Endgame Viable

I spent a few hours with Skyforge. I didn’t buy any of the founder’s packs or anything so this is the totally free-to-play experience. Business casual is the way to go in Skyforge. Character Creation: Okay Lore: Meh Dialog: Meh Visuals: Good Performance: Good Sound: Okay Music: Meh Voice Acting: Okay UI: Fantastic Customization Settings: Minimal Ads: Subtle, except for the launch window Free-to-play disadvantages: Less “sparks” so I guess you advance slower Classes: Okay (3 to pick from initially) Combat Style: Action, Button Mashing Difficulty: Surprisingly challenging for a game these days Progression Style: Skill Tree, Gear Upgrades Crafting: Unknown Endgame: I doubt I’ll ever see it World: Small zones and instances that you travel to from a hub, like Neverwinter Costumes: Plentiful Appearance: Change anything at will (only the first one is free) Things that stood out: (254 words.)

Reims Bible, Wikimedia Commons. Spelling was pretty important for monks. Spelling is important, right? I saw a post on Facebook about this Grammar Girl article, which was a response to a Wired article by Anne Trubek on spelling. I started to type a pithy comment about it, but then I realized I kept thinking of new things to say that went far beyond the scope of a pithy comment, so I figured I should turn it into a long, rambling blog post. (1071 words.)

Almost exactly two years ago I first played Dark Souls on the PC, and a few days later I defeated the Taurus Demon, the second boss. Now I can finally say that I’ve defeated the third* boss: The Bell Gargoyles. Knight with newly-acquired Zweihander. After weeks of enjoying the crap out of the hard-difficulty combat in The Witcher 3**, I decided to install Dark Souls again. Two years later, thanks to a Steam beta and DSfix, Dark Souls runs a thousand times better on the PC than when I first played it, and using an Xbox controller works a lot better than a PS3 controller did. It’s really a gorgeous, atmospheric game. (607 words.)

H1Z1 is one of those early access games that I have a mild interest in playing, if for no other reason than that it looks pretty. In the recent Steam sale, it was discounted 50% to $9.99, which is under that magic $10 mark where I will buy just about anything in any condition. I hovered over the Buy button… But then I started to think. I wondered what my reward would be for buying now-what cool stuff I would get after the game launches. How many “credits” or “gems” or “zombie points” I would get, what costumes or guns I would get, what titles I would get, etc. Because obviously there should be some tangible incentives for me to buy a game that’s buggy and broken and not finished. (215 words.)

There were only two games I played any significant amount in June: Final Fantasy XIV (28 hours) and The Witcher 3 (18 hours). The latter is not an MMORPG, but since it feels exactly like an MMORPG I’m going to count it in my progression report. In FFXIV I started in on Heavensward, but to be honest I’m still a bit burned out from all the catching up I did in May, so I haven’t played that much into the expansion. I’ve only managed to level my Bard class from 50 to 53 52, and completed the first dungeon Dusk Vigil. It’s a great expansion… (228 words.)

Oh crap! It’s July! This is Camp NaNoWriMo month, and it’s Day 3, and I haven’t started writing-haven’t even thought of an idea. Didn’t even realize it was July until this third day. Should I write something? Coincidentally, I’ve had a story in my head for the last few days. Actually, I should say I’ve had a setting in my head for the last few days. It’s from an old idea I wrote down years ago, which was rekindled by running across The Conjunction Of The Spheres in the The Witcher 3 which I’ve been playing. (173 words.)

Normally everything related to FFXIV is an absolute pleasure to deal with, but getting into the Heavensward pre-order early access has been quite an unexpected challenge. FFXIV was down all day Thursday for the big 3.0 patch which I downloaded Thursday night. I had absolutely no idea that I would have to do anything special to see Heavensward. I just assumed the patcher would know I had ordered it, it would download it, and it would magically appear the next time I ran the game after the servers came up. (688 words.)

I found a hilarious physics/building game in the Steam summer sale… Besiege. There’s something about it that just makes me laugh and laugh. It’s pretty unique in that the most fun part of the game is failing. The more spectacular the failure, the more fun it is. It’s still early access but I give it a thumbs up. I’ll be honest, in the following videos, I was more concerned about running over the chickens than anything else. (77 words.)

To hold myself accountable, I’m going to announce publicly that I’m going to try to participate in Belghast’s Blaugust this year. That means posting at least 31 times during the month of August (once a day). Fortunately for me, I’m sure I have at least 31 half-finished posts in my Drafts folder that I can choose from. So don’t be surprised if you see posts about very old topics that everyone’s long forgotten. :) (74 words.)

I’ve just about had enough of the Hard difficulty in The Witcher 3. It’s fine for normal encounters, but when it comes to bosses it’s over that fine line between challenging and frustrating. And it’s not because the encounters are actually too difficult, it’s because of two things: 1) The controls are not responsive enough, and 2) It takes too long to re-load from your previous save. (336 words.)