The Primal Passions Club

By Bixyl Shuftan

If you're looking for a club that appeals to the wilder side, one place to check out is the Primal Passions Club. Located in a castle in the Zoxen sim the club promises to offer a unique adult experiance to mature-minded residents.

Co-owner Rayven Avalira described the club as a place for residents reguardless of appearance "to come and explore their more primal, feral and fantasies of every type and kind in a safe environment, along with meeting other like-minded individuals." Of it's orgins, "I had the idea of having my own club for awhile, but the idea for this one specifically came from when I met and married my Lion Beast Coeles, it was him who opened up a far wider world ... showing me the many possibilities of different species to explore and see what called to me." Second Life being a virtual world where one's appearance was more or less what one wanted to be, there was more out there than just a differance in skin color. One could find a lover of a different sapient race out of science fiction or fantasy.

"We then embarked on the many pleasures together from erotic, to carnal, to exploring the many ways of lust with not just each other but also with other playmates ... we wanted to bring the wide world of pleasures we found to together, to others in a safe place where all are respected and admired for their individuality and uniqueness."

Another reason for creating the club, not all places welcomed nonhuman avatars with open arms, "I have heard stories from others in my travels in SL that some places are not very friendly to mixed couples of human and furred. I also noticed to many clubs are speciests and discriminate by not allowing you in if your a non human, which angered me. To me all are equal human or not, its the personality and the one in the avi that matters over the avi to me, and vowed Coels and my place here, would never be speciests ever."

"I hated it when I found a great club, to only have them tell my non human friends they cant be there. Second Life is supposed to be this huge place of creativity and coalition of ideas and fun, but what fun is it if your excluded from a club, because you choose to be a beast, or furry or demon or other fantasy creature?"

Of the design for the club, "I always loved old castles, and how they can seem  so dark and foreboding on the outside, to reveal such elegance and beauty inside. Making one realize you can never judge the outside until you seen the beauty within. Hence the underlying hidden message of Primal Passions, don't judge till you seen the beauty with in." There is much inside to see and explore, "We have the main club area, a dungeon, a separate chambers skybox, a lapdance area, it is meant to make one feel at home while enjoying the many pleasures of our dancers and escorts, have fun with events and the variety of DJ's. I made sure to have a bit of something for everyones taste from romantic to BDSM." The hidden areas have beds, some made for normal human-sized avatars, others for when one or more partners is much larger in size.

But the secret beds aren't the only kind of fun to be had here. Rayven says the club plans to hold at least three events a week, "We play mostly from classic rock, rock, metal, etc genres, But all of our DJ's will gladly play any requests our guests have that they would like to hear. We are also hiring male and female dancers, escorts and dj's and hosts of all species, including human."

"We also intend to hold live concerts here as well," their first one planned being an Iron Maiden Tribute concert, "courtesy of Rockshoppe Concerts. The stage set is being built up outside as we speak. I would love to see a large turn out of course, as to me concerts are a great way for people to mingle and meet and strike up friendships and possibly far more."

Rayven's partner and the other co-owner of Primal Passions, Coeles Tentigo, had more to say about the club and why it came to be, "One of the big things here in Second Life, in my opinion a little silly, a number of sex clubs do only what can be easily done in real life, the same six pack abs, the same music, the same old thing. This doesn't make much sense to me ... so many possibilities. The people coming here will find a much different experience."

He described the club as "running under the 'Four-F System': fun, friends, 'farking,' and fantasy." Coeles expressed puzzlement as to why so many residents stick with ordinary human avatars, "you can become anything, so why become the same? I suppose there's the familiarity, but after a while it becomes boring. This place allows you to expand your horizions ... I think that's pretty awesome."

But just because a club caters to nonhumans, Coeles felt it doesn't necessarily mean it's ideal. He found some of the older furry clubs as having a number of  "immature individuals in the labor scene, bouncing around. That's fine for them, but we want to do something more mature." Coeles added, "we won't stand for any drama. We are very zero drama in that respect."

"We want to appeal to people who want to expand their fantasy, whether it involves demons, angels, or any other being from your imagination." Coeles did note there was one exception to their welcoming avatars of all kinds: child avatars are not welcome under any circumstances, "we're strictly an adult sim."

Coeles wanted Primal Passions to appeal to "eroticism, moving away from some of the simplistic aspects to some of the more complex, story driven, creativity, imagination ...not the wham-bam stuff." In a sense, the club will offer residents to become part of an erotic fantasy/sci-fi story, "You have an event, you meet up with a creature like me or her (Rayven), you'll get a much more deeper immersion, become part of things more adult oriented, storytelling cross-genre, eroticism, creativity, ideas never previously considered, real sensuality."

"If people come here and think it's going to be a demonic f**fest, it's not going to be that. The customer's going to come away with such an experience, they'll be telling fifty friends about it, something different and unique. I think people coming here (to Second Life), their imaginations have been stretched, but many of the clubs here don't cater to that we go for a much more memorable experience, more immersion for the senses. We're doing something different, catering to the unique." For those whom find certain creatures interesting, Coeles says they plan to encourage to have a variety of appearances in the audience from many fantasy/sci-fi races, "the more the merrier."

