Can anyone explain the mechanic on timing your attacks?  It said something about attacking when some indicator turns blue to stun the enemy but I haven't been able to figure it out.

I haven't had a lot of time to play, I'm only up to level 10 but I'm still really enjoying it.  Yeah it's refreshing to see a protagonist like Oliver. 

My only minor complaints:
- Why do we have to level up a new familiar from level 1?  You get something new and it basically sucks until you keep it in your inventory for a while.
- They should have had a quick reload option instead of having to go back to the title screen if you decide not to pay the money cost.

Also a nice to have would have been the ability to check enemy stats during combat (sort of like Persona games).

Wizardry Online is the most hardcore fantasy MMO ever created.

That's what it says on their website yet not one person is talking about it.  Is this game going to be an epic fail?

Argh I keep clicking on the iPad links thinking it's a link to download the manual for iPad! 

I've barely played it, just up to the first boss but I'm loving it so far.  That Wizard's Guide is so good, I really wish I had a physical copy.  How do missing pages work if you have the physical copy?  Is it worthwhile translating the code?  That seems annoying to do.

They do seem to be skimping on voice acting but my imagination is doing a pretty good job of reading the text in the accent particularly since the text is written in a way where the intonations are pretty obvious (well for that one character anyway).

Yay!  Loved XBC.

The more awesome the CGI trailer, the more likely it is to fail.

e.g.
Warhammer Online - pretty good trailer
Star Wars: The Old Republic - incredible trailer(s)
DC Universe Online - everyone was raving about the CGI trailer

GW2 - in-engine trailer, game is not a flop

ESO trailer is pretty darn good CGI, it is doomed!

Nothing on that list makes me go "OMG OMG why isn't it out already!!".  I think that's a good thing.  There's lots of potential for a few of those games to surprise and far exceed expectations.

[Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch]

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Hope this is as good as people are saying.

I'm now technically under NDA so I can't say much about the game, but I'm curious why they would swap genres to MOBA where the competition is presently really fierce.  

It's in their FAQ.  They think MOBA is like the new FPS or RTS.  No one says "competition is too fierce, why make a new FPS?" even though there are way more FPS out there than MOBA.  That's their reasoning.

I think there's lots of room to evolve MOBA.  Not sure if spawning quests is that evolutionary though.  This is why DOTA 2 pisses me off.  Valve is such a talented team that could really do something fresh with moba but instead they just make a DOTA clone.

Thx for the tips Tals  gonna save my all my ip for runes later on gonna try to put all your tips to use lot to remember.

Are you still playing?  I think I saw you once a week ago. 

BTW you can autojoin custom chat channels by clicking the widget in the chat window and checking autojoin.  We had a lot of people on last night.  Usually if we get more than 5 players who want to play, we do custom aram matches.

Is there a similar list for console exclusives?  In particular, I want to know what JRPGs are coming out in 2013.

Good class design can make holy trinity gameplay a lot of fun.  Like for example the Warrior Priest in WAR.  You have to be in melee to power your heals.  Somewhat similar to the Disciple in Vanguard who is a monk that has to perform melee combos to heal.  Another option is to have a more arcady approach like Tera.  It seems that is what Elder Scrolls is going for.

While I thought GW2 combat system is pretty brilliant on paper, I didn't think group dynamics were that much better in dungeons in practice.  I've had more fun with the holy trinity system.  I missed the complexity of builds from GW1, something was lost in the dumbing down/simplification of skills.  Trait system was pretty cool but in the end you are still limited to the relatively small number of weapon skills.

[The 2013 MMOs preview portion is here:]

The 2013 MMOs preview portion is here:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/01/01/2013-preview/5/

Just took a look at that list.

I'm interested in Elder Scrolls if it's being developed by ex-Warhammer/DAOC  folks. I really enjoyed WAR even though it ultimately failed.  They brought a lot of cool ideas to the table like open groups, public quests, fun instanced scenarios etc.

I'm also interested in Everquest.  EQ2 turned out to be really good eventually after a few patches/expansions.  The content and variety in EQ2 is pretty much unparalleled.  I also love EQ lore since I started playing MMOs with EQ1.

I might be interested in the Blizzard MMO even though I hate WoW.  There is just too little information right now.

