Rocket 88 (Or Should That Be 93?)

The second demo I tried was

Elroy and the Aliens

Ah! You worked that out already. By looking at the big picture at the top, no doubt. The one where the designer appears to have decided to use all their favorite fonts at once. And can't make up their mind on capitalization, either.

And yet, somehow, it kinda-sorta works, doesn't it? It has that wholesome, homespun look, like a poster your artistically gifted tween daughter worked up in art class for her middle-school drama club's end-of-year production. 

The whole game has something of that feel about it, with Elroy himself giving off some serious Shaggy-from-Scooby-Doo vibes and a strong Saturday-Morning-Cartoons-in-the-Eighties feel to the whole thing. It's actually set in an alternate 1993 but to my memory, nineties' cartoons were a lot gnarlier and nastier than the clean surfaces and wholesome personalities on show in this game. Nope. Looks like the eighties to me.

The other thing that struck me immediately about Elroy and the Aliens is how overtly cinematic it is. This seems to be a thing with modern indie games, particularly advntures and visual novels, but it's not always done as convincingly as it is here.

When I say "cinematic", in this case we're talking cartoons, of course, but the whole range of camera movements and directorial flourishes is there - pans, sweeps, close-ups, establishing shots - all that good stuff that makes you feel like you're being told a story. And it's not a bad story, either, at least from what I can tell from the demo, which is also the opening chapter, just as it will appear in the finished game.

Here's the gist of the plot: Elroy, an engineering buff, whose famous archeologist father went missing eighteen years ago when Elroy was only five years old, has built himself a rocket that he claims will be the first to leave the atmosphere and then return to land in the same place from where it was launched. He's trying to get funding for the project and to that end he's willing to be interviewed by a reporter from the local paper.

The reporter, Peggie, duly arrives, waking Elroy from a night's sleep on the couch that also serves as his bed because he has that living on pizza, sleeping in your clothes, student stereotype down pat. It's clear she's more interested in Elroy because of who his father was than for what he might be able to do with his rocket.

After a series of mishaps and corrections, the rocket is ready to go. The pair hide behind a door while Elroy launches the rocket by remote control. It goes up, goes wrong, comes down and blows a hole in the flat roof back where it started, so at least the bit about landing where it took off goes right, even if nothing else does.

Elroy is understandably bummed about all this, particularly with a reporter there to record it all, but Peggie is more interested in something she sees glowing in the hole in the ceiling left by the crash. Elroy pokes it out with a broom handle and they see the object they've found has a big button in the middle. Naturally, Elroy immediately presses it because why wouldn't he?

The device turns out to be a hologram projector with a message from his father, who it turns out isn't dead after all but trapped somewhere, following the success of the mission on which he disappeared, where he was trying to track down the truth or otherwise of some myth or legend I can't remember the name of right now.

The legend was true but unfortunately for Elroy's dad, his partner wasn't. That guy, who now just happens to be the Mayor of Slope City, ran off, leaving the unfortunate archeolgist stranded with no way home. Stranded where, though? That's the question.

Dad tasks son with finding and rescuing him and Peggie, naturally, has to tag along for the story of a lifetime. And that's where the chapter and the demo ends, the rest of the game, presumably, revolving around that rescue operation and everything it reveals.

I remembered all of that without having to look anything up, which tells you a lot about how clear and straightforward the story-telling is. The writing throughout is very solid, playing to the strengths of the genres and media it draws from, while largely avoiding most of their flaws. 

All the characters are engaging. In the demo we meet just four characters (The full game apparently has more than sixty.) The ones in the demo are Elroy, Peggie the reporter, Elroy's neighbor who I kept wanting to call Mrs Kandinsky but who's actually called Mrs Kaminsky and Elroy's friend, a junkyard owner and software engineer, whose name I have completely forgotten. 

Every one of them is a stereotype but that's perfectly fine. Stereotypes are entirely appropriate for the style of the game and these are nicely individualized examples. They all have personality and charm, even though it's entirely the sort of personality and charm you'd expect them to have, before you ever heard them speak. The voice acting is equally solid and as firmly within expected operational paramaters, something that could never be said about Elroy's rocket.

Visually, the game is a joy. It has that hand-drawn animation look to it that's always so cosy and re-assuring. The scenes are all exactly as detailed as they need to be to feel convincing, without ever becoming overly distracting by way of unnecessary cruft. Animation is fairly basic but plenty good enough. In that respect, as in so many others, it feels true to the cartoons that so clearly inspired it.

As for the gameplay, it could scarcely be more traditional. If you like Point&Click adventures for what they do best, this is very much what you've been looking for. The mechanics and the UI are all well-designed, intuitive and comfortable. The problems are mostly practical, the solutions mostly logical, but none of it ever feels for one moment like something that could ever happen in real life.

In a Saturday Morning Cartoon, however, these are the sorts of thing happen all the time. It's marriage of two forms perfectly suited. No wonder so many P&C games go back so often to draw from the Saturday Morning Cartoon well. 

As must be obvious, I thoroughly enjoyed my half-hour with Elroy and his pals. This is a game I might actually buy and play, although maybe not quite as soon as just over a month from now, which is when it's due to go live.

Wishlisted and Recommended!

Cats In Spaaaaaace!

After yesterday's post I didn't hang around. I launched straight into the demos, starting with Adventures of a Cat in Space. 

Since it's supposed to be a family-friendly game, I figured it would be one of the quickest and easiest to play and I was not wrong. The demo took me fifteen minutes, end to end.

Adventures of a Cat in Space.  

I originally picked this one for three rather obvious reasons:

• There's a cat.
• There's space.
• There's Adventure.

The main reason I picked it, though, was because of what it looks like. 

To be honest, that was why I picked pretty much all of them, this time. I was on my laptop in bed and I didn't want to get into a lot of research so I just sorted the list by a few keywords and genres - RPG, MMO, Adventure, Point&Click, Visual Novel - and then chose the ones that either had names or screenshots I liked the look of. 

Shallow, I know, but you have to get it done somehow.

This one scored highly on both title and image but it also came with another, often-overlooked, advantage - associations with things I already know I like. Almost certainly unintentional and irrelevant associations but that's not going to stop the neurons firing. Marketing departments try to make things like that happen all the time but in this case I suspect any connections were being made in my mind only.

Seeing the name immediately reminded me of two TV shows I like - or rather one show and one segment: Dogs in Space and Pigs in Space (From The Muppet Show, of course.)  The visuals, as I watched the video linked in yesterday's post, evoked happy memories of Bob Godfrey cartoons, specifically Roobarb.