Coeles felt the experience would cause some visitors to have a moment of realization, "Wait a minute, I've spent my entire virtual time being just an ordinary human being. There's so much more here that I can be." Of his "Four-F System, if more people lived by that, there would be less trouble. If you want in here, check your drama at the door. If you have a problem, there's various ways of dealing with it without getting others involved. This will be a safe environment that you feel comfortable with, that you can experience new things without being judged and have fun amongst other adults. You don't have to be worried about being called, 'weird,' it's okay. It may not be the taste for everyone, but it will expand the horizons of many."

Coeles explained, here are some guidelines to the roleplaying, "no one's going to grab you and take you, unless that's what you want. There may be storylines in which people play the part of a character getting corrupted." Besides the roleplaying, "You can touch the dancers if they don't mind it. There will always be a chance for live interaction. If someone's going to be a problem is when the interaction ends." Rayven commented, "If people want to get it on on the dancefloor, I'll rezz a bed. It'll just cost so much an hour."

Coeles once again mentioned the no-drama rule, "if they're going to be idiots, we don't want anything to do with them ... it may put off a few people, but," they want the club to be enjoyable for all. Bloodlines is restricted, "no random biting. If someone wants to become a vampire, that can be worked out." The use of the "Onduty" male attatchment is definately *not* welcome. "If you can't play by the rules, you'll be shown the door, everyone else will go on without you, and you won't be wanted back."

"It's going to be interesting to see how it all works out, there may be a few little mistakes, but once people see what we're all about, good roleplay, individuals being comfortable with expressing themselves, people happy to visit a spot that caters to adult roleplay by mature adults."

"I would go to a lot of clubs, talk to people, a lot of people were so bored, 'there's nothing to do.' I'd talk to them about mine," Coeles stated while some weren't interested in his club, others were, "There's going to be a lot of fun to be had. The clientel, people who are going to be respectful adults ... if you want to get interactive and the dancer's fine with that," one can. "We have the rooms, the skybox, the dungeon."

Coeles mentioned another reason for the place was for, "an escape from the depressions of reality." It might be one's personal real life or, "the things that go on in the news. Seems you can't turn on the TV without hearing about someone get his head cut off by some maniacs. You can come here and escape and relax and de-stress, enjoy a higher level of sexual pleasure."

"Some things that other clubs don't allow, we do. We aim to be unique. Second Life is supposed to be this collaboration of ideas. So why be stuck only as a human all the time? Explore your fantasies in a safe environment. That's the beauty of virtual reality, your avatar can't truly be hurt, you're in a safe avenue where you can explore. For instance, I was at an Africa sim and had fun exploring the place. I can't do so in reality as Africa's too dangerous a place to visit."

Rayven commented, "The beauty of SL is you can do things here that you can't in real life. ... The first time I met him was interesting, I was a little scared. I was still 'trapped in that box.' When he got me in that bed, I wanted more. He opened a curiosity that just won't go away."

Coeles and Rayven noted that they have an open relationship, "The world needs a little less jealousy, less posessive, ... everyone has a great time. The madness of jealousy, I just don't understand it."

They noted that they're open to suggestions, such as to what events to have, "all people have to do is drop us a notecard."

"Why a castle? Well the way Coeles and I are, it's like beauty and the beast. Everyone's equal here in this place while having a good time. Something different from the run of the mill club in Second Life. If you're uncomfortable, you can turn around and head out the door, and no one will think any worse of you."

"So be ones pleasure music, concerts, sexy dancers and escorts, we have it all here, for all to enjoy regardless of species. ... This place is meant for all, as Coel and I see the beauty in all the other avatar species, and would love for them to all come and enjoy themselves here. Coel and I have also many secret things in the works that will also set us apart from all other clubs in Second Life as well. So many will want to stay tuned as to what those are and when they will happen here. To all the creators of all the other avi species, we want to tank them for the vison and creativity in helping to make Second Life a far moere diverse and beautiful place."

The Primal Passions Club is in the Zoxen sim.

Bixyl Shuftan

The Island of Lost Dreams

By Bixyl Shuftan

Second Life has a number of combat areas. And there's no shortage of places offering adult action. The Island of Lost Dreams combines both, but there's a lot more to the place as well.


The Island of Lost Dreams is a "Capture / Roleplay" or CARP sim, or a "slave hunt" sim as the group calls itself. The players are in three groups, Preys, Hunters, and Amazons. Preys are the more submissive players, armed only with slings with stones, and can only shoot back when attacked. Mostly made up of females, the girls are pursued by the Hunters, and the guys by the Amazons. The Hunters are male players armed with bows whom try to capture female prey or hunters. The Amazons are female hunters, armed with bows and melee weapons, whom protect prey girls and fight the Hunters. Players are required to wear a combat GM meter and hud, with Preys also needing a collar.

In one on one combat, the participants fight one another until one runs out of hit points and falls unconscious. A victorious hunter can capture and bind Preys and Amazons he bests. Amazons can also capture hunters.

