Guild Leadership Archives - Page 99 of 108

Unfunny Dead

September 23, 2013 by Belghast

Vegetative State

After our day of random running about on Saturday, I spent most of yesterday hanging out on the sofa and catching up on movies that I had meant to watch. It takes an act of congress to get me into a movie theatre… I have a thing with large crowds and a completely and total lack of enjoyment of them. So most of the time I prefer to just wait until something is available either through on demand or to the home market in general. Among the movies I watched was World War Z as hinted at by the tower of zombies image above. I have to say despite all the negative press about the movie I actually rather enjoyed it.

Sure there were many super sensationalist shots like the ant like zombie tower… but for the most part it was one of the most intense zombie movies I have seen since 28 days later. I am a heretic, while I own World War Z the novel… I have not made it terribly far into it. So I can’t really appreciate just how bad a movie this was (or at least that is what I keep hearing). What was there was something I enjoyed watching. Granted I have never been a huge fan of track star / parkour zombies… but it does generate some intense viewing. At the end of the day I greatly prefer Walking Dead… but this was fun as well.

Unfunny Dead

Another film that I had wanted to watch but never got around to… was the 2013 remake of Evil Dead. A little preface leading into this… I love the previous Evil Dead movies. However this is primarily because I love Bruce Campbell as Ash. He is the perfect blend of smart ass and campy super hero for my personal tastes… and if you have never watched My Name is Bruce… I highly suggest you Netflix that. I went into this movie knowing that the end result of this reboot would essentially destroy everything I loved about the movie. Ultimately I was fine with this… I wanted to see what the new version was anyways. If you have not see the movie, be warned I am going to spoil various things.

I feel like the characters in this movie… could have done with a SINGLE play session of Call of Cthulhu pen and paper. If you find a book, that is wrapped in barbed wire and left on an altar of sorts… the last thing you EVER want to do is clip the barbed wire. If you by some strange compulsion to you decided to clip the barbed wire… and found that the cover was made from what looks to be human flesh… for the love of god do not open it. If for some strange reason… you then opened the book and saw all sorts of dire warnings… for the love of fucking god do not read ANYTHING THAT IS SCRATCHED OUT ALOUD. Essentially after the first ten minute I had already decided that the characters deserved whatever they got.

I feel like Cabin in the Woods was a so much more enjoyable version of this movie. After the first few minutes I spent most of my time trying to figure out which single person would survive. Ultimately that was the big surprise that I did not see coming. The one who survives essentially throws all horror movie cannon to the four winds, which is I guess something. The trailers billed this as the “most terrifying film you will ever experience”… to which I assume they just had a ridiculously low bar to measure this against. It was neither terrifying nor particularly scary other than the fact that it had near silent dialog… and blaringly loud sound effects. So at the end of the day it might have frightened my ear drums.

Big Horns

The highlight of the day was taking my Warrior in FFXIV to 45 and completing that class quest. One of the really awesome things is that at level 45 you get a full set of relic gear minus the chest piece. Within moments your character turns from looking essentially the same as anyone else of your gear type… to looking like all of the character artwork for your job. For me I get to start inching my way towards looking like the badass on the right. Another cool feature is that finally I have a helm that you can use the /visor command on. The above image is with the visor snapped down.

Now begins the slow climb to 50, but at the same time I have a bunch of other classes that I want to level. I feel like I would probably be better served pushing the Warrior to 50, and then using the xp bonus on all of the other classes I level. However right now we have a large number of guild members staggered in level. As they need dungeons I am usually at the vanguard of folks offering to go along with whatever alternate class fits the level range. Quickly becoming my secondary is the Archer, and I managed to get it to 25 this weekend with numerous dungeon runs. I think bard will more than likely be the next job I pick up.

Sword and Bored

Additionally I worked on my Gladiator a bit over the weekend. I managed to push it up to 25 and have it read to tank Toto-rak if anyone needs it. I really want to be a Paladin eventually, because I would like to have both Warrior and Paladin maxed out so I can choose which tank class best fits the encounters we are facing. I feel I do a good job at playing the class, and I rarely have the threat problems inherit with the class in general. The problem is… Gladiator is just not a fun class for me. Compared to the Marauder it is just a boring class with nothing much interesting going on other than spamming savage blade and occasionally stunning something. I wish I had leveled it first… because Marauder would have been a breath of fresh air compared to it.

