Where has Lucarda Been?

After four months of being MIA I'm back, unfortunately I just don't have time to keep up on Rage of Bahamut and all the best strats anymore. The truth is I found a game that has pretty much everything I could ask for in a mobile game.

While Rage of Bahamut was fun for a while, the game I'm currently playing is a hell of a lot more fun. The game is called Battle Camp! I've been in the beta and helping with the game for the last several months.

I haven't been writing about it while I was playing because I didn't want to get in trouble but now that it's about to launch I figured I'd let my readers know about it first.

So, what makes Battle Camp so much better than Rage of Bahamut?

Well, let me tell you my experience with it.

I first entered the game and opened the game and began designing my character. At first I thought, wow I can choose from five looks, then I noticed the customize button. It was there I found out that I could make my character appear thousands of different ways. I wondered how much it cost for the various vanities and I was shocked to find out nothing. The amount of customization a player can do for their character is just absurd.

So, after completing my character I entered the game. The combat system is like Puzzles and Dragons (for any who have played it). This is just a grossly better system over the TCG model. All of the movement and gem matching was seamless and I found being able to determine my attacks with a combination of skill+monster stats really refreshing.

At this point the similarities to Puzzles and Dragons ended. My avatar was in a zone in the world and immediately story dialog came up and began sending me on various quests. The amount of story+quests in this game borders on full MMO status. The story is also funny with tons of puns if you read to catch them.

So, what next? Farm, farm, farm for monsters which I always find to be a fun part of a game. Farming in Battle Camp isn't nearly as brutal as it is in Rage. I spent about 5-10 minutes and hour playing trying to gather up pieces of rare monsters. As I gathered more and more rares I ended up joining a Troop (Battle Camps version of Guilds/Orders).

That's where the game started getting really addicting. The troops have built in chats, raids that players can do, and troop pets for the team to raise (plays an important role in one of the events). Ultimately through raiding with the rest of the troop I was able to accumulate a bunch of higher rarity monsters and evolve them. After that it's just fun to watch your damage cap rise and rise in raids.

Now, that's not all there is to do otherwise I would have been bored already. Much like Rage there are several events. There are Troop Wars which pit troops against each other (sort of like Holy Wars but different), there are Raid Events where the troop gathers items together to battle unique raid bosses, and also a dungeon event where players battle their way through waves of challenge mode caves to earn tokens and battle a boss. All of the events are extremely fun and each has their own unique story.

PvP deserves a special mention because it's real head to head. Players battle against other live players to see who is more skilled on the board as well as who has the better monsters. Obviously monsters give an edge (sometimes insurmountable, sorry commons don't beat epics unless the other guy forfeits), but the cool part is that I have on a regular basis crushed people with pets much rarer than mind. The reason? Because skill players a role.

Overall, I'm sure I'm forgetting about something but I figured any of my readers deserved to know why I haven't been commenting/playing Rage of Bahamut. I would love to see you all in Battle Camp though.

It is on iOS only right now with an android version scheduled later this year. It doesn't get released in the US until the 14th but if you want to get in early Canada is one of the beta countries so you can download it in the canadian app store.

If you do decide to join me in game please use my referral code! And as always, IGN Lucarda.

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Dragon's Awakening

Dragon's Awakening is a variation of two different events and I have to say it's pretty interesting. Rage of Bahamut combined the standard raid event with a grow your pet event. So, what to do?

Raid Aspect

The raiding is the core aspect of this event. This means that the best way to do well is to purchase raider cards. The additional damage they do just can't be understated. Ideally you will stack three of them and participate heavily. This will normally be enough to net a nice reward.

Donation Aspect

The secondary aspect of course is feeding your dragon for rewards. The items you feed the dragon can be anything from your normal rares/hr sitting around to the random event cards and berries that appear. The key though is you'll be actively donating.

The Cycle

The interesting part of this event and what I want to touch on most is the flow/cycle. This event is tailored to help get rid of some of excess cards on the market and help the economy (now it won't really work but I'm not going to spend time discussing it here) as well as allow people to feel like they are getting something while doing it.

A player will begin by going through quests which will lead to downing raid bosses. After these two tasks are done the player will figure out what to donate to their dragon and do so. Now the fun part here is the player will then have (hopefully) shards/rewards that give them the ability to go through another series of quests and raid bosses to get more stuff to donate to their dragon.

The reason I like this shift is that this extra stage not only helps newer players contribute but it also offers a longer period of entertainment per session. This may be annoying for some who just want to log on and get their stuff done before logging off (me) but it's really enjoyable for new players, and if there's one thing the game needs its a stream of new players.

