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Trials of Ascension

October 24, 2013 by Belghast

Computer Crash

This morning I really don’t have the time to devote to a proper post as I got upstairs, ate my oatmeal, drank my coffee and then noticed one of my computers was stuck in a booting up loop. As a result I spent most of my normal blogging time trying to resurrect it. It appears to be gone now, and I will have to figure out what happened over the weekend. But in the meantime as I play a somber rendition of taps for it… I need to get a post together today.

Trials of Ascension

File this in the “Yet Another MMO Kickstarter” category. Trials of Ascension came across my RSS feed this morning so I felt like I needed to check it out. Their claim is that they plan to build a “truly innovative MMORPG” and some of the things they mention wanting would definitely be different. The tech demo they posted looks pretty spartan, but then again so did the Pathfinder tech demo. Hopefully given resources they will clean that up a bit. In it’s current state it reminds me quite a bit of the old Atari published MMO Horizons. Some of the features they mention wanting are…

Perma Death – 100 deaths and the character stays dead
Random Everything – no static spawns or dungeons
Hardcore Gameplay – video talks about wanting to challenge the players a lot
No Fast Travel – feels it shrinks the world too much
No Global Chat – whisper and shout only work within a radius
No Names – can’t see character or npc names
Magic Difficult – magic is hard to acquire but extremely powerful
GM Team – live GM events and interaction
Cooperative Crafting – players have to work together to craft items
No Minimap – world map but no way to tell exactly where you are
No Con System – no way to determine the level range of a player or mob

Not For Me, But Maybe You

So what they propose is a drastically different game than what is available currently. I am posting this on my blog because I figure there are several of my readers who would be excited to play something like this. The problem is… I am not. I read the list of features they want to implement, and I remember the fervor that was whipped up before Vanguard released about it being a return to hardcore gameplay. The problem is… players will say they want this sort of a game but they never seem to show up with their pocket books when one is released.

Maybe Kickstarter is a viable vehicle for this sort of niche vision, and potentially it can get built and find a quiet following to keep the lights on. Mostly I am just shining a light on this existing to let folks who might want to support it know about it. Personally nothing they are describing sounds like “fun” to me. I like my modern conveniences and I tend to rebel against the games that don’t have them. However that is not to say that there are not players out there who have been craving this more hardcore and primitive gaming experience. In that case support the hell out of this game and hope it makes it through to fruition.

Failing Resolve

October 21, 2013October 21, 2013 by Belghast

Perfect Drug

This morning I am having a bit of a slow start getting going… so as a result I spent the last 30 minutes or so crawling through my news reader looking for something to inspire me. At which point I landed on this post from Liore talking about her feeling the need to apologize for playing World of Warcraft and the overall negative reaction she has gotten from other gamers. I think in part… the negative attitude is due to the fact that there is really no such thing as a former WoW player. I don’t really intend hyperbole with, but much like an alcoholic you are never really fully over World of Warcraft.

I was so damned pumped the day I got into the Hearthstone beta, and while I am presently having a blast playing it despite how many times I get beat… it has awoken some things that I was not quite ready for. I cannot count how many times after a game of Hearthstone this weekend that I considered reactivating my account and “playing some wow”. I am still resisting, and my little interaction a week or so ago with a trial account is keeping me in part from doing it. World of Warcraft this is wonderful marzipan world that is awesome so long as you are willing not to think about it too much.

Can’t Not Think

The problem is… each time I go back to the game I just end up frustrated about the decisions they didn’t make. World of Warcraft is like that friend you know with so much potential, but they keep making horrible life choices. So when I go back I get frustrated by the Transmog system, and the piss poor community support, and the fact that every single social channel that used to be my lifeblood in the game is dead… since most of the folks I care about have long since moved on. For me World of Warcraft is this magical thing that will never again be, because we have all fundamentally changed from the days when it was our nightly obsession.

We reject WoW so harshly because we know it is basically an empty promise. All it takes is a little bit of nostalgia and reminiscing about the “good ole days” and we are ready to re-up for another ride. Hearthstone has been horrible for me in this aspect, because seeing the cards and the artwork… makes me want to go play Belghast and actually get him to level 90. However my allergy to pugging, or more so TANKING for pugs will end up in tears as I would be going back with no real support structure. House Stalwart still exists, but it is a shell of what it once was, and going back and seeing that is hard on me as well.

Failing Resolve

All of this said… I fully expect over the next few weeks this nostalgia trip that is Hearthstone will eventually end up in me reactivating my World of Warcraft account. I figure I will only last a week or so if I do, and even knowing this going into it… I full expect to do it anyways. I spent most of the weekend trying to play various things without really having much success. I played a little rift, patched up gw2, played a lot of pokemon and hearthstone… and even considered patching up SWTOR. All the while trying to avoid the fact that the rush of nostalgia is demanding me playing some WoW. But all of this is why we push back so hard when we see a friend slip back into playing the game. We know deep down inside that we are likely next to follow.

