MMORPG Archives - Page 388 of 398 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Thundercats Ho!

May 27, 2013 by Belghast

This morning I am really struggling to boot my mind into something even vaguely functional. I had a weird night, and with it came an extremely odd dream. Basically I was back in High School and in some kind of engineering competition, where we had to do something interesting with an old broken phone. I was on a team of three, and as the dream is already fading… I forget who exactly was on my team. I do however remember that we went to a bunch of flea markets, found this 60s area payphone and with the assistance of an arduino made it work so it would be able to receive text messages. The text message had a special kind of ring, and when you picked up… Microsoft SAM voice would read back the text. I am pretty sure we won the competition, but at this point that is fading from my mind as well.

School Daze

Granted I don’t really know how to do any of the things I just described… but it worked well in the dream. I blame the High School related dream on the fact that all yesterday I essentially hung out in the High School where my wife teaches. The school year is over, but due to some changes in the schedule and a class she will be tag teaming with a science teacher… she is having to move rooms. Normally this would be something we could wait to deal with until August, however they are needing her room for summer school. As a result we had to go up and move her into the new room yesterday.

According to my pedometer app, I walked roughly 2.5 miles over the course of the day while moving roughly 200 textbooks, 25 legal sized boxes and miscellaneous items that didn’t fit in them. 35 pounds ago there would have been no way in hell I could handle this, let alone get it done in an hour and a half. So I am feeling pretty damned proud of myself, and while I am sore today I am not absolutely dead to the world. That is a pretty huge distinction, I guess it means my muscles are actually getting used to the activity.

During the first hour and a half I brute forced moving all the items from one classroom to the next, then left her to unpack and move things into their proper locations. I give my wife crap for this, but she does an amazing job of labeling exactly where something came from… so since the class rooms are essentially the same she was able to take entire boxes and know exactly which shelf they came from. After doing my volley of movement, I went off and ran a few errands and gathered lunch while she worked.

We ate the lunch of champions… Doritos Tacos from Taco Bell… which are surprisingly not that bad for you, and one of the better choices you can make from a fast food restaurant. After coming back I started assisting with piddly little things to help the process along. It became my job to break down boxes, and anything else that needed done as not to interrupt the flow of emptying boxes. We got up there at roughly 11:30 and ended up leaving around 4. It took considerably longer than I had anticipated, but I also was not aware of the gravity of the situation. “A Few” boxes turned out to be considerably more than I was initially expecting.

The Hobbit

I know this is geek sacrilege, but I watched The Hobbit for the first time yesterday. After the morning activity, when we finally got home I wanted to do something stationary for awhile. So I decided to fire up The Hobbit. I had picked it up awhile back, but never actually got around to watching it. Now you are thinking to yourself… why did you not watch it in the Theatre? Well honestly… crowds freak me the hell out. It takes a lot to get me to go to the theatre, and since this is not a movie my wife would enjoy… it is even harder to get me to justify going by myself.

As far as not watching it until now… well quite honestly until we got this sofa, hanging out downstairs and watching a movie was not really that enjoyable of an experience for me. My previous recliner was broken down and made sitting for any length of time fairly painful on my back. So I figured watching the movie was a good way to christen the sofa. The only negative is that about halfway through watching the movie, we had neighbors come down so I had to turn down the sound… and divert attention to them as well.

All of this said I found the movie enjoyable, but for whatever reason it felt like it was lacking something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, and honestly still cannot. I realize that The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy are two vastly different styles of storytelling, and have vastly different moods to the books. It is lacking the atmosphere that Lord of the Rings had in spades, while the world was gorgeous… it just felt off. I am sure this is one of those movies that I learn to love on repeated viewings… but it was not the immediate moving experience that Lord of the Rings was.

The highlight of the movie for me were of course the dwarves… because I have an irrational attachment to dwarven characters. I cannot play a game without playing a dwarf sooner or later. My first Everquest character was a Dwarf, and it has colored my tastes ever since. I think that since I am 6’4” in real life, and end up banging my head on everything… I secretly long to be shorter. Overall the movie was good, and like I said I think I will fall more in love with it on repeated viewings. Just on the first watching it felt like there was something off about it.

Thundercats Ho!

On a whim last night I decided to spend a bit more of my accrued Cartel Points and unlock the Caithar race. Immediately I decided to create a Thundercat Sith Juggernaut… because at the end of the day that is exactly what the newly christened Belgrenth looks like. All I am lacking is the sword of omens, and a weird gauntlet sheath. Actually that might be a fun trope for this guy… use only vibroblades… that is as soon as I can get a moddable vibroblade. A Thundercat totally needs a real sword, not a lightsaber!

