What amuses us and other ideas
Having witnessed it's glory days ago, I now hold the Malformed Fork and it's wisdom should be spread.
I’ve rolled into the hills north of Lion’s Arch looking for my prey. I found it among the rocks and rivers and lakes. Though I’m still looking and I’ll keep hunting.
I have mastered the base tenets of Chronomancy, a feat which has taught me the value of carrying a shield. The more advanced bits will take more time and so I continue to adventure around the lands with my trusty raptor.
We rode, for what seemed like days, among the grassy hills of Eastern Maguuma. We searched high and low and found few of what we sought. I could already feel what was the blossoming beginning of a healthy friendship between mount and master.
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A friend of mine met me, advised me on steps to take. I ventured into Elona, a land far to the southeast from Lion’s Arch and rescued some people. They volunteered their mount, a scaly raptor, to aid me. Poor thing enjoys a good scratch and sometimes sniffs the air much like a large puppy.
We’ve made a decent dab of progress into unlocking some of the new powers out there. I’m within a few steps of embracing Chronomancy. We’ll see how it holds my attention here shortly.
Comments closedIt’s a name. I came back to Guild Wars 2. I wasn’t planning on it ever again but then the universe catches you sometimes and reminds you ad naseum until you relent. I got an email about new content. A friend went to join some raid group and play. And then another friend was trying it out. And then my dad was asking if I was going to do the holiday content.
Fine fine. I’ll come back and play. But I’m not feeling my old Mesmer Vestolo. No, I’ve become something of an adventurer in character design. I lean towards aliens in space games and extravagant ones in fantasy.
So this is Daguethi, named after two days of pouring over lists of Celtic, Welsh and old Arthurian naming lists. See, Daguethi is Sylvari, a race of plant people who’s lore is in line with Arthurian legend in places.
And since I prefer aliens I’m making him my main for the time being. Buying him perks like extra bag space, a costume since all the normal armor just doesn’t look good on him. I’m still dialing in the color on the clothes, but this is Fashion Wars so I’m liable to be on this piece for a while. Meanwhile I have a plethora of old and new quests to redo so I’ll be busy at that for a while. My pre-2018 resolution is to find a game with a good community behind it and settle in for a while. Actually play for more than my typical two weeks.
You’ll see more posts on Daguethi and my adventures moving forward. I’m spicing up the blog with a dash of my creative storytelling I post on Tumblr. Speaking of which, you’ll find a link at the bottom for my Tumblr if that’s your thing.
http://egoprovince.tumblr.com/
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So there I was, enjoying some Anime on Netflix and the weirdness inherent in some sci-fi anime reminded me of a game I played once.
In Warframe you’re some kind of weaponized space-ninja/warrior from a bygone era awoken to the future. You use super powers and various guns and swords to vanquish hordes of not-quite humans who are doing nefarious things.
Still with me? Good.
What I like most is that nearly anything can be earned from running missions, regular events and crafting. With the exception of some cosmetic items, you can earn even some of the exclusive shiny-gold things one would normally expect to be exclusively cash-only. Though there isn’t a plethora of loot to acquire so we’re spared the idiocy of gloves and belts on our inventory list.
So what does that give us? Shooting, crafting, and some quests. I enjoy it for it’s particular spin on sci-fi though it’s not particularly deep with story and on occasion I’ve spent some time reading the wiki so I can glean some of secrets that are metered out in small quest-sized doses.
Appendix 1a: It’s free to play, if you enjoy Action Shooters like Borderlands or The Division then I couldn’t recommend this more.
1 CommentI play a lot of MMO’s. If not in quantity, then variety. I’ve played Star Trek Online, World of Warcraft and a host of others not mentioned in this blog or in passing conversation.
I don’t mention them because they all do several things the same. Theme Park mmo’s are like that. Much the same with little changes here and there.
I made a run at various games a year or two ago. My objective was to find a group of people to play with, the bigger the better. I hung out with a guild of over two-thousand members at one point, learning that while this did provide some of what I wanted it didn’t meet other needs and so through this year I came to the objective to find two specific things. 1) a game that would let me play how I wanted to play (harder than you might think) and 2) A smaller but higher-quality group of people.
I’ve met both those goals with Elite: Dangerous and it still continues to be a solid game I can just log into and enjoy. I took a serious run at DCUO (which I’ll talk about later) and a couple of other games only to discover a firmly entrenched player base that felt it necessary to tell me how to play the game.
