Category: MMORPG

There and Back Again: The Winter Process

Published April 3, 2013 by Leprekawn

Following on the heels of my week of Star Trek Online revisited Guild Wars 2 for a few weeks. All told, I spent more time talking to my father about GW2 than actually playing it. A friend said it best. The problem with Guild Wars 2 is that you’re always the same. Same powers, same buttons, same equipment visiting some of the same areas.

That’s actually one of the things it does well. They (ArenaNet) built a wondrous structure that means I can hang with friends new and old in places high and low without fear of overshadowing their efforts. The downside is that no area feels different enough from another. Bats, rats and Cave Trolls are always a threat. Always.

A friend talked me into Mists of Pandaria. I bought it, played it for a couple weeks. I got my roommate playing again, for which I almost regret. We finally turned off our EVE accounts, realizing that while it’s a great sandbox experience, we likely won’t go back anytime soon. I like MoP, but my understanding of WoW changed considerably. I view it less as an adventure game with endgame to achieve and more as a themepark experience to be had. You pay your fee, you pick up your foam sword and go bop foam monsters on the head until you get tokens for the Cotton Candy vendor. And then you do it all again. Once I figured that out, I found I was able to objectively enjoy World of Warcraft even after recently having gotten as frustrated as I was.

A handful of clever phone games caught my attention. Pixel People, Tiny Tower (again), Ridiculous Fishing and just recently Strategery (again). All while I waited for SimCity to release which it did and I played and I moved on to watching Star Trek: Voyager. This started a chain reaction culminating in playing Star Trek Online again. Between one and the other I played Endless Space (Now fully released), Sword of the Stars 2 (Awww.. what did you do?) Distant Worlds (Yeah, just as chaotic as before) and a game called Stardrive (beta). I dabbled in Civilization 5 for about an hour and now I’m back to Star Trek Online.

I’m of this opinion that if you stripped off the Star Trek, you’d have a great science fiction game. I like how you aren’t just one character. How you have a crew and team members who join you for missions, how you have officers who will fill roles for you without providing active abilities. Case in point, my chief science officer can create a short-lived Gravity Well what truly messes with whomever it hits while my Duty Officer gives me a chance to spawn 3 more of those as the power winds down. On top of that, I can send some of these officers on missions to earn me rewards. I don’t just have a ship. I have a represented crew.

BioShock Infinite hit store shelves and so far everything I hear is “This game is great”. I’m giving it another week before I start looking for reviews. Surely someone will have something negative to say, for context.

I’ve dabbled my hand at a few F2P action games recently. I put some time into MWO which I really enjoy for the sheer nature of actually feeling like i’m lumbering around in 80 tons of steel and death. Warframe is new and I haven’t given it much more than 30 minutes. So far I can call it a Cooperative PvE 3rd-Person shooter. I don’t think there’s pvp yet and what little time I spent with it I only had a broad idea of what was happening. And by that, I did some shooting and aimed for what I thought was the head. It’s a time-honored strategy that got me through many games.

A friend talked enough about Mass Effect 3 multiplayer that for 20 bucks I took the plunge. Yeah, it’s fun. In a nutshell you do a mission, complete some random minor objectives and shoot some dudes. For your efforts and based on how well you did you earn credits you use to buy packs of random gear. More credits, better gear. But random. Including alien race/class combos. On one hand, I like this. I could drop real money and get special points to buy those packs, but I can’t just buy the gun or class I want. Limited smartly, I think. Else the game would spike briefly as people dumped 50 bucks and bought what they thought was the best class and moved on. I’ve played several hours. Probably less than 10 and I can see where it would get tedious or old, but taken in moderation I’ll likely play well into Summer.

WildStar popped onto my radar recently. While it’s still in beta there are a number of features that put this squarely on my “Wait and see list”.

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The Search for Squire, Part 5 – South Seas

Published January 18, 2013 by Leprekawn

The goblin I hired.. Some jack-fool named after a fine range of saltwater cuisine did me no good. I let him roam for two weeks before I found him drunk and passed out at the controls to a very expensive looking flying contraption I’d seen Gnomes piloting during my time with the Alliance. I was less than thrilled that my money had gotten him booze, a vehicle and not the common sense to solve a query granted by a Mage as powerful as I.

I should warn people about the smell of charred goblin and wrecked machinery near Camp Winterhoof. Should, but I won’t.

My ire spurned, I masked my form with a powerful illusion and traveled among the goblins of the South Seas in search of my diminutive green companion. This took a year, goblins are all short and green and from the air it’s hard to spot the difference. And then there’s the money.

Broke and tired of seeing things from the 3ft perspective of a greedy big-nosed flop-eared jack-fool I returned to Orgrimmar to coordinate a new search. At least I had tried to return.

A dangerously thick misty-fog crept up from the seas and I found myself utterly bewildered as I lost control of my carpet and spiraled towards what I’d hoped was the ground.

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DCUO

Published January 4, 2013 by Leprekawn

I was trying to work out a clever sub-title but I couldn’t come up with one specific to DC Universe Online.