I’ve done the Korriban starting zone so many times I could likely quest through it in my sleep, however I still found it enjoyable to be doing it on a Caithar. Overall the experience is not really any different, but I really like the appearance of the character. I have chosen to go full light side, as though a thundercat just accidentally happened to get stuck in the Star Wars universe. To be truthful, since Thundercats is really a science fiction story… and the magic in their world is almost purely technology…. it is not that far fetched if you think about it. Maybe the Caithar ARE the thundercats… in that case would the Emperor be Mum’Ra the Ever Living?

The other big highlight of the night is I finally caught up with Delevax and got my army of unguilded Sith alts in the House Stalwart sith guild over on Ebon Hawk. It is not super active, but it will be nice to see the occasional “green spam” as I play. I know him and a handful of friends play on a regular basis, I might try and get something up to their level range and hang out with them. I warned him as I warn everyone anymore, that pretty much I am not intending to really settle down in a game until the release of Elder Scrolls Online. At that point I am going to try desperately to “get the band back together” as it were.

Happy Memorial Day

My one request all weekend has been that we pretty much have Memorial Day to rest. For the most part it looks like this is going to happen. We have to drive out to a friend house and deliver the spare table from our livingroom, but overall it doesn’t appear that there is going to be much that is strenuous going on. I hope to be able to game most of the day and just chill out on our comfy new furniture. We had our requisite cookout on Friday night, so at least that memorial day tradition has been honored. I hope you all do whatever your family considers a tradition today… or at least find it relaxing. Happy Memorial Day to you all.

Sith Happens

May 26, 2013 by Belghast

This morning is a slow starter. Yesterday we made the mistake of laying down for a nap around 4pm… which ended up with us getting up around 7pm… and not being able to get to sleep again until 1:30. Essentially everything is happening in slow motion this morning as I finally woke up around 9. On top of that all the days of cleaning have compounded in this massive “sinus event” with my allergies attacking from all sides. So I have eaten my breakfast, taken an allegra for the allergies and some ibuprophen for the drums in my head.

The New Normal

Luckily we finally have a comfortable livingroom to show for all the work. Yesterday we moved out the old sofa, put together the cubicles you see on the far side of the room with the beige cloth baskets, and made a trip to garden ridge to purchase green cloth baskets for our entertainment center. Everything as a whole feels more cozy and tidy than it ever has in the almost 15 years we have lived here. I currently am sitting here writing this blogpost in the recliner that is in the lower left-hand corner of the picture.

It has been a pain in the ass to go through this transition, but we have two really comfortable living spaces to show for it right now. The living room is awesome, but so is the loft that I posted about a week or so back. I now have it rigged for ps3, xbox 360 and cable… and with the whole home dvr I can sneak up there to watch doctor who or any of the other shows my wife does not really care for. We still have a lot more to do, but most of it now is just cleaning and organization.

I really cannot pinpoint what sparked all these changes. At first it seemed like spring cleaning combined with a little nesting instinct, but I think there is something more there. At this point I have lost over 35 pounds, and my wife is well over 20 pounds. So I think as we feel better about our selves, we are wanting to make our surroundings match that. It is almost as if the weight loss has given us the courage to tackle other things in our life that had also been bothering us.

We have this big long list of things we would like to do, but most of them involve getting rid of this item and swapping it for something else. For the time being we are pressing the pause button, as we have already spent beyond the threshold of what we are comfortable with. Getting the two of us to spend large amounts of money is a really difficult thing. When you have spent years sitting on it, it is hard to finally part with those dollars even if it is for a very positive change.

Sith Happens

I wrote a few days ago about patching up Star Wars the Old Republic on a whim, since it was a game I knew I had a large patch waiting on me. I wanted to test just how fast the new internet could patch it up… and it did so remarkably fast. I was receiving the patches at roughly 1.5 meg per second, which is in completely a different league from the 300 kbps I was used to. The funny thing is that ever since patching it up, I have had a nagging desire to play. I have been so freakin sore and tired from all the moving of furniture and cleaning that I have not really been able to play much of anything for long periods of time.

Oddly enough once I solved some really jacked up mouse turn issues… I have been enjoying myself in SWTOR. About 6 months ago I started a new Sith Sorceror named Belgarotte over on Ebon Hawk, so I decided to continue on his journey. Previously it was Imperial Balmorra that halted me, because really… Balmorra, especially Imperial side is boring as shit. This time however I have been able to get in the groove of playing a sorc and have reveled in shocking the shit out of things. You might guess by the name, that I did in fact originally intend to play a Sith Assassin, but already having a Jedi Shadow I decided to go down a slightly different path.

It is so bizarre to me to be enjoying a caster class. Traditionally I hate “finger wigglers” as I call them, but something about shocking the hell out of things with force lightning… while Khem Val tanks for me is enjoyable. The combo is really formidable, and I would say it is likely the best match up of class and first companion I have played. I suppose if you were playing a Scoundrel, and the thought of Corso Riggs did not want to make you stab things… it might be an equally good combination.

