#i KNOW this is true. bungie could walk up to me right now and say im wrong and id ignore them

[planet4546b]

listen to me. listen. the guardians nightmare is the black garden

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #497

Top Ten PC Games No One Talks About Anymore

Blimey, Quake is rather good, isn’t it? Have you heard about it? I really hope so, because it’s only twenty-five years old. I mean, Jesus. What’s up with that? Quake is meant to be the future. It’s full of true-3D polygonal texture-mapping and real-time dynamic light-sourcing. Fancy it being a quarter of a century old. That’s ridiculous. “Old” is for things like, I dunno, Space Invaders or The Godfather or I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Stuff that our parents heard about before we were born. It’s not – it’s absolutely not – used to describe something that people bought 3D accelerator cards for. It’s not used to describe a game that popularised online gaming.

But old it is, getting silver anniversary cards and everything. No longer the angry, hungry young tiger, devouring its ancestors and growling at upstart rivals like Duke Nukem 3D – sure, you’ve got non-linear levels, interactive scenery, and toilet humour, but we’ve got grenades that bounce with real physics – Quake is now an aged beast of the forest, resplendent, battle-scarred, weary with gravitas. Quake is the game that shaped the now, but it does not represent the future anymore. In fact, arguably its greatest rival – Unreal – is the game with the lasting, living legacy, its progeny building the next generation of gaming with one of the most popular and impressive engines around, the framework underpinning everything from Gears to Jedi to Fortnite. Quake blew us all away, but arguably it ceded the conflict, secure in its status as one of the most important and influential games of all time. Quake II got plaudits for actually having a proper story and an engrossing single-player campaign (and coloured lighting!), and its immediate descendants such as Half-Life changed the nature of what FPS games could do, but in a funny way it feels like Quake has long since retired. A sleeping titan. It got old.

So it’s great that they rereleased it on modern systems! The version of Quake released last month is basically the game I remember, but tarted up a little around the edges, with texture filtering and dynamic shadows and other stuff that I couldn’t manage on my Pentium 75 back in the day. It plays great – it’s slick as anything, and you go tearing round the levels like a Ferrari with a nail gun, blasting dudes and ducking back around a corner before you get hit with a pineapple in the face. It’s the first game I’ve played in a long, long time that evokes the feel of classic PC first-person shooters of that era – which, y’know, kinda makes sense as it is a first-person shooter of that era. But that style of fast-paced run-and-gun, circle-strafing gameplay has gone out of fashion now, with FPS games usually favouring slow, methodical, tactical combat, or larger-scale open-world warfare usually involving vehicles. Whether it’s a straight-up no-frills blaster like Quake, or a game that takes you on more of a linear, narrative journey, like Quake II, or even just a multiplayer-focused arena shooter, like Quake III Arena, it does feel like a dying artform, like a style of gameplay that could do with a resurgence (and, to be fair, there are games on the horizon that look like they’re harking back to the era, so that’s cool).

But it’s not just first-person shooters like Quake that I feel have slipped from gaming’s shared consciousness. Maybe it’s my age (it’s definitely my age) but there seems to be quite a lot of games that were a big deal twenty or so years ago that are utterly forgotten now, whereas some – Doom, Duke Nukem, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires – are often namechecked or rebooted (even before the full-on 2016 reboot, Doom must have been one of the most re-released games of the last thirty years). But there are lots of others where sometimes I feel like I’m the only one that remembers it. And that’s where this list comes in: inspired by the excellent re-release of the Quake franchise, here are some other great PC games of that general era that I feel still need shouting about, even if I’m the only one doing the shouting. Maybe they don’t all need a full-on remaster or whatever, but it’d still be nice if they got a bit of modern gaming love.

No One Lives Forever (2000): coming at a time when most FPS games were still Doom-style blasters with little in the way of real plot, NOLF was different: stylish and funny, genuinely well-written (as in the dialogue), with interesting objective-based missions and a cool female protagonist. It skirted similar ground to Bond and the then-white-hot Austin Powers franchise. Two games were made and then, as far as I’m aware, it evaporated into a mess of tangled rights, hence no sequels or remakes. A shame, because it was great.

MDK (1997): the next game from the people who made the multimedia phenomenon that was Earthworm Jim, MDK was a really cool slice of sci-fi style, all sleek level design and intriguing features. It had a supremely bonkers plot which bled through into a game with a sense of humour, but mostly it was the run-and-gun gameplay and innovative use of a scoped weapon – possibly (don’t quote me on this) the first sniper rifle in a videogame. An even wackier sequel followed, but despite its cult status, that was it.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Klingon Honor Guard (1998): it’s probably fair to say that Star Trek has not had as many great videogames as Star Wars, perhaps because Trek’s historically straightlaced earnestness just didn’t translate as well as bashing someone up the chops with a laser sword. Honor Guard shook things up by casting you as a Klingon, showering levels with pink blood and going Full Worf. It was the first game to licence the Unreal engine, and had a cool level where you walked along the outside of a ship like in First Contact. Also: shout out to the Voyager game, Elite Force (2000), which was another really good FPS set in the world of Trek, with intriguing gameplay wrinkles as you fought the Borg. It also let you wander round the titular starship between levels. Trek deserves more quality action games like these.

Earth 2150 (2000): the nineties on PC really saw RTS games come down to those who liked Command & Conquer or those who liked Warcraft, but as the decade drew to a close other titles chased the wargame crown (including Total Annihilation, which would have made this list, except I feel like the Supreme Commander franchise is a sequel in all but name). 2150 was notable for its Starcraft-like mix of three factions with contrasting play styles, and its use of 3D graphics and the ability to design and build weapons of war that could lay waste to armies and bases with spectacular results. I think the genre has ossified into something more hardcore, and this was probably an inflex point where idiots like me could still get a handle on things.

Midtown Madness (1999): Microsoft has a history of building up great racing franchises and then abandoning them, but their “Madness” line of games in the late nineties/early noughties was terrific and much-missed. Back when tooling round actual 3D cities was still new and exciting, this was a no-holds-barred arcade racer, with some gorgeous shiny chrome effects on the cars, and very nippy handling. It was great fun smashing up VW Beetles and the like. It was surpassed, I guess, by Project Gotham on the Xbox, and sadly the whole franchise was then forgotten, despite the ascendent Forza franchise mostly shunning city driving.

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (1998): part tactical war game, part puzzler, Commandos was famous for its gorgeously intricate graphics and its difficulty – I mean, it was way too hard for me. But its beautiful top-down design and its slow, methodical gameplay was compelling, as you evaded Nazis and solved missions with a team of unique units with special skills. Sequels followed, and western spin-off Desperados, but there’s not been a true follow-up for quite some time, despite promises; and few games have echoed its style or look.

The Pandora Directive (1996): okay, so really this is just a placeholder for an entire subgenre of game that appears to have been forgotten: interactive movies. I know, there are flirtations with this from time to time; and many of these games featured obtuse puzzles and relatively little gameplay strung between FMV scenes. Pandora was great though; a first-person 3D game with loads of old-school adventure aspects, as well as FMV, it was a noir-tinged detective story but set in the future. The Tex Murphy series (of which this was the fourth instalment) has had sequels – the most recent one was sadly cancelled only this year – but many other games of a similar ilk, such as Phantasmagoria and even Wing Commander – have fallen by the wayside. With in-engine graphics now allowing the fluidity and expression of cinematic renders of old, shooting movie inserts doesn’t seem like it’s worthwhile; but I still always loved a point-and-click game that featured digitised actors milling about. Toonstruck, anyone?

Marathon (1994): before Halo there was… Marathon! Back when I used to lug my Pentium round my mate’s house so we could play different games on different machines side-by-side, he’d bang on about this Mac-first series of games, like Doom but better, with an intricate plot and complex levels. And y’know what? He was actually onto something. There’s a style and an earnestness to the Marathon franchise, along with many concepts that would be refined in Halo years later. With Bungie now seemingly committed to Destiny, and Halo in Microsoft’s hands, I’m not sure what could possibly become of this, their forgotten FPS forebear, especially as it shares so much DNA with its offspring.  

Outlaws (1997): LucasArts are famous for two things, really: their Star Wars games and their adventures. But they made loads of other stuff too – including this intriguing Western shoot-em-up. Back when Western games were rarer than Western movies (which were rare at the time), this quirky and difficult cowboy-em-up saw you rounding up outlaws in typical oater locations such as saloons, trains, and mines. It had great music and a really intriguing set of weapons, including (don’t quote me on this) the first sniper rifle in a game. Sadly Outlaws’ success could be described as “cult” and it never got a proper sequel. and, weirdly, despite the success of Red Dead Redemption, we’ve never had a bit Western-themed FPS again. Which is really odd.

