eso Archives - Page 11 of 22 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Too Themepark

May 13, 2014 by Belghast

Crazy Fox-Wolf-Thingy

I find myself enjoying ArcheAge far more than I had really expected to. I have not really even gotten to the “open world” aspect of the game, but I find the questing and combat systems really enjoyable. At some point I managed to pick up the animal to the side of me that is some sort of a fox-wolf-thingy. I am not sure if it was from a quest or if I looted it from a mob, but in any case I have a pet now. My friend Errn informed me that this is my battle pet, but I had reasoned that much by noticing that it was fighting for other players. Thing is… when I got it, it was already like level 30. This means the thing probably kicks more ass than I do to be honest. One of the weird things about the game is that you can either have a mount or a pet out, but not both.

As a result I tend to run around with my battle pet out, and then use the glider poorly to manage to get around quickly. I really have no clue what I am doing when it comes to the glider. No matter how I try and control the thing, it seems like I am just falling through the air gracefully. I’ve watched various streamers be able to control where they want it to go, and I am completely in awe of their skill. Right now the closest I can get is to hover over the area I want to go and then fold up the glider by hitting R, causing me to plummet through the air. Obviously this works grand if you are close to the ground, but not so much when you have leapt off of a huge cliff with it. In the later case, I end up cursing the screen as I seem to flail around in midair on the glider.

I feel bad that I have almost entirely ignored anything going on with any of the quests. Since all of the cinematic are in Korean still I just end up skipping thing, which has lead me to feel like the quest dialog itself is completely meaningless as well. So I have zero clue what is going on in the world other than I am helping a series of villages defend against all sorts of things, and I am perfectly fine with that. The more killing I get to do in the course of the leveling the better, and right now I am really enjoying the “Over Achieve” and “Hidden Quest” options gained by going on a murderous rampage. While I seem to be swapping out gear pretty frequently, it doesn’t really feel like I am progressing my character along that easily. I’ve yet to figure out the rhyme or reason behind getting skill points, but I could really use a lot more of them.

Too Themepark

Firstly I don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression from this title. I love Themepark MMOs, for what they give me… a carefully curated trip through an interesting world. I find that I enjoy both Sandbox and Themepark MMOs equally, at least generally speaking. However there is just something about Wildstar that maybe takes it a step too far. While playing this game, I literally feel like I am at Six Flags with so many things fighting desperately for my attention. When I walk into an area that I just explored and hear the “Challenge!” sounder it reminds me too much of a midway barker trying to get my attention. I’ve compared the visuals of the game to the Vegas Strip before, but really it reminds me a lot more of an actual real world Themepark. Everything is bright and polished to a shine, with every single inch of space covered with something designed to get my eye to look there. The above screenshot is of one of the rare sparse moments, and when the game is like this… I actually enjoy it. However I had to wait for a few minutes to take this shot for various mobs and players to move out of the way.

I am basically in the same place I have been for a couple of months. I recorded the above video on March 13th and I have had zero forward momentum since then. I’ve gotten on each beta weekend so far to play for a bit, but just found the overall experience lacking. There is a lot about the game that I think I would like, but something just doesn’t sit right with me each time I sit down to play it. The last game I felt this conflicted about was Guild Wars 2, and the end result of that experience is a game that even though I have free access to play it… I never have any desire to do so. With Wildstar I put in my pre-order in part to lock in my goodies for if I ever decided that I DID want to play it. Each day I consider cancelling it, because I am just not “feeling” this title. It isn’t the setting or the races or the goofy character models, but something more deeply set into the game itself. The funny thing is, I have been back playing Star Wars: The Old Republic and enjoying the hell out of it… but Wildstar that is a very similar experience just feels really odd to me. Time will tell if I shun the internet zeitgeist and sit out of this one.

Blue Water Land

I am still working my way through Coldharbor in Elder Scrolls Online, and last night I hit 48. The quests out here feel more epic than the ones leading up to them, in part because everything in Coldharbor seems to be absolutely dripping in lore. One of my joys in any Elder Scrolls title has been killing the various Daedra, and here I have an entire zone full of almost nothing but them. What is interesting is finding all of the inhabitants of the zone that have been tricked into the service of Molag Bal in one fashion or another. Last night I had a really cool moment where I helped out some Argonians and their Hist tree, and another where I gained the trust of a feral pack of Bosmer. This section of the game feels very much like Mass Effect 3, where I am wandering around this zone building an army to fight the daedric prince.

