Lootception

So...

I started on Disgaea, and holy crap is that a new ride.  I've played my share of grid-y, gritty tactical RPGs over the years, and while there was plenty of pixellated badass to be enjoyed, there was also a great deal of darkness.  They weren't the darkest overall genre by any means, but sometimes it really just felt like they were trying to borrow Warhammer Fantasy's grimness without the over-the-top qualities that made things great.  Nobody remember that Warhammer (and Warhammer 40,000) deliberately took things to absurb amounts of grim to where it was actually funny; kinda like if the Monty Python bunch went through a goth phase.  I didn't quite burn out on them, but it did kinda get samey and boring after a while.

But damn, here's a game that I wished I picked up a lot sooner.  Disgaea just takes that grimdarkness is grim, and converts it to utter whackiness!  There's plenty of dark themes floating about, but what it really comes down too is that you're running an army of slapstick anime demons and other ridiculous freaks as they tear about and pillage the weak and learn about love and smash evil(er) and stuff.

There's all sorts of craziness to be had; so much so that I don't have time to delve into it for now.  But one of my favorite new addictions is the Item World.  If you're like me and live under a rock, here's the lowdown:  Every item in the game has a pocket dimension called an Item World.  In gameplay terms, this translates into a series of ten or more randomly generated floors.  And we're really talking random, here.  You can have small little cakewalk maps with a few mooks, to scary maps with tons of nasty effects that wind up being as close to 3-d Space Hulk as you can get with cutest sprites.  Complete ten floors, and you power up the item considerably.  There's a good few more details than this, but the thing I really want to cover is that while you're down there, the game's standard approach to loot still applies.  While you're upgrading your loot, you can (and often will) come away with even more loot, which will have it's own Item Worlds to explore and pillage.

Seriously, you wind up with an infinite fractal of looting and upgrading going on, and it can suck you in if you're not careful.  Forget Candy Crush or Tetris, this is a serious brain-sucking fruitopia of gaming goodness!  How the in-game economy functions at all it beyond me...

Space Scurvy

Blarg-a-rant to the spambots that "read" this stuff.

Been tearing about in Borderlands The Pre-Sequel some more.  According to their website, legendary drops have been tweaked for this game and for B2, but I'm not seen any real increase in the orange glow.  That said, I've only done 1 1/2 playthoughs, and all of it normal difficulty thus far, so I can't expect too much.

That said, the rate  I've seen them in vending machines is absolutely epic so far.  I've managed to find two Moonlight Sagas, an Oxidizer, a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, a Nasty Surprise, an Avalanche, and a Logan's Gun (I tragically couldn't afford that last one, *sob*), making for a whopping seven legendaries on Normal (and five of those solo).  That's a ridiculous amount compared to my long B2 run with at least six playthroughs, including True and Ultimate VH difficulties.  All together, two Bitches, a Quasar (!!!), a Sledge's Shotgun, a Fastball, and...I think that's it actually.  Five legendary pieces in regular vending machines.  (NOTE, this doesn't include the Torgue machines, which have a guaranteed legendary Torgue item)

While the actual drop rate is still somewhat ambiguous right now, the vendors in PS seem to have been tweaked for the better thus far.  I really hope it stays that way.

Tell you what, the vehicles in PS are crap, though.  I want my damn Truck-a-pult back!

Attack of The War Plushies

Blarg!

It's been a rough (but not horrible) few days.  I should finally be over the hump soon, at least.

Been tearing about in various games, with an emphasis on Diablo III and Final Fantasy V.

A highlight of current Diablo escapades was dealing with a huge mob of teddy bears that had the Molten and Mortar traits.  It was fairly fun. actually, like letting the Small Soldiers from back in the day arm a pack of Beanie Babies.  They're still not as scary as old-school Care Bears, though.  Those crazies tore about and flashed people to death with weaponized good feelings and stuff.  Taste the Rainbow, motherfucker!

Nor are they as hardcore as modern ponies.

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I admit nothing.


Also, a bit more RPG = WTF in my life.  Spoilers:  The Big Bad in FFV is a scary Vader wanna be that's actually a damn tree.  The Dwarves were right, the trees want to kill us all.  Time to break out the flannels and chainsaws.

Screw modern JRPG bishie bullshit, Old Wan Willow as a Sith Lord is just damn awesome.

Invisible TOGs Rule The Base

Today I learned that you can ram people in World of Tanks and go undetected.  Pretty sure it was a glitch, but either way I know that someone out there on the webernets wound up with a severe case of OMGWTFBBQ syndrome.  Oh, and the 10.5mm German death cannon is still really great at making enemy tanks disappear in a puff of awesome.


In more Skyrim news, Legate Wulfe the Unhinged is still tearing about, making the forces of badness wish for their mamas.  Many Falmer have had close encounters with Tard Basher, my new custom Dwarven Mace of Energizing.  I've also acquired Nightingale equipment, and those weapons are really great at trolling things that annoy me.  The bow in particular is really great at killing dragons and allowing me to be all Shang Tsung of the Vikings. 