Darth Egregious

The biggest take away for me is that given time… returning to the game is still really enjoyable. Especially if you have subscribed at some point, the game is completely playable on their free to play model. There are so many egregious money grabs, and I am trying my hardest to look past them. But that said, it is making them money and helping keep the doors open… enough to start funding new development… so I can’t complain that badly. What helps a game survive is usually a good thing by me, and for the most part the things they are charging for are purely optional perks.

Over time I have accumulated a good chunk of cartel coins, and have gathered up a few nifty things. The gear I am wearing is mostly from a new cosmetic set that I am completely forgetting the name of. But it feels extremely Sith Inquisitor to me. I am a huge proponent of cosmetic gear, if your character looks cool you feel better about playing them. Right now I have a full set of moddable items, and likely I will keep those as I level. This has been extremely helped by the fact that planetary commendations are one one generic currency, rather than one per planet.

The game feels so much better coming at it from a purely casual standpoint. Previously I was in a rush to burn through content and get up to 50 so we could do fun group things together. Now that I am piddling my way through the game, it feels so much less shallow than it did before. I realize I will ultimately level out of the content, and at that point it will be time to play something else. I honestly am not sure I will even make it to cap before the wanderlust hits me, but I am enjoying myself for the time being.

Moving Classrooms

I need to start wrapping up for the day. We have a relatively short list of things that need to accomplish today… but one of those is pretty massive. Essentially my wife is having to change classrooms in order to tag team teach a forensics class with a science teacher. As a result we are going to have to transplant her not insignificant amount of “stuff” from one classroom to another. Additionally even though the school year is out, we are going to have to set everything back up like a functional classroom… because summer school.

So as a result I will be even more sore after the end of today, and cursing life. Hopefully though nothing much is going to happen Monday. That way I can sit around and enjoy Memorial day chilling out on our new sofa. I will probably stab someone if that doesn’t happen. At this point I just need some normality in my life for awhile, I have long ago passed my threshold for comfortable change. I need things to stay the same for a bit, so I can just relax. Anyways… I hope you all have a great day, and you choose to do something far less strenuous than we are choosing to do.

Open Letter to Neverwinter

May 23, 2013 by Belghast

Okay today you guys are getting a bonus post, because I am at home waiting on the cable to install internet, and for furniture to be delivered. I was reading my twitter feed and came across something so absolutely ludicrous that I had to comment about it.

So this is something I had honestly not realized that apparently Neverwinter claims not to be live yet, and that any mistakes they are making are “necessary changes and improvements” before they go live. Dear Perfect World, you completely fail at the concept of what is an open beta means.

If you…

Have the servers live 24/7
Have stated that there will be no character wipes from this point out
Are actively taking money hand over fist from customers

Then you have a live game.

You can call it whatever you like, but you are running a live game. It is not open beta, it is just half launched. This whole redefinition of what Alpha and Beta means has stuck in my craw lately. They have stopped meaning anything at all and just been a way for the marketing department to presell the game and get a steady influx of money from curious gamers. However launching the game and actively taking money from customers… yet still calling it a beta passes some line that has never been crossed.

Anyways, it is still a decent game, and I still stand by my statement that it is probably the best completely free option. However Perfect World needs to be honest with its verbiage and quit calling it a beta. This is in no way an open beta, you just soft launched your game. All that said, I still have not played it again since that opening weekend. It just lacks the draw to pull me in and make me care about it. I wish them the best of luck though, I just want them to be honest.

Sympathy for the Devil

May 22, 2013 by Belghast

Last night we got a much needed reprieve from the onslaught of tornado spawning super cells. As a result I tried my best just to chill out and relax. So much is going on right now relating to the tornado effort in Moore, but other than the links I posted yesterday I am not really going to dwell much on it. It is still pretty much the only thing we are thinking about, but I just needed to relax last night.

Now I Remember

The other day I was talking about restarting Final Fantasy 13 on a whim, and not really being able to remember why I stopped playing it in the first place. Last night I continued my journey into the game, and reached a point where now I know exactly why I stopped playing. Basically FF13 is this super relaxing game, that does most of the work for you by managing your abilities based on what “stance” you are currently in. This is does a great job of taking the tedium out of a JRPG and letting you just sit back, relax and watch the events unfold before you.

This all goes extremely great until you encounter your first Eidolon fight. Basically all the gaming vocabulary you have learned to that point becomes completely useless for the encounter. You have to do one specific gimmick, over and over… and do so with flawless timing or you die. Basically the Eidolon fight goes against everything you have experienced in the game to that point. On top of this, usually the gimmick you have to perform is something you would never do in another fight after this one.

