I have to purchase a PS4...

To fully experience this series is all the reason needed...

Legacy of Romulus

Yes, please. =D

The Future of the Homeworld Franchise

Ever run across information about a game you once loved through sheer coincidence? After a string of Wikipedia cross referencing starting with EA, I found myself on the article about the now defunct THQ. Turns out as part of their liquidation, they've been shedding subsidiary studios and IPs like mad, some for profit, others closing for a loss.

Probably of the highest interest to me was a link to this article on Gamespot. Turns out the Homeworld IP rights will soon go up for auction in a court supervised sale. From the article:

THQ has announced that it will sell the remainder of its intellectual properties in a court-supervised sale. The publisher has already sold the majority of its studios and games following news of its bankruptcy last month.

THQ will now accept bids on franchises including Darksiders, Red Faction, Homeworld, MX; owned software including Big Beach Sports and Destroy All Humans!; as well as licensed software including Marvel Super Hero Squad, Supreme Commander, Worms, and more.

I also have to say I take interest in where Red Faction and Supreme Commander end up. Hopefully there will be some coverage of the results of these sales.

I also wonder how this is going to affect the Homeworld Touch/3 Kickstarter, and the same project on Indigogo. I really don't see any shot in hell of Kickstarter raising enough funds for this group to buy the franchise rights. No matter how much they fund raise there is an EA equivalent publisher who can top their bid by an even million. It's a nice gesture, but I'd be shocked to see it come to fruition.

This is one of the games I remember most fondly from my youth. The original game in particular completely blew my mind in terms of what a strategy game could be, particularly for its generation, and I would love to see a new iteration of the franchise further push the boundaries of the strategy paradigm, especially now that there is a real dearth of solid strategy titles being released into the market.

SimCity Part 2

So over the past couple of days the servers had stabilized and I was seriously intending to updated with many a screenshots, showing my various cities progress, anecdotes while playing, and a general review of the game. Despite its flaws, it has been an overall enjoyable game, though for me the jury is still out.

Unfortunately, I can't do any of that. Upon trying to load my cities today (any of them) after Patch 1.5 had been implemented, I was greeted with massive, massive lag (gameplay lag, not internet related) making the game nigh unplayable.  This is after two days of relatively smooth building.

But how can this be with Patch 1.5 having such promising notes as this?:

Update: 03/12/2013
SimCity Update 1.5
This update to SimCity contains the following updates and fixes:
General
• This patch fixes an issue that was causing the game to crash.
Server Improvements:
• Optimizations to improve latency. Region wall and city to city trading will be more responsive.
• Database optimizations that will improve the success rate for connections.
• Fixed an issue with rollbacks. Higher chance of success and less chance of getting in a rollback loop. 

Apparently 'fixed' means 'broke' in EA lingo. So this venture will be put off to another day. In its stead, more Skyrim, a solid, wonderful game that has worked for me since launch and is still enjoyable over a year later.

There Are No Words

This is why always on DRM is going to drive EA out of business:

That said, I did get a couple hours of play time in before this debacle. And I'll say, initial impression? It was glorious. The best city simulator I've played in years. 

But it doesn't mean a thing if you can't actually play.

I might be more positive with a more thorough review tomorrow, but today I hope EA is losing cash by the tens of thousands in refunds. 

I guess I should have gone for the new ME3 DLC instead...

The Roll of the Dice

...or the d20 at least.

A group of my closer MMO friends (specifically, that I have never met in real life) and I have recently started a Pathfinder group via Skype. The reasons for this are many, and maybe the subject of a future blog post regarding our jaded disenchantment with the state of the MMO industry at the moment.

Dystopian outlook aside, the experience has been fun. Only our GM has any clue what he's doing, the rest of us are green and fumbling along as we go. He's been kind and we've been introducing mechanics over time. I figure by the fourth or fifth session, we might actually understand most of what we're doing. At which point we'll add more mechanics no doubt.

I have to say, the most captivating aspect of the game came as a surprise to me: The dice roll.

If you know me, you know I'm kind of a control freak. "God Complex" may or may not be an appropriate term. So the fact that I enjoy letting fate decide my hand kind of caught me off guard. I'm still trying to reason out what it is. The uncertainty? Knowing I may have to completely redo my strategy on a whim because of a bad roll? I don't know but it's there.

I know at least of a part of my likes the extremely tangible aspect of the roll. Dice on wood. The sound. There's something very real about it. It's a nice contrast to the digital gaming world I'm used to.

Write Like the Wind

Not sure how I missed this. More or less made my night.