Pre-Endgame Game

Limited Time Stuff

First off I guess let me open todays post with a complaint.  I really had nothing much to talk about as I sat down at the keyboard, so I did what I normally do and sifted through my RSS feed.  I spent most of yesterday super busy and really did not have time to read anything much.  One of the first posts was over on Rift Junkies talking about how apparently there was a new mount available for only four hours on the Rift store.  They are apparently calling this unstable artifacts, which is a clever excuse to make something super limited that costs a hell of a lot on the store.

I am not against the 2700 credit price tag, but I am against the concept of limited time items.  I hate when something goes into game only to be pulled out swiftly keeping anyone else from getting the item.  I honestly don’t care about the red Kirin at all, because I think the mounts are ugly, but for me it is more a principle of it.  When a game starts doing one time only things, I really lose interest quickly.  I get extremely frustrated anymore when I am asked to play a game on someone else’s schedule.  With the recent rapidly expiring world event each phase lasting only two days… this seems to be the direction that Rift wants to move in.

The more of this type of content goes into the game the less and less interested I am in it.  There are so many things about Guild Wars 2 that I think I would enjoy, but the fact that content expires roughly every two weeks keeps me from wanting to dig in and try it.  I don’t want to ONLY play this one game, and in order to farm up every new thing in the world… I would really have to do just that.  The whole playing the same game every single night concept just seems foreign to me.  There are so many different games I want to experience, so knowing I will go into a game missing out on things… makes me think my time is better spent elsewhere.

Pre-Endgame Game

ffxiv 2013-10-28 19-55-36-19

I guess while I am complaining, I might as well not stop with Rift.  Onwards to FInal Fantasy A Realm Reborn!  We absolutely lucked out as a guild and had eight of us reaching 50 within a few days of each other.  Well that is not true I guess, we had one super impatient gamer rush through to the end game and sit there without any additional support for about two weeks.  However the majority of us arrived at the end game at roughly the same time.  This made the sequence of three eight man instances seem not that horrible in part because it was fresh content for all of us.  However now that we have another three characters up to 50, I am realizing what a slog it really is.

So much of the end of the main storyline in FFXIV reminds me of the trials and tribulations of having to key players for various raid instances in both EQ and WoW.  Be warned there will be some spoilers, so if you care about that sort of thing, I would stop reading.  I will try my best to do as few as possible, but it is going to happen.  Essentially when you hit 49 you start down a sequence of events that leads to the finishing of the main storyline.  The first of these is Cape Westwind, yet another trial.  We have done this now three times… and quite honestly I cannot tell you exactly how the mechanics work.  The biggest pain is getting eight players online at the same time.

Next you run through a few quests and end up unlocking Castrum Meridianum…  which is surprise surprise another eight man dungeon.  This takes a little over an hours time normally if you are not doing the speed run chicanery… and now that every mob in the instance drops decent money there really is no reason why you would.  These places are decent money.  Once you finish up in there, you do a few more quests and wind up stalled on The Praetorium… yet another 8 man dungeon.  This one takes quite a bit longer than the previous one and is a wee bit trickier at times.  Finally after finishing this sequence of events you can finish the main storyline and unlock Amdapor Keep.

We have been working our way through these for Cyl, Opo and Tivo… and the problem with an eight man dungeon is trying to accommodate eight different play schedules.  We really only seem to have time to do one of the dungeons in the sequence per night.  Last night we were trying to figure out when we could pull together a group next…  and the problem is we are unlikely to be able to get ALL of the necessary players online until next week sometime.  As we started going through the days, there was one player that could not attend on each of the nights.  While the final storyline is extremely cool… it just seems like a lot of bullshit to have to slog through to even begin the end game grind.

Norrath Calling

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Towards the end of the night I ended up logging out of FFXIV and popping into EQ2 for a bit.  I have said it before, and I will say it again… sooner or later I always return to playing EQ2.  I am not sure if I am ready to be back in it yet, but I did some questing out in Withered Lands and enjoyed the relaxed pace.  My friend that recently returned was telling me excitedly about the guilds plans to start doing heroics, and while I think that is cool I don’t want anyone to factor me in their gaming decisions yet.  I already have a game where I am a key resource for running instances… I really don’t want another one.

That is not to say that I don’t enjoy tanking dungeons, because I do… otherwise I wouldn’t keep returning to playing that role.  I just find that tanking takes more out of me than it used to.  I cannot chain run instances like I once could.  So I find myself needing something else to play so I can have a bit of peace and quiet… and more importantly downtime.  Everquest 2 has always been a good filler of this niche.  I would like to get my Shadowknight up to 95 so I can be prepared for the new content when it releases as well.  I still feel like in many ways I am running from WoW, because I know that will only end up in tears of frustration.  I continue to ignore its sirens call by playing other things… just not sure how long that will work.

3 thoughts on “Pre-Endgame Game”

  1. “They are apparently calling this unstable artifacts,” Is incorrect. The Unstable Artifacts are a whole new series of artifacts that will only appear in zones during a zone event. There will be 150 new sets of unstable artifacts that when you complete a set will reward a token you can then use to purchase new planar squirrel mounts.

    The limited time mounts are not really anything new. The Defiance in-game vendors had limited time weapons since launch. I imagine there will be a series of rotating special mounts on the Rift store which are a pure credit sink. F2P in game stores are always filled with stuff like that, it’s nothing new.

    You might want to check out this thread http://junkiesnation.com/2013/10/28/rift-devs-talk-new-2-5-content-and-the-road-leading-to-3-0/#sthash.qfq8McmP.dpbs for more details of what is to come.

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