The Art of Sneaking

Ragnar Grimhammer, Dragon Knight
of the Daggerfall Covenant

I had my first taste of PvP in The Elder Scrolls Online the other night. After my little static group had been adventuring around Auridon in the Aldmeri Dominion for a few hours on Saturday night we were joined in our Mumble channel by a few other folks who were going to take their Daggerfall characters to Cyrodiil to partake of some PvP. I'd recently got my own Daggerfall alt, a fierce Nord Dragon Knight called Ragnar Grimhammer, up to the required level 10 and so for the first time was able to join them.

First impressions are good. In principle it has a lot in common with the old Warhammer Online RvR gameplay; a huge open map with keeps and outposts for the teams to capture. In this instance though there are three teams instead of Warhammer's two, meaning there are usually multiple fights to choose from rather than just steamrollering or being steamrollered in one huge zerg. Cyrodiil, the map in which the PvP takes place, is gigantic. So much so that I felt totally out of my depth without a horse and I feel I really need to get one before I go back again. Fortunately I have the Imperial edition of the game meaning I can pick up a basic horse for the princely sum of 1 gold piece, so that's not a problem. The fights themselves tend to be of two types; large zergs attacking and defending keeps, and smaller skirmishes out in the open countryside between small bands of players. I prefer the latter, although the former is far more productive as far as XP and loot is concerned.There are also several PvE missions available whilst in the PvP zone, and this adds a sense of purpose to the proceedings, giving you something else to do other than tagging onto the back of your Empire's main zerg and hanging on for dear life. We spent a good deal of time doing these missions and so didn't really see too much of the huge pitched battles, though we did take part in a few keep defences. We spent a lot of time out in the wilds creeping about either trying to get to our quest destination without being spotted, or trying to get close enough to a group of enemies that we had a chance of taking down ourselves.

Sneaking outside an enemy Keep.

The sneaking mechanic is what makes the game so fun for me. As long as you stay crouched and far enough from an enemy player you won't show up on their screen. This makes for some fantastic moments of gameplay. Such as crouching behind a tree as dozens of enemy players stream past on horseback, just praying one of them doesn't stray too close. Or the time we spotted a couple of enemies lurking around some rocks on the brow of a hill, we fanned out to surround them, crept up as close as we could without being spotted and then all charged in for the kill with arrows whistling, spells crackling and swords and hammers swinging. It felt really epic!

The respawn map. I see a lot of this.

It's very fun, although with only limited ranged attacks available to me at the moment some of the fights, (mainly the big Keep defences/assaults), can get a little frustrating. I'm going to get a little more time sunk into that character I think to get him up to level 15, meaning I can have a bow and a melee weapon equipped at the same time and maybe even spend a couple of skill points on some bow attacks. All in all though, the PvP game in ESO gets a big thumbs up and Im looking forward to our next outing!

Shouting at the TV like a crazy person

News broke yesterday of Microsoft's new plans for their rubbishly named Xbox One console. Right up until launch they were insistent that the Kinect was an absolutely integral part of the console and that it had to be plugged in and switched on for the console to even work. Shortly before the release they backtracked on that idea under the sheer weight of protest from press and fans alike, outraged at the thought of Microsoft's all-seeing eye sat staring at them 24 hours a day. Now it seems that the pressure from being consistently outsold by its much cheaper rival, the Playstation 4, has forced Microsoft to back-peddle yet again with their  plans for Kinect. Yesterday, amid a series of announcements, they unveiled the unbundled, Kinect-less Xbox One console. Weighing in at £350 the budget Xbox is about £80 cheaper than at launch, but less than £50 cheaper than the console is currently available for, putting it at the same price point as the PS4.

Is this a sign that Microsoft are desperate to claw some sales back from Sony? Well, yes, obviously. They badly underestimated how hard that extra $100 they were charging over their rival was going to hit them in the sales department, a lesson that should have been well learned from the last round of the Console Wars when it was the Playstation 3 that was prohibitively expensive, allowing the Xbox 360 to pull out a commanding lead in the sales figures, a lead it was never to lose. It's not all doom and gloom though. I think this move adds another layer of choice for the consumer, which is always a good thing. I just think that the loss of the Kinect from the package is worth more than a saving of forty or fifty quid. Hell, I'd gladly pay twice that for the ability to shout at my TV like a crazy person and actual have it listen!

