Bgrngod's rants (and occasional rave) - With a %110 Guarantee to contain spelling errors 50% of the time!

• 3Sep 08

  Where by my RE4 Wii Edition disk? Did a zombie eat it?

  I bought Resident Evil 4 for the Wii a number of months ago and promptly stuck it into the collection without opening it. Over the weekend I finally decided to give a go at it. I had been stalling playing it since I had already made significant time on the GC version and wasn't really wanting to replay a bunch of really tough portions. But, the time had come. I was fired up and ready to rock some zombies.

  And then I opened the box only to find no disk. That's right, no disk at all. This was a SEALED box that I bought myself brand new from Fry's. And it's basically empty. Instructions are there, but again.... no disk.

  What to do? I figure I have two options. Contact Capcom directly since they are the manufacturer, and contact Fry's to see if they can swap it out.

  So right after discovering the lack of a disk I email Capcom a nice little note using their website and their "ask a question" function in their Support area. A short time ago, within the hour and 3 days after, Capcom responds with a very definitive "Go ask Fry's about it." At least they responded, and at they did also tell me to get back in tough with them if Fry's doesn't help me. I now have a mission to pursue.

  And although this post may be a bit premature since I haven't made it to Fry's yet, I have a hunch that I am going to get screwed. Hopefully I am wrong. I plan on going there directly after work.

  The thing about this that bugs me the most is that when I go in there, I just KNOW that whoever I talk to is going to assume I am trying to scam them. That I just took the disk and did whatever with it, and am looking to freeload another one. This drives me freakin' nuts just thinking about it. The assumption that I am stealing from them when I am NOT. Although this hasn't happened yet, and I intend to give them a chance to make the right choice and fix this for me, it still won't stop them from thinking I am a thief of some kind.

  I do have some ammo I can throw at them to argue my case. For starters, I still have the original plastic packaging. I suspect they will have a hard time believing I waited so long to open it, but having the plastic packaging in hand helps a bit. Also, if they keep and kinds of records based around VISA debit card info I can show them how often I buy games there, and show how often I return stuff. Having a return rate of less than 1% from a single customer goes a long way in demonstrating that customer's credibility.

  Maybe I am just too much of a pessimist. Maybe I will just walk in and they wont even flinch before handing me a box with a disk actually in it. We shall see.

  EDIT 9/13/2008: Well I made it into Fry's and they didn't do squat for me. They told me to contact Capcom and get it fixed through them. I contacted Capcom again and they had me mail the box/receipt to them so I did. I don't know what the turn-around time is on this, but hopefully I can get my game and play it sometime in the next few weeks. That'd be super.

  • Posted Sep 3, 2008 2:56 pm GMT
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• 26Aug 08

  Warhammer - Post Preview Weekend impressions

  Having gone and pre-ordered Warhammer last week I was given access to the Warhammer Preview Weekend that started last thursday and ended early monday morning.

  Now that I have actually got a chance to play the game I can safely say I am still looking forward to launch day. The game was a lot of fun. Very reminiscent of my early days of WoW, but with a lot more going on. The PVP aspects of the game are already available and are a center piece for the game going into launch, instead of an after thought.

  Warhammer's interface/menus are all very slick. The first complaint I usually throw at MMO's is how well the interface works. Is it laggy? Is it ugly? Are the tooltips helpful? Are there even any tooltips at all? Am I having a ton of info thrown at me that I just don't understand? Warhammer easily falls on the side of positive responses to all these questions. The interface is a lot like that in WoW, with health bars and button bars all over, but it all is very intuitively laid out.

  The quest tracking system is really well done. There is a quest log book, that honestly could use a little tweaking, and an interface quest tracker that shows how far along you are in completing your quests. The Map also has quest tracking elements on it too. You can open up the map and certain areas will be highlighted in a red aura that indicate the locations you need to explore around for specific quests. Floating your mouse over these red highlights tells you exactly which quest is in that area. On top of this, the red highlights move around based on what step of a quest you are on. So if you finish getting those 3 rocks that you were asked to get, the area they came from is no longer highlighted and the turn-in location becomes highlighted. This makes the painful part of questing super easy. Spend more time killing and using your character instead of reading quest descriptions and trying to guess what they mean by "down by the river there is blah blah". You still have to work a bit, but it's a lot smoother.

  My favorite part of Warhammer so far? Public Quests

  Public Quests are a brilliant idea. The way they work is really simple. When you enter an area that is part of a public quest you get a new addition to your quest log that is more obvious then the other quests. This quest tracker tells you the progress of the public quest, and what step the quest is on. All of the public quests I did had 3 steps to them. For example the first step would be "collect 25 boxes". When anyone in the area loots a box, it goes toward the total collected. So you can help out and loot boxes, or just sit there and watch the counter go up as other players loot boxes. Once this hits 25 boxes step 1 completes and step 2 starts. Then it's the same deal through all the steps. Usually the 2nd step is a bit tougher and requires more teamwork, and the 3rd step requires quite a bit more teamwork then step 2. Like some big boss that takes a ton of damage to kill. These are NOT soloable unless you have a ton of time and are somehow really good at soloing big monsters. Teamwork is required. Another cool aspect of these quests is that each step is on a timer. So if Stage 2 is not ompleted in 10 minutes, the whole Public Quest resets and all contribution is wiped.

