wildstar Archives - Page 4 of 14 - Tales of the Aggronaut

A Quiet Night

August 12, 2015 by Belghast

Second Time Just as Sweet

Every now and then things get left on the cutting room floor for one reason or another. For example I really wanted to make my post about the possibility of making our own convention… but I had lots of other things to talk about as well. In Final Fantasy I am presenting sitting in this interesting position being a part of two very different static raid groups. Last week in the Wednesday night group we managed to get Bismarck Extreme, and I was absolutely over the moon about it. This had been one of those challenges that we had struggled with over the course of a few weeks, namely in getting enough geared people online at the same time to take it down. That has been the biggest challenge for Wednesday nights honestly is getting people to commit to regular attendance. With my original raid group on Monday nights, attendance was never the issue. The struggle there was mostly gearing, or at least the fact that we did not have two geared tanks for awhile. However that changed as soon as Ashgar got his Paladin to 60, and geared it in record time. Over all the gearing levels of Monday still lag behind Wednesday, but we found out this week that it apparently doesn’t really matter all that much.

Last Monday we finished up turn 13 of the Final Coil of Bahamut and started the first turn of Alexander Normal. This week I figured the plan was to run all four phases of Alexander normal, mostly to help folks get some gear pieces. I did not realize that we had intended to do attempts on Bismarck at the end of the night. After struggling so much to get through that fight on the Wednesday group, I honestly expected us to walk away with a lot of experience but no kill under our belts. I was absolutely wrong, and I am shocked at just how amazing getting a first Bismarck kill felt with my second raid team. In the past in World of Warcraft, the first kill of a boss is special, but additional kills feel significantly less so. I remember getting my first 10 man Arthas kill several months ahead of us getting it as a 25 man raid and that blunted the excitement considerable. I have to say getting through Bismarck Extreme a second time is just as sweet as it was the first time. My hope is that both groups can start doing this on a semi regular basis which will give me access to so many expanse totems. Now I guess I really do have to get serious about the Ravana Extreme fight.

A Quiet Night

I had every intent of coming home and working on getting my Alexander drops for the week, but that didn’t really pan out. I hit somewhat of an irrational low spot yesterday, and as a result I didn’t really feel like being around all that many people. As such I avoided logging into Final Fantasy XIV and instead played a few other games. Mylin started a discussion over twitter about the Everquest II Time Locked servers, which I guess was responding to some comments I had made earlier in the week. The problem being that I was spending the evening downstairs on my laptop, and I guess I had never actually installed Everquest II on it. There is a streaming client for these occasions, the problem is that the EQ2 streaming client is horrible. The performance halts every few minutes as the game downloads more assets, making the game experience nigh unplayable. I should have simply waited the thirty minutes to an hour that it would take to download the full thing… but I was being impatient. The end result was a frustrating stutter stop experience as I attempted to quest my way through Freeport. Honestly this is a dual problem for me, because no matter what I try the new Freeport always performs like shit. I really miss the old multi-zone Freeport because I never had these issues back then. Now I generally want to avoid going to that town like the plague. I noticed both the Neriak and Gorowyn ambassadors were offering me a switch in my allegiance, but I was uncertain if Gorowyn even existed in this version of the game.

Ultimately I need to do some reading because I will more than happily pop to the Darklight Woods starter experience if given an option. I consider it the absolute best starter zone in the game. I’ve burned through my stockpile of station cash and I feel made some awesome decisions. I ended up picking up a handful of the bags that are being offered since I did not really want to go tailor just to make bags, and I ended up picking up a set of shadowknighty looking cosmetic armor. I have long felt that if you look good you feel better about playing your character. Finally I spent the last of it picking up the tanky rhino mount, but I’ve never really cared for the way mounts look in this game… so I tend to have it permanently hidden. As a result I feel like a bard in that I am just running irrationally fast for no apparent reason. Mounts can make moving around cities awkward as you ultimately end up blocking some of your view as you try and get into buildings and such. I am still only level 11 because really… I had forgotten how slow progression used to go in this game before all of the assorted experience bonuses.

