MMORPG Archives - Page 317 of 411 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Games I Want to Revisit

February 16, 2015 by Belghast

Tomorrow morning is going to be what seems like a frosty one. So I am once again cheating and writing a blog post the night before I intend on posting it. I assume in the morning I will need to spend all of my available time scraping windows and warming cars to make sure we can get in safely. Lately I have been poking my head around Guild Wars 2, a game that I had until Pax South completely written off as “not for me”. Since then I have reached a point of peace with the game, and actually found that I am enjoying it quite a bit. So this morning my post will be a revisiting of games that I would like to give a second or third chance.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Star Wars: The Old Republic has the dubious honor of being quite possibly the worst possible free to play conversion I have ever experienced. If I did not know any better, it might be absolutely functional for a new player. That said having played the game in release and realizing just how gimped the game is without spending a lot of money, infuriates me. Essentially I cannot bring myself to play this game without actually paying for a subscription. I have attempted to play this game a few times since release, but never for terribly long. My last voyage into the game was to try and play a Sith Juggernaut, since I had not really experienced much of the dark side content. When our guild was actually playing regularly I managed to level a Jedi Guardian, Jedi Shadow, and a Trooper Vanguard… so yes all three available tanks. When I finally left the game I was slowly working on leveling my Chiss Smuggler.

Since then they have released several expansions each with their own story extensions. I feel like maybe I am missing something having not seen any of this content. That was the one thing above all else that really excelled with The Old Republic, was that the traditional Bioware story was excellent. This weekend on the podcast we talked a bit about Kodra’s experiences with the smuggler storyline, and I have to say I got those pangs of remorse in my stomach for never having experienced it. On top of this, there is still so much content Sith side that I have never actually seen. The problem that I ran into the last time I played was that the questing just felt so repetitive. These quests are very much World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King era in the way they are constructed. While the storyline itself is excellent, it just felt tiring to keep trying to push through the planets. Still all of this said… I feel like I should give it another shot.

Lord of the Rings Online

Lord of the Rings Online and I have a strange relationship. I never actually played this at launch, but during one of my many breaks with World of Warcraft I joined some friends playing it. There are things I love about this game, and then there are things that frustrate me. I love the community of this game, almost more than I like the game itself. Landroval is an amazing place, and there are so many times I find myself wandering around Bree listening to player created concerts rather than actually completing content. I’ve never been successful at trying to play this game for free, so ultimately I end up subscribing to remove the roadblocks. There is just so much content that I have yet to experience. Last time I played I had just made it to the Trollshaws, which I think is in my late 30s. I greatly enjoy the Champion as far as a class goes, and found it really enjoyable to solo. Which was super important because I have never really found a stable group playing this game.

I follow so many blog of players devoted to LoTRO and I have to say I feel like somewhat of a failure that I have never had a max level character there. As such it sits in a unique place as far as regrets go for me. I am sure I will end up reinstalling this game at some point, and poking my head back there to give it another go. It has been I think two years since I last tried to play, and since then I am sure quite a bit more content has been released. The game is full of so many special moments of nostalgia for followers of the book series. The above picture is from Weathertop, one of these early “oh my god I am actually standing here” moments in these games. I just wish I could clone myself and play all the games I want to play at the same time.

Neverwinter Online

When this game was released I played off and on during the first week… and then never set foot in it again. The biggest problem I had was that while the game was a good action rpg… Elder Scrolls Online was simply a better one. In the weeks since joining open beta for Neverwinter and the ultimate release… I was let into the double super secret alpha testing program for ESO. So all of the time and devotion I would have spent playing Neverwinter, I instead poured into the alpha testing program for ESO. As such I feel like I never really actually gave this game a chance. I enjoyed the Guardian Fighter quite a bit, and it was an excellent mix of tank and brawler giving me the ability to do damage with my favored sword and shield. Again the biggest problem is that I was trying to compare it to the Dragonknight Sword and Shield that I was playing in Elder Scrolls Online and Neverwinter just coming up short.