I'm currently planning to finally getting back to Dawnguard, smacking vampires and quoting Castlevania.  I'm really looking forward to the Divine Orbital Strike known as Auriel's Bow, combining that with Dawnbreaker to mow through the most undead seen this side of Plants Vs. Zombies.  Oh, and battle trolls.  I really need to see that in action.  "Bleh I'm all bloodsucky and emo!"  KRUMP!  "Blarg I'm a battle yeti, U Mad Bro?"

Back in Business With Big Guns

Hail the spambots that read this!

It's been a helluva month.  Short version, my leaders are craven.  Pfah!

Anyway, I've been happily tearing through Atelier Iris, enough that I'm likely to post a Wreckonomics entry about it.  It is very plain that this is item crafting fan's game, which is one of the reasons I have trouble putting it down.  Bombs, laser cannons, dead fish, booze, meteor strikes?  Final Fantasy wishes its consumables were this cool!

I've also been tearing with my mini-clan on Borderlands 2, and I'm happy to report we have started getting our hands on Pearlescent level guns.  We're in the middle of training up a couple dudes so they're ready for Ultimate VH raid bosses so we can start getting Seraph level gear too.  The Florintine shall be mine!

I admit that I find it very irritating that they locked the Seraph gear to Ultimate.  I see why they did it (to prevent farming in True to get Ultimate gear later), but to be honest, they should have kept the gun drops in True while leaving crystal farming to wait until Ultimate.  Even Seraph gear loses its power a few levels into Ultimate if you only bring level 50 versions.

But gripes aside, the guns you can get in Ultimate are the kickass!  I've wound up with the Butcher and a Tunguska thus far, and damn if they aren't nasty.  The Butcher is effectively an AA-12 with all but unlimited ammo and ridiculous fire rate.  The Tunguska is the Nukem's angry big brother; very dangerous, but oh so killy.  There are better launchers for straight damage (Norfleet, Badaboom, high end purples), but behold as whole rooms of mooks become smoking relics and shiny shiny loots!

Well, I need to go.  Must find food...

Ghosts 'N' Daimons

Hello The People I Pretend Read This:

Logged many a hour of afterwork vicarious violence on the vidja game front lately.  I have come to certain conclusions lately.

After showing a gamer friend the joys of loot farming on Borderlands 2, I realized that somebody at Gearbox is a damn troll.  As part of their Loot Hunt contest, they periodically altered certain loot drops from certain bosses, sometimes altering drop rates, sometimes adding a new rare drop.  Unfortunately for me and my friend, the drop altered yesterday was the legendary drop for the Warrior.  Some humorous soul decided that the guaranteed drop should be a Flakker, a nice--but situational--shotgun.  I would be ok with this, if this wasn't the Warrior, the home drop for the Conference Call!  This is arguably the best gun in the game, and has extra appeal for me personally since it's a shotgun that shreds things and therefore appeals to my redneck blood (GRARG!  *banjo music* BAMBI SAUSAGE TIME!) and does cool tricks to appeal to my nerdy brain (GRARG!  *Nightwish song* EPIC GUN TIME!).  The Flakker is close but is still no substitute.  In practice, this means that you got lots of Flakkers but no other legendaries at all from the Warrior.  May whoever came up with this nasty little trick be made to write Gungan-oriented fanfics forevermore!

On the cheerier front, I did some more randomness on Dragon's Dogma, and I still really like the game.  I want to babble on about the Dark Arisen expansion they came up with.

First, random comments on Bitterblack Island establish that the world of DD has a moon and pawns know what a moon and moonlight is.  This means that the main area of Gransys is either stuck in a perpetual new moon or even all-out lunar eclipse.  Whether this is a sign or part of the game's events, I don't know.

Second, somebody at Capcom Europe wants to do a modern Ghosts 'N' Goblins really badly, and came up with Dark Arisen as a DD take on the whole thing.  The entire quest is a macabre romp through spooky places with really nasty enemies (especially for low-level characters) that isn't truly finished until you complete the dungeon twice, with the second playthrough being even tougher.  There are some little touches here and there that also point to this, with others being nods to other franchises like Dark Souls and Castlevania.

Finally, the hilarity of setting a bigass zombie dragon on fire with a delayed action incendiary RPG never gets old.

Laying Siege To Houses

Hello The Twenty-Five People The Webernets Claim Read This:

(That's 26 more than I expected.)

I've been tearing about in the grim dungeons of Sanctuary and shooting up the denizens of Pandora for a good bit of time now.  Whoever came up with procedurally generated loot deserves a statue.  A really nerdy statue, made from melted and recast Red Bull cans, holding up a kickass gun and kickass melee weapon and the heads of Wizkids' Mage Knight killers piled up at their feet.