According to the notecard, outfits were to be Fantasy Medieval or Gorean-themed. The rules stated only humans, elves, and possibly demons could be active participants. Child and four-footed avatars are absolutely not allowed.

I was invited to get a look at the island, by the leader of the role-play Lisa Salvadori. The LM provided takes one to a platform high over the sim, where one can get notecards explaining the place and weapons appropriate for the role you join. We used the teleporter to drop down to ground level near the village. The main building there is the tavern, which is considered a safe or neutral zone, and is the main social spot. She then led me to one of the tunnels there, "We have several tunnels here, leading to different places." There was one point in which the wooden walkway we were on was interrupted with an underground stream under the gap, "Have to jump up here." While she made it, yours truly missed and took a bath, getting some girlish giggles in response, "Ha ha! You could have also went down underwater. Just have to find the secrets (laughter)." At least one of the tunnels offers a secret entrance to the castle dungeon.

Lisa soon had to go, so one of the Amazons, Raven, took me around. The scenery was very good once rezzed. Besides the village and the tunnels, there were waterfalls, hills, and the castle in the distance. Sometimes one needs to jump to get to a spot without taking a long way around, but Raven loved it, "running and jumping I love sooo much. (grin)"

We went up to one spot in the hills for a picturesque view, "This is my favorite spot to sit and look at the water." For traveling over the water, there's a boat, "it's fun to ride in, but we found it can't hold a lot of people (laughter), it will sink!" The boat can hold a driver, two "holding" and a fourth. At one point, we passed a hammock, "you can lay in solo or with a partner." With 58 animations, it didn't take much imagination to figure out what a couple could be doing there. In another part of the sim were ruins one could hide in, or fight from behind a wall. And there were more tunnels. Raven used some to get away from Hunters when outgunned or when her hitpoints were low.

In the main field there was a dummy for combat practice. To keep one from being ambushed while distracted, the location it was in was considered a safe zone. Once activated, it could move around and return fire on one attacking it. It had adjustable settings so beginners could start low and work their way up.

Back at the tavern, Raven introduced me to one of the hunters, Keven, whom was dressed in a modern hunter's camo outfit. The conversation soon got to some friendly bickering, "Lisa a Miss, since when?" "(laughter) Careful, you know if she hears you, she's going to spank you." "(chuckle) More like she gets spanked." "(raspberries)." Looking to me, Raven told, "Keven here put an arrow in my (behind) earlier." "Poor Raven, I make her blush, and it makes me feel so damn good." "Hee-hee. … I'll get you yet, Sir, you can count on that." They described earlier that he had captured her and taken him to his home, locking her up. But when he had to leave she escaped, after getting her bow and dagger. She explained for melee weapons, Amazons could use "swords, whips, hammers" or most anything that could be easily used in one hand inland to hand combat and could reasonably be found in this kind of setting.

Keven explained given patience, most anyone could learn how to fight here, "a newcomer … would need to learn fast as some of these Amazons are hard to take down." Raven stated fights could be over in less than five minutes or go on for a half hour. At one point, Keven and Raven demonstrated a capture, with Raven letting him win a fight, the combat meter declaring her unconscious, and Keven tying her up. While unconscious, one could be aided by someone on their side. But once captured, the captive could be taken away, "Once she is leashed, I can drag her over the sim." "Like this, I can't run, unless he loosens my legs, and if he doesn't leash me when he loosens my legs, I can run."

Recorded damage slowly healed over time. Unless reset, a combat meter takes up to thirty minutes to fully heal wounds. While there was an option for "arena mode," it wasn't used normally as once someone was beating, it was soon reset. It wasn't good for the CARP fighting, only PvP combat in which the only objective was how many wins. It was also mentioned that "splash" damage arrows were active at the moment, which Raven disliked as it made for easier ambushes and captures.

They got along well, though there was no shortage of rivalry and scheming, albeit in a friendly way, Keven himself saying, "One thing to remember is never trust a Hunter, they are evil." "Or an Amazon," Raven quipped, grinning evilly. Keven smirked, "Its good we are friends." At one point, Raven accidentally activated a music gesture, singing "Bad to the Bone." Keven chuckled, "See, if you tickle her good, she will sing all happy like." "(laughter and raspberries) I am the one here you will find just randomly dancing (laughter)." "Yea, I remember not too long ago she was dancing and captured me. (laughter) But I do have to say, her (behind) looked good." There were more chuckles, Keven saying, "Well, you know most of the girls chase me, only one can really catch me, and I'm not pointing her out," then he looked at Raven and grinned.

Soon we were joined by another Hunter, Kairos, "one of our Russian Hunters." "We have Hunters all over the world," Raven told. Then came a scantily clad Amazon, "Sweet Honey Pot." Raven spoke of her, "Sweet started as Prey, then learned to pick up a bow. Now she's my sister. (smile)" We were then joined by another, Olivia Direwytch, also lacking much cover, "Darn, lost my skirt again." Raven remarked, "As you can see, we all dress differently, but we chicks are hotties." Keven drooled, "Hot hell, I melt any time I'm around any of ays." Looking to me, Raven warned, "Don't let any of these girls fool you, we all love a good fight." One of the girls looked at me, openly wondering what it would be like to go after foxboy prey.

