162 entries. 82,064 words.
2014-01
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GW2 – They Had Personalities?.
2014-01-02.
After reading over this article on Massively by Anatoli Ingram, I am stunned that the author can even remember the names of those four GW2 Living Story characters, let alone come up with a thousand words of an article analyzing their personalities and backstories. My experience of the last year of Living Story was something like this:
Oh there’s this cool new Living Story! Oh there’s nothing to actually do, but I got some achievements.
- MMORPG
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Returning to EVE Online?.
2014-01-03.
Continuing my adventures in finding an MMO to get hooked on before the new ones come out in 2014, I turned to venerable EVE, the best-or at least the most popular-game I’ve never paid for. With reckless abandon, I bought 3 months of time and downloaded the client.
I haven’t played EVE in five years, when I played for a week or so during a free trial. Surprisingly, my character from the free trial was still there.
- MMORPG
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A Freshly-Formatted PC.
2014-01-06.
I recently reformatted my PC and reinstalled Windows 7, so of course I had to re-install all my games. But instead of re-installing the seemingly hundreds of MMOs I previously had, I decided to limit the number of MMOs installed so I could try to cut down on this MMO ADD I’ve been experiencing.
So far I’ve installed WoW, FFXIV, LotRO, SWTOR, EVE, and Mortal Online. (Well, and Steam, obviously.) By sheer coincidence, I happened to have active subscriptions for those games as well (except MO).
- MMORPG
- Discussion
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The Diefication of Star Wars Galaxies.
2014-01-07.
I’ve been “into” Massively.com a lot lately, listening to their podcasts and watching their streams, and one thing I’ve noticed is that some of them have a total love affair with Star Wars: Galaxies. They talk about SWG like most other people talk about Everquest 1: They diefy it like it’s the greatest thing there ever was or ever will be.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that not only did I never play or even see it, I never even knew it was an MMORPG.
- MMORPG
- Discussion
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Steam’s Fall and Winter 2013 Sales.
2014-01-08.
Remember the good old days when you could buy tons of awesome AAA games from Steam for ridiculously low prices? Yeah, I think those days are over.
I was pretty disappointed in the Fall and Winter Steam Sales this time around. Almost all of the AAA games I saw on deep discount sales ($10 or less) were ones that I had already bought in earlier sales. (I still haven’t played 90% of them.
- Steam
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WoW Battle Pets FTW.
2014-01-09.
This is it. It’s all or nothing. My marmot is almost out of health. He won’t survive another round, and he’s the last one. I throw the box. I watch with breath caught in my throat as it teeters … totters … and falls down on the frog. I got it! I pump my fist and celebrate the capture of a new battle pet in WoW.
My gnome jumps for joy on the screen, too.
- MMORPG
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Not Cool, SOE.
2014-01-10.
Yeah, so we’ve been waiting for Everquest Next Landmark, right? We all thought they would start in January, right? We all bought an alpha or beta package even though we don’t want to admit it because it’s stupid to buy beta access for a free game, right? So what do you think goes through my mind when I get an email with a subject that looks like this:
Ultrviolet, you’re invited to play EverQuest Next Landmark!
- MMORPG
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Early Access MMOs and Character Wipes.
2014-01-10.
There are a lot more “early access” games now than ever before, thanks to Steam and Kickstarter. Basically what this means is that some random, poor game developer can release what amounts to a semi-playable demo of their game and then ask people to buy it for a (surprisingly minor) discount, hoping that they’ll raise enough money and interest to fund the rest of the game development.
In a lot of cases that is as janky as it sounds, because some Steam developers think it’s okay to put out crap that is buggy and unplayable, but I think it’s a concept that can work well for the MMO genre, since MMOs are almost always in constant flux even after their official releases anyway.
- MMORPG
- Discussion
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FFXIV Followup On Guild Houses.
2014-01-13.
I’m all-in on FFXIV at the moment so get ready for wall-to-wall FFXIV posts this week!
Last time I wrote that Square Enix wouldn’t do much about their guild housing prices unless people didn’t buy them. After I wrote that, they backed off a bit on their ridiculous prices, but not by much. Out of curiosity, I snooped around the guild housing areas to see just how many of the plots had been bought up already, because I assumed people would buy them no matter how much they cost or how much mindless grinding they had to do.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV Heavensturm Event.
2014-01-14.
Like just about everything in Final Fantasy XIV, seasonal events are kind of weird. I’m not really sure they should be called “events” at all. They are more like, you know, regular quests.
In most games, a seasonal event is a big deal. There’s a big gathering of people. There are games and activities and daily event quests. There’s a special dungeon or a special boss to defeat. There are special mounts and costumes and occasionally some meaningful gear as rewards.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV ARC or BRD (Archive or Beard).
2014-01-15.
My main (and only, since you can play any class with the same character) in FFXIV is an Archer. (Or “ARC,” as they like to abbreviate class names to 3 letters for some reason - I still have trouble translating those - ARC looks like Archive to me - why is it hard to add three more letters to make “ARCHER?”) Archer is a straight-forward, low-stress ranged DPS class that’s fun to play.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV The Return of Adolescent Jerkiness.
2014-01-16.
When I first started playing FFXIV sometime around October 2013*, it was extremely quiet. Very few people made comments in the general chat. I’m sure we’re all used to a more-or-less constant scroll of adolescent jerkiness going on in MMO general chat, so it was weird and kind of nice that there was none of that in FFXIV. Most of what you saw, to be honest, was gold spam.
Now, however, I see a lot more activity in the general chat.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV Around Dragonhead.
2014-01-17.
If I’m to complete a full week of FFXIV posts, I need to think of one more topic to write about. I thought I would describe a typical play session. This one happened on a Thursday night.
I login with my Miqote Archer. I’m semi-embarassed that I’m still playing the adorable cat girl with the squirrel tail that I made on a lark back when I started, but I’m stuck with her now because I’m not going back to level up another character now.
- MMORPG
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Life Without MMO Guides.
2014-01-20.
Have you ever wondered why there are so many MMO guides out there? Step-by-step walkthroughs and so forth? I think I know the answer. It’s because without Internet guides, most MMO game players would simply stand in one place and stare at the screen, paralyzed and unable to figure out what to do or how to do it.
You can tell this from watching the global chat of a game that is in closed beta.
- MMORPG
- Discussion
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How Long Should Dungeons Take?.
2014-01-21.
I’ve been trying to figure out the optimal length of a dungeon run. There’s a point beyond which the dungeon goes from “this is really fun” to “oh god I can’t escape and this is never going to end.” It’s usually a hard line, too. It’s never a gradual process. One minute things are great, and the next minute it’s a life-draining death march from which you can’t escape.
For me I think that mark is around 30-35 minutes.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV Miqo’tes at Studio 54.
2014-01-22.
My Miqo’te archer is closing in on 50. With the crazy ridiculous bonus experience gained from a Low-Level Duty Roulette, she should get there tonight, Friday the 17th. (I write most posts in advance, by the way.)
My archer has been going through some seriously odd fashion phases in the last ten levels. Everything was fine at first. She had a suitable outfit that reflected her spunky, squirrel-tailed, no-nonsense, tomboy attitude through most of her leveling.
- MMORPG
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Rift – What’s It Going To Take?.
2014-01-23.
I read a fluff article on MMORPG.com about 5 Things Rift Must Do In 2014, which got me thinking. What would it take to get me to play Rift again on a daily basis again in 2014?
Well, the answer is pretty simple: Give me an expansion with new zones and more levels.
(Alternately, if I totally ran out of stuff to do in other MMOs I’m playing, I would probably play Rift.
- MMORPG
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GW2 The Hidden Origins of Madness.
2014-01-24.
Due to a devastating blizzard of perhaps a half an inch of fine powdery snow, I had 2 extra hours one morning to look at The Origins of Madness, the new Living Story content for Guild Wars 2.
I patch up, log into my Necro, and I have mail telling me to go to Lornar’s Pass. Naturally it’s one of the places my Necro hasn’t been so I can’t fast-travel there, so I get out my Norn Ranger, who has been all through those wintry mountains.
- MMORPG
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Changing the Holy Trinity.
2014-01-27.
I read Scree’s A Snapshot of Pantheon, an excellent summary of the things that Brad McQuaid wants to do with Kickstarter MMO Pantheon: Something of Something. I’ll save most of my comments on Brad’s game vision for another post, or never, because I don’t think it will get funded. The part about changing the Holy Trinity model is what stood out to me today. Apologies for quoting so much of this:
- MMORPG
- Discussion
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WoW – Who to Boost.
2014-01-28.
I am blatantly stealing TAGN’s post subject here, which is the question of who to boost to 90 for Warlords of Draenor. My situation is a lot different than his though, because I only play WoW when I’m really bored with other games, and my highest-level character has only recently broken into the Wrath of the Lich King era of the game.
Hunter? This was the second character I created when I started WoW in 2006, and my second-oldest surviving MMO character.
- MMORPG
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Bye Vanguard and Wizardry Online.
2014-01-29.
I’m sure you’ve all heard the news about SOE closing down Vanguard, Wizardry Online, and two other MMOs.
