Posted on July 8, 2012, in Episodes and tagged blip tv, gaming, grinder. Bookmark the permalink. 41 Comments.
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Posted on July 8, 2012, in Episodes and tagged blip tv, gaming, grinder. Bookmark the permalink. 41 Comments.
MMO Grinder 
I did not experience any of the lag you spoke of. The controls are wonky & unfamiliar, but it ran smooth with all the specs maxed out.
I just tried this game. I thought I’d manage to stay interested in it for a week, but after just a few hours, I uninstalled it. I’m not exactly sure what it is that made this game so unappealing….Many many little annoyances & a total lack of unfamiliarity. Same problem I had with Grenado Espada.
I really like Vindictus. I think it’s a highly underrated MMO which did the action combat thing before Tera (launched in NA October 2010). Yes, Nexon is evil and all that, but I will sometimes make deals with the devil if it gets me ahead. Oh, and while level progression is pretty good at the early levels if you do all the quests and such, it slows to a crawl in Chapter 5, and limps between levels 50-59. Don’t even get me started on the Wild Berry drop…
Too bad you couldn’t have waited 2 weeks on doing the review: Kai is due out July 18.
That’s usually my fate with these games (If I didn’t wait on Rusty Hearts, Natasha would have been in two weeks. Chung was released three months after the Elsword review. Champions Online did a MAJOR update two weeks after I reviewed it.)
sounds like your getting ready to start a ‘revisited’ series. Though seriously, if you do find your self running low on content that may not be such a bad idea. Would even be more amusing if your revisited episodes ended up being completed before another big update.. then you can re-re-visit them, its like an endless monorail of money going straight to your pocket.
Have you seen the list on the Suggested MMO page? There are no shortage of games any time soon, and several more coming out every day.
The revisited series is interested, but I don’t really see it as a full segment for any of the games. It might be possible to combine 5 games into 1 for a review, just a quick “Here’s what’s changed in this, this and this.” I don’t really see them changing anyone’s minds, either.
That’s kind of how I set up Grinder. Despite reading a forum post somewhere that claimed some of my reviews were outdated due to their age and changes made, I review the core of a game. What I say about a game in Play, Pay, Pass, probably won’t change just because some new content or patches were added.
But you are right about the short format. The revisits would be Sidequest length, or possibly shorter. I’d list them on the episode guide underneath the episode they are for. The only thing holding me back from making them right now? A logo. I wish I was joking.
Very nice and informative video like always. You made me want to play Vindi again ;) However then I remembered why I stopped playing it in the first place… repetitiveness. I know all MMOs have such aspects, but dungeon based games like Rusty Hearts, Dragon Nest and Vindi just have it too much at the beginning.
I don’t think those games are bad, but I don’t think this is the future of MMORPGs.
With Vindictus, you can just run Vindictus.exe to go straight into the game without having to go through the website. No need to modify any game files except maybe just changing your shortcut so you don’t have to go through Windows Explorer to get to it..
Ah, Vindictus, the game I was convinced could have been a lot of fun… If it were just multiplayer and not an MMO. Grinding for crafting materials, “quests” that just ask you to collect a full set of gear you’ll never use and zillions of little components that guarantee you’ll never have what you actually need and tons of stuff you won’t need until after you sell it for space…
The gameplay at the core of Vindictus is actually pretty solid. I can play it over and over again. It’s the various tactics used to “extend” gameplay that eventually turned me off. Believe it or not, I can repeat the same task much more often if the game isn’t asking me to do it in a very specific way. The more MMOs try to get me to grind, the less interested I become because it’s just aimless busywork.
Never really had a problem with the graphics, but I have a pretty solid rig.
I LOVE your videos, and im not hating on you, I love you vids.. but just asking for your opinion. ;D
Here we go: Why Do you hate Nexon!?
1. You CAN Run MapleStory without going to the website. Local Disk > Nexon > MapleStory > Maplestory.exe (Right Click Properties) (Create shortcut, drag to desktop) > MapleStory Shortcut Properties > After MapleStory.exe at the end, type “GameLaunching” (With the caps and all) > Click and your at the GameLauncher. ^^
Not sure if it works on the other games though, I would guess it does.
2. You don’t like one game, therefore you hate Nexon? ._.; Though some of the reasons that you hate Maple makes sense. WHY U MAKE US WAIT TO GET TO PLACES!?
—
THOUGH:
-Nexon’s maintences are brutal.
