“No time for that, Jake. The ball’s out again! 200 miles an hour and it’s just a silver streak! It’s Riggit now, for the Manglers. He’s going for the ball, but Barton’s in the way!”

With a hugely-successful campaign on Kickstarter last year, Mantic Games’ latest board game is amazingly good fun and far from, as many people feared, simply being Blood Bowl In Space.

Using the setting for their sci-fi wargame, Warpath, Dreadball is a fast-paced sports game, pitting teams such as the stocky Forge Fathers up against the stalwart humans of the Corporation.

Each team can consist of between six to fourteen members – the base game comes with ten models for each team while the boxed teams you can buy separately will have eight (though the first run had ten models each as a thank you for the support their Kickstarter campaign got) – starting with eight players by default.

The game itself plays like some strange combination of gridiron, football, lacrosse and hockey, with a few more probably mixed in for good measure. Each team can have up to six players on the pitch at once and must get the ball, carry it into one of the strike zones on the enemy’s side of the board and then throw it into the strike hex to score. Unlike most sports (or sports board games), the teams do not reset after scoring – the ball is immediately launched back down the centre line and the scoring player’s turn ends. So if you raced your entire team into the enemy half to protect the ball carrier and score, your own half will be wide open for the other team to score in their turn.

The game presents a sort-of resource management system each turn in the form of action tokens. You have to play a token on a player for them to do anything that turn, but you only get five action tokens a turn so there’s always going to be at least one player on your team who won’t do anything that turn. One curious addition, though, is the concept of free actions.

If a player does well at a certain action – rolling twice as many successes as they needed – then they instantly get a free action depending on what action they did well at. So doubling on a roll to catch or pick up the ball gets that player a free Run or Throw action. Now, Strikers can make a full Run action as part of a Throw, meaning they can effectively do both (albeit taking a small penalty on the actual Throw due to the movement). These free actions can make the game very dynamic and make for some amazing plays – letting a pair of Strikers get the ball right across to the other side of the pitch and successfully score, for instance.

Thankfully the dice tests are rather easy to remember. Apart from throws and catches, every test starts with a base 3 dice and you’re either trying to get at least one success (a success being a dice that rolls above the relevant stat of the player) or more successes than what the other player rolls to oppose it. From those three dice, you add or remove dice based on the player’s role, how hard the action is and so on.

And speaking of the players; they are split across three different roles:

• Strikers, who get bonuses to actions involving speed or handling/throwing the ball but cannot attack other players
• Guards, who get bonuses to beating the snot out of the other team’s players but cannot pick up the ball, and
• Jacks, who don’t get bonuses for anything but can both fight and handle the ball.

Of these, though, only the Corporation and Forge Father teams have all three positions – the green-skinned Marauders lack Strikers entirely while the rat-like Veer-Myn field only Guards and Strikers. Other teams coming in future expansions (funded by the Kickstarter) will change things up even more; the Judwan will be a team consisting entirely of Strikers while the Robots will be able to reconfigure themselves into different player roles mid-match. These additional teams won’t be coming til later this year, however.

The four teams in the game so far, though, are diverse enough to keep things interesting:

• The Trontek 29ers are the fluff-default Corporation team. A good, all-rounder team you’d expect from humans – no great strengths but no notable weaknesses either. That and their stats are easy to remember: 4+ across the board, barring Armour.
• The Greenmoon Smackers are the Marauder team. As you’d expect from an orc-like team; the big Orx are the Guards and are very adept at crushing skulls while the smaller Goblins act as the team’s Jacks and are actually quite decent at grabbing and throwing the ball.
• The Midguard Delvers are the Forge Father team. Dwarves in all but name, what they lack in speed, they make up for in strength. They’re also the only team so far with players that start with an ability – Forge Father Guards starting with the Steady ability, making them impossible to knock down.
• The Skittersneak Stealers are the final team and represent the rat-like Veer-Myn. Blisteringly fast, they are however very specialised and are somewhat lacking in ball-handling skills. They actually have an easier time swiping the ball out of an enemy player’s hands than grabbing it off the floor.

The models come unpainted and unassembled, but thankfully a combination of L-shaped plugs, clever design and limiting each player to three or four pieces at the most means that you shouldn’t have much trouble putting them all together (though you may need to use photos in the rulebook for the Veer-Myn Strikers – those aren’t the best designs around). Your best bet, though, would be to get a gel-like superglue, something that’s thick and tacky enough to help hold the piece on while the glue sets. Just disregard the bit on the box saying you’ll be up and ready to play in ten minutes – you’ll only get it ready to go that fast if you put the models together with blue-tac or the like. That being said, the quality is astounding and I’m sure I’ll have some fun painting them once I get the motivation to do so.

The base game’ll set you back 50 pounds ($76.55 AU) if you buy it from the Mantic website, though an Aussie online distributor called Defiant Gaming is selling it for $70.40 at the moment and, naturally, the shipping’ll be cheaper than getting it sent all the way from England. That version’s got the rulebook, the board, the Trontek 29ers and Greenmoon Smackers (ten models each), a model for the Ref, two dreadballs (and you may need the spare – these are pretty damn small), deck of cards with various bonus actions for your players or events to trigger, bunch of dice and counters, a roster pad for League Play and 24 clear plastic hex bases for the models. You don’t need the bases for the 29ers or Smackers but it’s better to get them so that you can keep track of a model’s facing a bit easier.

There are larger versions only available on Mantic’s website that add the other two teams and various extras, but for considerably larger costs. You can find a link to the website below if you want to see the full contents of these larger versions yourself. I’ve also added an extended gameplay demonstration that omits the cards and ref and reduces the number of players on the pitch and a page on the Mantic site with a bunch of other videos from both Mantic themselves as well as videos recorded by Beasts of War during the Kickstarter explaining the later expansions. All presented by Mantic’s CEO; Ronnie Renton (who got rendered as a coach model as a Kickstarter exclusive).

Mantic Webstore: http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/DreadBall.html

Mantic Dreadball Video Page: http://www.manticgames.com/DreadBall/Videos.html

Extended Gameplay Video (also on above page): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjlVrXSbEIE

For all the useful information, click here!

– Light ‘Mech Pilot’s Handbook

Beta Impressions from ShadowFighter88

I did a news article on this a while ago but then never really touched on it.  At first, it was because there wasn’t anything new to add.  Then, I bought the Founder’s Package they were offering and got early access to the closed beta which I couldn’t talk about because of the Non-Disclosure Agreement I had to sign.  Now that the NDA’s been lifted, though, I’m free to talk about the game and give you my impressions on it.  Keep in mind that this is still a beta and things are subject to change.

For anyone who’s played any of the older Mechwarrior games, you should know what to expect – a simulation-oriented game where positioning, strategy and heat management are as important as (or more important than) being a good shot.  With the CryEngine 3 behind the game and a heavy look at the feel of the original Battletech board game, though, even veterans of the series will have some new mechanics to grasp.

But I’ll cover the basic stuff first for those not familiar with the series.  First of all, as it’s a simulator, you don’t control the mech the same way as you would a soldier in Battlefield 3.  You have to throttle your mech up and down, rather than simply an all-or-nothing movement and turn it like a tank.  Also like a tank, the top part of the mech can be rotated to face other directions, allowing it to move one way and fire in another.  Everything your mech does will generate heat, even just walking, and that is dissipated faster the more heat sinks you have but you’re bound to end up generating too much heat and risk your mech automatically shutting down to cool off.  You can override the shutdown, but continuing to run your mech hot will cause some internal damage and, at worse, cause your ammunition to start cooking off.  I don’t think I need explain why a few hundred missiles suddenly exploding inside your mech’s torso is A Very Bad Thing.

So all of those elements are in Mechwarrior Online in full, but the damage model has been further improved to match the original board game.  See, in Battletech, whenever a mech’s internal structure is damaged (typically because all the armour on that section of the mech’s been destroyed) there’s a chance of damaging something stored inside – knock out a heat sink and it’ll have a harder time managing its heat, take out a weapon and they won’t be able to use it again, hit an ammo bin and… you get the idea.  MWO has managed to replicate this and there’ll be times when one of your mech’s weapons can no longer fire, despite having ammo for it and the section it’s in still being intact.  In the older games, the only way to remove a weapon was to totally destroy that section of a Battlemech.  While it hasn’t been done yet, I would love to see this extended to the components of a mech that you can’t adjust in the mechlab – things like arm or leg actuators, sensors or the gyroscope.

One good thing about this damage model is that machine guns are now actually a danger when you’ve only got one or two of them.  Sure, they’ll still do sod-all to a mech’s armour, but get that armour out of the way first and those machine guns’ll chew through any weapons, ammo or equipment kept in that section of the mech.

Targetting has also been changed, both in the sense of a radar and locking onto enemies and in the sense of just aiming your weapons.  For radar, you won’t get them marked on your HUD unless you have line-of-sight to them, or an ally does and they’ve targeted the enemy.  This makes the early parts of a round very tense and each team tries to find the other.  While you may know where their spawn is, the maps are large enough that you never really know where the enemy’s going to come from.  This is part of their whole Role Warfare system – it’s not forced on the players, but having one or two players running light mechs to scout out the enemy is vital, especially when these scouts can target enemies and let their teammates get missile locks for long-range barrages.  Sustained LRM (Long Ranged Missiles) barrages are killer in this game, but they need target locks and they need to be maintained.  And that can’t be done unless someone on the team has line-of-sight to the target.

As for aiming, they’ve come up with an interesting system for aiming your arm weapons independently of your torso-mounted ones.  You essentially have two reticles – a circle and a cross.  The circle shows where your arms are pointed and can move more-or-less as fast as you can move the mouse.  The cross is for your torso weapons and always points forward relative to your torso.  Move the mouse aims your arms and your torso twists to follow at its own speed up to it’s maximum turn radius (based on the chassis).  It’s a surprisingly simple system and it helps that your weapon readout in the bottom-right of the screen shows which weapons are torso-mounted and which ones are on your arms.

Speaking of the weapon readout, they’ve taken a leaf out of Mechwarrior: Living Legends – a Crysis Wars mod – where you use the arrow keys and right-control to select and toggle weapons between one of six weapon groupings.  So a Centurion pilot could have is AC/10 in weapon group 1, his medium lasers in group 2 and his LRMs in group 3.  These groups are used to decide which button fires them, by default these are as many mouse buttons as you have and the number keys.  With how I’ve got it set up, I can handle about four weapon groups with my mouse (and still have a button left over for using Mumble or any other voice chat) – group 1 with the left mouse button, group 2 with the right one, 3 with the mouse wheel and 4 with one of the thumb buttons.

Now, unless you make a mech with a ludicrously-varied loadout, you won’t need more than three or four weapon groups (and at least one of those is probably going to be a situational thing like LRMs, which have a minimum range of about 100-odd metres so you could get away with just using the number key for it) and in a pinch, you might be able to bind a weapon group to mouse wheel up or down.  The weapon group system is nothing new – even the old Battletech novels that pre-date any of the video games make mention of the buttons on the command couch’s joystick working in a similar way – but the in-game setting and adjustment of them is identical to Living Legends just with a different button acting as the toggle.  Unlike Living Legends, it saves your groupings for future games so you don’t need to set it at the start of every game – just a few seconds the first time you take the mech out of the hangar and you’re good.

One other aspect of aiming that they’ve included is weapon convergence.  Basically aiming arm-mounted weapons so that they’ll hit what’s under your crosshair, fine-tuning for range, in other words.  Let’s say you’ve got an Atlas variant with a Large Laser in each arm.  You might quickly move them and fire both at an approaching enemy, but if you don’t give the weapons half-a-second or thereabouts to converge, the beams could cross infront of the mech and pass them on either side, or hit the mech’s side torso sections when you were aiming for the centre torso.  Finally, some mechs have arm designs that lack certain actuators and this affects how they aim independently of the torso.  The Catapult is a good example – its missile racks are its arms, but they cannot pivot horizontally, so along that axis they can only aim in the same direction as the torso.  They can aim up and down far quicker and further than the torso, but that’s their only direction.  The same goes for a Centurion variant that swaps out the two medium lasers and an arm actuator to beef the AC/10 up to an AC/20.  On an normal Centurion, there isn’t enough room in the arm to fit an AC/20 because of a slot taken up by one of the actuators and it’s a nice touch that the component’s removal actually effects the mech’s performance in such a tangible way.

At the moment there is only one game mode that is basically team deathmatch with no respawns.  The only change from that is that a team can win by capturing the enemy base, an area near where the team spawned and that is capped just by having mechs standing in it.  While it may sound dull and unimaginative, the unique gameplay of the mechs themselves more than makes up for it.

They move with the weight you’d expect – even the tiny Jenner and Commando have solid thuds for their 20+ ton footsteps and even they can’t turn or stop on a dime despite being the lightest and most manoeuvrable of the mechs currently in the game.  If there’s an obstacle between the weapon itself and your target, your shot will be wasted (you’d be surprised how often I’ve thought I had a clear shot, only for my lasers or autocannon to waste itself on the hill I’m using for cover) and a one-hit kill is nigh-impossible nor is it the focus of the game.  Range, positioning, teamwork and heat management are essential in this game – it’s no good you constantly overriding the auto-shutdown trying to kill an enemy only to kill yourself as your ammo cooks off.

The mention of teamwork brings me to my first complaint about the game – no native VoIP.  I believe the developers have said that they will look into native VoIP sometime after launch, but for now you have to use other programs for it which limits communicating with random pubbers you get through matchmaking to text-only.  They have done a deal Vivox for their C3 voice chat program but that looks to be little more than TeamSpeak or Mumble with a fancier interface and Steam-like friends list which, to my knowledge, still doesn’t help with the pub problem.  If it automatically creates a channel for everyone on a team who has it running, then they must have gone out of their way not to mention it anywhere because I’ve not seen hide nor hair of such a feature and checking the MWO forums has turned up something in the vicinity of “Bugger All”.  There are a few more complaints I have but I’ll come to them later.

View-wise you’re limited to a true first-person perspective – meaning you’re looking out of your pilot’s neurohelmet.  If you hold down left-control (used for aiming the arms freely without twisting the torso) you can look around inside the cockpit which have each been designed to match whichever mech you’re piloting – you won’t find a Hunchback’s cockpit being re-used for an Awesome’s.  As well as your HUD, there are other displays in the cockpit that, while not mission-critical, are handy.  In the current build, most of these haven’t been finished or implemented (simply displaying a connection error message) though I believe the one showing the status of your heat sinks, mission kills and ammo supply are working, although that last one is a touch redundant since you have an actual ammo count on your HUD.

They haven’t shied away from the pilot either – as you throttle your mech up, you’ll see his left hand push the throttle forward while every time you move the mouse, his right hand on the command couch’s joystick will follow suit.  The latter animation isn’t perfect, but since the pilot is out of view most of the time you won’t really notice.  The developers have said that they won’t be implementing a third-person perspective, so those of you hoping for one – sorry, but no dice.

The game is going to be free-to-play and the business model is reasonably straight-forward though there are one or two methods of minor abuse.  To start with, every match will earn you C-Bills which are the main currency you’ll be using most of the time as there’s a lot of stuff that you cannot buy with real money and have to use C-Bills for.  One of those is repair and rearm costs after a round.  While these aren’t crippling, they can be a pain if you’re saving up for a mech.

You’ll always earn C-Bills from a match – even a loss will give you a base amount of 75,000 which will be modified by things like salvage, whether you were using a trial or Founder’s mech and whether you have a premium account or not.  For the most part, repair and rearm will range between a couple of thousand up to around 50k or more (though it’ll easily jump up to over a million if you were using an expensive XL engine and it got destroyed in the last round).  Mechs will cost anywhere between 3.5 million and 11 million C-Bills depending on tonnage and armament (these costs are pretty much lifted straight from the board game’s backstory) though the C-Bill bonus from the trial mechs (the only ones you’ll have at the start without spending real money or having bought the Founder’s Pack) and how you don’t have to pay maintenance on them will be a great help.  Just using the four trial mechs (which are a varied selection of weight-class and combat roles) means that by the time you can afford your own mech, you’ll have an idea of what playstyle you like and can choose accordingly.

As for what your real money can be spent on, it’ll be mostly limited to buying whole mechs and some cosmetic items.  So if you want to swap out your Hunchback’s Autocannon/20 for a Gauss Rifle, you can’t buy the Gauss Rifle with real money, you have to use C-Bills.  Sure, you could spend real money on a mech that comes with a gauss rifle by default, yank it out along with any other weapons or parts you want to use then sell the chassis for C-Bills, but with how the MechLab interface is designed that’s a bit of a finicky way to do things.  Besides which, none of the weapons are game-breaking and all have drawbacks.  Gauss Rifles, for instance, are ammo-dependent (and you don’t get many shots out of one ton of ammo) and heavy, not to mention that while their ammo can’t detonate the rifle itself can and quite violently at that.  Large Lasers do more damage than Medium Lasers, but generate more heat and take longer to recharge between shots.  Just because you can use this exploit to get a lot of C-Bills doesn’t mean you’re buying power.  Everything you can add to your mech has drawbacks – even if it’s as simple as taking up space and tonnage that could be used for something else.  And even if you use this exploit, those C-Bills are still gonna have to be used on repair and rearm costs.  It’s not perfect, but there aren’t actually as many benefits to this as you’d find in other F2P titles.

