Hearthstone and You: How to please the RNGods

I been playing Hearthstone ever since I saw the release of its open beta, from that day I fell in love it with. The core game mechanics are amazingly simple yet effective using 1 mana per turn and cards cost mana makes it so the game can be fair and simple through out. It’s cool and all when you’re starting out to be playing simple cards you get given but later on when your online enemies get harder and harder you start to rely more and more on the great powers above that are RNGods.

Now what are these great powers ? they are also known as random number generators and lots of cards rely on them. Take Imp-losion for example, 4 mana meaning it ideally can’t be played till 3-4 and deals 2-4 damage, this is what we call RNG-reliant cards. It comes down to luck, there’s nothing (besides spell damage) that actually affects the amount of damage you do or what it picks, now 2-4 damage doesn’t seem that much of a damage difference but that three might be the final vital blow to kill off a big threat on the board.

As time has gone on, a lot more RNG-reliant cards have been released making the game more and more based on luck  the amount of sacrifices you have made to your RNGod today, and I don’t think I like this element have given enough praise to RNGesus today.

Ok real talk, I honestly am getting more and more annoyed the amount of times I have lost out to these cards, it’s not even one mistake equals one loss which would be better off, it’s just making the game harder and harder to win similar to torture. Sometimes it takes just one card to not go your way than bam you have lost all your minions and he has a massive creature on the board. Although, it makes for a good watch when it comes to twitch streaming, there’s nothing more satisfying as watching a chat when the streamer loses out to this mechanic, its like knowing your not alone in this world.

On the other hand, I could just be whining, maybe this was the plan for the game from the start? I mean to be fair, it means new players have a chance against bigshots they come across as they climb the ranking ladder but then it gives the effect of it being unfair for them. These people who spend hours, days even, trying to get better at the game, learning combos, when to play a certain card but when they get beaten by one silly RNG-reliant card it makes them just not want to play anymore, I know because I felt it too. Surely its enough RNG when you’re having to draw cards as well?

Hearthstone isn’t the only card game that suffers from this though. MTG does have its RNG elements but there is a lot more cards in that game a whole deck could be made to have life preservers if they win the battle, but in Hearthstone, due to its limited card pool, the effects are much more drastic with cards like Healing wave which can just drastically change the whole game plan.

But that’s not what your here to see, we want to discuss how to please the RNGods right? since they are here to stay might as well give them what they want. I normally do a quick pray as I play one of these cards but it doesn’t hurt to sacrifice a lamb or two in your spare time to really get the hopes high. I like to think sometimes their blessing moves into real life so if you ever get something lucky in real life it’s always good to drop everything and load up Hearthstone. (please don’t sacrifice lambs)

Thank you for reading and I hope the RNGods look fortunately upon you.

– Sam Burdis

Fallout 4 and Game Marketing

‘Hype’ or ‘The Excitement of a something’ is a key factor in game sales and with Fallout 4 we can see that their hype train has sort of derailed but instead of all the other hype trains in its path, it developed a hyper-drive and reached max speed. The game is set to be a record smasher with the amount of excitement building up to its release date in Nov 10. I mean, it has been seven long years since a much-needed update to the franchise. But how has Fallout 4 got to be this desiring treasure that gamers crave?

If we go fishing for information for Fallout 4 at the moment we just get hit by pre-orders promotions or speculations about certain components. It’s clear that the gamers are curious about the details of the game, like “What food items will there be?” and “How will crafting work?” yet the majority of people weren’t instantly interested in the nitty-gritty and to see why we need to start before the game was even announced.

In Dec 2013, Kotaku reported on a Leaked Document reveal that proved to some fans that Fallout 4 was real. In this, the document included a script of the player meeting a commonwealth minuteman called ‘Preston Garvey’ which included dialogue of the player choosing the ‘be a dick’ option with him saying something like ‘I’ll expect heavy payment’ and the kind of writing that we expect from Bethesda and looked pretty genuine. Though, the vast majority thought it was fake, especially after the ‘Survivor 2299’ fiasco which made people very untrustworthy of any information about it, this started the engines of the hype train.

