The Homeless Nerd Reviews- Terminator: Genisys

At a glance- the 5th Terminator movie, with more humans vs killer robots time-travel action craziness

What is it?  A series is a funny thing, each subsequent movie/book/whatever can really change the tone and direction and meaning of the ones before.  Ideally each work expands on and improves the prior ones, adding new layers while keeping the same core.  The Terminator movie series has not had that for the most part.  The Terminator was an action movie with a little sci-fi twist.  It was nothing special, but it was very watchable and the main star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, did a great job with the most important part.  Terminator 2 added to the first film, showing a cold killing machine learning about being human, and suggesting that there is no fate or destiny and that people can change their future.  It did what a series piece should, kept the same core and expanded it.  Then it all went to hell.  Terminator 3 seemed to have been made just so we could see a female terminator, and it suggested that there was no way to change fate, directly contradicting the previous movie.  And it was not a great movie even on its own rights.  Then Terminator: Salvation made the biggest mistake of all, it took us into the dystopian future the series is built on.  See, there's one problem with the whole man-machine war that lies at the heart of the Terminator storyline - what the hell does Skynet need to keep any humans alive for?  With control of America's nukes Skynet literally had enough firepower to render the planet a smoking husk.  It would have been easy to cause so many nuke strikes that there would be no more ecosystem, no more human life, no more pesky people that Skynet was so afraid of it had to kill them as its first act of sentience.  So why the hell does Skynet bother to capture people, who have to be fed and cared for to continue doing work, instead of relying on its unlimited robot army?  In The Matrix at least the robots kept people around to feed off of them, which is some sort of a reason, good or bad.  In the Terminator series we never get an explanation, and with a little logical thought there seems to be no good reason at all.  Even if you say Skynet doesn't want to destroy the planet with nukes, how about engineering a super-virus, or just letting loose one that it has access to from its seemingly total control of the military?  The whole core concept doesn't make any sense, and Terminator: Salvation really made those flaws stand out (along with the good-guy-turns-into-bad-robot-turns-into-good-guy thing that was actually done better in Terminator 2).  So now we have the reboot Terminator: Genisys which is going to create a new timeline and reboot the series, thus invalidating the last 8 hours you spent committing to the series to date (wow, thanks, I love the "it was all really just a dream" cliche).

The acting- Okay, usually I go over the cast of a movie in one of my reviews, but in all honestly there is only one worth mentioning: Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Terminator.  And he is still awesome in the role he created.  Nobody else is really that memorable.

The story-  We begin again in the future, voice-overed by Kyle Reese, on the eve of the human's victory against Skynet.  We see him go back in time, and then things go wrong.  John Connor is attacked in the future and Kyle is sent to a past that is not the one he was supposed to arrive at.  Sarah Connor is a tough robot-fighting machine and there is another Terminator, named "Pops" of all things, that was sent back to help her by person(s) unknown for reasons unknown.  John is revealed to be a terminator (which isn't a spoiler since the stupid trailer spilled the big secret before the movie was released - great job marketing idiots) and Skynet is now Genisys, a military defense program that is also going to manage everyone's on-line life (and boy is that one of the stupider things in a very stupid plotline) that goes live in 2017 instead of 1997.  Honestly, don't try to think about it too much- it doesn't make any damn sense.  It kind of reminds me of the computer game Bioshock Infinite.  The game is like 15 years old now, so I don't think I'll spoil it for anyone, but the core concept of the game's story is that one character has traveled to a parallel universe and another character has to travel through time.  There's a problem with that however, time travel and parallel worlds/universes are two separate concepts!!!  And T:G seems to have a problem deciding if it is a story about time travel or parallel worlds.  But it has to, because it makes a big difference to the story depending on which one it is.
    I saw the movie two days ago, and I have been trying to think of how I was going to review it, and there are two things that keep running through my mind: disappointing and meaningless.  The movie was a huge disappointment for me, it did not bring anything actually new to the series, that for the last 2 movies (now three) has had a serious lack of new things (except for the "black dust" terminator instead of the "liquid metal" terminator, what a change).  And at the end of the day, one of the things I ask myself about a movie is: what was this movie about?  What was it trying to say?  Even a light, fluff movie like Avengers: Age of Ultron has a sort of theme about teamwork and how we can be our own worst enemy.  T:G though seems to be lacking any meaning at all.  If there was some sort of a message here I can't see it.  It never resolves weather or not they really changed the future, so I don't know if it was going future-variable T2 or future-fixed T3, and honestly those two movies have already explored that concept.  We sort of see Skynet, it even talks, and it almost has a personality, but we never see it enough to know why the evil robot decided to be an evil robot instead of a good robot, so there's a miss on the potential theme of AI evolution.  There are just so many things unanswered that there is nothing solid to hold onto, nothing to form an opinion about.  And that may have been done in the hopes of future movies, but without a solid message in this one I just don't care about any future movies.  Honestly, I hope and pray this will be the last terminator movie I ever see - because the series has sucked so bad that it needs someone to drive a stake though its heart, cut off its head, and burn the body.