Tips

• Don't waste HP buying cards to donate. I know it's the purpose of the event but realistically you're not likely to get ahead that way when you could do missions and battle raid bosses with that HP.
• Get Raider Cards ASAP. They may sell for a lot at the start but the time you spend using them and the HP you save is increased the longer you have one.
• Help by attacking your Order's bosses.
• Events like this are a great time to skill up cards.
• Events like this are a great way for newbies to stockpile rupies.
• Have fun and try not to play until you burn out.

Farming Games

So, I have a friend who really enjoys Farming Games. Of course it's a girl and she pointed out immediately to me how TCGs were an equally pointless and time wasters. Of course I pointed out to her how at least what I played had competitions.

Now, I'm not one to Judge, unless you think any (main) Final Fantasy after X was decent, then you're a naive twat with no sense of good storytelling and gameplay who only has a hard on for graphics. But, I would say that TCGs are significantly more interesting than farming games.

Farming games generally are purely single player with no interaction where you plant, plant, plant, log. Then you come back four hours later, see your crops grow and click harvest, harvest, harvest, sell, sell, sell, plant, plant, plant, log. But this cycle is the same, constantly.

It's the equivalent of playing Rage of Bahamut for the quests. Nobody is going to sit there running 4-4 over and over again as an entire game.

Maybe somebody can explain it to me, but I don't see why anybody would want to play a farming game. There is no depth, no events, no competition. Your competition is literally who can grow the most wheat? The sheer premise of a farming game standing on its own is absurd to me.

How we can make "farming" work

Now, I'm not anti-farming. I'm just anti-farming as an ENTIRE GAME. If in Rage of Bahamut I could plant seeds that grow HP for me, I would do it, and I think that's the key to farming in games.

I feel that farming makes a lot of sense when you are farming for a resource you can use. It also gives players something extra to do during there downtime. The biggest problem with farming games is you're farming for the sake of farming. You get wheat to sell to buy seeds to get more wheat to sell.

But if your Guild in Rage of Bahamut had a communal farm where players could daily come and plant and tend for a communal HP or something, that would be interesting. Is this a perfect idea? No. But it's a start, and I'm sure several people are already intrigued at the concept.

World of Warcraft even introduced the farming aspect of their game in Mists of Pandaria. Overall, the idea of merging the 'farm' aspect of games into another, makes both types of game a bit stronger. Ultimately, Rage of Bahamut (as well as other mobile games) could benefit greatly by absorbing other concepts into themselves.

Pirate Maidens...is this serious?

I downloaded a game called Pirate Maidens to begin with...knowing full well it was. For work I need to be well versed in a huge variety of mobile games. And when I come across a game with a name like Pirate Maidens...I just can't not download it.

Now, I'll begin by saying...this just isn't a good game. I didn't expect it to be. The reason I felt like talking about it though, is it did make me laugh my ass off, and it did have some neat aspects.

So, what about it made me laugh?

Pirate Maidens is about collecting scantly clad female pirate cards. Obviously the game is designed around the titillation. So, when I collected the first card and there was an option to click a button and hear the character describe themselves, I cracked up. That's right, when you collect a card, you click a button and (In Japanese) the card tells their story.

I couldn't help but think to myself...some game developer decided that hiring voice actors to say the dialog for each of the cards was going to be the ticket that made this game a winner! I actually called my fiance over laughing to say 'hey, hey, look at this', and she was cracking up.

So, maybe the feature does its job, because I wouldn't even be talking about Pirate Maidens if it wasn't for that feature.

The game doesn't do everything bad

Pirate Maidens actually put a lot of effort into trying to build a story around the game. Of course, any story is weakened when being told by big breasted pirate women. But, I felt it was interesting that in their story mode, they actually decided to have a story, which is something to applaud.

Another feature I thought was interesting was that occasionally a pirate NPC would pop up and you'd battle them. After beating them you had the option to try to convince them to join your crew. You could use an item for 100% chance of winning them over, or you could take the 10% chance you seem to have to get them. Still pretty neat though.

What they should have done

Had they taken an approach of have a pirates vs marines vs merchants type scenario and had male and female pirates/marines/merchants as well as monsters they might actually be a competitor. People love pirate stuff like they love ninja stuff and fantasy stuff.

Now, it's easy to look at a game and say what they could do better, but this is one of those rare instances where I look at something and think...seriously? Somebody pitched...lets have a TCG filled with a bunch of ecchi big breasted pirate woman. Then somebody came in and said...you know what would be awesome? Lets have them talk! And then somebody high up said...THAT'S A GREAT IDEA!

And even now, I'm laughing my ass off picturing the meeting where this game got a yes.