Christmas!

Merry belated Christmas everyone! I'm not even going to try to name all of the different celebrations out there, so I'll just leave it at "happy holidays".  Sorry I can't do a review - we all know how the family visiting stuff is. I'm in Delaware at the moment, 10 hours South-East from where I live in Waterloo, Ontario, visiting parents' friends. So goodbye until next week!

Pirates of the Burning Sea

 Pirates of the Burning Sea (PotBS) is a "real-vs-realm" (or faction-based) mmo. Players chose between four different factions (Great Britain, France, Spain, and, of course, Pirate), which battle for control over the Caribbean. The game is PvP based, as players fight in large battles to win the round, one port at a time. Even newbies can contribute to the conquering of a port - defeating enemy players and NPCs isn't the only way to give your team points; every package delivered to teammates on the front lines and every item given to the enemy's local rebels helps.

 The combat is also very unique. On boats, players can choose from different types of ammunition which serve different purposes, such as killing enemy personnel, destroying their sails, or just plain sinking them. Players can also board enemy ships and take them over, allowing for more loot, and, if you're a pirate, possession of the ship itself.


Pros: Original concept, realm-vs-realm, newbies can still participate, teamwork encouraged, player-driven economy, factions actually win or lose

Cons: Confusing economy, unwieldly swashbuckling (infantry) combat

What really sets PotBS apart from other MMOs is how it's focused on the competition between factions. In many games, factions are just ways of saying who's allowed to attack whom. But in PotBS, factions compete over territory, resources, and taxes, and there are actually winners and losers. Every week, if any faction (Britain, Spain, France, or Pirate) has enough Victory Points, they "win" the round, and after a two-day ceasefire the war restarts.

The way conquest works is that when players sink NPCs on that ship's home territory, or if "unrest supplies" are delivered to the victim nation's rebels, "unrest" is generated. And after enough unrest, pirates and privateers can attack others. After even more unrest, anyone can attack anyone else of another nation. Then, after a lot of unrest, a port battle starts. The nation that's sunk more of the other nation gets advantages during the port battle. Any nation, at the end of the week, that has captured a set number of ports, wins. If no one wins, it goes on.

Spain pwned this round.

Thankfully, that does not mean, however, that players themselves are reset. Once you've earned something, you've earned it. That is, until your port is attacked and some high-level enemy player sinks you.

But no seaman (save for some pirates) can live on battle alone. Much of the money and resources made are from the factories that players must manage. Players buy deeds to build buildings, and then visit them every once in a while to have them actually produce things. Most produced items require recipes to make. Finally, products must be listed for auction. And money must be payed regularly for upkeep of the factories. Getting buildings to pay themselves off can be a struggle.

The economy gets kind of confusing. Like, really kind of confusing. But it's more realistic than most MMOs.

But while the economy is a huge factor in the game, and combat is not at all necessary, PotBS's combat is really a special, unique thing. In many MMOs, combat involves clicking to start combat and not much else. But in PotBS, it all requires attention. There's more to combat than just a single click, or a few different buttons for a few different attacks. In PotBS, you must manage all your different cannons, as well as your crew. But it's not complicated to the point of being confusing, you're not overwhelmed with buttons and options, either.

The graphics, although they still work on less-than-top-notch computers, can be awe-inspiring.

I woke to the sound of gunfire....

The game's biggest downside, though, is the swashbuckling combat (infantry combat). It's rather poorly designed. The way it works is that you select an enemy by clicking on it, and then attack it using the hotkeys to different abilities. The targeting system is clumsy, though, often not selecting the right enemy. And the interface makes it a bit unclear whether or not your abilities have recharged. And, this happened -

Cap'n! I can't see!

Interface glitch.

This is what it looked like before something went wrong. Nice-looking but only half functional.

BOOM headshot. Kind of. Not really.