Over time, there have been some crazy happenings. Raven described one time in which some Amazons had captured a hunter, and after tying him to a pole were having fun with him by taking turns spanking his behind.

Besides the CARP action, there are also "Capture the flag" battles. The usual roles of hunter vs prey and Hunter vs Amazon are cast aside for "Red vs Blue." Here the normally submissive players are free to attack as they please, and only one item counts as a capture: the opposing team's flag. Whoever swipes the opposing player's flag and can bring it back to base wins.

On some weekends, there's music parties at the tavern or castle, with either a DJ or live musician. Raven commented, "There's also 'Spin the Bottle' up in the castle for naughty times - shhhhhh!" The parties can take all sorts of fun, "We have fun, one night we got all these bouncy balls and were bouncin' all over the place and hidin' in the bushes!" Sweet commented, "A couple weeks ago, we had a love concert, er live concert in the castle ballroom." She giggled, "The love concert came after."

Most of the houses and other buildings in the Village are available for rent, with a 50 prim limit available for 360 Lindens a week, 75 for 575L and 100 for 680. One could be rented for a home, or a store. There were already stores in the area where one could get clothing, furniture,  weapons, and a few adult items.

Finally, there are the roleplaying classes. The ILD Roleplayers group is ranked "Mature" and not adult. These are taught by Rayah Marenwolf at 2PM on Wednesdays in the Tavern. There's also RP practice in the Tavern on Sundays at announced times. Once a month is the "Virtual Live Band," with four people from four different countries.

The builder behind the Island of Lost Dreams was Jenne Dibou, whom is also known for her Steampunk designs and builds.

With the adult themes in mind, the main objective was for everyone to have fun, with the rule book on occasion getting tossed aside when everyone desired. Sweet told, "The best thing about this sim is the people. Everyone I've met is very open and friendly and willing to help." "A sense of humor helps too," Olivia added.

The entrance is at Lost Dreams Island, (129, 82, 3506). For more information, there's also a Island of Lost Dreams Blog at http://islandoflostdreamscarpsim.blogspot.com/ .


Bixyl Shuftan

Game Review: Torchlight 2

By Grease Coakes

For Xmas my brother got me Torchlight 2 from steam and I have been playing on and off since last month. For fans of Diablo 2 and 3 this game is a welcome addition to the dungeon crawler mouse clicking genre. Where Diablo 3 seemed fun at first, but it got stale and repetitive every time I played it. Torchlight 2 seems fresh every time I play it.

The Alchemist from the first torchlight series as a magic blasting class was corrupted by the Ember Blight coming from the Heart of Ordrak in the original Torchlight. The game progresses as your character chases after him as he creates chaos in his wake. So far as I play through the game the first act is basic plains. The second act is a desert, and the third act is a forest.

 

The four characters you can play as are the engineer which is your melee brawling character. The berserker is another melee class using animal based attacks. The ember mage is a wizard class, and finally the outlander is a gun toting ranged class with some magic ability. The Outlander is my main character as he seems the most fun (in my opinion) to play. Not to say the other characters aren’t fun either as I dabbled in the other classes

 

When you create your character you’re not stuck with one character appearance as you can pick out hair color and style and skin tone along with the gender of your character.

 

Like the first Torchlight you have an animal as your sidekick to go to town and sell trash and help you fight the baddies that stand in your way. In the first Torchlight you could only pick a dog or cat as your animal ally. In the second Torchlight you can pick from many more including a panther, hawk, badger and owl along with the original dog and cat and you can also change the animal fur color as well. You can also feed your pet fish from fishing that change your pet into different kinds of animals to boost kitty’s fighting ability like an armored crab or a mole that can stun enemies. Fishing itself isn’t hard or time-consuming so fishing for your pet is rewarding to give your pet a fighting edge.

 

One thing I can say about Torchlight II is how fast your character levels up. Whereas Diablo 3 you slowly level having to repeat acts to level up the game pace in Torchlight II is just right as it seems I progress through the game and level up at a rapid pace. In addition to that I was happy to play through the game as I got a fair share of treasure to sell as fodder and weapons and armor to boost my character. Green is good, blue is a lot better and orange is legendary. Your pet gets gear too as collars and tags.

 

The difficulty level is just right too. A turn off from Diablo 3 was that towards the end of the game it was no fun to play anymore as my character died if a bad guy sneezed on him. As I’m in the third act now the game play difficulty is a happy medium. Sure I die now and again, but I’m not dying constantly. A definite plus in the game is I’m not punished for dying. When I die I’m given a choice to go to the start of the dungeon I’m at costing some gold, or start back in town costing nothing. The no-brainer choice is use the town teleport scrolls as I progress along and start in town losing no gold. No cash eating repair bills in this game. 

 

Each time I level up I get 5 points to assign attributes such as focus to increase magic, dexterity, and Strength speak for themselves and Vitality to boost hit points and defense. Using the outlander I was dumping a lot of points into dexterity increasing his critical strike chance while throwing the rest into Strength and Vitality and rarely in focus. So far this seems like the right way as my outlander named chair is shooting down baddies pretty well. 