I am trying to decide if I am going to hold out with my level 44 gear until I ding 50. I have a really good daedric shield that just dropped, as well as my prismatic weapon that I am unlikely to replace until I leave cold harbor. Wondering if I can limp along until 50 and then craft an entire set of nice gear then. As of the close of the night I managed to make it roughly halfway to 49, and I still have large swaths of Coldharbor that have been completely unexplored. Still very much loving the experience of the game, but I am definitely finding that I need breaks from playing it. The gameplay towards the end of the game gets really intense, and if I am not feeling 100% I end up taking a lot of un-needed deaths. As a result I have been perforating my long play sessions with trips into ArcheAge, SWTOR and now a little bit of Wildstar. So far I really seem to be enjoying this mix.

#ESO #ElderScrollsOnline #ArcheAge #WildStar #Themepark

Podcast That Almost Wasn’t

May 11, 2014May 10, 2014 by Belghast

Graduation Day

I just thought I would start the post off with a picture of two ducks. These are the ducks that we encounter quite often on our evening stroll around the neighborhood. I guess they have decided that we are not really a threat, because shortly after snapping this photo the male duck decided to come up close enough to almost touch. Granted he might have just been putting some distance between me and his mate, but I would like to think we are a recognized thing by now. Now that you’ve had a lovely vignette, let me tell you about my day. My nephew graduated from college today, and being the loving family we are… we attended. This was an experience in both vertigo and insanely uncomfortable seating. For starters the basketball stadium it was held in had some of the steepest seating I had ever experienced. When they asked us to stand for the singing of the national anthem… I literally felt like I was going to topple over the “cliff” and down into the stands below me.

All in all it wasn’t really a bad day, but it was most definitely a tiring one. I did however manage to top 10,000 steps on the fitbit, instead of my usual 8,000 to 9,000. This was in part because we parked four blocks away from the stadium and walked it rather than fighting for parking. The whole side effect of today and what will inevitably happen tomorrow is that I simply do not have the “oomph” to stay up late enough tonight to do a Steampowered Sunday. In fact as early as we are going in the morning to see my mother, I won’t really have a chance to write a blog post in the morning either. As a result I am writing this one Saturday night, and will publish it in the morning. I hate when I have to “cheat” like this, but it is far better to do that than to miss posting something at all.

Podcast That Almost Wasn’t

This morning I talked about the little family of robins, that had nested in the white rock. When I came home tonight there were two chicks poking their heads out of the nest until I got close enough to investigate. They instinctively ducked down to try and remain hidden but I was able to get my phone up enough to snap the photo on the side. I feel like each of these photos is somehow softening the blow of what I am about to say. This week you damned near did not get a podcast. Admittedly this is one part miscommunication and one part poor planning on my side. It was Friday during the day when I realized that I would not be home in time to record the podcast. Originally for some reason my wife and I thought my nephews graduation was early in the day. However upon further investigation Friday, we realized that it was at 4 pm in the afternoon. That meant in a best case scenario figuring 2 hours for the graduation, an hour for anything after the graduation, and another 2 hours drive to get back home… this put me being back around 9 pm, and hour after we normally record.

To make things more interesting it seemed as thought both Ashgar and Kodra were not able to record at all this weekend. Ashgar had a similar situation to me and when I spoke with him Friday it was from an airport as he was flying home for his sisters graduation. Kodra on the other hand, I am not really sure what was going on, but he was neither available Friday or Saturday evenings. He would potentially be available very late on Sunday, but that didn’t really give me much time to get things posted, since I normally post our new episodes Sunday. After some scrambling, it seemed as though Tam was also not available. As the day went on Rae and I discussed whether or not we even wanted to record with two people down. I was of the opinion that we would just take the week off, but I guess Rae was really gung ho about going forward. She thought in a worse case scenario it would just be the two of us and we would do a relatively short podcast.

Doctor Hannah to the Rescue

While my wife and I were walking Friday night, Rae was able to get ahold of a good friend of ours Dallian and he was able to fill in for us. I had long thought that Dal might be a really good fit for the show, and him being able to do it on such short notice was almost serendipitous. So we almost did not record the show, but in truth it ended up being one of the more enjoyable ones to make. We talk about a number of gaming topics from Wildstar, to ArcheAge and the obligatory Elder Scrolls Online discussion. We also dip our toes into the world of comic books and Magic: The Gathering and Dallian tells us the riveting tale of how he created the @Doctor_Hannah twitter account. Hopefully the amount of fun we had recording this one translates to our listeners.