Vanguard is a game that I always wanted to play more, but I could never seem to keep it on any kind of daily schedule. I always thought of it as a “crutch” game - I knew if there was absolutely nothing else to do, and I didn’t want to spend any money, I could always fire up Vanguard and be entertained for a little while.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV – Learning The Endgame.
2014-01-30.
I reached level 50 in Final Fantasy XIV and entered “the endgame,” that fabled zone where only the elites live. Now I can evaluate FFXIV’s version of what some vehemently insist is “the only real game.”
As with any MMO (except GW2), the FFXIV endgame is a gear grind. Your basic goal is to increase the “average item level” of your gear. This in turn allows you to unlock more and more difficult instances, in which you can acquire gear with higher item levels.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV – Endgame Life.
2014-01-31.
In another post I wrote about your basic objectives in FFXIV endgame and what there is to do, but in this post I’m going to talk more frankly about the more practical experience of what the endgame is like when you’re not in a big Free Company with lots of people available at your level.
It’s like sitting around waiting in a queue for a long time.
Again.
And again.
- MMORPG
2014-02
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Landmark First Impression.
2014-02-02.
Apparently the NDA was lifted, so here’s my first impression of the game:
It doesn’t have invert mouse yet, so it’s a major, major chore to play it.
It literally boggles my mind that devs don’t include this in their alphas, or even their finished games. I mean, surely it must be a built-in feature of the game engine somewhere, right? Even if it’s a stupid registry key somewhere, show me where it is!
- MMORPG
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LotRO – Left Angmar For Eregion.
2014-02-03.
Due to a heat pump failure, my normal schedule of writing scintillating posts (ha!) was totally borked. But lucky for you, I found some posts that I have previously rejected as being totally lame and irrelevant, pulled from the dregs of the barrel of mediocrity.
My LoTRO Hunter reached level 48. Normally a level like “48” doesn’t seem like that much of an achievement, but in LoTRO I feel like it takes an eternity* to level, so each new number is a major milestone.
- MMORPG
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WoW – Outlands Completed, Or At Least Left.
2014-02-04.
Due to a heat pump failure, my normal schedule of writing scintillating posts (ha!) was totally borked. But lucky for you, I found some posts that I have previously rejected as being totally lame and irrelevant, pulled from the dregs of the barrel of mediocrity.
My WoW Hunter has finally reached the level cap! Of Burning Crusade, that is. Which means he is now Level 70, a mere twenty levels and five years behind where everyone else is.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV – Conjurer, Part 1.
2014-02-05.
During the time I’ve been waiting in FFXIV endgame queues for my Bard, I’ve leveled all my other adventuring classes to 15 through a combination of FATEs, levemetes, and hunting log completion. (You’d think leveling to 15 would be easy, but in reality the time it takes to get from level 10 to level 15 seems endless.)
My goal was to get all the classes to 15, then pick one to dive into and level the rest of the way to 50.
- MMORPG
- Healing
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FFXIV – Conjurer, Part 2.
2014-02-06.
With such slow casting times, you’d think that the optimal way to play a Conjurer would be to spam Cures on the tank so he’s always full. That’s what I did in Rift, more-or-less, with the Purifier class. (Prior to Storm Legion, at least.)
Welllllll, see, there’s this thing called ’threat.’ I may be completely wrong, but in my meager experience so far, I feel like healing generates a lot of threat in FFXIV.
- MMORPG
- Healing
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Landmark – Paying For Alpha.
2014-02-07.
On the issue of paying for Alpha access, I’m having a hard time getting worked up about it. On the surface it seems like an outrage, but the more I think about it, the more it sounds conceptually identical to pre-ordering.
It’s long been a trend that if you pre-order an MMO, you get “early access.” I remember this was the case way back with Warhammer Online. It’s just that now, instead of 5 days of early access, you get 5 months of early access.
- MMORPG
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Rift – Dreamweaving In 2.6.
2014-02-10.
Don’t get me wrong, I am ecstatic to see Rift adding new “stuff” to the game, but unfortunately Dreamweaving-a crafting profession for enhancing Dimensions-is way far down on the list of things that interest me. Dreamweaving allegedly allows you to craft thingys and gizmos and whatsises for your Dimensions, but I have yet to do much of anything with my Dimensions, except dump in all the Dimension items that keep filling up my inventory.
- MMORPG
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Landmark – Now With Inversion.
2014-02-11.
Last Wednesday, SOE patched Landmark with a pretty significant list of bug fixes. The only part that mattered to me, of course, was the addition of an invert mouse option. Yay! I can play!
I’m still not going to build anything complicated, though, because … well, it’s going to get wiped. Either accidentally or intentionally. So there’s no point in wasting the effort.
So basically all I’ve done so far is run around and chop down trees or dig holes in the dirt.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV – Titan Hard Mode, The Impossible PUG.
2014-02-12.
In FFXIV, one of your endgame tasks is to follow the Relic Reborn quest line in order to build your “relic weapon,” which is one of the better weapons in the game (but not the best, of course, because that would be too easy). I’ve been pretty lazy about it because statistically the Artimes Bow doesn’t seem that much better than the Garuda Bow I’m currently using. But anyway the final step of the Relic Reborn quest (at least I think it’s the last one) involves retrieving some primal materials by defeating the three Hard Mode Trials.
- MMORPG
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Landmark – Copper Found, Europe Bound.
2014-02-13.
Landmark continues to be a relaxing gathering experience. Remember when I said I couldn’t mine anything but Dirt, Stone, Tourmaline, and Agate? Well it turns out I had been running around all this time in a Tier 2 zone with a Tier 1 pickaxe. Doh!
I have no idea how I got to Tier 2, but to get back I had to run to the central hub thingy-which probably has a cool name but I don’t know what it is-and click the big crystal hanging up in the air.
- MMORPG
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ESO – Speculating on Zenimax.
2014-02-14.
Zenimax is getting a lot of flak for their strict NDA, and I thought I would speculate on why they might think it’s a good idea to keep it in place, when other early games don’t. Which is not to imply that I think it’s a good idea, or a bad idea, or anything in between. I’m not a games journalist, so I couldn’t care less whether it has an NDA or not.
- MMORPG
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ESO – Impressions from Beta.
2014-02-18.
So apparently Zenimax lifted their NDA a day after I speculated why they hadn’t lifted their NDA. Neat. Anyway, now I can post what I wrote about ESO mainly after the second beta weekend I was in.
Fair warning: The maximum level I have achieved is 7. That’s a couple of hours of gameplay. I have absolutely no idea what the endgame is like; I don’t even know what the maximum level is.
- MMORPG
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ESO – It’s About The Horse.
2014-02-19.
Yeah I pre-ordered the $79 Imperial Edition of ESO. Big whoop. Wanna fight about it?
I didn’t do it for the Imperial race, which I don’t care about. I fully expect Zenimax to make that available for purchase later anyway. I didn’t do it because I’m an Elder Scrolls fan boy and I think ESO is awesome. (I tolerate TES and I merely think ESO is better than average.*)
I mainly bought it for the horse.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV – Thaumaturge Dirge.
2014-02-20.
When I was leveling the Archer/Bard, I often looked at Thaumaturges and Black Mages and wished I were them. They always seem to do more damage, and they just have cooler spells with their fire and ice and whatnot. And even more importantly, they actually have a useful Limit Break. (I would not wear the silly Gandalf hats, though.)
Then I actually played a THM through level 15, and quickly changed my mind.
- MMORPG
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GW2 – Escape from Lion's Arch.
2014-02-21.
Still wanting to want to play GW2 more, but falling short. Here’s a summation of the new GW2 content: Same chaotic zerg fights, different location. I will give them credit for blowing up Lion’s Arch though. That’s cool. But the stuff you do in the blown up zone isn’t enough to pull me away from FFXIV.
I still have no idea who Scarlet is. Or why Lion’s Arch got blown up.
- MMORPG
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Pingzapper.
2014-02-24.
I tried out a service called Pingzapper that might be useful if you’ve experienced weird lagging in MMOs or I guess really any game.
The alleged problem is that your ISP might be “traffic shaping” your data in a way that interferes with games. They are almost certainly messing up your streaming videos as much as they can get away with, so it makes sense that they would extend that policy to other areas.
- Reviews
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FFXIV – I Said It Couldn’t Be Done.
2014-02-25.
Amazingly, I completed Titan Hard Mode in a PUG! Finally. It took around three weeks of trying. I stubbornly refused to use the Party Finder because, since I had spent so much time attempting it in a PUG, I wanted to finish it in a PUG. I don’t know why. It doesn’t make much sense. :)
He's gooooone!! Yay!
So I finally got my Relic Weapon. And I upgraded it, too.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV – Ding! 50 White Mage.
2014-02-26.
Hrm, well, this is the first day I haven’t had a workday post scheduled in advance in a long time, and I can’t find anything among my Drafts that is both finished and interesting.
I can report the fascinating news that I reached White Mage level 50 in FFXIV last night. I had been buying Darklight Healing gear for a while, so I was able to quickly jump from around item level ~40 to item level ~60 in a span of moments.
- MMORPG
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WoW – $60 Seems Reasonable.
2014-02-27.