Saving Farmers

I could only handle the stutter and stop gameplay of the streaming client so long before I jettisoned Everquest II for favor of Wildstar. This is a game I want to devote more time to playing because I am really enjoying myself. It scratches the World of Warcraft style game itch pretty well, and playing the Exiles has this fun firefly vibe to it. Quite honestly I think had I started Exiles I probably would have stuck around longer than the initial month. I was not a huge fan of the Dominion, but the Chua made playing them tolerable for awhile. Personally I still think red versus blue faction divides are extremely dumb, and this game is just another reason. My friends wanted to play Dominion, so I joined them there and had a fairly miserable time being a cartoon bad guy. If I could have grouped with them on my Exile it would not have been a problem. Instead there was a faction wall, and I am pretty much universally against faction walls. The difference this time however is that no one I know actually plays Dominion on Entity. This is actually somewhat sad as I can log into my Chua and the Dominion capital city is an absolute ghost town. I roamed around for a good ten minutes one night before seeing a single other player, and when I finally did it was because there were a few people hanging out at the bank.

As of last night I dinged twenty two and finally can use a spiffy sword that I had been holding in my inventory for awhile. There is just something about a weapon upgrade that is special. I could be wearing ten levels lower of gear in every other slot, but if I have a current weapon… I feel good about my life. There were some oddities going on with the server, because it seems like the opening of the free to play beta made more people realized that the game still existed. I admit I am guilty of forgetting to log in. I get caught up in Final Fantasy XIV and doing Eorzean things, but I think I am going to make an effort to start logging in more. Since I have friends playing over there already it might be easier to remember. I am trying my best to push through the Galeras content as fast as I can because I am just ready to see new areas. I did move into the desert region of the zone so that was a bit of a welcome change, although as of last night I was back in rolling hills and farm lands. At some point I need to do the two dungeons I recently unlocked to see if I can get any spiffy upgrades. The highlight of the night however was getting to the next Shiphand mission, because so far those are my absolute favorite part of Wildstar.

Games I’m Not Playing

July 17, 2015 by Belghast

Too Many Games

Right now I am suffering from a problem, in that there are just too many games that I want to be playing and simply not enough time in any combination of lifetimes to actually play them. Last night I downloaded and installed Skyforge, and gave it a quick spin this morning… and as interesting as it seems I just don’t know when exactly I am going to fit it in. For the first time in years I have been relatively monogamistic in my gaming, and with the dropping of World of Warcraft I pretty much have all of my focus on Final Fantasy XIV. Last night I ran dungeons with the guild and after doing my hunts managed to push my Dragoon to 56. As a result the desire to get that job to 60 is real, because I desperately want to be able to fill more than one roll when it comes to grouping.

By the same token I really would like to give some time to Skyforge so that I can give it a shot for free, before plunking down any money on it. I watched a bit of the MMO Show stream the other day as Jabberant played the game and I have to admit it peaked my interests. Playing this morning it feels like a better version of Neverwinter, because the janky control scheme of that game was always a major detractor. So now I get to juggle competing desires and figure out how to spend my weekend. So this morning I thought I would write about the games that I am wanting to play but just can’t seem to find adequate time to devote to them.

Star Wars the Old Republic

I have this strong desire to go back and experience the storyline that I have not yet. Essentially I have not really played my main in this game, a Jedi Guardian… since launch. Each time I go back I always end up playing alts because I am finding it really hard to get back into the swing of playing a level 50 character. I know there have been numerous expansions since launch, each with their own storyline content… and I am struggling to get back into the swing of doing it. Instead I mostly spend time playing my Light Side Sith Warrior, who has been stuck in the hell hole of Balmorra for at least two years. So one of my gaming regrets is that I have not figured out how to make progress on my main and see the Makeb and beyond storyline. Additionally I have this nasty habit of paying for a month, and then playing one day and never returning to it. I’ve gone through this sequence at least a half dozen times since we left this game. The draw of Final Fantasy XIV is always too strong to keep me playing there for long.