My recommendation- see it for free, only because Arnold is worth watching, but don't expect much.

P.S.- there is a short clip about halfway through the credits (something I personally wish would stop, but apparently will be with us off and on forever)

Player Action vs System Action

    Writing about the Marvel Heroes MMO got me thinking about MMOs in general.  Now, I'm not a big MMO fan.  My gaming experience started with table-top pen-and-paper role-playing games (D&D of course).  It was a few years later when I'd get my own computer, a Commodore 128 (yeah, I'm that old) and I started playing computer games.  Through that, and the 486 PC that followed, I'd mostly play computer RPGs, which were the closest to the pen-and-paper RPGs I was playing with my friends through High School.  So ideas like controlling a whole party, exploring and mapping, leveling and customizing each party member to work as a group were the sorts of games I played.
    Years would pass before I got another computer, a P4 Windows XP desktop (which was sweet at the time).  I started playing a slightly wider style of games, like Diablo 2 and Master of Orion 2, even The Sims 1.  When I stayed with my friends I was introduced to the Xbox 360 and games like the Borderlands first person shooter and the Mass Effect FPS/RPG hybrid.  At the same time we started playing Pathfinder, after a decade-long hiatus from PnP RPGs.  I dabbled with MMOs a little, playing EverQuest 2, Age of Conan, and a little World of Warcraft.  Aaron and Sara would get me seriously playing The Lord of the Rings Online though.
    LotRO was a very interesting game.  I first played on my friend Matt's computer, as a Guardian (tank) that he had as an alt (he liked the Minstrel).  When I started playing the game myself, I made the same thing - a new Guardian, and got him pretty high, to about level 40 (I think the level cap was 80 back then).  He was okay, but as a tank his focus was on drawing aggro from the party members - so his damage output was not great, I could take a beating but it also took minutes (that felt like hours) to kill anything and everything; and when I didn't play with my friends I had no use for half of my skills.  Then came the Warden.

    The Warden was one of two classes added to LotRO (the other was the Rune-keeper).  Classes in MMOs in general, and in LotRO at the time, tended to be very specific.  The Guardian took aggro and survived the damage.  The Hunter had the high damage output.  The Burglar and Lore-master did crowd control (with the Burglar doing some burst damage too).  The Minstrel healed everybody.  There was a Captain class, which had a sort of flexible role, but by and large each class had a specific job in the party.  It was the Warden who ended up becoming the true jack of all trades.
    The Warden used a very different mechanic from anything else in LotRO, and honestly in any other MMO that I've played.  Combat was based on a two-tier Builder and Gambit system.  You started with 3 Builders: the Spear, the Shield and the Shout.  The Spear did some damage to your opponent in melee (Wardens started weak at ranged combat), the Shield gave you a 10 second buff to your defenses and the Shout generated aggro.  Each Builder you used was put into a queue, and when you had 2 or more, you unlocked a Gambit.  So Spear-Spear created a Gambit that did extra damage.  But Spear-Shield created a Gambit that interrupted your opponent's action (some monsters had 1-2 second inductions, if you interrupted them they lost their action - if you didn't they got off a super-attack).  And Shout-Spear created a damage-over-time Gambit.  As you leveled up you learned the 3-Builder Gambits and then 4-Builder Gambits.
    This gave the Warden incredible flexibility, they could focus on damage output or limited crowd control or defense - eventually they could even heal the entire party and drain life from a group of enemies.  The catch was that you had to plan ahead.  Each Builder took about a second to execute, and the Gambit took another second - so it could be 5 seconds from when you started until you triggered your desired effect (which is actually quite a long time in a fight).  You had to constantly be looking at the direction of the fight, at what you would be needing soon, and building your way towards that.  On top of which, you had to remember all the Gambits.  When you used a Builder it went into a special part of the UI, and it would show you the Gambit you had currently unlocked - but it wouldn't show you the other possible gambits.  That was in a list in your skill panel and you just had to memorize it.  So playing a Warden required a lot of thought - it was the opposite of the button-mashing, basic rotation that most MMO classes use.  But, there was a quest early on where you have to get attacked by a group of bandits.  More bandits patrol the area and likely some will join in on the fun.  My Guardian, who was built to withstand all kinds of punishment, was killed.  My Warden took them all on and walked away.  I even soloed elite monsters, who were over-powered for their level, and who were several levels higher than me to begin with.  He was my only character who got the achievement for making level 20 without dying.  He was, in a word, awesome.