I should probably mention the MechLab after mentioning it before.  Like all the other Mechwarrior titles, MWO lets you customise your mech’s loadout to a pretty significant degree – what weapons to take, where to mount them, where to put the ammo and how much, where to put heat sinks and how many of them, the amount of armour on each section of the mech… all the stuff you’d expect from a true Mechwarrior game.  In addition, heat sink placement matters just like it does in the board game – walk through water and the heat sinks in your mech’s legs will start running more efficiently but the ones in the torso will still operate normally (not unless you totally submerge the mech and none of the current maps have water deep enough for that).

The basic system feels like a hybrid of Mechwarrior 3′s “anything goes anywhere” system and Mechwarrior 4′s dedicated hardpoints with a bit of a throwback to the board game’s Critical Slot system.  You can see it in detail in a video I’ve linked at the end of the article but the short version is that, while certain sections of a mech can only mount a certain kind of weapon and a specific number of them (ie – the left torso of a Centurion CN9-A can only mount missile weapon but can have up to three missile weapons on there), you still have a Mech3-like system of actually choosing where the ammo and heat sinks go.  As well as tonnage, you’re also limited by how many slots each part of the mech has – each weapon takes up a certain number of slots and a few of these slots are taken up by parts of the mech you cannot remove, like the sensors or cockpit in the head.  So as well as tonnage and hardpoints, you also have to deal with the physical space limits inside the mech.  Each weapon and piece of equipment takes up a number of slots, to a minimum of one – a heat sink will only take up one slot while a PPC will take up 3 and an AC/20 takes up ten.

The cool thing is that there are multiple variants of the chassis’ available to buy – a CN9-A won’t have the space in it’s right arm for an Autocannon/20, but a CN9-AH does because (as I said earlier) one of the arm actuators was removed.  It also lacks the energy hardpoints in the centre torso so while the hardpoint system may seem restrictive, alternate variants of the chassis may exist with the hardpoints you want.  So let’s say you want to use an Awesome, but would rather some SRMs for close-up work.  The normal AWS-8Q doesn’t have any missile hardpoints, but if I click on the AWS-8V, I can see that it mounts an LRM 15 and has three missile hardpoints and still retains one of the 8Q’s PPCs – more than enough for some close-up missile work and still packing some long-ranged punch.  The hardpoints are shown on the buy menu so you can get an idea of what you can mount before buying it.  The system takes a little to get used to, but it works out quite well in the end, giving a lot of flexibility while still keeping a chassis’ role somewhat focussed and harking back to the board game.

Now, my complains.  I’m not going to talk about bugs – this is a closed beta, bugs are expected and I don’t want to colour your impressions by talking about a bug that could be fixed by the time you get ahold of it.  That being said, the game is rather bug-free (barring some memory allocation issues and some hiccups in the MechLab but I won’t go into those).  Thankfully my main complaint is something I believe will be addressed by launch.  In order to avoid speedhacks or the like, a lot of information is verified server-side before returning to the game.  I don’t know the specifics of it, but the main way this manifests in-game for me is about a quarter-second or so delay between clicking and any ballistic or missile weapons I’m firing to actually fire – my game sends the fire command to the server and the server works some stuff out (mostly to make sure I’m not cheating somehow) before sending the all-clear back to my game, firing the weapon.  Needless to say, when my main mech is a ballistic-focussed Hunchback or Centurion this is something of a problem, even trying to account for the lag doesn’t always work so I relish every ballistic hit I make.

Now I believe they’ve said that they’ll be setting up an Australasian server for us so that this delay disappears entirely, but at the moment it is a real nuisance and is almost driving me to loadouts with nothing but lasers and LRMs, like a Centurion CN9-AL (lasers don’t seem to be affected by the lag while LRMs will hit as long as you can maintain the missile lock, lag or no).  Only thing stopping me is because about half the games I join are on a map called Caustic Valley, which has a very high ambient temperature and exactly the sort of environment you don’t want to use a laser-heavy mech in unless you enjoy the auto-shutdown warning filling your HUD.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining about the map, I quite enjoy it – I just have enough heat management trouble as-is without making it any worse by using a laser-heavy loadout.

Beyond all of this, it’s basically your ideal Mechwarrior game where skill and strategy will trump equipment every time.  Could you take a 100-ton Atlas and wreck face with it?  Certainly, although all it proves was that the other team wasn’t working together at all or that none of the pilots capitalised on the assault mech’s slow turning speed.  Up close, a Hunchback can run in circles around the Atlas far faster than the lumbering assault mech can turn and even though the Hunchback’s only half the size of an Atlas, an AC/20 is still a smegging-huge gun that will tear bloody great holes in the Atlas’ 19 tons of armour while it has trouble even hitting the Hunchback.  Granted, urban environments like River City can make this very hard to pull off, but in that case, a smart Hunchback pilot would use the buildings and terrain to his advantage.  Breaking the Atlas’ target lock and moving to flank it from an unexpected direction, whittling it down with hit-and-run attacks or acting as a spotter for a teammate’s LRM barrage.  You could have the biggest mech with the deadliest weapons on it, but you’ll be a deadweight if you don’t know how to use it properly and how to cover its weaknesses (which is why I said that the little C-Bill exploit earlier isn’t as great a concern as it could be).

Don’t let that paragraph put you off assault mechs, though – used properly and with a bit of support from his lance-mates, an Atlas pilot is a true terror on the battlefield.  But if that pilot doesn’t pay attention to his mech’s shortcomings, he’s toast.  And if he decides to lone-wolf it off on one side of the map, he could find himself so far away from where the enemy ended up going that by the time he gets there (thanks to his mech’s ‘whopping’ top speed of 50-odd kph); his whole team is dead and will find himself facing down four or five mechs all on his own.  This is not a game for lone-wolves; teamwork is essential and that makes the lack of native VoIP even more annoying.

Still, I heartily recommend giving this a go once it’s in open beta if you’re looking for a change of pace.  Even with that lag issue, it’s a fun and hectic game – I admit it may not be to everyone’s liking, but at least give it a go; it’s free so why not?

Mechwarrior Online website:

http://mwomercs.com/

MechLab demonstration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPoqjslGcO0

The Battletech Wiki so you can see what mechs I was talking about up there:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page

A Review written by ShadowFighter

With Project Eternity going great-guns on Kickstarter, I thought I’d take a look at one of the games some of the developers worked on in the past before they formed Obsidian Entertainment.  We’re going back to the days of Troika, to when Sierra was a big-name publishing house, to the golden years of isometric RPGs.  We’re taking a look at Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura.

Arcanum starts with your character travelling aboard the IFS Zephyr, a luxury zeppelin on her maiden voyage to the city of Tarant.  While passing over a mountain range, two one-man fighter planes ambush it and shoot it down, both planes being destroyed in the process.  Stumbling from the wreckage, you come across a dying passenger, a gnome who begs you to take a ring he has and give it to ‘the boy’ before someone or something reigns destruction on “everyone and everything”.

From there, the player travels through a world in the midst of an industrial revolution where the days of magic are fading and uncovers a web of conspiracies and is caught up in an ancient prophesy.  However, this isn’t just a typical fantasy story with a coal-driven frame – while I can’t give any examples without spoilers, the writers were able to subvert a number of typical fantasy tropes in ways that still seem interesting and creative today.

The setting as a whole is very unique and I can only hope that someone gets their hands on the rights to it so we can get a sequel.  In short – it feels like your typical Tokien-esque fantasy setting advanced to the Industrial Revolution; steam engines, firearms, electric lamps, the printing press and more have been invented and not only are people preferring technology due to it being easier to use than magic, it directly interferes with magic as well.

The explanation for the magic/technology dichotomy works well too; technology achieves and effect by using the laws of physics while magic warps those laws to achieve an effect.  Hold a magical weapon up to a lightbulb (or even just get a respectably-powerful mage to stand near one) and the bulb will start to flicker erratically.  This was an example in the backstory section of the manual where it talked about this warping; normally electricity flows along the path of least resistance from highest potential to lowest, with a source of magic nearby that rule no longer applies.  Now imagine if a mage got near the engine of a steam train as it was hurtling down the rails.  You can see why mages are forced to ride in the caboose, then, huh?

Of course, it works the other way too – a sufficiently large, powerful or complex technological device will weaken magic.  Even someone with a solid understanding of physics seems to reinforce the natural laws around them.  Fire a gun at a powerful mage and there’s a decent chance it’ll at least jam, if not misfire or explode.  Similarly, try to cast a healing spell on a genius inventor or someone with a knack for technology and the spell could fizzle out.  This is represented in game by a stat called Affinity.

The more spells a person can cast, or the more technological skills they have, the more their Affinity leans to tech or magic.  This Affinity can reinforce or weaken magical or technological effects that affect the character – like the gun example I gave; if the guy using the gun doesn’t have a high Tech Affinity, then the mage has little to worry about from the gun as his Magic Affinity will overwhelm the gunman’s Tech Affinity and hamper the gun’s function.  This isn’t something the player has to manually do – your very presence or the presence of tech or magical effects is enough.  Walk into a train station and your Magical Affinity will noticeably drop just from the presence of the steam engine in the train.  There’s no clear indication of which will overpower what, but odds are that your character wouldn’t know either.

The actual character creation system is surprisingly flexible.  Once you choose your race (human, elf, half-elf, half-orc, dwarf, gnome, Halfling or half-ogre) and gender, you have a set of points to distribute between your various stats and skills as well as spells or schematics for technological devices you can craft.  Gender does play a sizeable part in Arcanum – more than most modern RPGs at least – as the writers didn’t shy away from the ugly side of Victorian culture; namely misogyny and racism.  One quest in Tarant becomes a lot more difficult if playing a female character as one of the people involved is a regular at the local gentlemen’s club (the traditional kind, like what you see on Hustle, not the strip-club kind) and, naturally, women aren’t allowed inside.  The racism is most evident by one side-quest in Tarant, involving half-orc factory workers rioting about the poor working conditions.

While simple-sounding, the sheer flexibility of the system is impressive – the only real limit to your character’s abilities is the level cap of 50.  Everything costs one point (whether you’re bumping up your Dexterity, boosting a skill or learning a new spell or schematic) and you get one point at each level, with a bonus point every five.  You do need to plan ahead somewhat as trying to be a jack of all trades is not a recommended way to play if new to the game.  Making a tech-focussed character is also a bit difficult early on, but late-game (with the right levelling choices) it can be quite powerful if you build or find the right gear.

Combat is… functional.  It’s not the best system out there but it’s far from the worst.  It can be played either turn-based, with your character’s Speed determining how much you can do in a turn, or real-time like KOTOR or Neverwinter Nights.  One problem some may have is that Dexterity is something of a God Stat – it determines how accurate you are with most weapons, affects a variety of skills, and is what your Speed is derived from.  If you just want to beat face and not bother with magic or tech, bumping Dex to absurd levels will make your character a veritable whirlwind of steel and death.  And since experience is awarded with each blow that connects, you may not feel the need for bonus damage from a high Strength seeing it as depriving you of the experience you’d get from slowly whittling the enemy down with many more strikes.

There are also some moments in the game that you will miss out on without knowing ahead of time or reloading a prior save if you missed it (and Arcanum predates autosaves being commonplace so make sure to save often).  One such incident I can advise you on – when you first go to Ashbury, head to the right of the Hostelry (it’s on the eastern side of town, near the docks) and don’t let that gnome kick the dog to death.  If you save that dog, he can join your party and is one of the deadliest melee companions in the game.  Which does raise an issue about how a normal gnome villager could kill him but I think you just need to ignore that little narrative hiccup.

The spells and tech schematics the player can access are rather varied, though there aren’t as many direct damage spells as you might expect.  Most of the spells are buffs, debuffs or summons and there’s a limit to how many persistent spells a mage can have active at one time based on their intelligence.  A sustained spell drains the caster’s fatigue slowly (if your fatigue regen is good enough, then you can keep a weaker spell up constantly – might affect talking to people if you’ve got a bunch of defensive spells active) and if a character runs out of fatigue, either by overextending themselves in melee or magic or getting the crap beaten out of them – unarmed attacks drain a lot of fatigue as well as health – then the character falls unconscious.  Naturally something you want to avoid happening.

The tech devices have a rather wide range – at low-levels you’ll be making stuff like Molotov cocktails, fixing up old pistols to be usable again and healing tinctures but near the end-game you’ll be making stuff like bullet-deflecting top hats, Tesla-coil-topped staves, steam-driven power armour, spider automatons – anything that could be described as Steampunk SCIENCE! is what a high-level tech character’s gonna be throwing together.

The quests are all very well-designed and generally have other options that aren’t immediately spelled-out to the player, but that they might think of on their own.  The rioting workers in Tarant, for instance.  The obvious paths are to either help the guard put the rioters down or side with the rioters to help them get fair working conditions.  The third option, which may require some persuasive skills for your character, is to convince the leader of the half-orc workers to sort things out peacefully in court.  And like a lot of these older games, none of the NPCs are mysteriously immortal or un-attackable.  On the other side of that coin, there are a lot of chances to smooth-talk your way out of fights.

While the game’s narrative and voice acting have held up quite well (Barry Dennen’s performance as Loghaire Thunder Stone in particular, even if his voice keeps reminding you of his later roles in Jade Empire and Dragon Age: Origins) and the visuals are still quite impressive and striking for an isometric-RPG, the actual interface seems less so.  Accessing spells through the menu is something of a pain if you’re using real-time combat but dragging them to the quick-use bar is somewhat finicky; you have to hover the icon perfectly over the quick-bar box or it doesn’t go in.  How far you can scroll the camera away from your character is based on their Perception which, while a creative use for the stat, will often have you constantly scrolling the screen as far as you can just to walk down the street.  You can use the map screen to set waypoints that your character will follow, though how far apart these waypoints can be and what constitutes an obstacle is somewhat hard to tell.  You also have to then wait for your character to physically walk along those waypoints.

Despite these issues, which are forgivable for the game’s age, Arcanum is an amazing journey through a very unique setting.  If you enjoy the use of mature themes, a deep engrossing storyline and general freedom to do whatever and go wherever you want in a game then pop over to Good Old Games and give it a go.  And if you like it, maybe think about pledging to Project Eternity and helping to bring another isometric RPG onto the market.

GOG.com’s Arcanum page:
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/arcanum_of_steamworks_and_magick_obscura

Actually the last one didn’t happen but hey it’s a pretty good episode anyway!

A Review written by ShadowFighter88

I was going to write this one up earlier, but I decided the Pathfinder review was more pertinent since I’m trying to get a campaign of that set up (check the forums for details if you want in on that, by the way).  Now with that out of the way, time to show you why I waffle on about Warmachine so much on the forums.

Warmachine, along with its sibling game Hordes, is a tabletop wargame produced by Privateer Press and I think the only thing stopping it from really rivalling Warhammer Fantasy and 40k is thanks to the latter’s brand recognition (and a sizeable head-start in the industry, of course).  The game is set in a land known as Immoren.  Many centuries ago, Immoren was about the same as most fantasy settings until the Orgoth (an empire from another continent with vastly more-powerful magic) invaded and quickly conquered the human kingdoms of the continent’s west.

As you can expect, the humans led a revolt and their success came from a number of inventions developed in secret – the first was firearms and the second was mechanika; the merging of magic and technology.  This gave rise to weapons and devices on-par with the magical items the Orgoth wielded but the largest (both figuratively and literally) invention from this rebellion was the Colossals – utterly massive humanoid machines driven by steam and controlled by magic and capable of shattering a castle wall in a single blow.  The humans drove the Orgoth away and as they further embraced the concept of mechanika, the nations of Western Immoren became known as the Iron Kingdoms.

The Colossals of old are no longer around – they were too expensive to maintain and there were too many instances where their size was more of a liability or prevented their deployment entirely.  By the time the wargame is set, the base technologies behind the Colossals has been refined and miniaturised into the modern warjacks – nine-to-twelve-foot-tall machines with a very rudimentary artificial intelligence and a body powered by a heavy steam engine and often armed with powerful mechanikal weapons or guns too heavy for infantry to use.

Controlling the warjacks are the warcasters – powerful mages able to telepathically connect with a warjack’s artificial brain, known as a cortex.  They can see through their warjack’s eyes, hear through the warjack’s ears and direct its movements with more precision than the warjack’s cortex is normally capable of.  They also often wield powerful mechanikal weapons and wear armour that enhances their magical power while using it to project a protective energy field around them.

The game itself is rather straight-forward, though Privateer’s attempt at preventing rule-bending has resulted in more than a few parts of the rulebooks or unit abilities to be a touch… overworded.  It may take a few readings of certain rules before you realise the intent of it.

While building an army list for the game lacks the unit-level customisation of other wargames, like Warhammer, this does make it a lot quicker to put a list together and also cuts down on the abilities you have to remember.  In addition, the slightly-smaller scale means that you do not need as many models for a tournament-sized list.  The lack of unit customisation also means that the easiest way to change the way a list plays – perhaps to experiment with different playstyles to find what suits you – is simply to change which warcaster you are using.

Because the warcaster is a required unit, they do not cost any points.  Instead, they give you bonus points to be spent on buying warjacks for them to control in the battle.  The warcasters are all unique, named characters with full backstories and often feature in the short stories that appear in each book for the game – the core book itself opens with a short story of Lieutenant Allister Caine, a Cygnar Warcaster, facing off against a man known as the High Reclaimer, a warcaster from the Protectorate of Menoth.  There’s more I want to say on these stories, but I’ll come back to them later.

