Endgame Viable

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. (198 words.)

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. I’m afraid I’m going to accidentally delete them or apply them wrong somehow. I don’t have very many, and they’re all mismatched pieces from various sets anyway. Having this Wardrobe system will make it way easier to deal with that stuff. (I hope.) (207 words.)

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. (365 words.)

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. I didn’t think I would like any ranged class but the Esper felt tolerable I think because it actually forces you to stand still when you cast. It is no match for the fun of the sword-wielding Warrior class, though. (I didn’t try the Stalker but I assume it would also be fun.) (257 words.)

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. If I run a DPS build, I take so much damage that I have to stop after every encounter to heal. If I run a tank build, the encounters take so long that I still lose most of my health from being exposed for so long. The point is that I really miss soloing with the Harbinger-Chloromancer build which self-healed so much that I never had to stop - I could go from mob to mob at a dead run. (270 words.)

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. Nobody will be waiting for you. There’s no pressure to perform at peak efficiency. You can watch Netflix while you play. You can listen to an audiobook while you play. There’s almost limitless freedom when you’re out soloing. (357 words.)

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. http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/03/16/trion-cm-confirms-f2p-archeage-says-earned-and-crafted-items-a/ (162 words.)

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. That’s why my posts rarely have pictures in them. And why the links are usually screwed up. Once I’ve emailed them in I touch up the post dates and scheduling with the WordPress Android app. (308 words.)

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). I want to do a Low-Level Duty Roulette for my Dragoon class. And then I want to do one or more instances of Crystal Tower with my White Mage class to collect WHM gear and mythology tokens. (I know it’s not the most efficient way to get myth tokens, but it’s the easiest if you are lazy like I am.) If I don’t accomplish all of those things, I feel like I’m “falling behind.” (300 words.)

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. Once you begin the re-conditioning process, you can’t go back, or you will perpetually remain confused. (358 words.)