    Two things about the Warden that prompted me to write this post.
    First, it got me thinking about Player Action vs System Action. (hey, I did finally get around to the title of this post :)  Every game, from pen-and-paper to computer, has a split between the work the player does and the work the system does.  In most pen-and-paper games the system picks up a lot of the work.  The player decides to attack, and then the numbers already chosen at character creation and the numbers rolled on the dice take over to determine the results.  But then there are more story-based games, even diceless ones, where the player may still roll or bid to gain the ability to narrate the results of the fight.  In computer games, even in the first-person shooter genera there is the difference between directly aiming and auto-assist (when the game will fudge where you were aiming as long as it was 'close enough' to an enemy).  How much the player puts into each action and what the system handles automatically determines a lot of the feel of a game.  This includes decisions - if the game only offers one possible attack, that's mostly system action; but if the player has to choose between dozens of options, that's mostly player action (like Warhammer 40k or any tactical miniatures game where the number of pieces under player control creates a lot of player action, and there are very simple rules to cover the system actions).
    So what, you may ask?  What does it mater if the game is more system or player action?  Well, that hits my second point.  See, the Warden I have described was the original one I started playing in 2010/2011-ish.  Since then they have revamped the system.  A lot of abilities that were standard Gambits are now parts of a skill tree system, which has the effect of narrowing the Warden's previously unlimited choices.  The new skill tree focuses on making you play as either a damage or tank or ranged fighter, simplifying the playstyle for those who might have found it too broad and confusing.  In the process however, it reduced the enjoyment of the class for those of us, like me, who thought the system was perfect to begin with.
    Feeling matters.  If you loved the player/system split in a game, and then that dynamic changes in an update, DLC or patch (or new edition) - well, there goes that good time.  And this matters to me because as a game designer, who is currently hacking 13th Age and FATE, I want to give my players a feel that they will enjoy.  I want them to make meaningful choices, to help build immersion in the game and attachment to the character - but I don't want to overload them and give them more than they are comfortable with.  Complicating the issue is that each person has a different sweet spot for how much work is too much.  Most people seemed to think the Warden was overly complicated, I thought it was a refreshing breath of fresh air.  So how do you build in some flexibility, some give and take, to let people still be equally useful while maybe using different levels of player vs system action?  That is a good question, and a very hard one to answer.  Part of that difficulty stems from the fact that we sometimes don't know what we'll enjoy until we try it.  I had never played a class like the Warden before, and so I could not have articulated for you beforehand what I would like to play.

    One of my dreams, back when I first started working on the idea for my own RPG, was to have three different levels of rules.  Each "Ruleset" would be built on a common core, but each would have a different amount of complexity.  The simplest would work at a high level, describing everything in broad terms, while the other two would get more focused.  Take this example: at the top end you have the idea of "Crafting."  Under that umbrella, there could be classes like "Metalsmithing" and "Woodworking."  And even under a class there were still more specifics- a "Metalsmith" could be an "Armorer," "Weaponsmith" or general "Blacksmith."  That final layer is about as detailed as it's worth going, and it really presents a much clearer picture than the layers above it - but they all nest together in a way, and they all cover the same basic concept; that the character is capable of creating things.  Ideally, I thought, this would give each player the ability to be as broad or as specific as they wanted in describing their character - to find their own sweet spot of detail, and still use similar numbers and a resolution system that could let two different levels of detail interact.  It was a nice dream, and a real pain in the backside to try to make into reality (getting one set of rules working right is a challenge, getting three and then having them interact, was a challenge to the 4th power).
    Still, this idea has stuck with me.  If you look at the market there is a wide variety of style of rules and balances between system/player actions.  Even the continuum of Microlite20 <-> 13th Age <-> Pathfinder shows a lot of variety in a few essentially related systems.  Really, this is just some open brain-storming, hoping that if I try to consolidate my thoughts into a post it might knock lose some great new insight.  Sadly, no luck so far.  But this concept, and what it means for the games I'm working on and playing, is something that I think bears consideration.  It would be great if everybody could play in a style that they felt most comfortable with yet still all fit together.  It might be an impossible dream, but it is a nice dream.

