The official trailer for the new Assassin’s Creed game was released yesterday. This is the same trailer that I got a chance to see in January. At the time, I was asked to give three adjectives to describe the new protagonist, Edward Kenway, so I went with “handsome?” for one of them… Upon viewing this trailer again (all properly textured this time), I’m gonna go ahead and remove the question mark.
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Whether by accident, or on purpose, or a combination of both, Ubisoft has revealed some information about the next Assassin’s Creed title. The trailer is going to be revealed on Monday, and I’m particularly looking forward to it, since I was shown an early version during my playtest. I’ll be curious to see what, if anything, has changed, and to see the reaction from AC fans everywhere.
And the next Assassin's Creed is...
… being speculated about wildly, as you’ll see in the article linked above. Did you think I would break my NDA and tell you? Not a chance. But I will say that I do know with 100% certainty, thanks to my recent Ubi playtest, and that I’ve been following this guessing game with much amusement.
Speaking of which, the two remaining games I received as payment for that playtest arrived just the other day, so for the heavy burden of playing two days worth of AC multiplayer, as well as the privilege of knowing intimate details about the next game in the franchise, I got myself a copy of ACIII, as well as a second copy for a friend, not to mention Far Cry 3 and Rocksmith + Bass (the full kit, with the cable)… thanks Ubisoft!
For those of you who still haven’t seen this most excellent fan made video of what might happen if Kinect was enabled for Assassin’s Creed, now’s your chance. This was perhaps the cruelest April Fool’s joke this weekend, as (with a bit of tweaking) this could absolutely work and looks like something I would play endlessly. Seriously, can you imagine going for a double assassination just by whipping out your arms?
AssRev: Sour Grapes, or How Do They Know What I Do In Private?
This past weekend meant double XP in the world of AssRev (Assassin’s Creed Revelations, for the uninitiated) multiplayer, something I took intense advantage of. I hit level 50 on Thursday night, and am more than halfway towards completing my first full Prestige level, greatly aided by the fact that my points were doubled all weekend long.
The promise of double XP lures tons of players online at all hours of the day or night, which is great. Not so great? Tons of players, which means that the usual ratio of shitty to awesome players is unusually inflated. The game mode in question is Wanted, where patience and quick wits are prized, and while I’ve come across some amazing players, whose stealth is fully admirable, many of my games have been populated by “100 pointers”. These are players who have chosen to ignore the now mandatory tutorial, and against the rules of mathematics and sense, continue to hope that running around the map at breakneck speed and stabbing their target for a paltry 100 points (or shooting them with the gun, CoD-style) will grab them enough points to win.
Now, there’s nothing that terrible about 100 pointers, in that they’re easy prey, often running right into a clever player’s blade. Bear in mind, with the new AssRev mechanics, a 100 pointer’s kill is usually a zero sum game. They run at you and stab you for 100 points, you counter with a stun, and the game gives you an “honorable death”… 100 points for him, and 100 points for you. Nonetheless, when the majority of players in the session are stealthy, high-scoring gamers playing for big points, having your kills constantly interrupted by 100 pointers is a total drag.
This is the reason why I’ve submitted an inordinate amount of player reviews this weekend. Xbox Live allows you to avoid certain players, without having to file a complaint, simply by “tattling” on them to the system. You can avoid a player for 3 general criteria, each of which have subsets:
Communication
Trash-talking
Bothersome Language
Disruptive VoiceGame Behavior
Overly Aggressive
Unsporting Conduct
Quit EarlyPlaying Skill
Lacking Skill
Too Good
Unfamiliar With Game
My understanding is that avoiding a player for skill reasons doesn’t ultimately affect their reputation, and since I consider 100 pointing to be a form of impairment, I choose to take pity on those poor impulse control deprived souls and only pick “lack of skill”.
As for the other categories, I have very, very rarely chosen to avoid anyone for any of those. “Quit early” could just as easily be a server glitch, and I’ve very rarely experienced any mic abuse worthy of report. As for griefing (a.k.a. “unsporting conduct”), I’m so used to it, that I don’t bother hitting “avoid player” on any of them (unless you literally follow me, shoving and circling me for 30 seconds or more, then I lower the banhammer).