Now there are lots of new leaks or developments in rumor over time but the next main event was the announcement of Bethesda having a conference at E3 in August which made people think that Fallout 4 was almost confirmed since Bethesda’s last conference was when Fallout 3 was announced. This started the conspiracy theories of what to expect and the rumors to circulate about the setting of the game, which was a big part in hyping up this game.

What Bethesda had to nail was the marketing of the game and or how to deliver it to its audience, and of course, they did it pretty good. The amount of details announced at E3 was a simple trailer montaging key events and characters we will (hopefully) see in game as well as announcing it will be in Boston. This was a rumor that had been around since the leaked script and gave them inspiration to think more. Its good that they only announced core information because later on we will see that rumors help.

Along with the Fallout 4 came Fallout Shelter announcement, a new free to play vault-tycoon

Now for Marketing they instantly got posters all over Game retailers and riding on the hype train managed to get out a good profile of the Special edition Pipboy as well as the release date which was relatively close t making it easier for the next phase.

This phase (and the current one) will by far the hardest, maintaining the hype till the release date. Many games fall at this hurdle but Bethesda has used the strategy of seeping out information of the game every now and then to keep the audience on their tippy toes and keeping the rumors spreading.

They realized that even if its false information that’s in the gamer’s head, its still Fallout 4 and they are still making the gamer think and share their opinion on Fallout 4. As the famous saying goes, Even bad publicity is good publicity.

So with this structure any solid game could accomplish a some sales if they can maintain these variables. Hopefully, we can see it more so more games will actually try to be good.

But meh, give me a Mr.Handy and I will give it a 10/10 anyways,

– Sam Burdis

Her Story Review – Take a Notepad!

Her Story is well, you can’t really give a definitive genre, it is a watchy-detective-simulator-thingy which leaves the player a file full of video clips that consists of snippets of interviews of a woman taken over several days.

Now going into Her Story I knew nothing about it except I should bring a notepad with me, and for the love of your hair not being ripped out, bring one with you. Her Story left me with 3 pages full of notes and a whole bunch of emotions bundled up in my head.

Let’s start with the gameplay side of things, there is minimal. You search into a search bar certain words or quotes and either a video will come up or it doesn’t, it’s really that straight forward. But don’t let that bum you out, Her story makes up for this in the unique journey you will go through.

Her Story allows you to create your own path in the game without even knowing it, you’ll get ideas in your head about the story and it’ll completely change just after 2 minutes of footage. There have been plenty of times where I was confident on an idea then to discover a massive pothole-of-a-twist in a clip.

Now the narrative when put in order is a quite a dark tale. Yet when it is played in the random order you make it is intriguing and jam-packed full of twists and turns making you crave the end of it and so you can see how it all plays out and what has happened to this woman and without going into spoiler territory, it definitely will leave you in a state of disbelief and shock. Not to mention the final twist that you’ll see when you’re finished with the game.

The aesthetics of the game is different as well, giving a nostalgia feel to an old computer complimented with every now and again flicker on the screen making you see a reflection of your character which really added to the dark underlining of this game, Even if it did make my heart jump out of my chest every time it happened.

A problem I had with the game though was the lack of clues it brought. I got to a point in the game where I would run out of two words to use then go back through the clips trying to find a word to search that isn’t “a” or “boobs” (Trust me, you will get desperate). It isn’t a really huge issue its just really annoying when you are (or you think you are) so close to the end and you have to go back through several clips just to try and find a quote that might not even work.

But that might not be a problem for everyone and is definitely part of the never-ending puzzle so don’t let that spoil your hunger to play this game. What I would say though even if you remotely like a puzzling style or gameplay you crave something unique then this game is at least worth a try, and definitely is worth picking up on a sale.
I genuinely had a good time with Her Story it was a pleasant treat among the asset flippers and the DayZ-Clones that flood the steam store at the moment.

-Sam Burdis