 

You also receive a single point to put into your character build. Thinking this is a gun toting character I put a lot of my points into gun abilities (Warfare) boosting his rapid fire (right click on the mouse) among other ranged attacks. Plus I have been boosting his overall damage using dual wielding pistols and increasing his attack range and damage. So far it seems like a winning strategy. As you level up new abilities are available like a rain of poison arrows that do a LOT of damage in a certain radius but this was only available when I hit level 42 chair is now near level 50 in the third act. The other characters have skill trees as well with different abilities as the embermage has fire arcane and frost to play with for example.

 

Something that helps keep the game fresh is like the popular game "World of Warcraft," in-town NPC/s ask you to do quests to progress through the game so you’re not mindlessly killing monsters to gain experience/gold/gear. Makes you wonder sometimes why those lazy NPC/s can’t do the quests themselves. On top of that the bosses so far were a thrill to fight. They were tough making me constantly guzzle potions to keep my hp/s and magic up but they always dropped great gear and gold.

There are slots to place gems in armor and weapons for elemental damage or adding to your elemental defense against say poison or fire. Also enhancements you can pay an NPC to enchant your gear that is expensive, but worth your gold. Torchlight II gives you plenty of ways to boost your character

 

All in all I’d say Torchlight II is a blast to play with the option to play with others, but for now I’ve been killing baddies solo wanting to progress at my own pace. I may try a multiplayer game with another character like my embermage, but for now I want to keep shooting down bad guys on my outlander. The only flaws I can think of are that I can only repsec three points on your character’s skill tree if you want to change. The music is okay, but not amazing. However the sound effects make up for it. If you get the chance buy Torchlight II from Steam and have a ball killing baddies and more.

 

Grease Coakes

Game Review: Diablo 3

 

After Diablo 2 came out in the year 2000 along with its expansion, Blizzard the same company that created World of Warcraft kept promising that would create a sequel to Diablo 2. Year after year, Blizzard put it off until this year in May 2012 when they finally released it. My brother bought himself and me a copy to test it out.

 

Is it a good game? I’d say so yes, but it gets repetitive sometimes. For those not familiar with the Diablo series I can offer a quick synopsis for the third game in the series. The main goal is to defeat the Lord of Hell called Diablo. You choose from five character classes. A barbarian is a slashing warrior with high health and uses heavy armor. Another class is the wizard casting magical attacks. There’s an African witchdoctor shooting blow darts and summoning the undead to fight for him. A demon hunter who fights with a bow and arrow and uses nifty traps. The fifth character class is a monk who fights with marital arts and super natural physical attacks. 

 

This time around in the series, you are now able to choose the gender of your character. In the first and second game if you played a wizard, that character could only be one set gender. A man in the first game and a woman in the second game. In both the first and second Diablo a barbarian was always a man. Seemed kind of silly that if you wanted to play a wizard you could only play as a woman in the second game. Now both genders are available for every class in the third game. 

 

The game play is simple using your mouse you left click as your main attack and right as a secondary attack. To move your character around just left click and your character will move there. Your character gets to click and kill lots of zombies and horrible monsters in your way to gain experience and gold. Over time your character levels from one to a maximum level of sixty to become stronger. 

 

One nifty thing about Diablo 3, as you come across a new enemy you see a pop up on your screen saying "new lore." Click it and you’ll hear an actor’s voice describing the enemy monster to you. For example imps within the game are described to be small, but capable of tearing apart flesh with their needle teeth. Blizzard wanted to accomplish fantasy with a touch of horror and they do a good job of it.

 

When you pick a character you start out on your adventure going from town to dungeon progressing through the game in four acts each act taking you to a separate location. The fourth and final act you fight Diablo himself, beating the game ... or do you?

 

In Diablo one and two, there are three levels of difficulty Normal, Nightmare and Hell. When you defeat normal difficulty defeating Diablo at the end of the fourth act you are able to progress to the next difficulty level Nightmare, then Hell. Luckily you have the option of joining your fight against the demon Diablo with fellow players with a limit of four per group. The game gets harder the more people that are in a game or group together. So you can’t make the game easier by ganging up on the game. 

 

In Diablo 3 there’s a new difficulty called Inferno. In act 3 Hell I was killed a lot, later learning that you needed all resist gear to give you resistance to all elements. If you didn’t have gear like that, well I already knew what would happen. The elements you needed resistance to were fire, arcane, poison, and cold and electricity. Luckily a lady barbarian was nice enough to give me some gear that boosted my resist all. I finally got through to inferno with the correct gear. I was very happy when I defeated the end boss of the first act of Inferno called the butcher. When I defeated the butcher, a giant demon using hooks and floors of fire killing adventuring heroes, I unlocked a banner I wanted: a griffin icon for my banner.  (Yes I like griffins very much.) Something new in the Diablo series is that you get to create your own banner with various colors and sigils. Like a banner you would see with a medieval clan or house or king or queen. As you progress through the game earning achievements you earn various designs for your banner.

