[NW] Open Beta

One of my recent distractions has been Neverwinter since it’s in open beta now. I’ve really only started at it this weekend though I did play it a bit yesterday.

It appears they nerfed the Great Weapon Fighter some… or adjusted the effects of their abilities. I seem to remember the at-will attack (not the one that charges up) sweeping through multiple enemies at once. It did not appear to do this anymore. I also remember having a ‘charge’ type ability, though it doesn’t seem to be there now. I can’t say I like that so much. It leads me to not really wanting to play the GWF.

I took a stab at the Trickster Rogue (yeah, pun intended) and enjoyed that a fair bit more. I have to say the damage he deals is no where close to what the GWF appears to dish out – it’s actually far more than the GWF deals. I did notice a few things appeared to change for the Rogue, but I didn’t play it enough in the previous beta weekends to get a feel for it.

Leveling has changed. It seems the way you level up and select powers has changed. I’m not sure it is for the better because you ultimately just place points because you can and don’t really get too many options to start with. False customization is how I’d describe it.

I did get to fiddle with the Foundry some – the tutorials are missing and I was too rushed to read up on the documentation (if there was some). Design of the tool seems pleasing, though I was disappointed to see there wasn’t a large number of prefab buildings. You sorta piece things together. Because of this and the uneven ground of some of the areas you can work with (and my time constraints) I didn’t get to quickly build a little hamlet outside of Neverwinter. I did throw a few encounters there to see what it would be like. Fairly interesting really. I didn’t get much further than that – it was Mother’s Day, after all – and I haven’t taken another look at it since that one time.

The TR is up to about where I left off previously in a Beta Weekend, though I have done a PVP Domination map. Unfortunately, my team got dominated. To be fair, we were supposed to have 5 members against their 5 members and instead we had three connected members and two disconnected members against their five members.

Control Wizards need some tweaking in PVP. They have too many good abilities that effectively lock up a player. With all the abilities they have the slow, stop or prevent you from using your special abilities, they really shouldn’t be able to ‘dodge’. You simply can’t get to them before they have some other mechanism to stop you then when those abilities are on cooldown, they can dodge out of the way and the cooldowns are done. It’s kind of overpowered. Even with my encounter power that teleports me behind them, they simply dodge out of the way and start using their many CC abilities.

Lots of CC in PVP is just bad. People don’t like to feel useless and they like to be rendered useless even less. But then I don’t play it to PVP and I only went in there because it was part of the ‘tutorial quests’ you get as you level.

I seemed to be getting more items dropping than I remember, not sure why that was. Most were slight upgrades.

I also got to do a little crafting which seems like a hybrid of SWTOR and other games. You get a hireling that is specialized in a crafting task, provide him the materials or tell him to get more materials and wait on the results. Nifty enough. Of course they tie in the ability to speed up getting the resulting items by spending Astral Diamonds much like you’d see in something like Clash of Clans.

It’s a nice little distraction for when I have nothing better to do.

 

[WoW] 90 #2

My Warrior hit 90 tonight and I feel… nothing. I don’t know what I want to do with the Warrior or even if I want to continue to do anything.

Grind dailies?
Grind dungeons?
Grind rep?
Grind heroics?
Grind raids?

None of it sounds all that appealing.

So I cancelled because now I can. That “sub for a year and get D3 for free!” thing is finally up for me. It taught me never to bother doing that again.

What now?

[NW] More Impressions on Neverwinter

This is a running log of thoughts I’ve had and experiences as I’m playing throughout the afternoon. I’ll try to prefix things in case you’re interested in something more specific. Enjoy.

[Character Creation] Lots of origin location choices with sub-choices, for my Wood Elf Trickster Rogue I went with Luskan and Former Gang-Member. The Deity options seem fairly limited and I was left wondering why their wasn’t one more suited to a Trickster? Cyric was missing (no Evil options?), no Mask option or Tymora and not even Waukeen if you wanted to be a bit of a dirty merchant.

[Foundry] Took a quick look at the Foundry option available – which is to say it is just a catalog of quests created, the actual creation mechanism is still disabled. It is clear they have opened it up for some people to make modules which you can pick up on and play. I see a lot of potential value in this as it enables the players to create content for other players. It has a ranking system and you can even subscribe to authors to continue doing their quests. I can see this being a bigger reason for me to play than the actual gameplay itself.

[Meh] The tutorial voice sounds pretentious… or constipated. It’s trying too hard or maybe I just don’t find anything epic about a rumbling voice explaining, “Use WASD keys to move around.”

[Foundry] Once you complete the starter bit you can then take quests from the Foundry. You just pop through the catalog of quests and events available, then pick the one you want, click Accept and it gets added to your Journal. I like it.

[Map] Map navigation is made easier by opening the main map and selecting a location you want to go to. This will shift your glowing trail to point at that location.

[Leveling] XP gains seemed odd. Initially it seems to only come from quests, but I get them impression it is actually awarded after an ‘encounter’ or group of enemies tied together. It does not seem like you can just grind mobs to level.

[Immersion] I don’t feel there is a lot of immersion, at least not yet. I find the animations for the combat to be too fantastic to feel immersed. Perhaps with some more questing it could be but the initial quests are all the same (so far) regardless of class. Where is the Thieves Guild? Why haven’t they leaned on my Rogue yet? He’s new to the city and should be expected to pay ‘taxes’ on his earnings… My Great Weapon Fighter gets the same quests… nothing overly aimed at him either. Like I said, maybe there is something later, but it would have been nice to see sooner.