I really don’t feel much pressure to level a gladiator however, because we have at least two players coming quickly through the ranks that have chosen that as their main focus. Ultimately if we as a guild encounter things that require the paladin abilities, we will at least have access to them as a class. I feel like I am probably better spent pushing up my Dragoon to 50 or getting Archer to Bard and running it to 50. Being able to play a high level dps in additional to a high level tank seems more beneficial. I still feel like eventually I will level most of the classes, but I feel like I have put a pretty massive dent in them so far.

You can check out my character on the lodestone… but the summary is…

Warrior – 45
Dragoon – 32
Gladiator – 25
Archer – 25
Pugilist – 20
Thaumaturgist – 6

Essentially I am working on pushing up all of the disciple of war classes so that I can turn the lower tiers of gear into materia and clear out some inventory space. Once I get the archer to 30, I will likely start working on the pugilist to push it up. I can’t really see playing Pugilist/Monk as a main class, since it is even more positional than the lancer… but it is fun to play around on it. I have to say though that they are completely screwed when it comes to fates. They have no viable AOE early on, and no ranged attack to tag mobs with… so essentially you just have to spam attacks on whatever you can come in contact with. In the world of Quick Nock, Overpower, and Ice 2… you are just screwed for contribution.

Wrapping Up

Well I need to get downstairs, feed the animals, pack up my laptop and get on the road. This weekend overall was an extremely relaxing one. Combining watching movies and working on classes in FFXIV I really enjoyed myself. The one thing I have enjoyed about FFXIV more than anything at this point is the grouping. There are several touchstone moments in the game that require a group to get past, and as a result everyone is always ready to do more grouping. The fact that they scale you automatically, and give you decent experience for your own level is a huge plus. I hope you all have a great week ahead of you, and that you get accomplished whatever needs to be accomplished.

Game Jumping

September 20, 2013 by Belghast

This morning I am struggling more than a tiny bit to stay focused long enough to actually write up a blog post. I feel like this is a side effect of my odd night. Firstly I was feeling extremely drowsy last night, so I had a few cups of coffee… which never fully woke me out of my slumber. What it did however is make me completely oblivion to the fact that it is past midnight and I was not in bed yet. Combine this with the fact that my wife woke me up in the middle of the night over essentially nothing, and we have a recipe for a groggy Bel. Here is hoping that I can focus long enough to make something intelligible.

Game Jumping

My post about being a content locust the other day, made me sit down and think. I am sure I have a bunch of friends who simply do not understand why I and a lot of my friends jump games so regularly. This is going to be my attempt to understand why the process is so alluring. Basically launch day is like Christmas morning for me… the game is so full of possibility. Everything is new, or at least new enough to lure me into a feeling of being on some grand exploration. The dungeons are all new, and there are no real guides to get in the way of figuring things out yourself. Every mob pull is unexpected, every level gained a treasure waiting to be opened as you find out what new abilities you get to play with.

The other thing that makes a game launch absolutely intoxicating is the fact that EVERYONE is playing it. Everywhere you turn there is a viable group combination, and everyone is excited to be doing them. Guild chat teems with “do you want to run X dungeon?” and a chorus of “hell yes we do!”. Everyone is excitedly talking about this thing they found or this trick they just learned. Lunchtime becomes a discussion of specs and strategy, and every single person is looking forward to getting home and logging into the game to experience more of it. The launch of a game is like a massive sugar rush where everything is sunshine, rainbows and magical flying ponies.

The Crash

Like any good sugar rush… you know there is a crash coming, but at the time you simply do not give a shit because it is just so pure and enjoyable. The problem is… an amazing game experience causes each of us to play in ways that are simply unsustainable for the long run. We might neglect to do this or that chore, knowing that eventually this will snowball and become a weekend we have to be COMPLETELY offline to take care of. Additionally we are all logging hours in a mad push to keep up with each other as we barrel through the content at breakneck speeds in search of the next new game high.