Soldier of Fortune (2000): I pondered whether to include this one, as if I’m honest I’m not sure I want this licence brought back. But I can’t deny the game was a huge deal and has seemingly been forgotten. A relatively gritty and realistic combat game with a huge variety of excellent real-world weaponry, its big hook was its incredibly detailed damage modelling, that could see you blowing limbs off enemies, or splitting open heads, or disembowelling them. Whilst its OTT violence made headlines, the granularity of its systems meant you could be more tactical, shooting weapons out of hands. But really its biggest controversy should be its association with a big old gun magazine.

There are many, many other games that nearly made the list - I almost had a Top Ten of just FPS games, for instance. Little Big Adventure was here, till a sequel was announced the other day. Hexen and Heretic I think still have a place in FPS history. Toonstruck, although without a sequel, was only really a cult hit at the time, and I feel the people who’d love it already know about it. I do tend to overthink these things, y’know.

So maybe not all of these could make a comeback, but all the same I don’t think they should be forgotten, and it does make we wonder what games will fall by the wayside twenty or more years from now. That game about the big green space marine dude in a mask – what was that called again…?

[deltahalo241]

Halo 3 Review

Halo 3 is probably the most popular game in the long running Halo Franchise. It was a system seller for the Xbox 360 and for many people, it was their gateway into the series. So while Halo 3 has managed to craft this legendary status around itself. Does it live up to it? And, looking back over 10 years since its launch, has it held up compared to modern games. These are the questions I intend to answer as I take a look back at the heavy hitting title of 2007 and give my honest opinions of it.

Starting with the story, we have to talk about the fact that Halo 2 was originally going to be the end of the franchise, and that Halo 3 only came about because Bungie set their sights too high and had to end Halo 2 on a cliffhanger. Because of this, Halo 3 has to both tell its own story, as well as finishing off Halo 2's. Halo 3 is comprised of 10 missions, though one is just a cutscene and doesn't really count. So all in all there are 9 missions in the game, making it somewhat shorter than Halo 2. The big issue for me when it comes to Halo 3's campaign is the pacing, or lack of it. The story goes nowhere for 6 out of the 9 missions, preferring to faff about on Earth. These 6 missions are what I believe to be the way Bungie were going to finish Halo 2, or how they were retro-actively ending Halo 2 at least. Specifically Mission 5 is where I believe the ending for Halo 2 would have been. Mission 6 has lots of problems of its own that need to be brought up. To sum it up, in Mission 6, the Flood arrives at Earth on an infected Covenant Battle-cruiser. Long time fans of the Halo series will know the Flood as the all consuming parasite responsible for wiping out the Forerunners, and who took over High Charity (The Covenants Holy City) at the end of Halo 2. So this is a pretty big deal. On board the Flood infested ship, Master Chief finds a message from Cortana talking about the Ark, this is the beginning of the issues. Cortana didn't know about the Ark, she wasn't with Johnson and Miranda when 343 Guilty Spark revealed its existence to them, so how could she have found out about it? One option could be that she took it from the database of Installation 04, but if so why didn't she tell anyone about it? It would seem like a pretty big deal to me, especially when there's a portal to it on Earth that she seems to know about as well. Secondly, how did she even get the message on the ship in the first place? She was on High Charity, the message is on a physical storage device. Did she create it and put it on the back of a Flood to carry into the vessel? And when & how did she record it without the Gravemind knowing? She was being interrogated by him after all and we know how it can corrupt AIs. The threat at the start of the mission, the Flood is also dispatched by the Covenant at the end, meaning the stakes for Earth are pretty much over. The Covenant have left and the Flood on the planet are dead. This mission also introduces us to a new plot point. According to Cortana, there's a way to stop the Flood for good at the Ark, without having to fire the remaining Halo rings, a Forerunner weapon that perhaps, wasn't finished in time to save them, but could save us. Unfortunatly, Halo 3 immediatley drops this plot point, making the entirety of mission 6, pointless. The plot point leads no-where and the threat introduced at the start of the level, is gone by the end of it. It feels like the remainder of some earlier draft of the story, one that I would have liked to see for sure.

As so much time is spent at Earth, it means by the time the game actually gets to the Ark, there's only 4 missions left in the campaign. This doesn't give you a lot of time to really explore the ark, like you could explore the ring in Halo CE. 2 missions in on the Ark and the Prophet of Truth is dead, killed in a cutscene like the Prophet of Mercy before him. This is so that the game can say 'Aha! The Gravemind is actually the true villain!' as he betrays you just after helping you reach Truth. The trouble is the game only has 2 missions left at this point, and in only one of them do you actually interact with the Gravemind to any large degree. His betrayal is also somewhat odd, his tentacles raise up above Master Chief and the Arbiter as he talks about how he's going to kill everything, then fails to grab a slow moving Pelican Dropship as it escapes, only succeding at knocking Arby and Chief off of it before having his tentacles retreat and sending waves of combat forms to attack you, basically it builds up a boss fight and then nothing happens, you just trudge back through the same hallway you fought through not 5 minutes earlier, only now you're fighting the Flood. The mission after that has you delve into the Flood nest in order to retrieve Cortana. The mission itself looks great, the flood biomass over the walls really gives you an idea of what could happen if the flood gets loose. The level layout is extremely confusing and you may find yourself dying a lot as there are constantly spawning enemies including many Flood Pureforms, alongside the confusing layout, you may find it to be an exercise in frustration. This level also serves to rob the Flood of some of their menace. Looking at it lore wise, Master Chief just walked into the belly of the beast, grabbed his holographic friend had a quick chat with her and then strolled back out again. The Flood don't even seem to do anything to stop the damaged pelican he escapes on from leaving. It makes them seem incompetant. The final mission of the game has you heading to a Halo Ring, the intent being to fire it to kill the Flood infestation. This actually conflicts with what we were told in Halo CE, that the Halos don't kill the Flood, they kill its food and let it starve to death. You fight through more Combat Forms and the gravemind taunts you a little, then you get to the final chamber. Guilty Spark informs us that the ring isn't ready to fire, and that it'll take a few more days before it's ready. When Johnson informs him that they don't have that much time, Spark goes rampant and kills him, this had been foreshadowed earlier when Spark zapped a marine who wanted to check out his internals, to make sure he was functioning right, but anyone who had played from Halo CE could probably see this betrayal coming a mile off. You then have to go through an easy and boring boss fight against Guilty Spark before you can finally activate the Halo ring, as the ring is unfinished it starts falling apart, destroying itself and dealing massive damage to the Ark. Which conveniantly solves that plot hole of the Rings only killing the Floods food. This leads to the final section of the game, a Warthog run similar to the one from Combat Evolved, though not as fun. And then the campaign ends. It's a bit sudden, and they of course tease that the franchise will be continued in the future (Which it was, with Halo 4)

Now that I've finished talking about the single player, I can move onto the multiplayer. This is what most people will remember when it comes to Halo 3, as it had a massive online community back when it was released. Halo 3 offered a good range of game-modes for the player to enjoy and a wide range of maps to play on, though you may find people vetoing maps until they get the ones they want, which means you'll find yourself playing on Valhalla or Guardian a lot for instance. The weapon sandbox has been expanded from Halo 2, now new Brute weapons are in the mix as well. Unfortunatly, there's not much reason to use them. There's not a lot that sets the Spiker apart from the SMG for instance, or the Mauler from the Shotgun. The Gravity Hammer is a fun new power weapon that rivals the Energy Sword and I think it's an excellent addition to the game. Two new grenade types have been added as well, the Fire-bomb grenade and the Spike Grenade. The Fire-bomb is what it says on the tin, an incendiary grenade that burns the person it hits to death. The Spike Grenade is similar in some ways to the Plasma Grenade, it sticks onto a vehicles or surface and explodes, the difference being that the Spike Grenade is somewhat directional. Like the Fire-bomb, it's a one hit kill. Some new vehicles have also been added to the mix. The UNSC gets the Hornet VTOL and the Mongoose ATV. The Covenant lose the Spectre from Halo 2, but gain the Brute Chopper and Prowler. The Chopper is the Brute equivelant to the Ghost, only has the special ability of being able to destroy light vehicles by ramming into them whilst boosting, which is usefel in game-modes like Capture the Flag, if the enemy team is escaping with the flag in a Warthog. The Prowler on the other hand is pretty much just the Spectre, but with a Brute theme. It has a single turret on the front, rather than the rear and two side skirts for passengers to hold on. Aside from that, there's nothing else unique about it, as I said; it's a Spectre with a Brute skin. Halo 3 was also popular for Major League Gaming at first. Though there were some noticable problems for those ultra competitve players. Halo 3's netcode was a little poor, this made blood-shots (Shots that hit the enemy from your perspective, but don't register in the game, and so do no damage) rather common, which annoyed a lot of competitive players. Halo 3 also did not utilize hitscan like the previous games in the series had, rather players had to lead shots if they wanted them to land. This took a bit of getting used to for a lot of veteren players. The Battle Rifle also had some poor weapon spread as it would seem as though one shot was always going to miss, unless you were right in your enemies face. The Assault Rifle also felt a little weak as well. This may in part be due to the sound design used on the weapons, which I felt was a little sub-par in a lot of ways. Another new feature that was added in Halo 3 was Forge mode, that let people edit maps by adding in new weapons of vehicles or items and the like wherever they wanted. The mode was a bit simplistic but I won't count that against the game here as it was the first instance of the feature and what players did with it far exceeded their expectations.