End Game

October 13, 2013 by Belghast

Slowing Down

For most of us in House Stalwart the wild ride that was the Final Fantasy XIV storyline has come to a conclusion. As a result a large number of us have dialed back our playtime a bit to recover. This is only magnified by the fact that the game that none of us may speak of is having yet another event and a large number of us are actively playing that. The storyline was extremely exceptional and did everything I would expect in the ending of a classic final fantasy game. However this time it left the door completely open.

It felt much like that first time you transitioned Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past into the Dark World. It feels like we just scratched the surface of the game, which I guess is how the ending of the storyline content should feel in every MMO. Lots of things are resolved, but very quickly you realize that nothing at all is truly resolved. Now that we have spent all the storyline we are left with the fact that other than the wonderful story… the FFXIV experience is a rather skeletal one.

End Game

Basically eight of us have entered the phase of the end game at this point… which is extremely limited. Each step along the path has some pretty severe gear requirements, so what we have ahead of us is a large amount of running the same two dungeons over and over. Basically you are given two paths forward for gear. The first of which is running two 8 man dungeons that reward a lot of tomestones, but absolutely no gear… or running two 4 man dungeons that drop gear but very few tomestones. Neither option feels really good, considering for the time spent running Amdapor you really do not end up with much gear. I’ve run it three times as a tank and have yet to see a single drop.

The real problem is the fact that each run through the dungeon racks up a not insignificant repair bill. One of the big problems I have talked about before is the fact that there really is no good way to gain money at level 50. I carried with me into the end game about 200,000 gil, and that has been going fast as I use it for various needed things at the maximum level. The options I have before me are grinding fates which pay out around 200 gil each, grinding leves which pay out around 500 gil each… and playing the auction house. The problem with the auction house is that `the only thing worth anything really are high level crafted items. Leveling your crafting however can bankrupt your character… so it is a bit of a catch 22.

Relic Weapon

The goal of the game right now seems to be to get your relic weapon and later on your +1 upgrade to it. This is the best item in the game you can get, but much like the Everquest Epic weapon it is a long and drawn out process. To start down this path is a rather expensive one. Firstly you have to acquire the base weapon, for a Warrior this is the Barbarian’s Bardiche. This is crafted by a high level blacksmith and is gathered together out of bits that have to be farmed from a combination of dungeons and overworld zones. They currently go for about 10,000 gil on the open market, and since I do not have access to a max level Blacksmith that is the option I chose to go with. In my experience it costs far more than 10,000 gil to get a smith to create one for you.

From there you need to infuse 2 Battledance III materia onto the item. This once again has to be done by a level 50 blacksmith… and the going rate per infuse on my server is 10,000 gil. Acquiring the Battledance III materia is a whole other matter that is far more time consuming. These are gained from disassembling level 45 or higher items that are 100% spiritbound. The problem is… individual items can be disassembled into a wide variety of different materia. I spiritbound a set of Mithril Plate gear, and did not manage to get a single Battledance III. Ultimately I had a guild member give me one of them, and I bought the second on the open market for 15,000 gil.

So just to get to the point of turning in the infused axe I have already spent over 50,000 gil once you factor in the material costs of the infusions. I apparently got off easily… for a Paladin or a Scholar apparently the costs are more like 100,000 gil. From here it is a series of monsters that I have to take down, starting in Coerthas with the Chimera and ending with Hard Mode Titan. All of which is rather honestly a pretty horrific grind, considering by the time you get to Hard Mode Titan, you damned well better be in full darklight gear, the set you get from the tomestones I talk about grinding out earlier.

Grind, Grind, Grind

Ultimately this is going to be the thing that kills the game for me if they do not introduce some less grindy paths. Right now I have the option of grinding for money, grinding to level other classes or grinding out end game gear. There is nothing left to do in the game that is anywhere near as enjoyable as the questing experience was. At this point, the game is a really fun ride to 50, and then grind city afterwards. I still greatly enjoy the dungeon runs, and I look forward to doing more of that, but that involves getting a large number of people online at the same time. When there is not a full groups worth online, I am finding myself lacking in things I really want to do.

At this point I have leveled my Warrior to 50 and my Bard to 50… but any additional characters involve lots and lots of either mob grinding or fate grinding and right now after having done it twice… that lacks any sort of luster. So I find myself piddling around in other games waiting on enough of a critical mass to form in FFXIV that we can do some dungeons. At this point I really lack interest in doing anything else in the game. I think as time passes I will want to level other classes, but after having ground out two to 50, I need a bit of a break. As a result I have been piddling around in League of Legends and finding myself pining away from my Hex invite. FFXIV still has a ton of potential, but they really need to make some changes in 2.1 to make the game more livable.

Role-Playing

October 12, 2013October 12, 2013 by Belghast

Make Believe

This is a topic I have kicked around for awhile, and been uncertain of when exactly I wanted to use it. I have a rather conflicted relationship with role-playing. Essentially every person that plays a video game to at least some extent pretends to be someone else while they are playing it. Even if it is just changing your own world view just enough to accept that you can shoot laser beams out of your eyes… or jump in mid air. Role-playing however takes this simple “being someone else” a whole lot further. The average role-player generates a whole series of motivations and outlooks for their character fleshing them out into a real virtual personality.