When the crash comes… it is sudden. We go from 30 players online one night, to 15, to 5… as everyone falls into recovery mode. Some recover their gusto for the game experience a few days or even a week later… but others still are just spent from the climb. Now is the point that the reality of the game sets in. As a player you start to notice the features that don’t work quite right, or are generally short sighted or outright missing. You start to complain politely that the company is not addressing whatever dire need you feel is there. Finally the feedback loop of players starts to become a chorus… and ultimately a handful of players will determine the game is unplayable and move on.

The Feet Draggers

In every game launch, there are a handful of friends that for whatever reason will not allow themselves to commit and jump head first into a new game experience. They have all manner of reservations, namely that folks will not stick with this one… but in essence they are missing the point. We are not necessarily looking for the next hundred year game… I think most of us are chasing the high of the launch. Launching a game is extremely intoxicating… everything is fresh and new and unsullied… and jumping into that experience is unlike anything else in gaming. Those timid souls who watch on the side lines, until seeing their friends having so much fun becomes unbearable… they are ultimately missing the best part of the game experience.

By the time they commit and download the game… they have missed the game in its heyday if you will. They have missed the times when everyone is excited to be doing something, even to the point of begging to do it. They have missed a time when we did not quite yet have figured out what spec did what, and what ability worked the best. They have missed a time when every loot drop was full of possibility, and we never knew what wonder might be lurking around the corner. They have to become excited in a time period when everyone in the guild surrounding them is becoming progressingly less excited.

I always feel the worst for the feet draggers. They are sold a tale of an undiscovered continent, but by the time they actually commit to getting the game they are delivered a depleted territory instead. I have a number of friends who will hem-haw and drag their feet trying to keep from committing to anything new that comes around the corner…. only to eventually end up buying it and wondering where the magic went. The magic is always spent in the hazy days of launch and the weeks leading past it, and that experience where everything literally IS magic and new… is worth any sticker price.

Pax Guildana

After the initial wave of pioneers have faded away, or at least returned to sustainable play times… we have a period of the guild that I like to refer to “Pax Guildana”. A quiet peaceful time when those of us who enjoy soloing, cast off the flurry of activity that a launch brings on and return to piddling around with some friendly guild chat to bind us together. This is the quiet after the storm, and usually remains this way until the excitement builds about a brand new launch on the horizon. As much as I love the thrill of being a pioneer into a brand new game world… I like this as well. I like logging in to a peaceful and friendly guild chat, not really knowing what I am going to do that night… but more than likely doing something completely devoid of stress.

Dungeons and group activity still happens, but more out of a sense of needing to get someone this or that thing… or through a quest, than out of the sheer excitement of doing them. Then one day someone comes to guildchat, talking about how they have discovered some new and amazing continent littered with riches everywhere the eye can see… and the process begins to build again. The first waves of scouts leave the mainland and soon after the second and third waves are off exploring this new land, plundering its bounty. This of course… leaves only the foot draggers to hold down the fort hoping that the excitement will return. If the basecamp was built well enough… folks often WILL return… but not in every case.

Home Base

For me right now, Rift is my home base and Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn my forward camp. I can say that my intent is to keep it this way… but at no time can I ever really say for certain how things will change. Sometimes the forward camp becomes the new home… and we discover a new territory on the horizon. Other times we fall back to home only to find out the new territory was fallow and uninhabitable. For the time being, my intent is to play these two games and enjoy each of them as much as I can. However with so many games on the horizon… at least one of them… Elder Scrolls Online… a game I have been anxiously awaiting for what feels like years. I am not sure if Final Fantasy will become the new home, and we will embark from it for the shores of Tamriel… or if that adventure will be sent out from Telara.

Regardless of from where the ships launch, I know that they WILL launch… and likely launch again for Wildstar. As much as I try and claim that I don’t have interest in a certain game… I too often get caught up in the thrall of the addictive nature of a big game launch. Having seen these events play out all too many times… it is just too enticing to not join in the fun. As always I feel horrible for the foot draggers… because they never get to experience a game in its purest form… but instead are always resigned to get the slightly used version of the game in the process. I keep thinking one of these days… one of these games they will get hooked on the launch process as well because they will jump into it whole heartedly with no reservations. It will only be then, that they truly understand why people jump from game to game.

