DIE. One of the more fascinating new comic series to hit shelves in a long while, has now seen it’s lead writer Kieron Gillen undertake developing a Beta for a D&D style rpg based on its world. Which has just this last week seen the release of a Free Beta Rulebook. And you should be excited.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Well guys, CD Projekt Red is releasing the newest and final expansion for Witcher 3 pretty soon. It was originally stated that it would arrive in the first half of 2016. I for one am looking very forward to it and I've been holding off on playing the Hearts of Stone expansion because I want to go back to back on both stories. More information is coming on May 10th and I'll try to update this article as soon as I learn more.
This latest expansion is called Blood and Wine, and it will take Geralt and Roach to the seemingly peaceful lands of Toussaint; a place where the war has yet to reach, but hides a "bloody secret". Toussaint is said to be as big as all of the Skellige Isles combined and promises to provide us fans with an addition 20 hours of play time with new creatures and quests and even a new Gwent deck.
Blood and Wine will mark the finale of the Witcher as a whole and it looks to be as fine a way to do so as any. Speaking of series finales, this one will probably be one of the only things that gets me away from Dark Souls 3 for a while, until it's expansion content comes around later this year anyway.
It'll be released on all supported platforms at the same time, thank god, no bullshit timed exclusivity purchase that comes with a useless hat or some such nonsense. Now to wait for Cyberpunk 2077 and see if Yoda0vgs and I have speculated correctly that Ciri has some involvement there.
The official release date for Blood and Wine is confirmed to be May 31st. It's also said that this final expansion will add an extra 30 hours to the game, approximately, through the main and side quest lines. You can also expect to a new "point of interest" system and it sounds like Geralt will even get a house to live in.
Of course if you own the Witcher 3 season pass, you'll just get your copy when it's released at the end of this month. If you didn't participate in a season pass, then you can buy a digital copy separately for $19.99. Or if you prefer, you'll also be able to get ahold of a physical copy for $29.99 that will include the Northern Realms and Nilfgaard, Gwent decks along with a game guide and Gwent tokens to use while you play. The physical copy is supposedly a limited edition so grab one while you can I suppose, even though I'm fairly sure the chances of running out of boxed copies is slim.
This is supposed to be Geralt's last Witcher game. Maybe that means some time in the future we'll see Ciri get her own Witcher title, maybe? Or perhaps it's over forever. In any case it's been a blast and I for one have been looking forward to Blood and Wine since I first heard about it. Gonna be great I'm sure.
Some more Dawn of War badassery has been announced. Produced by Relic Entertainment, the same folks originally that gave us Space Marine (Now owned by Sega) this will be Dawn of War 3. The new installment claims to involve Orbital Lasers and various giant units. Just check out the trailer here on the official website. You'll have to provide some age verification to get in.
No release date yet, but by creating a Relic Account you can receive your own updates about the game, and there are even hints at rewards for doing so. Looks like a cool one I think. So far it looks to only be a PC title, but who knows? That could change.
With the end of #4if approaching quickly I was curious about what to do next. So I was looking at some article suggestions on our boards and one of those was the question of: Are there any games you're looking forward to in the near future? And I thought to myself, "Self, there are games you're looking forward to, you should write about that." Read more
Cody steps into The Division for the first time and finds... well... bad math. Check out the Video below to see a very confused man try to play a game where the shooting doesn't work as intended.
Accents have this amazing ability to really bring out meaning. when Arnie says brutal, you know shit is really going down and when a francophone talks about beautiful, you know he means drop-dead gorgeous. Romain de Waubert de Genis, Creative Director and COO of Amplitude Studios: „We wanted to make a 4x that is beautiful“. And the „Endless“ series has definitely been that. No different the next entrant in the glorious line that is Endless Space, Dungeon of the Endless and Endless Legend: Endless Space 2.
As the name implies, it is a direct descendant of Endless Space, meaning: Some, if not most of it, will be familiar to players of the first installment. It is a turn-based space 4x, focusing on usability with no lack of depth. Players get to choose among a variety of different spacefaring races, each with unique characteristics that can be recombined module-wise according to one’s insane mind. The demo showcased two very well know races, the Sophons and the Cravers. We weren’t able to get any stats or details on how they will affect mechanics, but most probably the Sophons will be Science-focused and the Cravers warlike.
The tech tree in ES was always one of it’s beauties. Able to expand in four directions (science, exploration, trade and military) in near-to-seamless tiers, it’s not only beautiful but also useful. One can expect a return of race.specific traits unlock-able on the tech tree.
And: there’s all-new and shiny probes. Yes, probes! Small, cheap, probably unmanned or un-aliened. Able to traverse space in any direction, albeit slowly. Useful for getting to know the neighbors before they decide you’re lunch.
Otherwise, the UI promises a wholly new feature for stats-nerds out there. Holding Space, anywhere in the game, will give you additional info, stats and cool graphics to gawk at. Endlessly pressing space is even conceivably possible. (As teased by the trailer )
In the system view, a few visual features got streamlined (population icons are now slabs), but the basics stay the same: Systems produce FIDS (Food, Industry, Dust and Science). Additionally, Influence will be required for some actions, reminiscent of EL.
As far as we could see, it will be possible to produce improvements on a specific planet - this might just be a variation of the well-known „exploitation“ option, but could perhaps also mean deeper strategic choices (if, for instance, an industry-enhancing building can only be produced once per system on a single planet, the choice might be a though one).
The races have gotten a complete visual revamp, as can be seen below.
Quoting Romain again, ES 2 basically takes many of the lessons learned from Endless Legend and ports them back to ES. For instance, we now have a real influence of population species on planetary production. Demo-wise, we were shown the Harushem, a peaceful farming people who like to produce food. The Harushems not only produce more food, the vote differently too. (Peaceful, you guessed it.)
Speaking of voting: a whole mode of interaction with your population comes with the Senate. All actions and interactions now have an influence on your population’s political leanings, a war-like neighbor (like, say, the Cravers) making them more militaristic (as well as building ships. Guessing military tier buildings will count as well). And, depending on the result of your vote every 40 turns, you unlock Laws (Influence-based buffs, optional influence upkeep costs). For instance, the militarist faction, even as Sophons, has access to the very handy +100% damage buff. Yay, militaristic Sophons! Expensive influence-wise, but wholly worth it to get more bang for your space-buck.
A feature that will not be making its return to ES is the card battle system. (For the three of you not having played ES: Go play it. Now.) Instead, the players will be able to select different maneuvers for their fleet, depending on it’s composition. (Larger vs. smaller vessels, guessing speed factors in it as well).
One feature that will still see a lot of polish is probably the combat animations. We were only graced with the intro, and left hungry for more. ES always excelled at portraying epic fights as they should be portrayed: in glorious 3d with bomber runs added in for laughs. Actually, ES might be the only 4x franchise to benefit from VR becoming the next screen to have.
All in all, the demo certainly left us wanting more. 2016, here we come!
Full disclosure: No "gifts" were given to us during the Gamescom preview event, besides a USB stick containing the pictures you see up there.
I might sound over-enthusiastic, but that is because I really like the Endless series, most of all Endless Space. I love the way how a 4x can become something beautiful, something excellent. Far too often, genre pieces get stuck in retro graphics and clunky UI. Not so ES: Smooth sailing all the way through, with a MP base that's still active.