[Journal] The Journal has a lot of details in it, not just quest information but a lot of other things in there too. I didn’t really feel like stopping and reading it all but figured it was worth mentioning. Maybe part of my immersion issue is with lack of experience with Faerun as it is in 4e.

[Meh] The game music has a little too much electric guitar in it. It gives you this sense of urgency when you’re exploring but it seems out of place. That could contribute to my loss of immersion.

[Gear] Found some of the shops, basically merchants in the market that I zipped by. Checked out the armor vendor, seems to only sell chest armor? Checked out the weapon merchant and he only seemed to sell greatswords. I get that it’s filtered to not show you items your class can’t use and that you can click a button to see all but my complaint is about availability of basic weapons like great clubs, dire maces, a maul or even a greataxe – where are the options? Lerol needs his Falchion.

[Graphics] I had my graphics settings up nearly to the max but there were some issues with lagging – which is odd because I can play more graphically intense games without lag (I have a 3gb nVidia card GTX560M). I took a few minutes to drop some settings and discovered it’s almost entirely in the shadows. I put everything back up to what it was (actually put AA up higher) and dropped shadows a couple of steps. That seemed to do it because it’s now performing much better.

[Main Quest] Followed along the main quest line and so far it is okay, I wouldn’t say ground breaking, but decent and solo-friendly. Which has me wondering just how much is solo-friendly?

Foundry Adventure: Dungeons of Dread – Part 1: Crypt of Carnage

I decided to try out a Foundry dungeon and picked Dungeons of Dread: Crypt of Carnage. It starts by talking to a guard who tells you where to find this mad man who has created a dungeon filed will challenges from his imagination. He’s looking for heroes brave enough to venture in and test their mettle against his creations.

Yeah, sorta meh premise but it’s something.

I step in to a tavern and look around, find the guy who says all I need to do to get started is jump into the portal. A bouncer is there blocking the way out. There are several barrels and kegs with one repeatedly found and labeled, “Bon Urr Oil”. Is that a play on phonetics or legit? I’m afraid to Google it.

I pop into the dungeon and see that it is all very dark – which makes me wonder about various vision types since my character is a Half-Orc. Doesn’t seem to matter any, ah well.

So back to the dark dungeon. There is a big NPC there titled GM’s Assistant. Oh. I talk to it and it points out the exit to the map if you need to leave or stumble into a bad bug. Noted.

I move along to start exploring. More barrels of … oil. Some undead attack – they appear to be scaled to my level (6) and do not seem overly tough. There is enough of them that it is a bit more of a challenge and my Great Weapon Fighter takes quite a beating but survives. Along the way the log is updating with simple instructions like, “Explore the cells”, “Fight the two Guardians” and “Explore the morgue”. More darkness, more undead.

[Foundry] Why was this rated 4.5? Suddenly the thought that the rating system could become more about having friends submit ratings or having simpletons gawk at parlor tricks so they clap over enthusiastically (i.e. they’ve young or poor taste causing less than awesome things to be rated higher than they should be). I worry for the Foundry. Perhaps they’ll have Friend recommended lists or something? I haven’t looked closely enough… but there is still hope.

Some high-points to the map: the undead do appear to spawn in a sensible manner; from coffins or crypts. There are bits of writing and lore in there that imply the ‘mad man’ is truly mad. These also show that this wasn’t just a throw all sorts of stuff into a map and let people suffer through it. I have to give the author credit for that, it just feels like a dungeon romp for the sake of romping through a dungeon. I suppose my main issues are the randomness of the layout, the darkness of it all and the lack of sense to any of it.

[Issue] Stumbled across a few issues while playing. My Great Weapon Fighter’s Avalanche of Steel attack seemed to put him under the floor for a bit. I ended up only seeing a circle for him but was otherwise able to attack. Come to think of it, I saw something similar for enemies that were there but not. Another portion where I used my charge ability (Vicious Charge) also put me under the ground.

Okay just completed the Royal Hall section which has me taking back the comment about this dungeon not being just about trying out the editor. The hall was filled with traps including one floor spike trap sitting right in front of the gate out of it, almost like the creator was saying, “F U!”

[Foundry] Done with that, left a review which is limited in the number of characters almost like a tweet.

Done with Dungeons of Dread.

[Main Story] Back to the main story, I’ve moved into Black Lake District. Sound familiar? Did some running around in there and now I’m down in the sewers again – fighting wererats though.

[Mechanics] Silver weapons required? Doesn’t seem like it. Maybe that’s a 4e change. Speaking of weapons, I’m disappointed that I don’t have any ranged abilities and unlike the old table top D&D you can’t just grab a bow and use it. I’ve yet to see a bow actually. Throwing knives for my Trickster Rogue? Sure, but no bows yet. Well, aside from the ones your enemies shoot you with.

[Polish] Bonus points to Cryptic – you can resize a lot of the windows like your inventory/bags view. Small thing, but its often those small things that get tossed aside for bigger, fancier features. The windows and UI actually look nice, unlike a certain other MMO based on Dungeons and Dragons. Only complaint still has to do with the font for names.

