One Of These Alts

Of Blocks and Coffee: Lego Star Wars and Legends & Lattes

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Sun, 01 May 2022 04:55:00 +0000

This post has my combined thoughts on a game and book that I finished recently. The game is Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker, and the book is Legends & Lattes by author Travis Baldree.

Let’s start with Lego Star Wars. This is the latest game in this series, re-telling the story of the entire 9-movie series using Lego creations and minifigs and a lot of creative revisioning of the tale to make it more family-friendly. There’s been more in the series previously starting with an adaption of the three prequel movies, then a second game adapting the original trilogy, and then a third title that combined all six movies. An adaption of the first of the third trilogy followed later, but that was it until Skywalker Saga was announced.

What we have here is a neat package that covers all the movies in 45 levels that are unlocked as semi-open-world areas once the story mode for each has been completed, plus some space content for the ships you collect. To paraphrase the book of The Princess Bride, this is the “Good Parts" version.

I was hoping this would be something great, as a fan of both the Star Wars universe and the Lego Star Wars adaptions but it’s just … fine. I suspect my high expectations haven’t helped – anything that you’ve hyped up to yourself is going to have a hard time matching what you’ve imagined it could be.

But to sum up briefly, most of the levels are built around platforming and shooting with the minifigs you collect and unlock, with simple minigames for different activities and the occasional vehicle section. As you play through the story of each level, you’ll unlock it to come back in freeplay mode, which allows you to use different characters that the ones available in the story. This lets you access areas you didn’t have access to due to lacking required abilities – for example, having additional quests locked behind characters who you can only speak to using a protocol droid.

If you’re looking for a reason to come back once you’ve finished the story, this is it. But I’m happy to stop where I am, having seen how the developers told their version of it. If you’re interested in seeing how it compares to the movies, you might want to give this video from ElAnalistaDeBits a look as it’s doing exactly that kind of comparison.

I had a pretty good time with it overall, although I had a few problems with the camera just not wanting to give me the right view for a scene and controls for spaceships feeling wrong whether I inverted the Y axis or not. And my reactions are definitely slowing as I get older, so having so many times where an immediate response was sought… I’m feeling creakier with every cutscene.

And speaking of cutscenes, if you’re curious about the story but just can’t see yourself buying the game, they've been compiled on YouTube (of course). You can see the style of humour used within the first 15 seconds, like it or not.

Now to something I enjoyed a great deal more.

I first heard about this book as a post on Twitter from author Travis Baldree (you can find him here), showing off the cover art. On the strength of that and the synopsis of the story, I pre-ordered it on Amazon immediately.

High Fantasy with a double-shot of self-reinvention

"Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv the orc barbarian cashes out of the warrior’s life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen.

However, her dreams of a fresh start pulling shots instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners and a different kind of resolve.

A hot cup of fantasy slice-of-life with a dollop of romantic froth.”

There’s a lot to be said about stories that are both wholesome and fun, and following this quiet little story of a retired adventurer looking to find some peace also finding a family… It’s genuinely heart-warming, with characters who I came to care for. Right now, the Kindle version is dirt cheap on Amazon, and I’d recommend giving it a try. (I don't want to say too much for fear of spoiling the mostly-gentle story beats, as it's a story that's all about the journey - maybe enjoyed with a hot beverage and delicious baked goods as you sit somewhere comfortable)

In other news, I’ve re-subbed to World of Warcraft and I’ve picked up my oldest character (now with grey hair, to kind of match mine) with a view to getting him up to 50 and into Shadowlands. For all it’s flaws, it’s good to be back.

A PC Gamer and a Switch Walk Into A Bar

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 15:50:00 +0000

How often have you had the chance to pick up a device which is completely new to you? I think the most memorable example of that was when I bought my first Android cell phone. This was in the early 20-teens and it was an early Huawei device, the Ascend G300. It was a budget phone, which meant almost no memory and minimal storage capacity.

It was also such a new user experience for me that it took me almost a week to work out how to answer when somebody called me. And while there were some useful applications, I didn’t think that it was going to be a gaming device for me on the strength of that initial experience. It also didn’t help that the device really was underpowered as only a budget Android device of that era could be, with not enough RAM and not enough onboard storage to really do much with it.