I don’t have a problem with Blizzard’s $60 for a level 90 character. It’s within reach, but high enough to keep it from being an impulse buy (for me, at least). I think I would only pay to level a brand new character. It seems like a waste of money to take a mid-level or higher character up to 90.
If you’re a person who can play all day and night, I could see where $60 seems high, because you can probably level a character to 90 within a month of subscription time, which is $15 I think.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV FATEs Versus GW2 Zergs.
2014-02-28.
This thought occurred to me one night while I was running around in a FATE group in FFXIV: Why am I enjoying this zerg but when I play in a GW2 zerg in Escape from Lion’s Arch I want to gouge my own eyes out?
When I’m in a FFXIV zerg (or Rift, or most any other), I have a feeling of control. I’m filling a specific role, and when I execute my part of the plan, the whole group experience is better.
- MMORPG
2014-03
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Landmark et al – Take My Money!.
2014-03-03.
Here’s my feedback to SOE regarding Landmark’s proposed monetization plans: Hey can I just pay you and not get spammed with advertising for potions and costumes? That would be super. Oh, and by the way I already paid you. Maybe factor that into your plans, too.
Also, are you ever planning to increase the percentage of your game that is finished? It’s been at 60% now for a month. (Okay, that probably wasn’t fair.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV Crafting.
2014-03-04.
Just once I would like to play an MMO where it is easier to level a crafting profession than it is to level your character. Often it seems pointless to level a crafting profession because the equipment you make lags so far behind the level of your character.
FFXIV is better than most games, but I’m experiencing it again. I wanted to meld my own materia for the level 50 Relic Reborn quest, but guess what?
- MMORPG
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GW2 – Loot Rains From The Sky.
2014-03-05.
I’m a little annoyed with the loot in GW2. Loot basically rains from the sky in that game, filling your bags in mere seconds. I never thought I would say anything like this in an MMO, but: For the love of god, stop giving me so much loot! You can’t take a step without getting some kind of trophy bag. And when you open that bag, out spills two or three or six or ten more pieces of loot!
- MMORPG
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Bye End of Nations.
2014-03-06.
I’m not sad to see End of Nations go. The “MMORTS” genre did not inspire me to want to play that game, and when we later learned it was to be reshaped into a “MOBA” my interest plummeted even farther. (I simply do not “get” MOBAs - so much clicking.)
Instead, I’m ecstatic to see Trion devoting more resources to Rift, Trove, Defiance, and particularly ArcheAge, a game that I am still looking forward to seeing sometime within my lifetime.
- MMORPG
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ESO – What Does Floaty Mean?.
2014-03-07.
Today I am pondering what it means when combat feels “floaty.” This is one of the most common criticisms I’ve seen about ESO: “The combat is too floaty.” I’ve seen this criticism leveled against a lot of games over the years, actually.
But what does that mean?
I don’t know about anyone else, but when I was swinging my dual daggers in the ESO beta, at no point did my Argonian begin to float away into the sky*.
- MMORPG
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ArcheAge RU – Foreign Invasion.
2014-03-10.
In a burst of ambition, I installed and played the Russian version of ArcheAge for a little while. You have to sign up for a Mail.ru account (which I guess is the Russian version of Google Mail) and then you can download it. At least you could over the weekend, I don’t know if it still works. I used these handy instructions: http://www.mmocast.com/featured/archeage-ru-account-registration-guide-english-patch/
Not being able to read or speak Russian hampers the experience a bit, but not as much as you might think.
- MMORPG
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Rift – New Souls in 2.7.
2014-03-12.
When last I was playing Rift a lot, somewhere around 2.3 I guess (just before and after the F2P transition), I was super excited to hear they were going to (evenutally) add new souls so that every class could play every role. The idea of a tanking mage was too awesome for words. Even from the very beginning of Rift 1.0, I thought it would be really cool if you could tank dungeons with an Elementalist pet.
- MMORPG
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Trove Is A Better Landmark Than Landmark.
2014-03-13.
I’ve been dipping into Trove a bit more lately, because it’s become quite stable. I don’t know how to say this politely, but it’s a much better game than Landmark. :)
Trove plays a bit like what we’ve been told Landmark will be. That is, you can explore, fight monsters, level up, find resources, craft stuff, and build stuff. The thing about Trove is that after about three months of alpha, all of those things work.
- MMORPG
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WildStar – No Need For Impressions.
2014-03-14.
Everybody’s giving their impressions of WildStar now that the NDA is down, but honestly I saw enough in the hours and hours and hours of livestreams that were going on way back in December to decide that I was probably going to get it. Even if it wasn’t a game that looked fun, I’d still want to at least see what everyone was talking about, and I expect it to be the MMO everyone will be playing in the second half of 2014, with a brief distraction for the new WoW Expansion.
- MMORPG
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ArcheAge RU – Growing On Me.
2014-03-17.
Note: Apparently you’re not supposed to be able to play ArcheAge RU from the U.S. anymore, but for some reason I’m still able to.
ArcheAge is growing on me. I feel like I was too harsh on it in my first report. The graphics actually aren’t bad at all, and better than Fallen Earth, at least color-wise. (The first time, I had played AA after FFXIV, which has drop-dead gorgeous graphics, so my perception was probably skewed.
- MMORPG
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Un-Learning Invert Mouse.
2014-03-18.
I decided to learn to play without the Invert Mouse option.
I’ve considered doing this for a long time, but the final straw was wanting to continue checking out ArcheAge without getting a headache. But you know if you’ve ever tried to change this setting that you need to turn it off for every game at the same time. It’s not something you can turn off in one game but leave on in another game.
- Gaming
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FFXIV – Teetering On The Edge Of Burnout.
2014-03-19.
I feel like I’m at a crossroads with FFXIV. I’m teetering on that line between “it’s fun to play” and “it’s work to play.” If I try to push myself much more I’m almost certainly going to burn out.
Right now, when I log in each night after work, I have a to-do list of things I want to accomplish: I want to level at least one gathering class. I want to level one crafting class (I often skip that in favor of gathering right now).
- MMORPG
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Why I Suck At Comments.
2014-03-20.
I am the world’s worst blogger when it comes to dealing with comments. Partly it’s because I’m not nearly as good at “real-time” communication as writing things in advance, but mostly it’s because it’s technologically much more difficult for me to post comments at the present time.
Most of my posts are written in a plain text editor and posted via. WordPress’s post-by-email feature, because I don’t have access to my site during the times when it’s most convenient for me to write.
- Blog
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WildStar, ArcheAge, and Landmark.
2014-03-21.
Some random news bits.
I pre-ordered WildStar, which now allows me to finally play in the beta. By the way I did sign up for the beta many, many long months ago, but they never invited me. They thought they could keep me out, but who’s laughing now?
Trion is apparently hoping to get ArcheAge out this year (2014). That would be super. I hope it’s after summer, though, so that I can be sufficiently bored with WildStar before it comes out.
- MMORPG
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Claustrophobic Endgame.
2014-03-24.
I figured out what is missing from my daily FFXIV experience: Soloing.
I realized this when I logged into Rift and picked up my Dendrome quest line where I last left off months and months ago. There’s something fundamentally satisfying about toodling around by yourself, chipping away at quests and turning them in. You can stop at any time and fix yourself a drink, or make a sandwich, or whatever. You can get up and go to the store, leaving your character standing right out in the middle of nowhere.
- MMORPG
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Rift – Re-thinking the Solo 53 Warrior.
2014-03-25.
I thought maybe I could use this time before ESO launches to level another character in Rift up to 60. The lucky winner of my attention is a Dwarf Warrior, who is currently at 53 and wandering around the depressing, sickly, bruised blue-and-purple landscapes of Seratos.
It seemed like a great idea until I remembered that almost every single encounter ended with my health nearly depleted. I read once that the Storm Legion zones had been nerfed, but they don’t seem all that much easier to me.
- MMORPG
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WildStar – Trying Out The Classes.
2014-03-26.
Having pre-ordered, I used my first beta weekend in WildStar to figure out what I’m going to play at launch. I think my first character is going to be either a Warrior or an Esper. Probably Warrior, because it was the most fun. Those are the only two classes that “clicked” for me in the first three or four levels.
So far, ranged combat feels weird to me with the telegraph system.
- MMORPG
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Rift – Tempest For The Win.
2014-03-27.
I spent most of a whole weekend playing … Rift! Man that game is awesome. Have I mentioned that? It’s the best WoW-clone of all the WoW-clones. Definitely more better than WoW itself.
I leveled my Warrior from 53 to 57, using a combination of quests and Instant Adventures. Mostly IAs. I used up three 160% Experience potions that I had from some Trion gift or another, and then I got a 30-day Patron status so I could use the daily 40% Experience bonuses for the rest of the trip to 60, which will probably occur during the week.
- MMORPG
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GW2 – Feature Pack.
2014-03-28.
My reaction to the upcoming GW2 Feature Pack: Why the heck did we have to wait until after the Living Story to get these things?? Most of what I’ve read falls into the category of “it probably should have been like that in the first place.”
The Wardrobe and Dye changes sound awesome. I have occasionally tried to figure out what to do with all the various “skins” I’ve picked up, but I don’t have a clue.