While the game does have Godfrey's trademark shimmering (Known in the animation trade as "boiling".), the stylistic similarity doesn't go much further than that and there seems to be no allusion whatsoever to either of the previously-mentioned animal-in-space shows. Nevertheless, in my head, as Elastica always liked to say, somehow a vital connection was made.

And I'm happy it was. Adventures of a Cat in Space (The Demo) is a fun fifteen minutes. 

The plot involves the attempts of a cat to get back home after chasing a mouse into a spaceship, accidentally launching it and ending up drifting in deep space. The pictures are pretty to look at, the puzzles are easy to figure out and the titular cat makes for a characterful protagonist. 

I don't much see the point of describing anything that happens in any more detail than that. It's fifteen minutes. If you want to know more you may as well go see for yourself.

The one very odd thing about the game is the music. I can't recall the last time I played a kid-friendly game of this sort that also came with an original indie-rock soundtrack. Music is, in fact,a core part of the game, described on the website as "a musical adventure". The full game will include a number of songs which, if they're all like the couple in the demo, should be a fun time for all.

The game is a bit of an arts and music fest all round. It's a collaboration between games designers Tall Story Games and "musical theatre specialists" Little Seeds and it's sponsored by Arts Council England. 

It also features voice acting by Arthur Darvill, a name the very Brit-focused devs imagine will be best known for playing Rory, one of Dr. Who's many companions, but which may well be more familiar to an international audience as Rip Hunter from the Arrowverse show Legends of Tomorrow.

As well as being a successful actor on television, Darvill is also an accomplished musical theater player, having won an Olivier Award for "Best Actor in a Musical". He plays the somewhat annoying computer in the spaceship and also sings the  title song, on which evidence I'd guess he's long cherished fantasies of being the lead singer in the kind of band likely to appear at DIY Popfests around the world. 

They'd love him in Japan, I bet. And Madrid.

Whether he sings all the songs in the game I don't know. Nor do I know whether every song is rendered in the same musical style. I really hope so, though. That would be reason enough to play it, even if the game itself wasn't as much fun as, by the look of the demo, it's going to be.

I thought for a while about whether to wishlist this one. I enjoyed my fifteen minutes with it a lot but if I'm realistic, the chances of my actually buying it and playing it are slim. My wishlist is stuffed with games I added after playing the demos and then found, when the time came, that I'd probably already seen as much of as I wanted. A good demo does run the risk of sating demand, or it does for me, anyway.

Still, if Stars Reach has taught me anything, it's that there's value in wishlisting games on Steam, even if you never intend to buy them. Value to the developers, that is. And since it costs me nothing...

Wishlisted. And recommended.

Seven Into Six Will Go (Especially When It's Really Eight)

It's all happening this week, isn't it? The Stars Reach Kickstarter, Blade&Soul NEO and Steam's Next Fest all fell out of the bus together and I wasn't even around to see it. I barely even have time to go back over any of it today, really. Tomorrow, perhaps.

I did manage to pick my half-dozen demos for Next Fest though. I did it last night, on my laptop, in bed. Not ideal. Still, I got it done and here's what I went with:

Inhuman Resources 

 

"Take part in an expansive choose-your-own-adventure novel, where you’ll uncover the secrets of an anachronistic corporation reigning over a post-truth world. Solve cryptic riddles, make difficult choices, and do whatever it takes to escape the depths of SMYRNACORP with your mind intact.

With hundreds of possible story routes, multimedia content and interactive puzzle elements, INHUMAN RESOURCES aims to elevate the traditional reading experience to more immersive, engaging heights, without forgoing the satisfaction of reading a well-crafted story."

Elroy and the Aliens 

"This DEMO features the first out of ten chapters of Elroy and the Aliens. The Demo gameplay duration is approximately 30 minutes.

Elroy is a young rocket engineer whose father disappeared 18 years ago in suspicious circumstances. Peggie is a hot shot reporter with a knack for languages, history and research. Together, they uncover a secret that takes them on a journey of epic, world-saving proportions!"

Kentum 

"After a record breaking nap spanning several millennia, Kent finds himself in the year 10.000 with nothing but a stick and a very matter-of-fact robot companion. Tired, hungry and still employed he will need to explore the unknown in order to craft the machines that will turn his broken space module into a self-sufficient base of operations. And maybe kickstart civilization again, if he has the time.

Discover the wonders and the oddities of a vast, ever-changing world filled to the brim with quirky fauna, flora and climate events. Classify every animal, plant and mineral in order to help you survive the passing of seasons. Knowledge is your greatest weapon. But don’t try to use knowledge against certain animals, you WILL get eaten.

This demo lets players go through the opening hours of KENTUM, exploring its first region. The demo includes diverse fauna, dynamic weather events, the call to adventure, and a variety of machines to build. It also features various abilities that players will need to craft themselves, as well as the ability to create production chains using farms and automated machines."

Nitro Gen Omega "

"NITRO GEN OMEGA is a turn-based tactical RPG featuring an innovative timeline-based fighting system that blends deep tactical gameplay with the feeling of directing your own anime episode.

Humanity has lost the war against the machines. The world is overrun by them. What is left of the population has retreated to a few cities and outposts constructed atop of giant pillars. The end is coming - slow and inevitable - but for now, life goes on. People still need food, supplies, technology from the old world, or sometimes just something to get them going.

You are the commander of a mercenary crew, surviving by taking on contracts for the cities. Build and tune your Mechs. Recruit pilots and watch them bond aboard the airship: your mobile base. Complete contracts and engage in high-octane cinematic Mech battles featuring a unique Timeline system. Play solo or join a persistent online world featuring permadeath, where every character is procedurally generated."

Adventures of a Cat in Space 

"Adventures of a Cat in Space is a family-friendly point & click adventure. After being accidentally launched into space, a cat is on a mission to find their way back home. Along the way you will need to solve puzzles and explore distant planets across the galaxy to unlock original music and songs to power up your navigation system and get back to Earth in this cosy adventure purrrfect for all ages."

Mars Vice 

"2184, the Martian city of Pavonis: the place to be on the partly terraformed red planet. The Martian population decided to take evolution on a whole new path and turn their once human bodies into a plethora of shapes and forms: fully custom-built bodies to take on the challenges of living on a harsh new planet.

New Mars, with its subsidized transhumanism, would practically be a utopia if it wasn't for the rampant corporate greed and power-hungry police, all looking to take advantage of its fresh-faced populace.

Enter: Dax, civil investigator with poor impulse control, and his world-weary new partner, Anaya. 

Welcome to Mars! Don't ask too many questions."

Solarpunk 

"Solarpunk is a survival game in a technically advanced world of floating islands. Alone or together with your friends, you can construct buildings, grow food, craft gadgets and explore distant islands with your own airship.

