taken by the news about final fantasy xiii coming to xbox 360 - I am definitely a FF fanatic - and this timely slickdeal for a black xbox 360 elite bundle ($300+tax, that’s ~$150 off) I just couldn’t resist.
bye bye free time and extraneous bike trips… hmm… hope I didn’t make a mistake! :)
the diablo 3 trailer:
a gameplay / narrative vid:
My estimate D3 release date — Q4 2010*.
* based on nothing scientific.
More info and eye candy over at the official blizzard diablo III page.
I Wanna Be The Guy is the most macochistic 2d sidescrolley-platformery-adventure game I’ve ever seen or heard of. it doesn’t appeal to me really, but I’m still fairly impressed by people who are great at these things. respect.
like this guy, he has crazy mad platformer skill:
as seen from the vid, iwbtg is inspired by games of the NES era - heavily influenced by megaman and super mario bros. but covers many other games like metriod, legend of zelda and even tetris. so in a phrase, the game is chalk full of nostalgia packed sucker punches of frustratingly challenging proportions.
I’ve blahogged previously many times about this Fiesta thing. it’s going to be big - already at a claimed one million users. nevermind the fact that I haven’t played in weeks, I have some friends that are as hardcore dedicated to it as those WoW’ing fanatical friends most everyone knows at least one.
according to this venturebeat article, outspark has raised more money in VC funding - $22 mil. I suspect they are nearly breaking even as it is being that the outspark store has turned out to be quite popular. “hot” items such as the Perfect Red Eye which I myself have purchased - though I ended up destroying the item (an uber ZK bow) due to neglegance, hey really bad day ok? - for about $3.75 are near irresistable. additionally attractive are outsparks’ cutie-customes and *beauty shops* that allow players to personalize their toon as well that offer bonuses such as 7-10 crit % bumps.
now if my archer didn’t have such a hopeless future, I’d probably hop back in game and play tonight. but it does, and lvling some other class simply sounds unappealing.
in general, this game’s future (and company at large) revolves around how well outspark can pull a community and keep it together. so far, they are fortunate to have this much success considering the number of rampant bugs in various core game aspects that have needed to be fixed since CB1. however, it seems most users have gotten use to them, as shown by the continual population grown. this solid fact shines a favorable light on the game as a whole that I tend to agree with in spite of its shortcomings.
I haven’t played in over a week! maybe it’s that my guild is on avg, nearly 10 lvls higher than I (the elven archer of yore), and not all that in a hurry to help me out (they have a pretty consistent group of ppl… I’m not one of them) and my other char (27 fighter) isn’t as fun to play… nor is as rich.
I can trace this burned-outness to two sources: a long thanksgiving weekend without playing and the fact that I put my two mains on two different servers (Teva and Bijou) … MISTAKE! can’t pool my resources, nor associate with my contacts made on both servers.
If outspark enacted the STORE to actually sell useful things like character transfer, I’d be all over it. and although I understand the server imbalance risks in a character transfer feature… it CAN work. oh well… seems doubtful as outspark is slow moving with anything all that useful.
and now random screenshot time:
found this over at fiestafan.com … badly drawn but very true to the point! I’ve done this a couple times with great joy as the outcome.
it’s time we take back Moonlight Tomb from the bots! fight!!!
as an archer, soloing is not my forte. therefore, I am somewhat use to going days on end without a group so basically no progression. yesterday I was fortunate enough to find some cool people to group with. as we went along, I was even more fortuate to receive a whisper from a guild leader who’s guild I was actually interested in joining! (lately guild invites have almost turned into spam - maybe that’s what happens at level 3x) so, after a minor inquisition aka the 20 question prod, I was invited to join. TemplarKnights is a small group of people now but they’re all olderish like me. this means the immaturity is mostly filtered at the gate, so that’s super. I also met someone into Song of Ice and Fire books - freakin’ bad ass btw.
so, if you’re having troubles in your early 30s as a support class - though in a way they are all support classes - get yourself in a good guild. if the guild is asking you to pay to get in, chances are they will invite you, take it and ban you. so beware and don’t be a pest, nobody likes beggers.
when you reach 30, you are thrown into a realm of uber spending, especially if your skills are backlogged.