-They are a tad money-hungry. I mean jeez, just make everything perm already!
-I DO wish I could access all their games from the Desktop without having to search for a way.
—
Okay, If you thought this game was fun, but too High-graphical, try Dragon Nest By Nex-*gets shot*
It runs on unreal, and its nice.. does get a bit grindy once you reach Saint’s Haven though, but the Max Level cap is 40 (i think) so its to by expected… I guess.
Oh and the PVP is AWESOME.
You know those questions that already contain the answer within them? Yeah. That.
It really kinda helped my case when you explained I don’t have to launch from the website if I just ALTER THE GAME’S FILES. It should NEVER be that complicated to do something that’s default in nearly EVERY other game in existence that’s not browser based. It’s the equivalent of people telling me something is “totally simple” and then giving me a 25 step process on how to change it, like it’s supposed to be second nature. We shouldn’t HAVE to alter the game’s files in order to do something every other game defaults to. Especially when it used to NOT be that way. It’s just a terrible way to run things.
The of course you gave me a couple more reasons. Terrible maintenance, money-grubbing (though as nearly as much as they used to be.) so I’ll give you a couple more.
Nexon has terrible security. If you knew just how many times accounts were hacked and entire password collections, and account/credit card information was leaked because their idea of security is the online equivalent of guarding a bank with a particularly bark-prone, but easily distracted Pomeranian, you’d never give them more than the time of day for fear you might end up with massive credit charges from countries you never knew existed. The line “Nexon is pretty serious with their security” was a half joke in the Maple review. They sure as hell make you take a bunch of precautions, but they sure as hell can’t keep them safe.
Nexon America outright FOSTERS the obnoxious behavior of their players. While I will say it’s toned down a bit, as CirrusEpix’s “New Leaf Saga” produced by Nexon is a step in the right direction, this IS still the same company that had a banner ad that seemed to celebrate the obnoxious behavior of the Maple players. The same company that thinks having titles like “Thick and Hard”, “Whipped by Shayla” and “Master Baiter” in a game that pretty much takes itself very seriously is not stupidly distracting. A company that proudly totes the ability to “Nut Shot” other players in the trailer of Combat Arms like it’s a fucking gameplay feature they’d write on the back of a retail box.
Finally, Nexon is pretty much the EA of MMO developers. They are constantly partaking in shady deals, snatching exclusivity rights to kill off competitors, or attempting to buyout their companies illegally, and have been sued and fined by the Korean and Taiwanese governments REPEATEDLY. That is, if they weren’t busy suing or banning all their players for so much as suspecting them of botting/hacking. Double fun fact: Nexon was rumored in trying to BUY EA.
We discuss this a LOT on MMO Underground.
BUT… and I cannot stress this enough… I will NEVER fault a GAME for the sins of the publisher. (Whoever told me “they all fall together” on my Examiner article can choke on their own vomit.) I hate Maple Story because I hate the community, and the gameplay, NOT because it’s Nexon. I liked DFO, and I liked Vindictus. As much as Nexon’s actions and decisions can drag a game down, the game still needs to prove itself on its own, and I’m not going to let the fact that Nexon is involved with a title sour my view on the game or its developer.
I agree with all your points. You forgot to mention their terrible Customer Service though.
Anyway, anyone up for Nexon going bankrupt and selling their company to someone that can actually do work and make these game successful?
Actually, modifying the shortcut isn’t modifying the game files. It’s more an example of shoddy “security” that relies on people not knowing what they’re doing to force them to go through the site when all the site has is a modified shortcut anyway. It’s actually the same as with Tera’s launcher – I Alt-Tabbed and shut that down. The game complained, but worked fine for over six hours without it anyway.
Nice game. I might actually… wait. Nexon? Never mind. I won’t be even considering playing.
man,once again nexon leaves me out of this one,much like mabinogi i cant play this one because of region lock,being out of the NA or EU areas sucks sometimes,anyway the game looks pretty fun,the combat was very surprising to me,im glad to see the MMO scenario changing from the usual target “static” gameplay to a more action oriented one and the physics looked pretty good,this running on max must look awesome,and well with this i hope i get to see a sidequest about TERA at some point,been thinking if i should buy it or not for a while now
PS:finally someone else who played legend of legaia,that game was awesome!and hard as all hell.
i wanted to add that the dragon 24-man raids are less of a newbie trap as they provide balistas and catapults to aid the higher levels in combat.
the raid that you showed with the polar bear, Stribog i think was the name, if you have a high leveled character in the party, the high leveled person can pretty much carry the whole party.
i joined one on my level 70 Evie and at the end stats screen , it showed i did 90% damage to the boss
I didn’t notice any ground weaponry in Stribog’s cave, but maybe I was too busy being pounced on to notice. We had a 70 Karok with us and we still couldn’t keep Stirbog from jumping around the screen randomly pouncing on people. Then again, it seemed no one brought Chain Hooks with them in an effort to keep him still, but as easily as we were being tossed around, I can’t imagine it would have helped.
