Mind of the BeholderPart 2

Level Up!

"Endurance +1, intelligence +3, wisdom +1, charisma +2"

The Role Playing Games genre is unlike any other. Not only has the face of games with the label changed considerably over the years, it has even been applied to games that aren't RPGs at all. The simple reason is that RPG elements have made it into other genres. Even in Need For Speed: Shift players drive for experience. No, this isn't the advertised Real Driver Experience but the numerical indicator on the top of the screen that climbs higher and higher to suggest your driver's level.
Call of Duty 4 is another example, as one of the first games that kicked of the trend. A brilliant game, unique in the way how it's remembered for its story campaign. However, the multiplayer design in particular stuck with the series, structured a bit like an RPG. It also stuck with EA's Battlefield series, EA's Medal Of Honor series, EA's Titanfall series, Crytek's Crysis series, THQ's Homefront series, Sony's Killzone series. And so on.

What is Prestige mode?

Entering prestige mode in Call Of Duty is the ability to reset one's progress. The player loses all unlocked items, experience points, the ability to make and use custom classes. The idea is to revert back to the very beginning of the multiplayer game. In exchange the player obtains an emblem beside their name to show off their prestige level. This can be repeated about 10 or 15 times, depending on the game.

Safe to assume this system was universally considered a good idea, it enthralled its gamers. To some it ruined the First Person Shooter genre - adding an XP grind for items and prestige system which enabled online boneheads to boast about their levels as if it wasn't an indicator of time played but of actual rifleman skill. The real crux of the matter is if this system makes people play the game because of good gameplay or because of the carrot dangling fifteen minutes in front of their crosshairs. This question isn't as innocent as it may appear: if an opponent prevents our brain from getting the dopamine fix we are expecting, like animals we rage. You can't blame the person for this because that's how people work. Critisism befalls the game. Other than this, CoD really isn't the worst offender: the XP grind to unlock all is short, prestige mode: optional for those with time.

I generally distrust any game where "level up" or any similarly worded bullet points make up part of the main features. Nor do I enjoy the marketing that raises level caps as if the grind to come is something very enjoyable. I say this because I've never found theme park MMOs to have anything resembling a worthwhile story. I'm not averse to theme parks. But if a game is made up of roughly similar looking attractions and I have to ride said attractions until they start boring me, about 3 times, the theme park quickly becomes a vision of hell, where everything that was once enjoyable becomes as stale like food without taste of which no amount will ever satisfy your desire. Until the bell of the next level-up rings, not as a reward but as the sign that the ride on the caravan of the damned has one less stop to make towards the end of the line. Logically, I don't think it speaks in favor of your game design if the host of the game allows you to take a mercy shot taking you to the end of the line if you pay the price of the game over one more time - logical if it means you won't pay to play the game for another few months this way. Only fair to make up for lost revenue, right? Well, your RPG should be a game, not a damn business model.

The back of the box of World Of Warcraft reads:

A World Awaits...
Descend into the World Of Warcraft and join thousands of mighty heroes in an online world of myth, magic and limitless adventure. Jagged snow peaks, mountain fortresses, harsh winding canyons, zeppelins, epic sieges - an infinity of experiences await. So what are you waiting for?

Ask any guildy for the reason why they can't come play in your party and chances are high he won't repeat the box quote but will say... "I'm leveling." Again, WoW isn't the worst offender. Blizzard made old content a lot more rewarding enabling players to do one quest instead of twenty to progress to newer areas - saving time and keeping their playerbase at the latest zones.

_{Star Wars the Old Republic started out spectacular but imagine what if this was the intro to a Mass Effect-esque Knights of the Old Republic 3 instead.}

I don't really mind the limited range of things a player can do in a game (fetch quest, kill quest, escort quest, collect quest, etc) as long as the motivation is right. Proof of this is Star Wars the Old Republic, where the story missions were as highly enjoyable as the ones you'd find in a single player RPG. The fully voiced cast of companions and related NPCs draw you into a world that has more to offer then any vendor-trashable quest reward ever could. However, set foot outside the neatly drawn line of the story areas and you won't see its kind again for literally hours while you, a level 43 imposing and life-destroying Sith Lord, would listen to NPCs whisking you along with their petty sorrows and requests, to get kittens out of the old Bantha tree by either shooting the kitten, cutting the tree down or climbing up there, a right Sith monkey - each solution with its proper light and dark side implication.

