So, with our Eve corporation not actually playing Eve (unless targets are presented on a platter, a gang is already formed and they are cordially invited to attend by persons leading said gang, via Ventrilo) I’ve been mostly playing the World of Tanks beta, which while occasionally infuriating to a degree I cannot explain unless you ask me within three seconds of my T-34-85’s ammo rack exploding, is actually a bit of a lark.
I imagine it’s a bit less exciting for people who play tank destroyers, and sit in bushes like Wiley-fucking-Coyote waiting for an unsuspecting Roadrunner to happen across their crosshairs, but for me and my medium tank it’s either death, glory, death and glory, or death followed by a string of unrepeatable obscenities. I like it best when it’s just glory.
It’s a game that doesn’t really fit under the MMO title but seems to have fallen in to the trap of masquerading as one, much like so many games these days that seem to want to ‘ride the wave’. MMOs have such a high turnover rate these days that there are few with consistent player bases, and most of the ones that do have player numbers that are dwarfed by the number they launched with. The examples I’d use are Warhammer Online and Aion, simply because I played them myself and later moved on. In fact, Eve is the only MMO that I maintain a consistent ‘relationship’ with, Eve seems to have become the online gaming equivalent of a wife, comparative to other MMOs which would surely qualify as nothing but mistresses or passing fancies, who are not cut out for the long run.
Nonetheless, World of Tanks masquerades, even though the actual game system is much more like an FPS – even the more “massively” orientated attributes are easily matched by FPS games these days, as the progression doesn’t go much deeper than play matches in tanks > gain experience & cash > unlock and buy new tanks. Not entirely different from unlocking new weapons in say, Battlefield Bad Company 2, surely?
Really the only thing that sets it apart from the usual FPS system is the restrictive reliance on credits, you have to pay for ammo and tank repairs after a battle, which can be more expensive than the coin you make from winning it if you’re storming around (crawling around more like) the battlefield in a Tiger or larger. There’s a lot of armour to superglue back on to a Tiger tank after it’s taken a good old fashioned twatting, so you get bills big enough to push you in to using lighter tanks as money makers so that you can afford to use your larger ones.
All of this said, it’s a good laugh, and once there’s a team system in place that’ll allow grouping with friends (we currently count down from three on Ventrilo and all hit “Battle” at the same time, then hope to god we got in to the same match) the experience will only improve. I’m not convinced of the longevity of the game, but perhaps the lack of a subscription will compensate for that. No sub means you can pick up and play when it suits you, and the optional micro-transactions don’t seem too game breaking.
Anyway, I would talk about anime as usual but I’ve not really watched any. Since I finished Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood I’ve watched maybe 2 episodes of Highschool of the Dead, and that’s about it.
What I have been watching after some demands on the part of a friend, is Life on Mars, which has been pretty awesome so far. I’m currently just over half way through the second season and I’ve no doubt that I’ll have finished it and be hitting up Ashes to Ashes some time this week.
Now that I’ve provided something resembling an update, even if mostly a muddled explanation of my opinion of World of Tanks, I’m going to get on with ordering myself a takeaway, as it is the weekend, I’m hungry and I can’t blog and operate Just-Eat at the same time without fucking one up entirely.
Final note before I sign off is this: If you have a bizarrely named domain such as, I don’t know, ClaymoreDog.com, and you’re asked by work colleagues what the name is about, don’t try to explain, it’s not possible to do it any kind of sensible way.