[PSN] Fat Princess

[Shifty Geezer]

I asked this on the Euro blog where Gavin Russel is in the hotseat. His reply :

@Shifty_Geezer,
No game can have more than 16 players per team. You may choose to set up a 32 game exclusively for friends – players can then select the team they wish to be on, based on the number of available (balanced) slots.
As for joining a friends game, once in the player can opt to change team as long as there’s space to do so.

That reads exactly like Warhawk. If three people join a game, team balancing will put one onto the opposition team. This would mean no B3D posse ruling the FP world. We'd end up fighting each other. The only slivver of hope that there are better options is the developers have suggested a developer versus blog-reader fight, which would mean some selection of teammates. But twice now they have said about players switching teams being the only option to team up with the people you want to team up with.

 

[Arwin]

Yes, for this you'd have to have a mode supporting parties. They're going to do that with game launching from Home I think (they already said they'll add Home support in an update). However, the specific case that Gavin discusses here is a game that's friends only in the first place. So the question is how that works if you're in a 32 player game with 16 friends and 16 AI characters, can you get all friends on the same side?

Well, we'll see tomorrow!

Has anyone tested by the way what happens with Warhawk if you set up a game from Home with say 5 friends and the rest open, if the friends all get on the same team? Anyone care to try with me?

 

[patsu]

In my last KZ2 game, it was me and other random players vs B3D folks.

RFOM set up is still the best. Dedicated server, party-based, mixed text plus voice chat, and responsive (No preceived lag) !

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes, for this you'd have to have a mode supporting parties.

Doh! So it'll be B3Ders versus B3Ders, or similar. No chance of GAF vs B3D, or other clan battle-royales.

They're going to do that with game launching from Home I think...

Oooo, I'll get grumpy if I have to ponce about in Home to enable parties! If they have the technology to launch parties from Home, they should bloomin' well roll that functionality into an in-game setting!

 

[Carl B]

B3D vs B3D is still a good time IMO though.

 

[patsu]

Yes, I think so too. But without agreeing on a meeting time, the chance of us meeting each other may be slim.

 

[JPT]

Well today is hard anyway I guess, since we are in different regions and we get PSN store updates at different times.
My suggestion is that we try to set a time for Friday/Saturday and for today, people'll just show up in the B3D chatroom so we people can add each other to friends lists and get into the same games.....

/me is currently looking at his testplan list and wondering if he should just pack it up for today and go home and press refresh on the PSN store instead

 

[rendezvous]

Hello,

I think it sounds like a blast to play with all of you, but how would i come in to the B3D chatroom?

Best regards,

 

[JPT]

Hello,

I think it sounds like a blast to play with all of you, but how would i come in to the B3D chatroom?

Best regards,

Send me a msg or friend invite on PSN (Eyes) and I'll invite you to the chat room.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's on Euro PSN now. Downloading. 329 MB

 

[Arwin]

Everyone who isn't using his PSN Comment field and has a different B3D username should add something like B3D Eyes in that field, to make things a bit easier. I get so confused sometimes!

 

[deepbrown]

I'm getting Fat Princess and Shatter today. Aren't I the lucky one

 

[patsu]

/me is currently looking at his testplan list and wondering if he should just pack it up for today and go home and press refresh on the PSN store instead

Heh heh, I was up until 4:00am last night but no dice. Too much happenings at work. I will probably do the regular Saturday morning run like the past 2 weeks.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I've just left online with some B3Ders. Was pretty fun, although that last match was a stalemate. There was no time-limit, and goodness knows how long after starting (40 minutes?), we were still getting nowhere. It also appeared bugged. The Princess was on the map, shown free and uncaptured, but not visible where the map showed her. I did encounter a couple of other bugs. One overlaid two single-player story pages at the same time. Saw quite a few AI bots standing around doing nothing too. You'd have thought after such a delay, bug fixing would have been a priority! I miss previous generations were games were far more reliable

Anyhow, Fat Princess. Pretty hectic. Most importantly it needs teamwork and voice-chat. Voices were clear. When you join a game you are put onto any side, but between games you can select sides. Teams are padded with bots so swapping doesn't look like it'll be too hard. Graphics appear 1080p (my monitor is 1680x1050 so I don't get 1:1 pixels) but the framerate is lacking. Would majorly benefit from 60fps! Tried forcing 720p but it wasn't any better.

