The Gamer Gazette #13 ()
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Transcript of The Gamer Gazette #13 ()
In This Issue...
Dragon Age Inquisition Review
New for 2015
Interview with "Brotacular13"
Partner Channel Spotlight
Tazer News
Tazer News...
Last month we ran the Tazer Advent
Calendar, which was a huge success with
over 15 games to given away and a special
custom YouTube Banner for one lucky
person, we felt more like Santa then even
before!
Once again we'd like to say a huge Thank
You to all the companies who donated
games for the giveaway, without them we
would not be able to give away so many
games (Full list of companies can be found
on the Advent Calendar Page on the
Website).
Next Year, we hope to start giving away not
just games, but gaming gear too, but that is
going to take a lot of work during the next
12 months.
Tazer has many planned goals for 2015,
which you can find out about by reading the
"New for 2015" section after the Dragon Age
Review in this Magazine.
December also marked a momentous
occasion for Tazer. Our Gaming channel hit
over 200+ Subscribers and our network hit
over 100+ Partners and 250,000 total
network views.
This for us is an astounding achievement
that proves to us that we're doing
SOMETHING right. It's also a clear message
to all of you out there to NEVER GIVE UP!
You may have bad days when you feel like
it's never going to happen but as long as you
stick at it you will achieve your goals in the
end.
I do also have to mention that the staff
maybe changing a little in 2015. Fariko Epic
or Chris as some of you may know him has
decided to work on his own channel, so will
no longer be making videos for Tazer. We
wish him all the luck in the world with his
endeavours!
Korpah, as far as I am aware is still
recovering from a car accident he was in and
for the foreseeable future he will not be
making anymore videos. We send him our
best wishes and hope he gets better soon!
Hello Tazer Fans! Long time no see!
Welcome to the Dragon Age Inquisition
(if you have not yet signed up you can
pick up a form at your local recruitment
centre). As an intro to this I will point
out that I'm a sucker for side missions
and there's a lot of them in this game, so
many in fact that I still have to complete
it. But it is fun as hell, with a few
drawbacks.
Because the game is so big I will make
this in a few categories as seen below,
this is just so I can stay on topic and not
stray too far.
Story
If you're not familiar with the history of
Ferelden and Orlais, when magic was
being frequently used people noticed
that with that power corruption was not
far behind. And in order to keep the
mages in line, the order of the templar's
was created. Should a mage ever resort
to blood magic or be corrupted by a
daemon then templar's would hunt
them down and kill them. This has
caused a lot of tension in the world as
many mages want to be free and the
templar's would rather kill all of them in
order to keep the threat of daemons
away permanently. Both of these are
controlled by the Chantry, their church if
you will.
In order to make the war between them
stop the Chantry calls for a gathering,
mages and templar's travel from across
the world to meet up and then unseen
hand blows them all apart. Yes literally.
All the leaders from all factions are dead
and the war between templar's and
mages spirals out of control. The only
survivor is you, left with a green glowing
mark in the palm of your hand, you can
close the fade rifts that the explosion
opened all over the world. With a few
soldiers and mages by your side you
take up the mantle (or more accurately
are talked into) of the newly reinstated
Inquisition.
The story follows you as you try to
restore order to the world by uniting the
world under the banner of the
Inquisition.
What makes this so fun I think is how
the story alters depending on what
friends and
enemies you
make in the
world. One
of the
biggest one
is the way
your main
enemy NPC
appears. If
you choose to ally with the mages the
templar's will become your main enemy
force, and the other way around. This
causes you to have to develop your
character in different ways even if you
play the same character type twice in a
row. Fighting
mages and
templar's
need two
different skills
and thinking
after all. Not
to mention
there are a
million side
missions that will have a similar effect
but on a smaller scale, like unlocking
one area might cause you to wait for
others and so on.
To add to this let me tell you about the
war table for a bit. Here is where you
unlock new areas and send your agents
to do special tasks, like spying, gathering
research materials and more. And this at
first glance is
fine, sending
some one on a
mission will
take a few
minutes or an
hour as you
start, this is
fine. But at
where I'm at
some of them can take up to and over
20 hours, that’s a bit insane. Some of
them get done if you close the game and
open it again but it's just a ridiculous
amount of time for me to go around
killing random
stuff. Luckily
there's a lot of
things to be
killed and a lot
more stuff to
explore, not to
mention
gathering
ingredients for
crafting.
I also have to add that I could have been
further down the main story by now, but
I'm a sucker for side missions and can't
leave them uncompleted as it messes
with my imaginary ADHD and I just have
to complete all I can in an area before
moving on. While we are on it, let's talk
about the sides for a while.