A warcaster is often the most complex unit in the game – as well as weapons and special abilities, warcasters also have a list of spells they can cast and a once-per-game ability called a Feat, as well as an extra stat called Focus, representing their magical power.

Focus is the key mechanic of Warmachine and is one of only two rules differences between this and Hordes (the other difference being the other rules related to warjacks) and adds a resource-management element to the game.  At the start of each turn, any Focus points left over from the last turn are removed and your warcaster gets a number of Focus points equal to their Focus stat (so a warcaster with Focus 6, like Lt. Caine, would get six Focus points at the start of each turn) and then decides to either keep them to themselves – in order to fuel spells, augment their attacks or simply to boost their Armour stat in a pinch – or to allocate them to their warjacks, allowing a ‘jack to spend that Focus to do various things, like to run, charge or a variety of other effects.  Any way a warcaster can get more Focus points to use in a turn is like gold – even one more point may be all it takes to ensure a warjack’s fist deals the final blow to the enemy warcaster.

As added incentive to keep your warcaster alive, every game of Warmachine has the default win condition of “Caster Kill” – the first player to lose their warcaster loses the battle.  Even if you are using a scenario that revolves around holding terrain, these rules still come second to a caster kill.  In multi-warcaster games, where each player has two or more warcasters (something we may be seeing more of with the Unbound rules for 150+ point games), if a warcaster dies then their warjacks fall inert and another warcaster can reactivate them and add them to their battlegroup.  Regular infantry can also reactivate them, but since this doesn’t put them under a warcaster’s control, they won’t be able to get any Focus for the rest of the game.

The basics of the system are rather straight-forward – a unit can advance up to their Speed stat in inches and make an attack, can spend their whole turn running and move up to twice their Speed, or advance and use a special action if they have one available.  Attacks are 2d6 plus the attacker’s MAT (for melee attacks) or RAT (for ranged attacks) and that total has to equal or exceed the target’s Defence stat.  If it does, then the attack has hit and you roll for damage, which is 2d6 plus the weapon’s Power (as well as the attacker’s Strength if it’s a melee attack) and you then subtract the target’s Armour stat from the total of the roll to see how much damage you did.

Here’s an example – let’s say Kommander Sorscha Kratikoff, a Khador warcaster, wants to hit  a Cygnar Stormblade with her melee weapon, Frost Fang.  Sorscha has a MAT of 6 while the Stormblade has a Defence of 12, meaning she only needs to get 6 or higher with 2d6 to hit.  If she does, she then rolls for damage.  Frost Fang has a Power of 7, Sorscha’s Strength is 6 for a total of 13 (the combined Power+Strength is, thankfully, marked on a unit’s stat-card so you don’t need to work that out every time) while the Stormblade has an Armour of 15, so the damage roll is, effectively, 2d6-2 (the difference between the power of the hit and the target’s Armour).  As the Stormblade only has one damage box, though, this just means that she’ll kill the Storm Knight on any roll other than snake-eyes (that’s double-1s for those not familiar with the casino game, Craps).

The damage total only really comes into it when dealing with multi-wound models – generally very heavy infantry (like Khadoran Man-O-War units), warcasters or warjacks.  Here’s another example.  Let’s say a Cygnar Stormclad warjack is taking a swing at a Khadoran Juggernaut warjack.  Since the attack roll isn’t worked out any differently than in the previous example, we’ll just skip it and go straight to the damage roll.  The Juggernaut has an Armour of 20 while the Stormclad’s Generator Blade is at a whopping Power+Strength 19, meaning the damage roll is 2d6-1 (or just “dice minus 1” as it’s simplified to in actual gameplay).  The Cygnar player makes the damage roll and rolls a 9, meaning eight points of damage to the Juggernaut.  The Cygnar player then rolls another die to see which column of the Juggernaut’s damage grid the damage is applied to.

That’s the basics, you can find the rest in the quickstart rules (linked at the end of this review).

From there, it’s not too hard – Power Attacks like Throw and Trample are a touch tricky and sometimes Privateer’s wording can make it tricky to work out just what happens but those don’t hold up the game too much – especially if you and your opponent agree to just quickly roll a dice to decide who’s ruling to go with if you don’t want to break out the core book mid-game.

Another thing that helps is that each model for the game comes with a card, detailing all of their stats and special abilities.  These cards are just the right size to fit into those clear plastic card sleeves you see Magic:the Gathering, etc players have in their binders for storing their cards.  Which is handy as you’ll often be marking the cards to track damage and a whiteboard marker can quickly be wiped off said sleeves with your finger so you don’t write on the card itself.

Privateer also take game balance very seriously – or at least seriously enough that we haven’t gotten any Matt Ward-style game-breaker units.  Even the upcoming colossals have been kept balanced by only giving them Armour values that are about the same as most heavy warjacks; making them something akin to giant Glass Cannons – they can dish it out, but can’t quite take it (though they do have almost twice the damage boxes of most heavy warjacks so while they aren’t much harder to damage, they are harder to actually destroy).  And unlike a certain other company, they do not update their armies one at a time, but add new units to each army all at once in expansion books as well as periodically releasing new models long before the book they are planned for is done – their inclusion of statcards making this a viable (and very welcome) way to quickly add new units to the game while making all of the books, bar the core book, optional purchases.

And while they may be optional, the faction books and expansions are well-worth getting – full-colour artwork and brilliantly-written short-stories fill these books as well as background info on every unit within the covers.  A nice touch is that the writers don’t ignore the game mechanics as they write and an astute reader can tell exactly what spell or feat or ability a character in the story is using at any given time but describing it more in a way that you won’t recognise the specific ability until you’ve read it in the unit’s stats or on their card making it a seamless blend of narrative and mechanics.

As to the models themselves – while there are still a few bad eggs, the quality on the whole is phenomenal.  Particularly on the resin-plastic models they’ve been using in the starter boxes and that a lot of warjacks (and even some heavy infantry) are being converted to.  Unlike Games Workshop’s Finecast (which didn’t come out until after Privateer started using resin-plastic), there haven’t been any problems with quality control and I have yet to find a single air bubble, piece of excessive flash or warped piece in any of the resin-plastic models I have.  The only flaws have been some bent pieces, like swords or polearms, but these are easily fixed by simply dipping the part into hot water for a couple of seconds to soften it up, holding it straight and then dipping it into cold water to set the new shape.  There is also plenty of detail, both on newer metal models and the resin-plastic ones – warjacks made from the latter not only have the pressure gauges moulded onto their boilers but even the needle inside that gauge!

There isn’t much in the way of alternate parts for a model – you can’t swap out an existing weapon to replace it with a new one  like in Warhammer so kits tend to have just the pieces for what you see on the box-art and that’s it, but the good news is that if you break a piece or need a specific part from another kit then you can order exactly what part you need from Privateer Press’ online store.  This should save some of you modellers out there a lot of trouble.

Along the same lines, pose-ability is rare in Privateer’s models – the closest they come is the arms and waists of the resin-plastic warjacks (and light ‘jacks mostly miss out on the pose-able waist) while everything else uses L-shaped plugs to fit together.  Which, I suppose, is handy for a warjack’s legs and helps ensure that the feet are going to be flush with the base and give you plenty of contact for glue but does make it hard to give something a dynamic pose.  That being said, a bit of creativity can go a long way with what little pose-ability there is – Andy over on Beasts of War did some build videos for the two-player starter box for Warmachine and gave the Khador Juggernaut and Menite Vanquisher some very impressive poses using just the waist and arms (I’ve linked these two videos at the end of the review as well).

Some models are in need of a re-sculpt.  Off the top of my head, the ones I can think of are the Cygnar Stormblades (two were alright to put together, two were annoying and the last was a pain in the ass with a ridiculous pose) and the Cygnar Black 13^th Gun Mage Strike Team, who were accidentally cast at the 28mm scale instead of the 30mm scale, resulting in the three of them looking about a whole foot shorter than everyone else.  There are definitely others (I’ve heard complaints about one Cryx infantry unit but can’t remember which one) but the vast majority of Warmachine models are incredible.

A handy thing for any of you thinking about conversions is that all of the line-of-sight elements of the rules are based on the model’s base.  Unlike the True Line-of-Sight that a lot of wargames are using, Warmachine simply relies on you being able to trace a straight line from any part of the attacker’s volume to the target’s and this volume is based on the model’s base-size – length and depth are both the same as the base itself while height is determined by the base-size; small-based models are considered to be 1.75” tall, mediums are 2.25” and large-based models are 2.75” tall.  Battle Engines and Colossals (which are mounted on Huge-sized bases) are considered large enough to always be in line-of-sight regardless of any intervening terrain.

How this works out for modellers is that they can mount their models on whatever scenic details they like, as long as the base can still be seen well-enough for measuring weapon and movement ranges and that they don’t have to worry about making it tall enough to constantly get shot at (which is why you don’t see many jump infantry units in Warhammer 40k mounted on flying stands anymore since the game started using True Line-of-Sight – they would constantly be above cover and sitting ducks for the enemy).  And before you ask, no; you can’t mount them on a different-sized base – the base size is listed on the stat card.  Besides which there is a semi-standard convention for what models are on what-sized base – light and medium infantry goes on small-bases, heavy infantry and light warjacks go on medium-bases, heavy warjacks and cavalry go on large-bases and Battle Engines and Colossals are too bit to fit on anything less than a huge-sized base.  So if you turn up to a game with Karchev the Terrible somehow squeezed onto a small-base so he can use his ‘jacks to block line-of-sight to him then someone’s gonna be calling shenanigans on you.

So far, there are six factions for Warmachine and it’s doubtful that any more will be added (no more room in the Iron Kingdoms, unless Privateer bring back the Orgoth).  The technologically-advanced Cygnar are the faction I use – pioneers in mechanika and boasting a vast array of electrical mechanikal weapons as well as the only warjack in the game not driven by a steam engine; the Thunderhead (granted, most of the prototypes for it exploded spectacularly, but the final version is a sign of what can be done with voltaic energy).

Khador are best thought of as Magic Russia – a cold northern nation who’s rank-and-file troops go into battle wielding blunderbusses, axes and wearing ushankas.  They believe in big armour, big guns and steamrolling their way over their enemies – Khador are the only faction that lacks light warjacks and, while their ‘jacks may be the slowest out there, are also the most heavily armoured and are very good at delivering their axes to their enemies’ faces.

The Protectorate of Menoth are a desert-dwelling theocracy (that’s a government run by the church, by the way) who’s god is as brutal as Old Testament God if he wasn’t taking anger management classes and had a touch of pyromania (no, not that Pyromania).  The Protectorate’s forces employ a variety of flame weapons and can send out special priests to help guide the souls of their soldiers to the afterlife and using the resulting energy to bolster the faithful who are still living.  Aside from the fire, the Protectorate is an army that uses a lot of synergy – combining the abilities of various units to let the whole force fight better than the sum of its parts.

Cryx are the Bad Guys – an evil necromantic nation on the isles to the west of Immoren’s coastline, many of their warcasters are known as Iron Liches; like the traditional lich of fantasy gaming, but where all but their skull has been replaced with a steam-driven body.  They manipulate the souls of their enemies and, while their warjacks are more fragile than those of other nations, they possess a large variety of tricks to either outmanoeuvre or simply debilitate their enemy before closing in for the kill.  A ruthless nation of scavengers and pirates, they can hit hard and typically outnumber the enemy (and that’s not counting any fallen enemy troops they reanimate to fight for them).

The Retribution of Scyrah are the new boys – added relatively recently with the MkII edition of the rules (the current edition), the Retribution are a religious faction from the elven nation of Ios and their warjacks (which they insist on calling ‘myrmidons’) run on pure arcane energy instead of steam, with most using a powerful forcefield to make up for a fragile (but not lightly armoured) frame.  The elves can fill a variety of army types – glass cannons and unstoppable walls of armour are both equally possible though most have some way of ignoring parts of the line-of-sight rules while being very good at battlefield control; able to move enemy units around to better suit their own positioning or simply limiting enemy movement.

The sixth faction, Mercenaries, is very broad, representing freedom-fighting refugees from the Khador-conquered nation of Llael, to conventional mercs, to pirates or the forces of the dwarven nation of Rhul, there’s bound to be a style of Merc army that suits you.  In addition, every Mercenary unit can be included in the armies of at least two of the other factions – Greygore Boomhowler and his band of trollkin mercs can be included in armies for Khador, Cygnar and Cryx (as well as offering their services to Trollblood armies in Hordes) while the elite sniper, Kell Bailoch, will only work for Khador and the Protectorate.

If you’re looking at getting into wargaming, see if anyone at the local store (or at least one that’s easy for you to get to if you live in a big city) plays Warmachine or Hordes.  Obviously, it’s not worth picking this up if no-one else plays unless you’re trying to drum up interest, but if there are a few other WarmaHordes (the fan-made name for referring to both games at once) players in the area, definitely consider grabbing one of the starter boxes.  If you’re a Warhammer player getting put off by the drive for larger-scale battles and the annual price-hikes, then you might be best served by switching over to Warmachine if you can find other players for it.

In the end, it all comes down to two things – does anyone nearby play it (an important question for any wargame) and do you like the idea of steam-driven magic robots beating the crap out of each other and throwing people and each other around the battlefield?  If the answer to both of those questions is yes, then go get a starter box.  Seriously, go; why are you still sitting there reading this?

Quickstart rules:

http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/the-game

Andy’s Build Videos

Juggernaut:

http://www.beastsofwar.com/warmachine/warmachine-2-player-starter-box-building-khador-juggernaut/

Vanquisher:

http://www.beastsofwar.com/warmachine/warmachine-building-menoth-warjack/

Yes, free.  Not free as in torrents, not free as in illegal scans, free as in the publishers genuinely wanting to get it to as many people as they can despite the risk to their profits.  There are two System Reference Documents on the web – one on Paizo Publishing’s own website and a larger one that incorporates third-party content, simply called the Pathfinder d20 SRD.  These’ll also be linked at the end of the review.  The only parts of the game that aren’t free are their published adventures, namely their Adventure Path line which puts out two whole campaigns a year and has been doing so for almost five years now.  All of the gameplay mechanics as well as info on their campaign setting – Golarion – are freely available.

So what are these gameplay mechanics?  Well if any of you have played Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 or any computer games that used the basic system (namely both Neverwinter Nights games and the Knights of the Old Republic games), then you should already have a pretty good handle on Pathfinder since it started as a tweaked version of DnD 3.5 made for those who were less-than-impressed with DnD 4^th Edition.

In short – just about every dice roll in the game apart from damage is based on a twenty-sided dice, a d20 for those not familiar with dice shorthand.  You simply roll the dice, add on relevant modifiers and hope that the total beats a target number called a Difficulty Class (or the target’s Armour Class in the case of an attack roll).  Beyond that, the difficulty comes in how spells interact, more complex actions like mounted combat or grappling and the odd class feature (the debates on when a Paladin has violated their code of conduct could fill an entire university server room – although that may be from most of them devolving into the dreaded Alignment Debate).

Like practically every edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder characters are very class-based (as opposed to point-based like characters from Shadowrun or most of White Wolf’s games) – almost all of their abilities will be derived from the class they chose.  That being said, each class still has plenty of flexibility – whether it’s a Wizard’s spell selections, a Rogue’s choice of rogue talents or equipment, or how a Fighter turns the enemy into bite-sized chunks.  Part of this is inherited from it’s parent game – skill and feat choices being very varied and allowing plenty of different ways to build a character – but Paizo added a few of their own ways to go about things, the biggest of which are alternate racial traits and class archetypes.

Now, both of these are optional so feel free to skip this paragraph if you don’t want to bother with them.  Both alternate racial traits and class archetypes basically swap out certain abilities of your chosen race or class and replace them with a different ability.  For instance, a Human character could swap out their free bonus feat with a bonus on Sense Motive checks and, if they have an animal companion or the like, can boost one of their companion’s/familiar’s/etc’s ability scores.  Archetypes are things like the Drunken Master for the Monk or the Swashbuckler for the Rogue – both change certain class features and, as a result, change how the class plays.  None of them are game-breaking, though I’d advise you to avoid the Drunken Master and the Spellslinger (a Wizard archetype that gives them a gun and abilities related to combining their firearm and spells) – both are notably weaker than the base class and may not be worth it (ask in the planning thread for my campaign if you want to know why).

There are a number of big changes from 3.5, many of them for the better.  I won’t go into how spells were changed since that’d make this review several times longer than it needs to be, but many class abilities were either nerfed or at least tweaked to both avoid game-breaking power and to streamline the system.  For instance, the Druid’s Wild Shape ability (a power that lets them turn into animals) in 3.5 had the character take on much of the animal’s stats, though was very unclear on how an altered Constitution score would affect the Druid’s hit points.  Nevermind the fact that you would often have to grab the Monster Manual and flip through to find the animal you were using and generally slowing the whole game down for everyone.  The Pathfinder Druid, however, now simply adds bonuses and penalties to their base scores and some special abilities if the form has any (obviously, turning into a parrot would get you the ability to fly) – the bonuses are based on the creature’s size rather than their build.  So while this does mean that turning into a dire wolf makes you just as strong as a gorilla, it’s enough of an abstraction to cover the ability’s intent without making things needlessly complex.

One buff the system got over it’s parent system, and one I particularly like, is that cantrips – the weakest level of spells in the game – now are not expended when used, unlike higher-level spells.  If a Wizard prepares Light at the start of the day, he can cast that as many times as he likes, unlike in 3.5 where he would’ve had to prepare it as many times as he thought he’d be using it that day.  At low levels, this means that spellcasters can still throw out weak damage spells without having to rely on a crossbow or other weapon while at higher levels means that they won’t have to worry about basic utility spells.