Hopefully next week things will be at least partially back to normal. We should have Ashgar and Kodra back, but I believe Rae may not be available. Dallian is coming into town to visit us, and either we will have both Rae and Dallian or neither of them. In any case next week should be interesting as well. At this point I am going to close off this post and crash, as I need to get up super early to make my Mothers Day visitations. I want to wish all the Mother’s out there a very happy day, and I will see you all Monday morning for another early morning post.

#AggroChat #Podcast #ESO #Wildstar #ArcheAge

Coming Home

May 10, 2014 by Belghast

Protect the Nest

As a rule my two favorite times of the year as Spring and Fall, in part because I love how alive the world is during these times of transition. This morning I got up, threw on some clothes and a beanie to disguise my cowlick and get breakfast. On the way back I stopped in the drive way for a bit as I listened to something on NPR wind down. I noticed out in the lawn there were a couple of bunnies and two robin parents out foraging. Our house has an external shell of rock that has been painted white over the years. This leaves huge shelves and little nooks, and apparently this year a pair or robin parents have decided to nest there. Were a proper home owner… I would probably be concerned about this, but for me… I think it is pretty awesome. Robins have always been one of my favorite birds, so the fact that I get to see them on a daily basis makes me happy.

I’ve noticed they have a little chick beak sticking up from the nest so it is going to be awesome to watch the little guy pop out at some point. For having lived around birds all my life… I really don’t know much about them. I am just happy to start seeing songbirds again in the neighborhood. There was a time where I tried to put up a feeder in the backyard and no one seem to notice it. Maybe I will make another attempt at that, because I’ve noticed a little cardinal poking around the bush on the other side of the house. I am also sure someone in the neighborhood is probably cursing our bunnies, but seeing them scamper about the yard makes me happy. I just fear what is going to happen when we open our pool. There was one long hot summer that I had to fish a half dozen of them out of the pool… because they kept trying to get a drink and falling in. Hopefully that won’t be the case this summer.

Coming Home

So first off I want to preface this with that I really did enjoy playing ArcheAge and if I get time this weekend I will completely play some more of it. However last night logging into Elder Scrolls Online after playing quite a bit of SWTOR and ArcheAge, felt like coming home. Everything felt so comfy as I moved around the world. It is funny how in such a short period of time I have gotten used to the way that world feels and controls, and I guess have come to prefer it. The world just feels right to me, and I guess that is a good sign. I know for a lot of my friends the non-traditionally MMO control scheme was a deal breaker. They were looking for something they could control with WASD, Mouselook and the traditional hotbar combat. However as a long time FPS and Elder Scrolls player it was more a shift in mindset than anything else. I was so used to MMOs controlling a certain way, that I just had to shift the abilities that I picked up from other single player games and adapt them to the multiplayer space.

There are so many reasons why people wanted ESO to control differently. Some people mentioned that it was impossible to play the game while holding a child, or doing this or that… and that is totally correct. The reason why I had been playing SWTOR and ArcheAge is that they didn’t require the precision and focus that ESO did. Over the course of this last week my allergies have been horrible, and as a result I have come home after work completely drained and “out of it”. I knew if I booted up ESO, I would die often and die horribly. I love everything about the game, but there are times it just takes too many of my already limited mental resources. My fear was that after being away for awhile that I would get back into the traditional MMO control scheme… and the game would feel odd to me. Thankfully however everything about it still felt right.

Finishing Bangkorai

The last time I played I accidentally followed a quest chain into Coldharbor, so at the beginning of the evening I worked through my backlog of items to deconstruct and then set off for Bangkorai again. I wanted to at the very least finish out collecting the Skyshards and getting zone exploration achievement. At the best I had hoped to make everything black on my map turn white showing that I can completed it. There were still a few issues with some of the world bosses however, so I realized early on that I would not be getting close to 100%ing the zone last night. What I did however do is explore every nook and cranny and find a number of really slick things. The picture in the section above is from this little hidden area that turned out to be a crafting shrine. You have to push through this disguised tunnel in a rock wall, and along a little river, past a waterfall and over a rickety rope bridge…. and then finally you are at the crafting shrine. The whole experience felt very “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to me.