What interests me about potentially going back is the fact that not only is there official content waiting on me, there is an absolutely insane amount of player created content. My friend Tipa from West Karana blog, has seemingly done an amazing job of recreating some of the nostalgic content from the original Everquest with the Neverwinter foundry toolset. At some point I really want to go in and experience this first hand. The biggest thing holding me back is the fact that firstly, I am not really sure if I can remember my account information. Secondly Perfect World has never given me the warmest of fuzzies, and I’ve always found some of their practices to be a week bit sketchy. Even taking these into consideration I am sure at some point I will reinstall this game and give it another go. There is just too much left there to experience that I have not seen at all.

Best Games I’m Not Playing

February 13, 2015 by Belghast

This mornings post is going to be a bit of a departure from my normal routine in that I am going to talk about some of the games that I really enjoy, but am not playing for one reason or another. I guess with the recent news about Daybreak, it highlights the fact that there are so many games we hold dear… but aren’t actually actively supporting by playing them. As such here goes my attempt to write a post about the three best games I am not playing.

Everquest II

Like so many former Everquest junkies, I am in love with the setting of Norrath. I love its cities, and races and the aspect that I enjoyed the most playing EQ2 was how often times you would just see glimpses of the world that came before this one. The folks behind the zones in Norrath 2.0 were exceptionally good at tugging on your nostalgia at just the right moment, while at the same time making something entirely new. More than anything I think it was the scale of this game that made me fall in love with it. I did not play it at launch, but a few months into World of Warcraft I took a break and joined my friends who did. The world felt so much larger than anything I was seeing in Azeroth, and this sense of amazement through scale never really faded. It felt so much more like a living breathing world. This game also gave me one of my favorite playable races in any game… the Ratonga. While often goofy comic relief I enjoyed roaming the world as my little rat shadow knight.

The problem is that each time I play Everquest II, I ultimately leave due to the same problem. I absolutely hate the combat system with its largely unintelligible stat increases, alternative advancement point minutiae and what feels like three hundred different attack buttons… that are largely indistinguishable. The funny thing is playing my Shadow Knight was a key sequence of about twenty five attacks… and still to this day I can reinstall the game and play it entirely through muscle memory. For me it is the gaming equivalent of chicken fried steak… that comfort food you return to over and over even though it is largely uninspired. The problem is… I will always return to it eventually. It has my favorite world in any game, so full of life and mystery. I just wish I could transplant that world into a game I enjoy on a technical level.

Rift

Rift was the game that pulled me away from World of Warcraft by giving me every single thing I ever said I wanted in a video game. I spent a good amount of time playing Rift at launch and since release it is a rarity that I do not have an active account. The problem is… I am not playing it. This game is one that I want to love so badly, and I wished and tried so many times to transplant my WoW family into. Rift is a game made up of extremely well crafted systems that are honed to lightning precision… but have been assembled in the wrong order. That is the best possible analogy that I can give you. Have you ever walked into a house and felt that something was just off, and then spent the rest of your time in it trying to figure out exactly what it was? There is something wrong with Rift, and I cannot figure out what is missing.

I have heard the complaint that “Rift has no soul” and as much as I have rebelled against that notion… maybe that statement is right. There is some spark that ties everything together that is missing in this game. I will always keep returning to it, because there are lots of well crafted components that make up this game, but the overarching game itself lacks something. With the Nightmare Tides expansion I came back and started playing more regularly, but it was not long before I realized that all I had been actually doing was logging in to play the minions mini-game. Even now talking about this game I am getting the desire to pop my head back in, because it is like this puzzle I cannot quite solve. I want to know why it doesn’t work, but never actually find the answer. What I do know however is it is a game supported by a lot of awesome people, and while I am trying to figure it out… I absolutely do not mind funding their efforts.