Not only do you find collectibles but also
a wide variety of missions once you have
unlocked a new area beside the main
mission. Everything from gathering
Minerals for research, or to upgrade
your keep. Some of them you will have
to do, as every time you use the war
table to do story
related tasks
you need
"power"
in
order
to do
it. The
power
symbolizes
the amount of
combined wealth, influence
and military power the current
Inquisition have. As you will have need
of a certain amount to get in to courts
(most boring mission ever FYI) take your
armies through other people's lands and
so on. Some of them can be done
indefinitely, like the mineral gathering,
so I would suggest to concentrate on the
others just to get things moving forward
(it took me a while to realize they were
on a loop and I was getting nowhere, I
do have a insane amount of power
though).
As the story goes on you will gather
more followers, some of them can
follow you in the classic four man team
that you walk around with. Even
characters that can't fight with you can
be interacted with and sometimes give
better quests, or just more of the side
ones, and if you are like me, and the
story matters, then talking to them all is
a must, don’t know
how many
hours are
taken
away
from
just
conversations in
this game. But as they
are optional it should not matter much
for those of you that just want to click
them away. But I do find it interesting to
listen and to learn as its helps me to
immerse myself in the story and
development of the characters.
Characters
You can play as either a Elven, Human,
Dwarf or a Qunary. As most people are
familiar in one way or other with the
first 3 I will simply say they the Qunary is
a highly religious race of giants with
horns on their heads. They are mainly
warriors but have mages as well. They
don’t follow
the religion
of the other
races and are
considered
powerful but
not much
more is
known about
them as they
rarely seek alliances or trade with
others.
As a class you can play as the warrior,
Rouge and the Mage, all of them have
different skills and there's plenty of skills
to make sure
that should
you play
warrior for 6
characters no
one of them
have to be
alike. Lots of
different skills
to be used,
some of them have to be unlocked as
the story progresses and you finds
trainers to teach them to you.
As I mentioned before you're not the
only character in the game and many of
the NPC's can be talked to above the
ones that can follow you around on
missions, sometimes you gain some
obscure piece of information on the
person in question, something like a
new mission
and even
more rarely
you get some
interesting
information
about an
enemy or
someone
else. And I
like to talk to them, I have to say. Add to
this there are a few other familiar faces,
like Cassandra, Varric, Alistair and even
Hawk. The last one being the main
character in Dragon Age 2. Not only is it
fun for me to
see these
characters
again and
follow as
their
personalities
as they
grow, but
they also
give a fair
introduction to them even for the new
players. And it really adds to the
immersive feel of the story line. But be
prepared to talk, there's a lot of it even
if you only want to do the necessary
parts, you will still need to talk a lot.
Maps
The maps in
this game are
pretty big to be
fair. And with
virtually no
loading time
between them.
The only times I
see it lagging a
bit is when I entered an area with a high
dragon as the game was loading it, but it
was a split second and then I was back
on track again.
The way the map work's is you have a
big main map with points of interest
dotted over it.
By clicking on
one of these
you will travel
the map you
selected and
kill everything
(that’s what I
do). As the
story goes
forward you will unlock new missions
that might take you back to an older
map by unlocking a previously blocked
area, such as having a unit of soldiers
remove the rocks from a cave in
allowing you to pass through. These
things are done on the War table I
mentioned earlier, and I like how they
did it. If you find a point of interest, be it
a cave in or a polluted desert, if you
mark it by
putting down
one of the
Inquisitions
flags it will be
marked on the
map of the
War table and
next time you
are there you
can send soldiers to clear roads, build
new bridges or simply sanitize an area
well enough for you and your party to
keep pressing on.
Not only will the different maps give you
different
challenges as
they should as
in difference in
enemy units to
the animals
that lives
there. But it
will also give
you access to
new crafting materials you can collect (if
you have the time) or plants to help you
with your potions, salves and poisons.
It's worth exploring especially if you
want that little edge in combat and as a
mage I can tell you I love the
regenerating potions, they are the best.
A regenerating potion and a barrier
makes me almost invulnerable for a
time, and should I take some damage
when my barrier goes down the
regenerating potion will take care of it. I
love my mage.
Combine that with the Guard ability
from an accompanying warrior and your
set for life. But this is
a bit of topic I
notice (so
much for
making it
into
segments).
You will have to
take note of
quarries and logging sites as
well on the map as these will help you to
grow your fort and reinforce new areas
of it. Be it a new Chantry building or a
bigger plantation, you will need the
material for it.
Gameplay
As I stated before, the only time when I
see the game lagging a bit is when facing
the big dragons, that one second before
the battle starts, but then it sorts itself
out and I'm golden again. There are a
few small things however that slightly
tick me off.