I’m up to ~25s, and basically need another 10s to buy everything I need to catch up to my level.
the main disadvantage of the Fiesta economy over WoW’s is the lack of an offline ability to make money. in order to sell to other players in Fiesta, you must be logged in and in “vendor” mode. in which you are allowed to sell *5* different types of items (some are stackable, such as mats(materials).) this is pretty inconvenient for most people.
the best tip I can give is gather up what you want to sell and leave it on over night. there are plenty of players in different timezones such that you will have people buying, if your price is right, and there is some demand for what you’re sellin’.
tonight I sell Tier2 mats — hopefully I will make a couple of silver.
I have noticed a somewhat steady increase on cracking down on the annoyance these groups poise to the players of Fiesta. it is also likely an unnecessary draw on outspark’s server resources. anyway, it seems like the GM’s are being more vigilant in banning the people as they are seen/reported. just today I saw a GM Notice “Elderine is clean!” so that’s good, I suppose. I’d still love an ignore feature, though. I am tired of filtering out /shout messages, sometimes it is useful.
the next plague, and probably one very related to the first (gold farm), is low level bots that are everywhere. and who can blame them, I’ve thought about setting my own up, those low level mats are pretty valuable. I just haven’t gotten around to it because it is cheating. and for some reason, I’m against that.
I am currently level 27 archer, impatiently plugging away to 28 so I can put on my new cute archer shorts.
that’s it for now. good luck out there Isyans.
it was bound to happen, a somewhat “official” statement. they offer little info but who’s to blame them. I’m still suspicious of their involvement in the gold selling.
the message reads as follows:
Attention Fiesta Players,
The Game Master team has been doing some investigations on the issue of “Gold Spammers” running rampantly in our servers. We realize that this is becoming a big problem for our players and we are doing our best to eliminate these players from our community. Rest assured that we are doing our very best to make Fiesta and Outspark, free of these menaces.
In light of the situation, we have already completed a number of investigations, which has resulted in the banning of multiple accounts. There may be still some spammers in game, but we are doing our best to eliminate these players, completely.
Thank You for your patience and Happy Gaming to all
- GM Break
from what I’ve read on the forums, this is mostly regurgitation of key words used in complaints. it’s probably pretty effective at squelching most of the crying.
outspark’s fiesta draws you in by displaying cutesy animey pretty 3d worlds and characters along with many shiney weapons and armors. but as for the latter-est, do not try if you are prone to depression.
I earned the clever title “Unlucky enhancer” after losing my 4th piece of equipment.. OK, that’s fine, most of those were extra. but, as if I hadn’t had enough, I try again this morning, for enhancing something of great value to me - my pristine shiney, overly expensive to replace steel crossbow. with yet another “LUCKY ELRUE” obtained I considered, hey, lucky, no way it’ll do the worst case scenario…. not only did the enhancement fail w/the so-called lucky elrue on the very first try, but I lost the item.
instead of quitting on the spot, I’ve been playing most of the morning hoping that with the bad, comes the good. no such fracking luck. 2nd MARA KQ with an empty chest bullshit.
outspark may be making money afterall. after skimming threads such as this, basically identical to most the floods of complaints, it makes me go hmm as there is no offical statement on the matter (afaik.)
it is known that: outspark has numerous foreign offices - at least one other “official” in Seoul, KR (source). or, more likely, the “gold farms” are shadow entities of Outspark’s primary investing company “Altos” - not a bad way to earn a quick return on ones investment, eh?
the concept in question, “gold farming,” goes way back. it is essentially, a sweat shop for people (stereotypically, Chinese) (and sometimes bots) playing the “game” 24 hours a day, “earning” in-game currency or “power leveling” for sale on these websites. this allows players, not into the grind typically required to obtain such sums or ascend to such levels, to exchange the in-game services for real-life money. it is a scorned process but very popular nonetheless; tis taboo if you will.
