The RPG Scrollbars: Heroes. Don’t. Craft.

Few game mechanics right now make me ‘urrrrrrrrrrgh’ quite like crafting. Bloody, bloody crafting. I hate crafting. I hate that just about every game I pick up can’t wait to introduce its crafting system to me, with its long shopping lists of finnicky items to find, and about as much care for being believable as all those shotguns and medikits Lara Croft used to find littering ancient tombs. Crafting is the worst, and unlike something like the escort missions of old, it manages to be the worst regardless of how much it actually ends up wasting your time.

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Shanghai Major: Why Did Valve Fire Dota 2 Host James?

Where to start with the Shanghai Major right now? I’ve been trying to pull some thoughts together after the firings and the Reddit threads and the statement from Gabe Newell over the weekend but perhaps it’s better to just run through the basic timeline for the Major’s major Dota 2 [official site] drama and just explain what the heck is going on:

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Virtual Insanity: HTC Vive Will Cost £689/€899

When HTC announced a $799 US price tag (before taxes) for the Vive, the virtual reality system they’ve been working on with Valve, we could only guess at how much that would convert to in real money. Well, with cybergoggle pre-orders opening later today, HTC have confirmed prices for the rest of the world. Oh my goodness a lot of money, is the answer. Folks in the UK will pay £689, while it’s €899 in Cthulhu emoticon money, and… go check out the full list.

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The Division Won’t Have Microtransactions, Depending On Your Definition

What defines a microtransaction? How micro is “micro”, and does the name refer to the size of those payments, the location you make them from, or the nature of the goods you’re buying? That’s the quandary raised by Ubisoft. A community manager tweeted that “There will be no microtransactions, and definitely no P2W” in their new online shooter, The Division. This was simply repeating an answer given in interviews back in January, but the catch is that the game will have DLC, and that DLC will include “vanity items”, which are the kind of thing normally sold via microtransactions.

So RPS asks you: what is a microtransaction?

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This Is What Being Top Of The Leaderboard In Devil Daggers Looks Like

Devil Daggers is brilliant, as Adam explained in his review. It’s a first-person arena shooter with shades of Quake. Part of its appeal is that it doesn’t explain anything about how it’s overlapping enemies and few systems work, meaning each life and death is a process of discovery. Another part of its appeal, however, is that you can press a button on its leaderboard and instantly be watching the replay of that person’s session.

That means you can watch stages of the game far beyond where you’ve reached. They feel a little like spoilers, but they’re also ways to learn and a big part of the reason why I’m enjoying the game. It’s exciting to watch excellent in action. Which is why I’ve recorded the replay of the best time in the world and embedded it below, for you to watch if you so choose.

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Wot I Think: Far Cry Primal

A week later than consoles, because apparently Ubisoft have abandoned that promise already, Far Cry Primal [official site] is out on PC tomorrow. I’ve donned my wolf-skin coat, daubed random lines of paint on my face, and killed some local wildlife (sorry Mrs Primms about Fluffy) in preparation to tell you Wot I Think:

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FTL-A-Like Battlestation: Harbinger Out Now

If you’re a fan of space games and own one of those fancy portable cellular telephones all the cool kids are carrying around these days, you may have already heard of Battlestation: Harbinger [official site]. After a warm reception post-release last August, developers Bugbyte ran a successful Kickstarter campaign a couple of months later to bring an “Extended Edition” to PC with new features and missions and such. That version is out now.

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