Who knows, maybe in-between battles Achilles also had to mend the sandals of scores of Greek villagers in order to allow them to yield unto him the required amount of frustration that would allow him to angrily slaughter his King's enemies on the next battlefield.

Hardly the stuff of legend, but who knows. Maybe in-between battles Achilles also had to mend the sandals of scores of Greek villagers in order to allow them to yield unto him the required amount of frustration that would allow him to angrily slaughter his King's enemies on the next battlefield. No, The Old Republic tragically and quite literally bored me to tears near the end, so I got off the snail train through Purgatory. The uninspired way EA/Bioware decided to turn it into an micropayment advertisement insulted my sensibilities and previous dedication so it lost me as a player too. I could come back to the game, it has many saving graces such as customizable companions, but only if I was convinced the slow progression wouldn't dampen my enjoyment. Unfortunately the game has already caused some offence when it culled my ingame funds when it (partly) transitioned to F2P, deleting everything above the limit - an eye-watering amount.

Another MMO I played for a few months is Wildstar. An impressive design, limited skill bar, creative classes, great art style. It's not even big on grinding - in the sense that you're able to blaze through content rapidly if you have the right class and setup. I clocked in at about 2-3 weeks of intensive playing to take a character from the creator to the endgame. Again, I'm stressing the leveling in this game because there's nothing else to propel you forward. This game has no story, heroes nor villains, no endgame content save for a couple of areas where the player repeats daily quests - another theme park from hell. Each town hub has its own set of quests, with a small narrative red line, but nothing that stands out. The game is made up out of Sci-fi and Spaghetti Western tropes - much more tired than witty. I don't see myself picking it up again even though I really liked the class designs.

No game should consist of boring stuff to pad out playtime. That task should fall to the co-op or competitive PVP modes. No game should be played for the sole reason of gaining XP. If the experience bar is reduced in such a way that all it basically does is exchange rewards or trickle content for time played, why keep jumping those hoops? Real RPGs have levels to roughly indicate where your character should be in regards to the story or place in the world. Each level brings with it more tricks and solutions to tackle the game's challenges. It usually also brings an increase in stat points making the characters stronger in order to cope with increasingly stronger enemies. When the player gets relatively stronger due to more tools and superior stats, there should be satisfaction: all the thinking, building and strategizing is paying off in a real way. Some games don't even need the experience track for that.

_{Despite its age, Guild Wars Factions still stands as one of the finest RPGs I have ever played. Expect it to show up a few more times in this series.}

One of such is Guild Wars. With a top level of twenty that was never raised by expansions mandating their purchase. The game is quite big, yet max level is reached about halfway through a single story, concluding an introductory period. After that the game truly breaks open. You'll become competitive in PVP multiplayer matches, explore zones to hunt for useful elite skills learned from vanquished foes, forge armor that doesn't infer any special benefits other than look splendid. Al the while the XP bar becomes a detail that pops off every so often to announce another spendable skill point has become available. None of this is insanely time-consuming so a player is invited to create a new character and replay the game. Before you ask: character slots are limited to one of each class. Additional slots, one of many but far from necessary convenience items, come at a small fee. The only real cost was the game's box. It didn't waste your time because that would cost the developer. Nor did it chain the player to the game with subscription fees. Considering all it had to offer, Guild Wars as an MMO comes closest to the single player RPGs that came long before.

In its undiluted form, the traditional cRPG, exist mostly in the past. Venerable names such as Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Ultima, Icewind Dale are nearly a decade and half old and have yet to get proper successors. Only now with indie developers and without the nay of big publishers, do we see a resurgence - to slake the thirsty and arguably aging masses. That is not to say that I have a cRPG shaped hole in my nostalgia that absolutely needs to be filled. The bigger need is that of good game design, an engaging story or universe dealing with interesting issues. To drive the point home one more time: none of these old masterpieces even considered wasting their player's time. To nostalgic players these new classics do away with the dictated, often unwanted (in the case of SWtoR) megalomaniacal multiplayer component found in MMORPGs and focus on what RPGs should be about: story, characters, universe building and challenging combat supported by a solid foundation of game mechanics.