Use sunlight, wind and water to create an energy system and automate your processes like gathering resources and watering your plants."

As observant readers will note, especially those who can count, that's seven, not six. And since I already played through the demo for Solasta II before the event even began, that makes eight games in my half-dozen. Good packing by anyone's standards.

As everyone will also notice, I have made no attempt to go outside my confort zone this time, although now I've seen the trailers, one or two of the games don't look quite like I imagined, last night in bed.... Anyway, there was a particularly rich crop of Point&Clicks, RPGs and Visual Novels this time around so I thought I'd take advantage of the opportunity. Next time there might be hardly any.

The question now is will I have time to play them all? I've missed the first three days and the damn festival only lasts a week. It really ought to go on for twice as long, shouldn't it? 

I'll give it my best shot, anyway. On the plus side, I am technically on holiday and I don't have any major commitments for the rest of the week, other than to put some shelves together for Mrs Bhagpuss. Then again, the weather forecast for the whole period is very good, so I might not want to sit around indoors playing games.

And with that, I'll be off. Best not waste time typing when I could be playing, eh?

All This Can Be Yours - For A Price

This weekend, the Playable Worlds team finally came up with some hard details on the upcoming Stars Reach Kickstarter campaign. Not the target itself, nor the inevitable Stretch Goals, details of which we'll have to wait until tomorrow to learn, but we do now have chapter and verse on the Pledge Tiers, their pricing and what your money will get you.

I'll probably have more to say on that after the campaign officially begins tomorrow. For now, if you want the full details, such as they are, Wilhelm has you covered.  

What I will say is that the pledge tiers, as revealed in this weekend's fireside chat, are both better and worse than I expected.  

The first two tiers pretty much say "I have no interest in your game but I would like to express my support anyway". We might as well forget them, except to say it'll be interesting to watch just how much take-up they get. The third tier I'm going to come to in a moment. 

As for the rest, I didn't find anything appealing in any of them. Beyond a certain point it's whales all the way down. Before that, it's quite hard to see the attraction at all. There are some intriguing mentions of spaceships and spacesuits that made me wonder if there was going to be a Star Citizenesque market in imaginary hulls at some point in the future but it's far too early to tell what value something like that might have when the game goes live.

Not, of course, that there was any chance of me spending more than maybe, at the very outside, a hundred dollars. I did spend that much on Landmark and never regretted it so it wasn't completely out of the question that Playable Worlds might come up with something I thought was worth paying that much for. 

They didn't but luckily for me, the only thing I was really interested in - continued, guaranteed access to the testing program - is included in every pledge from Tier Three. That entry level offer is pegged at just $30. So that's what I'll be pledging. It's a bargain. I was expecting to be asked at least $50.

It's one-and-done, too. Pledging gets you into all the tests that are planned up to Live. The rough idea  seems to be to carry on with testing much as it is now until the summer, by when there should be something closer to an actual game, as opposed to a lot of unconnected bits of one. Testing would then move to a beta phase by the end of the year and transition into Early Access sometime in 2026. 

How long the EA phase might last hasn't been mentioned but I don't remember an awful lot of games staying in Early Access for less than a few months. A few years seems more like the norm.

There have also been precious few instances of MMORPGs taking less time to hit their initial development targets than originally suggested. It's hard to think of any that even made the dates they said they would. By far the most common outcome is that everything takes longer than expected - often much, much longer.

That suggests $30 now will probably buy you at least the best part of two years playing the game before it finally declares itself ready and launches. At which point you can just carry on because it's going to be Free To Play... for a very specific definition of "Free".

Here's where things get a little peculiar. Raph and the Playable Worlds team seem to be very concerned not to frighten the horses by using the "S" word, so they're doing everything they can not to suggest the game will require any sort of subscription. 

That's hardly surprising. Subscriptions are still widely considered the kiss of death for a new MMORPG, although I would have to say the demographic likely to be most interested in Stars Reach is probably also the one least likely to have problems with a monthly access fee, if only because they'd like to believe it would keep out the riff-raff and minimize the impact of the cash shop.

It's a difficult balance to strike. Raph has said he doesn't see Stars Reach as a bijou, niche project for nostalgists only. It's meant to be a game with at least a shot at mass-market appeal. That does seem to rule out an old-school, Buy-to-Play plus Monthly Subscription model, even though I'm sure a significant proportion of the current testing phase would love that. Or at least would say they did.

That would also be the power-block least likely to accept a true F2P offer and when the game does eventually go Live they aren't going to get one. The payment model, as I understand it, will be F2P with a Cash Shop, but also with a monthly game pass that quite a few people are going to see as all but mandatory. 

So far, so ordinary. Lots of games have a free tier and an optional paid tier that gives all kinds of perks. Some people always think the game is unplayable without those passes.

Where Stars Reach differs is in the very specific nature of the perks, one of which is so clearly the focus it lends itself to the name of the pass itself. It's called the Property Pass and if you want a house, you have to have one.

Yes, if you want somewhere to live in Stars Reach you're going to have to pay rent. Not in space dollars. In real money. Without this month's Property Pass you don't get to build or live in your own home. Whether or not you can still own a whole planet, just not any of the buildings on it, is unclear.

It's a strange move. In one way it seems like a draconian choice, fencing off a major part of the game  behind a pay-wall. In another, it risks being all but meaningless as an income-driver. A lot of people who play MMORPGs love their houses but I'd bet a lot more really don't care much about housing one way or the other.

What we don't know at this stage, of course, is just how key to the rest of the gameplay housing will be. Thinking of every game I've ever played with some kind of housing, even those with the best versions and the smartest integration with other aspects of play, I couldn't claim that not having a house in any of them would have made all that much difference to anything else I wanted to do.

Short of requiring access to a house to reach other content, housing is always going to sit off to the side of everything else. If you only care about adventuring or combat or exploring, you can pretty much forget about staying at home or even coming back there now and again. As for crafting and the various social activities, the way things have been explained so far, it seems likely you'll need access to someone's home but it isn't necessarily going to need to be yours.

For the time being, though, none of us need to worry about any of that. It will, no doubt, all become clear nearer the time. For now, the Property Pass is just a dot on the horizon. There's no hint or suggestion that Playable Worlds will try, as others have, to charge a fee for access during testing - other than that initial $30 buy-in, that is. Unless I'm missing something, as long as the game is in some form of alpha, beta or Early Access, you'll be able to build your house and live in it for free.

From my perspective, that will most likely be longer than I'll ever want to play anyway. Even on the optimistic timescales given, it looks as though launch is a couple of years away. If I'm realistic, it's been many years since I played any game for that long. A lot happens in two years and games I was excited by a couple of years ago are usually fast vanishing into the rose-tinted distance by then.