[Mechanic] The idle delay disconnect timer is set to 15 minutes which I almost hit while writing some of these points.

[Leveling] I’ve been playing for roughly 3.75 hours and I’m level 10 now with my Great Weapon Fighter. I’ve done Black Lake District, a Foundry adventure and another one which seemed to be a Foundry adventure (was little more than a small back alley fight) and now I’m into another Foundry adventure which looks promising. That’s what it took to get to level 10.

[Mechanic] At level 10 a new meter was added to the left of my character on screen, a Determination meter. When it reaches half, I can trigger an ability called Unstoppable which makes my attacks swing faster at expense of some damage. It also gives me some anti-crowd control benefits for a short time. This looks like you can customize it as you gain levels, you will gain extra effects to put in there.

[Mechanic] Another option that opened up at level 10 is the ability to Invoke your God once every hour. You need to do this from a campfire (or similar location with spinning blue runes) and you will be granted a bunch of stuff. In my case I was given XP and some minor items. The XP was enough to push me to 11th – previous quests really pushed me into 10 and I was slacking on reviewing the gains.

Foundry Adventure – The Dweomerkeepers: Part 1 A Discovery in Neverwinter Wood

A slightly more interesting start. Rumors of Drow in the woods near an old temple to Mystra, I’m sent to investigate. I come across a campsite where someone is dying of poison. I talk to them and they warn me that Drow did it and they are nearby. I am then attacked by a Drow Ambusher.

The set is outside on a wooded road. Looks pleasant actually, but still  a small instance to start with.

Combat heavy so far. Lots of Drow spawning in as ambushes followed with spider encounters right after.

Ran into a Drow Priestess at the entrance to the old Temple, that was neat but I think she actually healed me.

[Foundry] It seems that the Foundry that built this adventure did not yet have the ‘mechanic’ Campfires available for placement so I have to rely heavily on potions and my raw awesomeness. EDIT: Portable Altars create a Campfire-like effect. You get healed at them and can invoke your God from them.

[Issue] Walking through a kitchen counter? Hmm…

First part complete. The “Inn” seemed to be more of a monastery or something. Definitely a brighter layout than what I previously played through. Lots of spiders.

Lots.

Ending fights were interesting, including something casting a darkness spell which was pretty neat looking. Reminded me of a squid inking the water – it was a dark violet with murky edges.

[Issue] The ambient sounds inside the Inn seemed to have the frequency or occurrence set too high. The sound of floorboards creaking was performed far too often. It sorta killed the whole, “What was that?” moment. I’m not sure if this is something you can adjust in the Foundry or not… but it should be.

On completing this part of the quest, I have to return to my content in Neverwinter (a cleric) to hand over the relics I collected.

[Polish] It would be nice if there were some way to pick a gate to enter from in order to pick the gate nearest the quest giver. I like the look of Neverwinter (the city) but really don’t enjoy running from end to end for questing.

The ending of this quest had some dialogue that could have used a redirect back towards some other questions, but overall it was interesting.

I filled in the rating and even tipped the author a small number of Astral Diamonds (which I earned from the main story quest). On finishing that, NW (the game) noted there was another mission to the campaign and so it advanced the quest to that one.

Foundry Adventure – The Dweomerkeepers: Part 2 Off the High Road

On to the second part…

Ah, I see the author figured out how to do a ‘go back and ask more questions’ dialogue loop. Good to see.

And you get to bring a NPC along, though she’s mostly ineffective. She warns you that lizardmen come out of the water with the fog. Sure enough if you walk the shore you find patrolling lizardfolk and even some in the water.

[Issue] Going into the deeper water seemed to have a weird effect on the display. You don’t exactly end up swimming because it’s not that deep (wonder about a halfling?). The mobs I found in there didn’t seem to want to move out of it.

Tripped over what looks to be an elite creature, “Foulspawn Hulk”. It is huge, red and very angry. It took a bit of kiting it around but I defeated it.

Oooh! Into a cave theme… sort of a fungal cave and the NPC is here with something to say.

Some interesting little mechanics used in here. A bit of dialogue triggered encounters and quest counters.

Seems things aren’t as simple as only the Drow wanting what your’e after. Nifty.

Back to Neverwinter.

[Mechanic] A hour had passed so I stopped to Invoke my God. I was rewarded with another slight damage bonus, some XP (610 to be exact) and some Astral Crystals. Seems you get rewarded for hourly play.

[Foundry] I suspected this earlier, but it looks to be more positive now – the Foundry’s dialogue editor has options for having the NPC perform some actions. On returning to the Cleric, he bows to me and the dialogue text described as much.

[Foundry] I have a concern about the quest rewards. It appears they are randomly generated and the author has no control over them. This is disappointing, but I can only hope this isn’t the case, merely the author of this adventure has selected to award some random item. It’d be best if there were settings to select the type of reward; such as a weapon, armor piece, jewelry, etc. The system could then reward according to character level. This would allow authors to tailor their rewards to the target audience. For example, if I were to create an adventure aimed at the Thief type, I could tailor the dungeon to have thieving spots, traps, locks (do those exist?) and reward for a thief – leather armor of some sort. Same deal for a quest aimed at a Wizard type or Cleric or Fighter.

[Mechanic] *cough* Falling damage is in game. *ahem*

[Polish] Log to Character Selection appears to be missing. Only options are Log out (to log in screen) and Exit game entirely. This is a very basic function that has be around for awhile. Make it so Cryptic!