Overall I'd say Halo 3 is a pretty solid game, despite what may appear as my hatred for it, I do actually like the game. But its multiplayer far outdoes its campaign. Halo 3 is an old game now, going on 11 years old. You'll find the population for online is rather low, struggling to get above 2000 people at the best of times. This is compounded by the fact the player base is split across the Master Chief collection, Halo 3 on Xbox One backwards compatibility and those still playing the game on the Xbox 360. There are some issues with the multiplayer netcode, but if you're just playing casually, then you probably won't notice too many issues. While the weapon sandbox is a little dull, it's not too bad and there's a nice variety between the weapons. The campaigns story is quite bad but you'll probably have a lot of fun with the missions themselves, the scarab fights are quite fun (even if they make the scarab feel like a bit of a pathetic miniboss) and the settings are somewhat diverse. Halo 3 is available on the Xbox 360, as a backwards compatible title on the Xbox One and is also in the Masterchief Collection. If you would like to purchase a copy, then follow the link below:

Halo 3 - Xbox 360

[littleshebear]

Memories (Someone We'll Never know) Pt 1.

Destiny fic. An Awoken child dreams of Earth while dealing with the limitations of life in the Reef.

Not canon. Doesn’t contradict any established canon afaik but here be headcanons. Shout out to @angedeverdun for the beta, thank you for putting up with my rambling about a game you don’t play. I don’t own these characters/settings, Bungie does. I’m just playing with them like bendy toys.

Destiny | The Reef | The Awoken | Zavala | Tags are spoilers | Gratuitous poetry | Telepathy shenanigans | Impending Heartbreak |

Any child of the Reef understands the importance of The Rules and often have them committed to memory long before they are capable of writing them down. Obey your parents. Listen to your teachers. Respect the Queen. Always ask permission before Linking with someone. Stay away from the airlocks. Never waste water.

Sofia is eight years old and beginning to grasp that The Rules are not just for children. She has a vague understanding that her very existence is a result of her parents following The Rules diligently enough to be granted permission to have a child. Now and then, she’ll ask her parents if she’ll ever have a brother or sister. After all, the Queen has a brother, why shouldn’t she? Mama always smiles and says they must wait and see what They say (“They” are the people who make The Rules but she’s not entirely sure who “They” are beyond the Queen and Prince Uldren). If They think the hydroponics bay is producing enough food, if They think there is enough potable water, if They think the atmospheric systems can handle it, then They may authorise that tiny, longed-for population increase.

Papa seldom says anything when she asks, he just sighs and clenches his jaw. Very occasionally, he will mutter something along the lines of, “It shouldn’t matter what They think,” Mama always shoots him a warning look and he does not say any more. Papa does not much like Them, or the Queen, so Sofia has one extra rule to remember: Never repeat what Papa says about the Queen outside.

~*~

Sofia is bored. She has finished her homework, Mama is out working in the hangar bay and Papa is at home but he is reading. He is always reading, every chance he gets. Mama often teases Papa about it, she says he should have been a Cryptarch. She is not really joking though, not really. She probably would have preferred that, she would worry about him a lot less. Sofia knows Papa is smart, definitely smart enough to be a Cryptarch but she just cannot imagine him being cooped up in the libraries of 10 Hygiea. Besides, that is another thing Papa likes to mutter about, he does not approve of the Cryptarchy’s obsession with locking knowledge away in engrams.

Sofia walks circuits of their modest quarters, performatively sighing and swinging her arms.  “What’s the matter?” Papa asks, peering at her over his book. She crosses over to him, taking some satisfaction from the fact that her theatrics succeeded in distracting him from his studies.

“ ‘M bored,” she mumbles, flopping against Papa’s side, as though the ennui is so crushing she can barely stand. “Can we go to the observation deck? I’m bored.” In these moments, Sofia thinks she would like to be a Corsair like Papa. The Reef is so confining with so little space and so many rules, it must be exciting to explore beyond the asteroid belt, salvage ships, fight off marauding Fallen (but oh, how Mama would worry if both her husband and daughter were to venture into such danger).

“No, it’s nearly time for your bed,” Papa replies. His tone of voice is not too stern but he has a way of making it clear that his word is final.

“It’s too cramped in here, I want to see the stars.”

“I can take you tomorrow, I’m off-duty.” He smiles faintly, “If you think this is cramped, you should have seen the pod your mother and I were assigned after we got married. It wasn’t much more than a wardrobe. This is positively palatial compared to that.”

“They could have given us a window,” she complains sullenly before launching into another dramatic sigh. “Papa, I’m bored!” She emphases the last syllable, drawing it out because Papa clearly did not hear her the first two times she said it.

“Come here, Starshine,” he pats his knee, motioning for her to sit, “come read with me.”

Sofia wrinkles her nose, they make her read in school. She never understood why Papa reads for fun but she clambers into his lap nevertheless. She peers at the title at the top of the page: This Lime Tree Bower My Prison. She immediately starts firing questions at him:

“What’s a lime tree?”

 “It’s a tree that limes grow on.”

“What’s a lime?”

“It’s a type of fruit, we don’t have them here, they only grow on Earth”

“What are they like?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never tasted one. They’re green, I know that much.”

“Oh. What’s a bower?”

“It’s…” Papa pauses to search for the right words. “It’s like a shelter formed from tree branches.”

“So, someone chopped off the branches and built it?”

“No, no, the trees grow that way, it’s a natural canopy.” Sofia frowns, trying hard to visualise something that could come into being without being designed, crafted and manufactured by people. The only world Sofia has ever known consists of the man-made and space, nothing else.

“How can that be a prison?” Sofia doesn’t know much about trees, having never seen a tree in real life but she is fairly certain you cannot lock someone up in one.

“Why don’t we read on and find out?”

It takes a long time for them to reach the end of the poem. They take frequent breaks for Sofia to ask the meanings of certain words or to insist that Papa describe natural phenomena that he has no more direct experience of than she does. He does not begrudge the near constant interruptions, he never loses his patience. He is happy to take the time to explain that no, leaves do not have to be green, they can be other colours too, or that a rook is a type of crow (no, not like Prince Uldren’s crows, this is a real bird) and yes, waterfalls do exist. Sofia says she understands but the look of wonder on her face at the thought of such an abundance of water suggests she does not truly grasp it.

“What do you think?” Papa asks once the barrage of questions ends.

“If he was so sad, why didn’t he just go with his friends?”

“I don’t think he could, I’m not sure why. We’ll have to ask the Cryptarchs if anyone knows.” Papa runs his finger across the final lines of the poem, “But it didn’t really matter by the end, did it?”

Sofia considers her answer. “No, because he was happy that his friends were happy.” She sits up straight as a thought occurs to her. “How did he see what they did? Was he Linking with them?”

Papa laughs softly, “No. No Sofie, he just imagined being with them. This was written by a human, hundreds of years ago. Humans can’t Link.”

Sofia settles back down and rests her head against Papa’s chest. She feels a sudden pang of sympathy for her human cousins back on Earth. She mentally reaches out to her father, tugging gently at the edges of his thoughts.  The response is instantaneous. Suddenly he is there, in her head, his mind enveloping hers like a blanket.

“What’s wrong, Starshine?”

“You said humans can’t Link. It must be lonely,” The sensations of warmth and safety emanating from Papa compound her sadness. She cannot imagine what it must be like to never feel her parents’ love for her. She doesn’t want to.

“Well,” he begins in a reassuring tone, “you can’t feel the loss of something if you’ve never experienced it, so they’re probably okay.”

“That’s not true. You’ve never been to Earth but you miss it. That’s why you read about it all the time.”

Papa does not try to deny it, he cannot lie to her, not while they are Linked. “I…I’m curious about it. I’m not sure we should have abandoned it.”

“It does sound nice.” Her melancholy gives way to a sharp spike of excitement that echoes around Papa’s mind like birdsong. “Does water really fall from the sky on Earth?”

“It does. There’s rain, rivers, oceans. More water than you could ever dream of.”

“Can we go there?” She has a feeling that this is most likely against The Rules so she adds, “One day?”

“Perhaps.” Sofia senses a hint of frustration in his emotions. “It depends what They say.”

Sofia sighs. Them again. “We’ll go,” she states, her childish confidence is an unstoppable force that has not encountered the immovable object of politics yet. “We will.”

“You mother would have to agree to it as well. She might take more convincing than the Queen.”

“Just tell her about the water.” Sofia is convinced this strategy cannot fail because Mama hates water rationing.

“I’ll do that.”

“Will Mama be home soon?” Sofia swallows a yawn, determined to stay awake until her mother returns from work.

