this week, has earned that distinction. A final note, just because I did not mention a certain mechanic or system here does not mean it is not also worth copying. If I mentioned every single thing I liked, we'd end up with the mother of all walls of text.