Foundry Adventure – The Dweomerkeepers: Part 3 Dweomerkeep Temple

[Issue] Something happened on my follow up with the third part of this quest line where I had to go to the Moonstone Mask. It happened right after I interacted with the Broker for another quest (main line quest). It seemed like everything that should be interacted with was not showing the ‘F to interact’ tip and could not be interacted with.

(Quest Issue) There seems to be an improper [/ooc] closing tag in the author’s dialogue with the little Drow urchin. One of the first mistakes I’ve seen so far with this quest series.

[Classes] I was looking through the Auction House for some armored pants or something when I saw the “Any Class” drop down. I decided to drop it a look. Here’s the list: Trickster Rogue, Devoted Cleric, Iron Vanguard, Control Wizard, Hellbringer, Divine Oracle, Great Weapon Fighter, Spellstorm Mage, Master Infiltrator, Swordmaster and Guardian Fighter. Of those only five are available for play. I’m not sure if the other classes are even mentioned outside of this dialogue. Spoiler? Someone already saw this at some point yesterday.

Back to the quest. This one progresses a little different. Instead of exiting any gate and picking a point on the map, you exit a specific gate and it triggers an ambush.

Very cool little portal trick for jump to the Temple and out of the Temple.

Foundry Adventure – The Dweomerkeepers done.

There are supposed to be five more parts to it, but they are not done yet. Impression so far? Decent enough. Story is more complicated and interesting than the previous ones I did and it looks like the creator was able to do a fair bit of neat things in the editor.

I’m now level 13.

[Mechanic] In game currency is called Astral Diamonds. This is used for special gear or to convert to Zen which is used as a micro-transaction currency. You can earn Astral Diamonds from invoking your God, completing quests (I think) and as a ‘tip’ for creating cool adventures. Other in game currency includes the expected gold, silver and copper which is used for more mundane items. The micro-transactions include dye packs (which are noted to be consumed on one item – not kept in a library of colors like in Guild Wars 2!), character slots (2 per purchase), bags, cosmetic items, companions, and boosts. It does not seem to be ‘pay to win’.

[Issue] I tried looking up the pricing for Zen through Perfect World’s site and they stuck a “Enter your payment info” door in front of me. I have no desire to give any payment information without first seeing the prices. That’s just a bad deal. A little Googling and I found the following:

Zen Prices:
$50.00 = 5,000 + 300
$30.00 = 3,000
$20.00 = 2,000
$10.00 = 1,000
$5.00 = 500

I figured I’d list it for those that are interested. I’m a complete cheapo though, I don’t see value in any of the items they sell short of character slots – which is something that has always been ‘free’ in other sub-games (quotes around ‘free’ because I realize there is a monthly sub hehe). The cost of two extra character slots is 5$ which I can see being not too bad.

[Main Quest] Back to the main stuff. I was given a quest to go talk to a crafting supply person. That person said I need to hire someone. Quest updated to say, “Open your crafting window” to which I say, “How do I do that?” Crafting eludes me again… or me it. I’ll look it up shortly.

Foundry Adventure – BAR FIGHT!

I started poking into the Foundry listing again and took a peek at the Featured tab. There is one there about a bar brawl… mouahaha! Surprisingly enough it is called, “BAR FIGHT!” Estimated time is 2 minutes. The comments seem to imply it is a hack and slash quick quest for power-leveling.

You knew it was bound to happen. Small, bar-themed room with a rowdy pirate proprietor hosting a series of waves. The dialogue was amusing as was one of the waves where it was supposed to be the local authorities. Reward was given in a back room… not that kinda of reward, it was a chest.. the opening kind with treasure in it! Anyway, I score some Cleric boots… that’s right, Cleric boots. Damn you random loot rewards.

Foundry Adventure – BAR FIGHT! done.

[Crafing] So back to Crafting. I asked in zone-wide chat and someone answered how to open the Professions Window – press N. “Professio[n]“. Literally would have been the last key I’d have tried.

[Meh] That completed the quest and.. well, I couldn’t do anything else with it because I don’t actually have a profession. This quest seemed a little pointless… it didn’t explain crafting or where to get a profession from.

Anyway, I’ve been at it for roughly 7 hours – on and off – so time to stop. Since this is just a weekend beta this is likely all I’ll talk about in this post. I don’t know if I’m automatically going to be in the next beta weekend.

I’ll try to answer questions if people have them, but I’ve pretty much said everything I did up above. I can clarify if it’s confusing.

Maybe.

[NW] Oops, Beta Weekend 3

Good thing I checked my spam mail address yesterday night because I received a Neverwinter Beta invite from Gamebreak.tv‘s free giveaway. I started the download while I was leveling up my Warrior in WoW (89 now) and once the download was done, I gave it an install. Simple enough process. Logged in, little patch, adjusted settings and then rolled a Great Weapon Fighter.