Ultimately the Eidolon fights become these cruel precision mini games, that are forced upon the otherwise very casual experience. You cannot avoid them, and they usually occur at key times in the storyline that are unavoidable. The Shiva sisters fight shown above for example occurs after a minion battle and two cut scenes. So each time you attempt the fight you have to slog through those to get back to the boss fight. If the numbers over snows head tick down to zero, the fight is over.

I remember the last time I played the game I managed to slog through several of these fights, but ultimately it was one near the end of disc two that got the best of me. I simply did not care enough about continuing the game to learn whatever pattern needed to executed flawlessly to get through the fight. I don’t mind the concept of battles like this, I just mind them greatly when they are so drastically in contrast with the super causal gaming experience as a whole. It feels like the game does exactly zero training to this point in the skills needed to succeed at these egregiously gimmicky fights.

Sympathy for the Devil

After attempting the Shiva sisters a few times, I decided that I needed to retreat into something warm and familiar… and thanks to the wonders of the PlayStation Network, that happy place was Symphony of the Night. I am not sure if I can quantify it, but this is as close as I think I will ever find to my perfect game. It has awesome side scrolling exploration, fun fast paced sword melee combat, the ability to collect gear and level your character up, interesting abilities to unlock, and non-linear progression. This is literally everything I want in a game wrapped up in one gorgeous package with an amazing hard rock inspired soundtrack.

I think more than anything the soundtrack is what sells the experience for me. I own an original copy of the Japanese soundtrack that was released, and have listened to it over and over. For ages this was my defacto coding soundtrack, and was not really replaced until the Tron Legacy soundtrack. Interestingly enough, Tron Legacy has now been trumped and The Secret World has become my default background music at work. Everything about this game screams a level of attention to detail that you just don’t see much in games.

I can happily fall back into this game at any time, after playing any other game. Last night I continued onwards with my game, trying to remember where things were in relation to other things and start gathering up the relics needed to progress further. I completely surprised myself last night… with my ability to keep from taking damage. I was going through an area of the castle I remembered, but completely forgot the fact that I was about to get trapped in a room with a shadowy clone of myself. I only had 15 hit points going into the fight, and somehow managed to make it through defeating the boss with 5 to spare.

My favorite version of the game so far is the PS3 Emulated one. I just wish that it supported the digital stick, rather than gamepad only for movement. Someday I will hook back up my Saturn and play the Japanese import version again. It has the unique features of being able to play as the default Alucard, but also Maria and Richter from the start of the game. My only problem with the Saturn version is that while it has all these extra features, the controls are nowhere near as responsible as the PSX rendition. Also when you get a large number of creatures on screen at a time, there is a bit of slowdown and hitching. This combined with the fact that there was never an english version released… definitely put the PlayStation version on the top of the heap.

MMO Vacation

Other than the game that must not be named due to a super strict NDA, I have not really been playing a lot of MMOs over the last week or so. This is really a combination of two factors… firstly that I now have this awesome apartment like game loft, that I can go up to and chill out in without feeling like I am taking the television from anyone else. Also thanks to the quirks of acoustics, my wife can be sitting downstairs on the sofa, and we can hold a conversation at normal volume. So it doesn’t really feel like I am that far away from her when I am playing.

Secondly, and this is the big one… I wrote awhile back that my ISP is discontinuing residential internet access. I have a feeling that they have begun throttling users to try and get them to switch faster. Essentially my ping times have been horrific in any game I play, and this has lead to more than one extremely frustrating death. This has caused me to completely swear off League of Legends until this has changed, and even in Rift doing daily quests has become annoying with lots of mob warping.

Luckily this will be remedied tomorrow. I have them scheduled to run a new line to the loft, which will then host the wireless router for the house. It is a good centralized location, and the limited obstacles will make it prime for internet access from the living room downstairs. So as of tomorrow I will be going from roughly 4 meg internet to 25 meg, and going from single room dvr to whole house dvr. I am extremely pumped, and ready for not having to worry about streaming slowing down everything else on the network. We are starting with 25, but may at a later date bump up to the full 50 meg connection.

I imagine that once this goes in, I will be having a renaissance of online gaming… as I can not only download patches much faster but not have to worry so much about my ping going to shit. I know this will not be the be all end all cure for bad ping, but it will certainly take a step in the right direction. Also the ability to watch anything we have recorded on the DVR from the livingroom, loft and bedroom is a huge boon. There are a ton of shows that I like to watch… that my wife has zero interest in. I can pop up to the loft and watch the show til my heart is content, while she is watching whatever she wants to watch.

Wrapping Up

On top of the new internet, we will be getting our sectional delivered tomorrow. So it is going to be a super exciting day, when a lot of realities change around our house. However, it is also going to mean a super busy night of prep work to get ready for the furniture movers and the cable installer. Additionally right now I have a cat trying to tell me that I should stop typing and pet her. So I am going to do just that. I hope you all have awesome days, and that you get accomplished everything you need to.