The above image is from some Dwemer ruins that I stumbled into. It ended up that this was the public dungeon for Bangkorai and as I was seven levels over the content… I was able to solo most of it. That said it was still really damned challenging, and for the boss battles especially I had to hang back and wait for another player to get to the same area I was. Thankfully the dungeon is still very well trodden and I was able to complete both of the quests inside. Awesome thing about this dungeon is that at the end of the quest chain, you get awarded a really awesome Dwemer spider cosmetic pet. So if you were wondering where those come from… it is the public dungeon in Bangkorai (and I am sure the other equivalent factions). I managed to collect all of the skyshards and got my achievement for exploring the zone, so I can be happy enough with moving on. At some point I will pop back into the zone when the bugs have been worked out and complete the last few dots.

You can watch the entire adventure in the video above. Shockingly this is the 31st video I have recorded on twitch/youtube for The Elder Scrolls Online. While I would never suggest watching all of them… you can literally see most of my leveling process on the Dragonknight. Having MOSTLY finished Bangkorai I feel okay about moving on into Coldharbor. At this point I am about halfway into 47, so I feel like the journey to 50 is going to go extremely quickly in the higher level content. So far the quests I have done in Cold Harbor seem to be significantly more involved than the ones from the previous zones. Everything about the zone feels epic, as I lead this fight against Molag Bal and his forces. I am going to be really thankful that I have my faction up with the Fighters Guild I feel, because everything I see… is a Daedra. Additionally I am super happy I have my prismatic weapon… that does insane amounts of damage to Daedra and Undead.

#ESO #ElderScrollsOnline #Bangkorai #Coldharbor

ArcheAge Impressions

May 9, 2014 by Belghast

Peach Fuzz and Pretty Boys

As I said yesterday, a friend of mine hooked me up with access to ArcheAge alpha and throughout the day it downloaded and installed. I came home over lunch to take a breathing treatment, and when I got there it was ready and waiting for me. I didn’t get much time to play at that point, but I did manage to create a character. I have to say at this point my hopes were a bit dashed. I generally have a problem with the Asian and specifically Korean graphical style, in trying to create a character I really liked. I had this problem with Aion, GW2, and to some extent Rift. It very difficult in these style of games to create any form of a male that is not a “pretty boy”. I went into FFXIV with the same fears but found myself pleasantly surprised that I could create a character aligned to western ideals with a very nice beard and everything.

ArcheAge unfortunately… this was not the case. They have beard options but essentially they were choices between “Five O’clock Shadow”, “Peach Fuzz” and “Well Trimmed Peach Fuzz”. There was not a single “real” beard option available. This is a little bit disappointing considering from everything I have heard there are some massive configuration options available for the female models. So Trion if you are reading… not sure if this is something you can do but both ArcheAge and Rift for that matter need better beards for the human models. The above character is as “close” to the standard Belghast appearance as I could get out of the system. I can live with it, but I am not exceptionally happy about it. I feel like my choices were as good as possible with the system.

Solid Combat

Complaining about the character models aside, the game feels very good once you actually get into it. The first several levels are the same as every fantasy MMO with a series of punctuation leading you around the map and showing you the things you should do. Right now the experience feels a little disjointed since you are supposed to be getting treated to nice cutscenes… that happen to all be in Korean. This also causes some odd shit to happen… at one point last night a rock on the ground was speaking korean to me… and I never quite figured out what was happening there. It was some sort of a tutorial system, and I ended up disabling. The world feels good, and combat feels responsive for standard MMO fare hotbar combat.

I chose to go “BattleRage” for my initial tree and it is pretty much standard warrior fare. At level five I was able to pick a second tree, and I went for Defense… which is as you would expect the archetypal “tank” tree. At that point I had a kit that included a ranged pull, a charge, a multi modal combat attack that could hit multiple targets and a really powerful long cooldown shield bash. That is a pretty great start for any game that only a few levels in I feel like I have a complete enough kit to absolutely run wild with. At level ten I was able to pick up my third tree, which I went Occultism with. Basically this is the “Dark Knight” build from the Korean version, or as it is called here “Doomlord”.