The final thing that ought to be said is that, should you be interested in getting a close look at the game as it develops, there's not even any absolute requirement to pledge the Kickstarter at all. Although all but the lowest couple of tiers entitle you to "Priority access" to testing, that in itself more than implies there will also be non-priority access as well. If you're just patient you'll probably get a go. Same as every testing program, really.

Things do change somewhat once the game goes into Early Access. Your Kickstarter pledge will get you in, no questions asked, but if you didn't back the campaign, you'll have to buy a Pass. 

What sort of pass and for how much is unknown as yet although it doesn't look like it'll be a Property Pass. Those only start to feature in the explanatory notes when when the game goes Live. That's why I'm assuming my $30 will get me property rights from now until launch.

As for the EA passes, whether they'll turn out to be more expensive than the $30 pledge remains to be seen but it seems unlikely. It would feel a bit strange if they were cheaper. Then again, you'd have had all that time in testing for the extra money so you probably shouldn't complain.

That's the thing about games in development. The speculation never ends. Until the final launch packages and pricing are announced, anything and everything can change. 

Based on what we know so far, though, $30 seems like a bargain. If you're at all interested, I'd say take it while it's on offer. This kind of access probably won't come as cheaply again. 

Solasta II Jumps The Gun - or - Crabs! Why Did It Have To Be Crabs?

On Monday, the first of Steam's three annual opportunities for developers to share what they've been working on, or offer up a taster of what they've already produced, will go live. Next Fest starts on 24 February and runs, as usual, for a week, ending on 3 March.

This should sit fairly well with my schedule, for once, although I'll probably be too busy to get stuck in until about halfway through the event. I should at least be able to pick my traditional half-dozen demos on opening day, even if I don't get around to playing any of them until Thursday.

Happily for me, some developers don't seem to be able to wait for the starting gun, which gives me a bit of a headstart on my reviews. I saw a news item on one of the MMO websites about one game that had already released a demo, although I can't now remember what it was and yesterday I got an email from Steam , telling me one of the games on my Wishlist had done the same.

The game is Solasta II, the sequel to Solasta. I very much enjoyed the original and I'm currently in the middle of the DLC, Lost Valley, which is just as good, so the opportunity to see how much the game might have improved in further development was most welcome.

I downloaded the demo immediately. It's quite big. I think it was around 13gb. It begins with a very clear description of what the demo is and is not, which seems like something more demos could do.

I like the idea of the demo being a standalone adventure. It's not entirely clear whether it's a segment of the eventual, finished game or an entirely separate production, although I think it's more likely the second.

Having a pre-made party is another thing I like. It saves a lot of time and gets straight to the point, which in Solasta is always the fights.

Here, it needs to be said, Tactical Adventures have a big advantage over many other RPG devs. They really aren't at all interested in many of the things - characterisation, inter-party romances or even role-playing - their competitors place such great importance in. Grimmtooth would most likely approve.

No, the whole point of the Solasta series is - as you might expect from the name of the company behind it - tactics. There is a plot but it very much takes second place to the exploring and the fighting. I very much doubt many people are playing these games for the dialog or the story.

That said, I have quite a soft spot for the voice acting, which manages to be idiosyncratic and distinctive without ever being very good. I'm sure the actors are professionals but they don't always sound like it. 

The dialog often gives the impression of a bunch of quite gifted amateurs giving it their best shot. None of them ever seem to get too emotional about anything, either, which I count as a blessing after some of the over-wrought histrionics I've had to turn the sound down on over the years.

The characters in the demo are new but I recognize the voices behind some, if not all, of them. The dwarf is for sure the same voice as the dwarf in the game I'm playing. All of them are pleasant to listen to and the dialog is as terse and amusing as always. The conceit that the four party characters, all different D&D races, are orphans who were brought up together and now consider themselves siblings works nicely. It also explains the mild bickering that has always been a feature of inter-party conversations in the series.

In fact, there isn't very much that's different in the demo from how the game has always been. It seems to be a case of something not broken not being fixed, which makes a pleasant change, if you're used to MMORPGs.

There are some changes, of course. The UI has been revamped to look more up-to-date and, while I'm not convinced it's an improvement, it's certainly no worse, so that's fine. I noticed a few minor tweaks to the way combat works but nothing significant enough to stop me from carrying on pretty much the same as before. 

It looks as though they might have removed the "Ready" option, or at least I couldn't find it. That was Solasta's version of "Overwatch" and I used to use it a lot. The action bar has been condensed and simplified a little, too, but otherwise the transition from original to sequel feels very smooth.

By far the biggest and most obvious improvement is how the game looks. The original came out in 2021 but looks a fair bit older. Its graphics were functional and aesthetically consistent but I doubt anyone would have called them beautiful.

By comparison, the demo for Solasta II looks gorgeous. There's far more detail and the world looks richer in both color and texture. Character models in conversations and cut-scenes are much more "realistic" and facial expressions are more convincing. I suspect Tactical Adventures are quite proud of what they've achieved bcause there are plenty of close-ups and the camera can now sweep majestically across the landscape to give some delightful aerial views. 

There are also Viewing points that work almost exactly like Vistas in Guild Wars 2. If you click on one, the UI disappears completely and the camera spirals up and away to give you a magnificent shot of whatever scenic feature you've happened upon.

It's also now possible to move the camera far ahead of anything your characters have seen for themselves, making planning a route much easier. I just wish you could click on the map and have the characters go there instead of having to come out of map view and click on the world itself to get the exact same effect.

One innovation in the demo is that you don't actually have to click to move at all. If you prefer, you can now control movement of your party directly, using the cursor keys. I thought that might be a good option but unfortunately its a bit flaky still (The demo is flagged pre-alpha.) It also seems it's been so long since I've used the cursor keys to move in any game that I now find it uncomfortable and weird. I hope by the time the full game arrives they'll not only have tuned the movement but also added WASD as an option.

As to the adventure itself, not to give any spoilers but it involves a visit to see an old friend that turns into a full-blown dungeon crawl. The town, where said friend lives, is spectacularly scenic and incredibly badly located atop some perilous clifftops over a massive cave complex. Given that the caves are home to a large dragon and some kind of apocalyptic magical device, it's an accident waiting to happen. And happen it duly does.

It's a chunky demo. I played for an hour and three-quarters last night and didn't finish it. I was right in the middle of what might or might not have been the climactic battle, when Beryl bounced in and made me stop. Luckily, you can save at almost any point, even mid-fight, so I should be able to pick up from where I left off, later today. 

If I'm right and that was indeed the big, set-piece battle at the end, I'd guess the demo is probably intended to run for a couple of hours. It is, however, entirely possible that the climax is a fight with the dragon I mentioned earlier, in which case there's probably a way to go yet. 