 

 However when I tried act two in Inferno I died fairly quickly despite the fair amount of all resist gear I had on my barbarian character. Blizzard did a good job of making Inferno beyond hard. Instead of blowing gold on repair bills I went back to act one in Inferno to earn gold to buy better equipment.

For those who played World of Warcraft, Blizzard carried over the auction house (called AH for short) over to Diablo 3. Compared to EBay, you can bid on new armor pieces for your character or a new shiny weapon to smite the demons of Hell. Like any RPG or Massively multiplayer online role-playing game or for short MMORPG. The player becomes more powerful by looking for or buying new equipment for his or her character in the game world. The game wouldn’t be much fun if you could only use the same equipment you started with throughout the whole game.

 

Diablo 3 does have an amazing amount of gear for each character to equip. For example a helmet or helm name could be something like a "masked aurora or a knight’s hunger." A dagger could be called a "grisly point" or a "death abyss." Or the dagger I currently have is a shiv revenge. One neat thing about weaponry is sometimes they come with element damage like poison or fire that add to the graphics and add to the damage you inflict per attack. Another neat thing is that sometimes when your character kills an enemy you see the enemy’s dead body fly across the screen as your character forces it back with the power of your attack. Also if you attack with a certain element it adds to the death of the enemy. Attacking with a poisoned weapon leaves the enemy as a diseased husk with a green sickly aura and poison cloud. Or a fire weapon leaves the enemy as a burning blackened husk.

The gear itself comes as a few colors. White is plain ordinary gear blue is step up offering some boosts. Yellow is a lot better than blue. Green is a set item that comes with 2 or more other items in the set. When you complete or add to the set you get additional bonuses. Orange is legendary and rarely found.

 

Some enemies by themselves die with graphical bravado. A demon in the fourth act burns dying and leaves behind a skeleton that blackens and turns to black ash. Another demon dies with its head and body erupting with its inner organs bursting through a large tear. The graphics are pretty amazing to the environments you fight in, or as explained before, the enemies dying. Also the magical attacks are neat to look at too. The wizard can blast away demons with a bright beam of magical doom on your screen. The witch doctor can attack with frogs or balls of fire.

 

For another challenging aspect within the game is the option of hardcore characters available when you reach level 10 of any character class. In the regular gameplay when you die you lose 10% or your gear’s durability which costs gold to repair at npc vendors. When you play as a hardcore character and you die you die like a real life death. No coming back end of your character game over. Before I wrote this article I tried a hardcore character for kicks. Poor Bubbles only made it to level 7 and is now unplayable as she died a horrible death by skeletons.

 

All in all I’d say Diablo 3 is a fun game to play. It can get repetitive fighting in the same dungeons again and again. The gameplay is fun though and with pretty graphics it’s still fun to play. What’s lacking though, and Blizzard might be working on this, is a pvp option (player vs. player). So you can test your might against fellow players instead of just the demons of Hell. Either way players new to Diablo and those who played Diablo 1 and 2 will still find this an entertaining and challenging game to play.

Grease Coakes

MMO Review: Tera

So seeing there was a new MMO flavor of the month and I had a few extra dollars to spend, I thought "why not, it'll give me something to do while waiting for Torchlight 2 to come out." So I went and got the game "Tera", by some Korean company that, according to their wikipedia entry for the game, saw a touch of legal action before release of the game (but won).

So after picking the game up and playing through the first 25 levels... 

The artwork is very attractive. If it's something this company knows how to do, it's graphics. If your computer can handle the powerful graphics, turn the settings all the way up and you won't be disappointed. If you like breathtaking vistas, you'll like Tera; the graphics are better than both WoW and Rift. I won't say better than both combined because the background is kinda "comical" and maybe just a little bit cartoony (lack of better words); Rift has it beat on realism. The general premise of the game is different than most: no factions like the Horde vs the Alliance of WoW, or the Guardians vs the Defiant for Rift. Here, it's harmony. Well almost, there IS PvP elsewhere. The idea is that two titans dreamed up the world and everything on it. Now some creatures called "argons" (mechs? robots? I'm not sure) are hell bent on wrecking the place and making griefers of themselves.

Combat is interesting in that attacks have weight and visible power behind them, if you miss with a big slam and they move out of the way you leave yourself open as you recover and could get knocked down or one-shot. If you don't time your attacks and just mash buttons (as I am used to doing), you are not going to get very far at all.

While the premise of the game is good, the interface is crap. I'm used to clicking and dragging the view around, the same way as most other games out there. Not so with Tera; either the mouse controls the camera (leaving it unable to click buttons for special attacks because moving the mouse moves the camera) or right click buttons, leaving it impossible to change the view quickly if you have enemies attacking from several sides at once. This does mean you have to actually have some skill to play, though. It's not a point and click game by any means. I chose a "tank" class (the kind of player that stands there and keeps the enemy busy while others shoot them down), and tanking is -very- hard if you don't get the timing just right (due to the whole "all actions have weight to them" mechanic).

The outfits are mostly T&A --- some of these waif girls should either be toppling over paralyzed or have their own gravitational field coming from their chests that is powerful enough to snag Jupiter. Most of the outfits look exactly the same and are divided up into "tiers" (all armor and weapons of the same tier look alike) that can be "dyed" (which is both expensive and temporary) in order to customize them. I haven't bothered with that, as armor's armor and weapons are weapons... as long as they get the job done, who cares what they look like. Function over form, as it were.

