Tuesday 15 April 2014

Game/Fandom: Nosgoth Community Day 2014

I was invited with a group of LoK fans to the Square Enix offices in Wimbledon on 25 February 2014. Until now I've had to keep my mouth shut - but now the NDA has been lifted I can speak so I thought I'd share my thoughts about it all...though some are a little outdated now...

We were welcomed into the offices in the late afternoon and taken up to one of their meeting/presentation rooms where we remained for a couple of hours. We were met by Bill Beacham, George Kelion and some other cool staffers of the SE family and were given a little presentation where we previewed the Adult vampire skins...as well as being shown the newest human class! Then we were set loose to play the latest build of Nosgoth – at the time the unreleased Beta version of the game…



The game...

The build for Nosgoth we got to have a play with and preview was the first Beta release. At the time I (and those who had played in Alpha) noticed all the little changes - the UI - character amendments - graphic enhancements etc - which of course all the Beta players have seen and been playing for a while. The game had changed - some of the things I liked and others not so much…

I still prefer the Alpha build of the UI - the Beta UI is far too clean and modern for my liking - it doesn't give the same gothic feel as it previously did. The graphic enhancements are wonderful - I love the crisper detail and the textures that give more depth to the game. The map improvements were also fab - the more detailed feel of them as well as buildings being moved, changed and amended was a good choice! The improvements made to the balancing of the classes was vastly noticeable from the Alpha - and made the matches a lot more enjoyable.

What I found interesting - was playing on their uber-computers - it was good to compare the difference to my home equipment. The thing I found the most different was the mouse sensitivity – where the mouse sensitivity slider wasn’t working on my home version – it was like ahhh looking so fast! Lol.



Adult Vampire skins...

We were shown the three skins for the current vampire classes - Razielim, Dumahim and Turelim clans, the images we previewed were the artwork ones released on the blog entries about them.

We were talked through the ideas behind the classes looks and also got to ask questions about the designs. The additions of the claws, cloven feet, clan sigils and specific looks of all the classes - which were all inspired from their later Soul Reaver (d)evolutions - were fantastic! I was very happy by the improved appearance of the classes to make them resemble more the beloved LoK series vampires...they now actually look more like what I expected the vampires in this game to look like from the beginning!

The fact our wishes had been listened to and answered with these vampires shows the development team – are actually paying attention. I think everyone was super-hyped to find out that Daniel Cabuco had designed them!

You have all seen them now and have all had chance to soak in their skins - so probably all the old school fans agree...on the most part...how cool they are! Who else geeked out????

Out of them all - the one I was most impressed with was the Tyrant skin...ummmm ears…



The Prophet - Lost Seers of Avernus...

We were also shown some images of the new and currently unreleased human class – the Prophets!

They are another FEMALE class - and are darker in origin and looks – much like the Deceiver - in that it's quite a messed up class. We were shown several pieces of artwork and also were informed about the idea behind the class and their weaponry.

They are a female order that used to inhabit Avernus - they do not worship demons though! They went into hiding and have remained so - learning - and waiting for the right time to strike back at the vampires of Nosgoth. They kidnap the female children from surrounding villages - and bring them into their sacred order…nope - going to resist…the urge…to say it! They use Blood Magic against the vampires of Nosgoth - after discovering the Blood Fountains (from Blood Omen - hey hey hey) and learned how to use blood as a weapon. Their weapons were inspired from the unexplained appearance of that shotgun from Moebius' caves (OMG!!!!!) - the story goes they discovered it and back engineered it to make their own revolver type weapons.

As for the characters looks - I love the whole skull head thing - the fact you can’t see what they look like in any image – is kind of intriguing. The self mutilation scars - which are present all over their bodies from the use of their own blood in their magic – is pretty messed up. I liked the designs for the different variations of this class - like as with the other classes - different clothing which shows different sides to the class. All the class variations though still had the skull head - the body scars - and the weird spike-back-bones from their backs - which very much reminded me of the Feral Humans from Defiance!

I really loved the concept of this class - and really really REALLY can't wait to see their abilities - skills - and in game action! …I think Alchemist might have a bit of a competition for my most played human class when this one comes out…well maybe.



General Antics...

Well…myself and Marmite-666 decided in advance to do a bit of cosplay…no surprise there then!…so we turned up in full character get up! I had my Alchemist costume...and Marmite-666 decided to take on the Reaver (Dumahim) class - impressively she managed to make everything within only a couple of days!

Here are a couple of pictures of us - having a bit of a scuffle in the Square Enix reception…

Reaver vs Alchemist...

Ha! Human melee attack...

...Reaver wins!

I also made - well attempted to make - the team a thank you cake for inviting us all to their offices...apparently it was nice…as far as I know no one died from eating it…


After a couple of hours in the studio we then spent a good few hours socialising in the local pub. It was lovely to spend more time with fans of the series - and of course not forgetting our hosts. Yeah basically we all just continued to geekout about the series and Nosgoth for hours!

It was great to once again to meet more LoK fans - they are all such a super-awesome bunch - and I really hope the Nosgoth gamers will echo this - because all the people from the old franchise I've met have been AWESOME!!!! Completely awesome!!!!!!


Thank you....

I would just like to say a big thank you - to Square Enix - our wonderful hosts - all the developers and staff we met on the day - it was truly a pleasure! Thank you muchly for the invite and I hope to see you all again at some point in the future!

2 comments:

  1. That must have been a fantastic experience. Thanks for sharing this. I look forward to the new classes. I'm a disaster in aiming with the hunter and scout so the prophet will be a competitor of the alchemist for me. I've still been on the point to stop playing because most players already have a very good game play and still improving, and I keep hedges at the same skill level. I can not blindly typing, and there's the problem. The combination of keyboard and mouse I get hard to control. Maybe buying a gamepad wiil help. Who knows it's get better then. I look forward to a new ranking system, so that I can play with my fellow noobs. Lol. Bye.

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    1. Yeah it sure was :D in the terms of skill you're not the only one to feel like this - I still play at a "noob" level - and like you am not so good at aiming and also can't wait for the match-making to be improved! Until then - chin up - keep at it - never give up - never surrender!!!! Those vampires/humans won't kill themselves ;) :D

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