And I guess there might be a few surprises from that list that we will have to wait and see.

I'm interested in a MMO that goes back to the roots and has heavy focus on grouping.  Make soloing next to impossible but make grouping easy.  Include level scaling both ways so people don't feel left behind.  I'm tired of every single MMO having easy soloing.  It just removes any sort of danger from the world since 90% of the content is soloable. 

I think Vanguard had a pretty good balance.  There were lots of interesting areas to explore but it was pretty difficult and sometimes impossible to do solo for many classes.  Sure you could solo to max in VG but then you miss out on a lot of cool group areas.  It seems modern MMOs make solo content the focus and throw in some group stuff.  I'd like to see it be the other way round.

Isn't there an Elder Scrolls MMO coming out soon-ish?

Yeah, and it will be a colossal failure. The press coverage and word of mouth hasn't exactly been positive, and the developers seem to be far, far too focused on recreating Dark Age of Camelot again. It's not going to end well, mark my words. Even Free To Play won't save that game.

ooh, it's going to be like DAOC?  That gets me interested.  I should look into this one.

What is it?  I'm a bit stumped.  The only thing I can think of is the next Everquest but there is very little information and no release date.

I think we are starting to see some real games that deal more openly with sexuality like Catherine and a little bit in Witcher 2.  But I would like to see more of it.  Nobody thinks of those HBO shows with a lot of nudity as porn.  We need games that deal openly with sex in the same manner.

Of course context is important.  It wouldn't make sense to have lots of sex in a Racing game but it makes perfect sense in a RPG with an adult storyline.

Wanderers group still playing, hanging out in the chat channel TheWanderers to form groups.  A few OO/GT folks play with us as well.

since this is something I've been waiting for for years!

You know there already is a game that was basically Total War in Warhammer universe - Warhammer: Mark of Chaos.

Kind of interested in Guardians of Middle Earth after playing it at PAX Prime.  Not sure if I will bite on it or not.

Oh it's the LOTR MOBA.  As a big LOL fan I am curious.  It's console only too, can they make this genre work on consoles without a gimmick? (e.g. Awesomenauts was a platformer).

I really hope it's going to be something like Skyrim open world with DA1 turn based combat.  I'm recently replaying Skyrim (quit earlier due to bugs) and the world design is simply the best I have ever seen in any video game.  The combat system is lacking though (Bethesda just doesn't get it even after so many Elder Scrolls games).

Does anyone know what real world location the island is based on (probably very loosely)?  30 minutes of play is not enough time for me to figure it out but I grew up in Borneo and I recognized some of the words they were speaking, it's Malay (spoken in Malaysia, Indonesia).  I read there are tigers so I'm thinking it's Sumatra (Indonesia).

I pre-loaded it on Steam... How would I go from there to playing assuming I had a VPN service?  Is BT Guard a form of VPN?  (Ok, how do I go about getting one, or is that not a topic meant for here...?)

There's lots of options but I used Cyber Ghost (google it, it's free).  I had used this over a year ago to unlock some game and surprisingly I still had an active account, just needed to reset my password.  You install the app, hit connect, start Steam and you're good to go.

How are people playing this already?  Isn't it out Dec 5th or something?

Australia was today (tromorrow there) EU is tomorrow (Friday) Also Blackbeard has got his copy.

Anyone try using a VM host in Australia to get it to activate in North America or does that trick not work any more for Steam games?

That's what I did, I live in Arkansas and it worked without any problems.  I did have to pay $2 for the VPN service, I thought about using a free version, but decided against it.

Worked like a charm (German VPN).  I only played about 30 mins but the intro was pretty awesome.

I'm going exploring in the jungles of Costa Rica in a week so this should be the perfect game to play after I get back

How are people playing this already?  Isn't it out Dec 5th or something?

Australia was today (tromorrow there) EU is tomorrow (Friday) Also Blackbeard has got his copy.

Anyone try using a VM host in Australia to get it to activate in North America or does that trick not work any more for Steam games?

How are people playing this already?  Isn't it out Dec 5th or something?

You can't use the pro controller to play Mario?  WTF!