“Not for a while yet.” Sofia can feel her eyelids growing heavy so she curls into Papa’s embrace. They are still Linked and he is thinking about music now; a soothing, plangent melody she does not recognise (where does he learn all this? He should have been a Cryptarch). Papa gently gathers her into his arms and carries her to the cupboard that passes for her bedroom. She grumbles in protest when he lays her on her bed but he shushes her softly and bids her to sleep through the Link.  It is more effective than any lullaby. “She’ll be here when you wake.”

When sleep takes her, she dreams of roaring brooks, calling birds and how wonderful it would be to swap the prison of a cramped, windowless pod for a sun-dappled bower.

~*~

Notes:

The title comes from the Moon OST by Clint Mansell. It was a working title originally but it just stuck.

The Link is my name for the Awoken’s latent telepathic abilities. The canon doesn’t make it clear what the extent of those abilities are but we know the Queen can communicate over vast distances with the help of the Techeuns. The very fact that she was expecting a reply implies these sorts of abilities aren’t limited to the Queen (though she’s likely the most powerful). Awoken can hear the stars “sing” to them and have visions so, yes, I think it’s fair to say even the most ordinary Awoken have some telepathic ability.

This Lime Tree Bower My Prison was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and he couldn’t go hiking with his friends because his wife had spilled boiling milk over his foot. Ow.

[entergamingxp]

Disintegration Interview — Marcus Lehto Shares Details on Development, Inspirations, and Working From Home

April 10, 2020 12:30 PM EST

After an extensive look at the single-player campaign of Disintegration, we had an interview with Marcus Lehto about all things grav-cycle

Marcus Lehto has had an extraordinary career. His big break came when he joined up with Bungie in 1997 and worked on Myth: The Fallen Lords. After that, the company started working on Halo, which he co-created. Officially, he was the Creative Art Director at Bungie, and he made Master Chief, the iconic hulking green spartan. He worked on the series up until 2012 when he left the studio. 

In his time since, Lehto has continued his career in video games and in 2016 he founded V1 Interactive. But between leaving Bungie and starting V1 Interactive, Lehto was writing a story, one that would turn into Disintegration, the first title from his studio. 

I’ve already written about Disintegration and what you’ll be able to expect from the game’s single-player story. In addition to seeing the campaign in action, though, I also had the chance to talk one-on-one with Lehto about Disintegration.

Otto Kratky: The world of Disintegration is obviously a heavy sci-fi setting, and I like to think that all sci-fi is based somewhat in the real world. It’s some aspect of the real world taken to a drastic extreme. 

Marcus Lehto: That’s exactly what we’ve done, yes.

OK: Can you explain how this fits in with Disintegration a little?

ML: Sure, yeah. You know, I look a lot at what is happening around us right now today. That’s a large part of the inspiration. Of course, I started the fiction for this over six years ago. We’re working with the things we see around us every day: climate extremes, issues with political powers, issues with disease, and other things that live on our horizon, that if unchecked and taken to some far extreme, what could that possibly be?

We took a lot of these potential, possible outcomes and put them together in this world where humanity is really struggling to the point where integration became a reality. What happens then with integrated individuals when they stratify or when they militarize? That’s a large part of what has driven the story. 

OK: I have to say, that’s a lot to deal with. Is there anything to offset that doom and gloom that is kind of natural in sci-fi?

ML: For sure. On the flip side of it is our characters. You play as Romer Shoal, who slowly forms a group that, as they get to know one another over the course of the campaign, are a group of just normal human beings. They’re not genetically modified crazy super-soldiers like the Master Chief like I’m used to making. These are normal folks. They come from all walks of life with a common goal of surviving and adapting and becoming human again. But as normal people, they joke around, they have banter back and forth, they have relationships and complexities to them. They’ll definitely rib each other in the side. 

OK: It’s stuff like that that I personally love to see. A lot of characters in games, Master Chief for instance, cool as he is, has the personality of a baked potato. 

ML: Yeah, he was meant to be that empty vessel, and I don’t really want to make another one of those. I wanted to make a character who has a real personality and a real background. 

OK: So, and it might be a little early to say this, what do you want players to take away from the game once they finish the campaign and put down the controller? Or is it even fair to ask that question yet?

ML: Oh boy, I think there are definitely messages. One of my first inspirations for the game is, and I know this is me being an old dude, is how much time people spend staring at screens. When it came to like people just being able to talk and feel comfortable in a room together without technology interfering with it, that’s the thing that I kept recognizing. Just how pervasive technology has gotten in our lives on both the positive and negative.

And I really wanted to focus on the negative side – what happens if we allow that integration of technology to be so pervasive that it literally turns us into robots? I want the player to take away from this that humanity is super important and being human and being in a natural world is really, really important, and that we shouldn’t forget that and really embrace it as much as possible. 

OK: Absolutely, although given the current circumstances that’s pretty hard, right? 

ML: Yeah, no kidding. Especially as we try to wrap this game up we’ve got all 30 of us working from home, with our dogs farting in our offices and everything. It’s ridiculous. 

OK: Do you expect any slowdown at all? Pushing back any dates?

ML: It will slow things down for sure, a little bit. We’re pretty much on track. With the transition of everybody being mandated to work from home, there’s been an adjustment period. And that’s not just true for us, it extends to the publisher side of things, the platform side of things, QA, certification, and everything else along the way. 

OK: That’s great to hear. Shifting back to Disintegration’s actual gameplay – it’s a unique blend of FPS and RTS, one that I imagine didn’t reach its current point without any hiccups. So what’s been the biggest challenge blending those two genres in a way that? And since your market is FPS fans, how are you trying to hook them in?

ML: To get to the first point, it’s been a real challenge for us to build a game that hasn’t been built before. It’s taken a lot of time. That’s one of the things we didn’t initially realize. How long it would take for us to come to a consensus on the core mechanics – that pure golden nugget in the middle that’s just really awesome and fun to play. That took a lot of time to get to and feel right. It required us to make new mechanics that you couldn’t find in other games. It took a toll, even in the studio. There were some individuals who were so set in just like, first-person shooters are the only thing I know and this was outside of their comfort zone, so they decided to leave the studio. I anticipated that kind of thing to happen.

So that was challenge number one, getting everyone to stick along through the process. And what I want players to do is, to answer your question actually, I want them to get their hands on the controller and be able to immediately feel comfortable in the seat of that grav-cycle. And to, and it totally blows us away that this happens within the first five minutes of someone playing, and it’s a testament to how much work went to the development of the core mechanics, is to see those players not only get that they can command those ground units and use their abilities in tactical ways. That kind of thing, when that happens in the first gameplay session, that’s just total awesome magic. 

We also want the player to give Disintegration its due diligence. You know, we want them to play it for what it is and not try to play it like a typical first-person shooter. It’s not like a current battle royale or something like that. The mechanics of the game are deliberate, the grav-cycle has its speeds and its capability to function and move through the environment in certain ways that are totally designed to do that. And the ground units move at certain speeds and have certain abilities that are designed like chess pieces. So when you unlock that kind of stuff mentally, my god man, all kinds of cool stuff can happen. 

Disintegration does not currently have a set release date, but it is slated for release on PS4, PC, and Xbox One in 2020. You can follow the game’s development closely at its main website here, or on its Twitter page. 

April 10, 2020 12:30 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/04/disintegration-interview-marcus-lehto-shares-details-on-development-inspirations-and-working-from-home/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=disintegration-interview-marcus-lehto-shares-details-on-development-inspirations-and-working-from-home

[lostsolsdestinyblog]

Destiny 2, Warmind one month in: Thoughts on what has worked and what still can be improved

June 5, 2018

As we sit one month into Warmind and on the eve of the first reveal for the fall expansion, I want to give my thoughts on Warmind (and D2 as a whole at this time) and what has worked and what still can be improved. The first thing I want to say is I have enjoyed Warmind. I think that of the 4 initial expansions to releases, The Dark Below, House of Wolves, Curse of Osiris and Warmind, it is easily my favorite overall and the fullest experience. It isn’t on par with The Taken King, but it also wasn’t intended as that level of expansion, but it does feel closer to comparable to Rise of Iron in terms of what it’s brought to the game and what there is to do.

