Month: October 2017

Such A Late WRUP

Well, apparently we all have lives or some such and the WRUP got delayed. I've got friends moving away so I was hanging with them. Dr. S. has one of these "girlfriends" I keep hearing about so he was busy. I don't know what Cody was doing but he's got Moviepass now so I bet it had to do with the cinema. Greywolfe might or might not be "gone fishing"...

So I'm here now around 9:30pm rambling about why this WRUP is late. I'm enjoying Wolfenstein 2 quite a bit so far. Except that I can't record it or take screenshots. So if I do write about it I probably won't have much in the way visual aides. The game runs amazing I will say that. Frame rates in the hundreds all the time even on the highest of high settings, of which there are many. Anyway here's what we're playing this weekend. What are you playing?


Greywolfe: i dunno. i _was_ playing a whole bunch of stuff - dream daddy, space quest 5, kyrandia 2 and so on, but right now, my head isn't really in a gaming space, i guess? so i've been terrible and haven't played those at all in a while :P - on the plus side, i can get very distracted by nanowrimo. ;) [write a 50k novel during the month of november.] - if anyone else is doing that, too, good luck :)

Yoda: Dice Masters. Photoshop. Dice Masters. Photoshop. Adobe Illustrator. Linux MultiMedia Studio. And Hopefully a scary time at some point... God damn there's too many things to do lol

Dr. S: stuff on mobile or the switch, because i'm in the middle of nowhere and destiny is out and i want to play destiny not being stuck in the middle of nowhere and life is unfair and WHY NO DESTINY ON THE SWITCH!!!! Oh, right, I won't have internet either, so even Destiny on Switch wouldn't work for me...

Andrew: Probably Costume Quest. I seem to play it right around Halloween every year. Also Resident Evil VII.

Scrooloose: Divinity OS2 is getting close to the end and it's been so good you guys. I'll certainly have to write about it. Wolfenstein: The New Colossus has been really great so far as well. There's intriguing plot that picks up where the last left off and it runs glass smooth. However just like Doom, I can't seem to record any footage. OBS and ReLive don't pick it up. I got ReLive to work the very first time I tried while testing settings but since then all I get is the desktop with game audio. OBS just locks up like it did with Doom. But hey, no hard system locks at least.

 

I’m running out of WRUP

Season of games continues, so let’s not keep you guys from sharing. Ok ok, fine… I just want to get back to playing more Golf Story.

 

So, what is everyone playing over the weekend?

 

Thomas: Since I won’t be home, more Switch. Golf Story, Stardew, Mario & Rabbids…

Scroo: Still working on Divinity OS2. Still playing Vermintide and am excited for the sequel after seeing footage for that. And I did finally pick up the Ashes of Malmouth expac for Grim Dawn so I hope to check that out some.

Cody: Same for me. Rocksmiths, Dotas, Paragons, Fornites, DiceMaters. All good shit

Grey: my headset broke.  but i finished off stories, properly and am working my way through dream daddy.  also, what was that last week about space quest five and kyrandia 2?  I CAN'T HEAR THOSE GAMES.  they must be screaming in space, because you know what they say about that... :P

AJ: Metroid: Samus Returns. I absolutely love the old 2D Metroid games so I'm curious to see how I feel about this one.

Stuff I’m Looking Forward To

So I'm sitting here drinking a locally brewed Whisky Barrel Brown Ale thinking to myself about how I'm excited for some new games that are coming to PC soon; and just some games I don't have yet that are out already. I figured -Hey I'll write about that so we have something more than WRUP articles. Read more

Perhaps You Should Partake in Playing Paragon

MOBA. Shooter. Deck Building. Free to Play. Early Access. Not On Steam. If any of these words or phrases scared you away from this game, perhaps you should try it anyway. Yes that means installing the Epic Games launcher to in addition to Origin, Steam, Uplay, and Gog Galaxy. Hell you should do that anyway and start messing around in Unreal 4, its free you fools!

Anyway Paragon is a third person MOBA, much like Smite. Another third person take on the genre that will never die (which I’m personally okay with.) Unlike every other MOBA however, Paragon offers an important sense of verticality in it’s level design, and is much more focused on your aiming skills.

map

Yes there are still three lanes, jungles, and 5v5 multiplayer matches with leveling and gear, but again the game offers something pretty damn fresh in a few key places. Leveling is still fairly standard. Kill minions, heroes, and the like to earn xp that levels up your hero and your abilities. Gear on the other hand is maybe the most unique thing about Paragon.

Instead of having a store of Gear all players can access, each player brings a unique deck filled with up to 15 cards that represent gear. These cards are what would normally be items in any other Moba. But in order to purchase these cards you’ll not only need gold, but also points in a stat.

decks

The gold you collect during a match is what you spend to buy points in a stat for your character. Those stats are what you use to take cards from deck out on the field.

stats

When you “buy a card” during a match it is taken from your deck and added to your inventory, taking up the use of your stats. The catch is you can only equip up to three cards at a time in a match. However, when you unequip an item to replace it with something better, you are refunded every stat point that was used when you first equipped the item. The result is a strangely well thought out balance between strategically deciding which stats to purchase with gold, and also encouraging players to mix and match cards throughout a game.

That system does also however, bring up some pretty obvious concerns about power levels between players. Since you can buy these cards in random packs and build your own custom decks, this does have the potential to punish newer players for not having the more powerful cards found in a pack.

chest

That significant worry aside, and hopefully players more qualified than me can raise concerns should they arrive, Paragon has been an absolute blast for me these last couple of weeks. When I don’t have the time for a round of Dota, Paragon really does scratch that moba itch for me. While still feeling like a fun action game.If you are not into Mobas but really like Third Person shooters, I’ll be honest and say this still probably won't win you over. But if you’ve always been curious about Mobas and you’re more used to traditional third person action games, this may be a good stepping stone into that genre. If this article didn’t scare you off, I highly recommend giving it a try.

This WRUP again

And so it began, the season of despair. The season of broken piggy banks and neglected relationships. The season of AAA video game releases. Destiny 2 came, stayed and comes again in 2 weeks when the PC version releases and I finally get my hands on it. The EA Sports shit is out, Xbox finally had 2 releases with Forza 7 and Cuphead. Fine, Cuphead isn’t exactly AAA – fine, it isn’t at all, but hey, at least an Xbox exclusive that isn’t a racing game, and speaking of indies: this week has seen the gates of indie-halla open on the Switch with Golf Story and Ports of Oxenfree, Stardew Valley, Volgarr, Axiom Verge and more. Sounds great so far, but brace yourselves, because it only just begun. Read more