Related posts:

• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 1, where I talk about past RPG experiences.
• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 3, about how RPGs are being influenced, by example, design and market.
• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 4, simplicity in RPGs and the evolution thereof.

Mind of the BeholderPart 1

Introduction

"This post isn't late, nor is it early"

When I think on my role playing game history I have to go back to Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss and more memorably: Ultima VII. When these games were released I was a strapping lad about ten years of age with boundless ambition, destiny and special purpose. I set out into the world of Britannia because it looked impressive in the screenshots but was soon stumped as to what was supposed to happen in this 'game'. It started out with a pretty gruesome murder scene. I could deal with the pixelated blood, but the quartered body was a bit much. The villagers of the town, horrified and stupified, cried out to a future-inter-dimensional-travelling type, the Avatar, to figure it out for them. Unfortunately they got pre-pubecant me to sort it out, which it never did.

_{The opening of Ultima 7. I nabbed this nice HD screenshot from this fine blog, I hope that's ok.}

My English then was of the budding sort and whatever needed to happen, my party members needed food first and they needed it all the time. I particularly remember a needy old geezer who's primary job alternated between taking in all the food I could rob from the townsfolk and nagging me for more when I didn't. The guy consumed entire village stores like a man-shaped tamagochi, yet not once did I see him run off to the privy.
Ultima VII, I remember you fondly for your immersion and interactivity but you shared disk space on the EA collection CD with Wing Commander Academy and thát had space ships that exploded when you shot at them and I was, even at the time, an acclaimed air combat veteran.
The next RPG I got into was The Legend Of Zelda: A Link to the Past on the SNES. My child brain couldn't figure out it wasn't an RPG but it had a top down perspective and that was reason enough. After that followed a fallow period. I tried various RPGs, some Hack and Slash from the demo CD's that came with a magazine called PC Gameplay but nothing, save Rage Of Mages, really stuck by me. Until I got the game called Baldur's Gate from Black Isle Studios. Baldur's Gate was a very big deal for me. Like Falcon 3, it changed the structure of my mind.

Now look at me.

_{Baldur's Gate's Logo made quite clear this wasn't a game to take lightly}

Like a recurring nightmare, Baldur's Gate starts off with a murder scene. This one even more gruesome. This time I was forced to observe the murder of my foster father. As horror ensued I fled, desperate and alone, towards the safety of any ally I could make in a world who's interest limited itself to either robbing, recruiting or eating me. It was motivating. I was no longer reclining with eyes wide open like I was as the Avater. There was a base purpose. Hunted like a fox, all that mattered right then was to survive. The game presented me with a malleable character with statistics that made the game understandable. Abstracted, yet every element had a use. After the violent intro, the world became open, oddly calm and inviting. NPCs banter amusingly. Most were open to conversation. Every enemy became less threatening given the many tools the game provided. Black Isle even raised the bar when it came to suspension of disbelief when I read, in the manual, that player characters use the latrine when I wasn't looking. My first character was a neutral good half-elven multiclassed mage/thief. I made numerous characters after that but you will never forget your first.

_{Don't scoff, even Baldur's Gate's visuals were very impressive for its time.}

For the first time ever I had come in contact with the Dungeons And Dragons ruleset and loved it. Maybe you've heard of it. It's one of those that needs 20 sided dice to roll for effects. It has classes, it has parties, dungeon parties and presumably Dungeoned Dragons. I wasn't aware of it at the time but in the future it would become a benchmark for me. Years later still I found out that D&D has been quite influencial in cRPG design. The influence was still palpable in the seemingly unrelated Mass Effect by way of Knights of the Old Republic.

These last are but a few games that you'll see mentioned in the coming posts. This is but an introduction to a series of pensers on the topic of role playing game design. There'll be a fair bit of ranting, suggestion making, finger pointing, derailing and theory crafting. I often find that I am rather opinionated when it comes to RPGs and as such see a lot of right and wrongs in games today. Elaborating on this topic has become a compulsion. Writing about it: therapeutic. I may get things all wrong. The upside is we'll all get to learn how to get something, if anything, right.

