Clash Royale

[Gogan]

Anyone else playing this? It's basically Hearthstone meets Clash of Clans. It has replaced Hearthstone as my go-to mobile game right now. Games are super quick at 1-3 minutes each; it has the card collecting aspect; and a sort of mini-RTS play style.

I haven't spent a dime on it yet and I've gotten quite a bit of enjoyment out of it. If you wanted to be reach the higher ranks of competitive play quickly, you'd definitely need to drop some cash to speed up acquisition of the higher-end cards though.

Anyway, highly recommended if it sounds even remotely interesting.

[Gronthor]

I have been playing Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes. Basically Brave Frontier type of game but with Star Wars Theme. I really like it.

[Blake]

I moved back to texas recently and im living out in the country with no internet. my coworkers daughter got me playing clash of clans. all i have is phone games now. i will def check this out, thx asano

[Gogan]

Originally Posted by Blake

im living out in the country with no internet.

Whoa, on purpose? Or did you get lost and need us to send help?

[Blake]

Lol ya on purpose. Last August I moved back to St Louis. Then Dallas got some bad hail and fizzix told me to come back down to work. So instead of paying 800-1k for anow apartment I'm staying with a co-worker for only 300/mo. It's 20min from downtown but it's out in the country and the only net out here is satellite. Don't want to pay 100$ for 15down/2up 50gig/mo cap. So I'm now a phone gamer QQ.

This game is fun but waiting hours for these chest to open kinda sucks.

[Gogan]

Yeah, waiting for chests. Clash of Clans has the same, arguably worse, problem though. In that game, you're always waiting for workers to finish building something, or waiting for elixer/gold to be collected. You can pay money to speed that up, but the core of that game is very much focused on building your base, so they effectively put much of the gameplay behind a paywall.

The core gameplay of Clash Royale is not gated. Previously, winning matches wouldn't give you any award (chests) if you already had four. But at least you could still play matches and advance in rank. Although to be fair, your overall rank is sort of gated by getting the better cards from chests. In the latest patch, now you'll get gold for winning matches, regardless of your chests total, so you can in theory buy cards from the store with gold instead of relying on solely on chests.

If you're into Clash of Clans, you'll appreciate the following stories about what it takes to reach the upper ranks of the game. The first article is actually a great read for any of us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/te...main.html?_r=0

http://www.businessinsider.com/saudi...5-10?r=UK&IR=T

To grasp the extent of Mr. Yao’s immersion in the game, you have to understand a little more about the strategy of Clash of Clans. In order to keep your trophy count high, a premier player has to avoid being attacked by other top contenders. You can do this either by staying constantly online or by the protection of a “shield” that usually lasts for 12 hours. You automatically get a shield when an attacker destroys 40 percent of your village or your town hall.

On weekends, Mr. Yao could inoculate himself against attacks by staying online. This meant ordering in meals, when he ate at all, and taking the iPad with him into the bathroom. But come Monday, he needed a shield so he could go to work. So he would rise before dawn and spend hours trying to get the game’s server to pit him against another elite player in his clan, who could then attack his village just enough to trigger a shield, which — assuming he had timed everything right — would last just long enough to get him through the workday without being attacked.

In time, he found another, simpler way to shield himself. When a member of North 44 would quit the game, Mr. Yao would take over his account. Then Mr. Yao would use one of his multiple accounts to attack himself when he needed a shield. In order to pull this off, though, he had to keep all of these other accounts highly ranked, which meant playing as many as five accounts at the same time, around the clock. Another wealthy clan member in the United Arab Emirates bought Mr. Yao three iPads to make this feasible — but even then, it was feasible only in the technical sense. At one point, he was bringing five iPads into the shower with him, each wrapped in a plastic bag, so that none of his accounts would go inactive.

To those of us raised in the world before social media, it is a given that the “real” world is the one in which you sit in traffic on your way to pick up the dry cleaning. Our connection to this world is the chief measure of our sanity. But if we’re honest about it, reality is hardly so simple now. When a guy like George Yao can plow through an anesthetizing day of mortgage regulations only to return at night to a digital fraternity where he is loved and celebrated, with friends who share his daily experience, who’s to say which is real and which is illusory? If a game can make you famous, if it can yield genuine friendships and even a new career, then why shouldn’t it become, at least for a time, the epicenter of your life?

You have to at least consider the possibility that, dropped into a claustrophobic apartment in the middle of a large city with nothing to bind you to it, you, too, could seek refuge in the pursuit of belonging and greatness, until one day you woke up to find yourself showering with a couple of iPads.

[Blake]

Ya I am enjoying both. I remember that article. I believe you posted it back when we played pad.

Between coc and Royale I'm pretty set. Can you 1v1 friends in royale?

[Gogan]

I know you can 1v1 clan members. Not sure about friends. In fact, I'm not even sure there is such a thing as a friends list in that game.

[Blake]

Do you have a clan? If so what is the name? I'm only level 5 on arena 3 but I would like to fight you.

[Gogan]

Yeah, I joined a random one called "Clan.com". Only 16/50 members, ~5k trophies, not super active. Its icon is a white sword on a blue shield (apparently there are a few clans named the same). Clan tag #29G2QJY. It's open to everyone so you should be able to search and find it.

I'm only level 6 arena 4, so about the same as you.