I won’t go into too much more because I didn’t really play for very long but I will throw out some first impressions:

1. Font used for labels is sort of jarring and stands out too much
2. There was some lag in overcrowded areas (my system is a beast so I’m going to blame their engine), though it wasn’t unplayable – just enough to notice it was there
3. I did the initial part and the ‘Save the Crown’ quest
4. Controls are really simple and straight forward
5. Mobs weren’t exactly challenging – granted it was the starting area
6. Their mini-map is confusing – lots of stuff on there; that is likely just not knowing what the symbols are
7. Character creation was simple
8. Customization was limited, but the options available made sense
9. Attribute die-rolling doesn’t seem as random as it should be if it really was die rolls. I almost suspect they randomly switch between preset attribute builds.
10. Races available: Human, Halfling, Dwarf, Tiefling, Half-Orc, and two flavors of Elves: High (heeeey maaaan!) Half-Elf (they hop along on their one leg) and Wood (shaaaawing!) Elf. (EDIT: Can you tell I didn’t pay too much attention to the Elves?)
11. Class available: Devout Cleric, Controller Wizard, Trickster Thief, Guardian Fighter and Great Weapon Fighter.
12. They have that glowie-umbilical cord to lead you from A to B
13. Graphics had some decent details, but didn’t feel as crisp as other games
14. Animations were decent
15. Combat abilities had some impact, especially with swinging the large weapon around though they need to make the Charge ability have more of an impact – it felt more like you were a ghost going through targets instead of knocking them over
16. I didn’t see any access to Foundry stuff but then I didn’t look either.
17. I couldn’t find a store to buy new armor or weapons (see mini-map xenophobia above)
18. I didn’t do any crafting (heh – like I would…)
19. I didn’t do any exploring yet – seems like you’re limited to the areas you are in, rather than any sort of free roaming or sandbox type.

My initial feeling is it could be nice little game but I can’t see myself playing it with any dedication (shut up UFTimmy – I know, I don’t play any games with any sort of dedication anymore).

The Foundry, depending on how powerful it is, may get me more involved with the game than the actual game itself. Still it wasn’t a bad overall feel. It feels more like an action game (which is what they were aiming at, so good on them) than what I traditionally view as MMO fare.

Fortunately it will be free to play so I can easily see myself playing it from time to time, maybe even with some friends from work who don’t want to invest too much into a game and don’t really like the wide open world type of games because they get too into them (or lost).

[IRL] Wattup?

Busy working, which is good. Loving it.

Outside of work it’s been family stuff, reading and a light smattering of gaming.

Last week I completed Starcraft 2′s Heart of the Swarm expansion. It was pretty good, though short if you’re only into it for the single player. Well done though and pretty stable. No problems logging in to play – unlike some other game which I avoided entirely.

Been playing a little WoW. Started leveling my Deathknight to 90, but stopped and switched back to my Warrior who I leveled up to 85 before Christmas – which was the last time I played prior to poking around with the Deathknight. It’s been fun. I like the Warrior’s flow, pace and durability. While the Rogue and the Hunter have a number of escapes, not quite for the Warrior. Oh, you can great leap away or pop up that 100% parry buff but you still have to high-tail it to get out of combat. I like the impact of the class – feels very solid. Playing Arms.

Prior to that I was playing around with Mass Effect 3 multiplayer with a guy from work. It’s fun, but there is little point to it other than it inflating your Readiness in the single player, achievements (which I don’t tend to chase) and the short bouts of fun shooting enemies cooperatively. I did do a complete play through of Mass Effect 1, playing as an Engineer. Imported to Mass Effect 2 which I played through as well. And finally into Mass Effect 3 where it was awesome to see the impact of all the decisions I made throughout the games. If you haven’t played through then you get a lot of the default decisions or characters which means you have some tougher choices – usually one thing against another. If you played all the way through and your crew from the second Mass Effect survived then they’re present to turn those tough choices into positives. Pretty cool.

Otherwise I’ve been reading, watching some training videos on C# and taking a peek into ASP.NET MVC and a little fiddling with WPF (making a little Minecraft properties app for the kids to use with their server).

Fun times – no time for blogging except when I make the time. Sorry folks!

MMOs I’m eyeballing: Neverwinter and The Elder Scrolls Online.

Neverwinter has my interest because it’s free-to-play and has a toolset. The toolset doesn’t look to be all that powerful but it might be fun to play with. If there is any investment required, I’ll pass. Sounds horrible, but it’s the difference between them not getting my money or having a chance to convince me to invest.

For TESO I have a lot of reservations about how well Bethesda will be able to create a decent scale-able system for just about everything; levels, crafting, gear, dungeons, enemies – really, just about everything. Their single player games are just so fragile as far as balance goes, I worry it’ll be a game filled with flavor of the month type builds.

Playing some XBox 360 lately too. Black Ops 2 Zombies with the kids, some Borderlands 2, a bit of Crysis 3 and lately some Fallout New Vegas. It’s been fun. I may have already mentioned it, but I’m shifting the kids more towards console gaming – buying one copy of the game and both of them being able to play it just makes more sense than trying to maintain multiple PC copies through Steam or Origin or whatever distribution software the game uses.

Out!

[GW2] Typical SmakenDahed Fashion…

In typical ‘me’ fashion, I pick at a game trying to find out why I keep stalling then end up spending the next day playing it lots.

I settled on the Charr for a race. I liked the personal story and militant nature of them. This time I went Ash Legion instead of Blood Legion so there was a different start.

I went Ranger for class. I figure I liked having a pet in WoW, might enjoy it in GW2. So far I do like it, it is quite different from WoW.