Story/Lore/Campaign

I know this is still a spot of contention for many and I think that Bungie would acknowledge that it can and hopefully will still be even better, but that said I think there is a lot of good here in the context of actual story to play and an overarching story that seems to really be going someplace. I also think it is still a good chance to learn and improve going forward. I have read the feedback on how unsatisfying Nokris and Xol are as boss fights and that those subjects couldn’t be done justice in an expansion this size and I would agree they could have been further developed and hopefully that's an area of improvement going forward. Then there is the raid lair which is the expansion's real endgame but is telling a completely different story arc and so further waters down/muddles the overall story being told. What I think would be a better way to go forward is to have these initial bump expansions be tied more directly to the original release. In D1 it was a little bit different because everything was new and so TDB fleshing out the Hive and HoW, the Fallen made more sense. However 3 years into Destiny I don’t think the jumping around to contained stories is the best or most engaging approach. I think for what D2 did with the reset and setting up the Red Legion and Ghaul as villains, to have that essentially be wrapped up at the end of the campaign was a misstep, and while the Emperor Calus story is tied into Ghaul/The Red Legion, it was poorly transitioned and I would guess that there are a lot of players who don’t really know what that connection is really all about. I think the first misstep was the way Calus was introduced as an optional adventure with no real prompts to do before even going to the Leviathan and I think that these first expansions would have been better suited if at least the first had continued/fleshed out the initial release rather than jumping to unrelated stories that couldn’t fully do justice to the material particularly in the case of Osiris who went from mythical legend to obnoxious screw-up. I have less issue with Warmind branching off and potentially setting up the story moving forward, particularly because there is more story and lore there that, while Nokris and Xol may not have been as epic as players expected, they could be seen as harbingers foreshadowing a real threat to come in the next expansion. To the story and lore itself I know that players expected everything to be fixed this release, but going back to the Summit we know that Warmind was basically a finished product and while Bungie were able to make shifts from the direction and particularly the tone of D2’s story telling, we will most likely really see the full shift of what they’ve gotten from our feedback this fall. That said, talking to players who study and curate the lore like Myelingames, Warmind has been a huge step in the right direction of bringing back what was lost with the removal of the Grimiore and the disappointing scannables that released. The Campaign itself was short, but there are a couple sides to that coin. A lot of players just burn through the campaign as quickly as possible to get to endgame grinding and so a longer campaign to make players go through on multiple characters that they’re just going to want to run through as quickly as possible can easily be seen as something that could end up with less focus, but I think that a better approach would be to make players want to be engaged and invested in the campaign more. It is a huge amount of content that essentially ends up wasted. This was especially true with the original D2 campaign and though less so in Warmind, it could still be better. I would still love to see the eventual implementation of fully replayable campaigns with normal and prestige difficulties and reward incentives for time investment in both. We can go grind strikes for reward drops to progress us, why can’t players grind and replay the actual campaign to do the same?

Progression/Rewards

This brings me to the real make or break for many people with Warmind which is the progression and loot drops. I understand the shift to more grind in Warmind, but I also remember D1 and how we ended up with the more inclusive play of D2 and I don’t think the one extreme or the other we seem to have gotten from expansion to expansion is sustainable. True story, so when The Taken King released there was an actual forum campaign against Bungie and anyone who played/purchased the expansion in which the players were labeled addicts and Bungie accused of putting in systems to get people addicted to playing. Now TTK is pretty universally hailed as the high water mark of the franchise. The point of this is that no matter what releases and what good there is, it’s the negative takes that are the loudest and take over feedback. It’s nothing surprising as people tend to want to post more about things they don’t like than things they’re happy with. That in and of itself is fine, but it’s important to understand that it’s not representative of everyone’s views and much like TTK was really fun for a lot of players, D2 also introduced a lot of good in changes it made both at launch and also through the functionality to improve things and raise ceilings that didn’t exist in D1. No one is saying D2 didn’t need more grind or more endgame, but it didn’t need it at the expense of every player who doesn’t play for a punishing grind. I have friends who have been diehard Destiny players since launch and play as much as anyone and they have been completely turned off by the return of the drip feed grind with Warmind and it doesn’t have to be that way. Levels and progression can matter without limiting gains and it honestly makes no sense to do so. If the goal is to make Destiny a hobby again, then how does closing off progression after (x) set of event completions a week accomplish that? I know there is the argument that endgame power level should only be attainable to players who are doing high endgame content like raids, but to that I say why? Why should power level be the end goal and why does it matter if any other player is there as well? The end goal should be the rewards. I don’t want to run raids for weapons like the Spire of Stars fusion rifle that is essentially Main Ingredient with slightly worse perks and feel, but “hey it raised my power level!” We did that with King’s Fall and yeah we ran the hell out of that raid, but it was because the raid itself was so fun and in retrospect probably the pinnacle of balance between actual fighting verses mechanics. WotM showed that raid weapons could be special and worth trying to get without breaking the game and there’s no reason that D2’s raids can’t do the same. Perfect example is the raid arms that can grant power ammo on melee kills. Why limit that to the Leviathan? That is something that should be usable in any PvE activity and would make them a really special thing to go play the raids to try to get. Heroic strikes were bad at Warmind’s launch, but I don’t think raising their loot cap to 360 really accomplished anything either. 370 would have made a lot more sense because that would allow players to get comfortably leveled up to really give Escalation Protocol and Spire of Stars a try if they wanted. I understand that the old raids don’t require that power level, but I think that is a separate story and the entry level for current release endgame should be the demarcation line. Players want to play the game and it shouldn’t matter if they stream it for a living, have time to play whenever or have limited time they can log in and play. When players are able to be logged in and play, they should not ever hit a progression wall that makes them have to stop. It can be frustrating enough doing all of your milestones and raids on a character in a week and not progressing at all because of poor RNG. It’s great that progression and level matter and there are things to strive for, but it��s also really frustrating for players to invest the time to do the endgame content and walk away with nothing to show for it and again, it’s something that would probably be mitigated a lot if that climb to end level wasn’t the overarching goal. If we’re running content and getting weapons, armor, or other drops that have wow factor, then it changes the view of what is a successful run. To get weapons and gear that only benefits us to run the content where it dropped is a hamster wheel and isn’t worth it in the grand scheme in my opinion. Drop a Vex Mythoclast in the raid. Chaos Dogma. Funky Steel Medulla. Vision of Confluence. Give me armor (again like the raid arms) to benefit me in strikes, Nightfalls and events like Escalation Protocol. Those are the rewards and the chase that Destiny needs. What we have now is an illusion. I do think the Ana Bray exotic quests have been a really nice addition and return to what made the OG Exotic quests in D1 so special.

Escalation Protocol

A lot has been written on this and I have had discussions on it with many people including the developers. One of the best conversations I was a part of was with RedwingGirl1999 and Myelingames for what was going to be Episode 65 of our podcast but the file was corrupted and sadly we lost the entire episode. I have seen a lot of thoughts from a lot of people since, as well as Bungie’s official response and change to difficulty levels and… it is all complex, but here are my thoughts on it. EP is I think pretty universally recognized as the best Destiny arena/horde mode to date gameplay wise. It combines the best parts of the previous arenas (as well as adding in a bit of flair from other things like Crota’s End as well). Unfortunately it also brought forward all the things that have held back the previous arenas as well; Lack of matchmaking for meaningful difficulties in PoE and the crapshoot of trying to find people actually in and running events in public zones ala CoO and Archon Forge. I understand why the development choices have been made to try to put these events into patrol spaces. It is a way to make the zones more relevant at endgame, to encourage players to populate the spaces and to also encourage them to work together. It’s a beautiful thing on paper, but I think it is clear at this point that it is something that just isn’t going to work without drastic changes to the way players are allowed to communicate and interact in those zones or are grouped. For all the social possibilities within Destiny, none of it is intrinsic systems within the game. Without proximity chat or other ways to quickly and easily group up and organize, it leads to where EP has landed just like CoO and AF before… which is with players finding ways to cheese larger groups together. I know there is a lot of misconception of what was discussed and the role the Summit played in Warmind. Again it was a finished product, but there was the famous statement that difficulty for EP was raised at the last moment from our feedback. Well something I can tell you as well is that there was feedback given at the summit that we need to either have 6 player patrols in the future or ways to more easily group up because this was going to be what players ended up trying to do. I know because I was having that discussion with many developers. I also know why it’s not just an easy thing to do and the technical limitations of the system that allows us to be in fireteams together on planets or in separate places in the world and still be seamlessly match-made together with other individuals and fireteams. I’ve had discussions with devs on different ways of approaching situations like this and there are actually previous instances in Destiny that allowed for 6 players in patrol zones. VoG and Wrath of the Machine both placed 6 person fireteams into patrol zones (VoG directly and WotM could be travelled to) with other random players out patrolling without breaking the game. It did entail disabling switches within the zones for those within the raid, meaning that things like patrol beacons were unable to be interacted with, but chests, world materials and even matchmaking with other players were still there and it for me shows that workarounds are feasible for these types of events. To give a quick very basic synopsis for players, Destiny planets are made of different zones which are referred to internally as bubbles. There are public bubbles which are the patrol zones and private bubbles which are Lost Sectors, Adventures, Strikes, etc that branch off for individual players and fireteams. The public bubble patrol zones support up to 9 players and specifically up to 3 fireteams of 3. It does this by reserving spaces where if a player is on a planet patrolling then the game will hold 2 more spots in that public bubble for friends to join them in a fireteam there. So adding full functionality for 6 player patrols while proven possible exists, it also would mean having to expand the overall number of possible players in a zone to a minimum of 12 and limit them to 2 possible fireteams in any area and obviously there are reasons why neither may be technically possible at this time or a better overall social experience. That said there have to be workarounds and to that end a couple of ideas I’ve had include 1. Setting events like EP in a patrol zone on a planet like that outside of VoG where it is set to accommodate either the normal 3 fireteams or one 3 player fireteam and one 6 player group. I understand why having it function exactly like VoG and Wrath upon leaving might not be optimal as it could lead to the other patrol zones not having optimal player counts for public events and such depending on how the 6 player group splits off, but it’s worth investigating in my opinion. 2. Another possible solution would simply be to allow fireteams to invite another specific fireteam to join them in that zone (as long as there are only up to 2 groups currently occupying or reserving space in the zone) and limit it to just that specific zone on a planet. It would keep all the game functionality that currently exists intact. If one of the fireteams leaves to another zone, they are match-made to that new bubble and are not tethered to the groups they just left at all. The biggest hurdle I see with this is simply in the system for the initial grouping, but once again I think that could be something that can be achieved. I’m sure there are many other possible solutions as well but at the very least, if players are left with trying to cheese 6 or 9 into zones then there needs to be a better way to more easily facilitate discussions between players in those zones. To Escalation Protocol gameplay itself, I haven’t played a ton but I’ve been in a fireteam of 2 that ended up with a full group attempting it (no organization, just players doing their thing in the zone) as well as a cheesed 9 player attempt and it was fun, but the effort within the current format didn’t seem worth the rewards as we got to level 6 and everyone got multiple chests at 3 and 5 and no one got any drops other than blues. I still like the thought process behind what is being attempted, but again it is a system that still needs work. As for Bungie’s fix for EP, lowering difficulty is the solution I was expecting because I don’t think there are any other real easy solutions based again on how the patrol spaces currently work and the framework of the game grouping us there. Honestly if I could remake EP, I’d have made it a unique zone (private bubble) like PoE/CoE rather than a patrol zone and I would have made a 3 person and 6 person version with the difficulty tuned to each. I’d have kept the rewards the same for both but allowed the 3 person to drop up to power level 370 and the 6 person to drop up to endgame 380. I want to make clear though that while there are a lot of things that can be improved on still, I don’t want to take away from what has been accomplished with EP, because I think it is a huge revelation in play when all cylinders are able to be fired and overall it is a huge step forward in the possibilities for endgame play outside of PvP and Raids.