Roll on to the heights of 2019, where my stepdaughter was given a Switch Lite for Christmas by a well-meaning relative. Sadly, it was given without any games, and a sad time was had by her (although we picked up a couple of titles she wanted as soon as we could). It’s now 2022 and I just discovered the dust-covered device sitting in a cupboard with a flat battery. And I wondered, what is it like to use and actually play games on?

My History

I’ve been a gamer, well, almost since the beginning of home computers. From my first experiences with a localised console called the Fountain Force 2 around 1980, I’ve followed with great interest the progression from 8-bit to 16-bit to now 64-bit home computers of varying levels of complexity, and alongside them the gaming experiences that they gave life to.

Aside from my time with desktop computers of various lineages, there were a few detours to enjoy the Sega Master System, then the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, the Nintendo 64, and finally the original PlayStation, but I’ve always kept coming back to “real” computers. And alongside those, handhelds have been a very Nintendo thing for me, held back by a failure to invest in rechargeable AA batteries. From the original Gameboy, a Gameboy Advance, a DS, and finally a DS Lite – and an Atari Lynx in there somewhere – these kept me company before I deciding mobile gaming also became a phone thing.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was also a latecomer to touchscreen cell phones with my first being a woefully underpowered and under-specced Huawei Ascend G300. I was able to move up to an iPhone 6 Plus a little later, fortunately, which held my interest until I grew tired of the walled garden of accessories for Apple devices and graduated to a Samsung Galaxy S4. And yes, I did need to rebuy all my games. I’ve been a gamer on Android ever since, and my current daily driver is a Xiaomi 10T Pro that’s feeling its age, along with a Samsung Tab A7 for ebooks and a handful of games.

But my gaming home has always been various flavours of PC, dating back to a 386 in the very deep dark distant past – I’ve actually upgraded my computer from that lowly 386, piece by piece. 386, then 486, then into a new case with an ATX power supply as a k

Right now, my workhorse is incarnated as an aging AMD system in desperate need of an upgrade (along with a bigger hard drive or two). It’s still plenty for Skyrim which, like many people, I’m tempted to reinstall, but it’s not quite there for modern titles like Horizon Zero Dawn. I’m fortunate that my gaming budget is more Vampire Survivors than Cyberpunk 2077, so this isn’t necessarily an issue.

The Switch’s History

Now, I’m sure everybody at least knows what a Switch is, Nintendo’s follow-up from both the 3DS and the unfortunately-named Wii U. It launched to quiet interest, and proceeded to conquer the world as the handhold that both Xbox owners and PlayStation owners could play without surrendering their sense of superiority.

In my stepdaughter’s case, it was a device she wanted in order to be able to play Minecraft with her friends without being tied to a laptop, but with actual controls (unlike almost all tablet gaming). Of course, time passes, and the cool place to virtually meet with your friends changes. The Switch moved from desktop to shelf to cupboard, and I stumbled across it while looking for something else which is honestly still lost.

First Steps
The first thing to do was, of course, to dig out the charger as the batteries were thoroughly dead. After that was the import thing: creating a new user on the Switch itself, and hooking that up with an account.

Of course, I also need to get used to the buttons being backward. XY/AB on my Xbox controllers becomes YX/BA on the Switch. My muscle memory isn’t impressed. It might not have caught me up so much, but they still make A the primary action button, and you use B to cancel.

But back to the set-up.

With a new user comes the ability to link it to a Nintendo account. I’m fortunate that I have one lying around from my brief time in Animal Crossing and a much longer time playing Dragalia Lost on my phone. Of course, this runs into another hurdle – long passwords and touchscreens don’t mix well, especially if you can’t see what you’ve typed because there doesn’t appear to be an option to reveal the password you’re typing.

This turns into an extended endeavour where I need to find the right login for the desktop Nintendo site to find the login there, discovering that it won’t work with my email address but will work if I create a username to login with, and re-type my very secure password many, many times.