I find this whole process extremely interesting, and I have always gotten along extremely well with serious role-players. I think this starts back when I found the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Players Manual in a locker at the end of school one year. From that point onwards pen and paper games colored my destiny. The thing is… or me they were always a game, not really a way of looking at the world. While some of my friends geeked out on figuring out a series of complex motivations for their character… I just wanted to grab a sword and slaughter endless goblins in search for big treasure and even bigger weapons.

Role-playing

While I love the theory of role-playing, and I will always gravitate towards a role-playing community… or a role-playing server… I am not actually a role-player. The above image is a collage of my characters from multiple games. You will notice a distinct pattern among them because in essence they are all exactly the same character. Belghast is essentailly the “super me”, an idealized version of myself and the way I wish I actually looked. While I do rock a moustache and goatee I have always wished my hair was black instead of the odd mishmash of brown, blond, with little bits of red especially in my beard.

Additionally I have always wished I had the type of head shape to support a pony-tail and make it look natural. However when I have tried it in the past, it hangs off my head like a top-knot so I only end up looking like a very fat samurai. It is in online games that I can fix the flaws in my own appearance and great this idealized version of myself. The games that allow me to create this appearance are ultimately games I really enjoy playing, however the ones that do not really support it.. ultimately are not as enjoyable for me and fall by the wayside. Namely I am looking at the Asian-styled games with their pretty boy appearances.

The thing is… there is no actual “character” of Belghast. Just like I use online games to revise my own appearance, to a lesser extent I revise my character and pump them into each of these avatars. While I keep all the good traits, like empathy and compassion… I get rid of my more conflicted and cerebral nature so that I can essentially become a man of action and not so much a man of constant indecision. The funny thing is… over the years of playing this character it has made the real person behind it more confident, less likely to mire down in over evaluation and more likely to take actions and risks. I feel like being a leader in online games has in turn made me more of a leader in real life, or at least have more confidence to lead.

Shoot First, Ask Questions Never

While so many of my life long friends are serious role-players, there is so much about their nature that I just do not understand. This has come to light lately while we are playing Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn. In this game you are actually penalized for rolling multiple characters, since one character can literally do everything in the game. However as they approach the game… each of their internalized characters has a specific thing they do, and sensibilities. So for them it is extremely jarring to see their mage archetype wielding a sword as a gladiator. For me… it just keeps me from having to create three clones of myself like I did in The Secret World.

The end result is that many of them are splitting their focus between different characters, or in the case of a few of them creating a melee character and a caster character to keep from destroying their mental picture of what each character should be. So much of me just doesn’t understand why it matters. I respect the fact that it does matter to them, but since I always play the same character regardless of what game or class I am playing… it all feels so esoteric to me.

In-Character

The concept of role-playing inside of a game is also mostly lost on me. In every RP focused game there has been some spot where players gather together to talk amongst themselves in character. While I think it is extremely cool that people do this… I have never really understood it. Character dialog has always been the part of pen and paper role-playing that I was least interested in. I am that guy in ever campaign that always wants to blow the informants head off and search the corpse for clues… rather than try and ferret the information out of them with dialog. As a result I am the character with the highest body count, and the most well armed.

By a similar fashion.. I just can’t understand standing around in Stormwind talking about dragons that you have killed… when I could be out in the world killing new ones. I get fidgety when I go too long without combat in and MMO. I have developed this notorious reputation for always being in combat at exactly the wrong time. If the party pauses even for a moment… I am off pulling something else… and as a tank I have a long line of really amazing healers that enable these bad decisions. But nothing about this personal make-up is conducive to sitting around a hub and having long drawn out conversations “in-character”.

The Community

So as I said at the beginning of this post… I have deeply conflicted feelings about role-playing in general. On one hand, I will always gravitate towards a Role-playing server, simply because I feel that role-players as a whole are far more community minded. As a result a RP server will have all of the social structure I am used to… crafters guilds, event planners, friendly, helpful and mostly mature gamers that will in turn make my gaming experience more enjoyable. So as a result I support role-playing in whatever form it takes. If someone talks to me in character, I try my damnedest to respond back in character to not break the narrative.

However there will never be a time at which I actually seek out role-playing. If I know a guild or a raid stays in character constant, I will actively shy away from it. One of my really great friends had an amazing RP guild in WoW… but I did a dungeon run with them once… and after seeing that they chose to run dungeons in character… it was not a thing I ever repeated. It feels very foreign to me, and gets in the way of my constantly causing mayhem style of play. The thing is… I thought it was super cool that they had a group of individuals that wanted to do that, so while I was along for the ride I tried my damnedest not to break their run.

So I love Role-players, I love that people exist that can create such vivid make believe worlds that they can sustain similarly vibrant characters. I however am not one of them, but I don’t have to be a dancer to admire the beauty of ballet, and in a similar fashion I do not have to be an RPer to admire the fact that they exist. So as a result I will always be a supporter of the practice, even if I am not a participator. I hope games continue to support role-playing as a community rule-set, and I will continue to rabidly report all those horrible non-character names out there. I feel that games that support multiple play-styles and points of view to be the best, so here is hoping that games in the future will not forget that.