The Secret World

When The Secret World was released, I thought that it was absolutely going to be the game I could settle in for the long haul. I believe it in so much that I spent the almost two hundred dollars to purchase a “Lifetime” membership, after having missed out on that same opportunity for Lord of the Rings Online. The experience of leveling through this game and completing all of the content was absolutely amazing. It still has some of the most thoughtful and interesting quest lines I have experienced in any game. The thing that broke myself and the rest of the AggroChat crew was the fact that behind the Gatekeeper encounter there loomed a giant wall. When we began nightmare content, we came to the realization quickly that we were essentially “playing the game wrong”. The answer to beating the content was for us to change our specs to something that the content wanted us to be. Doing this would have destroyed the magic of the game, the fact that we could craft the characters we always wanted to play.

All of this said, it is still a game I think upon fondly, and still consider the lifetime membership some of the best money I have ever spent. Content is released in “Issues” and while purchasing one of these gives you the main story quest… there is also a substantial amount of minor content that goes in with each of them. Games are notoriously bad about pointing out things that have changed in the world, and The Secret World is no exception. I find it a mentally daunting task to not only try and remember how to play my character each time I return, but also try and figure out what is actually new. The fact that you can repeat almost every quest in the game only serves to make this more maddening. The answer of course is to claw your way through copious patch notes to figure out what new elements were added, but instead… I simply don’t play apart from logging in every now and then to buy a cool new outfit with my monthly allotment of in game store currency.

Fondly Remembered Loves

There you go, this morning in honor of Valentines Day I give you the games I love but am not actually playing. I feel like all gamers have these games in their history. I am curious what some of yours are. Leave me a comment letting me know what game or games out there are you still smitten by but just not playing anymore.

Doubling Down

February 12, 2015 by Belghast

Still Frustrated

Yesterday I broke my self appointed rules and made two posts because I felt the news warranted it. I said my peace but the problem is… I am still frustrated this morning. At the time of posting yesterdays blog piece I really only knew about a few of the people who were let go. As last night wound its way onwards, more names trickled out and at this point I am absolutely shocked by the scope. While I am not sure about the numbers, it feels like roughly half of the folks I was aware of over there were let go. Granted the actual numbers could be anywhere, but I am basing it simply on the faces that have shown up on twitter saying they were no longer Daybreak employees, versus the ones that have said they still are. In any case this will be a massive blow to Everquest, Everquest II, Everquest Landmark and whether or not we will ever actually get Everquest Next. For awhile on Aggrochat we have joked about Next being vaporware, and that we would only ever get Landmark… but now I am starting to really wonder if that is closer to the truth.

Everquest will always hold a special place in my heart because it was my first footsteps into the MMO world. Similarly I am drawn to Everquest II in ways that I cannot quite understand, and while I go for large swaths of time without playing, I often return to it was the gaming equivalent of “comfort food”. It is this strange mix of a world that I am absolutely in love with, and a combat system that I hate beyond words. If I had to create a list of “favorite games that I am not playing” I would put Everquest II at the top of that list… so I guess I ultimately am part of the problem. I love this world but I am not inhabiting it on a nightly basis, and as such not giving it money to grow. I’ve bought into Landmark and H1Z1 but I am not really playing those either. I remember feeling the same way when City of Heroes closed its doors, that I had so many fond memories… but that I had also ultimately moved past that game as well. I guess we want the things we once loved and enjoyed to stay protected in a bubble forever, never to change… but when we move on are we not also ultimately to blame?

Doubling Down

Before the events of yesterday I had a topic kicking around in my head about the worlds that we play. I am not sure how the events of yesterday feed into the narrative, but I am going with it in any case. I feel as though the era of the “new mmorpg” is all but over. There will of course be new games that identify with the “mmo” ideals, but they won’t be quite the same as the worlds we have had had in the past. I feel like we are going to see a lot more games like Destiny, that is “mmo-lite” or another genre with mmo features. I feel like the worlds that were crafted during the golden age of massively multiplayer online role-playing game launches, are the worlds we will have to live with for better or worse. When Blizzard cancelled Project Titan, we can look at that in so many different ways. We could say that it was a sign that MMOs were dying, and that they no longer believed in the genre. We could however take that as a sign that they believed that the worlds we had already were worth saving.

