Planescape Torment: Dead men tell plenty of tales

(This is a continuing series detailing my playthrough of Planescape Torment.  You can check out the whole run on the Nostalgia Lane page.)

Morte’s been kidnapped.  I am not pleased.  While the little guy wasn’t the best fighter in the world, he was always entertaining and part of my posse.  But I’m pretty sure he’ll be fine for the time being, so I go around doing a few extra chores before exploring the lower ward.

First up, heading back to the Hive to tell on Pharod to the Dustmen.  The guy’s dead anyway, so might as well get some money and XP.  One thing I notice is that zoning now takes me to the world map instead of the next screen, which allows me to jump between locations a lot quicker.  I really appreciate that.

Speaking of Pharod, he’s my next loose end.  I zip back to the Buried Village to see if I can locate his secret vault.  Annah has a bit of an outburst at seeing his body, which is appropriate since he’s her dad (real or adopted).  I’m your father now, Annah.  Go make your bed.  Stories-bones-tell doesn’t work on him for some reason, however.

I take the sphere (what does it doooo) and the crutch from his body, because looting relatives’ corpses is so very tactful.  The crutch does open up a portal to an abandoned library with a few odds and ends, but it’s not exactly a treasure trove, either.

Enough lollygagging — Morte’s missing, and I must get my second-favorite skull back!  Question: If I’m so good at replacing body parts with others, could Morte be a replacement skull for me?  Maybe that’s why I need my companions around, as organ donors.  Maybe I could fuse six arms and four legs and Annah’s tail onto me to become the ultimate fighter!

Why must I be so silly?  I have two new zones to explore!  I returned to the lower ward and started poking around, talking to NPCs, and investigating buildings.  One structure in particular, a coffin shop called Engineered for Eternity, unveils two quests.  Inside, the shopkeeper is talking to his assistant, who I deduce is actually a zombie.  The zombie is in agony because the shopkeeper just won’t shut up, and I’m tasked with finding the zombie’s owner to beg for the poor thing’s release.  Of course I’ll do it; that’s a horrible fate, to be reanimated as a mostly speechless zombie that’s forced to listen to nonstop rambling of an idiot.

The shopkeeper himself, a long-winded gasbag, has a sad tale that I pick out of his neverending spiel.  Apparently his father went missing several years ago, and a resurfaced memory tells me that I had something to do with it — perhaps I even killed the guy.  I need to find the tomb where the father was last seen, but the shopkeeper won’t help me out until I settle a matter for him at the warehouse.

Out on the streets I encounter the zombie’s owner, Sebastian, who said that he was unaware that the zombie could actually think and feel.  It doesn’t take much persuasion to find out how to release the zombie, and so I return, say a few words, touch the dead guy’s forehead, and he becomes even deader.  Planescape: The only game where making things even more dead makes you a hero.

My next stop is the marketplace, where I unload a lot of the useless stuff I’ve vacuumed up along the way and stock up on 30 or so healing charms.  The marketplace has a couple of other points of interest.  A guard suggests that Morte might’ve been stolen by Lothar, the Lord of Bones (makes sense, I guess), but he and everyone else recommends I leave the matter alone, as Lothar is “untouchable.”  Yeah.  Right.  Since I fear nothing, I ask for the address and am told that he’s accessible through a wrecked house that I explored before (and found nothing).  Also in the marketplace, I help a lonely if talkative girl hook up with a lonely if stoic guard.  Love and death, this game is just so romantic.

Out on the road, I encounter three hulking brutes who are about to pick a fight with a wizard-demon thing.  I find out that they spilled drinks on a noble’s dress, and she dared them to fight the demon to prove their worth.  After talking to the lady nearby, she reveals that they’re going to get slaughtered because the beast can only be killed by magic — and that she set up the situation so it’ll happen.  I’m a nice guy and she was a jerk, so I warn the brutes and they veer off.  Yay me, and level up for Annah and Dak’kon!

Shorties

No time to do a long post today, but I did want to make a few quick mentions:

• Tyler Edwards from the blog Superior Realities has written and self-published a new steampunk fantasy book called Rage of the Old Gods.  It’s just $2, so give an aspiring author a helping hand and help yourself to a good read!
• The Diablo-esque Torchlight is FREE for the next two days only from GOG.com.  Snag it!  The site’s also starting its #noDRM summer sale, and there are tons of great deals going on.  I absolutely love GOG.com, so check it out!
• If you have fond memories of Tabula Rasa, check out my soundtrack review over on Massively!
• I had a great time running Hell Eternal in TSW with the crew last night.  MMOGC has chronicled our adventures for all to witness.
• I’m updating “Syp’s vices” over on the right-hand side of the page today.  This is a little section that I periodically refresh with what media I’m currently consuming.