The maps seem to get progressively more complex. We started on the top couple then dropped down to number 5 which was volcanic, and hard to understand! The simple maps were good fun. Some early tactics are just having one priest constantly healing a warrior or ranger, which worked pretty well. Controls are actually a bit fidgetty. Getting everyone on board to try large-scale maneouvres would need serious teamworkery.

All in all it could be good.

 

[Arwin]

Yeah, after the great start with three consecutive wins for the B3D team (during which I managed to personally grab a princess and bring her home, very cool) we got to that really weird map. Definitely a bug there where the princess ended up in a ditch somewhere out of reach I think. Either that or the other team hid her really well. I definitely never saw her. In retrospect it would have been a great opportunity to get all trophies!

Fortunately after that it got much better. We got to practice some cool teamwork with various constellations (some great healing work there, varying between healing the group and individuals) and resource management. And before that we did a bit of no-rules soccer, which I really enjoyed, very funny. ShadowRunner seemed to be after me more than the ball! Managed to score a few times anyway, hard but fun.

 

[ShadowRunner]

hehe yea never really like footy games but killing people is always fun!

Game really shines when you get good teamwork going. First game i had realy didnt enjoy as i wasnt working with anyone but as soon as we started getting some partnerships going with the dark and light priests was great fun. I did notice that i was felt forced into working in a team out of nessecity so i cant see lack of teamwork even between strangers a problem because you simply dont have any other option.

 

[patsu]

I bought it. Finally cleared the bulk of my work, and sent everyone else running. I can play now. \^o^/

EDIT: Shoot, can't get in after 2 games. I'm just starting to get the hang of it. I think I perform best as a mage so far.

EDIT 2: Shouldn't it be "Play by Yourself" instead of "Play with Yourself" ^_^ ?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

EDIT 2: Shouldn't it be "Play by Yourself" instead of "Play with Yourself" ^_^ ?

That's part of the very common humourous line. Lots of double entendre.

I've completed the story mode. It's a push to claim this game has a single player element . It's 7 games across the maps against the AI. It's mostly training to learn the lay of the maps. Now the volcano map makes sense! (BTW Arwin - How did that map end and the game move on? Did someone win?).

I also learnt how to properly use the classes. Charged attacks need to wait until the ring maximises, which is accompanied by a sound. I was releasing earlier than that for area attacks, but get it maximised and you can annhialiate mobs. The flame mage sets people alight who take significant damage after a few seconds - it's delayed effect though. The ice mage can smart-bomb people. Looks like they freeze and then melt, all dying completely to death no matter what! So one tactic would be to catapult into the enemy castle with a couple of ice mages already powered up, who can blast any mobs that defend the princess. The resultant slow death and respawn time should clear the area nicely. On the flip side the mages' normal ranged attack is utterly feeble! No point even bothering. I haven't worked out what the dark priest's charge spell does though. It doesn't seem to sap the enemy health as I expected. Also he's very powerful at reducing enemy health. Fastest damage reduction in the game it looks like, but life sucking won't drop health below a minimum so won't kill an enemy. You'd need someone else, a ranger perhaps, to finish them off.

 

[rendezvous]

That's part of the very common humourous line. Lots of double entendre.

I've completed the story mode. It's a push to claim this game has a single player element . It's 7 games across the maps against the AI. It's mostly training to learn the lay of the maps. Now the volcano map makes sense! (BTW Arwin - How did that map end and the game move on? Did someone win?).

I quit the game, and as I hosted, every other player did as well.

The lava game was really messed up, and a bit too crowded I think. The other games were fun, especially the first three we won and the games in the end. The football game was crazy, as I had to spend most of my time running away from ShadowRunner and not kicking the ball.

I found that the ranger with bow and arrow was deadly, it is quick enough to stay away from other units and and it only takes a few shots with the bow to kill someone. I'm going to have to learn to use the mage and the cleric as well.

 

[patsu]

Hmm... didn't realize the other classes are so awesome.

Have a couple of questions:

* What are the advanced classes ?

* How do I upgrade a class ? It happened in one of my games; what are the triggers ?

* Do all the winners become grim reapers at the end of the game, or only the top player ?

EDIT: It's pretty hard to get into an MP game.