- MMORPG
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ESO – Almost Here.
2014-03-28.
Holy crap, ya’ll! The Early Access for ESO is almost here! It’s a 5-day head start, and that’s just a couple of days away!
I’m trying to think back to the last MMO I played at or before the actual launch day. Was it Rift? Maybe it was Guild Wars 2, but I don’t think so. I think it was Rift. That was like 2011. Good lord. That was ages ago.
- MMORPG
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ESO – Something New And Shiny!.
2014-03-31.
As you’re reading this, I’m undoubtedly playing ESO. (Actually I’m probably at work, but I’ll be playing it when I get home.) I’m enjoying that magic time in every MMO when you don’t yet know all the things that make you want to quit playing.
I won’t bore you with my impressions of ESO because a) I’ve already posted them, and b) you’ve already got it because it’s a new MMO and you know you can’t stand not playing a new MMO that everyone is talking about, no matter how many bad reviews you’ve seen or how much you oppose a subscription model on principal.
- MMORPG
2014-04
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ESO – Early Days.
2014-04-01.
Super fastly-written thoughts on ESO.
It’s awesome! Even more awesomer that I thought it would be!
That’s probably just first-day excitement talking though. But still, it’s pretty good. And new. Anything new is good, if you ask me. At least for a couple of days.
Smoothest launch ever. No network-related problems. No queues, no lag, no disconnects. None, zero, zip. Got in five minutes before 7 AM without issue. Many problems I had from beta were fixed.
- MMORPG
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Landmark – The Dreaded Cobalt Pick.
2014-04-02.
Last week I had some generally negative things to say about Landmark, so I thought I would balance it out with some positive things this week. And then follow it with something negative again.
I spent a big chunk of time on Saturday playing Landmark the first significant time I’ve spent in the beta. It occurred to me that Landmark is essentially an endgame gear grind from the moment you step into it.
- MMORPG
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ESO – First Patch.
2014-04-03.
Still enjoying ESO. I was pleased with the first patch yesterday. It addressed almost every problem I had encountered. Finally I could capture Balreth’s soul and continue the main storyline, which, as I expected, unlocked a whole string of other quests in the zone.
Based on just this one patch, I feel like Zenimax is going to release larger patches farther apart, rather than push out small patches frequently. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.
- MMORPG
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ESO – First Time in Fungal Grotto.
2014-04-04.
When the ESO servers came back up after the inexplicable pre-launch downtime, I threw caution to the wind and jumped into the Fungal Grotto dungeon to see what it was like. I was level 14 and would soon out-level it, so I figured I probably wouldn’t have another chance.
I picked the DPS role because that’s always the least stressful way to explore how dungeons work in a new game. Also, I didn’t have much in the way of tanking or healing skills.
- MMORPG
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Landmark – Ancient Rootstocks Found At Last.
2014-04-05.
A quick followup to the Cobalt Pick debacle: The last Landmark patch fixed the invisible Ancient Rootstock trees. They are still rare, but now it’s more like 1 in 50 trees instead of 1 in 50,000,000 trees. That’s an acceptable level of rare-ness for me. It’s rare enough that you feel a small thrill of victory when you find one, but not so rare that you want to quit playing.
- MMORPG
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Technical Difficulties.
2014-04-09.
Having post-by-email technical difficulties, but I’m playing ESO instead of trying to fix it. Please stand by…
- Administration
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ESO – The Good and The Bad.
2014-04-14.
Lucky you. Because I can’t seem to post by email during the week any more, you get to read an epic novel of a post put together over the weekend.
Falls-on-Steps. Yeah, I made an Argonian even though I played one in beta.
It’s actually been kind of nice that I haven’t been able to post. I’m having so much fun playing ESO that I don’t want to analyze the game very much, because then I might start to wonder if I’m really supposed to be having this much fun or not.
- MMORPG
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ESO – When Zones Look The Same.
2014-04-15.
The technical difficulties seem to have fixed themselves. Shrug.
I have one more criticism about ESO, although it’s not exactly a “criticism” so much as it is merely an “observation of the way ESO does things.”
Most of the zones look the same.
Stonefalls, near the beginning of the Ebonheart Pact starting point.
Not exactly the same. Some of them have jungle trees and some of them have deciduous trees. Some of them are more rocky and some of them are more grassy.
- MMORPG
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FFXIV – Two Point What Now?.
2014-04-16.
I never got a chance to write my impressions of Final Fantasy XIV’s 2.2 patch, so I will do so now. I only had about one day to look at it before ESO came out, so there are some gaps in my knowledge.
Like, for example, how I didn’t look at any of the new dungeons or trials.
I did get a chance to sort-of look into Glamours, but it appears that you need Tailor, Leatherworker, and/or Armorer classes to create those glamour crystals, and of course I do not have those beyond level 15.
- MMORPG
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GW2 – Dreading Logging In.
2014-04-17.
I was interested in checking out the new GW2 Feature Pack until I read Zubon’s warning. Apparently you have to re-do and re-learn all your characters after you login.
I suppose I should have expected it, given the complete restructuring of the trait-lines. But facing the cold, hard reality of having to re-learn your class from the ground up is pretty daunting. Especially when you haven’t thought about GW2 traits in ages.
- MMORPG
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H1Z1 – You Have Got To Be Kidding Me.
2014-04-18.
So. H1Z1. Another zombie game.
That’s already enough to make me not care about it.
Zombies were old when The Secret World came out. (Yes, TSW is already an MMO with zombies.) Zombies are now so old that you can’t help but roll your eyes whenever you see another zombie game. “But wait, in this one the zombies can breakdance! See how relevant we are!” No. Zombies are dead. Pun intended.
- MMORPG
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Landmark – Listening To Players?.
2014-04-21.
I have to disagree with MJ at Massively when she writes, somewhat defensively, that SOE is doing a good job providing what the players want in Landmark. I like MJ and all but SOE has definitely not listened to any of my feedback.
Like for example when I keep asking for them to turn it into an actual game. If they are listening to anyone, they must only be listening to people who just want to build fancier houses and role-play in them.
- MMORPG
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ArcheAge RU – Flailing Around.
2014-04-22.
I thought I would do a quick update on my progress in ArcheAge RU. I have made it to level 12. Update complete.
Thusfar I have still not been able to enjoy any of the vaunted sandbox features of ArcheAge, because I still can’t read Russian*. I have sort-of puzzled out how to grow vegetables from seeds, and how to make food from the vegetables. (I don’t precisely know what happens when you eat food - you get a buff but it only lasts about 30 seconds.
- MMORPG
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GW2 – Feature Pack Survived.
2014-04-23.
I took the plunge and jumped into GW2, post-Feature Pack. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The meaning of the traits came back to me as I was looking over them, and I dumped points into things that sounded familiar. I haven’t done anything even remotely close to min-maxing in GW2 so it probably doesn’t matter. Also I don’t do dungeons or anything competitive, so my lack of optimization won’t affect anyone but me.
- Classes
- MMORPG
- Reviews
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ESO – The View From 30.
2014-04-24.
My Templar has reached level 30, and I’m starting to notice a few long-term trends in ESO gameplay.
First, my character hasn’t really changed very much. I expected that having more skill points available would allow me to make significant changes to my gameplay style over time, but I am still using basically the same set of 5 skills that I started with. And to be honest, the newer skills available to me don’t sound very interesting or helpful.
- MMORPG
- Status
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NBI – Support Your Local Blogger!.
2014-04-25.
I first heard about the Newbie Blogger Initiative last year, sadly just as it was ending. I thought it was a great idea then, and I still do, so I’m supporting it this year in whatever small way I can.
New bloggers need all the support they can get, because it can be pretty discouraging at the beginning. I’ve been writing and blogging about various things for years, so I know all about how daunting it can be to find and build an audience.
- Blog
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ArcheAge – Founder’s Packs, Resisting Temptation.
2014-04-28.
As announced on Trion’s live stream Thursday, ArcheAge Founder’s Packs are now available.
They are expensive. $149.99, $99.99, and $49.99 for Archeum, Gold, and Silver, respectively. Archeum gets you into the game right now, playing until launch day, otherwise you only get to play in beta “events” starting in June.
So let’s discuss. With myself.
My first Russian glider!
I think they are fair prices.
Based on the laws of supply and demand, it makes perfect sense that it costs $150 to get into the ArcheAge alpha.
- Advice
- MMORPG
- Opinion
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ArcheAge – It’s The New Black.
2014-04-29.
Remember how I said I talked myself out of buying the ArcheAge Archeum Founder’s Pack? That only lasted through Thursday night, Friday, and Saturday. Then I bought it Sunday. I hadn’t even published my post about how I wouldn’t buy it before I bought it.
Stupid peer pressure.
Stupid ArcheAge RU not being in English.
Stupid ESO not being addictive enough.
Warning: I didn’t feel bad about spending the money because I already knew that I liked the game.
- MMORPG
- Reviews
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Trying New Things In May.
2014-04-30.
The Newbie Blogger Initiative runs through May, so, to celebrate, I thought I would try a couple of new things and see what happens.T-Day StreamingI’m going to do a regular stream during the month of May. The stream will run Tuesdays and Thursdays at roughly 7:00 PM Eastern Time for about an hour, starting on May 1. You can find me at http://twitch.tv/endgameviable.Why would I do such a crazy thing? Well, everyone else is doing it, and we are all slaves to trendiness.
