The Game Awards 2015 - My Picks

Here are my picks for The Game Awards 2015. Winners are in italics.

(Yes, I really liked The Witcher 3!)

GAME OF THE YEAR
Bloodborne (From Software/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Kojima Productions/Konami)
Super Mario Maker (Nintendo EAD Group No. 4/Nintendo)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt Red/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)

DEVELOPER OF THE YEAR
Bethesda Game Studios
CD Projekt Red
From Software
Kojima Productions
Nintendo

BEST INDEPENDENT GAME
Axiom Verge (Tom Happ)
Her Story (Sam Barlow)
Ori and the Blind Forest (Moon Studios/Microsoft Studios)
Rocket League (Psyonix)
Undertale (tobyfox)

BEST MOBILE/HANDHELD GAME
Downwell (Moppin/Devolver Digital)
Fallout Shelter (Bethesda Game Studios|Behaviour Interactive/Bethesda Softworks)
Lara Croft Go (Square Enix Montreal/Square Enix)
Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate (Capcom)
Pac-Man 256 (Hipster Whale/Bandai Namco Entertainment)

BEST NARRATIVE
Her Story (Sam Barlow)
Life is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment/Square Enix)
Tales From the Borderlands (Telltale Games)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt Red/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
Until Dawn (Supermassive Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)

BEST ART DIRECTION
Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady Studios/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
Bloodborne (From Software/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain (Kojima Productions/Konami)
Ori and the Blind Forest (Moon Studios/Microsoft Studios)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt Red/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)

BEST SCORE/SOUNDTRACK
Fallout 4 (Inon Zur/Bethesda Game Studios)
Halo 5: Guardians (Kazuma Jinnouchi/343 Industries)
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain (Ludvig Forssell, Justin Burnett, Daniel James/Kojima Productions)
Ori and the Blind Forest (Gareth Coker/Moon Studios)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Marcin Przybyłowicz, Mikolai Stroinski, Percival/CD Projekt Red)

BEST PERFORMANCE
Ashly Burch as Chloe Price (Life is Strange)
Camilla Luddington as Lara Croft (Rise of the Tomb Raider)
Doug Cockle as Geralt (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt)
Mark Hamill as The Joker (Batman: Arkham Knight)
Viva Seifert (Her Story)

GAMES FOR CHANGE
Cibele (Nina Freeman)
Her Story (Sam Barlow)
Life is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment/Square Enix)
Sunset (Tale of Tales)
Undertale (tobyfox)

BEST SHOOTER
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (Treyarch/Activision)
Destiny: The Taken King (Bungie/Activision)
Halo 5: Guardians (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)
Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2/Nintendo)
Star Wars Battlefront (EA DICE/Electronic Arts)

BEST ACTION/ADVENTURE GAME
Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate (Ubisoft Quebec/Ubisoft)
Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady Studios/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain (Kojima Productions/Konami)
Ori and the Blind Forest (Moon Studios/Microsoft Studios)
Rise of the Tomb Raider (Crystal Dynamics/Microsoft Studios)

BEST ROLE-PLAYING GAME
Bloodborne (From Software/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
Pillars of Eternity (Obsidian Entertainment/Paradox Interactive)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt Red/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
Undertale (tobyfox)

BEST FIGHTING GAME
Guilty Gear 3rd -Sign- (Arc System Works/Aksys Games)
Mortal Kombat X (NetherRealm Studios/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
Rise of Incarnates (Bandai Namco Entertainment)
Rising Thunder (Radiant Entertainment)

BEST FAMILY GAME
Disney Infinity 3.0 (Avalanche Software/Disney Interactive)
Lego Dimensions (TT Games/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
Skylanders Superchargers (Vicarious Visions|Beenox/Activision)
Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2/Nintendo)
Super Mario Maker (Nintendo EAD Group No. 4/Nintendo)

BEST SPORTS/RACING GAME
FIFA 16 (EA Canada/Electronic Arts)
Forza Motorsports 6 (Turn 10 Studios/Microsoft Studios)
NBA 2K16 (Visual Concepts/2K Sports)
Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 (PES Productions/Konami)
Rocket League (Psyonix)

BEST MULTIPLAYER
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (Treyarch/Activision)
Destiny: The Taken King (Bungie/Activision)
Halo 5: Guardians (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)
Rocket League (Psyonix)
Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2/Nintendo)

MOST ANTICIPATED GAME
Horizon Zero Dawn (Guerrilla Games/Sony Computer Entertaiment)
No Man’s Sky (Hello Games)
Quantum Break (Remedy Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
The Last Guardian (GenDesign/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (Naughty Dog/Sony Computer Entertainment)

My personal awards for 2015 and list of most anticipated games for 2016 are coming soon.