Hitchhiking back into RIFT

Well here’s something I wasn’t expecting: I downloaded RIFT and rolled a new character this past weekend.  By my blog records, I exited the game back in late February and hadn’t felt the pull to return.  It wasn’t a bad break-up, just time apart to recharge batteries and see if there would be any future interest.  If not, that would be ok.  If so, that’s fine as well.

Even with all of the F2P hullabaloo, I wasn’t going to head back there, but once it happened I started to feel like I was missing out on a party in a place I used to frequent all of the time.  Then a friend invited me to her guild, and that was that.  Re-download.

Even if it’s been just a little over three months since I’ve last been in RIFT, so much has changed.  F2P has created a strange, day-one environment where there are scads of people running around, full servers, and chat logs busy with all sorts of basic questions (and, y’know, comparisons to World of Warcraft.  I actually made a game: I wouldn’t take a breath until someone mentioned WoW in general chat.  I didn’t die for the half-hour I played.).

Another big change is the store.  From what I can tell, RIFT’s model is pretty generous to completely free folks.  It doesn’t penalize players for not subbing or paying (upon a cursory glance, the only restrictions I saw were three bag slots instead of five and two character slots).  The store is absolutely massive to compensate, and I can see Trion going for the carrot instead of the stick with it.  There are lockboxes, mounts, pets, outfits (oh boy are there outfits), bags, boosts, the whole nine yards.  I need to do more checking into it, because I’m not quite sure how much advantage paying players get here.  I suspect that it might be a little more than other F2P offerings, although my worry is that it crosses the “pay to win” barrier.

What I was pleased to discover is that, due to my past subscriptions, I had accrued 20,000 store credits and dozens of additional item rewards due to loyalty tiers.  Seriously, I had to buy a few additional bags from the store just to hold all of this stuff upon logging in.  Not that I’m complaining.  I even got a cool beachside dimension from the get-go.

So I rolled a mage and started on a new journey with no great ambition.  I’m just there to see the world and have fun, as long as that lasts.  Another big change I saw off the bat was the streamlining of the tutorial (which takes less than half the time it used to) and quest flow in the starting zone.  It also seems like I’m leveling a LOT faster than I used to, although with the mentoring system, I can stay at-level for a zone as long as I’m there if I wish.  I forgot how much I liked that.

Who knows where this will lead, if anywhere, but right now I’m glad my curiosity prompted the return.  RIFT’s always been a good game and I hope that F2P grows the population and extends the title’s lifespan so that it gets the attention it deserves.

Planescape Torment: Kidnapped!

(This is a continuing series detailing my playthrough of Planescape Torment.  You can check out the whole run on the Nostalgia Lane page.)

So where was I?  Oh yeah, about to kill a blue-collar repairman because a pregnant wall told me to.  Yes, my life is normal.

Instead of just attacking the dabus, I told him about his dead friend in the nearby house.  I did not mention, however, that the house was probably controlled by a sentient chunk of masonry in its third trimester, but time is short and I can’t be gabbing all day.  So instead of giving the dabus a merciful execution, I think I just sentenced it to a slow and painful death.  Yay me!

Returning to the wall, it says that while the dabus thing is all well and good, I need to go undo its repairs.  Sigh.  Fine.  My life, reduced to being ordered around by a wall.  While I’m doing this, I have a conversation with Annah during which she reveals that she felt “compelled” to go out of her way to the alley when she found my corpse.  Interesting.

I make the corrections and the wall, um, gives birth.  It’s a weird cutscene, moreso for its ancient 2000-era CGI.  More or less, it reshapes buildings and opens up a new passage to the lower ward.  It’s progress, so I’m not complaining.

What I am going to complain about is the fact that the second we enter the lower ward, Morte is promptly kidnapped by two wererats while I’m distracted.  Dang, and I was just getting used to having four characters in my group!

Short session today, but I’m excited to explore this new area next time!

Picture of the Day (part 2)

Panda doing a spit-take at RIFT going free-to-play.  Okay, it’s pandaering, but I thought it was pretty funny.

Pictures of the Day

From the three MMOs I’m currently playing:

Planescape Torment: In the house of madmen

(This is a continuing series detailing my playthrough of Planescape Torment.  You can check out the whole run on the Nostalgia Lane page.)