Wildstar

On my second attempt at playing this game I reached a point where I really was enjoying what I was doing. In fact there was a stretch prior to the launch of Heavensward where I was playing this one more than just about any other game. I have an awesome group of friends in this game and I love the Black Dagger Society guild that I am in. I had a blast roaming around the zones and taking down world bosses with them on a few occasions. For whatever reason however I am just not logging in right now. Once again the draw of Final Fantasy XIV is too strong, and maybe I just love our guild there too much. This is on the list of games I absolutely want to keep returning to, but I doubt I will until a bit more of the shiny has warn off from Heavensward. Right now I am in this push to reach a point where I have multiple useful jobs to help people with, and I think until I get there I won’t be happy playing much else.

The Secret World

I am woefully behind in my Secret World content, because the last update I think I played was the whole “Last Train to Cairo” sequence. I know there have been multiple updates since then but I am just not logging in and playing them. There are problems I have with this game that preclude me from really digging into the end game content. However I have loved all of the story mission content that I have played and I keep meaning to poke my head in and do them. I’m a life time subscriber, and I should have tons of goodies waiting on me… but generally speaking what happens is I log in and buy a nifty new outfit… then log right back out. Of all of my gaming regrets this is one of the strongest because I really would like to find a way to play this game in addition to whatever game I am “maining”.

ArcheAge

Just prior to the launch of Heavensward there were several of us on the AggroChat cast that had a brief love affair with this game. I want to find a way to return to playing this game on a regular basis because I don’t feel like I have consumed all of the good that I can get from it. This is the game that I was told once I reached level 30 I would be in forced pvp areas. While we are playing on Tahyang the supposed roleplaying server, I am 38 and have yet to encounter even another enemy player. There is a lot of great PVE content in this game, and we found the dungeons to be among some of the rougher we had experienced since say Dark Age of Camelot. I’ve logged in a few times since the launch of Heavensward, but never for terribly long because I keep feeling like I really should be in FFXIV gearing or helping other people gear. I still have things I want to do here, so I need to figure out a way to play it as well.

Skyforge

I talked about this as the start of the blog post, but I really do want to spend some time getting to know this game. At face value it didn’t seem like it was going to be anything I would be interested in. However after playing a brief few minutes this morning I think I might dig it. It is action combat that still feels like an MMO. Honestly I put Neverwinter in that same category, however there the combat just felt forced and janky. The proof will be in the pudding as to how the Paladin feels once I progress it a bit further. I admit the whole “switch roles at any time” thing is a huge draw for me, after getting used to that in Final Fantasy XIV. I doubt this would ever be a primary MMO for me, but it might be a fun weekend diversion. Ultimately I keep looking for a solid secondary game to have the duality that I did with Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft. I have yet to find the game that seems like the perfect match, but who knows this might be it.

Elder Scrolls Online

The game that I least understand why I am not playing it… is The Elder Scrolls Online. Everything about this game should be squarely in my wheelhouse considering the number of hours that I have spent playing games in the Elder Scrolls universe. I have access to it both on PC and on PS4, and I had this idea that the console client would somehow revitalize my interest in the game. The problem is… it hasn’t at all. I feel like the problem I have with this game is that even though I have people moving around me… I feel like I am ultimately alone. The other players are just a backdrop in part because I never see their names. I think in part I am experiencing Beta regret, because after testing this game for a year there are previous incarnations of the game UI that I just enjoyed more. If I could go back and play THOSE incarnations… I would probably be enjoying myself still. When names over the top of mobs went away… the world felt like it shrunk for me, and the game became more or less a single player experience. I still would love to find a way to make this game that at one point I was so devoted to still feel enjoyable, but I just have not found it.

Good Game in Disguise

June 8, 2015 by Belghast

Boating to Freedom

Over the last few days I have been all over the place as far as my game playing has gone. Saturday night while recording the podcast I worked on my Rogue in Final Fantasy XIV, and Sunday morning I spent a good deal of time playing Wildstar. However after talking about ArcheAge at length during the podcast I spent Sunday afternoon and evening working on leveling a brand new character on the server the rest of the AggroChat folks have been playing on. Our show ended up unintentionally talking about how games change and giving them a second chance. If you have been reading my blog for very long you will know I did not exactly give ArcheAge a glowing review at launch. In truth the game was rather good, but the community that had arrayed around it was among the most toxic I had experienced.