Related posts:

• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 2, a long overdue rant on leveling and experience grind.
• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 3, about how RPGs are being influenced, by example, design and market.
• Mind Of The Beholder, Part 4, simplicity in RPGs and the evolution thereof.

Like it's 2008

Hello there. If you were keeping tabs on my blog, you may have noticed a distinct lack of new content. My schedule has been quite busy and I've had little time to write at length about what I think of the current state of the gaming culture. Luckily, I'm still an active participant and I'm in a pretty happy state of mind, which doesn't help with my usual ranting.

_{If you're not playing Divinity: Original Sin, you're really missing out}

First, The game I worked on this past year, straight out of the gate after Dragon Commander, Divinity: Original Sin has been doing very well indeed. Second, it's been a pretty good year for games so far. Though, I should amend that: it's been a pretty good year for PC games. I feel the new consoles have yet to make an impact.

_{Relatively light on grind and with much on offer, playing Wildstar has been a blast}

Besides Divinity: Original Sin, the games that have been on the forefront for me this last year have been: Wildstar, War Thunder (yes, still), Fire Emblem: Awakening, Guild Wars 2, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Dark Souls 1&2, Bioshock Infinite, Legend Of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Diablo 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Crysis 3, Dragon Age 2, Battlefield 4 and a little bit of Assassin's Creed 2.
This is a short list by my standards. Some of these games only have had a handful of hours, some are about to be uninstalled. That's what I get for putting too many MMO's on that list. But I have already made the solemn vow to never grind in a game again. The frustration I had with Star Wars: The Old Republic is very much alive. Instead I'd like to sample a more varied spectrum of games, and still have some time for blogging (and updating the design) or other more artistically beneficial activities. People also keep mentioning TV has become interesting again. For instance: I have been mostly ignorant about Game of Thrones. I am being assured that it's a lot like some fantasy games with permadeath. If the shock of not controlling the onscreen characters wasn't bad enough, there's an alternative: to watch Breaking Bad and see Walter White haplessly take all the Renegade conversation options and get the bad ending.

Watch Breaking Bad and see Walter White haplessly take all the Renegade conversation options and get the bad ending.

But who has the time anymore with all these games coming out. To name but a few: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Pillars Of Eternity, Wasteland 2, Destiny (sadly not yet coming to PC), The Witcher 3, Ultra Street Fighter 4, Elite: Dangerous, Star Citizen, Assassin's Creed Unity, Gigantic. I'd also like to try (F2P) games like DOTA 2 and Smite, because I get the feeling I'm missing out on some great gameplay.

However, there is one blogging related item I have had the time for: I have been writing about my views on the RPG genre. Between working on Divinity: Original Sin and playing the likes of Mass Effect, Guild Wars 2, Skyrim, Dragon Age 2 and Diablo, my focus has strongly been on this genre. The text has ballooned to the size of half a book, and I'm having some issues carving the whole thing into digestible parts. However, since there's no time like the present, I'll continue to do so tomorrow. Probably.

Minimum Redundancy

_{My new PC one week after ordering!}

For quite a while now have I been toying with the idea of building a new PC. And finally at these last throes of summer, I have been given the means and time to build it. So on August 28th I placed an order, which I expected on the 29th, or if worst came to worst on the 30th. Sure enough, I got about 60% of my order on the 30th. Yet As I write this on september 4th, vital elements of my monster order have yet to arrive. The question that has been echoing through my mind for the last week has been: how could this happen?

A mental block is preventing me to do anything else but write this post. An attempt to vent my frustration that won't cause physical harm. I have been phoning numerous services and institutions and informing them about how their services and institutions, unbeknown to them, aren't working as advertised. Sadly I have gained little, save contempt. I have been getting one excuse after another and people pointing to someone else. Though it's quite clear that the whole system lacks efficiency. Belgium's motto: 'power in unity' is a terrible joke. May I suggest 'slowly but surely*' ?