Originally, I wasn’t a big fan of DCUO. I spent a number of years with City of Heroes and had a lot of time and fond memories invested. There was a depth of character design with the class-based structure and variety of powers inside those classes that made for some excellent and varied concepts.

So for a while I passed on DCUO. CoH closed it’s doors for good in November and with that I’m left looking for a new surrogate cape game. As sometimes I just wanna bounce thugs.

DCUO is pretty, steeped in DC Lore and riddled with characters guiding you to missions or advising on strategies. You play as your own hero within one of their few powersets. Each powerset comes pre-packed to do damage with an alternate roll unlocked later.

The game is well engineered and available on PC and PS3 with separate servers for each. It feels like a console port which is bad, but it feels like a well-built game which is good. The balance has prompted me to plug in my old gamepad for the first time in years and give it a go.

As another F2P game it’s worth giving a look at if you like Superhero games and are interested in playing as someone other than Superman or Batman. This isn’t an iconic character game. I’d also more heavily promote it if you were a fan of DC comics. I’m not as big a fan as I could be and so the encounter with Gorilla Grond was almost lost on me.

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The Secret World: Bump Uglies

Published January 3, 2013 by Leprekawn

I’m still adjusting to TSW and I’ll be back with more details later as I give it a cursory week of play during my core evaluation. It’s B2P following conventional MMO design ideas. Those ideas are pretty easy to follow: You have gear that mandates what content you can push into such as dungeons or quests, you get xp that lets you improve abilities and you have quests that involve running around and picking up things you might rather reconsider.

TSW approaches the conventional ideas unconventionally and to a point I find amusing. While you will find hubs like the local sheriff station that has various people in need of help or instruction, you’ll find other details and items around the world that will add further clues to the events at large. I’ve since returned a bit of bone that has lead to further instruction on travelling to Cairo, for instance. You are limited in how many you can pick up, forcing you to choose on what paths you work and emphasizing the story elements tied to each quest.

Skills and abilities are tied to experience you earn as you complete quests and vanquish monsters, these points in turn being used to buy abilities on the Ability Wheel (Google Image Search: TSW Ability Wheel). You’re not forced into a canned class or path instead allowed to pick your road down a winding variety of powers that synergise into your character.

I’m not sure what else I’ll see in the game that could change what I’ve said. I find it amusing and I’m deeply thrilled by the freedom of class design. My only qualm about the game is the minimum barrier for entry as it cost me via Steam Sale $22 and I’ve heard you can get it for less via Amazon.

Otherwise this is a game of modern horror with supernatural elements. I’d recommend TSW to anyone a fan of Lovecraftian horror or looking for a World of Darkness approach to online gaming.

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MMO’s and me: How my next month or two is going to go..

Published January 3, 2013 by Leprekawn

Some time ago I gave up World of Warcraft for a variety of reasons. The highest on my list was a personal insult of RNG vs You problem of not getting one recipe for a stupid achievement I didn’t need but I sure as hell wanted.

With Guild Wars my interest in subscribed online gaming has moved into Free to Play and I’ll give you money for amusing things I want idealism. To date I’ve put cash money on starships in STO, locked chests in GW2 and an occasional costume DLC from CoH or DCUO. Acronyms are probably boggling you at this moment. I’ll clear them up farther down for your digestion.

I have a range of itches that form gaming habits as the year rotates. Strategy empire-building games, space combat, superhero, fantasy dungeon marauding and treasure collecting. My interest shifts and follows a fairly well structured path I’ve failed to note. Here in the mid-winter I tend to drift a bit. Poke around and see what’s out there. For your benefit you’re going to see some posts about various MMORPG’s that are F2P and worthy of my interest. I’ll talk about some other games too, sure.

DLC – DownLoadable Content (Usually for money.)

F2P – Free to Play (No box cost)

B2P – Buy to Play (Box cost, no subscription)

STO – Star Trek Online

GW2 – Guild Wars 2

CoH – City of Heroes (offline and no longer in service: for the record)

DCUO – DC Universe Online (my fallback Superhero interest approach)

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Star Trek Online: How I spent my Winter Holiday

Published January 3, 2013 by Leprekawn

During the last week of December I made a cursory recommendation to a coworker regarding STO. In hindsight I thought maybe I should eat the porridge I’m going to serve and play the game for more than 5 minutes during beta several years ago.

So it being Free to Play and me being something of a Star Trek fan I set my download for Friday night and started in Saturday, December 22nd. At no point in the following week would I have told you with a straight face that “I liked the game”. 66 hours in, it became rather apparent that whether or not i could vocalize my appreciation, I found something there worth my time.

STO breaks the traditional quest model a little with allowing you to phone in your completion, saving you a lengthy trip back to Spacedock or Planet 12 or wherever you need to go. Space is big and reading your mission text carefully is necessary to know where you’re going. All the missions are level adjusted to your character so as you move along you’re constantly fighting klingons and romulans and borg within your reach. Missions are a nice variety of exploration, combat vs the local antagonist (I killed a LOT of Orions Raiders) all with a mild level of puzzling built in. At one point I had to help a Ferengi put his replicator back online by routing power in a necessary order.

