Squirrelghast

by

Flak Cannon Time

Warframe 2016-01-20 19-02-19-33

When it comes to playing Warframe I have quite literally spent almost 99% of my time playing the game…. in a full or partial group.  This greatly colors my feelings about the game, and in truth it has allowed me to play in a super inefficient manner.  Last night we had several group missions and then when Tam went to class and Ashgar went to bed…  it just kinda broke up and never reformed in spite of us having several people there.  Instead of grouping I opted to start working on some of the missions I had not actually unlocked, and I have to say…  I am pretty bad at this game.  At the very least my chosen play style is not exactly a solo friendly play style.  When I am playing my Excalibur with a Bow….  it works great, because I can sneak around and get a bunch of stealth kills.  However last night I was trying to level my Atlas with a Braton…  and the ability to stealth kill anything was non-existent.  In truth I feel like most of the problem is the fact that I have yet to really sort out how I want to mod anything.  At some point I need to spend an entire evening leveling mods, and deciding which ones work best with which weapons.

Warframe 2016-01-20 21-46-03-80

On the positive side of things, I did manage to finish up all of the sub components of the Rhino Prime and now simply have to wait the 72 hours crafting time to get it.  I also managed to finish up the Drakgoon Flak Cannon last night, so I spent some time playing with that as well.  I keep calling it a Flak Cannon because it very much reminds me of the Flak Cannon from Quake 3.  At close range it can be fired like a shotgun, but if you charge up the attack it can be fired from a much longer range and still be effective.  I am digging it quite a bit… and managed to have quite a bit of good luck with it running some missions.  I still think that the Strun is probably a better choice for a charge in and sword damage playstyle like I tend to favor, which is something that Ashgar suggested.  For the time being I am having a blast with this weapon…. and yes that pun was intended.  The other thing I did last night was start building a Boltor rifle, to see if I like that as was suggested to me by Scarybooster.  I mean in theory I could have gone shopping for a Boltor prime, but I happened to have all of the crafting mats available to make one without really dipping low in anything.  I guess tonight I will give it a shot and see what I think about it.

Blade and Soul

Client 2016-01-19 23-15-19-61

Right now the new hotness at least among the blogosphere seems to be Blade and Soul, which just launched this week.  In fact at this moment it seems like unless you are paying for the game, it is highly unlikely that you are going to actually get to play it.  My twitter timeline has been full of folks posting pictures of the insane queue times just trying to log in.  The other big problem that I have seen is that it seems like no one is actually playing on the same server.  I did a few quick queries and it seemed like everyone I know is playing on completely different servers.  I had no real interest in this game prior to launch, and honestly….  there isn’t much about it after launch that interests me.  That said…. since it is a freemium game I have this overwhelming desire to at least give it a shot.  I have to admit I have some pretty severe biases against Korean MMO art styles.  There is just something about the art aesthetic that annoys me…  the cloyingly pretty men, and the insane “Jessica Rabbit” style women…  its just not my thing.

The positive is that there is a Lalafell like race in Blade and Soul so I decided to try and focus instead on the maximum cuteness potential of that.  The problem there is…  it just isn’t as good as a Lalafell.  I created what I am dubbing Squirrelghast on the Old Man Cho server…. simply because I liked the name.  At some point if I end up liking the game I will try and sort out another server to roll on that actually has people I know.  The only negative is that I have yet to get any further than character creation because I end up getting dumped into a massive queue… and decided that I would simply rather play Warframe or Diablo 3.  It is my hope that over the weekend I will be able to get in and give the game a proper try.  The only thing I really know about it from clips is that it seems to be an MMO about the whole flying wire “crouching tiger hidden dragon” style of combat.  These movies never really appealed to me either, because they just felt so over the top silly to see someone calmly flying across the screen.  I’ve heard however that the localization job that Carbine did on this title was really damned good, and much like Final Fantasy XIV they slipped in a ton of cultural references.  If for no reason other than that… I kinda want to play it.  I really love the folks at Carbine and they seem to do a great job with the games under their care, so it is my hope that I will be charmed enough by the localization effort to overlook all the things I don’t care for.

 

9 thoughts on “Squirrelghast”

  2. I love playing the early missions of Warframe solo using a bow. When I get into the ‘real game’ and playing with others my OCD flips out because people rush through the level and don’t open every chest and check every corridor. I always find I’m lagging behind and more or less just running through the level… the guys ahead of my kill all the things.

    I wish there was more solo friendly content but I guess that’s really not the point of the game so I can’t really complain

    • There are seriously fewer things more satisfying than bow sniping in Warframe. However I run into the same problem… bows are not really group friendly so I have been mostly been trying to decide what weapon I want to use for group activity. So far I am leaning heavily towards the Drakgoon. At the moment I tend to rush ahead and just melee things to death, but I would like to also be able to shred things…. like the napalm and flame thrower guys.

  3. It’s rather funny how I share the same ideas with you about the races. I opted to make a Lyn aswell, a female one though, because the overly big boobs and ridiculously long legs on all the other female races were a total turnoff for me.
    Let’s not start about the muscular men. Although I hardly look at male characters, I never play one in any of my games.

    I need to play more to really form an opinion about the game itself, although I shared my inital thoughts on my blog. So far I’m just letting the game itself surprise me.

  4. “I have to admit I have some pretty severe biases against Korean MMO art styles.”

    Sometimes you have to follow your instinct. I tried it myself, having similar reservations about mechanics, presentation, and “philosophy” or Eastern MMOs, and I was not disappointed.

  5. The “everyone is on a different server” thing is what really gets me. It’s 2016, and we STILL have this problem? Technology wise, it’s been a solved problem for years, and yet we keep getting games that make it harder to play with people you know.

    It’s like the industry steadfastly refuses to learn from its own mistakes.

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