Dragon fights are always fun but in a way I hope that's not where we're headed because, frankly, I do not see my party coming out of a dragon fight in anything more than small, smoldering pieces. Maybe it's only a small dragon...

Watever the outcome, this is a fine demo. It showcases the game's strengths well, it's fun in its own right and it's making me look forward to the finished game even more keenly than I already was. Can't ask more of a demo than that. 

If I have a complaint, it's that there are too many fights with crabs. Crabs, I think it's fair to say, were never the highlight of anyone's D&D campaign, so why use them in your show window? Kobolds? Sure. Crustaceans? Nope. Other than that, great job! 

I'm going to count this as one of my Next Fest reviews so that's one down. Unless of course the demo turns out not to be in the event after all. That would be a fun twist!

What A Tradeskill Booster In EverQuest II Gets You. And What It Doesn't.

Last time I posted about what I was up to in EverQuest II, I mentioned I was thinking of making a proper effort to prepare my Necromancer to be the character who takes the lead in new expansions from now on. Contrary to expectations, not least my own, I have actually done something to make that happen: I bought a tradeskill booster from the cash shop.

It's been an instructive experience so I thought I might share a few notes. I don't know if anyone reading this will find it useful - I know there used to be a handful of occasional EQII players amongst my readership but I'm not sure any of them still indulge - but maybe Google will send some seeker after truth my way, one day.

This One Goes To 120

The first thing to mention is that you can't, at time of writing, buy a booster that will take you to the crafting cap. I'm not sure why. You can get one for Adventure level so there wouldn't appear to be an existential objection and I'm damn sure there's no technical reason preventing it, so who knows what the reason is. If there even is one.

The boost takes you to 120, ten levels below the cap. It's then up to you to do the necessary quests or, if you prefer, grind writs until your fingers bleed, to finish the job. Fortunately, tradeskill levels come very quickly via questing these days. Even so, you should probably set aside a few hours to bring your new crafter up to speed.

It's Going To Cost You

Tradeskill boosters are not cheap. They cost 3500DBC which, if you had to buy it, would cost you $35. As an All Access member I get a 10% discount, making it $31.50 and I suppose you could knock another $5 off of that for the monthly 500DBC stipend. 

Even then, at the cheapest it would run you $26.50, which to my way of thinking is one hell of a lot of money to pay for a shortcut in a video game. On the other hand, at a conservative estimate, leveling from zero to one-twenty in a tradeskill would probably take twenty or thirty hours so set that against whatever you think of as your hourly rate and see how it stacks up. Not going to be twenty-six dollars, is it?

For me, such calculations weren't necessary because, as I've frequently complained, thanks to having been subbed forever and having taken advantage of a number of the extremely ill-advised Triple Value Sales both Sony and Daybreak used to run, until they realized they were giving away the farm, as of yesterday I had a sliver short of 35k DBC on my main account alone. I was glad to find something worth splurging on.

Don't Press That Button!

The process involved in activating the boost is very simple. Too simple in some ways and yet not simple enough in others. 

Paying the money puts a token in your inventory, which you then have to Examine to activate. I was expecting a context menu with a "Use" option, which is how other, similar items work in the game, but of course there's no real consistency in these sorts of things in EQII. What with it being two decades old and any and all systems having passed through countless developers' hands over the last twenty years, it's anyone's guess how anything's going to work, most of the time.

Once I'd figured it out, a menu appeared, asking me which specific tradeskill I wanted to raise to 120. My Necromancer had never done any crafting at all so I had a free choice because she was a mere Level 2 Artisan, the generic non-class with which you start before you specialise twice more, at Levels 10 and 20. 

If you use the boost on a character who's already made that decision, the boost will jump that class to 120. It doesn't offer you a change of career. If, however, you haven't yet settled on a crafting profession, now is the time. Be sure you know what you want!

This is is where I feel the simplicity goes too far. I wasn't sure whether I wanted Mordita to be a Tailor or a Provisioner. I was leaning towards the latter as I clicked on Tailor, thinking it would merely highlight the option while I thought about it. That was not what happened.

The moment I clicked, a stream of pop-ups appeared, telling me I'd earned a whole bunch of Achievements as my Necromancer morphed instantly into a high-level Tailor. I would have thought a confirmation box with a cautionary "Are you sure you want to use this token to become a Tailor?" would have been best practice at this point but there you go.

Boosts With Benefits

Perhaps the best thing about the booster - and a very good reason why someone might even choose to buy it for a character already at the crafting cap - is that it also boosts several other important skills. I didn't know this so it was a lovely surprise.

Once again, it's not entirely consistent. The booster raises the three Secondary tradeskills, the ones that don't count as classes and which all characters can, if they choose, level independently. Those three skills are Experimentation, Adorning and Tinkering, at least two of which are extremely handy to have, even if you have no interest in crafting. I can't comment on the third, Experimentation, which is a skill I've never used or really understood, but no doubt it's great if you know what to do with it.

As well as those three, it also raises Transmuting, currently classified as one of the Harvesting skills, of which more later. Transmuting is particularly important in that it allows you to convert a large proportion of surplus or unwanted gear into the raw materials used to make Adornments. This means you suddenly have a way of getting rid of all that Attuned and No Drop stuff cluttering up your bags without having to destroy it or sell it to vendors for a pittance. 

You can then either sell the mats on the broker or use them to make Adornments, which you might as well because, thanks to the booster, you now have the necessary skill. You can use them yourself, pass them to your alts or sell them. At the very least it's a great way of clearing some bag space.

Tinkering, used to be notoriously awkward to level but a long time ago someone, most likely Domino, added a daily quest that helps you to raise your skill by a few points a day. There are also dailies for Transmuting and Adorning and the same NPC gives them all, so you can, if you have the patience and the personality for it, level all three simultaneously. 

Leveling them from zero to cap that way would, I estimate, take you about three months, assuming you never missed a day and the RNG gods were kind to you. Once again, you may or may not consider that a valid use of your valuable time.

I have never gone all the way with those dailies but I do routinely use them to fill in gaps and bring my Berserker/Weaponsmith back to the cap in Adorning and Transmuting as each expansion arrives. Even then, I haven't managed to get Tinkering more than half-way on anyone so my Necromancer is now by far my highest-level Tinkerer.

She is not, however, a max-level Tinkerer because for some incomprehensible reason the booster sets Transmuting and Experimentation to their current level caps but leaves the other two skills fifty points short. Consequently, I'm now doing the Tinkering and Adorning dailies again to catch up. Still, it's one heck of a bonus that I wasn't expecting. 