Before we go any further, I return to Fell, the tattoo expert, so that he can identify the new tatts that are on my old, severed arm.  When I go in there, Annah freaks the heck out.  Like, really bad.  She drops the harsh act and starts begging me to leave, saying that the Lady of Pain has it in for Fell and we’ll face her wrath too.  That ain’t good, but I’m not afraid of no ghosts.  Fell tells me that the new tattoo is one that represents torment — the torment on myself and the fact that I draw tormented souls to me.  He alludes to four past companions, of which I think Morte and the lady ghost from the mortuary were two.  Anyway, a new fighter tattoo is made available for purchase and it severely beefs up my stats.  Take THAT, Lady!

Annah takes us to a door that I’ve seen before.  It’s just a painting of a door, but she explains that it’s a very real door — it only turns into a painting when you look at it.  So I close my eyes and barge into a nest of Chaosmen.  A short cutscene shows some floating spirits assaulting — and possibly killing — Pharod.  These spirits were the same ones that were shown around me at the beginning of the game.  Hm.

I chat with Annah who says that Pharod has established a huge stash of goods taken off corpses, but he’s never left his throne room.  A little inner deduction work, and I suggest that his crutch might be the key to a portal.  I’ll have to go back and check that out later.

Turns out that Annah and Morte don’t get along much, as they start sniping at each other almost instantly.  Hey, whatever amuses me is best for the group, so keep it up!  I’m just psyched that I have a fourth group member now (and someone who can use the fancy punch daggers I found in the catacombs).

The HQ of the Starving Dogs is a mess — that’s what you’d expect from a group of folks who are 100% insane.  They mostly just bark and fight you, so it’s a quick run through the place to get XP and loot while figuring out how to avoid a huge room of inhabitants.  I tried to rush the room, but there are too many to fight — that’s a group wipe within seconds, that is.

Instead, I call on my new Thief (Annah) to unlock the door using a key I got off of a mage upstairs and then stealth her way to the exit.  The way the game works, as long as one party member makes it to an exit, everyone zones.  Sure enough, we pop out in the Alley of Lingering Sighs and get 1000 XP as a reward.

In the alley, I find a house with a dead, rotting dabus inside.  I use my stories-bones-tell ability to find out what happened.  From the vision that ensues, I guess the dabus came inside, started repairing the place, and ended up trapped due to his own craftsmenship.  Dumb dabus.

The first part of the alley is otherwise empty, and so we move on to the next screen.  It’s here that Annah found my corpse (see picture), at which point a stone face on the wall appears and starts chatting with me.

The face says that it saw me destroyed by shadows that had no shadow — a similar sentiment to what the scrap of paper Pharod gave back to me said.  Shadows seem to be popping up a lot in the game’s conversations, come to think about it.  This triggers a cutscene memory of the same floating spirits that killed Pharod striking me down.

The stone face/wall then reveals that its pregnant and about to give birth.  Because this place wasn’t weird and freaky enough already.  How do you find a midwife for a pregnant wall?  It says that it wants to “divide” and if it does so, it’ll unlock passages to new areas, but first I have to kill the dabus that keeps repairing the wall.  That might not be a great idea — dabuses come under the protection of the Lady of Pain.  Do I care?  Heck no I do not care.  Time to go tempt fate!

The Secret World: Love and hugs in a time of darkness

My new Dragon* in The Secret World is absolutely ripping up Kingsmouth.  Everything goes way faster the second time around, especially when you’re not stumbling around in a mixture of horror and awe and what-the-heck-do-I-do frustration.  I’ve got just one questgiver to go before I head to Savage Coast, and that’s including all of the side missions.  I feel like a boss.

I’ve decided to focus on a healing build with my assault rifle.  It’s a little strange actively seeking +heal gear, but the fact that I’m not even close to dying is pretty enjoyable.

So last night I’m doing my thing, la de dah, and I get a group invite from a nearby player.  Because my mother told me to absolutely trust strangers without a prior tell, I accept the invite and we proceed to chew through several missions together.  The other player was unfailingly polite, and after some chit-chat, I found out that he/she was a brand-new player in the game.  It was kind of cool to be able to give that player some advice and practice healing at the same time (with an assault rifle… that seems a little messed up, but a thousand horse doctors can’t be wrong).

I’ve been trying to challenge myself to get into more groups lately, even if just for general questing and exploration, and this reinforces the notion that it can be a good thing.  I hope I made that other player’s experience a little more positive, as I know I came away from it feeling boosted.  It reminds me of how my 4-year-old son has absolutely no qualms of making anyone his new best friend — his extroverted nature propels him to run over, give kids a hug, take their hand, and ask if they want to play.

So beware, Secret World.  The hugs of Syp are coming.  Oh yes, they are coming!

*Not an actual Dragon.  Although, in the context of TSW’s world, that would be pretty awesome and not that lore-breaking.  Dragon vs. C’thulu, anyone?