1) When you press new game, or
Continue from the main menu the
loading time is a bit on the long side
before the game starts, but after that
the times are a bit more human. Even
though the maps are big I still don’t
want to spend that much time in the
loading menus. They
give you stuff to
read, but still.
2) As I play
on the PC
but I use a
controller,
the
pressing of
the green "A"
button picks things
up, but if your that millimetre
off target you will instead be jumping on
the spot. And this is not a big issue I give
them that, but I hate it, and it happens
so often. See a plant, or some loot, try
to take it, and jump up and down on top
of it instead. The worst time this
happened was while I was picking up (or
so I intended) some material at the edge
of a cliff, but duly jumped over the edge
instead to my early doom. Hate it!
3 Controlling your party members are
not as good as it was in the previous
games. Before you could tell them to
use different skills at different times, like
use Blizzard (a big area of effect spell)
when there are 3-5 enemies clunked
together. Or use this high damage arrow
on the strongest enemy in sight. Stuff
like that made
it very easy to
set up the A.I.
of your party
members so
you did not
have to
micromanage
them all the
time. It was a
huge help, and did not limit itself to
attacks, but went for utilities as well
such as potions. In Inquisition they have
the skills and they don’t use them.
Meaning that they will either not use an
ability, they will
use it, or they
will use it
slightly more
often. This is
such a bad
system that you
will do one of
two things.
First
micromanage every single second of
every encounter, or just fuck all and
leave them to their own fate. I do the
latter and only take control if I want a
special attack made (which I could have
programmed in the previous games) and
it works pretty well, but this system
leaves a lot to be wished for.
4) Horses….well horses is a stretch let's
call them mounts as there are more
than just your simple horses. You can
summon a
mount to ride
on and indeed
it makes you
move a bit
faster, but you
will end up
dismounting
every 3 seconds
anyway to fight an enemy or to pick up
some bloody plant that you just thought
you needed, that it's pointless to use it
in the first place. MAYBE if I could pick
up items or maybe even do some basic
fighting from horseback (that would be
awesome) but
as it is it's just
a waste of
time in most
cases. The only
thing cool is to
find them all as
some are a bit
scary and cool
looking, like the
Bog Unicorn with a sword through its
head as a horn.
Crafting
I decided to have this a separate
segment as it’s the biggest cause of my
delay in completing this game. Before I
go on you don’t have to use this system,
as you will find a lot of good gear on the
way, but I like to customize and add
more power to my already powerful
weaponry and armour.
First off you need to gather a lot of
material, some harder than others to
find, but after you have made an item,
let's take the mages staff for example.
You can add more upgrades to it even
after its completed, by exchanging the
staff head, the grip or the bottom blade,
adding even more power and effects to
it. Even adding some powerful runes can
make it to a completely different
weapon then the original. And this is
where my ADHD kicks in, depending on
the material used not only do you get
different properties', but also different
appearances, as colour for example. And
having the top red and the bottom of
the staff green or blue makes my eyes
twitch and I will spend countless hours
on finding the materials I need to make
it matching colours with the best buffs I
can get. Say what you want I don’t want
to go around looking like a fucking rain
bow, it's just not going to happen.
Same goes for armours and helmets.
making an armour, be it light medium or
heavy, will give you the same options of
materials and colours. Add in that one
can, with some amours, add parts like
with the weapons, for example adding a
new set of boots or armoured gloves to
the set, making it better (and still
keeping in a unified colour mind you).
You can craft your own runes here as
well, after finding the blueprints for
them in the wild. Some materials for this
can be found in merchants while others
need to be obtained by exploring or the
mindless killing of as many enemies you
can lay your staff on.
All in all this is a great game, and I have
experienced very few issues with it so
far. But if you pick up the title make sure
you have time, the game is long and if
you do all the missions you will have to
spend many hours in this. I have a total
of 55+ hours, I think, and I still have a
long way to go.
As a last note there is a multiplayer
option in this game but I have as of yet
not been able to play it, but I have heard
both good and bad things about it, so if
you have played it please let us know on
our Facebook page and maybe we can
share a game between us.
Until next time, Happy Gaming People.
By Kim Gustafsson
We have many plans for the future of
the Tazer Brand, but before I go over
what we are planning for next
year, I'd like to take a look
over the past
year to show
you exactly
how
much can
be
achieved
in a year.