Wrapping Up

Well I need to get on the road, but before doing so I need to pack my laptop and feed the animals. This Friday I have traded the super awkward coffee for a super awkward meeting. Not terribly looking forward to it, but we must do what we must do. I hope you all have a great weekend. Tonight I will be participating in something NDA restricted, so tomorrow morning I will have to come up with something interesting to say… that is in no way related to what I did last night. Hopefully inspiration will find me between now and then.

Stalwart Locusts

September 18, 2013 by Belghast

Good morning you happy people in digital land. I am having one of those mornings where I am questioning why exactly I put myself through this every day. Not to be an intentional bummer, but this takes a lot of fortitude to keep doing this every single morning regardless of if I have something to say or not. I am just afraid if I stop it, for even one morning I will slip back into month long absences. I feel like I need the routine to keep me moving forward. I would really like to get a full year of daily posts, so for now that is my goal.

I’m a Jerk

I have to say, lately I have been feeling progressively worse about myself, so maybe this is just a downer of a post. Primarily the source of my lament, has been that I have been essentially non-existent over in Rift. I put all this effort and time into building an amazing instance of House Stalwart over there… and now so many of us are playing Final Fantasy XIV that it has almost over night become a ghost town. I feel like each and every one of us still like Rift and still enjoy it, we are just wrapped up in the thrall of the new shiny object in front of us.

To make matters even worse… Fynralyl and Psynister are being their amazingly awesome selves like normal… and ended up pushing the guild bank fund over the top and we were able to afford the third guild vault tab. However being the absentee leader like I have been… it took me a few days to pop in and purchase it, then forgot to give anyone access to it. I apparently did a piss poor job of promoting them to officers, only hitting a handful of characters for each of them. So generally I have been a pretty lousy person of late.

I feel generally conflicted. Firstly I still love Rift and enjoy it, and want the guild to be doing awesome things. Much like Everquest 2, Rift is one of those games that I have always cycled back to… and since the release of the game there is only a three month stretch where I have not been playing it. So I guess in the back of my mind I know it will always be there waiting for me. The problem is… the people currently playing it may or may not. Even if I am not around much, I still think breaking out and forming a permanent House Stalwart guild was a good thing for those times when the guild is super active.

Stalwart Locusts

The sad truth of House Stalwart is it is really a tale of two guilds. The first is a group of WoW players that have remained thoroughly devoted to that game since release and continue playing it or returning to it. The second guild is the large roaming band of “content locusts”, that consume the content in a game only to move on to the next tasty field when it presents itself. So as a result this guild is this massive amorphous war band that roams across the countryside pillaging things in our wake. It might not be the most pleasant metaphor, but considering we now have about 30 people in Final Fantasy XIV whereas we had around 30 active people in Rift previously… it seems appropriate.

In part this is my fault, but in part this is just the nature of most “post-wow” players. Once we dissolved the ties to one game, it changed the way we viewed games in general. The fact that Stalwart is so large and so broad and ever changing… means we always have a group of people playing whatever game the people seem to want to be playing. So when a new game comes out there are always a dozen or so people amped and ready to play it. It doesn’t so much feel like we are jumping games, but more than we are just continuing the same ties we have always played with… somewhere else.

For me personally… leaving WoW changed my perspectives a lot. Essentially I made a promise to myself that I would play whatever happened to be the most enjoyable for me at any given moment. As a result I have played a ton of cool games, and met an ever expanding cast of characters in the process. I now have so many life long friends that I have today, that I NEVER would have had if I had not given in to my wanderlust and experienced new worlds with different groups of new people. But all of this said… I still feel like an ass when I am off playing something other than a fragment of Stalwart is playing.

Big Apology

I guess in part, today’s post is a huge apology to those playing Rift that have noticed the active player base in the guild shrink significantly over the last few weeks. I don’t think any of us are “done” with Rift, this is just something that happens from time to time with Stalwart. We find a new shiny and go off and play it together. I have a years subscription to Rift, so I won’t be going anywhere forever, I just have so many things that I want to do in Eorzea. So many new sights to see, experiences to experience and adventures to conquer.