Once I was logged in, I opened the home screen and clicked on the eShop button. And was told I needed to update the system. Click on System Settings, then System, and then install the update.

Back to the eShop. “Enter the password for your Nintendo Account.” Two failed attempts later, I’m in!

And now begins the quest to find games to try.

Nintendo has never been known for great online functionality, and after a quick look through their online store, I’d say they’re not a great deal at better with storefronts. The section of their site is a single page that loads in new pages of products as you scroll slowly down, and there’s no ability to sort the page – that would honestly be useful while looking for something cheap to try. The Current Offers page says there are 1110 items to choose from, but I don’t like my chances of finding something genuinely good very quickly.

It turns out the Search option is what I need: while there are only three narrow ranges of available prices by which you can search if that’s what you’re looking for, and you can change the sort order to sort by price (low to high), which came to my rescue. Add in filtering by Genre, and it’s relatively golden.

Free Games

By the way, these are just random quick thoughts, not reviews. I don’t currently have a debit or credit card so I can’t buy anything through the eShop (and yes, when they say “PayPal” they really mean “a credit card connected to your PayPal account”), and for an experiment like this, I don’t have the disposable income to throw away on games that I may not enjoy. This isn’t Steam, where you can throw back the dead fish and get a refund; I’m a blogger on a tight budget, not a professional writer with an expense account. So yes, I recognise that I’m not going to be experiencing a Super Mario or Breath of the Wild experience, but honestly, that’s not what I’m curious about.

In the end, I decided to take the easy way out and download a couple of free Pokémon titles, Pokémon Quest and Pokémon Café Remix. I’ve played them both on my phone – I’ve completed Quest there – so they’re relatively known quantities.

I’m also going to add cubic MMO Trove, which I’ve played to excess on PC. And last of the freebies will be Elder Scrolls: Blades, which I’ve also put a few hours into on my phone. But for now, intermission time while things download, I make a hot drink and plug the Switch back in to charge.

It turns out both of the Pokémon games are really just touch-screen! They’re free so I shouldn’t feel cheated, but … it’s just like playing on a much heavier and more cumbersome phone than the one I played them both on originally. Maybe these weren’t the best ones to showcase what the Switch can do.

Quick thoughts on both Pokémon games: really, they’re the same as they are on my phone. Both are touch-controlled, and I’m not sure there’s much more to be gained from playing them here. (It’s a pity that Genshin Impact is still “in development,” as it would be interesting to it on a portable device with physical controls – when it was installed on my phone, it was just for daily logins because I hate virtual D-pads, and my actual play sessions took place on the PC)

Now, Trove is an interesting experience with controls. There’s only one drawback with it, and that’s something I’m going to refer back to later in more overarching terms. But it’s not designed for play on a small screen, and that hurts the game as there’s a lot of useful text which is quite difficult to read, and as such, there’s a lot that you may miss in terms of tips about what controls do. It’s also kind of challenging to line up the mining laser unless blocks are right up close. But I think a lot of this is just me. But it’s time to play some games with bigger budgets.

Last up is Elder Scrolls: Blades. Again, this was one that I played first on my phone. But in this instance, I grew tired of the slow drip-feed of chest rewards (and therefore slowing collection of building and tradeskill items, and in turn progression) while they were fine-tuning their monetisation, and the slow everything else. But it turns out that this one is unexpectedly kinda fun, even with the combat going from “touch the left and right sides of the screen to fight” to “press the left and right triggers to fight”.

The forced countdown timers for opening chests appear to have gone – it used to take varying numbers of hours for chests to open, with more valuable chests taking much, much longer. The downside to it is that progression is still slow, inventory management is a slog, and the UI is built around the notion of needing to physically move to the different vendors and crafters in your town. To sum up my experience: outside of the main gameplay loop, playing the game is like wading through molasses – just not as much fun.

I had a very, very short go on Asphalt 9: Legends, another free title, but it was very clear very quickly that I no longer have the reflexes for this.