So many of the games that we love are not broken toys, at least not yet. Each of them if given the devotion and the development resources could be transformed into a truly magical place. I am looking at the transformation of Final Fantasy XIV from 1.0 awkwardness to 2.0 and beyond splendor as proof that a game can change for the better. I’ve played each of the major MMOs for some length of time, and have experienced that each have exactly the same problem. How do they keep the player engaged on a daily basis, rather than in bursts of activity each time new content is released? I feel the problem is that games right now are mired in the construct of expansion releases, pooling up major features until they can sell another box of the game. This means the best features tend to either get bottled up for years time, or never actually make it into the game at all.

The episodic construct is a bit better, but you have to be careful that you are not adding “expiring” content into your game, making players feel rushed to somehow grind through it all before the next patch hits. The problem I had with the Living Story in Guild Wars 2 was that when I fell behind, I didn’t feel like there was a point to actually try and catch up… since I had missed so much already. The fact that the content was expiring made it feel less “real” to me… that they weren’t permanently improving the game, but instead running a series of limited time events. I feel like the shift needs to be moved away from both of these constructs and instead the focus placed on fleshing out the world. Do you know how frustrating it is to me in World of Warcraft that there are five portals below Wyrmrest Temple but only two of them go anywhere? Each world we play is littered with these forgotten expansion ideas, and all I really want is for a game world to quit teasing us and start living up to its full potential. Now is the time for these companies to double down on the content they have, fix the issues with their game systems… and try and make their games worth our copious time and devotion.

A Simple Night

Because of the news yesterday, and because of other events leading me to question myself and my connection to other people… I was not in the best of places emotionally last night when I got home. I have to say my mood was improved by hanging out with my extremely awesome free company in Final Fantasy XIV. For a few nights I had promised to help my friend Solaria work on knocking out some stuff, since she was fairly new to 50 and in doing so also spent a good deal of time running dungeons with Thalen and Asha. I have not had a night where we tore through multiple dungeons in a night, and I have to say it was good for the soul. Granted I felt a bit wobbly, since I have not really tanked much of anything other than our raids, and dungeon tanking ends up so drastically different. That said we managed to unlock a few dungeons for both Thalen and Solaria, and in the process get some Tomestones of Soldiery and Poetics.

I’ve missed logging in, getting pulled into a group and then spending the rest of the night tromping through dungeons. It is like connecting with my most basic instincts of trying to make sure everything in the dungeon hates me equally. I really enjoy the pace of Final Fantasy XIV, and its particular brand of tanking. The Warrior just “feels” right, and I am hoping I will be equally at home with the Dark Knight. If nothing else I will always have the Warrior to fall back on if the Dark Knight ends up not being the class I have wanted all along. I know Thalen has several more dungeons yet to unlock to qualify for high level roulette, so I am going to try and force myself to build groups more often. I get stuck in my own little world, and spend most of my time soloing… but I know when I do group content I feel so much better at the end of the night. While last night did not cure me completely… it did make me feel significantly better.

Rough Raid Night

February 11, 2015 by Belghast

An Innocent Start

Most strange happenings on the internet begin with a rather innocuous start. I was discussing handwriting with @tsundereikemen and I decided to create a hand written note to show off my rather messy all caps writing. Then I happened to go directly into a meeting for roughly an hour. When I got out.. my twitter feed had completely blown up with people returning my greeting in their own hand written style. Yesterday I joked about Sigtric coining the hashtag “BelEffect” so he was immediate to point out that it was happening again. Of course I had to share this sudden madness with the world, because folks had no idea what I was talking about. I lost a few followers in my flurry of re-tweets, but screw it this was worth it. The “happening” was enough happiness to buffer any frustrations for the rest of the day.