I still plan on trying to marshal the troops to logging back in on Wednesday nights for dungeons or rifts or whatever happens to occur. My hope is to single that out on the calendar as “Rift night”. Additionally as the leveling curve winds down a bit in FFXIV, I hope to push my rogue up on the weekends… because quite frankly leveling in Rift is a relaxing experience for me. Most of the time in FFXIV has been a LOT of dungeon running, and since I am one of two tank mains… I feel deeply obligated to all the friends that are playing the game.

This is ultimately what always complicates my gaming experience. The feeling of constant split loyalty… since there has never been a period of time when ALL of my friends happen to be in the same place at the same time. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your point of view… I am the leader of House Stalwart agnostic of whatever game folks happen to be playing. It has and likely always will be a multi-gaming community, more so than just a single gaming guild. As games come and go the important thing to me is the community of players that we have cobbled together. That is what is eternal, and so long as we remain friends there will always be another opportunity to play together around the corner.

Wrapping Up

Sitting down this morning I had no intent of writing a post like this, but I guess it has been weighing heavily on my mind. Hopefully it was not too big of a downer for the majority of my readers. It still feels odd most of the time that anyone reads these ramblings. I will be over in Rift tonight, trying to dislodge anyone I can from FFXIV in the process. I have no clue at all what we will be doing, but I figure some opportunity will present itself. I hope you all have a great week, and those of you who are playing it… I hope I see you in Rift tonight.

Tips For Eorzea: Part 1

September 16, 2013 by Belghast

Good morning all you happy people in digital land. I am fairly sleepy this morning, as last night I had to resort to some Motrin PM to shut my brain off. I really hate Sunday as a construct… I always have trouble switching back over to week day mode after the freedom a weekend brings. My brain is never quite willing to give up its freedom, and as a result always ends up fighting me a bit… namely in trying to keep me awake rather than sleeping. Unfortunately having to resort to a minor sleep aid like I did last night also means I am going to be overly groggy in the morning.

Cactuar Returns

For the last several weeks since the release of Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn, the server we all play on has been locked down tight from new character creation. After the Wednesday/Thursday maintenance this eased up a bit… but only briefly. Right now it appears like character creation is open early in the morning for most of the US realms, but locks down tight again as the day goes on. Over the weekend we managed to get five new players that had been waiting to create characters into the game and onto our server.

One of them I was scared had messed up. They decided they did not want to start the class they started, so as a result they deleted the character to create a new one. When they did this the list showed that Cactuar was still open for new character creation. However by the time they redesigned the character and went to create it… it was locked down tight. Essentially locking them out of being able to play at all Friday evening. Luckily however at 5 am the next morning they were able to get in, create the character and get going again.

Tips For Eorzea

I thought today I would take a few minutes to rattle on about various tidbits I have either learned or wish I had known before I started my characters. None of these are rocket surgery, but various little things I have picked up along the way. I am going to try my best to make them spoiler free, however I cannot guarantee there won’t be any tidbits of information that are mildly spoilery at least in the general flow of the game.

Aethernet

In major hubs there are Aetheryte crystals. These allow you to teleport back and forth between them. In the three major cities, there are also smaller Aethernet crystals as well. As you roam through the city, make sure you attune to each of these. When you have collected a full set for a city, it additionally unlocks teleports to the major gateways into the city. This becomes super handy as you are questing and need to go back out into the world to one of the specific destinations. Generally speaking these teleports will take you to each of the various guilds and locations in the city, as well as the exits to the various zones that connect to the city.

Favored Destinations

When you attune to the Aetheryte crystal network, it allows you several options. One of these is to set it as a favored destination. Doing this greatly reduces the cost of teleporting to that location. Your teleportation cost is based on a number of factors, but is primarily based on how far away you are from the zone. What I generally suggest is that you favorite the three hub cities Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, and Uldah. Once you have unlocked the ability to travel between them, you will spend quite a bit of your time late in the game popping back and forth between the various areas of the world. Once you reach the hub, you can usually travel to whatever zone you need to go to via the Chocobo network.

