Super Duper Update Part 2 - SWTOR

http://www.swtor.com/free/features

Look upon Bioware's works, ye mighty, and despair.

Callsign's been sending me several sad messages about how he was really excited in the days leading up to SWTOR going free to play.  Then he sends me some messages this morning pissed at how the exp rate is half for free players.  But that's only the tip of the iceberg--the SWTOR free to play model is riddled with mind-boggling shit like emotes and the ability to toggle off your helmet being options that require real money transactions.

Every so often I peek at the MoX Mumble server's user numbers and they're always pretty high, which I guess is good for them.  I was actually so tempted to find someone to ask whether the latest patch and/or the free to play conversion has managed to wreck the game even further that I went and signed up for the MoX Facebook group again.  I was really tempted to make a post to that effect, but was dismayed to find that I recognized virtually nobody from the group any more (think I recognized Clausy and Darkhorse, but that's basically it).

Actually, I thought I had more to say about SWTOR, but maybe not.

Oh, they JUST RECENTLY released Nightmare Mode Denova.  It is now early November.  1.2 was released on 4/12/2012.  Holy shitfuck that was about 7 months ago.  Jesus tittyfucking Christ on a stick, that's outrageous.

I still get a weird number of hits on my Denova loot list page despite having it hidden on this blog except for direct linking.

Super Duper Update Part 1 - Preface

So clearly this blog has fallen somewhat by the wayside, but I thought I might at least make a minor effort to bring things a little more up to speed.  A lot of the info on GW2 that I've previously posted here is quite out of date and/or inaccurate, however I've chosen to just let them sit since there's now plenty of up-to-date and more oft-updated resources for many of the things I've covered previously.  And what is relevant to be updated I'll cover in relevant posts to follow.

I have 4 big topics I'd like to address that I'm going to split into separate posts: where my characters are at in GW2, some writing about my goings-on/history on Jade Quarry so far (especially with respect to the WvWvW environment), non-MMO things I've been up to, and SWTOR.

I plan on tackling the last of those first, being that my impetus to write this is a result of having taken a look at the free2play matrix for SWTOR and being absolutely floored by how horrifying it is.  Then a lil nostalgia led me to reverse my childish decision to leave the MoX Facebook group (though whether I may again remains to be seen).

On that same train of thought I'm going to cover my personal progress in GW2 last with a gigantic post about my characters in GW2 since that's probably what I have the most to write about, especially since I'd like to talk gearing and skill/talent builds.

So here we go.

Memories of Memories of Xendor

I still think Darkhorse was the best guild leader I've ever had at present.  It's strange to continue to find myself believing this given how abruptly my association with Memories of Xendor ended.  He had the best combination of leadership, logistical management ability, and straight up player skill that I've ever had the pleasure to work with, and he complemented this by surrounding himself with incredibly competent subordinates.

Thinking on it just now, I believe that the slowly rising tension I had with the guild was the result of a feeling that I needed to continue to justify my position within the guild--which is probably why my formal removal of my officership was the last straw for me.  Coming into the guild, and pretty much right up to 1.2, I brought and continued to bring a lot to the table: multiple high level characters, the bragging rights of my legacy level, and connections to other raiding guilds brought about by my voracious raiding appetite.  I was fast friends with pretty much everyone in the guild and was quickly trusted council of the guild leadership.  Darkhorse and I had even spent significant time leveling our alts together, both for PTS titles and for...more level 50 alts.

1.2 ended pretty much all of that.  When I hit the legacy level cap there was no longer any excitement in continuing to play alts (even the legacy advantages offered by 1.2 couldn't rekindle my interest long enough to finish leveling my last two characters).  Furthermore, with legacy level 25 being the max required for any of the advantages, having anything higher became less impressive and more laughable (and the fact that I still would have to shell out millions for legacy unlocks was a punch to the gut) especially since anyone who'd bothered to play consistently was already at 25.  With new, difficult raid content guilds either didn't bother attempting it if they were casual or tightened up their rosters for in-house only raids, thus negating any advantage I could hope to leverage from having multiple characters.  This was compounded by MoX requiring me to stick to one character for raids--and I got stuck with a class that under-performs.