- Administration
- Stories
- Streaming
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ESO – Public Dungeon Boss Bots.
2014-04-30.
Massively wondered why public dungeon boss bots are so hard to stamp out in ESO. I thought I would answer this in a blog post, because any comment I posted would be lost in the noise.
I don’t have any first-hand “inside baseball” knowledge but from what I’ve pieced together from years and years of developer posts about how bots are dealt with, this is my guess on why they can’t just snap their fingers and make all the bots in public dungeons disappear:
- MMORPG
- Responses
2014-05
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ESO – Decision Time.
2014-05-01.
Okay I’m just going to say it. ESO is not holding my attention. I keep logging in and thinking to myself, “You know, I don’t particularly feel like playing this.” I’ll go through a quest or two and then log out again.
It’s a major factor in why I went ahead and dropped cough cough dollars on ArcheAge.
And yet I can’t think of anything wrong with ESO (well, except for inventory management - it’s really a pain).
- MMORPG
- Status
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ArcheAge – Hello World, The Trade Run (Updated).
2014-05-02.
UPDATE: This post was written during the Alpha, and only applies to Humans and Elves. (I haven’t played any Eastern races yet.) As of the Western ArcheAge launch, the first trade run quest is no longer Strawberry Jam. It’s Solzreed Dried Food which requires 50 Trimmed Meat (made from e.g. butchering chickens) and 35 Grapes (made from e.g. harvesting grapevines). And the certificate, of course. The cash reward is apparently greater now, as shown below.
- MMORPG
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Know Why You’re Blogging.
2014-05-05.
There’s a lot of great advice going around about blogging this month for the NBI, and if you are new to writing or blogging (or not), you should read all of it. Thankfully many of them are summarized in the Newbie Blogger Initiative Week #1 Roundup, so I don’t have to. The only thing I can add is my own personal philosophy on this blog.
But first, if you want to start a blog, just start it, and do whatever you want, and to hell with everyone else and what they think.
- Advice
- Blog
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ESO – Sub Cancelled For Now.
2014-05-06.
I went ahead and cancelled my ESO subscription. I’ve got a few more days left but I suspect my Templar will stay at level 36. I think I will wait two or three months and return to see what changes have been made. I like the direction I’m seeing in the roadmap; I’m just itching to do other things right now.
Go to the light!
In the meantime, I’m planning to play Rift 2.
- MMORPG
- Status
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ESO – The Power of Looting Barrels.
2014-05-07.
When I first started playing ESO, I detested the idea that every barrel, box, and urn had something in it. That was one of my least favorite parts of Oblivion and Skyrim: Picking up cheese and vegetables in every barrel. You didn’t have to, but the healing from a big stack of corn could save you in a pinch, because it was too expensive to buy health potions.
The possibilities are practically endless!
- MMORPG
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Scheduling Posts.
2014-05-08.
I saw this excellent post from Belghast a while back: Thumper Logic.
The first part of his post got me thinking about my own publishing schedule, and as it is NBI month I thought a meta-blogging post would be a good topic.
I too have tried to write one post a day-in the past. I applaud the effort, and anyone who can do it is far better at this than I am.
- Advice
- Blog
- Musings
- Responses
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PC Upgrade, Annoying But Necessary.
2014-05-09.
My gaming PC hasn’t been upgraded since mid-2012, so I thought it was time. The fact that the computer had a nagging USB mouse driver problem and has been crashing a lot in games also contributed significantly to my decision.
And so another PC has been upgraded, and once again I make another vow not to do it myself any more.
Pro installation work right there.
Oh I wanted to order a pre-built PC.
- Hardware
- Status
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Rift – Trying Out The Arbiter in 2.7.
2014-05-12.
I tried out the mage tanking soul Arbiter in Rift 2.7 on Thursday night. Overall I was pleased with its performance in Realm of the Fae, but I’m a bit worried that it will be “complicated” to play at higher levels. Take that with a big grain of salt though as I am far from an expert tank, and I have only seen low-level abilities.
The "Arcanist" preset with the Arbiter, Stormcaller, and Warlock soul trees.
- MMORPG
- Reviews
- Tanking
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ESO – Complete One-Eighty On Subbing.
2014-05-13.
So, yeah, I changed my mind and subbed for one month of ESO. I did it after I played the Arbiter in Rift for a night, and realized to my horror that there was no way that I would be able to fill all of my gaming time between now and the WildStar launch with Rift tanking.
I sort of forgot to factor in my terror of tanking high-level dungeons in PUGs.
- MMORPG
- Status
- Tanking
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WildStar – Are You Sure It Gets Better?.
2014-05-14.
According to my site statistics, I should be writing about ArcheAge and nothing but ArcheAge. But since I’m no slave to the SEO system, I’m going to write about WildStar instead. (Because everyone else is.)
The skinniest hero in the land.
I’ve already pre-ordered, but lately I’ve been forcing myself to play in the open beta anyway. I use the word “forcing” deliberately, because I’m having a hard time getting excited about this game.
- MMORPG
- Reviews
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ArcheAge Stream – On the Road to Cinderstone Moor.
2014-05-15.
It occurred to me that I should probably post the YouTube videos of my streaming “shows” here on the blog. (I am nothing if not a consummate professional broadcaster.) So here is the first episode from Thursday, May 1, showing the long journey to Cinderstone Moor to find PvP. Others to follow.
Link updated.
- MMORPG
- Streaming
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Blogging The Hardest Way Possible.
2014-05-15.
In honor of the Newbie Blogger Initiative, in this post I’m going to talk about “how” I blog for Endgame Viable. That is, the actual process. I don’t recommend doing it this way. :)First, I play some games. Usually they are MMORPGs. This typically happens on weeknights and weekends.After I’m done playing games, the next morning I often go to a place where I can’t play any games, which is a place that rhymes with the surname of a famous Star Trek captain.
- Advice
- Blog
- Responses
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FFXIV – Trials, A Cheat-sheet For Ranged DPS.
2014-05-16.
(Resurrected from my Drafts folder.)
Trials in FFXIV are cool little instances that consist of a single boss in an arena-like setting. The normal ones require four players, and you queue for them just like a dungeon. (Or if you actually know real humans who play games, you can go in with a pre-made party I guess.) I find them quite fun.
This is an 8-man Titan Hard Mode trial, but you get the idea.
- Advice
- Dungeons
- MMORPG
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May, The MMO Crisis Month.
2014-05-19.
May has been an MMO crisis month.
I can only stand to play ESO for a quest or two at a time. There’s nothing wrong with the game (except the horrible inventory management and dungeon grouping tools). I accept full responsibility for my lack of enjoyment. At level 41, my stupid Two-Handed Templar build feels weak and ineffective, and it has almost no AoE damage capability. Everyone around me in public dungeons is burning down big groups in seconds, but I have to wack on mobs one at a time.
- MMORPG
- Status
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YouTube Buying Twitch.
2014-05-20.
Google is buying Twitch, apparently. Or YouTube is buying Twitch. Or something. I don’t report news, I just talk about it.
This seems like one of those “surprising but inevitable” plot resolutions that we aspiring authors are always told to strive for. At first you read it and think, “Whoa! Google is buying Twitch! No way!” Then a second later, you think, “Oh, of course Google is buying Twitch. We should have seen that coming a mile away.
- Responses
- Streaming
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Black Gold Online Closed Beta Impressions.
2014-05-21.
I happened to get a closed beta key for Black Gold Online from an MMORPG.com giveaway (I think) a while back. I was super excited, because I thought I was getting a Black Desert key. But alas, Black Gold is not Black Desert, so I forgot about it until I tried it out in a fit of boredom over the weekend.
It seems that there is no NDA so I guess it’s safe for me to post this.
- MMORPG
- Reviews
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Tuesday’s Stream – ESO’s Shadow of Sancre Tor.
2014-05-21.
Tuesday night’s stream of Elder Scrolls Online, wherein I completed two whole quests, including the level 40 story quest “Shadow of Sancre Tor.”
Link updated.
- Streaming
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Inadequate Naming.
2014-05-22.
I need a new name.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I like the name of the blog, Endgame Viable. But I don’t like using UltrViolet as my personal identity.
It’s weird, because I am UltrViolet. Ever since I was in the Crayola Clan back in NetQuake days. Ah, good ol’ ]CC[-UltrViolet.
But in this age of cross-media brand recognition and whatnot, it’s a terrible name. There’s no ‘a’ in my UltrViolet, which is vitally important to the name.
- Musings
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PvE, PvP, and Racing.
2014-05-23.
The topic of discussion from the NBI Talkback is whether or not PvE and PvP mix in MMOPRGs. At long last I have some time to write about it, now that everyone else has moved on.
The answer is no, they don’t mix. Thanks for reading.
But seriously, we’ve all seen the sharp divide between the PvE and PvP communities within any given MMORPG. In my opinion, it’s not because of the games or the players.
- MMORPG
- PvP
- Responses
- Discussion
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On Hardcore Raiding.
2014-05-27.