Some random observations I'd like to make about all this:

The legendary drops in Diablo III's console version are much more numerous than Borderlands 2; also typically a lot more useful.  Tearing about and farming enough to require finding a agro-combine should result in more than one--ONE--legendary a month, especially when a number of these legendaries are situational or outright inferior to vanilla gear.  Yes, they're supposed to be rare and special and make you feel like you accomplished something.  But, honestly, I kinda have a job for mindless grinding for cash and maddeningly elusive rewards.  I don't really need a game for that.  And since I have a job, an honest full-time paying job, I don't have the time and inclination to spend 12 hours or more to get a nice +10/7/7 Submachine Gun of Burninating Morons to drop.  So kudos to Blizzard's console team for giving me my fix more often.  Maybe the drops in B2 will get a bit tweaked.

We need some more 'happy' RPGs these days.  I like grim and gritty stuff too, and dark comedy has a very special and evil place in my li'l nerdy heart.  But I miss some of the cheerful stuff that used to be churned out, and the colorful palettes and music.  I grew up on things like Secret of Mana (and later Legend of Mana), Chrono Trigger, Star Ocean 2, SaGa Frontier 2, and Mario RP-Original-G.  I had darker stuff around (Final Fantasy IV, VI, VII, and Tactics, Ogre Battle, Legend of Dragoon) and even the light-hearted games had some deep themes and grim sides.  Hell, SaGa Frontier 2 was both quite light and kiddie in graphics and tone, but had some really gritty elements present, and there's always Chrono Cross for the Prettiest Dark Game Ever Award nominations.  But these days it seems that games have gotten so damn grim overall that I keep expecting the Emperor's Holy Inquisition to show up and declare my dudes heretics and absolution can only be found in fighting the Flood at Thermopylae while wearing sackcloth made from tortured puppies and eating Pinkie's special cupcakes.  Maybe I just picked the wrong damn console after all.

Dragon's Dogma is still frickin' awesome.  Go play it.


Anyway, I need to wander off.  Expect some more mad babbling in the days to come, plus my first real Wreckonomics post, where I'll be going on about the deepest Item Crafting System you've never used in Legend of Mana,

Wreckonomics - First Post

Wreckonomics

Welcome to the first Wreckonomics post, where I babble on about a video game, and give the best solutions I can to snag yourself lots of plunder.  As is this is the first one, I explain some ground rules and personal terms I'll be using.

Theoretically Unlimited Wealth:  At its essence, this is the idea that enough grinding, farming, and suchlike, a player can get unlimited cash and/or resources.  There is literally an unending amount of respawning or random enemy encounters, chests (or equivalents), and therefore drops.  Almost all games with a currency/loot system have this, and most games that do this also don't have the nasty economic impact of some gang of crazies showing up in town with a few million gold pieces and an urge to splurge every other hour.

Limitations:  Exactly what is says on the tin.  These are the obstacles set in place that keep the Theoretically Unlimited Wealth theoretical and limited.  First off, the very real fact that one can never have infinite currency or items.  Even if one could do so in real life (which is impossible), a computer program like a video game could not be able to hand that.  Limited memory and coding means limited wealth.  However, time and technology has made it to where this limit has become effectively meaningless in modern games.  Cases can also be made for bugs and exploits making things infinite in practice in some games. 

But the limitations I will be mentioning are the reason I'm making these posts in the first place.  A lot of games, particularly RPGS, have artificial barriers to wealth building.  These can often to lead to lots of frustration and controller slinging, and plenty of nerd rage and forum flames.  Some of the nastier ones include ridiculously low cash limits and drops, restrictive inventory sizes, and the more draconian anti-grinding mechanics out there.  A lot of these are done in the name of realism; others, so players will actually finish the game instead of tearing about slaughtering critters and bandits for weeks while the king is dying and the hot princess is dealing with the attentions of various monstrosities.  Some are done in the name of simple sadism.  The really maddening ones are typically just designers not thinking things through, or leaving out wealth building mechanics that were either helpful or downright vital in the finished game.  Another layer is the whole 'lost in translation' problem, where for one reason or another, a set of features and/or mechanics were removed when a game was imported and localized.  A variant is where features were added, but people stuck with original versions couldn't benefit from them.

TL; DR:  The game designers were jackasses and this is why.  Here there be rants

Gas Pedals:  The good news.  These will be things a player can do to really make cash and item acquisition go much easier.  A lot of these seem to be put in place by designers to get needed stuff without all the fuss of grinding, but requiring a lot of experience with the game mechanics or exploring (or GameFAQs) to find.  Others are things that were missed or made by mistake.  Still others are things that were meant to accelerate the process to a degree, but you usually don't have to step off the pedal until you get what you wanted.

A note:  I will typically not discuss glitches and bug exploits unless they are either well-known and deemed acceptable by many players, or are the only way to get your hands on enough stuff to actually ease the horrible Dickens-style cruelty going in some games. 

I signed on to rampage about, smack the legions of doom, and woo damsels, not be the heroic fantasy version of Oliver freaking Twist.

Anyway, these are the things I'll be going on about in Wreckonomics posts.  Stay tuned for all sorts of nerdity involving the slaughter of cutesy monsters and playing a game that is nothing but sidequests in Legend of Mana.  Kill the Rabite!