My old TV might be partly to blame (Sony SXRD), I'd guess that HD technology has come a long way since I got that TV.  But other devices like PS3 look vibrant so I don't know why Wii U is different.  This review sort of explains why but it's a bit too technical for me, I'm not that big a video phile.

So after buying it yesterday, I look up the game list to see what else to buy besides Mario.  Absolutely nothing!  Yeah, I've been on blackout mostly and didn't do any research.  Not a big deal though, I can wait for some good exclusives.  It's nice to play 2D mario on the bigscreen, it's not the same as playing 2D mario on the DS.  Brings me back to the SNES days.  The pad is much better than holding the wii mote sideways but I think I will get a pro controller.

Oh this is how little I knew about Wii U, I actually thought it was a portable system because someone mentioned it was portable in this thread and I didn't realize it was mostly a joke.  So is the pad just a streaming device?

To update the system I actually had to put the Wii in the DMZ and then it worked.  Nintendo still hasn't figured out internet protocols, I still get lots of delays and disconnects just like the Wii used to.  Never had any issues with 360 or PS3 which are using wireless just fine and they are sitting beside the Wii. 

Overall I like the hardware though.  Seems like there is good potential for some fun asynchronous gameplay.  Since I already have a bunch of Wii motes, I'm all set for a Wii U party!

skystride

Yeah I don't understand why there is such a long delay to return to the main menu.   I'm having trouble updating, keeps timing out.

Mario is a lot of fun but what eurogamer said about poor colour over HDMI is very true.  It was disappointing how much better it looked on the pad than my 60" TV.  After a lot of adjusting settings on the TV, I got it to look better but it's not perfect.  Compare that to PS3 HDMI connection which looks great with default settings.

Anyone try Nintendo Land?  I was told not to play it until its patched because there are reports of it causing serious hardware lockup issues.

Not much discussion for a console launch, are people getting tired of it already? 

Any impressions on trying the original Wii games on this? Any graphical improvements or oddities?

I haven't tried it myself, but from what I hear, nothing has changed at all. When you launch the Wii option, you're essentially turning on a Wii inside your Wii U. The Gamepad turns off and everything. So, for better or for worse, you're getting the original Wii experience.

Wait, they don't even upscale or anything? 

I'm on the fence but if the WiiU upscaled Xenoblade Chronicles, I'd seriously consider it.

Couple of years ago I moved my router from the PC room to the console room.  But recently I moved it back since I use PC a lot more frequently.  I think the biggest factor for me is that there aren't as many console exclusives anymore.

PS if you're close to the western parts of Toronto I have an extra copy for sale.......

Hmm western parts... is it from videogamesplus by any chance?  I used to shop there for over 15 years.  Then just last year I bought a copy of Assassins Creed Revelations from them, unrwapped the shrink wrap and there was no game disc inside.  Very strange, I've never seen anything like that.  Anyway when I took it back the guy accused me of lying even though he knows me and I've never returned a game in the 15 years I've shopped there.  So that was the end of my source of broken street date purchases.  I end up saving money though since his store can't compete with the kind of discounts that a Best Buy can give.

I'm probably going to pickup BLOPS at lunch today.

I went to check if BLOPS 2 was out at a EB that was right beside the movie theatre after watching Skyfall.  Of course it wasn't and I somehow ended up buying Halo 4.  First half hour I was really impressed with the graphics and sound effects.  But about 2 hours in I started getting that MOTS feeling.  I'm going to keep trudging on, I hope the story gets better.

Is Halo 4 going to be worth it for SP?  Even though I hated the story in the last one, I still ended up completing it.  But it sounds like this will be much improved.

I never got into Halo MP because I just don't like the fast paced combat so I doubt MP in this one will do anything for me either.

My complaints were that the combat still seemed kludgy as ever and there were way too many instafail rinse-and-repeat missions. The game is also buggy in spots where missions don't trigger when they're supposed to, interface quirks, convoluted mission objectives and the classic one of still inadvertently climbing things during a chase or running away when it's least convenient.

That's disappointing.  I enjoyed the series but by the time I was halfway through Brotherhood I started getting bored of MOTS gameplay.  Sounds like AC3 won't do it for me if it's not significantly different.  The US History stuff is also not that interesting to me.

Does the patch affect the Vanilla version or is this for Gods expansion only?