On the subject of the spellcasting classes, the Sorcerer and Wizard both got actual class features this time around.  In 3.5, the Wizard just got a familiar, a feat that let them scribe their own spell scrolls and a bonus spellcasting feat every five levels while all the sorcerer got was the familiar at level one and that was it.  Now, Wizards can take either a familiar or a bonded item (which gives them a once-a-day ability to cast any spell from their spellbook without preparation) and their choice of specialist school gives them additional abilities – a Transmutation specialist, for example, get a free bonus to any one physical ability score and can change which score it applies to when they prepare their spells, can launch an invisible telekinetic fist at enemies and, at eighth level, gain a weaker version of the Druid’s Wild Shape ability.

Sorcerers got something similar, but rather than a specialisation, it’s more a potential origin for their spellcasting abilities – one might have daemonic ancestry that reflects itself in their magic, or maybe draconic or even some connection with alien beings beyond the stars (and by alien beings I mean alien as in Cthulhu, not alien as in Turian).  This choice of Bloodline grants an extra Class Skill (a skill that your character has a natural inkling towards), a series of bonus feats to choose from, bonus spells the character knows, a bonus to certain types of spells and a series of powers that are unlocked as the character rises in level.  The Aberrant Bloodline, for example, (the Cthulhu one) grants some interesting powers – the signature one being long limbs that extend the Sorcerer’s reach for spells that have to be delivered by touch.  At their highest point, this power lets the Sorcerer’s arms stretch out to 15 feet… which would be an interesting sight, certainly.

The Sorcerer Bloodlines are probably my favourite part of the system as they can provide a lot of flexibility and flavour to the class.  But one other change that was very well-received was the introduction of a new mechanic called the Combat Manoeuvre Bonus.  In 3.5, the specific bonuses you’d use for things like a bull rush, a trip, a disarm, a grapple or whatever all had to be worked out more-or-less on the fly every time you wanted to use it.  The Combat Manoeuvre Bonus in Pathfinder was, basically, working out most of the modifiers to those actions ahead of time.  Now, to disarm someone, you basically make an attack roll with your Combat Manoeuvre Bonus versus the target’s Combat Manoeuvre Defence.  A drawback of how the mechanic was handled does, however, mean that these actions are slightly less-likely to succeed, but at least they’re easier to work out so you might end up using them more frequently.

With the mechanics being available for free, I feel I should talk a bit about the setting Paizo have written for their game.  Now, the setting’s totally optional and Paizo actively try to keep their core books (the main Core Book, Gamemastery Guide, as well as Ultimate Magic and Ultimate Combat and the Bestiaries) totally setting-neutral.  So if you wanted to try and port over the races and classes from Eberron and run a campaign there, then there’s nothing to stop you aside from the effort.

For the most part, Golarion is your typical fantasy world but with plenty of twists to make it unique.  Small things like the elves having almost monochromatic eyes or gnomes undergoing a fatal process called Bleaching if they stop getting new, vivid experiences or large ones like how the first human civilisation was actually uplifted by aberrant monsters for their own purposes who then dropped a meteor on them when they were not longer required or that the elves retreated through a portal to another planet to avoid the devastation of said meteor.  At least one god actually got the job by accident – he undertook the Test of the Starstone while on a drunken bender and woke up a few days later as the god of Freedom, Ale, Wine and Bravery.  Prophecy also is no longer trusted in Golarion when Aroden, the god of Humanity, was prophesied to return but on the day he was supposed to appear, died instead.  With a prophesy of that scale falling flat on its face, what chance does any other prophesy have?

On the whole, the setting actually has a much darker feel than your average fantasy setting – not helped by many of Paizo’s writers and staff being fans of H.P. Lovecraft.  It’s not taken to the degree of GrimDark, ala Warhammer, but the setting and Adventure Paths both have a more mature feel to them than most of the settings for DnD but they are careful to remind DMs to keep their group’s comfort level in mind; after all, squicking out your players is never a good idea unless you know that they’ll like it.

Technology is also a touch more advanced in Golarion than the fantasy-norm; the printing press for a start has been around for a while and the magic anomaly-filled nation of Alkenstar in the Mana Wastes has developed flintlock firearms in response to how unreliable magic is in the Wastes.  Astronomy has also advanced to the point that they know that Golarion revolves around the sun and that there are many other planets in their star system – said planets and their inhabitants got a fair amount of detail in the Distant Worlds setting book.

Each country in the Inner Sea Region (the part of the world that’s gotten the most focus) feels unique and has their own feel and tone.  From the Romani-style Varisians to the Renaissance Italy feel of Cheliax right over to the techno-barbarians of Numeria or the god-shunning nation of Rahadoum, you’re bound to find at least one country you like the look of.

Despite how willing they are to merge science-fiction elements into the setting (like the crashed starship scattered across Numeria or magical portals leading to other planets) they are aware that it’s something of a touchy subject and that there are at least as many fans of the combination as there are detractors – they are slowly testing the water with this through the aforementioned Distant Worlds book, as well as a Numeria-related novel and the Shattered Star Adventure Path which starts this July.  Paizo want to do something more with Numeria and other sci-fi elements but won’t progress until they see how well-received these experiments are.  If you don’t like the idea of planetary portals or a nation covered in pieces of a crashed starship, these are easy to write out of your version of the setting.

Now that the praise is out of the way, there are some problems with the system, many of which were inherited from DnD 3.5.  For a start – spellcasters (namely full spellcasting classes like the Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer and Wizard) after about 7^th or 8^th level do have the potential to become very powerful with the right combination of spells, feats and magical items and that melee classes tend to have very few options in combat (other than the aforementioned combat manoeuvres, it pretty much boils down to which guy you want to hit with your sword).  That being said, the problem’s been around that long thanks to it also existing in DnD 3^rd Edition that forum topics about the problem are probably a dime a dozen if you can find the right words to put in the search and you’re bound to find an answer to the problem eventually.  One I’ve heard a few times is that the spellcasters focus on augmentative spells to buff the party for the fight and throwing out the odd battlefield control spell like Wall of Fire or Grease.  This way, they contribute to the fight and give the other players their chance to shine as well.

Failing that, you can try and port content from DnD 3.5 over to Pathfinder to close the gap – personally I recommend the Tome of Battle; it did a great job bringing melee almost up to par with magic (at least where the gap wasn’t as much of a problem) without being game-breaking.  Now if only Wizards had actually gotten the errata for it right instead of having only half-a-page before a production error turned it into a reprint of the Complete Mage errata (which they never fixed due to 4e’s release).

It’s also easy to be overwhelmed by indecision sometimes thanks to the sheer number of feats, spells and equipment in the game.  This is pretty much the only reason I find character build handbooks for the game – to narrow my choices down and direct me towards some of the useful ones.  I don’t always take the best option that they recommend, but it does tell me which choices to avoid and why.  Although sometimes this indecision, and the subsequent wandering around the SRD for what else to take can lead to some interesting ideas – like a Wizard I made once who was also a bit of a knife-thrower and had a wrist-sheath holding yet another knife.

Despite its faults, Pathfinder is a excellent game backed by an awesome company and many of the people who work at Paizo often post on their forums to answer questions or concerns.  Their willingness to release the rules for free (along with much of the setting information thanks to the Pathfinder Wiki) and general support of the community have done more for the company than nearly any other RPG publisher can claim.  And despite the rules being free, both their PDFs and print books have amazing production quality and brilliant art from a variety of artists – the main one being Wayne Reynolds (who also did the cover of the DnD 4e Player’s Handbook and several other DnD books and a fair few Magic the Gathering cards – just stick his name into a Google Image search) who’s art has adorned the covers of all of the Pathfinder core books and who drew the portraits for each class’ Iconic character.

For those who played DnD 3.5 and weren’t a fan of what Wizards did with 4e, I heartily recommend Pathfinder.  If you don’t like 4e’s focus on combat or just never tried a fantasy RPG, I’d still give Pathfinder a go.  If the magic/melee disparity annoys you, then feel free to skip it.  If you’ve never tried RPGs at all, it might be worth a go – it’s not like you’ll be wasting money if you just use the SRD.

Paizo Publishing website: www.paizo.com

Paizo’s own SRD (core books only): http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/

Full SRD (includes third-party content + feats, spells, etc from printed adventures and setting books): http://www.d20pfsrd.com/

Pathfinder Wiki: http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/

Planning thread for my Rise of the Runelords campaign: http://www.thebohage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=783

Also, there was a JIMMAAH as our guest this week! How exciting!

Review written by ShadowFighter

With the success of the Kickstarter program for a new video game, as well as a browser-based one on the way, I thought I’d do a review on the current edition of the pen-and-paper RPG that spawned them; Shadowrun.

The game’s in its fourth edition now and the release of the 20^th Anniversary Edition of the core rulebook (which is the book this review is focussing on) brought in a few more changes to refine things.  Of course, Catalyst Game Labs were courteous enough to release a separate, freely-downloadable PDF that listed the changes from the original 4e book, meaning those who didn’t want to shell out for a new core book for, relatively, few changes didn’t have to.

So, what is Shadowrun?  The quickest way to describe it is to take a dystopian, cyberpunk future, like what you’d find in Blade Runner or Deus Ex, and throw in all kinds of fantasy elements; magic, spirits, elves, dwarves, trolls, even dragons.  Magic returned to the world in 2012, at the end of the Mayan calender in the latest moment of an eternal cycle.  The state of the world totally changed – Japan once more became an Imperial state, the US and Canada have split apart into many different nations (same thing happened to China but on a much larger scale), Ireland is now an elven nation called Tír na nÓg, Tehran got wiped off the map by a dragon after the ruling ayatollah called for a jihad against all Awakened (mages) and Australia’s become an even more lethal place than it already is.  At least in the real world we don’t need to worry about constant mana storms covering most of the continent.  A dragon was also briefly president of the United Canadian and American States for about ten hours before being killed by a bomb in his limo.

Shadowrunners themselves, what the game assumes you are playing as (though there is plenty of scope for other styles of game), are deniable corporate assets.  What that means is, when a corporation wants to make a hit on another one – steal a research project, an employee or maybe just something to drive the rival corp’s stocks down for a potential buy-out at a later date – they hire a team of shadowrunners.  The person who does so is referred to as Mr Johnson and, typically, will not be intending on the shadowrunners learning his identity.  The ‘deniable’ part about a shadowrunner and a Johnson’s anonymity are so that the hiring corp isn’t linked to the ‘runners’ illegal actions.  Not that such accusations would harm one of the megacorps, like Saeder-Krupp or Ares Macrotechnology, but they’d rather avoid the hassle.

Part of why Shadowrun isn’t as well known as some other RPGs is probably because it’s such a strange combination – science-fiction with fantasy – and that combination just rubs people the wrong way or they find it a bit nonsensical.  Personally, I find it refreshing – fantasy and sci-fi books, games, films and so on are a dime a dozen, combinations like Shadowrun, that do something new with either genre are a lot rarer.  And hell, what was Star Wars if not a sci-fi setting with a few fantasy tropes added?

Another reason may also be from the general tone of a run.  Basically, if you turn the place into the set of a Michael Bay film, you’re either acting as a distraction for another team or something’s gone horribly wrong.  The corps of Shadowrun are almost nations unto themselves (the really big ones even have extraterritorialty – making their land, legally, a separate country like the grounds of an embassy) and can easily bring in troops and firepower that would make SWAT teams look like rednecks with old shotguns.  Not to mention that the more damage a shadowrunner does to a corp, the more resources they’re willing to put towards getting payback.  Leave their employees alive and keep the repair bill down and they won’t put in as much effort as if you left the place splattered in blood and corpses and so badly damaged it’ll collapse from a strong sneeze.

A lot of a ‘run’s success is determined in the prep-work and planning the team does beforehand.  So typically, a shadowrun is more like Ocean’s Eleven than The Matrix.  As one person put it; “A standard mission is 20 minutes of objectives, three days of planning, and 600 seconds of mayhem.”

There are no classes in the game, with character-creation being entirely point-based.  However, there are several character types one can fit into. 

Faces are the smooth-talkers, they’ll be the ones haggling with the Johnson about the pay, trying to fast-talk some info out of a receptionist at the target location – if it involves charisma or an ability to lie with the best of them, it’s the Face’s job.

Magicians are your magic users and can fill a variety of roles, from using astral projection and watcher spirits to do recon or lookout work, to bringing the heavy weapons in the form of a searing fireball or bolt of lightning.  They also have access to healing spells, which will come in handy once the drek hits the fan.

Adepts can generally take on any roll that doesn’t involve hacking or spell-slinging.  These guys focus their magic internally, enhancing their body.  While most adepts turn out as supernatural fighters or gunslingers, some turn their abilities to smooth-talking.  A Face can just as easily be an adept as he could be using cyber or bioware instead.

Hackers should be pretty self-explanatory – if you need a security system disabled, data yanked out of a server or just sending false alarms to distract security, these are the guys to do it.  Technically there are two kinds of hackers, conventional hackers who use programs either bought or self-made and various cyberware to help them, and technomancers, mysterious individuals capable of accessing the Matrix purely with their minds.  In practice, technomancers are more flexible, able to spontaneously create programs the moment they’re needed, while hackers are more powerful when they know what to expect.

Riggers are similar to hackers and can also be technomancers, but instead of focussing their skills on breaking into secured networks, they concentrate on running vehicles and drones, using a full VR interface to effectively become the vehicle or drone.  This interface lets them feel as though the vehicle is their body and can drive far better than someone driving the old-fashioned way.

Street samurai are fighters who have focussed on being the best in a fight.  Either with cyberware or bioware (combined with good-old training and experience) a street sam is an absolute nightmare in a fight, either landing perfect shots with smartlink-enhanced firearms or carving through the enemy with melee weapons (which may even be built into their bodies).  Needless to say, these guys will want to get friendly with the team’s hacker to make sure the firewall on his ‘ware is as tough as it can be.

That’s not a definitive list of what sort of character you can make in the game, but they are the most common.

The mechanics are somewhat streamlined, at least compared to earlier editions.  Every action – from shooting a gun, picking a lock, summoning a spirit or hacking that street samurai’s cyberarm so it starts punching him in the face while spamming his cybereyes with augmented-reality windows saying “Stop hitting yourself!”is all done with the same core mechanic.  You take a relevant Attribute, add on the relevant skill, throw in any other modifiers that are pertinent and then roll that many d6s and count how many rolled a 5 or a 6.  So let’s say a character wants to fire a pistol; you’d take his Agility, add on his Pistols skill, then add or subtract any other modifiers (low visibility, target in cover, bonuses from sights, etc) and roll that many six-sided dice.  If you roll more 5s and 6s than your opponent (who’s going to be rolling his Reaction Attribute) then you hit him.  Anyone familiar with White Wolf’s Storyteller system will feel right at home with this.

This change may rub some Shadowrun veterans the wrong way, as in earlier editions hermetic mages and shamans used two different sets of rules for their magic.  Now, they both use the same system with only minor mechanical differences.  Personally I think they’re making a mountain out of a molehill – with how magic works in the setting no-one knows for certain if all magic comes from the same source or not and the disagreements between mages and shamans still exist.  Its now just been made mostly flavour instead of mechanics.  What’s more, the new system allows players to make their own magical traditions and the book includes rules for doing so, while the Street Magic supplement added more pre-made traditions to the game.

One other thing with Shadowrun, and one that can cause some ‘splitting-the-party’ problems, is that it effectively occurs over three different worlds.  The first is the real world, obviously, while the other two are the Matrix and the Astral.

The Matrix is the system that replaced the internet after a powerful virus crashed the latter and was originally designed as an entirely virtual-reality based system.  When that too crashed to stop a rogue AI from becoming a digital god, the Matrix 2.0 was set up instead.  The Matrix basically takes the modern-day trend of wireless interconnectivity and smartphones, then injects it with every performance-enhancing drug known to man (and a few that aren’t) – every electronic device, from the aforementioned cyberarm right down to your damn toaster, has a wireless component that connects it to the Matrix.  For most people, their interaction with the Matrix is limited mostly to augmented-reality – basically like the heads-up-display in most current video games, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the new Syndicate game are good examples of this – with the odd bit of VR for total immersion games or other entertainment.  For hackers, AR is an everyday tool or for quick, on-the-fly hacking that they need to do right now, while VR is where their skills truly shine, no longer slowed down by their meat body.

The Astral is the realm of spirits and a mage projecting themselves into it can let their spirit travel at the speed of thought, while their meat body lies unconscious wherever they left it.  In this way, a mage could travel from Seattle to Berlin in the blink of an eye and chat with another mage who just left Shanghai.  It can also let them see any magical defences a place has or if there are any spirits lingering around.  Even just the state of the astral space in the area can be examined.

Now, while both are nice touches to the setting, they do present a GM with some problems.  Namely that, while the hacker is in VR hacking his way through a computer system, it’s pretty much a solo-run for him with the other players left twiddling their thumbs until the hacker’s done.  The actual specifics of hacking are also a little more complex than they need to be while Astral combat does not get a whole lot of info in the book.  Fortunately, both Astral and cybercombat use the same core mechanics as conventional combat (so security programs can suffer wound penalties to reflect damaged code) so the rest can be fudged by the GM.  The book mentions that additional rules for both are in the optional core sourcebooks Street Magic and Unwired (I’ll let you guess which rules are in which book) but this review’s just focussing on the 20^th Anniversary core book.