After I listened to Massively’s latest podcast featuring an interview with WildStar developers, I realized that I hadn’t said anything about Carbine’s hardcore raiding philosophy, which is a topic of some mild controversy.
One of them raid thingys, blatantly stolen from the WildStar site.
If you aren’t aware, WildStar raids are supposed to be really hard like the old school raids of yore. They are taking the stance that their raids are meant for hardcore guilds and players only, and they won’t be dumbing them down over time like most other games do.
- MMORPG
- Responses
- Discussion
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Age of Conan – A Fun Diversion.
2014-05-28.
Indicative of my continuing disinterest in ESO, I downloaded and installed Age of Conan and played for a good four or five hours over the weekend. Enough time to get my highest level character, a Dark Templar, from level 55 to level 57. (I honestly do not remember what role the Dark Templar is, but I have a sword and shield.)
Also enough time for me to remember why I don’t play AoC all the time.
- MMORPG
- Status
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ArcheAge – Austera Trade Run.
2014-05-29.
As an elf, in order to get your 16×16 farm design in ArcheAge, you have to complete four Trade Run quests. I’m assuming it’s the same for humans, and basically the same pattern if you’re one of the Eastern factions. (I don’t know of any other ways to buy these scarecrow plots … I have seen people with multiple plots but I don’t know how they got them. I haven’t been able to find them for sale on Mirage Isle.
- MMORPG
- Status
- Stories
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ArcheAge – PvP Jamboree.
2014-05-30.
I got a chance to experience a little bit of large-scale PvP during the ArcheAge Livestream: Beyond Bloodlust a while back. They invited everyone to go to Halcyana to fight it out while they talked about PvP.
Since I’m not feeling terribly witty or verbose, here are some screenshots to commemorate the event:
The battlefield. Tab, shoot, tab, shoot, tab, shoot.
Returning to the battlefield after getting killed.
The inevitable result of all PvP in every MMORPG.
- MMORPG
- Status
- Stories
2014-06
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WildStar – Headstart Screenshots.
2014-06-02.
Just some random screenshots from the WildStar Headstart weekend.
I started out playing a Spellslinger, thinking I would play an easy-mode ranged DPS class to tour all the dungeons, but I realized at level 8 that I was bored and disgruntled. I switched to an Esper, and started to have a lot more fun. It also helped to choose the Everstar Grove zone which I had not seen in beta.
- Dungeons
- MMORPG
- Musings
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WildStar – Before and After Launch.
2014-06-03.
Before
I’m writing this on Friday before the WildStar head start launch. By the time you read this, I’ll have already been playing for a while.
I’m anxious to start playing, but I don’t feel nearly as much excitement as I did for the ESO launch.
Part of it might be that I saw a lot more of WildStar in the beta than I had seen of ESO in beta. I feel like I know how everything works in WildStar.
- MMORPG
- Status
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Weekend Versus Weeknight Characters.
2014-06-04.
It just occurred to me that I am a completely different MMO gamer on weekends when compared to weekdays (weeknights, actually). For me, weekends are about exploration and discovery and lore, but on most weeknights, I just want to “grind” and avoid a lot of mental engagement.
This WildStar launch weekend has given me a great example of the distinction. On Saturday and Sunday I spent a fair amount of time reading lore and quest text (or trying to, with that microscopic, reader-unfriendly font) and looking around at things.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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Leveling Jealousy.
2014-06-05.
This post from Keen asked a question which I desperately clutched upon as a topic for a post.
When a new MMO launches do you ever feel pressed to keep playing to stay at or ahead of the curve? Maybe you have friends playing who all seem to have more time than you do — does that bother you?
I know it shouldn’t bother me and I’d be a much happier person if it didn’t, but unfortunately it does bother me to see other people in my circle of friends leveling faster than I am.
- Blog
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WildStar – Adventure Difficulty.
2014-06-06.
I thought I would expand a little bit on my experience with the difficulty of group content in WildStar.
But first, I don’t agree with Herding Cats that the overland quests are difficult enough to encourage grouping. They don’t seem inordinately challenging to me, at least through level 16. (Though I suppose it depends on which other MMO you compare them to.) They are not a cakewalk, mind you, and you will die if you slip up or get overwhelmed (or stumble into one of those stupid red-outlined mini-bosses), but if you pay attention to your surroundings and go through the mobs methodically there isn’t much to worry about.
- MMORPG
- Responses
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WildStar – Monday Screenshots.
2014-06-09.
Just some amusing WildStar screenshots.
Flying cows! Err wolves. Err ... whatever alien animals those are.
I made the college football team!
Got a toxic wasteland in your ear canal! (Styx reference? Kilroy Was Here? Get it?)
Wait, I wanted fries with that Quarter Pounder.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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WildStar – More Chore Than Game?.
2014-06-10.
Over the weekend I had a depressing realization: Playing WildStar is already becoming a chore. How can this be?
I said before that questing is not inordinately challenging in WildStar, but I don’t know if I made it clear that the difficulty is higher than average. (Solo questing that is.) It takes some time and patience to thread your way through the packs of mobs out in the world without pulling too many.
- MMORPG
- Status
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WildStar – Addons I Use.
2014-06-11.
I’ve seen some others reporting the WildStar addons they are using, so here are mine.Overall I feel like WildStar addons are going to allow people to do “too much.” I mean, there’s an addon to automate the Simon games. Really Carbine? You put that in your API? I would not be surprised if we see aimbots very soon. But in the meantime:Active:
AMP Finder. Pretty much mandatory if you want to locate AMPs within a reasonable time frame.
- Advice
- MMORPG
- Responses
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WildStar – Those Attunements Again.
2014-06-12.
For some reason, the topic of WildStar raid attunements seems to be nearly as volatile as sexism in gaming, but hey, it’s something to write about, so here it is.
To summarize the story so far: Some elitist jerk guild made an infographic showing the 12 hardcore steps you need to complete before you can raid in WildStar, and various bloggers have commented on it, with viewpoints ranging anywhere from “That’s insane!
- MMORPG
- Responses
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Friday Blues.
2014-06-13.
Today I’ve got the blues. It’s been a generally lousy week. I was going to skip posting today because I didn’t have anything queued up and in the broad spectrum of life, who really gives a crap whether one blog out of a billion misses a post. Instead I’m going to attempt to rid myself of this funk by writing a little bit, because it’s Friday morning and my workplace is dead as a doornail on Fridays so I have eight full hours to kill.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Status
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WildStar – Dungeons Are Too Hard… For PUGs.
2014-06-18.
Quick status report: My mood improved a lot over the weekend, and I had a mostly-enjoyable time playing WildStar. As of this writing I have a 25 Esper, 15 Spellslinger, 15 Warrior, and 15 Engineer. I spent a fair amount of time leveling up three alts so I could experience adventures/dungeons with some other classes. (Getting from level 10 to 15 is pretty brutal the third and forth time.)
So dungeons.
- Dungeons
- MMORPG
- Status
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WildStar – PUG Attunements!.
2014-06-19.
Yesterday I said that WildStar’s dungeons are too hard for PUGs, so today I’m going to solve that problem.
Okay, I don’t really know how to solve it.
But I have an idea: PUG Attunements! Or as I like to call it, “Stuff you have to do before you can queue in the dungeon finder.”
In order for a PUG to even have a chance at success, you need each member of the group to know how to dodge and interrupt.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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Mid-June MMO Status Report.
2014-06-20.
Not much to talk about, so here’s a non-WildStar MMO status report!
ArcheAge. I’ve only logged in to pay the taxes on my measely 8×8 farm, and occasionally grow aspen trees. I don’t expect to play this any more until after it launches.
The Secret World. I have logged in every few days to grind through a mission or two in the City of the Sun God zone. I’m attempting to collect AP and SP so I can fill out my skills better, which will better prepare me to go back to the Besieged Farmlands and continue the main story quest, which will then eventually allow me to get to Tokyo perhaps sometime in 2018.
- MMORPG
- Status
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WoW – Yeah, You Read That Right.
2014-06-23.
There’s WildStar to play, right? So of course I spent a big chunk of time over the weekend playing … wait for it … World of Warcraft. I have about ten days left on a subscription so I figured why not use it. I leveled my Hunter from level 72 to 75 with plain old PvE questing. It now seems quite plausible to level up to 90 before WoD comes out.
- MMORPG
- Status
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Summer!.
2014-06-24.
Since I’m the boss of my own blog, I’m going to declare myself on summer vacation and blog less for a little while. For one thing, I’m playing a bit less than before, and what I’m playing is mostly thoughtless grinding, so I don’t have a whole lot to report.
Secondly, I decided I’m going to do Camp NaNoWriMo for July, so very soon I’m going to need to concentrate more on writing fiction than writing blog posts.
- Blog
2014-07
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Ditching WildStar for WoW.
2014-07-02.
I cancelled my WildStar subscription*. It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just that I don’t feel like playing it any more. My Esper has remained largely static between levels 20 and 30, with no noticeable improvements in abilities, so I fully anticipate it will just be a repetitive chore to get from 30 to 50, at which time I would enter the cesspool of toxic behavior that I keep hearing about.