Almost Three Years

    Oh my goodness, I was poking around the blog and realized that next month is going to be my three year anniversary.  With only 92 posts I have not exactly been busy (or consistent) in posting over those years (only slightly better than 1 post a month, ouch, that's a terrible schedule).  I have enjoyed having this blog, even though according to my stats not many people read it - except for my post on the Marvel Heroes Easter Egg hunt, that was my managing to get something out at just the right time, and felt pretty cool to be one of the first blogging/writing about the event.
    In all, looking back, the last three years have been pretty crazy.  Finding the motivation to work on the blog has been hard - between wondering if anyone cared and not playing any games as often as I'd like - but it has always been nice to know that it is there.  I have so many crazy ideas bouncing around in my head, I can't stop them, about games and such that it is nice to have someplace to let them roam free.  I don't know if the next three years are going to be much better than the last in terms of content, but I'll try.  Currently my old MicroLite Fantasy idea is merging with 13th Age and Fate Accelerated Edition into some sort of Frankenstein Monster that I am only beginning to understand.  All while I'm looking for a new job, and dealing with the ending of a relationship (through my own damn fault).  So the next three years are likely to be just as crazy.
    I do want to say though, to my gently readers, thank you.  Thank you for checking out my little corner of crazytown - even if you don't want to stay I appreciate the visit.  And for any long term readers out there, thank you very much for keeping an eye out on my humble blog.  I hope I have managed to write something you found thought provoking or at least amusing.

From Extra Credits: Humane Game Design

    I really like the Extra Credits channel on YouTube.  They talk about game design issues, which is something near and dear to my heart.  The one big complaint I have with them is that they are too short.  Each topic they discuss could easily be an hour-long investigation with lots of concrete examples.  Sadly I seem to be in the minority of this, since they keep making 6 minute segments.  But after talking about randomness in my last post, this new video really struck a nerve with me, so I thought I'd link to it here.  I'm going to digest it and come up with some thoughts later.

Marvel Heroes Reminds Me Why I Hate Randomness

    My friend Aaron got me playing the Marvel Heroes MMO.  My last blog post was about it, and I wanted to write something about the game in general.  If you haven't played Marvel let me sum it up in one sentence: it's Diablo 3 with superheroes.  If you haven't played Diablo 3 (or any of the series really), let me sum that up: loot, and randomness.
   Let's digress and talk about Diablo 3 for a moment.  Diablo 3, and 2 (I never played the first) are all about the loot.  While they have some trappings of an RPG - there is experience and leveling and choosing to put points in abilities - all of that is secondary.  It's really about the loot.  Your abilities can give you a lot of power, but in order to survive in the game you have to get the right equipment.  Each piece of armor and every weapon gives bonuses to your base stats and your powers.  And all items are not created equal.  The most basic ones give a tiny bonus, while the best legendary items give tons of bonuses or even brand new abilities.  Without the greatest items, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to defeat the toughest bosses.  Your abilities are nice, but if you're standing naked in a field of demons you're dead.  You need loot.
    Along with the need for loot comes randomness.  Each monster drops a random item, each map is randomized in its layout every time you visit, each boss spawns with random abilities.  You have control over which abilities you put points into when you level up - and absolutely everything after that is subject to the whims of the random number generator (or RNG).  Everything.
    Now, I've got a whole 'nother rant about loot stats vs player skill, based on my playing The Lord of the Rings Online actually.  But for right now I want to look at randomness.  I hate randomness, and I hate it for a variety of reasons...

Randomness is a psychological trick
    A system that gives random rewards (in size/composition) at random intervals is commonly called a Skinner Box, after the psychologist who discovered that it was one of the most addictive forms of reward.  You never know how many monsters you'll have to kill to get a legendary item, and you never know if the great RNG god will drop a useful legendary item when it does, but there is always the chance that it is that next monster that will have the item you've been looking for/dreaming of.  It's a dirty, underhanded way to try to get someone to keep playing.  Personally, I have an addictive personality, the kind of brain that falls for this sort of thing really easily.  I played an ungodly number of hours of Diablo 2 back in the day, and it could be hard to put down Diablo 3 at times.  Of course, almost every MMO is a Skinner Box to some degree, and a good number of other games are too.  Still doesn't mean I like or agree with it.  You kill x number of monsters and you level up to by y number of skills/abilities from z number of choices.  That's the leveling system in a nutshell and it is very fixed, with little randomness, and if it works for a character's powers/abilities I don't know why it couldn't work for equipment as well.