I wonder if this means the Xbone's operating system will be updated to provide an automatic sign-in option? It's annoying to be able to shout at my console to turn on from two rooms away but then have to sit in front of it and wait for it to recognise my stupid face before it'll let me do anything.

Another announcement that was made was that using apps will no longer require an Xbox Live Gold membership. This leaves the way open for a BBC iplayer app to finally come to the Xbox One. The BBC's charter says something about it's customers not having to pay twice for their content, so anything on the iplayer, which has already been paid for with the TV license, cannot be included as part of a paid for service. This is great as it means I won't have to switch between devices if I want to go from watching something on Netflix to something on the iPlayer.

Full details of the upcoming changes can be found HERE on Major Nelson's blog

The Sisters of EVE

Just a quickie this morning because I've got last nights Game of Thrones to catch up on before bed, but I did want to just quickly mention that four and a half years after starting it, I finally finished the Sisters of EVE epic mission arc "The Blood Stained Stars" in EVE Online!

That's quite a trek

In my first encounter with EVE Online back in September of 2009 I did what all good newbies do and followed the initial set of missions that are offered up to you. They do a reasonable job at introducing you to some of the things you can do to while away the hours in the game, but to be honest they barely scratch the surface. Probably the most useful set of missions for the new player is The Blood Stained Stars mission arc offered up by The Sisters of EVE corporation. Some forty nine missions spanning seven chapters will take you from your first combat frigate up through your first destroyer and into, (as long as you save up the mission rewards in order to buy and fit the damn thing), your first cruiser class ship, which you'll probably need for the last mission. I don't really remember much about the early chapters, but I think you get a few implants and skill books as rewards, possibly even a ship or two? I really don't remember. What I do remember is that somewhere along the line I ended up with a mission that required me to leave Gallente space and head over to Hek, the main trading hub in Minmatar space. This was a trek of 10 or so jumps and when I got there one of the first few missions was something like a further 23 jumps. I could have got it down to about 18 by going through low-sec space, but as a newbie that was too scary and really not worth the risk for such a small saving. It was at that point I gave up and headed back to my home station to start a life as a small time industrialist and regular mission runner.

I've burned out, gone away and come back to EVE two or three times in the intervening years and each time I come back I see that mission listed as "offered" in my mission log and think, "One day", but until this weekend I've never thought to actually try and finish it. So I loaded up in my Thorax and went for a long, long ride. It took two fairly long play sessions to actually finish the whole arc, and at this stage in my career the one million ISK reward for completing the final mission was pretty anti-climactic. I can make that in about 3 minutes mining Blue Ice, so it was a dreadfully unproductive couple of days as far as wealth accumulation is concerned. It did give me a good sense of completion though, having finally got through it all. I just wish I'd stuck at it back at the start when a million ISK in one payout would have been a big deal! I also wish I hadn't left some loot all the way over in Lisudeh, some 19 jumps away from were I currently am!

Adventure Time

The lighting effects in ESO are superb

My Saturday night this week was spent gadding about in the new shiny on my list of currently played games, The Elder Scrolls Online. I've got a small static group on the go in there with my RL friends and neighbours Welshtroll and his good lady wife. We get together on one of my nights off and spend a pleasant few hours questing through Tamriel with our Aldmeri Dominion characters, helping the needy, fighting monsters, exploring dungeons and generally fulfilling our destinies as great heroes of the age.

It's a very nice game. The quests are well put together and unlike most MMOs it doesn't feel like you are traipsing from one quest-hub to the next. The quests are nicely spread out through the world and there are plenty that are just out in the wild, waiting to be stumbled upon by adventurous explorer types. Best of all I've yet to come across a typical "Kill 10 rats" type quest. It's all fully voiced and the quest objectives are nicely varied, meaning we can spend several hours just chaining quests together without getting bored.