Questions about Legion

So... Legion is the next World of Warcraft expansion.

So far, everything about the expansion looks awesome. I'm definitely interested in learning more. Here are some of the questions that I have based on what we've told so far. What are some of yours?

General:

Will we be getting a 12^th character slot per server?

How will flying work in Legion?

Artifact Weapons:

Can we have more than one Artifact?

Can we respec our Artifact?

Will you need to max out an ability before being able to select the next one?

Will successive points in abilities cost more?

How many "ability power" will it take to max out a weapon?

Will you be adding more abilities to each weapon in future patches?

Will the selected appearance affect the available abilities of an artifact?

Are artifacts be restricted to the weapon slot?

Will Artifact quests in older content zones be scaled to level?

Story:

Is the Burning Legion in this expansion from Alternate Draenor or is it from the current timeline?

Class:

What do you plan to do with the removed abilities and mechanics from Survival? Will they be moved to Marksman?

With 1 artifact per specialization, what will happen to those specializations that can use multiple weapon types like Death Knight Frost, Warrior Fury, Brewmaster or Windwalker Monks?

What will you be doing with absorbs mechanics?

Do you have any changes planned for healer mana and efficiency?

Will Feral Druids with Claws of Shirvallah still have the updated Cat form from their artifact?

Will you be adding a new talent row for level 110?

Will there be new class abilities or passives granted during the level up process?

Order Halls:

Are the Order Halls required to level our Artifact?

What are the average length of follower missions?

How fast will the follower missions refresh?

What will be the cap on followers?

PvP:

Will PvE talents still work in PvP?

Is Honor as a currency being removed?

What will be the reward structure for PvP outside of the talent system?

Warlords of Draenor: What went wrong and how to fix it.

Here we are. We are nearing the announcement of another Warcraft expansion. We are in the fun period where we, the public, don't know what's going to happen or what the expansion will be.  Will we finally get that Emerald Dream expansion that people have been talking for years? Will we finally sail the South Seas to fight Azshara and her Naga? Will we travel the stars to Argus and battle the demons on their home base?

There are dozens of possibilities and fun things to speculate about. But its always good to look backward before we move forward. This leads us to our first question.

So what did Warlords of Draenor do well?

Warlords of Draenor did an excellent job cleaning up the user interface. The toybox, the looking for group tool, the inventory changes, the reagent bank, crafting from the bank. All of them went a lot way to fixing a lot of the user interface problems that emerged in Mists of Pandaria.

WoD also did a great job of making the classes more intuitive to play. All those unnecessary buttons are gone. Glyphs are better. Talents are better. The classes fit more into their niche/style/kit much better than they ever did before.

WoD also had an excellent leveling experience. The zones are great. The quests flow very well and the zone stories are great. WoD blows MOP's leveling experience away.

What went wrong?

One word. The garrison.

Ok, that's two but you get the point.

The garrison was an absolute disaster. Sitting in your own private instance playing an automated matching game is not fun. I want to be out in the world doing stuff.

Unlikely a lot of people who hated the dailies in MoP, I didn't mind them. It got me out of towns and got me to interact with the world in a meaningful way that was fun.

The garrison was the absolute opposite approach. You sit in your own private town waiting for the icon to start flashing.

How to fix it?

One word: Content

Is it as simple as removing the garrison? The answer is no. They need to go back to the MoP formula of getting players to travel the world do stuff. That means developing max level quest hubs and activities in the world. That means adding systems like scenarios back in the game.

They wanted us to ride around on our ground mounts for a reason. But there's no reason to be mounted anywhere when you are just sitting in your private instance.

Oh wait, one last thing.....