Speaking of those core supplements, the book mentions these now and again as a place to find expanded rules on something or whole new stuff, with sidebars saying what you can find in them.  The index in the back doesn’t just limit itself to the core book either, but includes page references to the core book and all of the core supplements; Street Magic, Augmentation, Arsenal, Unwired and Runner’s Companion.  These aren’t necessary to play, but all help flesh out both the setting and add to what the players (or GM) can use.  The expanded index also helps for anyone who already had the books, too – unless, like me, you have the PDF version of the Anniversary book.  I don’t know if it’s just my computer or what, but the index pages always seem to take ages to load for me, making it hard to just flip through and find what I need.

The sections on combat have handy tables listing the various modifiers as well as what both the attacker and defender roll, but these weren’t compiled anywhere as a sort-of quick reference page which is something I would have liked to see.  That being said, if you’ve got a physical copy of the book it can be easily fixed with a couple of small post-it notes sticking out of the pages like bookmarks or for PDF owners just a small notepad document with a list of page references.

There’s plenty of setting info in the core book showing how the world ended up the way it is in the game and each chapter is opened with a short story and accompanying artwork.  Hell, the artwork as a whole in the book is great, with one or two exceptions (the poses in a piece on the edge of page 157 in the section on melee combat just look ridiculous).  The portraits for the Bounty Hunter, Face and Weapons Specialist example characters are particularly well-done (the last one in particular – not often you see and elf girl packing that much firepower and still looking entirely professional), although a couple, like the Occult Investigator, could’ve used a bit more detail on the face.

One word of warning to anyone wanting to run a game of Shadowrun in the future – ban technomancers for at least the first few sessions, possibly longer.  Their ability to access the Matrix without any electronics and effectively spin programs on-the-fly isn’t game-breaking, but it is very complex and newer Shadowrun players should either avoid making a technomancer or be willing to do one-on-one sessions so that you and your GM can figure out how they work.  They are not for beginners.  That being said, the fear and prejudice many people still have against technomancers in the setting (one overblown rumour saying that they can hack into your brain – no truth to it but when the public is scared of something…) can make for an interesting character.

Also, be ready for mages to do a little too well early on; while they may not have access to every spell for the job like wizards in DnD 3.5 did, a mage can throw out some serious mojo if he took a power focus or two during character creation – these can let him maintain a spell almost indefinitely.  Also, keep in mind that a mage can only have one unbound spirit summoned at any one time – unbound spirits are the ones quickly summoned up on-the-spot and don’t need a fancy ritual.  I read on a forum recently about someone’s first go at the system and the team’s shaman stole the show by throwing out huge numbers of wolf spirits because both he and the GM had forgotten about this limit.

So to finish off – if you want an RPG that’s a bit different to what else is out there with an interesting and engrossing setting, mostly straight-forward mechanics and the chance to do drive-bys with magical fireballs from a car being controlled by a neural link to a dwarf, give Shadowrun a look.  You can find free quick-start rules at the link below if you want to try-before-you-buy.  You can also find a primer about the pre-4e setting on the Harebrained Schemes website (they’re the ones making Shadowrun Returns).  I’ve added a link for that as well.

Main website (with quick-start rules):
http://www.shadowrun4.com/

Harebrained Scheme’s Shadowrun Primer:
http://harebrained-schemes.com/shadowrun/primer/

This one’s hitting you from all the way back in the 25th of September 2011!

Were you a guest? Did you miss one of them? Do you want to see how awesome we all used to be back in the day?

References to pop culture of yesteryear! Comrade Alexei showing up! Actual guests!

Anyway, check out the podcasts tab or click here!

I’ve got a hell of a backlog but I’ll do my best!

Features a ton of people and it was actually a really fun episode yadayada, have fun!

Outline:

- This ladder is a 4v4 Rush.
- Any outsider can join – Invite your friends.
- Squad Leader of each team must set time with other leader on when they will play each other. (I will be giving access to server back-end to leaders)
- Each week you will be told who you are versing and what map everyone will be playing.
- Each team will play once attacking and once defending, the team who armed the most points wins.
- Each team leader should take a picture of end game score board on both attack and defence.

Rules:

- No using any glitches and exploits.
- Vehicles off.
- Kill Cam off.
- 3D Spotting off.

Submit Your Team Here:

http://www.thebohage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=714

Pre-game:

- Team Leaders talk to each other and set date for match.
- One of the leaders starts up server with the correct settings.

During Game:

- Take a screen shot at the end of each game.

After Game:

- Upload picture and score (mcoms taken) to the submission thread.

The 1.6GB BF3 patch has arrived! With the all new (Bf2 had it) commo rose! And better gun balances.

Its time to reconfigure all your guns and figure out your favourite combinations! Time to throw out the AEK and IN with the F2000!

As you can see in the below picture, Battlelog is updating right now and soon (if not already – if you are reading this after the update) be able to download onto your computer!

Here is the full list of updates:

FIXES FOR PC SERVER OPERATION

• Having the same map occur multiple times in the maplist now works properly
• If adding a new map to the servers maplist after a clear and then running “mapList.runNextRound” the serverwill ignore any remaining rounds on the map that it still run since before the clear and move to the new first map in the list. The server will now have reset the current rounds per map and run the map in the list for the number of rounds stated when adding the map.
• Maplist can contain up to 1000 entries now
• mapList.list will return at most 100 entries. To get the entire list, perform mapList.list repeatedly with increasing offsets (like banList.list)

GENERAL GAMEPLAY FIXES

• Players should no longer take fall damage from short falls.
• Players now get up from Prone slightly faster, allowing better odds of getting away from a grenade or threat when prone.
• Fixed some situations that would unintentionally make a player unrevivable.
• Reduced the black screen fade in time on spawn. The fade is still necessary for properly streaming in loading content at spawn, but it has been substantially reduced.
• Increased the spawn protection time from 1sec to 2sec. The protection will still be immediately canceled as soon as the player moves or shoots.
• Spawn protection will no longer be canceled by the player looking around.
• Increased the speed at which a player regains accuracy when aiming after moving for a more responsive experience. Firing before fully zoomed will still result inaccurate fire.
• Increased the inaccuracy and recoil added when a player is fully suppressed.
• Shotgun Buck and Flechette rounds now have a less suppressive effect at medium to long range.
• Tweaked the damage levels of Buck and Flechette rounds to balance them with other weapons.
• Improved the suppression of the .44 magnum, .357 magnum, and the 5.8x42mm DAP88 rounds from the Type88 sniper.
• Attempting to Crouch (like Prone) will now properly interrupt Sprint.
• Increased the effectiveness of Suppression Resist Specialization.
• Parachutes now respond to turn and throttle inputs more quickly.
• Switching from primary weapons to sidearms and back now takes less time.
• Increased the effectiveness of explosive resistance.
• Tweaked bipod deploy settings so players can no longer deploy a bipod in places higher than chin level.
• The bipod should now be more reliable when deploying on top of sloped objects like cars and rocks.
• Fixed several issues with vaulting objects, especially for thin railings.
• The Knife now only takes two swipes to kill when attacking from a position where a takedown is not possible.
• CRAM weapons on Carriers now count towards stationary weapon awards.

VEHICLE FIXES-

• The A10 properly gives Jet score again.
• Unguided tank rounds and RPGs will now instantly destroy Jets, Attack Helicopters, and Scout Helicopters.
• Increased the damage the MBT’s primary weapon does to the front and side armor of other main battle tanks. Primarily this means 1 less shot to the front, and very good hits to the side can result in a 1 hit to disable.
• Slightly reduced the repair speed of the repair tool.
• Increased the damage done by TOW weapons to armored vehicles.
• Increased the rate of fire and minimum damage of the Coax HMG.
• Increased the damage mounted gunner .50cal HMGs do at long range.
• Increased the power of the repair tool when killing soldiers or destroying vehicles slightly.
• Fixed a problem when locking on to two nearby targets, the locking should no longer jump rapidly between multiple targets. This applies to all locking weapons and Laser Designators.
• Increased the damage of the Javelin and Air to Ground missiles against laser designated targets.
• Javelin missiles fired without Laser targeting now do more damage to the side and rear of MBTs.
• Slightly reduced the locking time of all weapons vs Laser Designated targets.
• Laser Guided missiles can now be distracted by Flares.
• Increased the locking distance for AGM Missiles for Jets when locking on laser designated targets.
• Reduced the locking time for the AGM Missiles for Jets to make them more viable against ground targets.
• Reduced the locking time for AA Missiles for Jets to make them more viable against air targets.
• Flares will no longer break the lock of a vehicle that is locked on, it will only distract the missiles.
• Flares now more reliably distract missiles, especially for Helicopters.
• Flares for Jets and Choppers now reload at 11 seconds again, except for the gunner, which remains unchanged at 20sec.
• AA Missiles are more difficult to dodge in Jets, this was unintended behavior that created an imbalance against skilled pilots.
• AA Missiles should no longer kill the pilot instead of the vehicle.
• AA Missiles should no longer detonate before hitting their target or a Flare/ECM chaff cloud.
• Reduced the damage AA missiles do to jets to 45%.
• Fixed the SU-35 firing Air to Air missiles at a lower rate of fire than other vehicles.
• The IGLA and Stinger now lock on much more quickly and disable an attack aircraft in 1 hit, but have significantly reduced range. This should allow Stingers to mount an effective close range point defense, without dominating an entire airspace.
• Increased the speed of the Helicopter AA missiles lock on to reduce the tedious nature of Helicopter dogfights and improve the Helicopter’s defensive abilities vs Jets.
• Slightly reduced the damage of Jet cannons against Aircraft. Damage is now only slightly higher than it was originally at launch.
• Increased RPG and SMAW damage against aircraft.
• Guided Rockets will now only track ground targets, as originally intended.
• Reduced the direct damage done by Attack Helicopter gunners vs Armor.
• Helicopter guns should now suppress correctly.
• Improved the accuracy of the Attack Helicopter’s Rocket Pods, both guided and unguided.
• Slightly increased the damage of Attack Helicopter’s Rocket Pods vs Infantry and other Helicopters.
• Additional fixes have been made to the TV missile to prevent it from blowing up the launching vehicle.
• The Mi28 has received upgrades to its climbing and yawing abilities.
• Fixed an issue where guided rockets from the Mi28 did not follow the crosshair properly.
• Improved the accuracy of the Mi28 gun to match the AH1 gun.
• Increased the direct hit damage of the APFSDS rounds for the IFVs.
• Decreased the locking time of the IFV Guided Missile to make it more viable as an unlock.
• Miniguns and Helicopter Gunners now more quickly destroy parked cars.
• Increased the power of explosions from cars and other explosive static objects.
• Dying from the explosion of a car or other explosive static object should now correctly credit the player who caused the explosion.
• Adjusted the F35′s Center of Mass and Hover Engine for more stable, level flight in all flight modes.
• Updated the F35 weapon systems to be consistent with the other Jets.
• The F35 will now only attempt to enter Hover at low altitudes, though it will maintain the hover until forward flight is resumed, even if it reaches high altitude.
• The F35 and SU35 now properly have Ejection seats to prevent players from being killed when exiting the vehicle.
• Changed the Kornets to TOW launchers on Wake Island and moved the spawn position of the AAV to a more level position.
• Fixed several bugs with air vehicles colliding with objects at high speeds and taking no damage.
• Players will no longer receive suicides or team kills if they crash their vehicle (dying is punishment enough).
• The MAV will no longer destroy vehicles that run into it, instead it should be destroyed.
• Jet and Helicopter collisions should now properly result in the death of both vehicles.
• You can now spot with the EOD bot.
• Increased the base accuracy for AA guns and added a decrease in accuracy over the course of a burst.
• Reduced the damage AA guns (both mobile and stationary) do to infantry.
• The carrier based CRAM stations are now properly tracked as stationary weapons.
• CRAM and Pantsir stationary AA weapons now have Air Radar equipped by default.
• Improved the sound feedback for damage to help players better understand the amount of damage their vehicle is taking.
• The A10′s extinguisher should now function properly.
• Disabled vehicles now have an increased reverse speed to help escape to cover after being disabled.
• The T90′s crosshair now more accurately represents the trajectory of the main gun.
• Toggle and Hold zoom settings now also apply to soldier controlled turrets on jeeps, transport helicopters, boats, and IFVs port guns.
• The AAV now has zoom and a 3P camera when using the turret.
• Tweaked the AAV’s turret controls to be more useful when the vehicle is moving.
• The Z11w now properly functions with Below Radar.
• Below Radar will now also prevent the lock on of Stinger and IGLA missiles.
• Added Horns to all Jeeps.
• Tanks can no longer drive into the water and cross the Wake Island lagoon completely submerged.