The order I placed was with my favorite PC shop Forcom. I had used their services in the past, been to their shops and had nothing to report but praise: excellent range, quick deliveries, friendly service. So I called on them again for this order, expecting the same. But the expectations they had set in the past remained very much so. Browsing their site I made sure all the items I selected were in stock as to ensure a quick delivery. I wasn't fussy about price because I was convinced that less fuss would be good for all parties. Little did I know the inverse was true. Rarely have I paid such a large sum of money for the lesson that good service really is priceless.

Rarely have I paid such a large sum of money for the lesson that good service really is priceless.

The reason why, I found out while chatting with the very reasonable Forcom employee, is that Forcom was recently bought by a bigger chain of PC hardware stores called EuroSys and how they changed the delivery system to a system that couldn't quite deliver. You see, the way it used to be was that Forcom would build one big package which included all parts before sending it by courier. In contrast Eurosys sends all parts separate using separate couriers, which will arrive at separate times, hopefully during the same day. Which is what I experienced on the 30th. Eurosys also doesn't use its stores (including those of Forcom) as places to send from, voiding all the guarantees that items are available as shown on the website. Rather they need to be available in the general storehouse which is not indicated online. Making it impossible to judge if an item is available, and since their general storehouse appears to be a lot smaller and limited than either one of the stores dotted around the country a '24h delivery of available items' on www.forcom.com is just false advertising. Plain and simple.
While Forcom's man agreed with me that getting 60% of my order within 48 hours and having to wait for the rest to show up for another 190+ hours was absurd he was unable to do something about it. As it stood, a further 20% would arrive on Wednesday and the remainder would arrive on the next Friday. To my surprise he managed to allow for both deliveries to arrive on Wednesday September 4th. As he would send them all at once, using the post office's 'within 24h delivery guaranteed!' service.

Things were looking up, I received a notice that my order was sent on Tuesday, set to arrive on Wednesday morning. As I got up early to eagerly await my long overdue goods, I waited...
Annoyed I went to go see if the mail had arrived at all and found two blank receipts on the floor (eg: not in my mailbox), left there by the mailman. The receipts for the '24h premium delivery' sent yesterday told me my order would be available in the nearest post office from tomorrow onwards...

Now, parcel delivery usually works like this: a mailman carries a package to the address and delivers it. If no one is there to receive the parcel, a receipt is left to inform the addressee that the parcel is available for pickup at the nearest post office. The receipt also specifies when the door was rang unanswered. I my case; I took the day off (again, and will be 4 in total when all said and done), I was home, I was waiting, I did not hear anyone ring the door. I found receipts on the floor with nothing on it save the name of the illiterate (the receipts are personalized by the company) on who I would have to direct my scorn.

As I stood there fuming for a little while, my world shrank to the slip in my hand and it got very quiet. I'm only a very violent person within the confines of my own mind, but the walls very nearly came down. I had to act.

Minutes later I was stomping my way towards the local post office, only a few hundred meters from where I live. I imagine the look on my face must not have been very pleasant but the case of tunnel vision I was suffering was too bad to mind my fellow man. I was near blackout as I finally swung open the door at the post office, where pleasant, conditioned air presented me with the vision of one pretty, young girl and one hunched over postal crone at the desk, either one of which would have to deal with me. I had to get in line with one of those numbered slips made to ensure order in the picking line, a feeble instrument to make me wait even more. I wished I would get the old crow at the desk to resolve my case, because otherwise the frail young thing at the other desk would have to bear the full brunt of my indignant rage. Yet, so it was. I took a deep breath and slammed the fistful of excuse-notes on her desk. Within a few lines of my vitriolic complaint the crone directed her attention away from her business to save princess's first day at the post office by telling me there was little I could do apart from filing a complaint on the website. Which to me meant I could do nothing at all. Because it wouldn't solve my problem. All I got was a reassurance my package was 'in a protected circuit within the posting company', which I thought was rather funny.
I did make a formal complaint to complete this elaborate exercise in futility. In the modest conversation I had with the post office customer service, "chain of incompetence" is the only harsh sentence I used but I don't think it fazed the telephone operator much.