Randomness creates waste
    Now, with different quality of loot and multiple attempts needed to find the item you want (the more attempts needed the better the item), the system inherently is wasteful.  You will always accumulate "vendor trash" - stuff that you will not use because it is beneath you, and just sell off to an NPC for some equally useless cash, typically.  Well, it's not just the item that was wasted - you also wasted your time killing all those monsters and juggling your inventory to sell all that vendor trash.  And, frequently, you wasted a lot of time reloading the map to try to find the one randomly spawning monster who might randomly drop the item you wanted in the first place.  Waste, waste, waste.  God knows I have wasted plenty of my life on my own, I don't need my games helping me.

Randomness creates frustration
    Along with all this repetitive waste comes an emotion, frustration.  Every gamer has known the pain of grinding through a level or area in search of a widget and not finding it.  To have all that time flushed down the toilet is annoying, and when the great RNG god decides to hate you, and you spend hours after hours chasing something and not finding it, it totally sucks.  Like smash the keyboard or throw the controller sucks.  Spending time is okay, investing time (by doing something that gives a reward or benefit) is good, but wasting time feels terrible.
    And then, of course, after spending 10 hours fruitlessly searching for the ultimate widget, you'll see in the chat channel where someone found it in 2 minutes.  That always gives you a nice warm glow of thermonuclear rage.

Randomness destroys meaning
    Randomness always requires repetition.  If there is a 1-in-a-thousand chance of getting something, and you only ever get one chance at it, you'll either not play or immediately be out of chances.  To keep this randomness going you have to keep repeating the steps, keep killing just one more monster, one more boss.  And, invariably, it will be the same monster and the same bosses.  Took down the Kingpen's criminal empire by killing all his thugs and then dealing with him as well as Elektra and Bullseye, good job!  But he didn't drop the widget, so wait a second for him to respawn and go do it again.  And again.  And again.
    By having bosses and monsters respawn it destroys all meaning.  So what if you killed him, he'll be back.  Nothing you do makes any kind of lasting impact on the world.  Nothing you do matters - except to you.  You finally killed him enough times to get the widget, so things are better in your own little universe.  But does the self-centered pursuit of stuff really mean anything?  It's not like you can use that new widget to make any changes.  Sure, you can finally up the difficulty level, kill a bigger monster; who will then respawn just like the rest.  It's one of the funny things about The Lord of the Rings Online, the fellowship's quest will never end, The One Ring will just respawn and somebody else will have to throw it in Mount Doom.  Comics are often derided for making death cheap.  When a hero, or even villain, dies it is just a matter of time before they come back in one form or another.  Death does not matter, nothing matters really.  Sad that one of the worst things about a genera can become enshrined in its digital form.

    Having just gone over all the things I don't like about randomness, I'll admit that there is something I do like about it...

Randomness creates uncertainty
    As soul-crushingly horrible as randomness is, there is one thing it does right - it creates uncertainty.  Will this work, or won't it?  There's the old saying about the "best laid plans..." and randomness provides that.  You have a great plan, kill the monster and take the treasure, but sorry Mario, your princess is in another castle.  Uncertainty is good.  If you know you're going to win (or even lose) then there is less reason to play.  Victory without challenge is hollow, unearned, and failure despite your efforts is beyond frustration.
    Uncertainty is what makes the journey work taking.  Not knowing means you have to try in order to find out.  It gives an impulse, a shot in the arm to take the plunge and go for it.  It also keeps you on your toes.  Not knowing what is behind the door, around the next corner, if Plan A will work or if you should start warming up Plan E - all of that keeps you thinking, keeps you engaged.  And randomness does help create that uncertainty, which is admittedly vital to any enjoyable game.

    Now, with the little good for all the bad we get from randomness, the question is how can we create a system that gives us more good than bad?  That's an excellent question and one that I do not have a ready answer for.  I never tried any of the few "diceless" role-playing games, though the idea does appeal to me.  Even in a pen and paper RPG there can be a little too much randomness, though nowhere as bad as in computer games; and why I prefer to play tabletop instead.  Single-player computer games tend to have less randomness, the LEGO Marvel Super Heroes game is nothing at all like the Marvel MMO.  And honestly with so many people in the same world, I'm not sure how much randomness you can cut out of an MMO.  It may just be the nature of the beast.  Still, I'd love to see somebody try.