Getting Fancy

These two are the games that my stepdaughter owns on cartridge, so there are slim pickings to choose from. (Technically three games as there was also a Harvest Moon title, but I know from experience that that kind of build-a-farm-and-relationships title is not my cup of fun)

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a game I’ve seen pretty much everywhere ever since it launched – even now I’ll see people showing off downright majestic towns that they’ve built. I’m not one of those people. In Fallout 4 the things I built were really big hovels, but I was at least curious.

And yet, I bounced hard off this one. I’m usually playing late, late, late at night, and there didn’t seem to be any NPCs in the game who were awake and out in the world to interact with? I want to start playing and everyone in the game is asleep, and on top of that, I just can’t see where the fun – for me – is in collecting things to build things I don’t want for NPCs I don’t know well enough to like with the hook being I need to pay off a debt to a critter I don’t know.

I’d rather go back to Fallout 4, where the rest of the gameplay loops are interesting enough for me to find a gameplay reason to accidentally sink hours into building ugly settlements.

Last of the bunch is Ni No Kune: Wrath of the White Witch. I haven’t played a lot of JRPGs in the last few years; mostly because I just haven’t had the time thanks to some big lifestyle changes (and having a 3-year-old changes your priorities). But back in the day? A JRPG was a fun time.

Aaand … not a fun time. That was an adorable story that pushed all my wrong buttons with its design. Let me count the ways.

Unskippable cutscenes
Long unskippable cutscenes
Unlikeable main character
Unironic use of “Golly!”

I’m not saying it’s a bad game – the overworld map is quite impressive, for one thing. It’s just the epitome of “not for me,” which is kind of a pity.

But putting all those experiences together brought to the fore what has been my biggest issue with the device.

Don’t Get Old – It’s Something Something Blurry

As you get older, many people – especially myself – find their vision gets worse. Especially once you hit 40 as our eyes join in the fun while the rest of your body is cheerfully continuing to deteriorate. Specifically in my case, something called Presbyopia, or gradual loss of your eyes' ability to focus on nearby objects.

To sum up, when not wearing my glasses I have trouble focusing on things beyond around 8-10 inches from my eyes - 20-25cm for readers in civilised countries. Now, the problem for me is I’m wearing glasses that are no longer the right prescription for me, so things that are between 10-24 inches (25-60cm) or on the far side of arm’s length are blurry with glasses on.

It turns out the optimal distance for me to hold the Switch is at head height and around 8” from my face, and that’s not a comfortable position for any kind of extended play – maybe if I was sitting in the floor, in front of a short table that I could rest my elbows on?

And no, I didn’t hook the Switch up to a tv. For one thing, I couldn’t find a cable for that. But aside from the purely prosaic, if I wanted a big-screen experience I already have a PC for that – although I’m not sitting in an especially comfy chair.

Final Thoughts

So, that’s how it all went down. Having no interesting games in my budget may have skewed things a little, but really the inaccessibility of gaming on a small screen when your eyes are munted – yes, that’s a real Kiwi word – is pretty much a fun-killer for me.

Admittedly if you could give me a 10-inch or 12-inch switch, I think it might be a much different story – maybe hooking up one of those portable 13” monitors that get advertised for hooking up to a laptop? I don’t think it’s an especially price-effective solution, but it’s a fun idea.

Really though I can’t see the Switch (pun intended) ever replacing my tablet for AFK gaming, although the actual library of games on my Samsung is completely different to what I play on the PC due to the difference between keyboard and mouse vs a touch-screen. There’s also the issue that comes up with almost every Nintendo console at least where you’re leaving your existing game library behind, unless you want to be running two (or more) systems.

I understand that backwards compatibility has made that less of an issue with Xbox and PlayStation, although it’s not entirely a non-issue as yet, but Nintendo’s efforts are much less impressive (and still requires you to re-buy emulated and ported titles from their older platforms if they’re available).

The Steam Deck is an interesting looking alternative – I’d love to see a third-party 12-inch version of that hit the market in the future, which I understand is a possibility due to the far more open nature of the hardware and software, but I think for now my bad eyes and the rest of my creaky self will be perched in front of my PC when I want something fun (and complex) to play.

For now, pew-pew.