Coming down the road is a community supported, community built resurrection of City of Heroes under the name City of Titans. I was sad to see CoH go and the more I read into the saga the more confusing and weird it felt. City of Titans goes into Beta mid 2016 and releases this winter and I’m stoked. I’ll be covering it here in much detail and sure to link places you can see it streamed and recorded.
That the community has achieved much in rebuilding our beloved game after these last few years is quite remarkable. I can’t wait to see it released upon the world for all to enjoy!
Comments closedI wasn’t sold on Horizons when I first heard about it. I’m looking forward to fighting torrential storms and blinding blizzards when landing on planets. The airless moons they give you now just don’t compel me. I found more than a few people who found that hard to grasp.
That being said what was a pretty game got a lot prettier. Few things compare to staring across a rocky expanse at the star as it’s rising over the horizon, to throwing your buggy over a crater wall and bouncing along in low-gravity as you chase down sensor phantoms.
Just watch those landings.
Comments closedSometimes tag lines are hard to write. What do I say about a thin in five words or less. or more.
The review sold me with “Studio Ghibli meets..” I bought it on that alone. What I got was a board game with a distinct art/story style I find familiar. You play as one of several animal heroes, the king Lion having been corrupted, and are tasked with taking the crown in one of several ways. It plays like so many board games while being excellently polished and animated.
For the quality, 20 bucks is a steal and you can get it on Steam.
Here’s the Link
My latest favorite is Windward. For years I played Sid Meier’s Pirates! and would just sail around plundering Spanish galleons with little care for the plot. That alone amused me far longer than it should have with simple controls for firing your cannons and sailing against and with the wind.
Flash forward some years and we have Windward. Immediately I was caught by the Steam sale advert video. The game looked beautiful and it is. Gameplay is simple, you sail to and from towns while trading goods or running Quests and you’ll loot floating crates and barrels that have one of the commodities: Gold, Stone, Wood and Gunpowder Each commodity has it’s use though you’ll amass far more than you’ll likely ever use. Combat is almost automatic, as you sale upon an enemy ship your cannons will fire and you have a selection of manual use abilities that feature some targeting.
The world is generated when you start the game, though your progress is saved to a character name you create. I’ve sailed in single player games and Internet games with 30+ players all with the same progress as I learn the ropes. It features some easy internet sharing, so I can create a game and have my friends join me. I can even redraw the map, supposing I don’t like what it generated, I can mold the map borders to my liking.
I find a lot to like in the design, it’s very peaceful and easy to play for 5 minutes or 5 hours. This is easily my favorite game this year!
Comments closedI was hanging with Katie of katieplays.com who sometimes streams her antics via Twitch and some of her friends when Battlefield 4 went on sale. 18 bucks for Premium and I had all the hot content and priority queueing. Between this and another blog I was (and still am) reading, September went rather quickly.
Battlefield and it’s kin, amuse me for the strategy and the action. Like a digital football. But I’m an MMO player, I like progression and advancement. BF4 provides an excellent instant-action venue for it’s gameplay. There’s always a server up you can join, “shoot some dudes” and have a pretty good time. And yes, there’s a level system, there’s a progression of unlocks as you move through the game. But aircraft are something of a joke and too often you get a map dominated by some excellently skilled players in helicopters. But for what it provides I would easily recommend BF4 for anyone looking for a modern combat experience. This isn’t a refined simulation, on the contrary it’s quite arcade-like.
That being said, I got about two weeks into BF4 when someone brought up Planetside 2. Planetside 2 brings just about everything BF4 brings but it’s persistent. You can spend hours fighting over a tower or a hillside as the sides fighting ebb and flow trying to seize territory. In BF, we’re talking about matches. Lose the round? Oh, well better luck next time. Planetside will have you taking and losing and retaking structures in the ever present war. If the fighting here is too intense or too quiet you can redeploy to another region for more war. Or if you’re feeling like flying around the map and look at the scenery, you can retreat away from the front lines to putter about.
Planetside 2 is made by Day Break Games (or at least supported by them). Also in their lineup is H1Z1 which is on my docket for October. I’m enjoying the roam and scavenge survivalism. It’s something I like about Fallout and i’m eagerly awaiting Fallout 4 in November. H1Z1 has it’s moments of brilliance. Radios you can loot, let you join a global voice chat. Make a compass to get general direction with crafting. Some usual crafty stuff. There’s a character wipe tomorrow morning so I’m likely to spend some hours Wednesday learning my way through the world.
I’m planning a play of H1Z1 for Halloween. A LAN party if I can get the volunteers, a streamed solo session if I can’t. I’ll link here when I have better information.
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