  Well what's the point? The point is two fold. One, you get a chance to roll on a public loot chest that shows up after the last step is completed. Two, you get "Influence" points that build up your influence with a local group.

  Rolling on Public Quest loot is always exciting, even when you loose (although frustrating in that case). Public Quests track how much individual players contributed to completing all the steps involved. Once the last step completes there are points awarded to all contributers based on how they ranked in contribution. After that there is a random roll that is then added to the points awarded for contribution. So if you got #1 on contribution, you are not guaranteed to win the #1 loot spot. Once all rolls are done a chest appears that everyone who was awarded a lootable slot can open up and pull a bag out of. For most of the Public Quests I did, the top 3 loot slot winners get to loot the chest. For example the #1 person gets a green bag while the 2nd and 3rd get white bags. Once you get a bag you can open it up and pick one item from the 8 or so that are in it. It's a pretty click system all together, and I can see myself spending a lot of time doing Public Quests multiple times each. This is really an ingenious way to get people to work together, even when soloing, and a great way to push out loot.

  Building up influence lets you unlock 3 tiers of rewards. This is actually the most common way, that I encounted, to get gear upgrades. These aren't rewards that you can buy repeatedly, they are instead like quest rewards where you have to pick one item from each tier, and once you have selected it that tier is locked for good. Considered I ran across 3 or 4 Influence areas by level 6, I can easily say that there are going to be a ton of Influence factions to work with.

  Normal quests are also a bit different in how they give out rewards. I myself am used to seeing all rewards available for a quest and picking which one a want regardless of whether it works for my class or not. In WoW this means you can often run across quests that provide no item of value to you what-so-ever. In Warhammer they decided that each quest was going to have at least some kind of class specific reward. Infact you can only see the items available to your class. This may be different at higher levels, but before level 10 (which is the highest I made it) all quests give class specific items for you.

  Well, I could go on and on even more, but I really should stop. This post turned into a bit more rambling then I had first intended. Sorry if I ruined too much. Just know that, as this point, the game is a LOT of fun and is very much looking like it will come together into a great launch experience, unlike several other MMO's that have recently entered the market.

  • Posted Aug 26, 2008 1:16 pm GMT
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• 6Aug 08

  WoW (Waiting on Warhammer)

  This is the best news I have seen in the last few months.

  I am extremely excited for this game. Having been utterly and completely (redundancy intentional) disappointed with WoW's craptastic PVP and disastrous balance problems, I have been waiting a long time for a real PVP MMO to come out that is worth spending money on. Hopefully the Warhammer guys took a lot of notes and realized that always listening to the community complaints is NOT the best approach to game design. Stick to your guns and overall design and you should be fine. Dropping a hundred band-aid "fixes" will only break your game even further.

  Guild Wars is crap, just for the record.

  I've been seeing video about Warhammer for years, and honestly a big part of my excitement has been created by the gentlemen in this video by the name of Paul Barnett. He is somewhat subdued in this particular video, in comparison to other footage, but there is still a clear indication of how he feels about the game. His excitement about it is very contagious. The fact that I find him hilarious helps his pitch. I've been sold to already.

  Actual gameplay footage itself I have been doing my best to not see too much of. I really like the discussion stuff more then in-game. The reason for this is that I want all of my experiences with "ooohs, and ahhs" to occur while playing the game. I hate even the smallest spoilers. Fortunately watching videos that are talking about the game, instead of showing it a ton, fit right into that little space where I can find out a lot about it, without ruining any of the visceral visual surprises and enjoyment that go along with playing it.

  The handful of articles that Gamespot has published have been ripe with c.l.a.s.s. information. I am super excited to see what kind of crazy c.l.a.s.s.e.s. they have come up with. It sounds like there is going to be a ton of variety to play around with. I have already zeroed in on the Warrior Priests. Not sure why they aren't calling it a paladin or cleric, but it seems to fit that niche. Apparently they have decided to implement a "rage" type of system (ala WoW's Warriors) that lets Warrior Priests build up what they use to cast their spells. I have really liked this system on Warriors in WoW (my main character their) and have always wondered why it wasn't used for other c.l.a.s.s.e.s. in that game. Paladins in WoW always seemed jacked up for getting stuck with a mana pool.

  It's hard to imagine that two hugely successful companies that separately created Dark Age of Camelot and the Warhammer tabletop could manage to join forces and spit out a turd. That just doesn't seem possible. I have a hunch this one could pull a few GotY awards from numerous sites.

  • Posted Aug 6, 2008 1:52 pm GMT
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