The crafting is very very "overdone" --- many many things need to be crafted in order to make even the most basic of items. This has led me to not even bother with doing crafting, despite the fact that the game says crafted items are more powerful --- I've gotten by just fine on what I have and I'm almost half way to the level cap as it is. Questing seems like it's the standard fetch/kill x of y type, so nothing new there. No clicking or running over to pick up fallen treasures either; that's also all keyboard based. At least you can't pick up stuff that "doesn't belong to you" though I am unclear if things "revert" to a free for all after X minutes of no pickup.

The classes seem to be a mishmash of strange things. I think the company that created this tried a little too hard in order to seem "unique", and created a congealed mess, class-wise. Warriors are leather-wearing dualwielders and the game's "tank" class (the Lancer) wields a lance and shield -without- being mounted (wouldn't that be, I dunno, really unwieldy?). I haven't tried anything with the caster classes. I think the game company may have felt threatened by the upcoming Diablo release and wanted to get their game out.

The races are cute; everything from a resistant-to-everything (up to and including the heat death of the universe) warrior to a cute little "enlightened animal" (whose race is "all males animals, all females cat-or-bunny girls"), give something new to the table.

Overall, aside from the artwork being worthy of being better than god, I am still kind of unimpressed. At $60 + a subscription fee + middling customer support after three days of waiting about something, I am going to say unless you like shiny anime-ish artwork and an interface that makes you want to rip your fur out while trying to figure it out, give this one a pass unless you have the loose change and the time to spend on it. The game has good intentions and somewhat good ideas in spite of there being no real unique ideas on the planet anymore, but has a Linden-level ability of execution in that UI until people learn it and get used to it, which is something I am still trying to do twenty five experience levels into the game. I'm going to give this one three dragon hoards out of five, and that's being nice. It's growing on me just a little, but not enough to give it any more than three hoards.

Torchlight 2, on the other hand, when that comes out? THAT will be worth every penny and more of the $20 it will cost...

Xymbers Slade

Review of Skyrim

So, like many people who are interested in the Elder Scrolls series, I recently got Skyrim (the 5th in the series). It's supposed to be "cutting edge", the best thing out there graphics- wise, etc. etc. etc. However, from my experiences, it doesn't seem to live up to the hype much.

The story goes that you're captured and set to be executed, when a dragon decides to make itself known and ruin the proceedings after being sealed away for so long. Once you escape and do a little investigation, you're sent to kill another dragon, and it is there you learn you're "dragonborn," able to use the "shouts" of the dragons. From there, you're off across the realm doing quests and slaying yet MORE dragons while you uncover the richness that is Skyrim.

And rich it is. It has a LOT of realism to it, and the graphics are just beautiful. The rivers and streams are beautifully rendered, there's a lot of background ambiance in the towns, you can capture bugs with your bare hands for alchemy ingredients or snag fish out of streams, and I don't know how many times I've -slowly- edged into a cave, fearful of all the sounds and worried that something's going to jump out at me and eat my face in. Dragons can attack at random in real time, diving out of the sky and surprising you if you're not paying attention to your surroundings. If it's one thing the creators of Skyrim at Bethesda got right, it's the graphics. They also have what is known as the "Radiant" quest system, where your actions influence what quests become available. If there's a bandit group in one cavern and you clean it out before the quest can be given, then the game will just pick another cavern from a predetermined list and use THAT for the quest bait.

But they got a lot of things wrong, as well. The first thing that annoyed me was some of the physics. Sometimes if I fall off a cliff, by the time I stop bouncing off the boulders like a ragdoll, I'm three cities away. There -is- a difference between "laws of gravity" and "bouncing like a ping pong ball across the planet", which kind of annoyed me when my first horse fell and I found its corpse half the continent away. The second thing that annoyed me was the experience system; instead of getting points for killing things and advancing skills once you level up, you only advance when you advance your skills enough and on a level-up you only gain ten points of magic, hit points or carrying capacity / stamina (dishonorable mention is the fact that you can't research new spells nor put more than one enchantment on any item).

The third thing that annoyed me was the behavior of some of the dragons, but I think that was by design (I'm playing a solid melee character with no magic or ranged support, and some dragons will stay airborne and breathe on you from the air, making it very difficult to bring them down), which brings me to yet another gripe I had: the way things don't respawn all that often. If you kill a dragon, bear, or other large beast, go off questing for several game hours, days or months, and then return, the skeleton/corpse will still be there when you get back. Nice when it's a dragon you'd rather not deal with again, but not so hot if you're trying to farm bandit camps for things to sell or the odd piece of extra gear like you could in Oblivion or Morrowind (I later found they do respawn, but it takes a -long- time).