Revisiting old blogs, and putting keys to pixels.

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 15:15:00 +0000

2016. Well, really 2014. It's been a while.

Between then and now have been health scares (unrelated to pandemics), new relationships, across-the-world-moves, marriage, children, employment, health scares (related to pandemics), overwork and burnout, unemployment, and I still haven't tried balut.

For western readers, don't Google it. I'm not kidding.

As part of my pivot away from recent technical support mismanagement, I'm getting back into my blogging and/or writing and/or textual creativity. (I'll leave the poetry to talents like Internet of Words though, who I suspect won't be aware that she's responsible for me getting off my virtual, uh, couch)

I'm still gaming, but I'm more limited to SP-MMORPGs. Which is to say, the game is an MMO, but I'm just single-playering it up because honestly I don't have the spoons (or the time) to build up the new circles of friends/acquaintances required to get the most out them.

The most timely I've been lately was getting dressed up as a fancy penguin in Lost Ark while I completed what I think was the first story ark, I mean arc. Honestly it was an extremely well-polished title, but it was running up against the limits of my dexterity with the multiple weapon sets for the sharpshooter that I was playing.

Now, as an aging gamer I've discovered that having controls so complex is something that I find extremely challenging - it's like trying to learn to type on a chording keyboard, but the bus you're riding will explode if you go under 150 words per minute. And the keyboard is on fire.

I've run into this with some console ports in the past where to perform certain actions you needed to press the D-pad in a certain direction while simultaneously pressing one of the face buttons. There might have also have been a title I tried where you also needed to press one of the triggers - a three-button action - but I'd rather think that might have been something from a bad dream.

This is the kind of situation that isn't helped by having a full keyboard full of, er, keys that you need to keep track of. It's fine for a space simulator like Elite where you have the time to look down at the keyboard to find the control that arglebusters the flimflamometer*, but for an action title that requires constant attention while a boss character whales away at you it's not healthy to take your eyes away from the action.

I'm not sure if the complexity required to access all the verbs of a modern game is something that we'll one day be able to overcome, but I sometimes wonder if they've become an expected part of the gaming experience - another barrier for the self-proclaimed gatekeepers to point to with gleeful cries of "Git gud!"

I'd also be interesting in knowing how accessible this type of design is for those using accessibility tools or custom controllers - I can imagine there being as much variance in dexterity across the spectrum of disabilities as there is for gamers using vanilla layouts. That might be an interesting rabbit hole to venture down sometime.

Right now my primary exploring the shiny semi-cubular worlds of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which is a remarkable evolution from the adorable-yet-mumbly first title in the series. I've finished the first four episodes, and I'm looking forward to the rest. (My plan is to unlock freeplay for all of them, and then see how they play as open-world)

Cancellable hot take: the original game wasn't that bad, despite being based on the prequel trilogies. More cancellably: the first prequel was the movie I enjoyed the most of the three.

As far as other games go, I've been performing Wizard Chores (the minimum of daily check-ins) in aging MMO Rift for a couple of months now, mostly collecting daily unlocks and completing pet missions for artifacts which get almost immediately resold on the auction house.

I managed to get one character to 65 before running out of steam, and lacking the motivation to play on in the face of a massive increase in required XP. (The level cap is 70 right now, and will likely remain there until the game gets closed given the attention being given to it by their publisher, Gamigo)

Then I picked up a character of the opposite faction and got her to 60 before, again, running out of steam. Really, steam is in short supply. But some of the mount designs are fun, and they've been in themselves worth doing a daily login to collect a random free one each month. (I've also been subbed in the game for a few months for the bonuses, which make leveling a lot easier, but I think I'll be letting that lapse while I explore other games)

I think that's where I stand in regards to my gaming of late. I've only ~~a handful of~~ four games currently installed on my phone, and they're all old and either premium titles without ads or I've paid to remove the ads - the limits in F2P titles leave me respecting those games about as much as they respect me as a receptacle where they can obtain free monies. I'm tempted to pick up some more games (to play on my 10" tablet - yay for aging vision issues), but there's really a limited number of interesting premium or pay-to-remove-ads/pay-to-unlock titles that are genuinely interesting to me. (Honestly I'm more likely to open an emulator, and take a hit of nostalgia)

But all in all I'm planning on making posts here a habit - possibly random ramblings like this, possibly reviews of indie titles that catch my eye, or at least thoughts about whatever I'm playing at the time. And maybe even something focused and long-form, should I find my muse. (And feel free to hit me up on Twitter where I frequently should know better)

Catch you** in a bit, maybe with some more thoughts about Lego Star Wars once I've made some more progress there!