- MMORPG
- Status
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WoW – 85 of 90 – Death March Continues.
2014-07-08.
Status of my WoW death march to 90: My Hunter is at level 85. I finished the Deepholm zone which was quite enjoyable; it was colorful and weird and gigantic (although strangely devoid of pets to tame). I had just started the Twilight Highlands, which the “Altoholic” addon told me was where I should go next, when I hit 85. It’s not as colorful but I love the way the dwarves go on those little raids to retake their little villages.
- MMORPG
- Status
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WoW – 86 of 90 – Jade Forest.
2014-07-11.
I’ve been experiencing a lot of drama at work lately, so vegging out with WoW has been pretty awesome. By the time I get home I’m not in any mood for challenging gameplay. I tried the Death Knight for the first time and couldn’t be bothered to figure out how to use all those weird rune resources or whatever. So on we go toward level 90 with the Hunter!
I was going to spend a little more time in the Twilight Highlands to see what happened with the dwarves, but then I noticed that my experience bar barely moved after I turned in a few quests post-85.
- MMORPG
- Status
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GW2 – Gates of Magoo Can Bite Me.
2014-07-14.
Note: The following ragey invective was written after dying a number of times during the GW2 Living Story 2 instance Fallen Hopes which I had hoped would be a fun way to kill some time while waiting to go to a doctor’s appointment. It was not. However, I have since completed it and moved on with my life.
There is not much room to maneuver in here, and Marjory and Kasmeer are NO HELP AT ALL.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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WoW – 87 of 90 – Jade Forest Continued.
2014-07-17.
Since I’m now pretty sure I’m going to hit 90 well before Draenor comes out (I’m guessing it will be late Fall at the earliest, but I hear mutterings that it may not even make it out by December), I no longer feel the need to rush to maximize my leveling. So I’ve stuck around in the Jade Forest doing “low” level (85) quests so I can complete the whole zone, rather than rushing ahead to the higher level zones.
- MMORPG
- Status
2014-08
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Assassin’s Creed 3 Story Finished.
2014-08-04.
Taking a small break from MMORPGs for a bit and getting back to Steam. I went back to Assassin’s Creed 3 because I wanted to finish the main story before I considered getting any of the newer installments in Steam sales. (I don’t yet have Black Flag and I see now there is a new one coming out soon.) I resumed the AC3 story about halfway through and powered through to the end, largely ignoring all of the side missions and sandboxy elements.
- Reviews
- RPG
- Single-Player
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WoW – 88 of 90 – Valley of the Four Winds.
2014-08-06.
July was a rough month for me, professionally speaking. To make a long story short, I’m unemployed now. Consequently I’m forcing myself not to spend any money on games, so I cancelled my WoW subscription and I’m sticking to bought-but-unplayed Steam games. But before I did that, I made it to level 88.
Ding!
Valley of the Four Winds was kind of a weird place. Lots of giant mutant vegetables and Monty Python-esque cute, furry, dangerous creatures.
- MMORPG
- Status
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Warlords of Draenor Launches Nov 13, 2014.
2014-08-14.
I don’t really have anything to say about it, though. I just wanted my cleverly-crafted post title to draw you into my blog lair. Ha-ha! I social-engineered you!
(I’ve been reading about copywriting and headlines today. Sorry.)
I will say, though, that I’m a little surprised Warlords of Draenor is shipping so early. I figured it wouldn’t be out until December. I haven’t heard anything but “it’s not ready” from beta testers.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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Congrats Blauggers!.
2014-08-15.
I just wanted to drop in and say congratulations to everyone participating in Blaugust: Belghast’s challenge to post every day during August.
Clearly, I’m not participating, because I’m being a lazy bum this summer. Would that Blaugust had occurred in Blarch or Blay or Blune.
Even if I hadn’t taken a vacation, my daily schedule has been turned upside-down so much that I’m struggling to find the right way to write anymore.
- Blog
- Musings
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The Witcher 2: Skip the Tutorial.
2014-08-18.
It seems like years ago that I bought The Witcher 1 & 2 in one of those deep-discount Steam sales. I spent about 15 minutes playing The Witcher 1 (enough time to watch the opening movie and then get to where I could feel the intense pain of the combat controls), and then never played it again.
Lately I’ve started to see some buzz about The Witcher 3, and I see that it’s now available for pre-order on Steam.
- Reviews
- RPG
- Single-Player
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WoW: 10 Years, 10 Questions, 10 Answers.
2014-08-19.
Alternative Chat is asking everyone 10 questions about WoW for a documentary. Most answers that I’ve seen have been coming from semi-hardcore WoW players, but I thought it would be fun to give answers from a non-hardcore WoW player. Plus, it’s good material for a blog post!
1. Why did you start playing Warcraft?
I started playing in 2006 after I saw the infamous Make Love, Not Warcraft episode of Southpark.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Responses
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ArcheAge – It’s Not A PvP Gank-Fest.
2014-08-20.
UPDATE 10/24 - Before you run to the comments to disprove me because of that one time you were ganked in a situation where you probably should have expected it, let me explain the purpose of this post. I’m not saying that ganking is impossible in ArcheAge, especially after level 30 (though I would argue that “ganking” is the wrong term to use after you’ve reached level 30). What I’m saying is that it’s extremely rare if you stay in safe zones, and you’re not going to lose anything if it happens, so there’s no reason not to try the game.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
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Neverwinter – Scourge Warlock First Impression.
2014-08-21.
By accident I noticed that Neverwinter released a new update called Tyranny of Dragons, in which they added the very cool-sounding new class Scourge Warlock.
In terms of gameplay, however, I found the SW a little on the “meh” side. I feel like they might have borrowed a lot from the Control Wizard because it felt very similar to me. (My first level-cap character was a CW.) The main attack is the same kind of triple-bolt spell that the CW uses.
- Classes
- MMORPG
- Reviews
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‘Cannot Be Tamed’ Gaming Answers.
2014-08-24.
Okay, okay, here’s my answers to the Cannot Be Tamed Gaming Questionnaire. I found many of these questions pretty silly. I feel like writing my own questionnaire with hard-hitting, insightful questions like, “If you were a ferret, what kind of video game controller would you use?”
**1. When did you start playing video games? **2. What is the first game you remember playing?
Somewhere around 1980-ish. I don’t remember if I had an Atari 2600 or a TRS-80 Color Computer first, though.
- Gaming
- Responses
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Identifying As A Gamer, Erratum.
2014-08-25.
I’m not entirely sure what happened, but somehow WordPress posted two different versions of my last post. The RSS feed and the front page shows one version, but the post page itself shows a newer version. I think maybe ScribeFire did something to it. Anyway, I added a paragraph to my answer for question 20 at the last minute and this is what it was supposed to say:
20. Do you identify as a gamer?
- Gaming
- Opinion
- Responses
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What’s The Best Subscription-Only MMO?.
2014-08-29.
What’s the best subscription-only MMO out there right now? If you could only pick one to maintain, which one would it be? (By the way, the possible answers are: WoW, EVE, WildStar, ESO, or FFXIV.)
This is pretty easy for me to answer, actually: Final Fantasy XIV. Hands down. No need to even talk about it. It’s beautiful, it’s fun, there’s a lot to do, it’s updated often, it does every MMO mechanic (that matters) exactly right, and it’s cheaper than the others at $12/month.
- Advice
- MMORPG
- Opinion
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Far Cry 3.
2014-08-30.
Continuing my journey through cutting edge games from two years ago (also games I’ve already paid for), I’m finally playing Far Cry 3, previously purchased in a Steam sale.
I enjoyed the first Far Cry. Well, I say that now, but when I look back on what I wrote about it in 2009, apparently I only thought it was “okay.”
I picked up FarCry from Steam for $9.99 a couple weeks ago.
- Reviews
- Single-Player
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Why Endgame Viable.
2014-08-31.
Well, here’s a topic. From Rowan Blaze: Why Have I Touched The Sky? Sort of a meta-blogging topic.
So my second challenge for you, Dear Reader, in these few days of Blaugust: Why did you title your blog what you did? Do you think the name still fits?
My first name for this blog was Melanthius. I still think that’s a cool name that rolls off the tongue, but it doesn’t have any inherent meaning when you look at it.
- Blog
- Musings
- Responses
2014-09
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FFXIV – Okay There’s One Bad Thing.
2014-09-01.
To be fair, here’s one thing that FFXIV doesn’t get right:
I just re-installed it, subbed up, and jumped in again. (I went crazy and got a 3-month sub because I have some money coming in again heh.) I’m installing it on a different PC from when I last played it, so maybe you can guess what happened.
All of my settings, keybinds, and HUD configurations were gone. Even the character-specific configurations like my gear sets were gone.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Status
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A Brief Word About That Controversy.
2014-09-05.
I generally try to avoid industry politics on this blog, unless it relates to in-game politics. (Like raiders versus casuals.) Which is why I don’t have much to say about the recent kerfuffle known as GamerGate.
But I will say that I fully support equality and inclusiveness among gamers and I find personal threats against anyone loathsome. I try to cling to the possibly naive belief that truly despicable people are a very small, very loud minority.
- Administration
- Opinion
- Politics
- Responses
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Landmark’s Combat Update.