Sandbox

This for me has been the absolute best part of Warmind. We knew there were going to be big changes coming with the exotic weapon tuning, but I’ve still been surprised at how much fun all the weapon play has been since Warmind released. I honestly think this might be the best top to bottom weapon loadouts I’ve ever run in Destiny. The exotic weapon tunings were genuine game changers and now we’ve got the same for armor. I remember when Destiny first launched and the feeling of getting an exotic and deciding which I wanted to equip and in what weapon slot did I want that advantage. That disappeared over the life of D1 and into D2 and it feels good to have it back again and even more of a feeling of what badass benefit do I choose? I also like what this has done for both PvE and PvP. In PvE I have teammates that love Graviton and Skyburners while Crimson has made a hand cannon my go-to for the first time in Destiny. Now with the new exotic armor tuning, Sunbracers and Lunafaction boots have completely changed the way my Warlock can be played giving me either a mini-add clearing super with Sunbracers or the ability to melt a boss with the Lunafaction Boots. They almost make it feel like a new class. I haven’t really played around with any for the other classes yet, but I love what I’ve experienced so far and I’m excited to see the next batch. In PvP I think the tuning has been very positive as well and I’ve really enjoyed my current loadout of Crimson/Requiem/Main Ingredient. It’s the best I’ve had since HoW and I feel it’s helped make lone wolf encounters vs multiple enemies more survivable. I still think there is work to do for PvP sandbox overall with better melee and faster cooldowns on class, melee and grenade abilities, but this is another step in a positive direction. I also love how it’s brought back the faster TTK options for those who want that but by doing it through the exotics, has once again really made it a fun choice where we want that advantage. This keeps exotics feeling truly special and EXOTIC and has brought a real balance to play that I don’t think could exist if everything were to just get faster kill times. I think the sandbox is in a really good place and we are seeing once more that with Destiny 2 there is a ceiling for things to improve and get more powerful and fun that just didn’t exist in D1 and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Spire of Stars I’ve written a lot here and may add more after I post this but I want to finish with thoughts on the new raid lair. Our fireteam got our first two completions last night and I will say that it felt REALLY good to beat this raid, but that said I think that there needs to be more balance between gunplay and crazy mechanics. I don’t have an issue having mechanics in raids and I enjoyed the hell out of King’s Fall (the best example of that balance I think we’ve seen) and WotM that got a lot more mechanic heavy, but was still very big on gunplay. Eater of Worlds I thought was really well balanced as well, but Spire seems a bit too far to the mechanics and the gunplay feels more afterthought, particularly once fully leveled. I don’t want to say I don’t enjoy the boss fight because I do think it is very fun and challenging, but when you take that mechanic of the engulfed and the greed and passing the ball and run it through literally the entire raid including the jumping puzzle… It gets a little much. I understand that jumping puzzles are now a staple of Destiny raids, but the question needs to be asked when implementing them, is this fun the first time? The fifth time? The twentieth time? It’s a lot like running the Castellum or going through the underbelly to get the exotic chests in the Leviathan raid. It’s cool and interesting to begin with, but it gets tedious after awhile, particularly when you can’t just checkpoint a boss and have to run one or the other to get there. The throwing the orb around during the jumping puzzle was different the first go through, but in my opinion it’s not a mechanic that makes it more fun on successive runs and takes away from the experience when players start dying from it repeatedly more than it adds to it and I think it very much takes away from the rest of the raid when you go into the boss fights irritated by an unnecessarily drawn out and overdone jumping puzzle. I also again think that raid rewards need to be better. I think that the Spire armor drops are for the most part improvements over EoW, but they’re essentially the R word in many respects and nothing is saving the Titan dung beetle. Raid rewards need to be really unique and not a re-skin of anything seen before and they need to be something that players want to grind to get for more than just cosmetic reasons. The armor should again have unique perks that benefit us in all PvE activities and the weapons should have a unique perk/ability that can benefit play in any other event PvE or PvP much like the Wrath weapons. Finally I think the Lair idea isn’t bad, particularly if it allows a raid every expansion and not having to skip any like HoW, but I think they need to be more tied into the actual campaign story proper and fleshed out rather than be a separate standalone story like Calus has been.

[wayneooverton]

Why Fiordland is an adventurer’s playground

The most wild, remote and probably most beautiful corner of New Zealand is without a doubt, to travel Fiordland. Although it’s full of adventure and possibility, few tourists venture beyond Milford Sound. Janey from Little Wanderlust Stories is a good friend of mine and was lucky enough to live and work down in this epic area, and she’s agreed to share her local tips and knowledge with us!

New Zealand is known around the world as the land of adventure. And to be fair, it is the place that invented bungy jumping and where the Lord of the Rings was filmed. There are thousands of bucketlists out there telling you all of the ‘must do adventures while in New Zealand,’ and let’s be honest here, they are all the same.

My journey on the Milford Track in 30 photos

So many of New Zealand’s best experiences, especially for true adventurers, are still relatively unknown.

Fiordland National Park is one of these lovely little secrets. Widely known to travelers as the home of the iconic Milford Sound, many won’t explore beyond that, and most come in as a day trip from Queenstown or to hike the ridiculously popular Milford Track (which books out a year in advance). But there is so much more to experience, and if you’re brave enough to venture away from the popular spots.

I lived, worked and played in Fiordland for seven months and let me tell you – if it’s adventure you’re looking for, Fiordland will not disappoint you, ever. I spent every free moment seeking something new and exciting, whether it was on the water, under the water, up a mountain or in the bush.

The biggest bonus about so many of my wild adventures in Fiordland was that no buses stop in these places and tourists don’t really know about them, meaning you’ll have the place to yourself! But seriously, this national park is so big, unless you’re adventuring with other people you’re unlikely to bump into anyone!

If you’re like me and dying to get off the tourist tracks, away from people and experience some pretty epic raw adventure in a beautiful natural landscape, then keep reading! If you’re not quite sure if adventuring in Fiordland is for you, I promise by the end of this blog post you’ll change your mind.

So without further a do, here are my best picks for 12 epic adventures to have in Fiordland National Park!

1. Hike to the beautiful Lake Marian

This is definitely one of the most scenic hikes in New Zealand, and that’s saying something!

The Lake Marian Track is pretty easy to follow; while it’s getting more well-known in recent years, it’s well trodden and would be tricky to get lost! Park your car just at the beginning of Hollyford Road and follow the sign marked for Marian Falls, cross the swingbridge and leave the tourists behind (or most of them anyways) who only walk up to see the waterfall.

It’ll take around 1.5 – 2 hours to get to this beautiful alpine lake, and while the incline can be steep, it’s not so bad compared to many other hikes in New Zealand, and it is so worth it!