* Not technical terms

** The Internet

Re-emerging From The Depths

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 23:22:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: Maxine Nightingale – Right Back Where We Started From

Just a short teaser (insofar as anyone would really feel teased in any way, shape, or form by my return to blogging) about my starting writing again, with an eye to writing on a semi-regular basis again.

My go-to game right now is Marvel Heroes 2015, which is about to turn into Marvel Heroes 2016 (with some new content I’m very much looking forward to digging into), but I’ll be heading back into Legion when that resurfaces.

Right now, though, it’s back to my gameplay notes and plans for posts. <disappears in a puff of procrastination>

DLC Loves My Wallet

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Sun, 24 Aug 2014 07:40:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: Barrett Strong – Money

While I’ve been waiting for the pre-expansion patch to come out for WoW, I’ve been spending some time with three free-to-play games on my pc and iPad. And my experiences have covered the spectrum from “That’s the way to do it!” through to “The developers just want me to open my wallet, don’t they?”

I’m a cheap gamer, I’ll just come out and admit it. Mostly it’s because I don’t have much in the way of disposable income, but it’s also because I am cheap. (I drink supermarket-brand instant coffee, what else do I need to say?) Anyway, I’ve been dabbling some more in Defiance (although I’ve let that slide since picking up MH), playing Godus (insert gem to continue), and getting heavily into Marvel Heroes 2015 (I must resist the temptation to buy an alternate costume for Punisher – for now, at least).

I’ve already written about Defiance, so I don’t think I need to add much there (although I’ll probably explore Silicon Valley eventually, when the MH’s siren call has faded). So that leaves Godus and Marvel Heroes. I think I’ll leave Heroes to another post (to do it justice), so that just leaves one title to talk about.

This has been developed by Peter Molyneux-led 22 Cans (whose previous project was the cube-clicker Curiosity), and is nominally a god-game in the style of Populous, which was successfully Kickstarter-ed to much acclaim (and cynicism about the ability of Molyneux to deliver all that was promised) in 2012. It’s since been released both on Steam and as a free-to-play title on iOS. (I’m talking about the latter version here, as I don’t have the pc version – mostly because I’ve no interest in paying for a desktop game with f2p timers)

Visually it’s a pretty game, I’ll give it that. The stylised graphics work well, and the sound work is “good enough” (although nothing really stands out on the audio front). The problem for me with the game is the gating mechanisms, and the way the disguise the lack of anything to do in the game besides adjust the terrain as best you can (I’m not counting the ship missions, which just frustrated me to the level of pointedly ignoring them), and spread out over the land like a stylised cancer.

Just an aside, there’s one audio aspect that really irritates me. Somebody thought “Hey, wouldn’t it be cute if there are musical notes that play when you touch each dwelling to collect the belief? And if you touch enough, it makes a song! But if they don’t touch one fast enough – maybe they’re collecting their crops or minerals or scrolling the map or something – then let’s play a discordant note that totally ruins the ambience of the experience!” <grrrr>

There isn’t any combat. Nor much of anything, apart from “expand flat terrain, tell followers to create house on flat ground, repeat”. Eventually houses get bigger, and you can clumsily manipulate thicker areas of the terrain, and you unlock the ability to combine groups of abodes into settlements, and later into villages. But there doesn’t seem to be much more to the game. (They introduced a “happiness” mechanic, but I think I broke it after wiping out all of the “opposing” native population using a couple of my more malevolent god powers)

The technology tree, such as it is, consists of cards which are made unlockable by achieving quantity-goals of “Population > x”, “Number of Farms > y”, or “Number of Mines > z”. Then you are required to use in-game stickers to unlock each card, which gives you the ability or bonus on the card. Stickers are either purchased in packs for increasingly large quantities of gems, or are occasionally found in chests which you discover in the game world (these are sometimes stuck underground where you have to terraform to expose them, which can be problematic if they appear beneath the sea, beneath the lowest point of the seafloor and are unreachable – or occasionally found just outside of your zone of influence, which is equally unreachable). Chests spawn randomly after storms – about the only reason to explore the game world, aside from expanding your colony or collecting belief.