WEAPONS

• Added Extended Mags to the ASVAL. The Extended Mags can be unlocked at 200 kills with the AS VAL.
• Reduced the recoil of the SKS rifle and increased its maximum damage at close range.
• Fixed aimed firing max accuracy on the Pecheneg to be consistent with other LMGs.
• Semiautomatic and automatic shotguns firing FRAG rounds now do slightly less splash damage.
• The M26 MASS frag and slug rounds are now the more effective pump action versions.
• The M26 MASS and M320 now benefit from the Laser Sight when mounted with an Underslung Rail.
• Fixed the bolt action timer on the L96 that would cause an animation glitch.
• 9x39mm rounds no longer benefit from the Sniper headshot bonus.
• Increased the damage of the 9x39mm rounds at long range.
• Fixed the AKS74u damage at max range, it was incorrectly higher than other carbines.
• Increased the damage of the .357 and .44 magnum rounds at max range.
• All semiautomatic and bolt weapons, including all shotgun slugs, now have their maximum damage out to 15m.
• Semiautomatic weapons will no longer “jam” if the player presses fire faster than the weapon is capable of shooting. Some semi-automatic weapons have had their rates of fire adjusted to fit this change.
• Bolt action sniper rounds now have a chance to kill at close range if the player is hit in the upper chest.
• Semiautomatic sniper rifles, Assault Rifles, LMGs, and shotgun slugs now have more consistent damage over long range. At maximum range shots to the legs will not require more hits to kill.
• The spread for Flechette rounds has been reduced slightly on all shotguns.
• The spread for Buckshot has been reduced on the M1014, DAO-12, and S12k. These weapons have an accuracy advantage over the USAS12 but are not as accurate as the 870.
• Zooming shotguns with Buckshot and Flechette loads will now result in a slightly tighter cone for the pellets.
• Reduced the delay time between quick knife attempts slightly. Attacks with the knife drawn are still significantly faster.
• Fixed the Rate of Fire when the USAS and MK3A1 are equipped with FRAG rounds. All other shotguns correctly had a reduced rate of fire with frags, except the USAS and MK3A1.
• Fixed an Accuracy bug when the MK3A1 shotgun is equipped with FRAG or Slug rounds.
• Shotguns equipped with slugs will no longer automatically begin reloading if the weapon is zoomed when the clip is empty. This allows players to see where the slug lands before reloading.
• Fixed 12g FRAG rounds not breaking glass at long range.
• Players can now earn the shotgun Ribbon using the M26 MASS.
• The underslung grenade launchers for Russian rifles now properly report GP30 in the kill log.
• Fixed the AEK971 40mm shotgun round listing itself as FRAG in the kill log.
• Fixed the 40mm smoke grenade so it no longer passes through soldiers and unbroken objects before it detonates.-M27 IAR: No change. The M27 is a heavier version of the M416, giving it good all-around performance though it has worse performance on the move.
• RPK-74M: Reduced the initial recoil and vertical recoil. The RPK-74M is a more stable firing platform than the comparable M27, though it lacks the M27′s higher rate of fire.
• M249: Added an initial recoil. The M249 is the fastest firing belt fed LMG, giving it superior suppressive and damage abilities. The initial recoil makes it a bit harder to run and gun, while making little overall impact on performance.
• Type-88: Slightly increased the initial recoil, reduced muzzle drift. The Type88 fires the slowest of the medium caliber LMGs, though what it lacks in rate of fire it makes up for in controllability.
• PKP: Reduced recoil but added a slight initial recoil, increased damage at max range. The Pecheneg has a heavy vertical recoil with a hard hitting round and little drift, this makes it excellent at sustained fire.
• M60: Reduced the initial recoil, increased damage at all ranges. The M60 has a very low rate of fire that makes it the most controllable with the powerful 7.62x51mm round.
• M240B: Added an initial recoil, increased damage at all ranges. The fastest firing medium MG, the M240 has a substantial muzzle kick and drift that makes all that power difficult to control.
• QBB-95: Reduced the total recoil but increased muzzle drift and initial recoil. The QBB-95 should now kick harder but settle into full auto fire better, combined with the bullpup hip fire bonus this makes the QBB-95 a highly mobile LMG.
• MG36: Added an initial recoil. The MG36 fires at a fast 750rpm and makes a nice middle ground between the controllability of a clip LMG and the sustained firepower of a belt fed LMG.
• 870: No change. The 870 is a popular and highly effective weapon.
• DAO-12: Reduced the total pellets fired from 12 to 9. The DAO-12 has a high magazine capacity with a slow reload that makes it a solid all around shotgun.
• M1014: Increased the rate of fire from 200 max to 210 max. Reduced the total pellets fired from 12 to 9. The M1014 was underperforming compared to the USAS12 and 870, it should now be more viable in CQB thanks to a higher rate of fire.
• S12k: Increased extended mag from 8 rounds to 10 rounds. Reduced the total pellets fired from 12 to 9. The S12k larger extended magazine but slower rate of fire should make it stand out against the M1014, while the DAO-12 has a higher capacity over all, but a slower reload.
• MK3A1: Increased magazine capacity to 8 and 12 for normal and extended mag respectively. Reduced the total pellets fired from 12 to 9. The MK3A1 has a lower ROF than the USAS12, giving it slightly more ammo makes this an edge vs the USAS.
• USAS-12: Increased the initial recoil. Reduced the total pellets fired from 12 to 9. The USAS 12 has a higher ROF than other shotguns, this recoil change better balances that advantage and the pellets balance its damage output.
• M4A1: No Change. Well-rounded carbine, with good rate of fire and controllable recoil.
• M4: Increased vertical recoil, reduced horizontal recoil. The Burst only M4 should now feel different to its automatic sibling, the reduced horizontal recoil emphasizes the greater control you have in burst fire.
• AKS-74U: Reduced initial recoil and vertical recoil. The AKS-74u’s low rate of fire is paired with great controllability. The overall increase in sustained fire control should help this carbine stand out, while the first kick gives it character.
• SG553: Reduced initial recoil and vertical recoil. The SG553 is a lower rate of fire carbine with greater controllability than the G36C. The change to initial recoil should better highlight this difference.
• A91: No Change. The A91′s high rate of fire and bullpup from the hip accuracy is offset by a poor controllability on full auto.
• G36C: Reduced initial recoil. The G36C is a well-rounded carbine, with a medium rate of fire and a medium recoil. The 2 round burst mode gives this weapon an edge at mid-range.
• SCAR-H: Increased damage at maximum range and increased max range. The SCAR-H fires a heavier round than all other carbines, giving it better stopping power at range at the cost of a low fire rate that penalizes it in CQB.
• G53: Reduced recoil and drift, recoil settle times now similar to other carbines. The HK53 is a short carbine with a lot of initial kick but a stable recoil pattern and a medium rate of fire. The changes give it more character compared to the G36.
• QBZ-95B: Reduced muzzle sway, recoil settle times now similar to other carbines. A bullpup like the A91, the QBZ-95B is steady on the move with a lower rate of fire for controllable shots at longer range. The built in foregrip is now properly reflected in the weapon’s stats.
• AK-74M: Reduced initial recoil and vertical recoil. The AK-74M sacrifices rate of fire for controllable automatic fire, the initial recoil was negatively affecting the feeling of controllability.
• M16A3: No Change. The M16 (both A3 and A4) provide a well-rounded stable firing platform with a high rate of fire that is relatively controllable.
• M16A4: Increased vertical recoil, reduced horizontal recoil. The Burst only M16A4 should now feel different to its automatic sibling, the reduced horizontal recoil emphasizes the greater control you have in burst fire.
• M416: No change. The M416 is the middle ground AR, blending a medium recoil and rate of fire.
• AEK-971: Increased initial recoil, reduced aimed accuracy slightly. The AEK has a very high rate of fire, and also a large muzzle drift that makes control difficult. The low initial recoil allowed a player to kill before the weapon’s weaknesses kicked in while the reduced accuracy highlights its close range role.
• F2000: Reduced vertical recoil, increased zoomed accuracy slightly. As a bullpup, the F2000 has a bonus to accuracy on the move and from the hip while its high rate of fire sacrifices controllability for saturation. The previous changes were an overreaction, this is a corrective update.
• AN94: Reduced vertical recoil. The AN94′s 2 round burst mode is incredibly accurate, but it suffers from a low rate of fire on fully automatic. The recoil in full auto has been reduced somewhat to offset this penalty and make the AN94 more attractive.
• G3A3: Increased damage at all ranges, reduced vertical recoil. The G3A3′s heavy recoil and heavy round are offset by a low rate of fire and a small magazine. The G3A3 was clearly outclassed at all ranges.
• KH2002: No Change. The KH2002 is locked to burst fire, with a high rate of fire and a large muzzle drift the weapon favors accurate mid-range fire.
• L85A2: Increased accuracy, reduced muzzle drift. The L85 differs from other bullpup style ARs by having a low rate of fire, the accuracy and controllability were too low to offset the rate of fire.
• FAMAS: The FAMAS combines an extreme rate of fire with extreme recoil making it very difficult to use at anything other than close quarters combat. Due to update restrictions, the FAMAS had different stats on all 3 platforms. The FAMAS is now uniform on all platforms and now has the correct 25 round magazine.
• PP2000: Reduced the initial recoil. The PP2000 has a lower ROF than other PDWs and needed the controllability to be balanced.
• UMP45: Reduced accuracy loss during full auto. The UMP45 hits hard and has a controllable recoil at the cost of a heavy initial recoil kick.
• MP7: No Change. The MP7 has a very low recoil and a high muzzle drift that favors longer bursts than the P90.
• -AS VAL: Increased vertical recoil, reduced first shot recoil, reduced accuracy on the move. The AS VAL fires a long range, highly accurate, high damage projectile that favors short bursts or single fire when stationary. While still quite good from the hip, the AS VAL will suffer if fired while moving and aimed.
• PDW-R: Reduced the initial recoil. The PDW-R has high recoil and favors burst fire, the added initial recoil was making it less effective in small bursts.
• P90: Reduced the initial recoil. The P90 favors a run and gun play style using long bursts to control muzzle drift, the initial recoil was making bursting ineffective.
• PP-19: Slightly reduced the initial recoil when firing, increased base damage. The PP-19′s high initial recoil was over penalizing the burst fire needed to be effective on the low damage, high capacity weapon.

SCOPES

• Fixed the 7x scope not zooming to the full 7x on all weapons.
• Corrected the M39′s laser sight so it points at the point of impact and aligns with scopes when zoomed.
• Fixed a misaligned scope crosshair on the G3A3 using the Rifle Scope 6x.
• Fixed the PKA and PKA-S scopes on the M416 having swapped zoom levels.
• The L96 Straight Pull bolt now functions properly.
• The L96 ironsights have been adjusted for a clearer aiming picture and correct use of the integral front sight.
• The L96 now properly shows scope glint when using the 8x, and 12x scopes.
• Tweaked IRNV to be more consistent across all levels.
• Fixed a rendering issue with IRNV view when taking damage.
• Tweaked the IRNV zoom times and scope visible areas to be the same across all weapons (some were faster than others).
• Fixed the QBU-88 sniper and the L96 IRNV scopes to use the proper sniper reticule

BIPOD

• The Accuracy increase and Recoil reduction of the Bipod has been significantly improved for Assault Rifles and Carbines.
• The Bipod now provides similar Accuracy and Recoil benefits no matter if the weapon is fired while aiming or without aiming for all weapons. Previously only LMGs were worked this way. This especially improves the speed at which snipers can make follow up shots, and also allows effective unaimed suppressive fire with Assault Rifles and Carbines.
• Increased the Speed at which a bipod is deployed, allowing the user to obtain the bipod’s bonus sooner after the deploy has started and allowing the weapon to be aimed in a far shorter time. The speed has been increased 40-50%, depending on the weapon and animation.

HEAVY BARREL

• The Vertical Recoil penalty of the Heavy Barrel has been reduced. The value has been changed from a global percent increase to a weapon specific value.
• A small Hip Accuracy penalty has been added to the Heavy Barrel to represent the added weight of the accessory, as well as focus the attachment on accurate mid and long range fire. The exact penalty amount is a weapon specific value.
• Several weapons with low default bullet speed now have their bullet speed increased when the Heavy Barrel is equipped. This is in effect for the A91, G3A3, AKS-74u, G36C, M4A1, SCAR-H, SG553, G53, and QBZ-95B.
• The Heavy Barrel is now also paired with Match Rounds which increase the maximum range of the weapon. The minimum and maximum damage are unchanged, weapons with the Heavy Barrel will be more effective in mid range.
• The Aimed Accuracy bonus provided by the Heavy Barrel has been increased. This will increase the effectiveness of the Heavy Barrel for small bursts, as originally intended.

IRNV FIXES

• Tweaked IRNV to be more consistent across all levels.
• Fixed a rendering issue with IRNV view when taking damage.
• Tweaked the IRNV zoom times and scope visible areas to be the same across all weapons (some were faster than others).
• Fixed the QBU-88 sniper and the L96 IRNV scopes to use the proper sniper reticule.

FOREGRIP

• The Horizontal Sway reduction has been changed from a global percent reduction to a weapon specific value reduction. For most guns this means very little change, for guns which have a large horizontal recoil the change is more substation. The FAMAS, F2000, and AEK971 are most effected, the AK-74, M16, and M416 are nearly unchanged.
• A small long range Aimed Accuracy penalty has been added to the foregrip. Players who generally find themselves fighting at mid to long range may want to change their accessory, while players fighting in CQB will go largely unaffected. Combining the Foregrip with a Silencer or a Heavy Barrel will offset this penalty.

LASER SIGHT

• The Hip Accuracy bonus provided by the Laser Sight has been increased. Some PDWs have had their crouch and prone base stats adjusted to prevent hip firing being more accurate than aimed fire when using a laser sight.
• The bonus is now a weapon specific value instead of a global percentage, some guns receive larger or smaller bonuses, though all bonuses are better than they were previously.

SUPPRESSOR

• The Suppressor no longer reduces the maximum damage of a weapon when equipped. Instead the Suppressor reduces the minimum and maximum range of the weapon, making it ideal for CQB and Stealth. This change will make the Suppressor slightly more effective at long range, where the bullet drop and speed makes shots difficult already, and reduces the power of the suppressor at mid range slightly.

• The Suppressor’s recoil bonus remains unchanged at a global 10% decrease. This is less than the Flash Suppressor’s bonus for all weapons

• The Hip Accuracy penalty of the Suppressor has been changed from a global percentage to a per weapon value. Generally this penalty is higher now, but not for all weapons. Specifically, the belt LMGs and bolt Snipers do not have any additional hip fire penalty, as their penalty is already at the maximum possible value.

• Reduced the Aimed Accuracy bonus of the Suppressor from 50% to 25%. A Suppressor and Foregrip combo will have similar accuracy to a weapon without any Accessories, at the penalty of worse Hip Fire Accuracy and Range and with the benefit of much improved Stealth and reduced Recoil.

FLASH SUPPRESSOR

• The Flash Suppressor no longer reduces accuracy for Automatic Fire.
• The Flash Suppressor now also works as a recoil compensator, reducing the Vertical Recoil by a weapon specific value. This bonus is larger than the bonus provided by the Suppressor.
• A small Hip Accuracy penalty has been added to the Flash Suppressor to represent the added weight of the accessory. The exact penalty amount is a weapon specific value.

GADGETS

• Reduced the spot times on C4 and Claymore projectiles from 30 to 15 sec.
• Tweaked the controls and physics for the EOD bot to improve its handling and aiming capabilities.
• The Radio Beacon, Mortar, MAV, EOD bot, T-UGS, and SOFLAM should now be much easier to deploy.
• The MAV will now be destroyed when running into a soldier or vehicle at high speed. It is still possible to strategically sacrifice your MAV on a soldier; it will be destroyed in the process.
• The MAV now properly shows up in the Kill Feed. Previously it simply displayed “KILLED.”
• The MAV can no longer be used as an elevator.
• Matched the motion sensor sweep frequency and range on the MAV to the TUGS.
• Players will no longer auto enter SOFLAM, MAV, and EOD bots after they are deployed.
• Players may now use their knife to destroy enemy equipment.
• C4 will no longer be detonable after a player respawns, if the player is revived within 5 seconds he can still detonate his C4.
• The player may now have a maximum number of mines which will persist after the player’s death. Deploying more than the maximum of 6 mines will remove a previous mine from the world.
• Claymores now live up to 5 seconds after a player dies, the player can have a max 2 claymores planted at the same time.
• Claymores can now detonate from vehicles and can be used to disable jeeps or kill the passengers in light jeeps. Claymores will not do any damage to heavy vehicles.
• Ammobags now stay until the user redeploys them like Medkits.
• Ammobags resupply bullets more quickly, but explosives resupply more slowly, especially 40mm grenades.
• Slightly reduced the effective blast radius of the RPG, SMAW, and 40mm grenade projectiles against infantry.
• Reduced the total number of RPG and SMAW missiles carried from 5 to 4. Players desiring more rockets will want to use the Explosive spec.
• Slightly increased the heal rate of the Medical Crate.
• The MAV now will also descend by pressing the Crouch Toggle key. (PC)
• The M224 Mortar can no longer be deployed in an area that is out of combat for another team like a home base or other protected spawn.
• Tweaked M224 exit points so the player faces in the direction of the mortar when he exits.
• Mines, Claymores, C4 and other deployable items will now only appear on the minimap when spotted by a teammate.

TEAM DEATHMATCH

• Fixed a bug where players would spawn close to the enemy team at the start of the round.
• Tehran Highway playable area has been doubled and is now the same as the Squad Deathmatch set up.
• Spawn points have been tweaked, and an extra spawn zone has been added north of the footbridge.
• Kharg Island has a new spawn zone layout, along with a bigger playable area and new cover objects. Spawn points have also been tweaked.
• Strike at Karkand spawns zones have been tweaked to improve player flow. Spawn points have been tweaked to improve safety upon spawning.
• Sharqi Peninsula spawn zones have been adjusted to optimize player movement. Spawn points have been tweaked so players spawn more safely.
• Seine Crossing spawn zone set up has been improved. There is a new spawn zone by the alleyway to the northwest with additional spawn points.
• Caspain Border spawn zones have been tweaked slightly.

SQUAD DEATHMATCH

• Fixed a bug where players would spawn close to the enemy team at the start of the round.
• Damavand Peak layout and spawn zones have been tightened to reduce the spread of players across the map
• Tehran Highway now features an extra spawn zone north of the footbridge, along with tweaked spawn points.
• Noshahr Canals spawn zones have been tweaked. Removed unsafe spawn points in the Northeast corner, and in the middle of the container area to the Southwest.

DISABLE ANTI-ALIASING ON PS3 TO REDUCE INPUT LAG

• PlayStation 3 players may now turn off anti-alias in the options menu to reduce input lag

“Today’s match is brought to you by Mechwarrior: Living Legends.”

“Will you be a living legend, or a forgotten casualty?”

Review written by ShadowFighter

 
As I said in my Mechwarrior Online write-up a few days ago, anyone looking to scratch that giant-robot itch until it comes out (or at least goes into Open Beta) have the perfect avenue for it in this Crysis Wars mod.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of the most impressive things about Living Legends outside of the gameplay (which I’ll come to) is that this is one of the few mods based on the Battletech intellectual property to have been sanctioned by both Microsoft (who own the rights to any Mechwarrior video game) and receive support and sanctioning from CryTek (the developers of the base game), the latter of which got them early access to the CryEngine 2 SDK.

Since it’s a mod for Crysis Wars (the multiplayer component of Crysis Warhead), there is no singleplayer campaign. This is a purely multiplayer mod. Living Legends is also the first Mechwarrior game where you aren’t limited to just piloting the series’ eponymous Battlemechs. When you spawn into the game, you are on foot and wearing a suit of battle armour – think a halfway point between Master Chief’s armour and a suit of Space Marine armour, then strap a missile launcher to each shoulder – the suit’s jump jets provide decent manoeuvrability and you start off with a small laser, the short-range missile launchers on your shoulders and a single C8 explosive charge which can do surprising damage to a mech when placed right.

While you can buy a variety of weapons to carry, battle armour is very fragile when faced with weaponry intended to sheer through armour by the ton. And since you’ll appear in a mechbay when you spawn, you can immediately buy a tank or a light ‘mech and head out to fight. Any battle armour weapons you buy will be there in the event that you have to eject from your mech/tank/aircraft for whatever reason.

The currency system works pretty much the same way as in the base game, save that you start off with a hell of a lot more money. 49,000 Cbills to be precise – Cbills, or ComStar Bills, being the currency of the Battletech universe – which is enough to have a decent selection of light ‘mechs, tanks, VTOLs or aerospace fighters to choose from. Mousing over a ‘mech or vehicle on the buy menu will show what weapons and other equipment it has, Battletech veterans will recognise the acronyms for them at a glance, but they may be very confusing to a first-time player. There is a wiki for the mod that will tell you what these acronyms stand for, however more than a few articles on there are out of date. It is still useful to see what each ‘mech variant is armed with and to learn the basics of the game and out-of-date articles are labelled as such. The wiki also has links to tutorial videos that can explain the mechanics quite well. They may be for an older version of the mod than the current (version 0.5.5 as of writing) but the basics have not changed.

Regardless, you earn money from damaging the enemy, getting kills or kill-assists, detecting enemies with your radar while carrying a C3 computer (which shares radar and targeting info with teammates) and capturing bases in Terrain Control maps. As you play, you will go up in rank, letting you spawn with more money. However, any money you earn in one life will disappear upon death unless you earned more than you spent plus any rank increases. Meaning that if you spawn and spend 40,000 Cbills and then ranked up while alive (which would let you spawn with at least 55,000), you would have to earn more than 46,000 Cbills in that life to make a profit when respawning. You can put that money to use while alive, though – buying more ammo for your ‘mech, repairing it by walking into a repair bay and shutting down or donating to other players to try and get a larger mech on the field quicker.