We seem to have accidentally put together a fairly synergistic group of classes. We've got a Khajiit Dragon Knight who is quite tanky whilst still being able to deal a good amount of damage; a Wood Elf Nightblade who does lots of stealthy sneaking about and has high point damage DPS; and I'm playing an Imperial Templar with a nice mix of damage and healing. So far we are able to pretty much burn through any foes we come up against before they have time to do any serious damage to us, but for the trickier ones our individual abilities often mean the difference between succeeding and the group wiping. We've had a few deaths along the way, but way less than I would have expected by now. In keeping with the differentness of the quests in ESO, similarly the characters feel different to most other MMOs. The limited hot bar and the directional FPS style attacks make for much more involved combat than in something like LOTRO or WoW. The combat feels solid, and while individually characters can sometimes feel a little underpowered, as part of our little group I do feel like something of a badass, which is always good!

The main thing the game has going for it though is it's graphics engine and world design. It is quite simply the best looking MMO ever released. We often find ourselves stopping mid quest to take in the scenery and the level of detail in the world is simply mind-boggling. Combined with a really good score and subtle but atmospheric ambient sounds the Tamriel of Elder Scrolls Online feels like a fully realised and lived in world. I can think of far worse places to spend a Saturday night.

I love the smell of Veldspar in the morning

Pew-Pew lAz0rs!!!11!

Working the night shift can make finding time for gaming difficult. My post work relaxation time, or evening as normal people would call it, is usually a couple of hours either side of eight o'clock in the morning. That means that all of my gaming friends are in bed or in work, neither of which is ideal for grouping up in an MMO. As such I have to make an effort to get online for an hour or two in the evenings, before I go to work, to catch up with my outfit mates in PlanetSide 2. But what about that post work period? I don't really want to come in after a hard shift and go straight to bed! I need to relax a little first.

It's in these early morning hours that I tend to get most of my single-player gaming done. Typically, this has been on a console, but in recent months it's seen me more and more turning to solo play in an MMO. For a while I was spending my time sauntering around Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings Online, but since returning to EVE, I've not spent a single second staring at the arse-end of a Bree Pony. The way I play EVE means it is fantastically suited to my early morning needs. The semi-AFK nature of asteroid mining in EVE means that I can catch up on the nights Twitters, check my clan's forums or even watch some telly on the second monitor while I'm doing it, but also keep an eye on what's going on in case some belt rats or gankers decide to show up. As I'm typing this, EVE is on the main monitor and my Mackinaw is sat in space, strip mining the hell out of some Rich Plagioclase asteroids. When the ore hold is full I'll scoot off back to the station where I'm based and refine it into the Pyerite I so desperately need to feed my production line. But while that is going on it gives me time to make blog entries! The main reason this blog is so patchy update-wise is that generally I'd much rather be playing games than writing about them, and if I've got the time to write then that is time I should be spending playing! Only with EVE, I can do both at the same time and as such I'm hoping that for a little while at least, I can keep to some sort of regular update schedule.

Now I just need some topics to write about I suppose...

Farming the Farmers

An NC Sunderer

I joined up with my outfit mates in PlanetSide 2 for a couple of hours last night. We were fighting on Indar as usual and hopping around from fight to fight, winning a few, losing a few. Nothing out of the ordinary. Eventually the fight lead us, as it usually does given enough time, to The Crown. As we were getting closer to our target we could see that the Vanu Sovereignty had a fairly formidable air presence around the base, groups of Scythe fighters whizzing about the place and a couple of Liberator gunships looking for easy targets. Our merry little band, trundling along in an almost defenceless Sunderer, was one such easy target.