You don’t have as much control over your pet – call back, attack my target, toggle aggressive/passive and trigger a single special ability. In WoW you could set up macros to handle casting a varied number of abilities (not sure how much that was impacted by Mists of Pandaria, but I suspect it was) so you had a little more control over them. I also haven’t sorted out exactly how it works for taming a pet. It seems a simple choice to “Charm” when you stumble across something that can be tamed. I see a panel of pets I could have charmed and what seems to be two actively available which I can toggle between with F4 – which is nice. Some pets are not available under water (makes sense) so you automatically dismiss the non-water pet and pull out the water capable one. It’s possible (and likely) the pet management window has two spots for land and two for water – I didn’t really look closely at this and it wasn’t shoved in my face since I have the tutorial tips off.

I have three pets at the moment: Devourer, Hyena and Bear. The Devourer (scorpion looking thing) is amphibious so that is what pops out when I go into the water. Its special ability is to drop a poison cloud effect on the ground (looks like it can be used in combos too). The Hyena’s special ability is to spawn a duplicate/ally that I have no control over and it seems to roam about agroing stuff when what I’m fighting was dead. The Bear has a roar special ability which (I think) is a debuff.

I think I found an issue with the pet naming system. I named the Devourer something, loaded up the Hyena in the second slot and renamed that. Then swapped the Bear into the first slot (in place of the Devourer) and the Devourer’s name stuck to it. I could rename it, just weird that it didn’t refresh back to the other name (or Juvenile Black Bear).

The are Abilities you can pick up that impact the pet; buff it, make it go faster, attack harder, or even eat conditions that are affecting nearby allies. I avoided those for now since I have a limited number of slots available.

Your Heal Abilities all affect you and your pet, with the exception being the Healing Spring which is a ground targeted AE and your pet will likely run out of range of it to fight with enemies (you can call them back and the mob should follow or you can wait and drop it where the mob is fighting).

The other Abilities appear to be traps (mainly) which are actually not bad. Some you plant where you are and other you can toss a short range out. I haven’t gotten too far into these to really see what they’re like. One non-trap, non-pet ability I picked up was a passive benefit to move speed of 25%… so says the Ability tip. The actual buff tip says 10% which seems pretty insignificant but I guess 25% increase was too much. The ‘active’ effect makes your pet attack a little harder.

I’ve got him up to level 14 or so.

As can be expected, pet classes seem a little more durable in PVE than others. With my Bear out, I can easily take on the Veterans, sometimes swapping the Hyena out, spawning an ally, then swapping back to the Bear (there is a cooldown on the swapping). If one happens to die, one key stroke and I have the other one out. It’s kinda nice. I hope I can expand the number of pets in that cycle but I think it’s going to stick to two.

After a few guild invites, I decided to see what was involved in creating a guild.

One lone silver piece. That’s all it took. So I created Clawed Defense Caste or CDC. Yes, that was intentional… it is me we’re talking about.

Seems the guild mechanism is interesting. It’s fueled by Influence which is gained by a number of ways (dungeons, PVP, quests – I think) including selling out some coin for amounts. I shelled out enough to buy the first level of Politics. That took 16 hours to complete – it just sits in a queue baking (mmm… bacon). So I hopped on last night for a couple of minutes to queue up the Emblem item which required the Politics first rank. That will enable me to create a guild emblem – which I just did. Go me. I queued up the only other thing I could, which was a banner to get me some Karma bonus.

Thing about banners (and why I mentioned ‘fueled by influence’ above) is that they are one shot – I think – some sort of limitation applies. I’m not sure if it’s consumed on use or if it is ‘carried’ by someone. I’ll find that out tomorrow at some point.

It doesn’t seem like guilds level at all, short of advancing in one of the four trees; Politics, Economy, War and Architecture. Scaling up in these open up other benefits and banners or effects. Architecture seems to open up Vault options for the guild. Politics seems to revolve around Influence, Karma and displaying Guild colors. Economy looks to be focused on increasing crafting related things. War focuses on rewards or impacts in PVP – duh.

Not a bad system really.

That’s all I have for now…

[GW2] Breaking Through my Wall

I’ve got an odd wall blocking me in GW2 and I can’t determine what exactly is causing it so I’m going to do what I normal do and just blather about it… and make all my readers suffer through it.

Where do I stall?

Mid-20s though my highest is mid-30s.

I admit, I floundered a lot trying to find a class I would like. I managed to get three to The Wall (my creation, not something specific to the game).

The first was a Norn Guardian, my highest, who I managed to get to level 35. I completed her personal story which was amusing and I appear to be getting into the next portion of the actual game story. By this point, I’ve unlocked all the weapon abilities (most people will have done this long ago), I’ve grabbed a bunch of talent abilities (including a 10 point one), I’ve explored (100%) several of the lower zones for Norns and I’m into the Human/Scar areas. I’ve done numerous events and heart quest areas, done vistas, skill changes, gathering and crafting to a comparable level of my toon and now I have little interest in continuing.

Problems that I can see?

I look a lot like I did when I first started playing. My armor has a scale look instead of a chain look. It’s rather boring and it hasn’t changed much in 30 odd levels. The evolution from chain to scale is minor, slow and sorta blah. Dyes only do so much. My weapons haven’t changed in appearance much either, though they are growing in power and strength, they’re nothing to get attached to.