The odd thing is… For all the crap I give the game, the experience of terraforming and expanding your territory is surprisingly satisfying. It’s just incredibly frustrating that the rest of the game is so focused of separating a fool and his money.(I’m currently sitting on a population of almost 5000, which unlocks a x5 buff on belief generated by abodes near trees – which would be useful if trees didn’t get clear-felled in the process of creating flat land to build on, a great example of the game design)

Disclaimer: I cheated at the start – there’s a common work-around for time-gated games on portable devices, where you get the game to where you have to wait, then set the device’s time forward, and switch back to the game and continue. So I guess my gamer ethics are a little flexible. Anyway, at the stage of the game where I am currently, when I collect my belief during in-game housekeeping in the morning I end up with over 120k (probably getting closer to 150k tomorrow, due to my current expansion). So once over that initial hurdle, belief is less of an issue (although still a limiting factor, due to the necessity of leveling mountains.

But I digress.

I was thinking about free-to-play and DLC, and the way developers want to make money out of their hard work, and the three approaches these games bring to the table.

The first is the wholly-consumable approach that Godus embodies. The game is inherently limited by both belief (which is granted by playing the game) and gems (which are primarily purchased for real-world money). Once you’ve spent all your belief, there’s not really anything interactive you can do in the game – you have to wait until more has been generated, and then collect it. The problem is there isn’t much to do with it, aside from terraforming – it’s a pretty shallow game. (Also the conversion of $-to-Gems is what feels like a typical mobile/f2p money-grab)

It just feels like the Godus devs want me to be distracted by the pretty graphics while they pick my pocket.

The second is DLC and consumables in Defiance. They offer cosmetic options (it’s pretty much the only way to get new outfits and headgear – which are on special right now – aside from a scarce handful you unlock by playing through the story missions), expanded content (new in-game content and an additional playable race, for example) and of lockboxes. The downside of lockboxes (which cost $4-$5 each) is there’s no guarantee you’ll actually get anything out of them that you want – or even anything useful. (There’s been some community work done with the in-game-currency-purchasable ones here, giving some firm numbers on what drop)

The problem here is that the power curve on your gear is not only very shallow, but itemisation is ridiculously random – sure, you might get a great orange (legendary) item, but there’s no guarantees that the affixes will make it any better than a blue (rare) of the same type. Spending real money is no fun when you feel out of the gate that the odds are very much stacked against you. (I have a similar perspective on Star Trek Online, but there’s a much larger pool of item types in-game, and you can sell STO’s lockbox keys to buy things you actually want)

While I don’t mind picking up the DLC while it’s on special (and I might someday pick up a cheap retail box, for the extras that unlocks on a free account), there’s just a feeling that the game is on maintenance support.

The approach that Marvel Heroes has made is similar to that of Defiance with unlocks, consumables, and lockboxes – but with the addition of quality-of-life purchases in the form of inventory unlocks. You get a single hero when you start playing (you can pick from a pre-selected 11 of the current roster of 37), and can unlock additional characters through a currency earned playing the game (Eternity Splinters).

Additional heroes can be unlocked either by purchasing a particular hero outright, by purchasing a “Random Hero” unlock, or occasionally dropping in-game (admittedly rarely, with no guarantee that it’s for a hero you haven’t unlocked – but you can use a token for an already-unlocked character to give it a boost to the power if it’s “Signature” power). Alternate costumes for heroes can also be purchased with real money, or drop in-game (again, albeit very rarely, and with no guarantee that it’s for a character you’ve unlocked), or are rewards from the equivalent of lockboxes.

