Eschalon: Book I is an open-world, turn-based, isometric RPG from 2006 built in the style of classics such as Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate and Fallout. The game focuses on character customization with lots of skills available (including a cartography skill that affects your game's auto-map). In addition to HP, you also have to manage hunger and thirst, and overall this title does little hand-holding.
Considering it's currently free over at GOG.com, you might as well pick it up and give it a try! Oh, it's probably worth noting that it's available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
I really enjoyed this week of play, primarily because battlefields here are pretty fun. The guild I joined has been begging me to stay another month, which is a nice departure from the aloof/uncaring attitude of most game communities.
While I have another title lined up, I just might consider hanging around Echo of Soul another month. It depends on how much endgame content is available, and I'll be getting firsthand experience of that tonight.
A nostalgia-filled adventure featuring the real star of Double Dragon!
Abobo's Big Adventure blends a number of classic NES games with some '80s references (and a generous helping of crude humor) to provide a hilarious trip down memory lane.
I have mixed feelings on Echo of Soul so far. From a gameplay perspective, I haven't seen anything new of note yet. The game isn't terrible, it's just kind of basic. In terms of visuals, it's great - there's a lot of cool little features everywhere and I think Rimen looks neat! The community seems kind of sparse, but I've yet to meet a rude person (quality v. quantity I guess). The story has kind of trailed off a bit, as I'm chasing down shards I already rescued earlier but were stolen. The quests themselves are still fairly dull with lots of pop culture references - hopefully things pick up this week.
I found a great video by AsmodeusClips that thoughtfully presents some of Hearthstone's fundamental problems and provides a couple of suggestions toward fixing them. The type of game he claims Hearthstone could be (with actual play/counterplay) shows up sometimes in Tavern Brawls, and they end up being generally well-received.
I for one would love seeing "answer" cards with more utility/options. I've never been a fan of 0-mana ramp, as it causes problems similar to those of Dark Ritual and Moxen in MtG. The big mechanic stuff (like Blood of the Ancient One) I don't mind so much, maybe because they're simply impossible to pull off (thus rarely if ever seen), since Hearthstone's meta has almost always favored aggro decks.
Defend your homestead against the forces of darkness!
Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves is a tower defense style game with action RPG elements. Set in rural Canada 1858, you play as one of two brothers trying to protect your siblings and home from numerous wolf attacks. Armed with a logging axe and rifle, you soon discover the wolves are the least of your worries!
Deathlord may be the focus of this video, but I gotta hand it to the Grimy Goons. It's astonishing how often their largest buffs land on things that either can't be targeted or have a relevant battlecry (like Dispatch Kodo).
After a week of playing, I've come to appreciate Echo of Soul's art style despite the constricted world design. I suppose if you're working with a smaller canvas, you can focus more on the details, which seems to be the case here. While I don't really talk about community until the final episode (as first impressions aren't always accurate), the other players have been helpful and friendly so far.
So, you've probably heard people complaining that YouTube's subscriber counts have seemed a bit dodgy lately. The folks over at BlackScreenTV have discovered why!
There's a glitch, and it's super easy to replicate. Whenever someone unsubscribes from a channel, it's being counted twice. If people repeatedly subscribe and unsubscribe, the overall total just keeps dropping. Using that knowledge, BlackScreenTV is currently livestreaming on YouTube with running totals of several popular channels, watching them drop. They are currently at -1,554 subscribers (yes, negative subscribers)!
I think I speak for the entire community when I say, "Fix your site, Blizzard!" :~P
Seriously though, this explains why people have been reporting strange fluctuations in their subscriber count. They aren't crazy, despite YouTube's replies that everything is working as intended.
Brave dangers and face fears to save your sister from a mysterious power!
Eternal Senia is an action adventure title with a large RPG influence and one heck of a story. You play as Senia, a girl that's ventured to the mysterious Tower of Eternity in hopes of tracking down your sister - a priest that went on a secretive mission and has been missing for the last three days.
Disguised Toast is at it again, reporting on what is likely the theme of the next Hearthstone expansion. It seems entirely feasible, considering past early information from previous releases. Un'Goro Crater is a very memorable zone in WoW, so I'm pleased to see it as an upcoming Hearthstone theme.
Since this is a Kripp video, chances are you've already seen or read about it, but I'm reposting it for sake of completeness.
I think Kripp hits multiple nails on the head here, as he mentions problems that affect more than just Standard Hearthstone play. The new player experience right now is possibly the worst ever, even with Standard's smaller card pool.
Most of my gaming friends have been playing Hearthstone for a while now, and like myself, have built up a fair collection of cards, gold and dust over time. When new expansions come out, most of us don't have a lot of work to do to stay current.
A few months ago, a couple of holdouts finally decided to give the game a try. I gave them as much help as I possibly could and welcomed them to join my circle of Hearthstone friends. Long story short, they gave up about two weeks ago.
Despite all the tips and additional friends to learn from and play against, it wasn't enough. They felt the game was too reliant on having "the right cards" to actually succeed, and obtaining said cards was too slow of a process (short of paying cash up front).
If the meta was more diverse (and a bit slower), players wouldn't feel pressured into having all the cards necessary to play the winning decks. There would be a little more room for experimentation, and they might even be able to do alright with a few suboptimal cards. This pretty much was how things worked a couple years ago - it wasn't perfect then either, but you at least had the opportunity to experiment.
This is the final MMOMG episode for Path of Exile. I really wish I hadn't played this game through Steam, as connectivity seems to be such an issue for it. I lost a lot of time I had set aside to stream it, simply due to being repeatedly disconnected.
As usual, I thought of a few more points I wanted to make after I had the entire video nearly done. I was able to add it to the episode via text, but it's not quite how I would like it. Gonna chalk my errors up to having a cold all week - yeah, that's the ticket! For those of you who read these posts, I'd like to stress two positive features of the game I didn't verbally include in the video.
The community overall is pretty helpful and friendly even to new players. I saw a lot of newbie questions repeated in chat throughout the month, and never did I notice a rude reply - often, it was followed by a straightforward answer, which is refreshing compared to most games' online communities.
Also, the cash shop has no "pay to win" features. It's mostly cosmetics that frankly look quite nice (that stormcaller stuff had me drooling a bit). You can also get more stash tabs, which is convenient if you're going to play a lot of alts or contributing to a guild, but not really necessary.
This month, I'll be streaming Echo of Soul (published by Aeria Games) Sundays through Wednesdays at 8pm ET on my Twitch channel. I thought a "standard MMO" - something without a lot of frills or gimmicks - would be good for a shorter month and from what I've heard, EoS fits the bill. I'm going in with relatively low expectations, so hopefully some (good) things will surprise me.
As for January's MMOMG, the final episode for Path of Exile will be out (hopefully) within a week.