I can understand that in their eyes I am a madman who can't just wait another night, what they don't know is that I've been waiting all week and am now asked to wait another day where it should have been just the other day, given the expectations I had when forking over a month's worth of wages. Not to mention all the time that was lost waiting.

All I can do now is hope the delicate electronics get here in one piece, if not: expect my next blog from a mental hospital.

All I can say right now is to stay away from Forcom and Eurosys until it's made clear they have fixed their faulty system. As for the Bpost, the Belgian Postal company: please send your employees to school before you send them to customers, even if that's beyond the scope of requirements.

Whiskey Tango

I write to you a broken man. Before we get into the word man let me focus on broken. Because I have been unable to tear myself away from this game. I strain my brain searching a dusty vocabulary looking for words outside the narrow track of what words fighter aces use. Point in case, I hope not too many of you use the words 'boogie', 'yak', 'bingo fuel' or 'all banged up' on a regular basis. But if you do, do I have a game suggestion for you!

The game is called War Thunder. A game by the creators of Wings Of Prey of which this, basically, is a F2P MMO version of. I'm endorsing another F2P game? I have my reasons.

Yes, I'd repeat this till I'm blue in the face but I'd make a fantastic fighter pilot! In an earlier post I confessed to my deep desire to be a one, if you remember. Since conviction is half the work, the remaining requirements are filled by my basic understanding of physics, eg: stuff falls down when dropped, knowledge of aerial maneuvers: I was learned to 'do a barrel roll' from a very early age, and a keen eye which has since become an artistic eye by which I mean a painting done by me would be blurry and smudgy in the classic impressionist's way. Needless to say, my natural height advantage, which is mostly confidence or arrogance, over other people would make me the Top Gun's Tom Cruise of the Belgian Air Force.
I should attribute part of my aptitude for piloting to my father, who recognized this very potential at an early age. The thought of Falcon 3.0 still makes my knees shake from emotion and the memory of the heavy box that nearly crushed my ambition right there in the software store when I tried to lift the game's box.
Spurred on by my personal fanatical fighting of the Iraq war on my PC, the next step was being prepared. I was promised glider lessons if I kept my school grades up. I had to give up the simulator for study but managed to best my own grades the very same year. The sight of which reminded my father that two more siblings needed food and clothing and a compromise was made in the form of glider models. Which I flew flawlessly. And in this I can be modestly proud by saying I was a natural. Contrary to the norm, I didn't crash my first model. And didn't crash any further models. Except that one time when a freak wind tipped my glider upside down. It dove nose first into agricultural grade barbed wire which pretty much tore the plane in half. As I bit back the tears my father laughed off the incident, but I realized I may have been a bit too emotionally invested in flying. I dialed it back a notch but never lost the interest.

Which is the reason I'm so hooked on War Thunder. If you doubt my word on how good this game is, feel free to try it yourself. All I can still add to the argument that it really is good. War Thunder has gathered a pretty rabbit fan following, the forum is a hive of activity about everything you'd imagine and it has even spawned a couple of Youtube stars. No doubt the game has a bright future because fanatics like me keep pouring cash into the game, which is still even only in beta.

Since this is a free to play game, I should mention the business model. It's not too bad. The game has 2 sorts of currencies: Silver Lions and Golden Eagles. Silver Lions are gained by playing the game, and buy you all the normal planes, repairs, upgrades and ammo belts.
Golden Eagles allow for some luxury. Such as additional plane slots, remember: one slot is one spawn - if a plane is damaged, it has to be repaired, either by time or with lions. Eagles also buy premium planes, which yield additional lions and XP. As of writing, there doesn't seem to be a way to buy yourself an advantage over other players, since the premium planes often have a 'normal' counterpart and some of them are oddities or experimental planes history forgot for good reasons. Eagles also let you pour 'free XP', begot by simply playing the game, into faction progression.
Since this is an MMO, it pretty much adheres to the standard €15/month model. But there is no subscription model as such. Instead there's the option to pay for a time limited premium account - a prepaid system. This doubles XP and Lions income, so progression is faster than that of a free account. Again, the way I like it. Provide people with less time (but arguably: more money) a shortcut to speed up the rate of unlocks. Another nice thing about this game is that losing your premium status doesn't penalize you beyond the lack of the bonus XP and Lions multiplier. And should you fly a premium aircraft, or multiple, the lack premium is slightly offset by their higher income.

