Finally sat down and read through all the skills on the Wiki to get at least a cursory understanding of the flavor of the abilities of the game. Did a little preliminary character planning as well, figured out what class/race/name combos I want to go with. Reusing a lot of names I used in SWTOR but I ditched a few I thought were lackluster and replaced others.
I really like a lot of the skills on Guardians, but at the same time I would like to start by playing a class archtype I'm less familiar with and tentatively settled on Thief after having also considered Ranger. Going to start with a Thief, Guardian, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Warrior. Aside from having decided to start with a Thief first, I've enjoyed playing tanky archtypes in PvP in the past so Guardian is a natural choice and Necromancer was lots of fun in GW1. The latter two are classes that Taugrim's done a lot of writing on so far so there will be a little less guesswork when I have time to play those classes. I'll add Engineer, Ranger, and Elementalist characters as I get a chance to.
I picked races whose abilities (though irrelevant I realize) complement certain classes at least thematically. I've got at least one of every race for the purposes of experiencing some of the differing stories but am planning to go with only one each of Asurans and Charr since I like their aesthetic the least. In the end my race choices are perhaps a little to stereotypical, but eh.
Meanwhile, I've still been half-heartedly trying to get HoM points but I'm past trying to force myself to continue for difficult statues at this point. Been trying to get through at least the first disc of Xenogears before Saturday too.
Brandon and I used to have an inside joke referring to Xenogears: Xenobeers, a game staring Gen from SaGa Frontier as he drinks and swash-buckles his away across the world/galaxy/universe.
Also, I'm now formally consigning this blog to Guild Wars 2 for the foreseeable future. As such I'll be adding a bunch of helpful links to the eponymous section of the blog.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Jee Dubya Wun
So a few days back someone brought the Hall of Monuments Rewards to my attention, so being as I have tons of free time till next weekend I managed to do the impossible and get back into Guild Wars 1. Kind of.
The first thing that struck me booting up GW again was the name scheme, which brings back a lot of memories. At the time, when my good friend Nick, aka Spinky IV or Spinaci [Olive Garden] (OG REPRESENT), talked me into trying Guild Wars I had only played two other MMOs up to that point--FFXI and LotRO.
I'd spent my 2 year career in Final Fantasy XI as a bearded male hume called Kurohyou, which was my best attempt at translating "Pantera" to Japanese--I realized much later that "kuro" is actually black, but just "Hyou" would have been kinda lame anyways. Since all my GW characters all shared the surname Pantera, I ended up naming my Elementalist Nero for my old FFXI character.
During the Lord of the Rings Online beta I'd used the name Pantera, but shortly after release I was forced to change the name (the first twist of the dagger that wrecked my interest in that game). In my flustered state the only name I could come up with was the alias one of the creators of EliteMUD (which I'd spent a few years of my youth playing), Kurrelgyre. I ended up giving this name to my Warrior in Guild Wars. In retrospect this seems like a weird decision, or at least one I wouldn't have made now; since I'd used the name Kurrelgyre begrudgingly it's odd that I'd give it to my "main"--I was a WAR main in FFXI and it became my most played character in GW (and my first character in WoW, incidentally, though in every case they're much different from Warrior in FFXI).
Many of my other characters' names were references to my MMO past as well. Tek, Valencia, and Gravios were names of my mule alts in FFXI (Gravios was a further reference to a dragon in Monster Hunter). Desyrel was an alias I used in LotRO, and was the first seed of what would eventually grow to be my current general MMO naming scheme. Coming up on a lack of ideas, I named two after myself and my grandfather, then randomly went with Miang for one, likely with Xenogears in mind (which is interesting providence considering I've been replaying through Xenogears on emulator to pass time lately as well). Named one for Fargo, where I'd been living most of my life up until a year ago.
I nearly forgot how unilaterally awesome Guild Wars was/is though. It's an excellent prototype for what a game with horizontal scaling would look like. Even if I didn't love GW's PvP (which I do), there's plenty of PvE content on various levels that manages to be both challenging and rewarding, even it's as basic as pimping out a horde of Heroes.
Anyways, I'm shooting for 30/50 even though it's probably a little impractical. I managed to get 7+/50 pretty quick just on HoM statues I basically already had (which was enough to get the legacy armor pieces), but the item rewards end at 30 so I'm trying to get as far as I realistically can in a week. A lot of the statues are extremely difficult to get on short notice, so I'm aiming for as much of the low hanging fruit ones as I already have progress towards.
The first thing that struck me booting up GW again was the name scheme, which brings back a lot of memories. At the time, when my good friend Nick, aka Spinky IV or Spinaci [Olive Garden] (OG REPRESENT), talked me into trying Guild Wars I had only played two other MMOs up to that point--FFXI and LotRO.
I'd spent my 2 year career in Final Fantasy XI as a bearded male hume called Kurohyou, which was my best attempt at translating "Pantera" to Japanese--I realized much later that "kuro" is actually black, but just "Hyou" would have been kinda lame anyways. Since all my GW characters all shared the surname Pantera, I ended up naming my Elementalist Nero for my old FFXI character.