Shortcuts Only Take You So Far

You may be a high-level crafter now but don't expect to be able to craft anything! Not until you go shopping, anyway. The booster doesn't give you any of the 120 levels of recipes you're missing. Not even the basic ones you can buy from the vendors in the crafting hall. 

That did surprise me. I would have thought it should at least give you the regular books, which are freely available and only cost a few silver. It would save a lot of clicking. 

As for the Advanced books and the many, many special recipes, I guess it's back to questing or buying from the broker. Or, in my case, digging through literally scores of bags and boxes in bank vaults and personal inventories for the numerous recipe books I've stashed away over the years.

More problematic is the issue of Harvesting. The tradeskill boost does absolutely nothing for your five harvesting skills apart from Transmuting: Trapping, Mining, Gathering, Fishing and Foresting. 

Not only does this mean you'll have a really hard time getting your own mats, especially in high-level zones, but it also road-blocks you in certain crafting quests, some of which quite reasonably assume that anyone whose doing them will have harvesting skills equivalent to their tradeskill level. I've already had to drop one questline because of that.

In the old days I'd have been completely screwed because harvesting was directly tied to level. These days, you can at least attempt to harvest anything at any skill level although your success rate is likely to be pretty poor at the top end. You do still require an appropriately high level in the relevant harvesting skill if you want to get any rare mats, though, and I personally cannot cope with seeing the message telling me I've harvested a rare and then not actually getting one!

What this means in practice is that I'm probably going to have to do the entire harvesting timeline and put up with the obnoxious Qho again for weeks on end! I've done this timeline at least three times before and it's honestly not that bad. Domino wrote most of the quests and they're amusing and fun... the first time.

The many rewards they give are excellent, which is a great incentive. Indeed I'd say they're pretty much essential for anyone who wants to be an all-rounder. One of the key reasons I've always backed off from dropping my Berserker as lead character in expansions is that his maxed gathering and crafting skills make any number of Adventure quests significantly easier, or at least faster. If Mordita is going to take over from him, she'll need to do the work.

And that's what she's going to do. Or I am. The boost is just the beginning. I've got at least six months to manage the rest. It should give me plenty of time...

Oh My Ears And Tail!

Today saw the opening of character creation for the revamped/retro/classic version of Blade&Soul - Blade&Soul Neo. NCSoft are really working the publicity levers for this one. Anyone would think it was a new game, not just a reskinned old one.

I love character creators, easpecially the newer, super-duper, glitzy ones with the sliders and the lighting and all. It has crossed my mind occasionally to wonder whether an enterprising studio might not do quite well with a game that was pretty much nothing but character creation, a cosmetic cash shop and a few multiplayer locations where people could parade around, showing off. If it was glam enough, I'm not at all sure you'd need an actual game to go with it...

The original Blade&Soul's character creator was probably one of the earlier tweak-heavy models I tried although certainly not the first.I was a little late to that party. B&S came out in 2012 but I didn't try it until four years later, when it launched in the West. 

By then I'd seen plenty of fancy character creation suites but I was still quite impressed:

"Character Creation is equally well-designed. Very easy to follow, plenty of choice, lots of presets, no sliders. Classes seem to be locked to races. Didn't notice if they're also locked to gender. I went Summoner because That Cat which means I am the cute, small race. Win!"

That's what I said first time around. No sliders, I notice. I didn't like sliders back then. Luckily I'm softer on them now because the new character creation options have plenty.

 

Classes are still locked to races, something I'm broadly in favor of, unfashionable though it may be. Of course, I'd probably think differently if the class I wanted to play was locked to a race I didn't like. Gender-locking classes would be a lot less acceptable but it's not happening so forget I mentioned it. Then again, one of the races is gender locked to all-female...

There are four races in B&S but I'd have to look them up to tell you what they are. I do remember they all have very short, one-syllable names but that's about it. I didn't spend much time on them because, as far as I could see, there were three flavors of vanilla human (Can you have flavors of vanilla?) and one human-with-animal-attributes.

In 2016, I chose the least-obviously human option and it won't surprise anyone to hear I just did the same again. There is a slightly different-than-expected reason for that. I mean, yes, if a race has ears and a tail I'm always going to favor it, that's a given, but in this case only the Lyn (That's the name of the animal-inflected race.) can be Summoners and Summoners are the only ones who get combat pets. 

I was sure I wanted to play a Summoner, even if it meant I'd be replicating my character from the old game. I could literally have cloned her - I still have the saved file from character creation nine years ago. I didn't find that out until the end, though, by which time I was emotionally committed to the new character I'd just created.

I might still use the clone option for one of the two remaining character slots, just for the appearance, not the class. You get three slots but only one can be filled pre-launch. Since the old game isn't going away, though, and since I still have my existing character there, I'll probably just play her there, if I feel like seeing her again.

 

When B&SNeo arrives next Tuesday (On the same day the Stars Reach Kickstarter goes live - I wonder which debut will draw the more interest?) I plan on starting over from the beginning. I haven't even taken the option to skip the three-level tutorial. If I'm going to play again, I'd like to refresh my memory of the plot, which I seem to remember has a fairly complicated opening.

Following on from the notes I gave myself at the end of yesterday's post. I'm not at all convinced the Summoner is the best class I could have chosen. Pet classes have historically been preferred for soloing, it's true, but the guidance you get in character creation clearly points to this one being best-suited as a support character. That strongly suggests it's intended for group play and there's not much chance I'll be engaging in any of that.

Maybe I'll make something else when the game starts. On the other hand, I seem to remember doing just fine with the Summoner last time. If it ain't broke, as they say...

As far as looks go, there have been comments, as there often are with "imported" MMORPGs, that the character models and outfits are over-sexualised. This is hard to deny when you first enter character creation. The default appearances are somewhat risqué and that's not even mentioning the "jiggle-physics". 

I'm happy to say that's a feature mercifully absent from the diminutive Lyn, although their childlike appearance brings up awkward issues of its own. Fortunately, if you use the "Outfit" toggle, you'll find that just about every clothing set on offer is perfectly respectable. Once properly dressed, as they are in the illustrations for this post, I'd say the characters almost qualify as "demure". 

I'm not sure if I'll end up with the same look when I log into the game for the first time. A lot of MMORPGs have a nasty habit of showing your character wearing clothes in character creation that they won't see in game for a long time. I think most of the outfits in B&S were tied to storyline or quest progression. Looking back at my old posts, though, my character seems to be decently covered-up in pretty much every shot, so it should be fine.

I was actually a lot more concerned about her ears and tail, anyway. And her hairstyle. There are so many great choices. I found it very hard to settle on just one. It does seem a shame to have such a huge variety of looks available but then to be limited to a mximum of three character slots to make the most of them.