The moment that sticks out the most in my memory is still crystal clear. There is a moment in the early human storyline where you are asked to cross a bay in a rowboat. Now around the time the game launched high level players were hanging out in the middle of this area with their huge boats, trying to capsize and subsequently drown anyone trying to cross this bay. It took every bit of maneuvering to make it across the bay, as I watched many other players sent to the bottom. Up returning and starting my level process again I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at just how chill the community has become. For all I know they might be off in some far corner of the world being assholes to each other, but at the very least no one seems to be getting their jollies out of griefing new players.

Good Game in Disguise

In all the time I spent watching chat this weekend, I have to say that similarly the general banter has improved as well. The awesome about about this is that I can finally focus on the fact that the game underlying all of those layers of frustration is actually rather good. We talk about this at length on the podcast, but in many ways this is the game Rift should have been, or at least by that I mean that the skill trees seem to work so much better. The key problem with Rift skill trees is that there are a lot of different flavors of the same ability, that can then be arrayed in a macro to simply push one after another. The skill trees in ArcheAge have very little if any duplication between them. In Rift the warrior tree for example have essentially the same basic attack, and same combo point dump. This is required since any tree could be used as the starting point for a given spec.

In ArcheAge however there are trees that have basic attacks, and those are the only ones that the game will let you start with. From there however the sky is the limit and it will allow you to mix in any combination of three trees. The coolest part to me is that each combination has a fixed class name. In the past I had tried Doomlord and Paladin, but this time while leveling I decided to go with Auramancy for my third tree. The end result is this awesome mix of debuffing and magical shielding that I think will end up in being an extremely strong tank. Right now I seem to be having an extremely easy time taking tearing through the content and just managed to ding fifteen. Now this is in theory my third time leveling through the content so I am sure part of the ease comes from remembering what I need to do in various situations, but overall it does feel like maybe I am taking less damage at least in part due to the debuff I can throw out during every combat encounter.

Waiting for Heavensward

The main question is how long we will stay, and if we will manage to make it into the open pvp areas. Who knows, I do know that in a week and a half we will have Heavensward to pull us away. In the meantime it seems like most people are at least taking a minor break from Final Fantasy XIV right before the big launch. I have the days surrounding the launch off work, so I am more than likely going to be pushing it pretty hard. Right now it is my intent to level my Warrior first, and then after getting it to 60 switch focus to playing Dark Knight. I really do love my Warrior and the more I have played it recently, the more I realize just how happy I am with that class. Everything about its tanking style “feels” right to me, and as exciting as the new and shiny Dark Knight might be, I have a feeling that I am always going to be a Warrior tank. Who knows, it might launch and I might think it is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. But in reality I keep expecting to keep swinging the big axe.

In the meantime however I am having a blast piddling around in both Wildstar and ArcheAge and exploring these two games that I am giving a second chance. There is a significant problem however with my ArcheAge account so I am hoping the good support folks at Trion can get that taken care of shortly. I have two characters on my account, but I am supposed to be able to create up to six. All of the character slots are grayed out, and I cannot even connect to servers other than the two that I am already on. So in theory something must be jacked up with my account. Now considering my account is extremely old, and I have been playing for a very long time… it makes me wonder if something is related to the age of the account dating back to alpha. Makes me wonder if it is somehow counting characters I made on test servers? I spoke with a nice GM yesterday and he escalated it, so hopefully it will get addressed soon. Right now we are largely torn between which faction to level on… but at the moment I am limited to only the one since I cannot roll any new characters. So I am curious, what are you doing to ease the tension while waiting on Heavensward?