Score: 9/10

Pirates of the Burning Sea deviates from the standard MMO, but for the most part it does a good job at doing so. It has RPG content, too, as players early on do considerable questing, too. The whole game looks beautiful, although foot combat, or swashbuckling, is clumsy and generally could be better-designed. Sea combat more than makes up for it, though, and I've never seen faction-based competition like it. PotBS is extremely original, and it's nice to see an MMO that has the courage to go out of the norm.

Hacker Alert: Blizzard Customers

I've been sent an email from someone faking Blizzard's email address. They've claimed that they are Blizzard, and that due to increased hacker activity all accounts must be reconfirmed. If you click the link and enter your email and password, you will lose your account, as it is a phishing scam and not actually Blizzard.

It's aimed at World of Warcraft users, as the email is signed (fraudulently of course) "The World of Warcraft Support Team". The idea is to steal accounts for the items and money.

The email includes a link that claims to lead to "https://us.battle.net/login/en/?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fus.battle.net%2Faccount%2Fmanagement%2Fadd-game.html&app=bam&cr=true", which is the legitimate Battle.net login page.

While "https://us.battle.net/login/en/?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fus.battle.net%2Faccount%2Fmanagement%2Fadd-game.html&app=bam&cr=true" is legitimate,
the link does not, in fact, lead there. Hovering over the link in the email, I saw that it goes to (abbreviated) "us.battle.net.support.login-confirm.com". And that's totally fake. The actual Battle.net url is completely different.

Anyways, if you're brave, give them fake emails and stuff to mess up (on a minimal scale) their CPU time. I entered stopit@yahoo.com like 20 times, each time with a different password.


So, please, whoever you are, be it a Blizzard customer (WoW especially) or an employee, or anyone else that cares, take notice.

The Start of Something...

Hi everyone, and thanks for visiting my blog.

I know where you live. Mwahahaha. Canada, Philippines, and the UK. Canada ftw. I even know what operating system you're using, and the browser you used to visit my page. I feel so evil slightly creeped out by myself. Thanks, Google.

Anyways, I'm here to offer my sincere apologies in advance, because I'm going to have to break my promise of one review per week. I'm working on a review for SOE's game Pirates of the Burning Sea, and so far it's pretty impressive. Sadly, I've got rather a lot of homework this weekend, and I have rather lofty plans for the review. I've already taken hundreds of screenshots of the game, and now comes the tedious task of sorting out which ones to keep.

I'm quite impressed with it. Check back next week. Please.

So, check back next week for my (hopefully) awesome review of Pirates of the Burning Sea. I'll show you a few screenshots to prove this is all true...

Edit: Got a few people from the US, too. Didn't want to leave you guys out.

Facebook App Review: Backyard Monsters

Backyard Monsters is a popular, humourous strategy MMO on Facebook. Players construct buildings such as the "Goo Factory" and the "Monster Locker" (for unlocking monsters), and attack other players with the monsters that they create. There are many different kinds of monsters to be unlocked, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and many buildings, too.

Pros: Humourous theme, many monsters and buildings to unlock, new players are not too disadvantaged, large playerbase

Cons: Repetetive gameplay, limited strategy elements, steep learning curve

The ultimate goal of Backyard Monsters is to build the largest, most powerful base possible, using monsters to attack other players and npc's(non-playing characters) and loot them for resources. Players are in a long process of farming resources (and clicking on their buildings every few hours to keep them going), building new structures to protect them, upgrading buildings so they are more effective, and, last but not least, attacking other players for resources.

The problem is that that process tends to get rather repetitive. The gameplay never changes much; it's always the same process. And the learning curve is very steep; once you've played for a day, you've pretty much done all there is to do. Sure, there are new people to attack and new monsters to use, but it's really just the same stuff over and over again.

It's a lot of fun for the first week or so, but sometimes players lack a sense of direction. Combat Zone does a better job at that; as long as you're in an alliance, there are always battles to be fought, territory to be reclaimed, etc. But in Backyard Monsters fails to do the same.