Starting in
December 2013,
we had our very first
Advent Calendar
Giveaway. We gave away 3
games over the space of a month, and
this was very well received. The games
themselves came from a cheap humble
bundle that we picked up just before
Christmas. The reason I mention this is
because we have just recently
completed this year's Advent Calendar
where we gave away 16 games and a
custom YouTube Banner. The games
included big name titles such as Five
Nights at Freddy's and Doorkickers. Next
Year we hope to up our game once
more, giving away not only a ton more
games, but also gaming gear too.
Talking of Christmas, we also have plans
to create a Christmas In-Game
Pantomime for next year, something
that'll take a lot of work but I'm sure (if
we can pull it off) will be very rewarding.
Obviously, the most prolific
change this year has
been the
new Tazer
- Gaming
Network,
which I'm
happy to
say has
been a
huge
success. We
currently have
over 100 partners in the network, and
we turn over some 35,000 views every
single month.
Next year we have huge goals for the
network. We hope to hit 500-1000
subscribers on the Network Channel.
We hope to hit 250-400 Partners in the
network and bring in over 1 Million
Views every month!
Aside from views and subscribers, we
also have a number of new ideas for
future benefits to partners. Such as;
Tazer Sponsorships, Partner Run Tazer
Channels, Discounts on Gaming Gear
and Recording Equipment and hopefully
the start of our "Graphics for Everyone
Scheme", which involves having our own
Graphics Team who can provide free
graphics to all of our partners. This is a
big goal, but one we think is achievable.
We saw the starts of our team this year
with the addition of Gully Graphics to
our staff.
In terms of our gaming channel and vlog
channel, well the vlog channel has now
changed to the IRL and Podcast Channel,
which although now doesn't have a
weekly video schedule we are now
doing the podcasts regularly on a
monthly basis and will hopefully add
vlog videos as and when things crop up,
like gaming events etc.
The gaming channel is going to remain
very much the same, except we will be
trying some new series. We have just
start a Minecraft series and a Fun Series
called Taze-Tacular Games with
Brotacular13 that we are really excited
about. We are also hoping to do some
glitch, Easter egg and tip videos in the
future but not sure when they will start.
As for the rest of the series, we hope to
see Korpah back on his feet and raring
to go with the Tazer Plays Series, but for
that we will have to wait a little.
Aside from that, why not let us know
what YOU want to see by visiting our
website (www.TazerCG.com) and
suggest a game or series via the
"Suggest a Game" page.
Overall our plans for Tazer are to make
it bigger and better, always with
community at the heart of everything
we do. We know how hard it was when
we first started and want to help those
who are in that position now.
So here's to a great 2015, I hope that
you can follow us on our journey TO
TOTAL AND ULTIMATE WORLD
DOMINATION....wait....sorry I meant to
becoming the best we can...ahem!
Thank You for Reading!
Our Interview with...
Brotacular13!
Real Name: Nicholas Skafidas
Age: 16
Channel Name: Brotacular13
Started YouTube?: For Brotacular March
5th 2012 but for my old channel called
“Baskettball1234” I started February
10th 2012.
What made you want to start a YouTube
Channel?
I wanted to make a youtube channel
because I saw a youtuber named
1800PwnTime make these funny Man
vs. Skyrim Videos and I thought it was
the funniest and coolest thing in the
world so I grabbed my camera and went
to my friend’s house and we recorded a
video of us doing our own Man vs.
Skyrim and I made the channel
Baskettball1234. After doing
Baskettball1234 for a while I moved on
from it and created a channel called,
“Brotacular13” and decided to pursue
that one. And throughout my journey
with Brotacular13 I have run into many
obstacles such as losing internet, being
bullied about my channel being terrible.
And a lot of people ask me why do I stay
with this channel? And a lot of times I
tell them it’s because I love doing what I
am doing and that is true. But the other
reason that I do it and I don’t mention
this often is because my dad passed
away in 2009 and he was someone who
loved making videos and had always
wanted to become something great and
I thought I would make him proud by
carrying on his dream with me and this
youtube channel.
What do you hope to Achieve?
Honestly I hope to achieve my ultimate
goal of making youtube a full time
career. Even though I am only 16 I
haven’t found anything in the outside
world as fun and as rewarding then
youtube and I hope to reach 1,000
Subscribers before I graduate because if
I do then I am going to pursue my dream
and focus more on youtube then just
going to college for some boring career
that I won’t be happy with.
Do you have any "Real Life" Plans for the
Future?
Depends on what you mean by “Real
Life” I suppose. To me “Real Life” can be
anything if you put your heart into it and
for me that would be youtube. I have
already spent 2 or more years of my life
into it so why stop here?
Who is your Favourite YouTuber apart
from Tazer of Course? LOL
Hahaha. Well I would have to say my
inspiration came from 1800PwnTime
but I suppose while I was doing youtube
I looked up to Pewdiepie when I was
growing up.