Once you’ve purchased a ‘mech (or vehicle, I’ll just stick to ‘mech from here for simplicity), one of the actual bays in the mechbay will close it’s doors while the ‘mech is being built. When it’s done, you’ll get an audio notification that it’s done, what bay it’s in and a HUD indicator over it as the bay’s doors open. Then it’s a simple matter of jumping into the ‘mech the same way you would a vehicle in Crysis Wars or Battlefield (though you’ll need to jump-jet up to the torsos of any ‘mechs you want to use).

By default, weapons on a ‘mech are split into different weapon groups, numbered one to six. The arrow keys and enter allow you to quickly change what weapons are in which groups and the game will remember that configuration for any future purchase of that ‘mech. Pressing a button for a weapon group will fire all of the weapons in that group, though you can switch a group to chain-fire by pressing the \ key, where each weapon in the group is fired in sequence, one after the other, instead of all at once. Lightly tapping the fire key while in chain-fire mode is an easy way to avoid building up heat too quickly, especially in ‘mechs that mount a lot of energy weapons, like the Warhammer or Uziel.

The mod uses many elements from different games in the Mechwarrior series – Mechwarrior 4 being the most obvious influence, but tweaks here and there have made different elements easier for players to use. For instance – I never used jump-jets in any of the Mechwarrior games, but I find that I’m getting the hang of them in MWLL and was putting them to good use while chasing down an enemy a couple of days ago. Whether this is from the jets being more controllable in this outing or if it’s just because they’re now bound to the spacebar instead of J, I’m not sure.

The Battlemechs themselves feel like they should, with each footstep making a heavy thump even in the lightest of ‘mechs. You will need a degree of awareness about where the weapons on your ‘mech are mounted, particularly arm-mounted weapons on ‘mechs with very out-stretched arms, like the Uziel. As you would expect, the projectiles (or beams for laser weapons) emanate from the barrels of the weapons, so even if you have a clear view of the target from your cockpit, there may still be an obstruction in-front of your weapon. An interesting touch is that the weapons on a Battlemech visually change to reflect the loadout. An Uziel Prime, for instance, will have a pair of particle-projection cannons (PPCs) mounted on its arms and a pair of small lasers on its torso. When you look at one in-game, the arms end in the large, blue capacitors of a PPC while the glowing red emitters for the small lasers are clear on the torso. An Uziel A, however, is visually different – it’s arms lack the glow of PPC capacitors and have been replaced with the long-barrelled casing of a light gauss rifle and the lasers replaced with the minigun-like barrels of a machine gun for anti-infantry work. This screenshot of the up-coming Epona hover tank (due to be added in the next patch) shows what I’m talking about quite clearly.

As a result, a keen-eyed player can tell at a glance what the enemy machine is armed with and can alert his teammates, allowing them to co-ordinate and attack in the best way to negate as much of the target’s firepower as possible – engaging a sniper up-close where his weapons can’t recycle/recharge fast enough to fight back properly and engaging brawlers at a distance where most of their firepower can’t reach.

So far there are five game modes – Solaris Arena (a standard deathmatch mode), Team Solaris Arena (team deathmatch), Terrain Control (essentially Battlefield’s Conquest mode but with automated laser turrets at each base), Last Man Standing and Test of Strength. While I’ve never played the first mode, Solaris Arena has the most voice acting of any game mode in the game. The reason for this is because a game of Solaris Arena is commentated by Duncan Fisher – the commentator players of Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries will remember from the arena matches of Solaris VII. They haven’t just gotten someone else to voice him or re-used the voice files from Mech 4 Mercs – the developers of MWLL actually contacted George Ledoux and asked him to reprise the role of Duncan Fisher for the mod. Having him there commenting on the game certainly makes a Solaris Arena match actually feel like you’re fighting in one of the great arenas of the Gaming World. Sadly; the Steiner Coliseum is not among the current Solaris Arena maps, though SA_Jungle (representing the Jungle arena in Solaris City’s Cathay district) has elements of this in the form of a cheering crowd visible high above the combat area, with loud cheers going up from them as the match intensifies.

Last Man Standing is a straight-forward concept while Test of Strength is a free-for-all mode that basically inverts the money system – instead of starting with little money and earning more, you start with a huge pile of cash but no way to earn more, making it a tactical choice of whether to start off with the big, expensive stuff but ending up flat broke in the late-game, or pacing yourself with mediums or cheap lights and breaking out the big guns once everyone else has blown most of their funds. Sadly, I haven’t played either of these modes since no Australian-based server is running them.

Outside of Solaris Arena, Test of Strength and Last Man Standing; teamwork is near-crucial to this game and oh-so-satisfying. However, this is one area where the mod happens to fall down. I don’t know what the community is like overseas, but the Australian player base is somewhat small. The people who are there, however, are dedicated and very friendly to newcomers. I’ve only been playing this for about a fortnight or so and the help I’ve gotten from them has been immeasurable. Just a few nights ago – the server was nearly full and all of us were co-ordinating our actions; when someone was buying a ‘mech stuffed to the brim with long-range missiles or Arrow IV missiles, someone else would buy a ‘mech armed with NARC beacons, letting those missiles quickly home in on the NARC’d target without the firer needing to make a missile lock or even being able to see the target. Some of us would fall back for repairs and resupply while the others held the line. Lances of medium ‘mechs would flank the enemy to harry them and provide recon on any serious threats, letting the rest of us prepare for them. Even with only a handful of players on, like last night, the game can still be a blast to play as each team stalks around the map in a game of cat-and-mouse, no-one risking using active radar in-case the other team spots them.

As I said, though, the player base is small but there are games going on an Aussie-based GameArena server (which is linked in my sig on the forums if anyone’s curious) most nights – at the earliest these start at around 6pm Queensland time but can run as late as midnight or even later.

Another flaw in the game – which I’m told is being looked into – is that the currency system can cause a bit of a winning streak on one team to snowball into a situation where the team that got the streak is fielding 100-ton assault ‘mechs while the other team can barely afford ‘mechs half that size. When the game gets to that stage, it’s hard for the losing team to recover as they just can’t earn Cbills or rank up fast enough to close that gap while these assault ‘mechs are killing the medium ‘mechs in just two or three shots. True – a co-ordinated team could get out of this problem by working together and using their speed to concentrate their fire and bring down the bigger ‘mechs one at a time, but a co-ordinated team probably wouldn’t have ended up in this situation in the first place.

Tanks (at least the ones with tracks instead of hovering ones) also have an issue in that they have a tendency to get stuck on the tiniest of ridges. Just last night; I had to abandon a Demolisher tank at the bottom of a river when it got irrevocably stuck on an invisible rock and the number of times I’ve heard people complaining about their tank getting stuck on a small bump in the terrain and then being unable to free it – even with Battlemechs or other tanks ramming it – is incredible.

I suppose I could make a final complaint about the animations for the Battlemechs looking slightly off from the outside – like the torsos are remaining too stable – but considering the care and attention that went into this mod, that’s probably just a limitation in the CryEngine 2 that they can’t work around. Besides, you don’t notice this too much while playing and the cockpit interiors of the ‘mechs still move around as much as you’d expect. The cockpits can also feel quite claustrophobic, which is understandable considering just what you’re piloting and this can factor into the gameplay, such as the Warhammer’s cockpit having a large armour plate above the pilot, blocking his ability to see any aircraft above him.

Aside from their tendency to stick – tanks can still be enjoyable to drive and, unlike in the main Mechwarrior games, are still a credible threat to any Battlemech. The same is true of VTOLs and aerospace fighters, though they are quite a challenge to fly so don’t be surprised if you introduce your nose-cone to the ground a few too many times. Skilled pilots, however, can be a major threat – I’ve seen a lone Hawkmoth A (a VTOL loaded with long-range missile launchers and a NARC launcher) slow an entire team as half of them try to snipe it out of the air with long-ranged lasers or missiles, a difficult feat compounded by many ‘mechs not being able to aim that high, while a couple of players head for the nearest mechbay and buy a tank with lots of rapid-fire autocannons and use it like a mobile flak battery.

On the whole – I’d say it’s worth buying Crysis Warhead just to play this mod, especially with how cheap Warhead should be by now. And if you already own Warhead, then this is a good way to get some use out of the game now that the online scene for it seems to have died. The mod is still in beta, however, so some of the bugs I mentioned above may be ironed out in a few months or so. There is something of a learning curve, but if you’re patient and willing to ask for help, then you won’t be disappointed. Well… not until your tank gets stuck on a rock the size of a cane toad at least.

Review written by JackFlash

Perhaps the most unappealing aspect of the beta was the excrutiating registration and installation gauntlet which was required to play, as it was a long and tedious process of dealing with the Blizzard warmachine. Firstly downloading the client, registering it on Battle.net, then of course the unmistakeably ‘Blizzardian’ swarm of relentless patches and hotfixes that ensued once said client had been installed. As if this was not enough, the DRM Demon struck the final blow, for some completely superfluous reason i was ordered to make a ‘Tag’ on top of the registration apparently so ‘my freinds could locate me’. Despite all of these shenanigans i must add that having previously dealt with other games through the Battle.net service (World of Warcraft, Starcraft II etc..), and as a result, owning a Battle.net account, it meant that i did not need to register for one. The installation and registration regime would have increased tenfold had i not previously been a Battle.net account holder.

Unpleaseantness behind me i saddled up what for what would turn out to be one of the premier adventures of my gaming life. Starting out as plucky young Demon Huntress by the name of Kara i began my epic quest on the outskirts of New Tristram in the aftermath of the Cathedral Sundering…..

Click here to view the embedded video.

The first thing i noticed was the new user interface, which i found to be both robust and aesthetically pleasing complete with Health and MP reserve liquid animations. Furthermore, the speed and relative ease at which i was able to navigate the game’s console had already won half the battle for myself.

Having familiarised myself with the new UI and being at the helm of my command i felt ready to begin my journey. Perhaps what struck me most was the atmospheric nature and tone of the game. The combination of gloomy nocturnal lighting, subtle haunting music, and brooding visuals served to create a perfect premise for the inception of my adventure. As i meandered down the road a street lamp cast it’s glow upon an undead feasting on the steaming corpse of a recently slaughtered town villager, without pause i attacked the creature using my crossbow and slew him upon the damp ground. From his shattered form erupted a healing potion and 3 gold, with which i wasted no time in collecting. From this brief but harrowing encounter i noted that the combat and movement controls had been overhauled from Diablo 2 and given new and exciting features, yet retained the same signature feel of a 90′s dungeon crawler. For most who are familiar with Blizzard know that this is their ace in the hole. Being able to retain the established and loved mechanics but also building and adapting upon those pillars of gameplay. This is essentially what number 3 is, a faithful yet modern addition to the Diablo universe, one which will be welcomed by most fans of the series, and thoroughly enjoyed by new players.

As i regressed slowly into the soft fabric of my chair, (back becoming progressively more bent) i began to soak in the sights and sounds of the new Diablo. I became engrossed in the storyline, which for those who are familiar with Blizzard games, is always a high point. After clearing my way into New Tristram, my task fell to travelling to the ruins of Old Tristram, the casualty of a previous Diablo outing ;). As i entered the once bustling town hub i drank in the rich atmospheric quality emanating from the ruins, the once great Tristram now bereft of life, stood as a monument to it’s fallen glory. I made my way in and around the empty town moving between the assorted debris as the buildings began to crumble and collapse as i moved past them (yes, that’s right, the buildings react to your presence in real time!). The sheer amount of quality and detail that has been programmed into the game makes it feel so organic and vivid i found it hard to beleive that it was in reality just lines of code.

My quest then turned to the aforementioned Cathedral where i was tasked with finding and retrieving Diablo’s well known loremaster Deckard Cain. Entering the Cathedral i noticed the great chasm which had erupted as a result of the fiery meteor which struck the building in the Introductory Cinematic. Again, i cannot praise the atmosphere enough for developing such a sense of heroism and epic scale in crusading against an ultimate evil. I truly understood the urgency of finding Cain in preparation for the full-scale invasion of Hell’s forces.

Taking all of these experiences into account i feel that from analysis of the beta, Diablo 3 is going to be a game which plays to the strengths of it’s particular genre. However i also feel as though the game itself will exist within a very niche market, perhaps not one that can compete with the more broad video game titles that are currently popular. As a developer which has a long history with yesterdays gaming enthusiasts, Blizzard’s Diablo 3 may only provide enjoyment for the well-versed gamer, requiring such an insular and calculated style of play.

Popularity gripes aside, as a game that exists as a landmark in of itself (12 years in the making!), i felt priveleged to experience this small portion of such an excellent title, and one which is a worthy addition to the series. Having only completed a very small section of the game, i am now in great anticipation for it’s eventual release on May 15th.

See you all at the midnight launch!

 Sensors:   Online

 Weapons: Online

 All Systems Nominal”

A Review written by ShadowFighter

While that last word may’ve been changed, long-time Mechwarrior fans will find this a minor quibble compared to the fact that they are finally getting a proper Mechwarrior title for the first time in over a decade.  Battletech fans who were dissatisfied with the arcade-y, console-ified Mech Assault games will be over the moon with the new title, Mechwarrior Online.

Due out in Winter this year (or Summer if you live in the northern hemisphere), Mechwarrior Online is a free-to-play title built on the CryEngine 3 and promises a return to the slower-paced, tactical combat of the older titles, where how you manage the waste heat from your weapons can decide where you walk away from a firefight or not.

Piranha Games, the developers, haven’t said what players will be able to get for free and what they’ll have to pay for, but hopefully they will take cues from another freemium title – Tribes Ascend – in order to avoid the pay-2-win stigma that free-to-play titles still generate.  They have confirmed four different mechs that will appear in the game – the Jenner, the Hunchback, the Dragon and the Atlas – while their website has concept art for the Commando, Centurion and Catapult.  Whether these three designs will be in the game on-launch, only available through gameplay/purchase or added later in a patch as free content is yet to be seen.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If the look of the game seems familiar, that may be because Piranha Games were originally going to make and sell this as a reboot of the Mechwarrior franchise and set far earlier in the Battletech timeline with a full single-player campaign.  Unfortunately, that game fell through due to no publisher willing to risk their money on it (it had nothing to do with the long-running issues between FASA and Harmony Gold related to a collection of ‘mechs known as the Unseen, despite popular misconception) so the game was retooled as a multiplayer-focussed, free-to-play title.

There will be online persistence; players will level-up and unlock new passive skills for their pilot or new modules for their Battlemechs, but Piranha are planning to take this a step further by incorporating the Battletech timeline on a one-to-one basis with real-time.  What this means is that, in-game, it will be around the middle of the year 3049.  In the latter part of the year as well as for most of next year, in-game events will reflect the Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere.  This should give the game additional life as players may wish to stick around for later events, such as the Battle of Tukayiid in May of 3052 (so in real-life that event will be starting on the first of May 2015) as well as making it easier to see when newer ‘mechs and weapons will be added to the game, like Inner Sphere-built Omnimechs such as the Sunder.

The gameplay itself will focus around what the developers are calling “Role Warfare”, with each player on a team taking one of four loose roles to help the team as a whole – Scout, Defence/Assault and Command.  This Role Warfare overlaps somewhat with the Information Warfare that they are trying to include – making the various electronic warfare suites that can be mounted on Battlemechs, such as the C3 Network or Beagle Active Probe, more vital to the combat and allowing those piloting light ‘mechs to still contribute even when the terrain won’t favour the hit-and-run style of play many light ‘mech pilots used in earlier games.  As a result, the developers intend to avoid the pitfall of Bigger Is Better that came up a lot in earlier games; where larger ‘mechs were heavily favoured and lights and mediums fell by the wayside.

That’s not to say that certain players will be forced into lighter chassis because everyone who joined before them took all the heavies and assaults – a team can easily field nothing but 100-ton Atlases (otherwise known by the fans as a ‘Lyran Scout Company’ due to the Lyran Alliance’s habit of heavily favouring larger machines) or swarm the enemy with a whole bunch of light Jenners, but the Role Warfare system is intended to encourage a balanced mix of machines and capabilities.

Regular posts on the Mechwarrior Online website by the developers help to explain these systems and answer questions posed by the community.  Just look for the blog posts by Piranha Games, many of the posts there are in-universe articles from Inner Sphere News and, obviously, won’t tell you a whole lot about the gameplay.

So until the middle of the year when this comes out, anyone looking for a giant robot fix can either grab the last Mechwarrior game to hit the shelves – Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries, which has been released for free with a huge amount of community-made content – or download a well-made and well-received multiplayer mod for Crysis Wars (the multiplayer side of Crysis Warhead) called Mechwarrior Living Legends.  Either way, I hope to see you on the battlefield.

LAN: a colloquial term used to refer to a function that involves computer gaming by various persons using a ‘Local Area Network’.

BOH: a colloquial term used by a number of computer game users to refer casually to the clan known as “The Bohage”.

2011: a colloquial term used to refer to the current year, which is a common year that started on a Saturday. In the Gregorian calendar, it is the 2011th year of the Common Era (CE) and the Anno Domini (AD) designation; the 10th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 2nd of the 2010s decade. The United Nations has designated 2011 the International Year of Forests and the International Year of Chemistry.

Details:

Time: 11.30am to 11pm.

Date: 17/12/2011.

Location: Wrights rd community centre (youth room).

Click on the map to a closer look!