During the Lord of the Rings Online beta I'd used the name Pantera, but shortly after release I was forced to change the name (the first twist of the dagger that wrecked my interest in that game). In my flustered state the only name I could come up with was the alias one of the creators of EliteMUD (which I'd spent a few years of my youth playing), Kurrelgyre. I ended up giving this name to my Warrior in Guild Wars. In retrospect this seems like a weird decision, or at least one I wouldn't have made now; since I'd used the name Kurrelgyre begrudgingly it's odd that I'd give it to my "main"--I was a WAR main in FFXI and it became my most played character in GW (and my first character in WoW, incidentally, though in every case they're much different from Warrior in FFXI).
Many of my other characters' names were references to my MMO past as well. Tek, Valencia, and Gravios were names of my mule alts in FFXI (Gravios was a further reference to a dragon in Monster Hunter). Desyrel was an alias I used in LotRO, and was the first seed of what would eventually grow to be my current general MMO naming scheme. Coming up on a lack of ideas, I named two after myself and my grandfather, then randomly went with Miang for one, likely with Xenogears in mind (which is interesting providence considering I've been replaying through Xenogears on emulator to pass time lately as well). Named one for Fargo, where I'd been living most of my life up until a year ago.
I nearly forgot how unilaterally awesome Guild Wars was/is though. It's an excellent prototype for what a game with horizontal scaling would look like. Even if I didn't love GW's PvP (which I do), there's plenty of PvE content on various levels that manages to be both challenging and rewarding, even it's as basic as pimping out a horde of Heroes.
Anyways, I'm shooting for 30/50 even though it's probably a little impractical. I managed to get 7+/50 pretty quick just on HoM statues I basically already had (which was enough to get the legacy armor pieces), but the item rewards end at 30 so I'm trying to get as far as I realistically can in a week. A lot of the statues are extremely difficult to get on short notice, so I'm aiming for as much of the low hanging fruit ones as I already have progress towards.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Jee Dubya Too
After toying with the idea for a few days, I've decided to pick up Guild Wars 2. Bought the game a few days back. This is despite not having followed it at all through development and beta testing and knowing very little about the game proper. I'm nervous about diving in not knowing much about the game's mechanics, but I'm hoping that it'll add some to the charm so I've been trying to stay at least a little in the dark.
I played the original Guild Wars and absolutely loved it, so I have faith that its sequel will deliver. I played it briefly in that nebulous period between FFXI and WoW. It's been ages now since I played it; I have this strange problem with Guild Wars where I can't get back into it whenever I try to go back. I'm not a big PvPer but of the MMOs I've played it was Guild Wars that had the PvP I enjoyed the most.
My primary concern right now is that I don't know anyone else who's planning on playing it, and this has proven to hamper my experience with other MMOs in the past. I'm fretting slightly over how much I should balance my attention between PvE or PvP too, being as GW was traditionally more of a PvP focused game (which is great, IMO MMOs need to pick one to focus on) and myself not having a strong taste for PvP. But who knows, I've played smatterings of PvP whether it be in the original GW, WoW, and SWTOR et al. in addition to arena style PvP a la MOBAs (LoL, HoN, Dota 2) and found some enjoyment.
I've been following Taugrim's amazing MMO blog more closely as GW2 approaches. I've used his guides as references for SWTOR before and it's quality stuff. He's generally more focused on PvP gameplay so I'm letting it be my introduction to GW2's PvP.
I'll mayhaps convert this blog to a Guild Wars 2 focus coming up in a few weeks; we'll see how things roll along.
I played the original Guild Wars and absolutely loved it, so I have faith that its sequel will deliver. I played it briefly in that nebulous period between FFXI and WoW. It's been ages now since I played it; I have this strange problem with Guild Wars where I can't get back into it whenever I try to go back. I'm not a big PvPer but of the MMOs I've played it was Guild Wars that had the PvP I enjoyed the most.
My primary concern right now is that I don't know anyone else who's planning on playing it, and this has proven to hamper my experience with other MMOs in the past. I'm fretting slightly over how much I should balance my attention between PvE or PvP too, being as GW was traditionally more of a PvP focused game (which is great, IMO MMOs need to pick one to focus on) and myself not having a strong taste for PvP. But who knows, I've played smatterings of PvP whether it be in the original GW, WoW, and SWTOR et al. in addition to arena style PvP a la MOBAs (LoL, HoN, Dota 2) and found some enjoyment.
I've been following Taugrim's amazing MMO blog more closely as GW2 approaches. I've used his guides as references for SWTOR before and it's quality stuff. He's generally more focused on PvP gameplay so I'm letting it be my introduction to GW2's PvP.
I'll mayhaps convert this blog to a Guild Wars 2 focus coming up in a few weeks; we'll see how things roll along.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
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.
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.
Monday, June 11, 2012
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.
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.
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