2014-09-08.
Is something I know very little about.
I re-downloaded the game and eagerly logged in. Combat was here! Finally something to do besides dig up ore! My claim was long since gone, which was fine because it had nothing on it except some crafting tables. I ran to the crystal hub thingy in the middle of the map-an object that I still don’t know what to call-and found the right table to craft a weapon.
- MMORPG
- Reviews
- Status
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Results of Un-Learning Invert Mouse.
2014-09-09.
I noticed that I never reported the results of trying to un-learn the use of Invert Mouse.
After about two weeks, I was no longer fighting my muscle memory and could play MMOs unhindered.
After about a month, I felt like I could aim pretty well again in shooters where precision is important.
It’s now been nearly six months, and I feel like I’ve never played any other way.
So it is possible to switch, even if you’ve played with Invert Mouse all your life.
- Advice
- Musings
- Status
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FFXIV – Crafting My Way Back Into It.
2014-09-12.
I’m getting back into the swing of FFXIV with my slightly embarrassing, adorable Miqu’te that looks a bit like a porcelain doll in the game.
Rather than jumping back on the gear treadmill, I’ve spent most of my time on relaxing activities like gathering and crafting. Unlike most MMOs, those things are quite engaging in FFXIV and there are a whopping eight crafting and three gathering classes to level, so there is plenty to do.
- MMORPG
- Status
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ArcheAge – Head Started.
2014-09-16.
ArcheAge continues to top the list of most popular posts and search terms on my blog for some reason, so I feel like I should say something about the head start.
Suddenly player collision doesn't seem like such a great idea. Make way! Coming through!
I played a bit over the weekend, but not as much as you might think. For one thing, I kept getting disconnected due to the persistent server issues, and for another, I didn’t particularly want to spend all of my time staring at a queue screen.
- MMORPG
- Status
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ArcheAge – Calleil Diary, First Five Days.
2014-09-26.
(Updated with the rest of the screenshots I meant to include.)
If memory serves, Trion brought up the NA Calleil server on Sunday afternoon (Eastern time). Since the queues on Naima were horrible at the time, and there was little or no chance that I would ever find a place for a house or farm there anyway, I decided that I would make a character on Calleil to see how fast property disappeared.
- MMORPG
- Status
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ArcheAge – Calleil Diary, Next Four Days.
2014-09-30.
Continuing my diary of ArcheAge on Calleil, the newest, emptiest North American server. To make a long story short, it looks like most of the land in safe zones was gone about a week after the new server came up. So if they start a new server and you want some good land, get ready to sprint for it. (The really prime spots.. those cool lone houses up on hills.. are probably gone within 24 hours.
- MMORPG
- Status
2014-10
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ArcheAge – Calleil Diary, Water-Faring Days.
2014-10-03.
Previously on Calleil Diary: First Five Days, Next Four Days.
Calleil Day 10, Tuesday
After I got home from work, I built my Harpoon Clipper ship! It took about 1700 Labor in total, by the way, which was just about everything I had at the time. Oh also I believe it cost 10 gold just to set up the dry dock, which was an unexpected cost. The order of packs you need to use is Lumber, Iron, then Fabric.
- MMORPG
- Status
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ArcheAge – PvE After Level 30.
2014-10-11.
I’ve been dinged in comments for not having experienced the PvE game after level 30 and misleading everyone about ArcheAge. While the game might be rosey for people under level 30, they say, the “real” game begins at 30, and after that milestone, they say, then the game turns into a PvP gankfest.
Well as of this post I’m level 40, and I’ve spent many hours questing in Cinderstone Moor and Halcyona, and sailing around on the ocean.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
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ArcheAge – What’s Wrong With It.
2014-10-17.
I feel like I’ve been giving the impression that ArcheAge is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it isn’t all sunshine and roses. I’m mainly playing it just because “it’s the new thing.” And I do enjoy the fact that you can progress by doing “non-standard” MMO things. But pretty soon, Rift’s Nightmare Tide is going to be “the new thing,” and then a bit later, Warlords of Draenor is going to be “the new thing.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
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Ping-Ponging My Way To Nightmare Tide.
2014-10-23.
I took a little break from ArcheAge and it turned into an unintentional gaming ping-ping-a-thon. Don't worry, I still log into ArcheAge to gather the fruit from my trees a couple times a day. Also, I finally destroyed my Scarecrow Garden to make a Farmer's Workbench. I hated to do it, though. I wish I could rotate my house to face a different direction. FFXIV First I dropped back into Final Fantasy XIV again because I had an active subscription.
- MMORPG
- Status
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WoW – Level Cap At Last!.
2014-10-24.
I haven’t mentioned Bragtoberfest yet because a) I haven’t really had anything to brag about and b) I’m not a very braggy sort of person to begin with. I’ve never been one of those people that parade around banks riding high-end mounts and wearing raid gear to make everyone jealous. I usually wear rag-tag outfits that don’t match.
But this is undoubtedly the braggiest thing I will accomplish this month so: I dinged 90 in WoW!
- MMORPG
- Status
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Rift – Nightmare Tide.
2014-10-31.
I’ve been playing nothing but Rift since the expansion came out.* If you even remotely like the game, you should definitely check out Nightmare Tide. I’m a little biased though, since I think Rift is the best themepark MMO out there, far surpassing WoW in every possible way. (Except in the amount of available content and player population.)
A nice vista in Goboro Reef.
Good things about Nightmare Tide:
Ridiculously Plentiful Gathering Nodes.
- MMORPG
- Reviews
- Status
2014-11
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A November Kitchen Sink Post.
2014-11-11.
Hi! You may remember that I used to write blog posts. At least occasionally. Unfortunately this month two things have happened: Rift Nightmare Tide and NaNoWriMo. Those two things, particularly the former, are way more interesting than writing blog posts. But I thought I would take a break and quickly write down some stuff about things.
Chatting with Arak near the end of Draumheim.
Overwatch. Blizzard is making a role-based shooter (cough Team Fortress cough).
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Status
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Rift – Nightmare Judgments.
2014-11-22.
One thing I’ve noticed in Rift’s Nightmare Tide is more pressure to spend money. I don’t mean in terms of a sales pitch; I mean in terms of making the game less tedious.
Losing my head over Nightmare Tide! (Not really, it's a Halloween costume mask.)
For example, two new things in Nightmare tide are Earring Slots and the Planewalker “attunement” which allows you to wear some of the new gear.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Reviews
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Rift Enthusiasm Waning, Bring on Draenor.
2014-11-29.
November is nearly over, which means NaNoWriMo is almost over for another year. As of this posting, I have some 1,500 words left to do before validating. (The story is nowhere near done, and I expect I will need to add another 40,000-50,000 words to actually finish the novel.)
I’m growing a bit tired of Rift. I finished the main story and got my main Mage to 65, and my Rogue, Warrior, and Cleric are all sitting at 60.
- MMORPG
- Status
2014-12
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Bloggy Xmas Day 7: Community and Me.
2014-12-07.
Sitting down to write this, I can’t help but wonder why on Earth I signed up to write about community and gaming. I’m pretty introverted, so the idea that I might have anything to say about being a part of any community seems laughable. And to top it off, I don’t much like the Christmas season, either.
But the nature of community compels me to write anyway. Despite my own anti-social nature, I still feel like I’m a part of a gaming community-a collection of people who share a common enjoyment of gaming, particularly the online multiplayer variety.
- MMORPG
- Musings
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ArcheAge – Post-Mortum.
2014-12-11.
I’m determined to sit here and write a complete blog post.
Inspired somewhat by j3w3l’s recent post, I’ve been thinking about ArcheAge. Thinking, that is, but not playing, because my work schedule has been ramping back up and ArcheAge is not a game you can play when you only have a little bit of time to play it. Not to mention the possibly-related fact that I’ve lost interest in it. I still log into ArcheAge once or twice a week to make sure my taxes are paid and to stockpile more tax certificates, but that’s about it.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Opinion
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Dragon Age Ate My Life.
2014-12-19.
In case anyone is wondering, Dragon Age has eaten my life.
Get that camera out of my face.
I’m currently playing through Dragon Age II for the first time, after which I’m going to play Inquisition. So, no time for blogging, writing, sleeping, eating, playing any MMOs, or moving away from the PC screen for even a moment.
- RPG
- Single-Player
- Status
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Massively’s Best of 2014.
2014-12-21.
I was looking over Massively’s choices of the best MMO launched in 2014. That’s a terrible list.
Of those, I consider only two of them to be “legitimate” candidates: ESO and WildStar. And of those two, ESO wins because it is the more innovative of the two. (Only one of the Massively people agreed with me.) It’s sad to note, though, that I only played those two games for two months and one month respectively.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
2015-01
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Year End 2014.
2015-01-01.
In most Steam sales, I have a fairly strict cut-off point of avoiding anything unless it is under $10. Over the past year or so, I’ve rarely found anything meeting that criteria that I don’t already have, so I was a bit surprised to find myself buying nine games in this Winter Steam Sale, including Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, The Walking Dead Season 2, Murdered: Soul Suspect, Democracy 3, Contagion, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Dominions 4, Thief, and Transistor.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Status
- Steam