Is this the worst expansion they have done? Is it really worse than Cataclysm?

The answer is yes. Cataclysm had end game daily hubs; reasons to run dungeons beyond the maximum item level. It had multiple progression paths and a lot of more ways to interact with the world.

So yes, Warlords of Draenor is the worst World of Warcraft expansion, ever.

E3 2015 Wishlist !!!!!!!

E3 is such an amazing time to be a gamer. We get a flood of information on the games we have heard about for years or the pleasant surprise of seeing a franchise make a comeback or see announcements of new IP that look absolutely awesome.

Colbert sums it up best of how I feel on Tuesday afternoon when all the press conferences are over.

Predictions at this point are silly. So I thought I would put together a Wish List for what announcements I want at E3 2015. Some of these are total shots in the dark. They might never happen but one can dream!

1. Fallout 4 Release Window
2. Doom Release Release Window
3. Doom beta date for the 2014 Wolfenstein Pre-Order Bonus
4. Dishonored 2 Announcement and Release Window
5. The Elder Scrolls Online Trial Mode

1. Halo Master Chief Collection and Halo 5 for Windows 10
2. Gears of War Remaster for Windows 10
3. Perfect Dark 2 from Rare

1. Star Wars: Battlefront Beta
2. Mass Effect 4
3. Mass Effect Collection HD for PS4

1. The Division Public Beta Test
2. Watch Dogs 2

1. Uncharted Drake Collection Gameplay
2. Uncharted 4 Release Date
3. Destiny 1.5 Announcement and Release Date
4. Grand Theft Auto Single Player DLC
5. Red Dead Redemption HD for PS4
6. No Man's Sky Beta Test and Release Date
7. Project Morpheus Release Date and Lineup
8. Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 2 Epilogue.
9. The Order: 1886 Standalone DLC

1. Star Fox Wii-U Release Date
2. Solution to Amiibo Shortages in the US
3. Pre-Order date for Wave 5a and 5b Amiibo
4. Wave 6 Amiibo
5. Mario Galaxy 3 for Wii-U
6. New Smash Bros DLC
7. New Mario Kart DLC
8. A new F-Zero Game
9. A new Metroid Game for 3DS
10. A new Metroid Game for Wii-U
11. Zelda Wii-U Update
12. Zelda: Twilight Princess HD for Wii-U

1. Final Fantasy 9 HD
2. Kingdom Hearts HD Remastered for PS4
3. Kingdom Hearts 3

Truth and Consequences

Gaming has always been an alliance of game players, game developers and game journalists. There is a subtle interdependence between the three groups that has always been unstated. The collective worth of all three groups is 100 billion dollars and makes up an industry that helps drive our passions.

There have been some minor scuffles between us in the past but it never got in the way of our passion. We were always able to put things aside.

But the last eight weeks in the gaming industry have been one of great turmoil and turbulence. It started with a blog post and now its a shit storm. Let's review the current happenings:

There are degenerates doxxing/hacking/threatening other human beings
There are developers verbally assaulting players.
There are players verbally assaulting developers.
There are journalists verbally assaulting readers.
There are readers verbally assaulting journalists.

This is a really a general summary. I will not be giving specific examples or elevate any individuals. They do not deserve anymore than this from me or anyone else. All of this has turned out to be absolutely deplorable.

What has happened over the last eight weeks is an embarrassment. Some of the most destructive comments and actions to this industry that I can remember have occurred in these eight weeks. It has been a step backwards for an industry that is growing at an exponential rate.

This is worse than Jack Thompson. This is worse than governments that try to censor us. This is worse than the media blaming us for school shootings. We are cannibalizing ourselves. We are alienating ourselves from each other more than we can ever know or understand.

The ramifications of this will be felt for years to come.  The genie suddenly can not be put back in the bottle. What has been done, can not be undone. It will be a spectator for every meaningful conversation in the industry.

We can no longer talk about diversity. We can no longer talk about the nature of game content. We can no longer talk about journalistic ethics. We can no longer talk about the financial influence of big publishers. We can no longer talk about working conditions or crunch. We can no longer talk about indie developers and how to make sure the best ones get the most exposure.

