tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50432234931062062262024-03-05T01:12:27.018-05:00Aaron's Gaming BlogThe world of video, roleplaying and board gaming, according to Aaron ShermanAaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18334773771068768209noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-60761058664488611742016-10-24T20:00:00.000-04:002016-10-24T20:00:10.043-04:00How much does RIFT actually cost?Free to play (F2P) games are all the rage, but the F2P MMO, RIFT is unusual in that it's basically still a subscription game masquerading as a F2P game. So... how much does it cost? About the same as WoW is the short answer.
The long answer is that you pay nothing to get started, but access to much of the new content for higher levels requires some degree of purchase. Fortunately (and craftily) Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-45162356392924129862016-10-24T10:06:00.000-04:002016-10-24T10:28:27.159-04:00Back to RIFT: The Hybrid Support DPS
The Soul Tree for this build...
Way back in my RIFT raiding days, I developed a hybrid spec that I was very fond of. I wasn't the only (or even first) to develop it, but it was my own creation and I was very happy with it, even though few others seemed to share my joy for it. When Harbinger came out, it got even better and today, it's basically the only leveling spec I'd really want.
While Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-78112211874863700302016-06-25T16:18:00.000-04:002016-06-25T16:18:07.039-04:00Path of Exile updates and how the game has changed
An exile's hideout
I've been playing PoE for a long time it seems (not as long as some!) It's a great game, and I highly recommend it, but I think it deserves an overview for those who might have heard of it or played it a while back, but not kept up on what's going on.
The game has evolved substantially in the past year or so and there's lots you should know. For starters, the amount of Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-84600312410578425572015-08-11T21:00:00.000-04:002015-08-11T21:00:03.412-04:00Diablo 3 and Path of Exile comparedI've played a whole lot of Path of Exile, but until recently, I'd only played through Diablo once just after launch and I knew the game had changed substantially since the expansion (Reaper of Souls) was released. That all changed a few weeks ago when I started playing in the recent "Season 3" event of Diablo 3. I leveled two new characters from scratch to max level and got them both geared out Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-34965423658876116172013-08-28T02:06:00.000-04:002013-08-28T02:06:29.748-04:00Looking in on World of WarcraftIt's not a good time for MMOs. The PC gaming market, which has always been the core of the MMO world, has become the toy of Steam, and that's not likely to change terribly soon (unless Humble Bundle opens their own game service...), but MMOs are still out there. RIFT is just coming out of a period of re-tooling and will likely have a second expansion in not terribly long; EverQuest Next and ElderAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-24161901581013877612013-08-18T12:34:00.000-04:002013-08-19T01:14:03.873-04:00Building your own Pinball FX 2 table
Pinball FX table
I've been thinking about this for a while, and I might actually do it. Pinball FX 2 is a great game from Zen that combines modern, hardware-based physics simulation with incredibly well designed tables (see my review of several tables, elsewhere on this blog). I also have friends who are into Raspberry Pi hardware hacking and others who enjoy collecting physical pinball Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-84920379809824860862013-07-29T12:44:00.000-04:002013-07-29T12:44:01.553-04:00Administrivia: I've moved to Google Plus commentsThis blog is now using Google Plus comments. Mostly, I'm doing this because Google Plus comments handle spam better than Blogger, so it makes sense for maintainers like me to switch.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-11515675935260437542013-07-26T20:00:00.000-04:002014-10-11T16:09:48.038-04:00Pinball FX 2: Table DLC reviews
Star Wars Pinball logo
On my Google+ feed, I've previously reviewed Pinball FX 2 for Steam, but I've been playing quite a lot of it recently, and thought it was worth a line-by-line review of the DLC that I've purchased for it during the summer sale. Below, you'll find reviews of 4 out of the 10 available DLC packs which includes 11 tables. I'll review the others when I have time.
For thoseAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-39393193649373779952013-07-01T02:48:00.001-04:002013-07-01T02:49:11.270-04:00Warlock: Master of the Arcane on sale
Warlock: Master of the Arcane (along with it's DLC) is on sale in an Amazone Bundle this week. This is a really nice game that's kind of like a fantasy version of the classic Civilization series of strategy games.
For a good review, check out Total Biscuit's review from early on in the game's release.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-43636808091407051632013-06-17T01:46:00.001-04:002013-06-17T01:46:14.389-04:00Update on RIFT free-to-p(l)ay
Well, it's looking good for RIFT. They've had too raise the caps for number of active players and have started splitting servers! Great news for the community! Rift Junkies has the whole story...
I'm particularly pleased to see that they have not offered any of the best PvP or PvE gear for purchase on the ingame store. True pay-to-win is the curse of MMOs, and I'm glad to see that Trion Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-59440263706599915862013-06-13T19:00:00.000-04:002013-06-14T15:08:30.026-04:00RIFT: Free to Play first impressions
RIFT Free-to-Play launch page
I tried out RIFT on my far-too-old living-room entertainment center laptop last night in order to see how free-to-play was. I was kind of blown away, but there were negatives too, so let's get into it!
First off, in case you haven't followed it: RIFT, a popular second-tier MMO with a peak of an order of 1-2m users has gone free-to-play. I think that Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-5870011252370073732013-02-21T23:39:00.003-05:002013-02-21T23:39:52.179-05:00Rift: Mage guides and raid infoA guild I used to be an officer and mage class lead in just dissolved. I don't play Rift anymore, but I wanted to preserve all of the stuff that I spent so long writing up for them.... I don't really have time to make it all pretty, so below you'll find a quick dump of each of the forum postings. Feel free to search for anything you need using Ctrl-F in your browser.
Spec refinement: combined Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-72176948486869891722013-01-31T00:42:00.002-05:002013-01-31T00:42:30.059-05:00Buying video games in packs
The Humble Bundle changed everything. Sure, back in the day, you would see companies sell a "gold" pack of all of the previous versions of a game at a low price, but the idea of selling massive bundles of downloadable games was seen as a good way for a company to turn its product into a cheap commodity and slit its own throat...
Then along came this little idea: gather a bunch of indie games Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-67810048804712837972013-01-22T10:13:00.000-05:002013-01-22T10:13:26.767-05:00World of Warcraft's next expansion: Exsanguination No, Exsanguination is not the title of the next WoW expansion (that I know), but it is the trend. WoW players have been abandoning the game, and interestingly, they're not leaving for the WoW-killer MMO that we've all been predicting and waiting for. Instead, they seem to be going back to single- and multi-player games on services like Steam (which is mostly where I've ended up Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-72460380046751943102013-01-10T14:40:00.000-05:002013-01-22T10:18:48.942-05:00Replayability is a wordI just read the (2010) blog from ben abraham (lowercase from his blog name "ben abraham dot net"), "`Replayability` is NOT a word, so stop using it idiot!" I feel the need to reply to this, because it's a concept that I've come across before, and I'm kind of tired of dictionary thumpers. I don't want you to get the wrong idea, however. I'm glad that he wrote this article. It shows that he's at Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-32159918023912986882012-12-26T19:00:00.000-05:002013-01-22T10:19:09.823-05:00How might Google monetize Ingress?The first question I had when I heard about the Ingress beta was: why is Google doing this?
Face it: there's a real dollar cost to anything Google does, so it has to do one of the following:
Generate more revenue than it costs
Enable other Google products and services to make more revenue than it costs
Improve Google's positioning relative to its competitors, in order to generally benefit Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-82705924795382110982012-12-24T19:00:00.000-05:002013-01-22T10:19:42.395-05:00Ingress: Google's augmented reality MMO
Ingress logo
+Ingress is Google's new augmented reality game that's currently in beta. It brings together a few things: first off, it's Android-only at the moment and has a strong preference for players and developers communicating via Google+. This is an obvious play for increased adoption of both platforms.