The trail itself is not well-maintained. It’s often muddy, there are a few parts you will have to climb up tree roots (but only a tiny bit). While this trail is easy to follow, it can be tricky underfoot so it is important to be wearing good boots (seriously, the amount of times I’ve seen people hike in flip flops is nuts) and take it from me, it’s very easy to twist your ankle on this track if you aren’t careful. 

Lake Marian’s water is crystal clear green, often offering mirror reflections of the surrounding snowcapped peaks. Clamber over giant boulders down to the lake side to fully enjoy the view. Trust me, it’s the perfect place for a picnic lunch. 

Or, if you fancy venturing further in summer you can walk around the edge of the lake with the option of going into the valley at the other end BUT DO NOT try this in winter/spring time when the avalanche risk is high. In winter, just stick to the main side of the lake. 

We hiked to Lake Marian in September which is springtime in Fiordland, it’s getting warmer but still a little cold with snow on the mountains. The crystal clear water of Lake Marian was tempting enough for us to hop in for an incredibly quick swim!

2. Push your limits on Dore Pass

Getting into the wild of Fiordland is easily done on this hiking adventure, though after that, nothing is easy. Expect no phone signal, no clear trail and very little in the way of waymarks.

Dore Pass is a highly advanced hiking trail and I wouldn’t tackle it alone or at the very least, without a PLB (personal locator beacon). Experts only! But man, it promises an awesome adventure!

Start the trail from a very tiny car park on the Milford Road with the doc sign post for ‘Glade Hut’ written on it. From here the route itself is only around 10.5km one way but it is going to be tough. TOUGH. 

You’ll begin by crossing the Eglinton River – we opted to do this in bare feet. I’ll warn you now, it is cold – and head into the treeline in front of you. There is no clearly marked trail, and the aim is to find the orange flag on the outskirts which then should lead you to a faintly marked trail.

And from here it is up, up, up you go!

For those of us with navigational skills, alpine experience and a love of the wilderness you will love Dore Pass!

Reaching the top of the pass is sensational. 360 degree views of where you came from to where you’re going make the last few hours of bush bashing, steep climbs and trail finding totally worth it. You’ll look down to the end of Lake Te Anau and the start of the Milford Track and from here this is when your alpine skills and the necessity of having a PLB or friend with you will make the difference.

The trail runs along the mountain ridges, with only waratahs/cairns guiding you (which are sometimes hard to spot). There will be sections you’ll be shimmying around a boulder or crossing landslide sections. Don’t panic, there are always hand holds somewhere or if not, the hardcore alpine weeds are pretty durable!

Ignore the ‘bunny trails’ leading you away from the waratahs to what seems like a shortcut. These are not shortcuts. Unless you fancy flying or rolling down into the valley below!

This trek will take anything from 7 – 10 hours. We did it over two days, started late, camped and then completed it the next day but camped in the woods before heading home.

The only bitch about this trek is you will either have to get the ferry back on the other side from Glade Wharf, which is the beginning of the Milford Track. Or turn around and hike back to the car the same way you came, which remember, is another 7 – 10 hours! What I recommend is to take the ferry back over to Te Anau Downs and then hitchhike back to the car! If you’re lucky enough some of the tour buses will take you down!

This is one of the most epic hikes I’ve ever done. Don’t get me wrong it is HARD and I struggled, cried, was covered in mud a lot and really had to push myself. But wow it was worth it!

3. Can you do the Routeburn Track in a day?

Another one of New Zealand’s famous Great Walks is the Routeburn. Although they are popular, you can’t stop your curiosity going wild wondering what the hype is all about. One of the shorter of the Great Walks coming in at a shy 32 kilometers, most people do it in three days. Unless you’re a kiwi then you do it in a day to avoid the high cost of the hut fees. Or better yet, run it. 

Sounds crazy, but it’s do-able, trust me!

Hiking New Zealand’s famous Routeburn Track

If you like well trodden trails, don’t mind bumping into a few other people along the way and are looking for some incredible scenery. This is a pretty epic trail! Starting from either The Divide just off the Milford Road or from the other side in Glenorchy.

The most beautiful part of this whole hike for me, was the Mackenzie hut and the climb up to Harris Saddle. The lush green valley and blue, crystal clear alpine lakes are surrounded by mighty mountain peaks giving the beauty a sense of drama. The views here never get boring.

There is a great mixture of up, down and flat walking. The trail is incredibly well maintained offering huts, shelters and camping options that allow both adventurers looking for a challenge and easy walkers to enjoy the same route at their own pace.

4. Alpine climb to Homer Saddle

If you love alpine hikes but you don’t have days to spend off trail, carry camping gear and head for the high peaks deep in Fiordland, Homer Saddle is a cheeky hidden secret.

Drive down the Milford road and just before you get to the Homer Tunnel, turn off and park your car in the car park to the side of the tunnel.

From here, you’ll see an old ‘nature track’ which used to be run by DOC but had since been wiped out by landslides.

Follow the nature trail as it begins to skirt up along the alpine mountain side, slowly gaining height. There are absolutely no markers for this trail, it’s officially not maintained by DOC, so you’re pretty much on your own. But that’s what we love, right?!

The route up to the Homer Saddle has a faint trail, but really you’re only going to make it up onto the ridge if you have a little alpine experience. If in doubt, just aim for the top! The top being a pretty gnarly sheer Alpine ridge with the perfect view to have a coffee too!

You’ll be looking down the winding road into Milford Sound, after the homer tunnel. Be careful not to fall though, there’s a few hundred meter drop below you!

Discloser – people have died on this hike even someone just last year; experts ONLY.

5. Venture into the Valley of the Trolls

If you want to enter a world where you could imagine trolls living under waterfalls, fairy rings and the home of elves then this is the place to be. Valley of the Trolls is a secret little spot just off the Routeburn Track. So for the first few hours of the day you’ll be walking pretty much half of one of New Zealand’s Great walks – that counts as being ticked off, right? – but your destination is way better than the end of the Routeburn.

I’ve been hesitant to give this beautiful spot up, but for adventurers looking for new, accessible trips this is a must do and deserves to be explored! There are no trail markers to take you here, I went on word of mouth advice from a friend and good guessing work! So how do you get there?

Follow the Routeburn Track until you get to Lake Harris. From here the lake seems to snake into a valley on the other side. That valley is your aim. Walk down to the lake side close to the harris shelter and look for small pink markers. These are trap lines and are basically found along the side of the Lake towards the valley.

Entering the valley the first thing you notice is a thundering waterfall cascading down the mountain peaks at the far end and a spiderweb of little rivers littering the valley floor. This makes the ground underfoot a little boggy and wet, not ideal for camping. But no worries! The walls of the valley have some epic Lion King styled over hangs, perfect to pitch a tent or just cosy up in a bivvy bag under the stars with little worry of rain!

How many places in the world can you find a campsite setting in a valley of magical creatures? Even the toughest of us adventurers want to camp in a Disney-like setting!

6. White water kayak bright blue river rapids

Fiordland is a mecca for the white water kayaker but is not for the faint hearted!

It is steep, fast, continuous (not a lot of places to stop for a breather), full of boulders and technical maneuvers but most of all – a shot of adrenaline right to your heart!

If you look down, you’re paddling over clear glacial blue waters. Look ahead to see you’re paddling through a rainforest, the raging white water drops away between steep boulders and you look up and you’re in the middle of the mountains, gazing up at snow capped peaks all around.

There is nothing quite like, white water kayaking in Fiordland National Park.

I say potential mecca because although Fiordland is full of amazing rivers, it is lucky a passerby will find the river at the right level unless you’re very experienced. The rivers are formed at the base of glacial granite valleys, meaning the water races over the rock below without sinking into the ground and quickly flows away down river. This is why the rivers in Fiordland can be dangerous, flash floods can be pretty common here!

So basically if you’re after some epic white water, it’s best you plan to hang around a while for the rain to come. If you’re like, you might even see whio or the Blue Duck, New Zealand’s white water rafting duck that lives in the fast flowing waters of Fiordland. 

For those lucky enough to be here at the right time, the Hollyford river is where you want to be!

There’s some easy but technical warm up sections down Falls Creek with grades 3/4 to get you started before you continue down to some epic grade 5 rapids below Marian Creek and eventually, flowing out through continuous grade 4 rapids as you pass Morraine Creek.

The Hollyford is hands down one of the most beautiful, magical and terrifying(ly awesome) rivers that will just stay with you forever. So if you’re a keen white water kayaker, this is where you want to be!

7. Go on a sea kayaking adventure

Growing up on the water, sometimes there is no better way to explore somewhere so remote than in a kayak. Being on and close to the fiords in a kayak is a pretty special experience.

Being in a kayak up close and personal to the small caves, marine life, birds and native bush in the Fiords beats being stuck on a giant cruise ship with hundreds of other people any day!