Presumably there's some sort of in-game option to change looks but I always have an existential problem altering anything other than my characters' hair, clothes, accessories or make-up. Swapping body parts is a step too far for my suspension of disbelief, even in a magic-rich world so I'll be stuck with the ears and tail I started with.

Or maybe not. We'll see. I'm increasingly of the opinion that I need to get over myself on some of these self-imposed rules, many of which date back to old, unchallenged assumptions from my pen-and-paper roleplaying days. Those, scary though it is to think it, ended almost forty years ago. It's probably time I moved on.

The real benefit of making a character now, other than being able to get straight on with playing the game the moment it arrives, is that character creation also allows you to reserve your name. It's a bit of a moot point for me since I'll lay good odds no-one would have thought of the one I've gone with anyway. I very rarely have any problems getting the names I want for the very simple reason no-one else wants them.

It's done now, anyway. Should I want to hit the ground running on Tuesday, I can. I won't, of course, if only for the very good reason that I'm working Tuesday and I probably won't play any games at all, not even in the evening. And then on Wednesday I have something else on so maybe not then, either.

Thursday, though... that might be the day!

Church, State And Family In Rinascita Today

Having said only yesterday that I find it hard to play more than a session of Wuthering Waves every few days, of course I immediately found myself playing for two days in a row. In my defense, there were extenuating circumstances, mainly involving me being woken up at 5.30am by Mrs. Bhagpuss and Beryl, both of whom wanted to let me know we'd caught a mouse in the live trap under the sink and also what was I going to do about it? 

That led to me sitting down at the PC just after seven, having already had breakfast and walked Beryl for an hour. Even so, and with all the day ahead of me and not much else to do with it, after an hour in Wuthering Waves I was, once again, sated with story. 

In the time I spent there, the plot moved on apace. There was much skullduggery and several twists as well as  the expected confirmation that what's rotten in the church-state of Rinascita is mostly the church. This is turning out to be a highly anti-clerical episode.

The actor playing Priest Alessio is determined to make sure everyone knows just who the bad guys are. He plays the arch-villain card so hard I can almost see him there in the sound booth, twirling an imaginary mustache. 

To be fair, the corruption of the church hierarchy has hardly been a close-kept secret up to now, which is why I'm not handing out spoiler warnings. It was telegraphed pretty clearly the moment a church official asked Rover to show her papers before she'd even shaken the sea-spray from her silk stockings as she stepped onto the dock. 

If I recall correctly, that official was Phoebe, now about to become one of the latest additions to the Resonator team in the new update. The normally tempered and even-handed Chris Neal  unfairly and inaccurately labelled her a "walking devoted priestess trope " in an unnecessarily snide news item at MassivelyOP yesterday, making me feel he had to be working purely from press releases and promotional videos. No-one who'd actually played the game could dismiss the complex and nuanced Phoebe, a lifelong believer, now forced to confront the hollow sham of her faith, as a "trope". 

This is one of the many things I really appreciate about the game. It's melodrama, sure, but it's top-class melodrama. The baddies aren't pantomime villains; they're properly sinister. A palpable air of entitled arrogance surrounds most of them like a funk. Equally, the good guys aren't just cardboard cut-outs, either. Most of them are quite scary, too.

Carlotta, the Morelli Family's "Executor" certainly is. She offers a great line in understated menace, lending her official job title a distinctly razor-like edge. The fact that she appears to have forgotten to change out of her nightdress before coming to work, along with the soft-spoken way she somehow manages to make even the most innocuous observation sound like a veiled threat, just adds to a sense of gleeful violence, barely contained, that accompanies almost everything she says and does. 

Wuthering Waves is a rare game in that I find I like almost every character I meet there. Much of the visual design seems highly original to me and also frequently wildly idiosyncratic. I already talked about the Resonator who ends every fight hanging from a sex swing. Now we meet one who spends most of her time willingly locked inside a box!

Of course, when I say I like them, I don't always like them. I find them entertaining.  I certainly don't actually like all of the bad guys, especially not the religious fascists, but some of them can be quite persuasive. There are a few highly engaging bad boys and girls who make a pretty good case for changing sides, something I thought, at one point, might be genuinely be on the cards for Rover. 

That seems unlikely now. The Fractsidus, whoever they are, now appear to be the actual master-villains behind most of the really bad stuff that happens not, as I once suspected, merely a very cool gang of impetuous and irresponsible rebels. The plot twists and turns so wickedly, though, I still wouldn't be entirely surprised if they turned out to be not quite so dastardly after all at some point down the line.

The story is a joy but it has its drawbacks, the main one being that following it exclusively makes 90% of the game disappear. Before I became hell-bent on catching up to the current content, I spent a great deal of time wandering around the gorgeous world, opening up the huge maps and glorying in the amazingly beautiful scenery. Now I find myself sprinting through landscapes I would dearly love to stop and savor, barely taking the time to register the broad sweep of the aesthetic, far less take in the exquisite detail. 

When I do, finally, get myself up to current content, something that can't now be too far off, seeing I'm now in the final act of what came before, I plan on stepping away from the main questline for a while to go exploring. Played that way, Wuthering Waves should revert to being a game I can relax and kick back in, rather than one where I have to lean forward to give it my full attention. 

I might also take some time and make some effort to acquire a couple of the newer Resonators. I can't help but notice how very much more powerful the new characters seem, compared to my own team, when they join them as "Guests". The difference is every bit as pronounced as it is between my Berseker and Necromancer in EverQuest II, something I discussed in some detail yesterday. 

I'm thinking this might be a path I could usefully follow in a number of games, now it's belatedly occurred to me. I do have to wonder to what extent I've been making things harder for myself by side-stepping upgrade paths and ignoring specific abilities and aptitudes of different classes or characters. Maybe just barrelling ahead with whatever character I happen to start with, while never really learning what it is that they do or even bothering to look at their gear, until they start to feel unsatisfying to play, might not quite be the low-effort strategy I took it for.

Something to think about, at least. 

Currently Playing...

Today, a short post about what I've been playing. Don't you just love those? Everybody does them. I'm never exactly sure why, although I will say that it's both terrifying and revelatory to go back a few years (Or even a few months, sometimes.) and find out how immensely important something seemed once that I can now barely remember at all. It's a reminder of how arbitrary and fleeting our obsessions can be.

Well, that was a cheery start. Perhaps I should just get on with the notes.

So, I've really only been playing three games: EverQuest II, Solasta and Wuthering Waves. I've patched up quite a few more with the intention of playing them - Once Human, Blade & Soul NEO, New World, Lord of the Rings Online - but the only one I actually got as far as logging into was LotRO and I only did that because I'd read all the news about the 64bit servers and I was worried I might lose access or names for all my characters.