    Okay, well, to wrap things up a few more thoughts on the Marvel MMO that I started talking about.
    I don't know why they went with a Diablo-clone as a model with the superhero genera except for marketing reasons.  While some heroes are all about the gear, like Iron Man, others have very little care about their clothing or stuff, like Cyclops.  So the Diablo-loot-centric design feels very off for some of the characters.  It's plain ridiculous for others - Captain America has a "shield" slot that lets you equip different shields with different abilities; and this is a character defined by his one-of-a-kind, cannot-be-duplicated piece of equipment !  Likewise Wolverine can equip different claws as if it was that easy to just pop out the old set and switch them for a new model.  It is just so stupid if you actually think about it. (I know, I know, thinking bad)
    They have over 40 characters, but a fixed pool that you can test run.  This sucks because the character you want to play may not be in the list of starting characters to choose from.  You can play each starting character to level 10, and can only choose one to reach the level cap (currently 60).  So you might really want to play Rogue, but she isn't starting so you either have to shell out real money or play another character and collect the in-game "eternity splinters" that can be used to unlock things for free (well, for time spent playing, really).  That kind of sucks.  It would be very cool of them to give you x number of trial slots to level 10 and one (or even 2 to be really nice) full slots.  As they keep adding more and more characters it's more of an annoyance.
    The control scheme also sucks.  You have left- and right-mouse-button powers, and then 6 other powers (defaulting to 'A' through 'H' I believe, I changed the scheme myself).  All your moving is done by clicking the left mouse button, so there is a key to hold yourself in place since that's also an action/attack button (and so much fun when you kill a bad guy and then casually walk into the middle of the group of other bad guys he was a part of).  All your targeting is done by where the mouse is on the screen.  It reminds me so much of Guild Wars 2 - both of these games have a limited enough set of abilities that they would be great to use with a controller, and neither has support for a controller.  I am a mouse guy.  In a typical MMO I use my left hand for the 4 arrow keys to move, and maybe a hotkey to target the nearest enemy.  My right hand on the mouse does all the work, it selects and activates abilities.  For some reason I have the worst time getting my fingers to hit multiple keys without tripping over themselves.  I changed the Marvel scheme to A, S, D for half the abilities and Q, W, E the other half.  This lets me put a different finger on each ability, minimizing the screw-ups, and I can move my whole hand to a new row.  That helps, but is still nowhere as good as having a controller with 16+ keys available, and each hand able to do different things.  I have only played Diablo 3 on the Xbox 360 with a controller, so I know it can be done, and work really well.  And getting a controller for a PC is dirt cheap, the one I have is $20 and works great when a game actually supports it.

    So, as you can see there is a lot about the game that I am not fond of.  However, it can be very fun to play.  Cyclops is my main character, and I do love melting everything with red eye-beams.  The characters feel different, so you can play more than one and have them all be interesting.  It looks pretty, I couldn't play the game on my old laptop.  And of course, the biggest reason for playing any game is the people.  My friend really likes Iceman, and this is the only game out there with him (in fact, cold-themed characters of any kind are sort of scarce).  So he gets to play his favorite X-Man and I get to play mine, and we can play together.  We just got Sara into the game too, so we also have an angry little raccoon with a tactical nuke helping us out.  People always make the difference, in games and in life.  And having my good friends to play with mitigates a lot of what I don't like about the game.  Plus, honestly, I don't think there is a good MMO at all - they all rely so much on randomness, repetition and concepts that I am not fond of; so this games isn't really any worse than any other.
    Anyways, thanks for sticking it out through my rant/review.  If you have any thoughts on Marvel, or MMOs in general feel free to leave a comment below.

Marvel Heroes 2015 Easter Egg Hunt

    My friend Aaron got me playing the Marvel Heroes MMO.  It's basically Diablo 3 with superheroes, I mean, really.  They just started a new event this week in honor of easter, the Easter Egg Hunt - a challenge to find some of the "easter eggs" the developers have put in the game that refer to other people/places and things.  I have not been able to find a good list of where to find them, so I decided to start my own.  I've only found about half the list so far, but here it is...

• Recruit S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Karl Patrick

He's in the Prologue: The Raft, standing near/talking to another SHIELD agent, you have to click on him a few times to get him to follow you.

• Break into Bajillion World Headquarters

 This is a treasure room in Hell's Kitchen, take the waypoint to Chapter 1 SHIELD Rooftop Checkpoint and just wander the map.