Skills are also not changing. Once you unlock the weapon skills (which can be done really early) you’re pretty much continuing to use them through all the 80 levels. Yes, you can swap weapon sets giving you different abilities in the fight, they really aren’t all that different. They don’t change over the levels. I think I find this somewhat boring and doesn’t encourage me to continue.

With regard to the talent points you spend on abilities (Skills); certain ones seem to be of more value than others and I find myself using them over others. Obviously, some favor PVP and others PVE but once you’ve unlocked them, they are available for choice. I do like that there is a limitation, you can only have a certain number available at a time, it encourages choice… I like that. I don’t like that there really isn’t a lot to choose from. These abilities typically have lengthy cooldowns depending on what they do and how powerful they are. Again, I find a limited number interesting enough to pick and the others are just filler to gain access to the next tier of abilities. I think this is the core of my issue with continuing – I feel I have all the progression I need and won’t gain any more short of unsexy numeric gains (more health).

The other points you get are for traits which give you unsexy gains (numeric gains) with waypoints at (5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30) that grant you extra effectiveness in line with the stat you are increasing. At the 10, 20, and 30 point you get to pick from a set which typically augments one of the Skills you pick up. It’s a nice system with a lot of choice available, a reasonable amount of complexity (lacking in other games) and synergies built in to encourage certain builds. The sort of thing I miss from other games (like WoW)… still, it doesn’t have any draw to me.

Dungeons – at level 30 I have yet to do a dungeon. I think I’ve stumbled on to only one so far. I hear it is probably a good thing I haven’t done a dungeon yet. Apparently they are a little lacking in reward and challenge – but that is hearsay. The fact that I don’t have an easy means of trying one out and that I’ve only seen one in 30 levels of play, leads me to believe that dungeons aren’t an important aspect of Guild Wars 2… which could be reasonable given it’s PVP focus. I think this is another pain point for me, I generally enjoy dungeons.

Lack of quests is an intentional design. They wanted things to be more dynamic, but what that really means is if you miss the event, you miss the quest. If you know where the event goes, you could try to find it and help out but if you don’t, then you can either move on or wait for it to start up again. That is assuming you even know one occurs there, if you don’t, you may wander by without even encountering it. They do have NPCs that will randomly run up to do you and tell you there are events happening near by and you might see an indicator on the map. I’m not really sure this is a better system than having quest hubs… it does feel more natural if you encounter it, but if you don’t, you miss out.

I come from a background of EverQuest where you had to run around and hail people, use keywords to get quest information and you didn’t have a quest log to track progress, you had to do that yourself. I say this so people reading this know I’m not a WoWbie where everything is handed to you.

I don’t like this dynamic event system. I can’t put my finger on why – the chance of missing something? The animatronic nature of it? If ever there was a ‘theme park’ mechanic, having rides that you hop onto and they run every few minutes seems to describe it better.

Lack of resources is another thing I don’t like. Character classes don’t exactly have resources limiting them – this is untrue for all cases, I realize this – instead they have cooldowns limiting the use of abilities. I don’t think I like this system as much as managing my resources. It comes down to managing cooldowns instead. Now I mention that it is untrue for all classes, examples of this are the Warrior who can build up Adrenalin then burn it in a powerful attack or Thieves who do have a limited resource they build up and consume, but ultimately, there is no limiting resource on something like an Elementalist short of cooldowns. Ultimately, this feels more like whack-a-mole than any real set pattern (again, some classes may be exceptions, like the Thief). There is a way around some of this, such as swapping weapon sets (which is encouraged by many classes gaining temporary boosts by swapping weapons) or changing elements (in the case of an Elementalist). Some pattern play can arise from this, but I find it less different.

I’ll take my Elementalist as an example. Regardless of what weapons I’m using (Elementalists don’t have the ability to swap weapon sets like other classes, instead they swap elements; Fire, Air, Water and Earth), each of the elements perform similar actions or results with the exception of Water which typically has a healing ability tied to it. So if I’m wielding a staff, my 1-5 abilities typically follow the same pattern between the elements. Button 1 is an AOE on the target, 2 is a cast timed DD (sometimes AOE), 3 is usually some sort of AOE sometimes with a slowing effect, 4 is almost always a movement ability while 5 is a targeted, channeled AOE. It doesn’t matter which element I’m in, the pattern remains (exception being Water, which typically has a heal effect added). The elements differ in the special effects (bleed, burn, heal, etc.) added, combinations opened (a lot of the placed AOE abilities can be used by other classes for additional effect) and appearance. The Elementalist can get around some of the cooldowns by switching elements, so if you’re not switching, you’re doing it wrong.

There are a lot of really neat ideas and systems in Guild Wars 2 which should appeal to me greatly (I love systems) but for some reason it doesn’t. I have no motivation to advance to the cap or continue playing once I’ve gotten far enough to see how a class plays and gain most of the abilities that interest me.

I have played the Guardian to 34, Elementalist and Warrior to mid-20s. I’ve played the Thief, Hunter and Necromancer into the teens. Nothing really sticks.

What motivates you to keep playing?

Anything I say stand out?

Is it the sum of all the little things that makes the game not last for me?

 

[WoW] Stuffs

Rogue hit 90th and is slowly creeping up gear iLvls to being ready for LFR. I was working on my reputations which really don’t get me much at all. More Leatherworking recipes, some items for Valor or Justice which are upgrades but getting Valor or Justice points involves more work than I’m able (or willing) to commit to, tabards and mounts – which I don’t feel much need to acquire.