The awesome thing is… I posted a second note some time later to adequately explain my feelings about the whole event… and it started up again adding several more notes to the mix. This silly thing is the reason why my twitter feed is so damned great. You guys can somehow manage to take a boring work day and turn it into a magical experience by tweeting a bunch of hand written notes. I always love seeing someone’s handwriting no matter how unkempt it might be… because embedded in those strokes and swooshes are a persons personality. So thank you all for participating in this little experiment… it was neither original nor that unique, but it was most definitely not something I expected to start yesterday. If you want to check out all of the images, I will be attempting to insert a gallery below.

Rough Raid Night

Not all raid nights can be amazing… in fact every now and then you can have a down right shitty one. Last night was one of these nights, and that is just something that is going to happen now and then. It seems like half of the world is sick with something right now, and last night it claimed two of our primary healers. This put us going into the night at a pretty big handicap, one that we never quite made up for. Ithato is freaking awesome for stepping in and trying to hold things together, and he fought valiantly. The problem is it just wasn’t quite enough. He was not quite as geared as the healers we lost, and had not been raiding with us all this time… so was having to learn the boss strategies on the fly. On top of these, the raid itself was just not quite what it should have been. I feel like the evidence was the fact that Teamspeak was deathly silent, which is not a usual thing. When we are doing well we are chatty and happy and picking on Rylacus, but last night… no one was talking at all.

We started off trying Gruul but after a half dozen wipes realized we didn’t quite have what it took last night to down it. From there we moved back to Highmaul Heroic, and managed to down Kargath and Butcher before hitting a similar wall on Brakenspore. We finally called the night, hoping to regroup on Thursday and see what we can do. If the gods bless us, we will have back the two healers that were absent and hopefully be back in fighting form. If not… it isn’t the end of the world if we can’t quite progress for a week. We are not exactly the most cutting edge and serious of group, and I think every now and then it is a good thing for us to be reminded of that. The health and well being of our players is worth more than our forward momentum, and I am thankful we have a raid leader that sees that… instead of angrily grinding us into the ground. I love my raid, even when we “wipe like nubs”.

Hunting Pearls

Since the raid was a wash, I opted to log into Final Fantasy XIV and work on my weekly Crystal Tower quest. With this last patch and the entrance of the World of Darkness casual raid, they introduced a quest to do all three dungeons and collect pearls and turn them back in at a quest giver in Mor Dhona. Since I had a bit of time I queued up for Labyrinth of the Ancients and was pleasantly surprised at just how smoothly it went. Normally there are wipes around every corner, but I guess at this point folks are trying to complete the quest, and as such are far over geared for the place. I lost every roll on any of the cosmetic gear, but was in and out of the raid quickly enough for me to contemplate running Syrcus Tower as well. Unfortunately it did not go quite as smoothly as Labyrinth, and we suffered some pretty massive wipe fests. That said folks silently struggled through and we managed to clear it still within thirty minutes of starting.

Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your take… I had completely World of Darkness collecting its pearl on Monday night, but not running the other other two. As a result I was able to turn in the quest and get my Carboncoat. This allows you to “un-weather” any of the Poetics accessories turning them into ilvl 130 items. Unfortunately I am not sure how to get Carbontwine the item needed to do the same for the Ironworks armor pieces, other than the extremely grindy method of turning in 6 Unstained Mark Logs. I think I will likely wait for 2.55 since it is more than likely that they will let World of Darkness start dropping both Carboncoat and Carbontwine just like Syrcus Tower drops Oil of Time and Sands of Time. It is unlikely that we will be raiding anything bleeding edge enough for me to need to be level 130 geared. In any case my running around in Final Fantasy XIV while chatting with the Free Company made the evening seem a tad bit less dismal, which I guess is what ultimately mattered. Hopefully we will regroup on Thursday and kick some ass to make up for the rather crummy Tuesday.