• Thrash Thrill-Kill Karin
• Frag Flash-Bang Bridget

These two spawn together in the Chapter 1 Abandoned Subway on the way to fight Shocker.  They should be right after you cross a bridge over the subway tracks after the start of the map.

• Interrogate Criminal Mastermind Geoff Tuffli

Chapter 4 Upper East Side, the police station near the waypoint.  He's in a room in the back, click on him to compete.

• Interrupt Production of Romeo and Juliet

In Chapter 4 Lower East Side you'll find a theater, it's not a treasure room, but it is big enough for you to walk inside it.  On the stage is Romeo reading lines (badly), after a second he'll turn into a mutant, kill him for the win.

• Grab a Drink at the Power Plant

The Power Plant is a treasure room off the Morlock Tunnels (forgot what chapter), inside is a bartender, talk to him to complete.

• Purify Brother Ryolnir

Chapter 6 Training Camp, Mine Shaft treasure room. Apparently only 2 of 3 treasure rooms spawn for this map so you may have to try several times to get it.

• Cut in Line for Bubble Tea

Chapter 3 Lowtown, talk to any person in line to complete.

• Beatdown Baron von Lind

He spawns somewhere on the Midtown Manhattan map, he's an elite Hydra agent (yellow, flying) - wander until you find and kill him.

• Extirpate Hybrid Agent Donais

Apparently he is in the X-defense challenge, in the Brood wave - I haven't been able to get him yet though.

• End Lonely Trevor's Ennui

 Chapter 6 Training Camp, Shooting Gallery treasure room ; you have to break all the targets within 35 seconds to get him to spawn - I haven't been able to get him to verify yet myself.

• Keelhaul Che Luck

Chapter 8 Doomstadt Outer Village, Lieber's Brewery treasure room.  Go upstairs and shoot the dresser to get to a hidden room, kill him to complete.


    If you know where any of the ones I'm missing are, please comment below - or start a forum thread/page of your own so we call all find them. According to some people in the chat, treasure rooms are apparently random spawns, so you may have to switch difficulty level or characters to reset the map if one isn't appearing.

UPDATE: Emma Hartley posted a great link in the comments to a forum page with all the locations.

LATEST UPDATE: I've gotten all of these except for Agent Donais, been spamming X-defense solo and still no luck.  This is why I hate games that rely on random number crap - I don't love this game so much that I want to play it for hours and hours just to hopefully get one lucky spawn or drop.  I'll keep trying from time to time, but I'm not going to drive myself crazy over it - I could be re-writing 13th Age instead ;)

13th Age House Rules - Rage and Momentum

    In my last post I talked about a house rule I used in my last game for non-constant Animal Companions in 13th Age.  I also touched on my love/hate relationship with the game, which has led me to contemplate some more house rules.  I have not tried either of these, if/when I do I'll post how it goes.

Momentum (Rogue)
    My friend Aaron is always the Rogue, well, close enough to always at least.  So when we first started 13th Age he made one, and the Rogue's big trick is Momentum.  When a Rogue hits an opponent he gains momentum, when he is hit he loses it.  He can also spend it to trigger a few special abilities.  We played 2 adventures, and Aaron said he was not impressed with the ability, and as GM watching him neither was I.  So we debated the following change, which we'll try next time we play those characters.
    With this variant rule, Momentum is represented by a d6.  Like the escalation die, it starts at 0 (or, not in play).  When the Rogue hits an opponent the die goes to 1, and every turn the Rogue hits that same opponent it goes up by another 1 (to the max of 6 of course).  The die advances after the hit, so it is not applied until the next turn.  For every point of Momentum, the Rogue gets a +1 to damage to that opponent (at the Champion and Epic tiers when the Rogue doubles/triples his attribute mod to damage, he also doubles/triples the momentum bonus).  The Momentum bonus is also added to miss damage.
    As with the current rules, the Rogue can still spend Momentum to activate an ability, in which case reduce the momentum die by 1 (which takes effect before the damage from the ability).  If the Rogue does not hit the opponent, the momentum die stays at the same level.  If the Rogue is hit, the momentum die does not change (or goes down by 1 if you want to be harsher).  However, if the Rogue targets a different opponent, the momentum die resets to 0 and its damage bonus is not used on the new target.
    The idea for this system is that Momentum represents the Rogue's ability to study an opponent and strike at it's weak spots.  Since the escalation die already adds to hit, and doubling that seemed a bit excessive, I decided to set this as a damage bonus instead.  Attacking a different opponent means having to start over reading their fighting style and looking for weaknesses (thus the die resets).  I wrote this so you could still use the momentum powers for the Rogue, but honestly if you wanted to ditch the whole thing you could make it the momentum die x 2 for damage (or x3 and x4 at higher tiers) and possibly even apply it to hit as well (at just the die, no multiplying) - that should be a big enough bonus to help cover the lack of momentum powers, which seemed okay but maybe not spectacular.  For some extra oomph, the momentum die might also add to all non-combat skills, representing how the rogue keeps working the problem, assuming that more then one roll is required for success (like most talking, and really complicated locks/traps or searching).  Another crazy idea, the Rogue can choose to use the momentum die as a bonus to AC instead of the damage bonus until the start of his next round (only against the targeted opponent though).
    This sounded like it might have that "Rogue feel" a bit better then the regular rules, and the momentum die would apply to both melee and ranged combat, to maybe help make that "sniper-rogue" type of character.