Kayaking Milford Sound in the pouring rain

You can kayak in both Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound through tour companies, but if you have your own kayak and a sense of adventure – there’s not too much of a limit to where you can explore!

Kayaking alongside dolphins, rare penguins and seals while being surrounded by some of the biggest and dramatic mountains is just, indescribable!

My favorite moment was heading down to Milford Sound with a bunch of my friends just before midnight. Hopping in kayaks and paddling the length of Milford Sound until we just about reached the Tasman Sea. Kayaking with just the moonlight to light our way, incredible stars and the playing splashes of the jumping dolphins and seals nearby was sensational.

Just before we beached our kayaks onto Anita Bay a seal jumped over the front of my kayak giving me the absolute fright of my life! – Is it embarrassing to say I almost fell out of my kayak? – We set up camp at about 2am, enjoyed a beer under the stars before falling asleep to enjoy a early morning paddle back the next day.

8. Explore the depths of the fiords diving 

Scuba diving in Milford Sound is a completely unique adventure. The marine life and ecosystem down there is hard to find anywhere else in the world! Each dive is different and for adventurers looking for a unique experience in Fiordland, this will definitely satisfy you!

Milford Sound is famous for having some of the best diving in New Zealand, if you can bear the cold. A few meters of fresh rain water sits on the surface, so you descend through it to the saltwater below which is much warmer. You can even see a divide in the water.

The dark tannins in the freshwater layer trick deep dwelling sealife into living much closer to the surface than they normally would so you often get to see creatures and corals here that you wouldn’t have a chance to anywhere else in the world.

Descend Dive is the only company in Milford Sound offering diving adventures; PADI trained, I was geared up and ready to go. Setting off early in the morning, we were out to make a day of it.

Jumping into the water and descending down a few meters everything goes fuzzy for a moment as you cross from the freshwater layer into the salt water. Finding my bearings and looking around, along the sheer cliff faces are trees of white coral (actually named black coral) it didn’t take much more than that to blow me away. The sheer cliff faces were full of life, and the friendly locals came to join in the fun – seals! That was also the moment I realzed it’s hard to scream (in excitement) with a regulator in your mouth.

So what are you waiting for? Gear up and jump in! You’ll even get a fresh water shower under Stirling Falls before you hit shore!

9. Climb the iconic Mitre Peak in Milford Sound

Mitre Peak has to be one of the most incredible mountains I have ever climbed! And none is so iconic, lording over Milford Sound in all it’s glory. But it is not for the faint of heart – or for anyone with a fear of exposure or heights. 

It can be done in a day, but why rush when you could camp on the saddle? For anyone who spends time in Fiordland, standing on top of Mitre Peak will be on your adventure list.

There is something captivating about that iconic spike that wills us to take on, not only the mountain, but the sea and the stubborn New Zealand bush as well.

Getting to Mitre Peak is an adventure in itself and is for hardcore mountain badasses ONLY.

There is no overland trail to the beginning of this climb so you have to approach the mountain by sea! The best way is to kayak – there is nothing better than gliding through smooth glassy water, especially when dolphins and penguins come to play along the way! Drag it onto the beach and leave it somewhere the tide won’t wash it back out – that would not be a fun swim later! 

There is nothing on Mitre Peak for you, and you need to bring all your water with you. Most people I know who have climbed it end up getting lost in the bush for a while, running out of water, and having to steripen puddle water. Yuck!

Now it’s time to take on the stubborn New Zealand bush. It’s almost like entering Narnia and playing chase with a gremlin! The only thing to keep you on track is the occasional pink ribbons tied sneakily to tee branches and roots along the way but otherwise it’s not an official trail and is unmarked.

As the trail rises it’ll become so steep you’ll be climbing on all fours, with the help of tree roots, cursing each step as you heave yourself towards the saddle.

Breaking out of the bush felt like I’d just broken out of jail.

Suddenly the light was back, the air was clearer and the views were already sensational. Now for the final push to the peak.

I hope you have a head for heights and serious alpine experience because it is dodgy as fuck! With sheer drops on both sides down into the fiord below, a slip here and you are a goner.

Unless you have incredible balance, nerves of steel and no fear of falling, you will be bum shuffling and be on all fours! But you’ve made it (hopefully) and now can enjoy the epic, snow capped peaks and the view out into the Tasman sea beyond the fiord.

There are companies like Adventure Consultants that do guided trips up Mitre Peak and I think there are options of roping in at the top.

If you’re looking for hardcore adventure in Fiordland, Mitre Peak will give you the thrill you’re after!

10. Unzip your tent to some epic views from the top of Cascade Peak

Cascade Peak, although shorter than Mitre Peak is a much harder climb, mentally. There are no trails or tracks to follow, you’re simply bush bashing your way through dense rainforest. The trees offer no light or views and landmarks don’t really exist to help you here.

The best way to describe how to get to the top of Cascade peak, is to keep climbing up, until you quite literally, can’t go up any higher!

Once at the top of this challenging mountain; the mental battle you just had, heaving yourself and your backpack up the steep slopes, makes everything worth it! You’re met with a view of mother natures greatest creation, Piopiotahi (or Milford Sound). Camping on the top of Cascade is a bit of a squeeze. There are a few larger flat areas but the vegetation is slowly taking over and blocks those epic tent views we are all after.

If you want a tent view of the mighty Milford Sound and the surrounding Tasman sea, then you you’re going to have to camp on pretty much, a knife’s edge. Just make sure if you pitch your tent here, you don’t roll over in your sleep, it’s a long way down!

At the top, you can finally breathe fresh air and get to play with the cheeky and curious kea (the world’s only alpine parrot) who will stop by for a visit – and try to steal your food – they are heaps of fun and good company. But keep your valuables and your boots zipped in your tent.

Remember in places like this in New Zealand, we always practice leave nothing behind except footprints.

In the evening sit round your small cooking fire and watch the sun go down out over the Tasman Sea and watch the shadows slowly creep up the mountains around you. In the morning, make sure you wake up for the sunrise to enjoy the incredible Alpine glow, lighting the mountains up in dazzling colors of orange and red, as the sun rises high into the sky.

This will be an adventure you won’t forget in a hurry!

11. Sleep under the stars on Gertrude Saddle

Gertrude Saddle is a day hike on the Milford Road but can be more challenging than you expect it to be and often has fatalities for those going up in bad conditions or who are unprepared. Now maintained heavily and new safety measures in place after a few tragedies in previous years it is a great climb for both thrill seekers and avid walkers.

It’s dangerous when the rock slabs are wet.

Normally Gertrude Saddle will take around 6 hours but where’s the fun in just enjoying this hike for a day? Catch Gertrude Saddle on a sunny clear day you better pack your bags, bring your tent and sleeping bag and get ready for an epic camping experience.

On the top of the saddle are only really two camp spots, on is behind a rock with the purpose of sheltering you from the wind, the other just a few metes along. But the best camp spot is just upwards from here. Climb higher than the saddle to the humps above and find dry flat ground to pitch your tent.

The views down into Milford Sound and the surrounding mountains are incredible, and if there is anyone else up there, it won’t feel like it. We went up here at the end of summer but caught a clear warm day. Laying in our sleeping bags outside, no wind and a perfect clear night sky filled with stars. We counted the shooting stars until we fell asleep, outside.

It was perfect until, of course, the 2am land wind came in and woke us up shivering, moving us back into the tent, though the sunrise the next morning, was one of the best I’ve ever seen!

12. Climb to the top of one of Milford Sound’s iconic waterfalls

Lady Bowen falls is one of Milford Sound’s permanent residents. Flowing all year round this lady can be thunderous and unforgiving or soft and gentle. If you kayak in Milford Sound you’ll get the chance to get up close to the base of the falls.

But the view is much better from the top, trust me!

Lady Bowen falls track has always been a “locals only” haunt not known to tourists and travellers passing through, especially after some have fallen to their deaths from the top, but those who spend a lot of time down there eventually discover it.

The ‘trail’ starts just around from the visitors cafe just around from the cruise ship terminal. From here you’ll bush bash your way through the trees, scrambling to look for the mixture of pink and red ribbons leading you up the trail.

Thankfully the popularity among the residents for this track has led people to put rope holds to help you. The track is relatively well-trodden until you reach the giant water pipes leading to the top of Lady Bowen Falls. I hope your balancing skills are good because you’ll be walking along these pipes for a while!

Once off the pipes you’ll come to a river, which, you guessed it, leads you pretty much to the falls. Just be careful not to get too close, the rocks up here are slippy and that would be a pretty unforgiving fall. But you’ll be rewarded with the best views of Milford Sound, on top of one of the most iconic waterfalls!

Do you seek adventure when you travel? Have you been to Fiordland? Is this wild corner of New Zealand on your bucketlist?

Disclosure – most of these adventures are for people who have expert knowledge and experience in the outdoors, especially in wild alpine environments. People have died on some of them when they are unprepared or inexperienced from things likes falls or flash floods. When in doubt check in with DOC or go guided

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