Link to Original Post:

http://www.thebohage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=434

People Attending thus far:

• McDean
• Jammers
• McBort
• Jimmy
• Dumpface
• Lt Col Goon
• Comrade
• ABendyVixen

Members who have placed a Deposit:

• Gezzaman (Payed the $10)
• Thomas Ignacz (Payed the $10)
• Chromatos (Payed the $10)
• Alurn (Payed the $10)

Members who said they are going to come:

• Katie
• EJ
• Eola (Paying At Door)
• Nijbu
• Checkers (Paying At Door)
• Jazzakid
• Jazzakid’s Brother
• Jackflash
• Rowdy
• Jordy
• Jon6660 (Paying At Door)

If your name is here and you don’t inform us that you can no longer come, it will be assumed that you’re attending and a spot will be reserved for you.

Please post in this thread if you wish to come or want to let us know you cannot come.

This is your last chance to join us! Sign up now!

Discuss HERE!

The goal of MGE is to simulate one on one scenarios. Two players are spawned in an arena, which is usually an important area of a competitively-played map (such as the spire on Badlands and the chokepoint on Granary) The first player to reach 20 kills wins. Other than the standard arena selections, players can choose custom made competitive stages (such as endif and ammomod). The first player to reach 5 kills wins. You can enter an arena by typing “!add” into the chat and making a selection. If no one is queued at an arena, you will be forced to wait until a second player joins. When a duel ends, any player in the arena’s queue is added to play over those who previously played, with the winner of the match staying in the game and the person who lost made to wait until one of the other players wins. Different arenas have different class restrictions, but the only classes allowed for general play are the Soldier, Demoman, Scout, and Sniper. MGE features MikeJS’s ELO rating system. You start with 1,600 points and gain more by winning duels.

Here at The Bohage, we hope this server will help those looking to improve their Soldier, Demoman, Scout and Sniper skills so you can kill us better.

Actually wait no don’t use this server you will be too good. Instead you should play Mahjong or Skyrim until you are bad at tf2 again. Yes that is a good solution.

If a server breaks, let an admin know straight away so that we can fix it for you.

If you have any other ideas for a TF2 (or other Source-based) server, please feel free to post it on our forums. Especially if it’s an awesome new mod. We always like to be the first in Australia!

Admin Team

So come join us. It is as easy as clicking on the button & then clicking on the Apply Button!

A Short Review:

As a complete package Battlefield 3 absolutely delivers and if you don’t have some angry agenda against Origin it’s a must-play. The PC version in particular ushers in a new era of graphical magnificence and the disparity between the consoles begs Sony and Microsoft to up the ante. Shooters don’t come much better than this and it’s a great way to kick off this year’s holiday game rush.

- GameShark

Battlefield 3 Server:

We are thinking of hosting a small Battlefield 3 server! Since these servers cost a lot of money, we are asking YOU the members if anyone is willing to chip in about $5 monthly for the server. If you are, please contact McDean!

These maps include the following:

- koth_harvest_event
- cp_manor_event

And for when the time comes, the “new” Team Fortress 2 Halloween Map, which is due to come out any time soon.

So jump on any time your free to rack up all those free items that you can only get on these map!

Hope you enjoy this once every year holiday special!

Other cool things include Minecraft’s 1.8 leak (ooOOoooOOOOooOOoo!), Space Marine, new Bohage servers, the Big Bohage LAN Party, more fun banter than we’ve had in a while, and surprising amounts of post-podcast silliness!

It’s a longer episode than we’re used to these days, but that’s because it’s CRAMMED WITH CONTENT! And also I didn’t have that much time to edit it down because it was my birthday on Tuesday.

Did you hear about that by the way? It’s my birthday! Me! Jammers! Birthday! Yea! Whoo! :D

Discuss!

Subscribe!

We go through our scant minecraft and tf2 news, I play Stranger’s Wrath, and we have our first proper guest interview in gajillion episodes!

Starring Comrade Alexei, Jammers and Aqua, with special guest, KiD!

Discuss!

Subscribe!

So the main thing we have is Deus Ex because it’s boss as, and also a lot of confirmed stuff for Minecraft 1.8, and competitions and tf2 and all that stuff that is cool!

Also my laptop broke :< Send laptop donations to Jammers COUGH COUGH.

Starring Jammers, Comrade Alexei, and newscaster AQU-WAAA, with minor funtime surprise appearance from McDean!

Discuss!

Subscribe!

We’ve got From Dust, Space Marine, Minecraft news, and a bunch of other stuff this week. Good stuff.

Starring Katalimaq, Jammers and Comrade Alexei, with newscaster Aqua!

We’ve also got Mount and Blade, the results of our minecraft build-off, paintball, and more!

Hosted by Katalimaq, Jammers and Comrade Alexei, with international newscaster, Aqua!

Subscribe!

Discuss!

Win!

Kittens!

What we DO have which is awesome is an interview with him, so that’s cool! Also there is a thunderstorm.

Other fun features include ShadowFighter88 who joins us briefly to promote his new Exalted forum game, and all the news, reviews and other interesting goodies you’ve come to know and love!

Starring Jammers and Lexi, with newscaster Aqua and special guest Eola!

Subscribe!

Discuss!

Nathan Fillion Comp!

Best Comp Comp!

______________________

Links

Munch’s Oddysee -

http://store.steampowered.com/app/15740/?snr=1_4_4__13

Eola’s YouTube channel -

http://www.youtube.com/user/Eolahh

ShadowFighter’s Thread -

http://www.thebohage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=316

Anyway, I hope you like LOTS OF CONTENT because we sure do have a lot of it. I cut it down by 35 minutes and still came up with this much stuff holy shed.

But yes, this week’s BohCast! We have a lot of news, I share my future plans for the minecraft server, and why I’ve backflipped on whether I’ll buy bf3!

Also we have an interview with Miss Jekyll who was super cool, and Aqua gives us a big fat rundown of the gaming news.

On with the show, I say!

Starring Jammers, Comrade Alexei and Katalimaq, with newscaster Aqua and special guest, Miss Jekyll!

Discussion! – http://www.thebohage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=351

Competition! – http://www.thebohage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=349

Subscribe! – http://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/the-bohage/id428852114?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Show links (supplied by Katalimaq!) -

Links for Podcast
-- Enderman info

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Enderman


http://www.thebohage.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=6&sid=bd86c517c94871dd0d379cd290c72809

-- Link to sign up for minecraft event on the 7th.

http://www.thebohage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=331

-- Link to Dino game

http://store.steampowered.com/app/70000/

-- Link to article on nathan fillion for industry news.

http://www.gamesthirst.com/2011/07/27/nathan-fillion-to-fans-dont-pressure-director-to-score-me-uncharted-movie-role/

-- link to competitions

http://www.thebohage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=349

Discuss

Play The Game Here

Discuss

General Update:

Since we updated to a 24 slot server we started to experience some server lag every time we had 21 or more players in the server. I (McDean) started to talk to the guys from Hypernia (Our TF2 Server Provider) on why we were getting this lag. They told me it might have to do with the plugin’s that we are running and they suggested to remove all the plugins and test the server again. So with the help of many members that came when I called, we tested the server with 24 players in at once, but it still lagged. So we got our server moved to a different machine, which is where we are right now!

New IP:

Due to being on a different machine our IP changed, so everyone will have to re-save our server in your favourites

203.217.24.51

Our server is exactly the same in every way and form, just a new IP.

Reserved Slots:

If you donate more then $15 to the Bohage you will receive TWO (2) months of reserved slot access into the Team Fortress 2 Server! No more waiting inline till you can get in! Also as a bonus extra, you will get a free Main menu that lets you enter the server with one click, and you get that for life! For more information, click here

Bohage TV:

Once again we have Bohage TV back up and running! I know Replays would be a lot better but due to its high resource usage, our server cant take it without lagging like crazy. So as a compromise, let us know what date, time and a brief description of what happen and we will be happy to find this demo and upload it to the website. This could get a bit crazy though, so myself and the VodBoh team are thinking of doing a Monthly Best Moments in the Bohage Server where we will give a 10 to 1 best moments of the month! So start keeping an eye out on some epic/funny/fail moments! Jammers is also asking for entries on a video he is going to make: “Bohage Failvid” so jump on in the server boys and girls and start having fun!

Stats:

If you didn’t know already, but the server stats are back up and running earlier this month and as a once of special, we had a double point weekend last week! So too bad if you missed it. Check out where you are on the leader board by clicking on “Team Fortress 2″ on the top tabs!

But I did edit it, so that’s ok! They cover a bunch of stuff, and thankfully our blissful drink-adventure-free run remains unbroken… for now.

Discussion Thread

Subscribe on iTunes

Starring Lexi and Comrade Alexei, with our now-regular newscaster Aqua, and a surprise appearance from the TF2 announcer to judge the bad joke section!

Also i win something for once! :D

Greetings, Bohage!

I have, as I have at other times, got a tremendously cool bit of information for you! This information is tantalising and delicious! This is information you WANT, Bohage! This information you NEED!
Do you want it, Bohage members? DO YOU WANT IT?

Aw hell, the announcement title ruined it, didn’t it?
Well fine, be that way.

This weekend only, the Bohage will become FREE TO PLAY! Want to play on our servers? YOU DON’T HAVE TO PAY A CENT!
Yes indee – uh..

Sorry, what’s that McDean? Our servers are ALREADY free to play? THEN WHAT DID YOU MEAN?
Oh.
I see.

…

Ahem.

Yes well, I’ll tell them that.

So uh. Hello again Bohage! It appears YOU CAN PLAY ON OUR SERVERS FOR FREE ALL THE TIME FOREVER! And it has been this way… SINCE THE BEGINNING! What I meant to say before McDean RUDELY interrupted was that, for this weekend only, you can INVITE YOUR FRIENDS TO THE BOHAGE!

FOR FREE!

No longer will you have to ask an admin to invite your friends, for this weekend, you can invite them…

YOURSELF!

How marvellous!

However, there are SOME CONDITIONS! And I will LIST THEM in a BORED VOICE!

ONE! I mean.

One. Don’t just go and invite everyone on your friends list – we want fun and cool people, not HeAdSh()tSNipe4Lyf45728 and his poorly named mates!

Two. Make sure you invite people who’d fit in! You’re all a bunch of awesome bros already so you know the criteria!

Three. Make sure they know that they’ll have to wear our =B’oh= tag, at least for the weekend!

Four. If you want, tell them how to get onto the servers, mumble, and the forums!

MCDEAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING BACK HERE.
Oh man ok ok whatever I’ll tell them.

Double points for the rankings this weekend too. Enjoy your full server 24/7 boys and girl!
I bet this gets derailed by some ridiculous game release like always. Or tf2 pushes out a 4 byte update that means we have to update the server for eighteen hours.
(Totally called it).

Also make sure Jazzakid doesn’t get to the top ranked spot! Trolololol.

http://www.thebohage.com/?p=966 Oh noooo, it’s episode 14, and Lexi’s abandoned us D:

Luckily it’s just so he can kick off the Bohage Connection Project, and go down to see Rowdy and Jekyll so that’s alright!

As for us, we’ve got some PUNishment lined up for you folks, ohoho, and an all-new special guest!

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Starring Jammers and Comrade Alexei, with special guest ShadowFighter88 and even a quick surprise reminder about the Demoknight competition from Lexi!

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Play The Game Here

Instructions:
Use arrows to shrink and enlarge the I

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Starring Lexi, Jammers and Comrade Alexei, with newscaster Aqua, and Katalimaq as our very own token girl in the audience!

Good times!

Review by ComradeAlexei.

Trine is the name of the game and the name given to the mysterious artifact that can bind souls. Three unlikely heroes, a wizard a thief and a bumbling knight all touch the trine stone and are bound together. In their attempt to understand what has happened to them they travel a magical land and fight enemies. That’s the opening premise which sets a nice framework for an innovative little puzzle platformer! Trine by Frozenbyte studios, differentiates itself in an interesting way from the vast hordes of indie game platformers. For one you play as 3 different characters at the same time. It sounds complicated, but it works wonderfully and adds a lot to the game. The player controls 1 avatar at a time, and uses the keys 1, 2, and 3 to change this character quickly between the wizard the thief and knight respectively.

Each character has different abilities and general strengths to help the player get through all the dungeons!

- The wizard can summon cubes, planks and a strange floating fixed triangle to help with platformer puzzles. He requires high energy which is used whenever he levitates these items. The wizard also levitates cubes or weapons found in the level. He can even drop any of these items on an enemy to slay them, suffice it to say that his strength is not combat.

- The thief is an agile character that comes with a hookshot and a bow. She can use the hookshot to attach to wooden objects that are higher than herself and swing back and forth. She is great at saving herself from a pitfall or engaging distant enemies. Also through clever use of the hookshot she becomes the character who can reach the most difficult locations.

- The knight has a sturdy shield and sword. Later he gets a thunderous warhammer. The knight is the best at close quarters fighting and any traps that throw for example, fireballs can merely be blocked by his shield. He is not agile and needs to be close to deal the damage but you often switch to him when surrounded suddenly or when fighting a mini boss.

The graphics for trine are amazing. As you can see, these are vibrant fairytale worlds with a lovely quaint art style. Large mushrooms and ancient ruins abound. Combined with an appropriate fantasy soundtrack the game comes off as a magical fairytale adventure. This game really has a lot of personality for a cheaper indie game and i’ve been looking for cracks in the visuals or design so I could rip into this game and tell you all it’s horrid or something. You’ll be happy to know that i’m still looking for flaws. While the games not a perfect 10 sure ( if i gave ratings) this game is definetly worth playing if you like fantasy games or fantasy settings. At times the puzzles can be challenging but it makes it satisfying for people who can stick it out and think outside the magical box. It’s cheap, it’s fun, it’s well designed and most importantly I feel this is value for money. Need anymore be said of Trine?

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Starring *deep breath* Jammers, Lexi, Katalimaq, Aqua, Comrade Alexei and ABendyVixen, we go through a lot of stuff!

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Starring Jammers, Lexi, Comrade Alexei, and newcaster Aqua, with a guest appearance from McDean, it’s a fun filled BohCast with the most epic opening sequence in BohCast history!

A review by Aqua

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The ‘Spiral Knights’ who are an order of adorable little space faring knights crashland on a mysterious planet. Their ship the skylark needs energy from the core of the planet and you begin your quest next to your escape pod. You travel to Haven, the main city where there is a large lobby called the arcade which is host to the various dungeons you can try to tackle alone or in groups of varying sizes up to four. It is simple, it is brilliant, it is free. Spiral Knights is available on steam as one of 5 new free steam games.

Interestingly there are no classes, or stats for you character.

Instead your amour and weapons have stats, levelling up after each dungeon. Every weapon’s stats changes when it levels, improving and even gaining special abilities, usually reduced attack times. If your helmet and body armour match (matching armour set), another attribute is added – such as increased movement speed. This ability is linked to the look of your character, the highest armour sets look amazing and seeing others wearing them is rewarding. The overall aesthetic clashes with the quality of gameplay, it looks like a typical anime mmo, robot warriors run around looking very cute ( kawaii) and cartoony monsters attack you and your team, it makes the game look simpler than it really is. The party making system is alright, sometimes giving you higher level team mates who will last the distance, or someone who has been playing for only 3 minutes. Chatting using microphones enhances the experience further. If you play through steam microphone support is in game, however I recommend not using the in game system. It’s a nice idea. The best thing is to just start your own team and then invite your friends. Each team has a maximum of 4 players, and usually each player has a sword and a gun equipped, hack and slashing most of the time.

The best part of the dungeon crawling is the boss fights. It is very rewarding to bring down a gigantic black hamster who shoots red laser beams out of his eyes, teleports around the map and shoots spikes out of its ass. Leading up to the fight with the spike pooping hamster suspense is masterfully built, you catches glimpses off him in the background, and before some swarms of enemies he charges into you, stunning you and your team mates. The first time you see this guy you are going “Oh crap! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!” Apart from ridding the world from abominations defeating bosses gives you tokens, which allow you to purchase better equipment without spending either of the other two forms of currency, that being crowns – similar to dollars, and energy.

Being a free to play game, Sega and three rings have implemented ‘energy’ which is required to enter dungeons and craft gear. This is comparable to farmville by Zynga where you can only complete so many tasks in a given day. Let me stress, the game is still very playable, but if you want to play for hours on end you will need to pay a little money to increase your energy stores. On the other hand energy can be one of the most rage inducing elements of the game. Your maximum capacity of the free energy is 100, and elevators usually cost 10 energy. Sure, 10 free levels is a good deal but it’s not all you use energy for. Certain gates require energy, reviving yourself requires more energy each time you do it, and crafting requires energy. Crafting is a nice touch, although it feels unfinished, for instance in order to get a 3 star item that requires crafting a 2 star item, the 2 star item has to be level 1 exactly, whereas 1 star items that require a no-star item to be crafted allows the no-star item to be at any level. (Actually you can use any level item, you just have to unequip it first -Ed.)Furthermore to craft a four star item that requires a 3 star item, that item has to be at least level 5, so it is actually unfair that this is the case. Sure, you say “I could just sell my level 10 sword and have enough money to buy the necessary components”. But you can’t sell your level 10 sword. It’s bound to you. The only items you can trade are level 1. Also, although it makes sense to have the three characters linked to your account to NOT have shared energy, for some reason it is.

Despite these small flaws though, it is a great game, and here in the bohage we will expand our spiral knights operations! So if you’re interested in this game download it now! It’s a good game with lots of potential and I hope to see you there.

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Low-latency, high-quality voice communication for gamers. Includes game linking, so voice from other players comes from the direction of their characters, and has echo cancellation so the sound from your loudspeakers won’t be audible to other players.

–> Video link here!