Do you think you aspire to be like them
or do you try and be your own person?
I think in the beginning everyone aspires
to be like someone they have seen and
as they grow and become bigger they
come up with their own thing and learn
to branch off and become their own
person and I would say the same for
myself.
Where do you see yourself in 10 Years?
Hopefully doing what I am currently
doing right now. I don’t want to be just
another person in this world. I want to
become someone known that makes
people laugh and also someone who can
give back to the community.
What are your 3 Favourite Games?
This is a hard one… I do love assassin’s
creed, I also love Halo, and I suppose I
love the Walking Dead game on PC that I
have been playing for my channel.
PC Master Race or Console?
I really, really loved console for a long
time but after doing youtube and
receiving my own personally designed
Tower I learned to love PC more
because it’s so customizable unlike a
console that is only built one way and
can’t be changed. Although don’t get me
wrong I do love a good game on Xbox!
Partner Question: - How did you and
Tazer Meet?
I met Tazer when me and him were
invited to work for another network and
we basically hit it off and when he told
me he was making a network I decided
to come aboard and help out with the
growing of this network.
Partner Question: - How did you come
up with your Channel Name?
It’s a funny story actually. It started
when I asked my friend in middle school
if he had an idea for an Xbox user name I
could use. Now do keep in mind when I
asked this the whole putting the word
“Bro” in front of everything was
trending at the time. So he came up
with some stupid names like
“MinieMuffin24” and stuff like that until
he came up with the name Brotacular
and I fell in love with it. And a lot of
people can guess where the 13 came
from and it came from me being 13 at
the time.
If you could have any free piece of
gaming gear like Headset, camera, mic
etc. what would you have?
I would really love a new camera but I
am pretty happy with my GoPro I have
now. I think if I could have anything it
would be a new desk and more space
for recording because right now I am
cramped on space!
What piece of advice would you give to
all of our partners who are new to
YouTube?
The best advice I can give to you guys is
just stay with it. No matter how small
you are or how small you feel right now
you have to stay positive with
everything you are doing right now. I
believe that everything that happens to
you in life is a test and you can either
pass or fail that test and if your dream is
to grow on youtube then work hard and
make that dream become a reality. I’m
not saying it will be easy because it’s
not. The people who get life handed to
them on a silver platter are the ones
who don’t appreciate what they have.
It’s the people like us who work hard for
what we that learn to appreciate and
love what they are doing. And that’s
why I am never going to stop youtube
and that’s why you shouldn’t ether.
Were you told you were getting paid for
this? Because you're not...I have a
gummy bear you can have though, will
that do?
I think I will have to talk to my lawyer
about this… actually give me the gummy
bear and we are even…
What is
up guys and
welcome back
to another
Channel
Spotlight that
features one
lucky Youtube
Partner from the Tazer Gaming
Network. This month’s featured channel
goes by the name of UnitedGamers.
UnitedGamers has been doing
Youtube since September 13th 2014 and
currently has 2,877 total video views
and 82 Subscribers. The channel
features 6 different staff members, Dan,
Matt, Casey, Martin, Dean, and Ike!
These are the people who create many
different types of videos varying from
daily Vlogs to Gaming Commentaries on
this channel.
While checking out the channel I
watched their featured trailer labelled:
“What is UnitedGamers”. And while
watching I learned that this Youtube
channel loves to feature the game that
everyone knows and loves called
Minecraft. But this is not the only game
that the channel features. They play
many of the classic games we all know
and love such as Five nights at Freddy’s,
Grand Theft Auto V, and so much more!
Some things I think that could use
improving on the UnitedGamers channel
is having a regular posting time for each
member of the channel for a certain day
of the week. The reason I suggest this is
because viewers like to know when
videos come out on others channels!
UnitedGamers also has a website which
can be found in the about page of their
Youtube Channel. The website features
many different things such as Polls,
Blogs, and their very own Forum! After
checking out the channel I believe that
this is a very good channel that has the
potential to grow and become better as
time progresses which is why I would
like to personally congratulate
UnitedGamers for receiving this month’s
spotlight here at the Tazer Gaming
Network.
Anyways guys that is going to
wrap up this month’s spotlight here at
the Tazer Gaming Network remember to
Subscribe and become a partner with
the Tazer Gaming Network to have your
channel featured in the monthly
magazine and don’t forget to check out
Brotacular13’s series of Tazer Reviews to
get a chance to have your channel
reviewed in a video on the network.
From all of us here at the Network we
wish you a good rest of your month!
~Brotacular13