Planescape Torment: The Drowned Nations

(This is a continuing series detailing my playthrough of Planescape Torment.  You can check out the whole run on the Nostalgia Lane page.)

So there’s this weird feeling that I get in single-player RPGs (and only rarely in MMOs) that I call “I’m so far from where I parked right now.”  It’s when I’m like 10 levels down in a dungeon and can sort of feel the weight of the distance and above levels pushing down on me.  I feel far away from safety (civilization) and keep thinking of how long it’s going to take to return.  And then every additional quest that keeps me down here is a chain.  It’s liberating to finally finish, but with Planescape, I’m not quite there yet.  I’m heading into the Drowned Nations under the Catacombs under the Buried Village under the Warrens under Sigil.  So far from my car.

I thought the Drowned Nations would be a little more, y’know, water-based, but it looks pretty much like more tunnels.  A bunch of ghouls from the Dead Nations are there scouting out territory.  Gee, hope the news that I just slaughtered their entire city hasn’t caught up to them yet.  Good.  It hasn’t.

My goals down here are pretty simple: Find Pharod’s sphere and find the endless water to help out the stone face guy.  Apart from the neutral ghouls, the Drowned Nations are populated by beasts that look fierce but go down pretty easy.

I find the endless water pretty quickly after triggering a trap that ambushes me with a dozen or so skeleton bats.  The sphere isn’t too far away, either.  I find that the entire floor is a pretty simple, straight-forward experience, and that’s refreshing.  With the items I need in tow, I return to the catacombs.  Time to go find my car!

The first stop is to make the stone face guy happy, so I pour some of the endless water across his granite lips.  Hey, I’ve done stranger things in this game so far.  He rewards me by giving me another mission: to find a lady named Nemelle in the Clerk’s Ward.  Okay… I don’t even remember what we talked about earlier that made him want to send me there, but I’ll play ball.

Speaking of balls… time to get back to Pharod.  Before I do that, I make a quick pitstop to complete a quest for Quint (he wanted a poison charm of which a dead guy in the catacombs told me the location).  I bought several blood charms from him for healing as well as a new eye that upped my defenses a bit (because… POWER EYE!).

Finally, Pharod’s quest is done and the old man owes me the truth.  Or what he’s willing to part with.  He spills that I had come into his village a while back, killing left and right to intimidate him into giving me a “boon:” the promise to keep my body safe if it was found dead somewhere. He gives me a few items that he took from me (but no journal) and told me that his daughter Annah was the one who found me.

Annah is a Tiefling that I had met early on in the game.  She’s got an attitude about her and she clearly does not like me.  She does agree, however, to show me where she found my corpse prior to the start of the game.  So she joins the party (yay!) and we head to the Haunted Alley.  Wait, isn’t this whole city haunted?

The age of console MMOs?

For the very longest time, having an MMO make it to a console was a rare novelty, but nothing that turned the industry on its head.  EverQuest Online Adventures failed to live up to its big bro’s example, Phantasy Star Online had its followers but never quite made it to full-fledged MMO status, and I guess FFXI did pretty well back in the day.  But it was certainly slim pickings if you loved MMOs but wanted to play them on your TV.

Then came the Big Talk from studios working on up-and-coming titles.  Champions Online would come to consoles (it didn’t).  Age of Conan would make a splash on the Xbox 360 (nope).  True Fantasy Live would be a killer Xbox app (it was canceled).

Then, little bit by little bit, MMOs started migrating to consoles, with games like Free Realms or DCUO.  But now it’s like we’re facing an avalanche of console releases and planned releases: Defiance.  PlanetSide 2.  Diablo III.  Destiny.  The Elder Scrolls Online.  Final Fantasy XIV.  World of Tanks.  DUST 514.  War Thunder.

Now, I’m not convinced we’re moving into an age of console MMOs where the PC versions will be rendered all but extinct.  There are two different crowds here (as well as a third that overlaps the two) and serious obstacles to making PC-like MMOs work on consoles (such as chat, numerous skill choices, UI complexity, dealing with subscriptions/microtransactions).  But it’s fascinating for me to see that consoles aren’t giving the cold shoulder to MMOs any more, but appear to be eager to get a cut of the action.

As a non-console player, I’m only excited about this in a detached, historical sense.  If it helps make MMOs profitable and keep them running longer on PCs, I’m all for it.  If it grows the gaming population and breaks down misconceptions about MMOs, it’s a good thing.  I’m less-than-pleased when studios announce that their MMO is going to be console-exclusive, although that hasn’t cropped up that often at this point.

What do you think?  Are we moving into an age of console MMOs, or will these games be a sideshow on platforms that are dominated by shooters and sports titles?