Usually, we would just try and run the Sunderer in as close as we dared, deploy it, and head into the base on foot, but with the amount of VS air in the area we wouldn't have got very far. So, instead of hiding our little bus in an inconspicuous corner, we first suited up with Anti-Air MAX suits and AA lock-on rocket launchers and then drove our tempting easy kill right into the open valley below the enemy aircraft. A liberator spotted us first. As it angled in for an attack run on us, our defenceless little bus suddenly sprouted seven tooled up and ready AA monsters. The Liberator's heavy guns and thick armour were no match for us and within seconds it was little more than a burning husk falling from the sky. Flush with success, we all piled back into the Sunderer and trundled off again. It wasn't long before we attracted the attention of a keen eyed Scythe pilot, eager to stick a few rockets into our lonely and defenceless Sunderer and gorge on all the lovely XP within. "Scythe incoming, lets get him!" came the cry from our driver over TeamSpeak, again, our defenceless slow moving brick suddenly became a pilots worst nightmare. This one used the speed and manoeuvrability of his craft to try to escape, but he'd taken too much damage before he realised what was happening. Just as he afterburnered away for the safety of the hills a lone lock-on missile streaked through the sky after him. Boom! Goodnight Scythe! Before we could get back in the bus a Lightning tank sprang up over a sand dune next to us, spotted our Sunderer and started firing, fortunately the Sunderer was deployed so I switched out my MAX's flack cannons for a pair of Falcon Anti-Vehicle launchers. Combined with the power of half a dozen dumb-fired AA rockets, he didn't last long. The driver bailed out, but was quickly chased down.

A VS Liberator Gunship

This went on for the next half an hour or so before I had to go to work and I have to say, it is the most fun I've had in that game for quite a while. Our group may be small, but when we can stick together and have a common cause, it's surprising how much of a difference we can make. We managed to keep the whole area clear of enemy air for a while, and even had time to fall back and scupper an assault on the base behind us. It was a really fun evening, and a reminder that despite it's flaws, PlanetSide 2 is THE best game on the market at the moment for having a laugh with a bunch of mates. I think I might even pop back in this evening for another go!

Return to New Eden

My Miasmos ore hauler leaving a station

Where was I?... Oh yes, video games! Jon over at How to Murder Time has recently re-posted all of the old Van Hemlock podcasts and I've been slowly working my way through them. The early ones are quite heavily EVE based, and being of a highly suggestible nature I am of course now playing EVE again.

Eve Online is a strange beast. It can be utterly impenetrable to the newbie, yet has the scope and scale to allow it's player driven content to make its way onto international mainstream news. Massive battles with hundreds of thousands of real-world dollars worth of ships being destroyed; intrigue and espionage allowing a single player to destroy a massive player alliance from within. EVE is the epitome of multiplayer. The vast bulk of its content is derived from players interactions with each other and yet here I am, soloing it and soloing it hard. I've only been back a few weeks but I've easily put in 100 hours in that time and all of it has been solo.

My Thorax, bristling with rail-guns

I'm kind of intrigued by the prospect of joining up with a big corp or alliance and heading off into the wilds of 0.0 security space, but it feels to me like I'd need to make a commitment to the game I just don't think I want. I think the added pressure of that would make me burn out on the game altogether more quickly than I would do otherwise. So here I am, treating one of the most hardcore PvP MMO's as a kind of relaxation aid. I load up into my Mackinaw mining ship, head out to a nice quiet asteroid belt in high sec and start mining some big juicy space rocks. Since getting a nice new 27" monitor my old 20" Samsung has been given a new lease of life as a second monitor. Most EVE players in this situation would have a second account running to provide assistance to their main account, a hauler maybe, so the mining vessel never need leave the asteroid belts. However, as is fairly obvious, I'm not most EVE players. I'm using my second monitor to browse the web, read and write blogs, catch up on missed TV or power watch a series of something on Netflix. EVE is my perfect companion to a few hours of idle surfing, happy to get on with something by itself and only requiring occasional input from me. And all the while the ISK, (in game currency), keeps trickling in, be it from the sale of unrefined Blue Ice or from my little Catalyst, (a Destroyer class spaceship), production line that most of my asteroid grazing goes towards supplying. If I fancy a change of pace I can hop in my Rifter or my Thorax and run a few Agent combat missions, pew-pewing against AI controlled drones and pirates. I'm in the process of training up to be able to fly and kit out a Battleship in order to do some higher level agent missions and really start making some money off them, but for now they are a fun way of mixing up my more sedate industrial activity.

I'm 100% sure that if any real EVE player was to read this they'd sadly shake their head before calling me a n00b and telling me I'm playing the game about as wrong as it is possible to play it. I'm well aware of that, but you know what? I'm really enjoying it the way I'm doing it for now, so sod off!