That aside, however, Ingress is the first MMO that I've played where theAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-13378388374766191612012-11-21T03:45:00.000-05:002012-11-21T11:34:39.060-05:00Rift: Ways to level, 1-60
Leveling in an MMO is always a challenge. Often, it's more of a challenge just to stay awake than it is to actually succeed, but more often than not I find myself poking around to see if there's any cool ways to level. In EverQuest, grinding was all there was. Quests weren't really a way to level and instanced dungeons didn't really exist (they were added late in that game's evolution).
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-79952137003743895042012-11-02T00:57:00.001-04:002012-11-02T00:57:23.573-04:00Rift raiding video collection
As you may know if you've been reading this blog, I'm in the Rift guild, Ascended of Corthana, on the Faeblight server. For a while, now, I've been doing a series of videos for them. Some of them are funny. Some are semi-serious. I've collected four of them into the above playlist for your viewing pleasure. I'll add more to the playlist as I create them, so feel free to subscribe for Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-7090440096595068302012-08-28T09:48:00.002-04:002012-08-28T09:48:38.422-04:00Has Blizzard given up on WoW?
Perhaps I'm spoiled by a shockingly productive development and design team on Rift, but I was stunned today when I read the patch notes for the upcoming 5.0 patch that's going to land for WoW. This is the first patch since 4.3 which introduced a bunch of new features including a new raid, 3 new 5-man dungeons and the Raid Finder feature. That was a good, solid content patch. Then, eight months Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-90907265489494752662012-08-03T19:00:00.000-04:002012-08-06T11:43:33.221-04:00Rift Mage: Having fun with uitilyIn Rift, I play in a guild called Ascended of Corthana on the Faeblight shard. We're a casual raiding guild that had some pretty severe numbers problems right around the time that Infernal Dawn came out. We've fixed that, and after we merged in another, similar guild we're now back on track and raiding ID while still clearing the last few bosses of HK for farm loot.
But our raiding Mage count isAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-43323215022685681762012-06-13T19:00:00.000-04:002012-06-13T19:00:05.903-04:00Rift: And now an expansion
Storm Legion logo
(c) Trion Worlds
Just a quick note on Rift: it seems like yesterday that I posted an article talking about how Rift was blowing the doors off content expectations, producing more new content than anyone else had in just one short year. Well, they continue to set the bar high for patches, but have raised it for the upcoming expansion. The expansion, which is now known to be Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-43670631300509151562012-03-25T17:19:00.000-04:002012-03-25T17:19:16.084-04:00Rift: More content? Seriously?!
MMO Report visits Trion, makers of Rift
Rift is blowing my mind. I just went back over what we've gotten for new content since June. It's... well, it's a bit daunting, really. And now they're coming out with a new 20-man raid with 2 of the major lore characters (the dragons Maelforge and Laethys) for guilds to wipe on... er, do battle with!
So, just to recap, here's what we've seen since JuneAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-67586842162752632212012-03-23T00:26:00.001-04:002012-03-23T00:28:05.695-04:00What the hell is wrong with MMO armor artists?!
Two of the most popular MMOs in the world, Rift and World of Warcraft. I've played them both. I like both games, though I play Rift exclusively now. Still, they have one thing in common: the raid gear seems to have been designed by blind fabric hoarders. Really, have you seen this stuff? The just-announced "challenge mode" gear from the upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion for World of WarcraftAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5043223493106206226.post-59438837315551766862012-02-14T12:05:00.000-05:002012-02-16T15:30:21.032-05:00Rift Mage: ArchonArchon is one of Rift’s mage souls. It's a versatile soul that brings great benefit to any mage that incorporates it into their build, but it's also a raiding powerhouse when used as the primary soul. In fact, the 51-point Archon is so powerful that in addition to Bard, it's one of the only two souls that are pretty much required in any 20-man raid.
This article is all about the uses of Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13589741654455548220noreply@blogger.com0