So yeah. Not a lot for me to look forward to without the driving urge to raid I had previously.

I log in, do dailies, run the odd heroic, watch the monk tank do way more DPS than he should, cry a little inside, run more dailies, do my Tillers stuff and log out.

I don’t have a lot of motivation to do otherwise.

I considered leveling my Hunter and ran around Jade Forest with him for a bit but couldn’t get into it for some reason. I must be tired.

I considered leveling a number of other alts but really couldn’t settle on anything… so I’ll keep plugging away when I have time and slowly creep up to LFR acceptable item level.

Then regret that I’m in LFR.

I have found that running Heroics (LFD) remains mostly impersonal, just get it done. I admit I don’t contribute much to it either way. The people in the group are transitory, I’ll likely never see them again even with some of the preferential code in LFD (attempts to group you with people on your server over complete strangers – so partial strangers mainly) so I feel no desire to chit chat. About the only time it does get personal is when someone does something wrong and others pounce on them for it.

No, I’m not on either end of those (unless I’m running a dungeon with UFTimmy – then I’m always on the receiving end of “you suck” tells).

Keep on keeping on.

[WoW] Queued Up!

Stuck in a queue, that’s right.. a queue. Despite the fact that WoW only sold 700,000 boxes off the shelf. (Of course, we’re not including digital sales in those figure because no one buys right through Blizzard who has access to your credit card and make it so simple to purchase through them even to the point of not needing the CDs/DVD that come in the box when you do buy the box because you’ve already got it downloaded on your system you just really need the key!

Whew.

My fingers ran out of breath there.

Motoring along nicely with the rouge (new main). He’s already capped in Leatherworking, Skinning and First Aid. I’ve worked him up into Pandaria cooking levels too. I switched him from Combat to Assassination and bought up all the glyphs that I was missing.

I like Assassination better for leveling. Yeah, it’s not as durable as Combat, but I like the damage output and burstieness of it. That’s a word, I just invented it! Watching the DPS meter as Combat and I wasn’t breaking 10k on solo mobs, with Assassination the numbers are over 15k as I explode mobs in a cloud of poisoned frenzy.

That and there is twice the ass in Assassination.

Up to 89th and into Townlong Steppes (I think it’s called), motoring through the Mantid line of quests now. Enjoying it, taking my time. Admittedly, I took a lot of time this weekend which was the first weekend I’ve had in months where there wasn’t a birthday party or sleep over.

I moved my tank (Kremus/Blood DK) into Pandaria, just far enough to get out of the harbor area. It was much smoother early Saturday morning. I’ve been tossing him some of the greens and blues the rouge (yes, I’m spelling it that way intentionally) has been crafting that don’t sell well. In exchange, he’s keeping my rouge’s weapons enchanted.

I’ve also been throwing my cloth to my Mage who is working his way through Tailoring. I believe I bought him all the recipes available on trainers without getting into the major city in Pandaria. He’s been throwing greens and blues to Kremus for enchanting too.

I took a brief dabble into the whole Pokemon/Pet Battles thing, though didn’t take it too far. It’s interesting in that your progress is account bound. That means all my companions level up as I use them regardless of which character I use them on. I’m not sure if the training is Account-wide, but it seems to be. I suspect I’ll use a low level alt to work through the lower level Pet Battles once I get to it. But I’ll get to that later… right now character progression and new dungeons are beckoning.

I’m debating what alt I will play with next. Tempted to knuckle down and get the Warrior through and up into MoP but that will be quite the undertaking. Smaken is an obvious answer… Hunters is leveling machines. I am tempted to see how the Monk plays out so that’s a thought too.

Not much else going on with WoW.

[WoW] Ouch

Rough start to the expansion with the main quest being a bottleneck. How?

Pop into Stormwind, quest appears.
Wander into the castle, cinematic ensues, quest updates and says to go to the airship.
Go to Airship, struggle to click on quest NPC (remembering Cata release, I adjusted my keybinds to target friendly NPCs and interact with them).
Another cinematic.
Gotta hop into the gyrocopter to attack the Horde.
Again, clickie is surrounded by people, lots of lag.
Pop on gyrocopter – snicker at people still unable to click on the vehicle.
Zip out to start shooting orcs and shredders.
There must be 100+ other gyrocopter pilots… overlapping me with a few thousand more already on the rails circling the Horde base. Ugh.
Woot! I manage to kill a few orks despite all the lag and other people shooting at the same targets.
Disconnect.
Log back in – on airship need to click on gyrocopter through the masses.
YES!
Happens a couple of more times.
Third time is the charm – I manage to finish off what I need and now I land.
More lag trying to target wagons to explode.
Group up and get it done after several disconnects.
Get the rest of that area done and move on to the first village.
Much less lag.

After that things improved a lot and I can’t really complain aside from the odd error (when switching to alts to log them out in an inn to let the rack up some rested XP) that says, “Cannot find character.” Another downside is Stormrage is wicked full right now – queues of over 1000 people.

Eep.

Focused on the Rogue mainly and nearing the end of the first zone – sitting at level 86 (just a smidge into it).

That’s a slower pace than I would have previously gone at. I’ve been a little busy and I’m not rushing to raid level or anything. Just playing when I can.