_{The German Canadair CL-13A Mk.5 Sabre's cockpit}

One big question remains however is premium progression fast enough? And sadly this is my biggest gripe with the game thus far. It's a rather slow affair, at least compared to progression in other games.
I say this as someone who plays with both a premium account and premium planes. In fact, I couldn't see myself progressing at all without the premium stuff. You won't be convinced unless I share a few statistics. As of writing I have played the game a total of 280 hours. Which is rather a lot. Given the game is nothing more then flying planes in areas, completing an objective. Which can make it hard to justify the price if you're not into flying. It's like Call Of Duty with the slow progression of a hardcore MMO. So what have all these hours netted me? Considering the level 20 cap: both my USA and USSR faction are creeping their way towards level 13. My Germans are halfway through level 16. Britain, my second biggest faction is at a nearing 16. And bringing up the rear is Japan, at level 8.
I could spend a pretty hefty amount of eagles to convert my millions of free XP to get most of my nations to the very endgame. But I'm not yet that desperate. The good news is that having played that much has me sitting on a healthy amount of lions. So I have very few limitations other than time.

At the endgame you get to play with the big boys. Flying jets that cost a fortune to get and maintain. But as someone who got terrorized, even from such low level as 14, by jets in past matches. The big lure is to have insane power. Jets are so fast and hit so hard, that they are almost invulnerable against all but other jets.

The gameplay itself though, which is in essence air combat, remains interesting even after all this time. Maneuvering, dueling, tactics, energy management, getting hits on an enemy (bullet drop is a major thing in this game - and each calibre has its own trajectory), it's all so much more intricate than other games in which you need to hit a target with some sort of projectile. The difference with War Thunder is that it's not a shooter or arcade game. Below the hood is a flight simulator, with rules based in physics. This is game where even the weight of fuel makes a pretty big impact on plane performance.

To be clear. This game has consumed me. I have stopped reading fiction in favor of my old WW2 air combat and history books. I have watched some WW2 movies, countless documentaries... Down the street I pause just that bit longer in front of display window of store that sells model kits. How much longer till the glue and pincers for assembling model planes the way I did when I was so much younger? And that's exactly how I feel. These last few months I have been playing out my boyhood fantasies. I am once again a fighter pilot. When I first saw this game in motion on Youtube, nostalgia sprang to life. Materializing from ashes and smoke, a prop driven Phoenix, its grin mocked my graying mane. Its fires scalding me for the lack of airtime.

Seeing these old planes again brought back memories from Chuck Yeager's Air Combat. Chuck only had a few planes from both Axis and Allies on offer but War Thunder seems to want to include about every warplane from the mid 1930's up to the Korean war. All of them with their unique characteristics.
Flying these things is a challenge. Winning battles in them even more so. For the history nerd inside me, this game is settling the argument the like of 'who would win, Batman or Superman?' on a daily basis if the heroes' names were replaced by names such as Spitfire, Mustang and their contemporaries.
It does it in great fashion. At times you can spot an incoming duel literally miles away and you'll need to plan ahead for the confrontation. If you're ballsy, or stupid, you make it a joust-like head on shootout. Gun on gun. Get lucky and you may survive. But if you're smart. You'll set up the situation to your advantage. Even if your plane is inferior, there's always a fighting chance. This dynamic is what makes this game so rewarding. Spending minutes outflying, outsmarting is tense in ways I haven't felt in an online game since lightsaber duels in Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight, this is no exaggeration. War Thunder demands knowledge of the individual planes, air combat tactics, patience and situational awareness in its highly fluid 3D emergency. As with many arena style games no two games are ever alike and War Thunder's regular content updates help the game even more in this regard.

Convinced? Then join this old boy (31 as of today!) and get into the mix before his premium runs out. Again. And if you want be a wingman, register an account using this link, you'll get 50 Gold Lions right off the bat and I'll get a little kickback once you reach certain milestones. It'll be terrific fun.