My ultimate plan is to try and create a Shadowknight like tanky character with life drains to and maybe a cool summon or two. Right now I have this really awesome attack called “Hell Spear” that impales every mob within a radius around me on a fiery spear that comes up from the ground. They are rooted and take damage when it fades. This honestly is one of the aspects of the game that most appeals to me, that I can build pretty freeform classes. While it is zero shock that I ended up trying to create a Dark Knight given my love of Shadowknights and Deathknights… I am happy that I am in fact able to craft it however the hell I want to. Looking at the trees it looks like I will be able to build a tank with a charge and a deathgrip type yank ability, which should give me a pretty solid kit for tanking instances… if those even exist here.

Rift and FFXIV Had a Child

One big take away from last night is that the world is gorgeous. Not everything is amazing… and there are plenty of generic fields and forested nooks to explore. However every now and then you are just awestruck by how breathtaking a vista is. Overall like the subtitle says the game feels as though Rift and FFXIV had a child… and then spent time raising it with LoTRO and even an odd Warhammer Online feel to some of the quests. That description will either make you think “man that sounds great” or like some of my friends cause you to affix a firm “NOPE!” sticker to it and move on. I happen to like the mix and this is probably going to be my new “off night” game. I still plan on playing the shit out of Elder Scrolls Online, but this game is probably going to fill that space that SWTOR has recently been filling. The game world has plenty of downtime, so it doesn’t feel like I have to be “constantly on” like it does in ESO.

Granted all of this might change as I move out of the more themepark areas into the more serious sandbox ones. At some point soon I will be turning off most of the channels. I would say already it has one of the worst communities I have seen in a game. At one point I was given a quest where I had to cross a bay on a shitty rowboat. The folks with huge ships took a perverse sense of pleasure ramming into me and trying to capsize my boat as I moved across the bay. Granted they could not actually attack me, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t make my life hell for a few minutes. This “griefer spirit” seems to be infused with the game community so far, and ultimately will probably be the biggest problem I have with it. If you look at most of the streamers, they seem to be almost entirely devoted to ruining someone’s day. Although if you want to watch some streams that are not blatant griefing and high seas piracy… I highly suggest Kiwidream or IRLJasmine.

Systems Within Systems

That is the oddest thing about this game honestly, is that it can be so many different games to so many different people. From my limited experience so far it is very much a straight forward themepark style game. However after watching lots of streams on the game, I can see just how detailed the various systems are. You could in theory live your entire life in game as a crafter, doing nothing but running trade deliveries and crafting goods for sale. You could spend your time raising crops, or animals, or doing nothing but building really awesome houses for people. However you can also spend your time adventuring or as the community seems to be doing… griefing other players. Wading into this game is much like wading into Everquest 2 at this point. There are just a ridiculous amount of systems to try and figure out, and even though the game gives you a summary introduction to each… the depth there is almost staggering.

I still stand by my statement on the MMOPRG Game On podcast… I feel like this is going to be the game that has finally arrived for the Star Wars Galaxy player. One of the hallmarks of that title, was that so many different play styles were embraced and supported. ArcheAge so far feels like a spiritual successor, but with a really good combat system. I’m sorry to the SWG fans out there, but combat in that game felt horrible, even compared to what was available in Dark Age of Camelot at the time. What it had going for it however was all the open world goodness and player created content, and I feel like even with the seemingly asshole community… there might be a place to carve out a niche among the lawless. I know they are targeting free to play for this game, but it almost makes me hope that there might be a “patron only” server. I feel like a game with this much potential to ruin your day, needs a more curated environment.

Final Thoughts

I am starting to get used to the character especially now that I am starting to shift away from leather armor into plate gear. I feel like there will be a point where I actually enjoy playing the character and the way it looks. As far as the world goes… while it does not inspire me yet to go absolutely batshit crazy with the exploration like Elder Scrolls Online does… I figure as it opens up I will start to feel that way. Right now I am most concerned with staying on the path, since I don’t know where the free for all boundaries are. I want zero part in the pvp aspects of the game, so I will be doing my best to avoid them. I really like the way combat feels, the animations are nice and the abilities while essentially spamming hotkeys… feels good. I feel like it gives any wow-like combat system a run for its money. It is not extremely deep, but what is there is enjoyable. I feel as I keep unlocking skill points and subsequently new abilities it will keep feeling more “fleshed out”. While I do not feel like abandoning all other games and declaring ArcheAge the one true king… I enjoyed myself enough to keep playing periodically and see where the journey leads me. There is a lot to like in this game, and I feel as it progresses, that will increase.

#ArcheAge