my biggest personal complaint is the blatent lack of respect in *advertising* these gold vendoring websites. in the case of Fiesta, bots/people sit in major towns and spam in the “shout” channel - “www.blahblahbuyourgold.com customer respect is number one to you.” yes, the engrish is that bad and often worse. what’s worse, there is no /ignore command in Fiesta, no blacklist, shitlist, fracklist, nothing. these people spam all day and all night. often even when a “GM” (gamemaster, moderator if you will) is on.
so, does it not make you go hmm? this isn’t a bad idea either. and if it’s the extent of it, and we continue to play for free, I guess I’m OK with it. there really isn’t anything illegal going on, so long as the gold buyers aren’t getting ID theft, etc… gold farm sites are pretty f’n sketchy.
so, I blew most of an otherwise unproductive day playing, oh yes, fiesta.
of notable, uh, note:
- my main reached Hawk Archer level… (the level up quest was much easier as Mage for some reason)
- outspark opened a new server, finally.
- the patch that came with the new server, occasionally sends you underneith roumen when you die. good times. just quit the game and come back in. it’s happening to a lot of ppl so there will probably be another patch in the next day or so.
- finding “cool/chill” people to party with makes the game much more fun. be nice and you’ll have a great time.
that’s all for now, folks.
in this post I discuss variables, ideas to fix, and tips refering to outspark.com’s game Fiesta.
how many variables could their be? (not including non-disclosed ones)
for 15 spots and 5 chances - 75 people get to play per 2 hours -> 900 plays per day.
that’s a pretty small number considering how frackin’ popular the open beta is becoming.
first of all, how many level 5-16 people (speaking on King Slime KQ) on at any one time who are aware of the KQ - (as time goes this is certainly increasing) - oh, lets say how about 49%.
so 49% of… a few hundred… a few thousand? anyway, that sucks!
maybe connection speed? probably-certainly. I pity any dialup players, and imagine in it’s current state the game is unplayable especially in jam packed places such as roumen.
reflexes? doubtful. there are far too many variables for even the most reflexy of anyone to get in everytime. even still, I hold essentially hold my breath for the final 10-15 secs before a recruitment begins. Ugh.
My Idea to Fix Fiesta Kingdom Quest:
an internal Fiesta player priority Queue! this seems plausible, and come on, a damn good idea. it’s simple: 1st - monitor what players have partipated that day, and give them a lower priority. 2nd - monitor the level of people attempting to join, higher levels get a slightly higher priority; or maybe people lower than 8 levels to upper level cap get a lower priority.
Besides all that, I’ve tried a few tips/tricks with little increase in success - really doesn’t seem to make a frackin’ difference.
- LEAVE crowded areas, don’t huddle around the KQ guy.
- hold down participate button so that you only have to LET the button go when recruitment starts.
- be as quick as you can, but also patient - I know, it fuckin’ blows.
- try to play KQ at off PST peak hours (after midnight? before 8am?)
- log off and back on a minute or two before recruiting. it is rumored this alleviates acrued lag.
hopefully Outspark will fix the issue by adding more instance opportunities (possibly a bad idea in the long run) or taking my suggestion and giving me a job to implement it :).
good luck out there, Isya Fans.
Update - 9/14/07 -
as of about a week ago, outspark added a few more instances of the more popular KQs. this has somewhat bandaided the problem by simply allowing more supply to the demand. furthermore, I have not been offered a job at outspark.
(yesterday)
I hopped in again, started 3 new ppl. all the classes are belong to me. but am I going to level them all? hell no. am I going to level one back to the level I had my Closed Beta 2 mage prior to it’s envitible demise? Maybe. so far I’m liking the Cleric class the most.
if you don’t know wtf I’m talking about, here’s a good starting point Outspark’s page.
and fyi - I applied for a job there this week. the game seems to have a lot of potential, figured I’d love to get in on dat action while the gettin’ be good. the company is HQ’d in SF… so, if I actually did get a job there, I’d probably move closer. who knows though. I probably won’t even get an acknowledgement e-mail.
cest. la. ve.
