roncli.com blog: April 2015

I'm finally in Bronze III after having a win on Lux and 2 on Janna. The promotional series games were so hard, we were actually quite behind in one of them. Thanks to Veg for helping me get through them!

I played with Colz last week and only went 1-2, but thankfully the losses came before the wins and didn't hurt my place in the standings any, so I go into week 11 at Bronze III and 26 LP.

Descent

If you've been following my DCL videos on YouTube, you'll see I've finally found some success, winning 6 matches in the past 2 weeks, including a match against the top bronze player to give me that spot. I feel like my aim is slowly coming online, but I'm going to try to play some "measuring stick" games against LotharBot (I've been scoring between 8 and 9 points) and Behemoth (between 5 and 6 points) today to see if that indeed is the case. I rediscovered the map June Bug, and am rapidly learning just how much I loved playing that map, too bad it was never all that popular.

The lagging website

I was expecting to have the new roncli.com done this month, but Descent: Underground has pretty much taken over. However, with that Kickstarter campaign winding down Friday, I should have time to resume my efforts, get something presentable, and move on to the next project.

Labels: Coding, DCL, Descent, Descent: Underground, Gaming, League of Legends, Ron's Bronze Plays, roncli.com

Descent: Underground
Posted: 12:14:00 PM 0 comments

I posted a couple weeks ago about Descent: Underground, a game being created by Descendent Studios with the blessing of Interplay.

As little as I care for the shell of a company that is the modern-day Interplay, the game Descent (and Descent 2 and Descent 3) holds a special place on my hard drive. I played Descent 3 pretty hardcore for about 5 years, and even ran a Descent 3 Teams League for a number of years. Some of my favorite memories involve Descent LAN parties and Descent moments. No other game can get my blood pumping like Descent.

Yet, no game has filled the void that Descent has left since its last release in 1999. Others have tried, and others will continue to try, but to me, Descent is not Descent without a community supporting the game.

Parallax Online was an online service specifically for Descent 3 that transformed the game into something that was extremely accessible to play. While smaller than some communities, there was a time when you could get into a multiplayer game at any hour of the day.

Today, if you want a game, you have to hang around in a mumble server and hope there are other people available to play. Games still do happen every day, but you might not be able to find a game that you like, because so few are being played today.

I am hoping that Descent: Underground changes that.

No matter what you think of Interplay, this is Descent. It is being created by a team of developers with a pedigree of success and a proven track record of communication with their fans. They have shown their love for the game, and in turn the community has slowly began to get behind the team. One of the ways that I have done this is to create the Unofficial Descent: Underground wiki, a place where all of the information about the game is organized, and attributed to the source where the development team talked about it.

This could be big. Descent: Underground is going to be the most accessible Six Degrees of Freedom game ever, which will let new players hone their skills while the veterans go toe to toe with each other. New game modes promise to bring a whole new dimension to Descent that it hasn't had in the past. And, of course, with 16 years of new technology, even in pre-production, the game looks BEAUTIFUL.

Descendent Studios is asking for $600,000 to make the game. As of this writing, they are nearing $430,000, over 70% of their goal, with about 55 hours to go. If you are any kind of Descent fan, I strongly recommend giving them some of your money. This is our chance to bring back Descent, let's do it!

Labels: Descent: Underground, Gaming