Score: 7.5/10


Backyard Monsters has a nice, humourous touch to it, and plenty of units to unlock and buildings to be built. But, as the saying goes, "Once you've seen one, you've seen them all", and it applies too well to this app. It's original, but its gameplay is repetitive after just a few days playing.

Screenshot:

 Note the gore. w00t.

P.S. Don't develop affection towards your monsters.

Facebook App Review: Combat Zone

Questions? Try the Combat Zone Q/A! Or comment, then look in the Q/A! Or just comment!

Combat Zone is an MMO strategy app. It has players organizing armies of thousands of soldiers to take and retain control of land, villages, and oilfields. Players join alliances and organize armies of thousands of soldiers, while upgrading their HQ and keeping a close eye on other players.


Pros: Relatively deep strategy for a Facebook app, teamwork greatly encouraged (but not necessary), no paying elements (helps game balance), protection for players under Base Level 4

Cons: New players often start surrounded by more experienced players with more developed bases, lack of direction when not in an alliance, unbalanced game between old and new players, many players invite friends just for territory (many players are inactive)

Combat Zone is a turn-based strategy game. Players are given a maximum of 4 "Turns", regenerating 1 every 20 minutes. "Turns" are used to move soldiers from one place to another. More distance needs more turns.

"Action Points" are different. They are used for "Missions", which give your soldiers experience and makes them fight better. To do Missions, you also need to trade oil for weapons at "Victor's Shop". Better weapons make for a higher success rate.

Upgrading your base is very important. HQ upgrades do many things, like raise your soldiers Attack and Defence. They also enable special abilities, like snipers that eliminate all your opponent's low-ranking soldiers, artillery do heavy damage to enemies on your territory, airplanes that can drop your troops into enemy territory, and even UAVs (Unmanned Air Vehicles). These are all game-changing factors, and add an interesting variety to the game.

On the other hand, new players often start the game surrounded my more powerful players, and it's often nearly impossible to do anything about it. When more developed players have all the fancy nukes and UAVs and you don't, it's really hard to develop your base. Many players get their friends to make an account (and even create accounts) just to gain more Battlefields and increase their ranking.

But their is a solution to all the imbalance. If you join an Alliance (like "clans" in many MMOs), especially one with many players close to your position, you will be relatively safe from attackers. You'll have a whole team to back you up. People can still paratroop into your territory, but you and your allies will most likely be able to repel them. And after all, you are totally safe from nukes and other special abilities until Base Level 4. And you only have to go to Level 4 when you want to. But until you do, you won't have access to many of the game's interesting features.

Score: 8/10


Combat Zone takes a long while to get started. Gameplay is kind of slow for the first weeks, but the pace does pick up. If you're willing to sit through a few days of clicking once an hour a few hours a day, it really does get better. And it does so a lot quicker if you're in an Alliance.

Screenshots:

Combat Zone profile picture

My territory

A territtory under attack. Green is me, yellow is one of my alliance members, and blue is the owner of the territory.

Game reviews

Hi all, I think I've decided what to do with my blog. I'm going to write game and facebook app reviews! So, um...yeah... I'll try to add another one each weekend, depending on how addicted I am at the moment. That really wasn't a well put-together sentence. What I mean is, I'll try to write one each week, but I might not be able to that often because I don't always have the time.

Anyways, check back soon!

Hello World!

...And welcome to my new blog. Whatever you've done to get here, you've probably done wrong, because at the moment there's no real reason for you to be reading this. But anyways, I'm Apellius if you happen to have met me on a forum or mmo, so hi. Just to start, I have an account on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/user/apellius1) and Yoyo Games (http://www.yoyogames.com/users/Apellius) among a few others, but those are the ones I spend the most time on. I'll also take the opportunity to advertise my website (http://www.transmoebas.com/). So now you'd better get going where you meant to go, because you're very, very, virtually lost.

P.S. The "Helicopter Game" thing on the side is not an ad. My record's 768.