As it turns out, that was premature, or at least I think it was. I read the ridiculously long and complicated FAQ on what to do and the upshot seems to be "Nothing, yet." Please feel free to correct me in the comments if there actually is something I should be doing. Otherwise I'll just wait until Standing Stone set some dates.

Of the others, as I think I mentioned before, the update process for Once Human is now so flaky and unreliable I ended up uninstalling the client and I haven't gotten around to reinstalling it on a different drive yet, which had been my plan. B&SNEO is still a few weeks away and as for New World, I lost interest there even before I could log in. I think that one may be cooked.

Of the games I was playing, albeit briefly in most cases, just short while ago, all have dropped off the schedule completely. Outer Worlds never got a second session, Divinity: Original Sin started to annoy more than it entertained and The First Descendant somehow got away from me. That one, I didn't intend to stop playing, I just did. I might go back at some point but not right now.

As for Cloudpunk, although I had every intention of carrying on and finishing the various side missions, it seems my brain is quite clear on something being "finished". I can't seem to persuade it to carry on.

Of the three games I have successfully managed to fire up and stick with for at least a full session, EQII and Solasta are far ahead of Wuthering Waves, which remains a sporadic pleasure at best. That's disappointing in one way but in another it's useful, in that it adds a very useful data point to the graph of game-playing compulsion. It appears games can be just too good to play often.

What I mean by that is that Wuthering Waves offers a very rich experience. The story is excellent, the gameplay requires thought and attention and an hour or two spent there feels very much like watching a really good movie. 

There was a time when I'd very happily watch a couple of movies in an evening, then do the same the following afternoon, but those days are long gone. Now, I have to build up to watching a film and then cool down afterwards. I don't think I've watched more than one movie a week for years. Wuthering Waves, at least while I'm pursuing the storyline, requires a similar degree of concentration and investment and a session every few days is about as much as I can handle.

Which brings us to EQII and Solasta, neither of which suffer from any such issues. The plots in both barely merit the consideration I'd give to a not particularly well-written TV show. In Solasta, the story serves mostly as a series of pegs on which to hang some enjoyably tactical fights, while in EQII the questline largely acts as a conveyor belt to move you across the map, while providing an ostensible reason to kill everything that gets in your way.

Both games manage to hit that difficult-to-achieve balance of immersion and relaxation, making them unchallenging yet still fun to play. For EQII, the lack of tension comes from the knowledge, common to almost any modern or modernised MMORPG, that no failure is ever going to set you back very far or matter very much, whereas Solasta allows you to save your game just about whenever you like, meaning it's possible to take any risk without worrying about the consequences, should it fail to pay off.

Also strongly in both games' favor is the fact that they run well on my laptop via Splashtop, something Wuthering Waves refuses to do. Since I like to go to bed early at the moment because it's just about the warmest, most comfortable place to be in this prolonged cold snap we're enjoying, that gives them a considerable advantage.

Replayabilty is another factor. I had thought, having gotten to the end of the main storyline in Scars of Destruction with my Berserker, that I might be done with EQII for a while but no. I used the free boost that came with the standard edition of the expansion to raise my Necromancer to the level cap, then I kitted her out with all the free gear that comes with it.

For what seems like no good reason at all, none of the boosted gear has Adornments so I had to go to the Tishan's box in Sodden Archipelago and add the relevant Adornments from there. The gear in the  box has identical stats but already has the Adornments in place, so I might as well just have used that. Not to mention I needed the mount and the familiar and some other stuff out of the box too. Someone needs to give the whole expansion onboarding process yet another sanity check.

Once I'd finished setting my Necro up, though, the results were impressive. Every year I tell myself I'm going to focus on her and stop running the newest content for the first time with my Berserker. Then, when it comes to it, I balk at the difference in their gear and skills and end up back where I began.

This year I'm determined to be ready, when the next expansion arrives, to go through it on the Necro first. The sheer difference in power between them is astonishing. She's significantly less well-geared than he is, with lower quality spells and few of the incremental advantages he's gained from having been my main character for years and yet her time-to-kill has to be at least half of his, plus she has far greater versatility. Given my repeatedly-stated preference for going the easy route, it makes absolutely no sense for me not to be playing her far more than I do.

To that end, I will need to take her all the way through the storyline, something I usually don't bother doing with all my characters. I also should level up a tradeskill for her since, as I've observed many times, being able to do the crafting timeline is a huge advantage for adventurers, particularly when it comes to getting a head start on flight in the new zones.

Tradeskills are slow to level in EQII but there is a boost you can buy to skip the bulk of the grind. It's quite pricy but I have a lot of Daybreak funny money saved up. I might as well spend it on something useful. It would be a good project for this year, making sure the Necro is there and thereabouts as well set-up as the Berserker by the time the next expansion rolls around. I'll try to remember to do it this time.

Solasta is likely to remain my late-evening wind-down game for a while, a role it fits very well due to its pick-up/put-down nature. I can't say the story or the setting is doing a lot for me as I meander through the maze-like swamps and jungles, trying to balance one faction against another while not getting killed by the despotic ruler of the region but who cares about the story when the fights are such fun?

The important thing to remember about the DLC I'm playing, though, is that it also includes the feature that adds player-made scenarios to the game in a manner very similar to Neverwinter Nights 2. I haven't tried any of the add-on scenarios yet but I've had a look at some of the more popular ones and it looks as though there's no shortage of highly-rated adventures, most of which almost certainly have better stories than the official one. I wonder if they also have player-made voice acting? That would be... intereresting.

It's likely I'll be playing all three of these games, on and off, for the rest of the year but no doubt some new fad or obsession will bubble up soon enough to shunt them to one side for a while. Whetever that might be, I doubt it'll be the one game I ought to have been playing this last week but haven't played at all - Stars Reach.

There were several tests, a couple of which were at times I could have made, but I actually forgot all about them until it was too late. I think the sheer number of emails I get from Playable Worlds, what with them sending three (And now, for some reason, four.) copies of each has trained my brain to disregard them almost entirely. 

It's a shame because the most recent tests opened up just about everything for immediate use in an attempt to show potential backers the full extent of what's available in the game already. That meant I could have tried out a few things I haven't been able to get to so far, without having to spend most of the session grinding through stuff I'd done already. Didn't happen though. I'll have to wait and see what Wilhelm thought of it all, assuming he managed to play a few sessions.

The Kickstarter ought to launch for real this week, which should be interesting. I wonder if they plan on keeping the accelerated testing schedule going throughout the campaign to support it? 

If so, maybe I will add Stars Reach to the "Currently Playing" file after all.