The last thing that annoyed me, and this one's the big one, was the way they handled "followers." See, every now and again you can recruit mercenaries or people who like you (never more than one at a time, which -really- is dumb... I want to see an adventuring party and interparty politics, damn it!), but if they are badly badly wounded, they don't die. They fall to the ground and slowly regenerate instead. You can kill them if you attack them yourself at that point, but enemies will ignore them if they're injured and come straight for you instead. When I saw this, I went "Really?" --- the threat of the dungeons is lowered if your characters can't die; just send in the follower to soften them up, wait for them to go down, charge in swinging, kill the bad guy, rinse and repeat until everything's dead.

On top of that, one of the followers is actually tagged as "Essential", meaning she CAN'T die. Not EVER. So if you have her as a follower, equip her with the best gear and give her a steady supply of healing, you can basically just waltz through the entire game and never have to raise a sword. That takes something away from the game.

I'm going to give Skyrim 3 Dragon Hoards out of five. It's got a lot going for it, but they got too many things wrong in my opinion. It's worth at least one playthrough, but after that, I'm not so sure.

*Update* For more information, you can check reviews by New World Notes and Paul Tassi of Forbes.

Xymbers Slade

MORPG Review: Rift

A few people have been asking me where I've been, and why I haven't put up a couple of articles for the Newser in recent times. The simple answer is that I haven't been in-world; I've been distracted by a game known as Rift... essentially "World of Warcraft" if WoW had respectable graphics.

Rift is a shameless WoW knockoff, but it's a good one. It's set in the world of Telara, and there are two factions, the Alliance and the Hor... I mean, the Guardians (chosen by the gods to go after evil) and the Defiant (relying on technology over "gods"). The two factions are at odds about how best to deal with a bunch of evil dragons that want essentially to eat the world. As of right now in the storyline, two of those dragons (Greenscale, dragon of Life, and Akylios, of Knowledge) have been taken out by players.

The classes are kind of the same, with skill "trees", only in this case, the more points you put into the "branches" of the tree, the more "root" skills are unlocked. There are a few differences from WoW in this regard; Rogues can tank (their tanking tree comes with a lot of shields and teleports both to and from the monsters) and mages can heal with a "Chloromancer" build.

Rift has a few things going that make it different from WoW. For one, it has its namesakes, the Rifts. These are mini events in which you "kill x amount of monsters" that are usually stronger than the norm. Rifts have multiple stages, with stronger and stronger beings appearing until the last of them drops and the rift is sealed. The other thing it has is its Artifact system, where during the course of your travels you can come across artifacts that make up "sets" and which you can turn in for a gold reward (and sometimes a costume piece, like the head of an iron golem you can use as a helmet). It also has "Chronicles", mini-dungeons/adventures that allow you to solo "high end" content (so instead of needing a 20 man raid to down Greenscale, you can do it alone or with one other person). Currently there are only two Chronicles, but I am sure there are going to be more.

Other than that it's the same as WoW. You go out questing, do dailies and holiday events, go on raids (the current end content, Hammerknell, has 11 bosses that take 10-15 minutes to down... each), get better gear. They just opened up a new continent for content, Ember Isle, with a tropical "jungle feel" to it for the Level 50s (the highest level you can be so far). I decided to play a Rogue, as I was looking for a Hunter build like my WoW days.

It's not without its faults. The aforementioned hunter only has three pets (tanking boar, dps wolf, and a mutant velociraptor called a blood raptor); there is a lot of groaning about how clerics seem to be underpowered, and one thing I have noticed is that the devs can't seem to get world events right. Their first (the opening of an instance called the River of Souls) was a disaster, and the ones following haven't been all that hot either, with a lot of unexpected bugs. Their PvP leaves much to be desired, as there's no scaling. You can be a "rank 2" (out of 8) PvPer, and routinely run into Rank 8s whom you can't put a dent into. When their newest expansion, Ember Isle, opened you had world bosses with 60-80 people fighting the boss trying to down it. The lag generated by so many people in one place means the boss despawns after two real-time hours before you finish killing it. The technology is advancing faster than most home computer users.

I've been playing since the beta that started in March. Having been kicked out of my WoW guild for stupid reasons, I was quitting cold turkey (a good decision; I found I didn't miss WoW at -all- after two years total of play). Rift's a good game that has a LOT of potential for improvement if they don't make stupid mistakes, so I'm giving it an optimistic 3 Dragon Hoards out of five, because it has room for improvement.

I've also been playing several other games and am pondering getting Skyrim, and I simply haven't been in Second Life all that much otherwise except to allow my Tiny Empires HUD to advance a few turns. So if you were looking for me, that's where I've been.

Now for an announcement. I've become a rather jaded equine reporter here on the Grid, it's very hard for me to find something I can get really excited about writing about. Twice already I've had to pass stuff back to Bixyl (the recent Meeroo story, for instance) because I couldn't get excited enough to write a piece on it.

With that in mind, for the 2012 year I want -you- out there to get me to do things. I'm a reporter, make me report things! :) If you can point me to something or have something to plug that I can get excited about, AND I give it a good review, it's $L in your pocket; I'm putting my $L where my mouth is. If I give something you bring to my attention 4 Dragon Hoards out of five, I'll pay you 500 $L. If I give it a full five out of five (harder than it looks), I'll pay 2000 $L out of my own pocket.

Xymbers Slade