Before the merger, the officer core was already sort-of bloated and became definitely so afterwards.  Thus if nobody was questioning my usefulness as an officer and core raider, by then I certainly was and the stress accumulated from there.  I could complain that Darkhorse did a poor job of listening and reacting to my concerns (which I'll insist was a valid complaint and perhaps one of Darkhorse's only weaknesses as a leader), but by then it was the result of a larger problem at work.

Every once in a while I dream of going back and joining MoX again, but the thought of playing the Old Republic again makes me physically ill.  Damn shame.

Like a Boss

Got to thinking about SWTOR again.  1.3's out now apparently, and there's still, still, STILL no Nightmare Mode Denova.  Holy shit, it's been almost 2 months now since I quit and that was several weeks into 1.2 and the original release of Denova and I'd already been sick of the instance by then, I can't imagine wading through that bore weekly still and waiting desperately for the day when they finally release a slightly difficult retread of the same instance.

It seems most of Helm of Graush transferred to a server named Prophecy of the Five.  Poor ol' Darkhorse seems to have been forced to change his legacy and main's name to Moxboss.  Tragic.

In spite of my previous post, I've actually started playing APB: Reloaded regularly.  I've had to reinstall it twice and continue to tweak the settings to get it to a vaguely workable state, but whenever I'd stop playing it for a few days I would get this really peculiar craving to start playing it again.  I found a pair of absolutely boss chicks to roll through bronze districts with (my actual threat keeps bouncing between silver and gold and finally seems to have stabilized at gold) and it's hella fun when the two or three of us are teamed up.  I've been trying to talk alice, with whom I still occasionally duo in SMNC with, into giving it a try as well while we wait on Torchlight 2.

Vi Sittar Har I Venten

I've recently gotten no less than three e-mails demanding that I TRANSFER MY CHARACTER NOW from Bioware.  There's a lifeboat analogy there somewhere.

I played APB: Reloaded for a while last night.  It was fun and I'd like to continue playing it but for three strikes:
-The game is optimized terribly.  My computer is no powerhouse but I turned all graphical options to their minimum and went to lengths outside the game to limit performance hindrance, yet the game still has 3-minute long loading screens and rampant framerate drops.  This game's been out for over a year and this is still apparently an issue.
-This is may be two points, but I'm combining them into one: the game apparently at one time had a tutorial zone which was evidently removed--though the game still assumes you went through it.  There is nothing to tell a new player what's up, though I was quickly informed that I was leagues ahead of the vast sea of trainees having equipped my grenades and supply pack.  An hour into the game it's easy to see why there's no tutorial zone however, as an hour into the game I'd seen pretty much the extent of the gameplay--there's little else to do but run missions all day for small pocketfuls of cash and rep.
-And the matchmaking was the last straw.  I was actually on a 9 mission win streak when the matchmaking decided it'd be totally alright to put me alone on defensive missions against a group of 3 experienced players after I'd barely scraped through a previous solo mission against two fairly determined opponents.  I play enough other games with shitty matchmaking to humor yet another.

So that's going far on the back burner as far as games I'd like to keep playing go.

I decided to learn how to jungle in Dota 2 in order to broaden my experience with the game beyond what I'm used to from my old HoN days.  I briefly tried to get into jungling in LoL; I'm finding jungling is much, much easier in Dota.  Learned all of the "jungler" labeled heroes that don't involve additional unit micro and am now wading into the ones that do starting with Lycanthrope.  It's tricky.  Need to find a better way to hotkey groups.

Build That Wall

So it's coming up on a month since I quit and Nightmare Mode Denova isn't even out yet? That's funny.

The longer I'm away from it, the more glad I am that I actually decided not to stick it out and give SWTOR a long term chance. What a train wreck.

Still playing lots of SMNC. Finally started learning heroes in Dota 2 as well. Playing through some of my Steam backlog as well to kill time to Torchlight 2.