Set Nearby Home Point

Death in Eorzea tends to come swiftly and unexpectedly. Almost all of the deaths I have taken that are not inside of instances, have been because I got suddenly and unexpectedly overwhelmed. When you die, you get teleported back to your home destination. At the beginning this will be your home city, however as you move throughout the world you can set your bind point to any of the large aetheryte crystals that are located in major cities… at least one per zone. I would highly suggest that you bind wherever you happen to be hunting. That way when you die you return to a place nearby and not someplace you will have to teleport out of to get back to doing whatever you needed to do.

Starter Gear

One of the key features that sets Final Fantasy XIV ARR apart from other games is the ability to literally do anything in the game on one character. You can be every class, job and trade profession. You enter the game in a set of gear that is based on your races native appearance, that can be equipped by any class or trade. Don’t make the mistake I did and sell this… because each time you pick up a new class you start back at level 1, and therefor can only equip level 1 gear. You can repurchase this gear from the independent trader (name varies per town) in your starter city, but it is just easier to say for the first little bit don’t sell ANY gear you might get.

Armoury Chest

Any equippable items you pick up get saved into a special inventory called the “Armoury Chest”. This allows you to carry quite a bit of gear with you at any given time. You have 25 slots available per individual armor type… that means 25 chests, 25 gloves, etc. The gear you collect in one class may be useable by other classes so as you decide to multi-class you have lots of resources to draw upon. Later on you will be able to break down spirit bonded items into Materia, which will become important for outfitting your gear and improving it. As a result I highly suggest you do not sell gear, but instead save it until you have the ability to break it down.

Trade Coins

Almost every quest you complete in Eorzea gives you the option of receiving items or trade coins. Now the game never refers to them by the term trade coin, but that is essentially what they are… so I have begun referring to them that way. Essentially you have various types of Allagan coins… these come in various denominations Tin, Bronze, Silver, Gold… and there might be higher ones that I have not encountered. They all have a base value on the vendor, Tin 10 gil, Bronze 100 gil, Silver 500 gil, Gold 2500 gil. The gear you get from quests is exactly the same as what you can get from the market. Often times you can get a piece of gear far cheaper than the amount of gil offered by completing the quest. As a result keep tabs on the prices for the gear for your level range. In most cases I would highly suggest taking the trade coins in lieu of gear. You will almost always be able to purchase the items cheaper.

Levequests

Very early in the process of the story, you will unlock the Levemete NPCs. They offer a type of quest called a Levequest. These can be used to level crafting, tradeskills… and later on you can get special versions of them that will raise your standing with the various grand companies. You get an allotment of 6 per day, and these stack up until you have reached 100. They are an amazing source of gil, and oddly enough really solid source of gear. Since I just suggested that you take the trade coins over the items in a quest… usually the same type of item is being awarded as a bonus for levequests as well. So make sure you do the quest to unlock each areas Leves as you travel around the world. Often times you can pick up gear for free by completing these. Additionally if you scale up the difficulty level by one step, you are almost always rewarded a bonus chest, and these have a chance at Aetherial versions of the normal crafted items. Ultimately these will be your best source of upgrades for some time.

Guildhests

Do not neglect Guildhests, I am finding this out the hard way. Around the same time as you unlock Leves in general, you unlock a special multi-player version of a Levequest, called a Guildhest. These are essentially small dungeon like encounters that are designed to teach players the mechanics needed to succeed in Eorzea. They start at around level 10, and will offer two new Guildhests every 5 levels. The gotcha here that I am finding out, is to continue progressing you must have done all the previous ones. As a result my lovely guildmates helped catch me up by running level 10-30 last night. Once you reach the 40 quests, they start being 8 man instead of 4 man. So I highly suggest you do these as part of your normal questing rotation. They reward massive amounts of xp if you are doing them at the level they are offered.

Wrapping Up

I can already see this is going to have to be a multi-part post as I have a ton more things to write about… and have run out of my allotted morning writing time. Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn is a deeply nuanced game, and with that there are lots of little pitfalls alone the way. I will be trying to collect the various bits of information and sharing them in these bit info dump posts. However now I need to go pack up my laptop and get on the road. I hope you all have a great day and that it goes extremely smoothly. I have numerous things waiting on me at work, so I figure I better get on with that.