World Boss Train

June 7, 2015 by Belghast

Wandering around Wildstar

Yesterday I had every intent to work on either leveling my Rogue or to work on getting poetics in Final Fantasy XIV. However recently I have had a resurgence of friends checking out Wildstar again so I opted to boot that up after finishing yesterdays blog post. To set the stage some of my friends from the FFXIV Free Company also lead quite possibly the largest guild on the Entity server. To call this guild “active”, is like calling the national debt “a large number.” This is a double edges sword because so often I feel like I am struggling to keep up with the activity going on in game. Wildstar is already an extremely busy game for me, and to have guild chat scrolling by like mad, as well as the assorted circles I am in is a bit of a sensory overload. So it is sheer luck that I happened to be paying attention to guild chat at just the right time yesterday.

One of my guildies was gathering up a group to take down Grendelus the Guardian, the world boss of Celestion. Now at this point I had not actually been to Celestion but they were awesome and willing to wait for me to find my way out there. Thankfully I was right next to the gates to Thayd and could hop across the city and get into Celestion in nothing flat. Firstly I want to say that when I saw Grendelus was only level 11 I was thinking this was going to be more of a token fight than a serious one. Those assumptions were completely wrong, because even at level 18 Grendelus was serious business. In fact we had a few level 50s with us in our group taking him down and it still took roughly fifteen minutes from the time we pulled to the moment we managed to down him. I remember world bosses existing and that folks banded together to fight them at launch, but I never actually managed to participate in one. I do however remember trying to take on King Honeygrave with a group of friends not really understanding that he was designed as a raid encounter.

World Boss Train

As it turns out that these world bosses are needed as part of the super complex raid attunement system in Wildstar. It also turns out that apparently even though I am level 18, when I participate in one of them I am getting credit that will eventually work in my favor when it finally comes time to do the attunements proper. I guess when you hit maximum level you get retroactive credit for all of the world bosses you have killed, or at least that is what my guild seemed to insinuate. Firstly I have to say how impressed I am with the way that the Black Dagger Society rolls into zones. Last night I managed to hook up with what was essentially a guild World Boss train, and they openly offer anyone in zone that wants to tag along a spot in the raid group. In fact they were more than willing to wait for people running in from Thayd to get there before starting. There is this infectious spirit about them that is really enjoyable to be around.

So while I didn’t get much actual leveling done yesterday, I did manage to knock four raid bosses off the list. I had been kind of shy about offering my help when things were going on in guild, but as I am starting to get to know the members better I am feeling more open about stepping up to the challenge. I’ve had moments of people jokingly asking if I was “THE Belghast”, and more people seem to know me than I know them… but overall I am slowly working my way into meeting all of the folks in the guild. It seems like a really great place to hang my hat, and had I NOT joined I have a feeling that Chestnut would have been a really sad panda. I am hoping with me dialing back World of Warcraft, that I can actually participate in more events that are going on there. The guild has a whole has these big events on a somewhat regular basis, so my hope is that I can get in on some of them in the coming weeks.

AggroChat 60 – Second Chances

Tonight on AggroChat we have Belghast, Tamrielo, Thalen and Grace. This week Kodra is off playing a rather convincing Fred from Scrooby Doo at Origins, and Ashgar disappeared mysteriously moments before the recording… and we are hoping everything is okay. The rest of us talked about some recent experiences giving games a second glance. The first game on that list is Wildstar and both Belghast and Grace have spent a significant amount of time back in the game. It has been amazing just what an embattled and often times struggling team has managed to accomplish. Similarly Tamrielo and Thalen have been checking out ArcheAge to find that community is much improved. Tam talks at length about what he likes about the design of the game, and how it manages to do a better job at being Rift.

Since Ashgar was missing we felt the need to give a huge plug to the Four Job Fiesta program and talk at length about how exactly it works. For Ashgar the “fiesta” is like a religion, and each June we know that sooner or later we are going to be hit up to join it again. This year he has pledged $10 for each AggroChat host that manages to beat the game and $5 for each AggroChat listener that beats the game and includes @AggroChat twitter handle on their victory shot. We talk about a number of other games including Lego Worlds, World of Warcraft, Shadowrun Returns and of course our getting prepared for the launch of the Heavensward expansion in Final Fantasy XIV. It is a big show chock full of lots of interesting discussions that we hope you will enjoy. “Please look forward to it.”