For all my time playing I only got 1/3 the way through the second mission ‘Episode’ arc, involving Romulans, and can easily guess I’ve got another week of just solid story mission progression. Each arc having a theme, i’m looking forward to the Borg arc.

If you like Star Trek, don’t mind the massive multiplayer nature of MMO’s and have a hankering for space combat you should give Star Trek Online a chance. It’s only available on PC and for Star Trek there aren’t a lot of alternate options out there.

Addendum –

There I was.. midweek.. sitting at my computer exploring some cluster on the edge of space at 2am. I beam down to a planet that some colonists had commented on strange detections. I’m scanning a plant-pod and look up to see the rocky formations that form shaded areas. The abstract nature of it all just kicked in. “Oh yeah.. i’m playing Star Trek.”

Strange new worlds indeed.

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Squire

Published November 20, 2012 by Leprekawn

I’ll never know how he found his way into my possessions. Half a rusted lantern and a tatter of penant were all there was and yet the ghostly spirit hounded me.

I noted to make time to try and communicate with it someday, should it prove to be a manifestation of spiritual energy and not a hallucinatory emanation from the Mad King.

Cohorts within the Bubblegum Brigade coerced me to join them in assaulting the Mad King’s private sanctum. I assured them it was a bad idea, that nothing good could come of this and yet they insisted. I won’t say I regretted the choice though I won’t admit I enjoyed it either.

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Four Days of Mild Hell

Published November 19, 2012 by Leprekawn

I was sick. Like: Sinus pressure so bad I can’t sleep til 2am when fatigue takes hold and I spend the day numbly blowing my nose and largely oblivious to what’s going on around me.

And of course the obnoxious pain was just enough that I spent four days parked in front of my computer. Mental note, Chlorox the keyboard when I get home. Did I check my email? No. Did I answer my phone? No. Did I post to Facebook? No. What did I do then? Guild Wars 2. Something like 40+ hours in four days.

Highlights from the memory reel. Warning, this is in no particular order or by any means complete.

Made 10g

Spent 11g

Cleared 7 dungeon wings

Cleared Arah Story mode

Cleared Twilight Arbor Story mode

Started leveling a warrior

Started leveling an elementalist

Deleted elementalist

Made decision to reroll warrior with different color skin

Made five bags

Remarked at how I now have 104 item slots on my mesmer

Decided to play more of my mesmer after 40-odd hours of my guardian

Completed exploring Orr

Found an Exotic

Found some rares

Sold all of them

Took part in the weekend Lost Shores event

Promptly got bored of the Weekend event and went back to regular questing.

Met an awesome friend

FB’d awesome friend

Made myself semi-famous with “Dungeon 101”

Dungeon 101: Don’t Stand in It, Don’t Stand in Front, Try not to Suck

Nearly rolled a second guardian what cause I like them so much more than Warrior.

Finally found a staff I can stand looking at for long periods of time.

Got an exotic sword for my guardian what glows blue at night.

Finally learned how to tell time in Guild Wars 2.

With that being said, I was rather sick. What would I have done instead? Played a crapload of Pokemon. On account of some technical hurdles I restarted my game. I wasn’t far in. But when I really wanted to play Pokemon I couldn’t focus on fine details or long-range strategies. Yes, we’re still talking about Pokemon.

I’m feeling better now and hope to have better focus on what I’m doing for the next while.

Edit: I’ve added a new category, MMORPG. Now you can filter based on even more criteria and largely avoid my Guild Wars 2 rambling.

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Published September 19, 2012 by Leprekawn

I stopped in Vanjir’s Stead briefly, having just come East from Demon’s Maw. Provisions were high on my list and as I prepared to trek North, back above the treeline, I chatted briefly with the few Norn dwelling there.

Seemed Ice Wurms were causing some trouble at the edge of their stead and they were paying well for people to see about dissuading the abnormally active beasts. A task I assured them I’d look into as I headed North. I was searching the edge of Dredgehaunt for anything of note as necessitated by my membership with the Oder of Whispers.

How I let them dispatch me to the mountains again I’ll never know.

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Skritt

Published September 18, 2012 by Leprekawn

I’ve seen Skritt in many places.

I’m no Durmand Priory researcher so I keep my ramblings to a minimum. But I’ve begun to think they followed the Asura. Anywhere I find Asura I’ve also found Skritt. The number of them vary but the presence is unmistakable.

What confuses me is the varied nature of their hostility. Some are cutthroat merchants. Most are aggressively territorial.

I wasn’t terribly surprised then as I crossed the Rootangles and neared Ruins of the Unseen. The area was rife with Skritt activity as they swarmed out of their burrows and attacked anyone within sight.

When it was done, I was told by a nearby Asura that this happens often as a side effect of his research. I didn’t inquire on his research, Asuran theology is heavily mixed into their academic teachings and I wasn’t in the mood for another debate on The Eternal Alchemy.

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