ITs either FlyFF or Mabinogi..its sequel and i have to ask, your characters name is spelled alot like Riza Scarlets nick-name from Fairy Tail….Just wondering if my hunch on that name was correct
I’ve been out of the anime loop for ages so I had to look that one up. Despite the similarity in both design and name (Titania vs. Liatania) I had that character name for ages. Long before Fairy Tail was ever released. I started officially using it when I played WoW back in ’05, and first used the name (Along with “Xanthier”, which is NOT a reference to the Piers Anthony novels, I swear.) when coming up with alternate names for my characters in Legend of Legaia. I have no idea where I got either name from. They just came to me.
Okay, lemme try this comment thing again, apologies if it doubleposts.
Cutesy and Cel-Shaded? I can only assume ChaosD1’s talking about Mabinogi.
Great game, good music, engaging storyline, the combat system is fun, and advancement is pretty freeform. however, the game is perhaps the grindiest MMO I’ve ever played. Seriously, my main character is a a combined total level of 650. and I’m still -tiny- compared to my friends who play it hardcore.
Your next review is a cute, cell shaded, really old mmo. I guessing its grand chase :D I love that game to death! oh and just a quick piece of advice, DON’T and i mean DON’T fight ap characters if your using a mp character, the ap characters a pretty overpowered and cheap. if you are going to review grand chase i can’t to see your review :3
I’ve noticed that there are points in the game that your character progression plateaus, however once you reach level 60 level starts to matter less as you have access to all of the dungeons with the exception of those that you need other requirements. As far as getting materials at the latter levels it does become more grindy, and you may find that there are dungeons that you have to do, but no one wants to do because they are just unpleasant to do. i.e. Any of the troll (monsters) dungeons.
During the beta THREE years ago, my friend was easily able to run this game at high end settings using a grab bag of good but last gen parts for cheap. What are you running Chao1D, as no offense as even the games that you run look very low end. No one is asking out to go out and get an uber system, but there are AMD A6 and A8 complete desktops and laptops that would shame your computer out there for $350-500.
Oh, I am well aware of that. My PC is a shit ridden HP Pavilion from early 2008. (Probably created in 07) that I paid for with my tax return that year.
I have been looking online that Pavilion has quite a few new versions for the same price I paid for my current one. 10gig RAM stock expandable to 32 (This thing maxes at 4) a 3.4 gig Quadcore processor.
But when I say I’m broke, that’s not hyperbole. 600 dollars isn’t something I can just SPEND. Not until my car is paid off… next year.
What are the actual specs of it though? My computer is also from 2008 and could run any game until the newest DX11 games great. (ie: Witcher 2 and Arkham City finally make it cry) Only have a 2.4Ghz Quad Core and a nVidia 9800 GTX in it. I was able to run Vindictus perfectly fine on near max settings other than AA.
Do you have a really bad processor? That seems the most logical bottleneck, since my same video card costs no more than $70 these days, and was the standard since 2007.
From his ‘About’ page:
System Specs
(According to “Can You Run It?”)
Processor Speed: AMD “Phenom” 2.1 GHz Performance Rated at: 4.095 GHz
RAM: 4 GB
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium SP2
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ w/2GB video RAM
Direct X version: 11
Just thought i’d mention a few thing:
-while godess grace is nx only, you can invite people to your game at any time, even when dead, thus if you have a friend doing nothing, they can run into your game and rez you. That said.. they can also be killed by the same boss that got you and you can both cry at how horrible you are -cough-
-I don’t think i really heard you mention it, but BP is equal to the AP you earn the first run, and less each consecutive run w/ the same oath. However, every day one dungeon on each boat/area is marked as a daily and gives you a nice bit of AP which is why you may see high lvl people run through dungeons some times.