Rage (Barbarian)
    The Rage ability is very strange to me, coming at it from a Pathfinder background.  As written it lets the Barbarian roll 2d20 to hit and take the best.  While that is very helpful, it makes the flat distribution into a rather impressive slope, it seems very limited and does not have the feel of the 'crazed fighter.'  When I think of Rage, in any game, I think of the Berserkers, the literary ancient Norse warriors who were so consumed by battle-lust that they were a danger to friend and foe alike.  I want a game to give me some passionate Rage, not the tepid, lukewarm thing in 13th Age.
    At heart, the idea for the system is this: as with Momentum, Rage is represented by a d6 and does not begin in play.  It takes a move-action for the Barbarian to enter a Raging state, which increases the die by 1.  The Barbarian can only increase his Rage state by 1 point each turn at most.  For each point of Rage, the Barbarian gains 2 times the bonus to hit and damage (so +2 hit/damage at Rage 1, +6 hit/damage at Rage 3, up to +12 at Rage 6 max).
    However, when raging each turn the Barbarian needs to choose a target to attack.  Before rolling that attack, the Barbarian must roll a d6.  If the result of that d6 is less than the Barbaran's Rage level, then the Barbarian will instead attack a random target, chosen from all visible friends and foes.  If the new target is not within range, then the Barbarian will spend their action to move closer and end their turn.
    A Barbarian can increase their Rage level by spending the move action described above, but they can also try to lower their Rage.  This is a standard action, and requires a Hard Save (16+).  If the save is successful the Rage level is lowered by 1, if not then the action is wasted.  Trying to lower Rage must be declared before a target is chosen or rolled randomly.
    I like this idea in general, that while Rage comes with some really nice benefits it is also potentially dangerous - not just to allies, if all the opponents step out of range then the Rage may have the Barbarian running back and forth between them instead of attacking efficiently; or could make the Barb waste actions killing mooks instead of dealing with a greater threat (and it's reasonable to assume the smart bad guys would try to take advantage of any raging Barbarians if possible).
    There are several ways I've thought about modifying this system.  First, the only real downside is the potentially variable targeting, and the idea that Rage inflicts penalties to skills and defenses was in Pathfinder and also makes sense.  So maybe the to hit/damage bonus is also an AC penalty (or, maybe just the Rage level is a penalty to AC, most of my monsters have hit players pretty reliably).  And possibly while Raging the Barbarian cannot do any actions that require Int (or again, take the rage level x2 as a penalty).  On the other hand, it's reasonable to say the Barbarian gets a +2 to any non-combat actions requiring great strength or intimidation (or, any "Forceful" Approach if using my 13th Age/Fate mash-up).  It could also be possible to tie some special abilities to Rage level, since the power is pretty static, it's just a bonus to straight combat rolls and not as diverse as the Fighter's flexible attacks or a spellcaster's spells - I have not thought exactly how to do that though.


    So, there are 2 more ideas for how to tinker with the 13th Age system.  I do like the simple, for a d20 game, system - but it is possible to be too simplistic.  I want all of my players to feel like they have several meaningful options each encounter, weather combat or non-combat.  Honestly, the Barbarian, Ranger and Paladin kind of get shafted, they start with only 1 Class Feature (the other classes get 3, though the Ranger actually has 0), and while they can choose 2 extra Class Talents when they tier-up at levels 4 and 8, the other classes are getting extra options at levels 3, 5, 7 and 9.  So I've really been thinking about how to re-balance class abilities since they seem to be a little out of whack.  I'll post more thoughts later, and as always feel free to leave a comment below.