There are only a very few people who can be absolved of any guilt. If you have hacked/doxxed/swatted/threatened another human being;  if you verbally assaulted another human being; If you have used a pejorative; if you have made assumptions based on 140 characters; if you have participated in hashtag activism, then you are guilty of reducing the discourse to toxic levels that we should never sink to.

I certainly do not absolve myself of any wrong doing. I have voiced my opinion. I have been upfront about where I stand. If you read my twitter, you'll find out where I stand and what hashtags I've used. In fact, there are people who likely think differently about me than they did in July. I will not excuse my actions in anyway but I will scold the industry for this absolutely embarrassing behavior.

There are people that I do absolve of any wrong doing and these are the victims of harassment, doxxes, threats or hacking. These deplorable activities are actually very frightening.  In 2014, people can still be this malicious to their fellow human being while remaining 100% anonymous. For those who have had to suffer at the hands of these degenerates, I wish you nothing but safety and security. Nobody should ever feel unsafe in their own home.

But here we are. Irreparable damage has been done. We have cannibalized each other like never before. We have opened ourselves up to even more unwarranted scrutiny from the Jack Thompsons, governments and media who would like to see our passion wiped from the face of the Earth. We can no longer have a discussion in any meaningful way. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Ukraine and the Impact on Global Politics.

I've wanted to post about this for a few weeks, especially since the crisis in Ukraine started.  Its a very complicated situation with a number of factors at play.  There are lot of angles to analyze and I think the media has done a good job on most of them.

But there is one that goes untouched - American Credibility.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and Soviet Empire, many of the former Soviet republics had access to nuclear weapons or other weapons of destruction.   And Ukraine was one such country.

In an effort to develop a relationship with a newly reshaped world, Ukraine engaged the Russian Federation, the US and Great Britain to develop an agreement where they would denuclearize in exchange for security guarantees.

Ukraine, Russia, the US and Great Britain signed an agreement in 1994 that would denuclearize Ukraine in exchange for the following:

1. Respect Ukrainian independence and sovereignty within its existing borders.
2. Refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine.
   (Source: Summery Provided by Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances)

This is important because the West could offer a similar agreement to more rogue states like Iran or North Korea.  But they won't accept if they know we won't enforce it.  In order to sign agreements with other nations, we need to have the credibility.  They need to believe us.

That's why the Ukraine crisis is really important. When we give territorial guarantees to countries who are willing to give up their weapons of mass destruction, we need to be positioned to enforce it.

When we give our word, it has to mean something.

Resolving the Ukraine crisis, will strengthen the West's geopolitical position and credibility on the world stage.

'Warlords of Draenor' Fun

Its finally arrived. The opening day of Blizzcon. Its an event that has been two years in the making. I expect a lot of announcements, even in the opening ceremony.

We all know that they are preparing to announce the next WoW expansion. Its been speculated that a recent trademark 'Warlords of Draenor' is the subtitle of the expansion.

While there have been some very speculative unconfirmed leaks concerning the backstory, nothing is really known. This gives us a chance to speculate and speculate we shall!

Let's start with Draenor. What is it? It is the original name of the world we now know as Outland. After Ner'zhul blew up the world in his nefarious plan, the name was changed to Outland to imply that it was a wasteland.

So if the next expansion will take place on Draenor, that implies that it would take place in the Warcraft 1 or 2 era.

So if the expansion takes place in the Warcraft 1 or Warcraft 2 era, how will we get there? That implies that we will travel back in time or there will be a parallel universe where Draenor was never destroyed.

What would be the purpose and role of the player in a parallel universe? Any changes wouldn't impact our original world. So what's the point?

Since a parallel universes does not appear to make sense, it can be determined that 'Warlords of Draenor' will be a time travel expansion where the player goes back in time to old Draenor.

How we go, why we go and all those fun elements, I'll leave that to Blizzard.

Since we are only a few hours away at this point; we are some quick hit things I want to see.

• Any final expansion boss but Garrosh
• Classic Warcraft characters as NPCs or raid bosses
• Redesigned Vengeance so its more equitable to all tanks.
• Redesigned Valor and rewards system
• Classic Raid Scaling
• Redesigned LFR so it the atmosphere is not as toxic
• Polish pass on Talents and Glyphs to fix some of the existing problems.