-while there is a heavy focus on crafting, and armor is what helps you stand out more then anything (unless you ware nothing and show off your nx gear like some shameless whore..) , making armor early on is a mistake. Sell your mats on the market (you’ll make a fair share of money as people will usually buy it either due to being suckers or a need to level their personal crafting skill) and buy your early armor. Its ALOT cheaper — and prevents you from having to grind pointlessly.
-some quests have you pick up items which is really dull and pointless, and even laughable when some of these items can be bought on the auction house for a fairly cheap sum and save you a good 10-20 minutes. You can use this to bypass some of the more mundane quests and in some cases make more money from completing the quest then you did spending on the item.
-The pacing of the game is horrible… you will sail through boat 1 and 2 fairly easily, 3 may be a slight challange and after that you open up 2 more boats which take forever to get past. Then you get another boat that is on the hard side (and is almost identical to the icey caves), and another after that is even harder but both go fairly quick in terms of lvling and questing. Then you unlock like 3-4 boats all at ounce when your near lvl 60 and suddenly you have more choices then you may want in terms of where to go and they for the most part are all unique looking. Really… horrible.. pacing..
-Lastly, i’m glad you got around to doing the review before season 2 came around, after seeing what the new areas look like:
and hearing the frame rate troubles you’ve been having, i wouldn’t be surprised if it just stopped working for you again. Though why an f2p mmo feels the need to require such high specs given the market i still don’t know..
Anyway, enjoyed the video– keep up the great work, can’t wait till you get to another of my favorites (grand chase) =)
IM guessing the next game you’re doing is DOMO cause that’s the only cutesy cell shaded game I can think of which is still around xD
FlyFF is also a cutsy cell shaded MMO….and he probably going to do Mabinogi next seeing as that is as well and this games sequel
The steam version skips all the launcher hassle and problems really.
But yeah, when it first went on Steam I tried it remembering that I liked it, but I just couldn’t play it. I decided to see how bad it was, and to my surprise the same computer that would just chug and skip/cause graphical errors, can run it perfectly fine.
I don’t play it exclusively, but I do find myself playing it for a couple hours most days I have the chance to.
The combat is refreshing, especially when you’re burned out by other mmorpg’s that are the same exact systems with minor differences. Especially a “certain” newly released one that promised otherwise..
This appeals to me greatly, so I’m off to download it.
You’re a good salesman Jon; you can even make games I wouldn’t play look enticing.
Yay, update! :3
My husband played this for a while, but not for very long. To grindy I guess.
*Too grindy rather.
I played this a year or so ago for a short stint. The graphics are gorgeous for a free to play and the music quite astounding. The gameplay, however, is do damnably repetitive that even I (yes, the guy who played and loved Phantasy Star Online for many years) got bored of it quickly. That’s harsh considering action RPGs are exactly what I’m always looking for (it’s why I wish I had the money to play Tera). It’s funny because I also got bored of DFO (maybe it’s a Nexon curse?), though that was mostly because soloing the game becomes a nightmare at around the third or fourth section of the game and finding regular, competent party members is like finding a needle in a haystack. Maybe I’ll give Vindictus another shot someday, though – perhaps after that archer class is added.
Try my trick; install a ton of different MMOs & circulate between them; keeps things fresh. I’ve got two tarabyte drives; the 40 MMOs I have installed barely take up any space.
Well, you shouldn’t have to wait too much longer for Phantasy Star Online 2. It just got released in Japan, so hopefully Sega will release it to the USA, seeing as only Phantasy Star Portable 2: Infinity was the only game I know of that wasn’t released stateside in the series.
Although hopefully the new free to play model of PSO2 doesn’t have too bad of a cash shop. Although paying for better healing items does raise a flag, but I haven’t heard of anyone buying OP weapons with cash.
I think a large part of your computers problem (at least according to your System Specs) is Vista ;)
This game originally had me really excited, but as time wore on (and you confirmed it in this review) I heard the grind was excruciating, with a serious bent toward the cash shop. There’s only so much ‘grind’ I can stand, and I actually gave up DCUO because it was ridiculous as well. F2P games don’t seem to get this kind of thing right at all, but it could also be the fact I’m too damn cheap (read; poor) to invest in these kinds of games.
Nexon does indeed seem to be run by a bunch of frat boys, but I guess their “success” (i use the term loosely) is indicative of that kind of maturity working in their favour. However, the surprising knowledge that the community is actually fairly decent for a Nexon game does give me incredulous pause.
As always, great review Chaos. Looking forward to the next one.
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