“I should go look at my reputation!”, I thought. Last time I checked, which was pre AssRev/AssBro domination, it was rock solid. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that, despite being 5 stars overall, and with a 71% approval rating, 29% of the people I’ve played with have chosen to avoid me. Ouch! As for why, well, Xbox only shows you the two criteria in question: Communication, and Game Behavior. Apparently, 50% of the players avoiding me reported me for “trash talking” and the other half for “unsporting conduct”, but all of this is highly, highly suspect. First of all, I’ve never griefed anyone in my life, however, as I mentioned above, I am usually griefed, at least once a session, whenever I play. I don’t even use the “taunt” button half as much as I should (once every few games, if that). Second of all, despite wanting to (in some of my weaker moments, of course), I have never, ever had my mic on publicly. Never.
Which brings me to an important question… How do they know??? See, I am THE WORST trash talker ever. Seriously. The things that come from this mouth would make a dockhand blush. It’s not pretty, but it’s a hobby I share with some of my friends. We get into a party, join a match, and then unleash a foul torrent of unspeakable, if not downright anatomically impossible profanity. Racism? Bad. Sexism and homophobia? Bad. But no orifice is spared by our putrid stream of colorful filth. Thing is, what happens in party chat, stays in party chat. I would never tolerate that from any player that is not my friend, and I would be absolutely mortified if any stranger playing against me were to overhear it.
This whole affair has made me so paranoid that I even had to confirm with Xbox support to make sure that there’s no way my party chat can be overheard. It also took me to the internet at large, where again and again I saw complaints about the system being useless, since it allows sore losers to downvote players for fictional bad behavior, hurting their overall reputation score. Even the direct response from Xbox linked above implies that the reputation system is ripe for abuse. In fact, most of what I saw online indicated that the better you are at the games you play online, the more likely you are to receive negative feedback. Given that I’ve been on a merciless streak of kills and stuns, perhaps some people have gotten sick of seeing me at the top of their session leaderboard.
All this to say, haters gonna hate, and… I finally made it?
Andrew’s Dottore Malfatto* costume, as built by me.
The hat, collar, belt bag, and syringe holster are made out of paper. The big silver buttons are pins covered in aluminum foil. The belt was rattling around in my closet, but the coat, gloves and mask base were purchased. The coat is a generic hooded black Halloween robe (“Grim Reaper Value Costume” FTW), customized with strips of white fabric at the elbows. I sewed some rough, white stitching onto the gloves (not visible here). The mask base was a plain face, but I built on the nose using newspaper, masking tape, and plaster, cut parts of the mask for accuracy, and built in simple goggles made from toilet paper rolls, masking tape and plastic. My proudest build is the syringe, composed primarily of silver duct tape, a pill bottle filled with food coloring and water, and a drinking straw.
The costume came in third in his workplace costume contest!
*Did you know that the evil doctor from AssBro multiplayer had a name? Neither did I!
We’re back…
… from our twelve day trip to the fatherland. Cities visited include Milan, Bergamo, Brindisi, Lecce, Otranto and Rome, with a bonus jaunt to London for lunch.
Photos will be up sometime, and will include helpful illustrated reports such as “Andrew Impersonates Ezio Auditore Throughout Ancient Italy”, “Catholic Bone Hoarding” and “Distilling for Dummies”.
Info on when that goes online will be posted here.
Plans for today and tomorrow include (but aren’t limited to):
- Playing today’s CivRev game of the week
- Unpacking all my questionable food and booze importations
- AssBro multiplayer session (paging gagmewithapitchfork.com!)
- Playing tomorrow’s CivRev game of the week
- Breakfast! (paging everyone)
- Watching that juggalo documentary
- Selectively digging through my Tumblr dash.
Contributed by: Angelicahasafeed
Griefing in AssBro is really weird. This is one option. Angrily dropping smokebombs on people for no real reason is another. Thanks for making this happen (although I now realize I left an extra “the” in there)!
Three important lessons I have learned from AssBro multiplayer:
1) What goes up, must come down. No matter how high you climb, at some point, you will have to drop back down to the ground, and when you do, I’ll be waiting.
2) Running gets you nowhere. Faster. On second thought, running does take you places… places like the warm embrace of my waiting, bladed arms.
3) I’m always a variety bonus and a loss multiplier away from first place. Your hundred point kills mean nothing to me.
(Source: assassinscreedmp)
hangout opportunities (apply within):
CJLO’s music pub quiz will be hosted by none other than Idle Matt from Radio Fun tonight. It all goes down at 8:30, and yr gonna wanna be there!
This upcoming Sunday’s weekly breakfast meeting has been moved from the regular place for this week only. Instead of eggs and bacon, well be eating har gao and siu mai at dim sum in Chinatown. Interested in joining? Get at me.
Finally, there’s an Assassin’s Creed art exhibit happening at Galerie Yves Laroche. If that sounds like something you’d like to see, let’s plan an outing!