And speaking of lockboxes, there are a couple of takes on them. There are cards which offer random rewards (including exclusive costumes, pets, and consumable buffs). There are also themed lockboxes, the last example of which (Cosmic Lockboxes) offered a guaranteed random hero or costume token and random consumables or other items.

The odd thing was, after playing the game for a week, I was already so happy with the gameplay and the way they make money off it, that I quite happily bought a couple of 5-packs of cosmic lockboxes, and a couple of stash tabs. And this week I picked up the Hawkeye hero pack on Steam, and bought an unlock for Cyclops.

I guess what I’m saying is when it comes to spending money in-game, it helps to feel I’m actually getting something for it. With Godus, it feels like the developer keeps on leaning over my shoulder and commenting “Gee, this is taking forever, isn’t it? You know, it’d be soooo much quicker if you just buy a pack of gems or two, you know, to speed things up.”

With Defiance, the game itself is fun, but the feeling is less “Hey, here’s this fun new DLC that adds feature X!” and more “Lockboxes! Get your Lockboxes here! Guaranteed chance of giving us money – and maybe you’ll get something you won’t immediately vendor!” I think part of the problem is the extremely tight focus on combat, and lack of other avenues to explore (crafting comes to mind immediately, as does the lack of exploration in the small and strongly theme-park-ish map).

Marvel Heroes? Well, I have to admit, when the game first came out I was very doubtful about it. I mean, you couldn’t even create your own character, in this modern era of customisation! But after finally giving it a try (probably thanks to all the times Scott on The Final Score commented on how much he’s enjoying it), it’s surprised me with its fun gameplay and the very even-handed manner in which they’ve chosen to make their money without restricting gameplay.

The lack of inventory space is kind of grating (and the inventory system itself is clunky), but the cost to expand it isn’t exorbitant. It helps that your inventory is account-wide, but it does get tricky (and starts feeling cramped) when you’ve unlocked multiple heroes and start saving items for crafting and hero-specific unique items.

Basically, with MH I don’t feel like I’ve been nickel-and-dimed, and I’m getting value for my money. (Although I’d be a lot less likely to feel I’d been screwed over if things actually cost nickels or dimes, but that’s a rant for another time when I argue for reclassifying most in-game purchases as Macrotransactions)

If you’ll excuse me now, though, Cyclops is about to save the world again, and I’m going along for the ride.

As Seen On TV! In Print! Or On Your PC!

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 11:22:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: The Beatles – Paperback Writer

So, now I’ve replaced my dead power supply (which cost me my first night ticket to Guardians of the Galaxy, as I had to get a refund then use the money for a shiny new not-dead PSU), I can tell you that I’ve been distracted by a free-to-play MMO-ish title which is tied to a currently-screening US TV series. Yes that’s right, I’m playing Defiance (which is now available again on Steam, after it was unavailable for a while due to stuff when it changed to f2p).

And it’s kind of alright. (Which is to say, it scratches my current itch for a third-person not-really-cover-based shooter based around Rift’s eponymous, um, Rifts) This in turn led me to watch (finally) some episodes of the series, and I was relieved to discover it’s actually pretty fun. Like the game, actually. Just with a bit more charm.

It’s been a curious experience, spending time both actively playing the game and passively watching the series. The differences between the two mediums really shine through: especially the depth and scale (and personality) of the series compared to the physically small-yet-interactive (within the limitations of being an MMO with such a focus on combat systems), scope of the game.

First, a little context. The world of Defiance (both the game and series) is set in the aftermath of an unsuccessful invasion of Earth. Partially terraformed into a nearly alien planet, an uneasy peace has been reached between the surviving humans and the assorted races that have now made Earth their home.

The series is set in what used to be the city of St. Louis, now the town of Defiance. A small regular cast gives you an intimate view into the lives of those endeavouring to make something for themselves in this new world. The game, however, is set in the San Francisco Bay area (some 2,800km or 1750mi away, which should make cross-overs problematic in a time where most travel seems to be by land, often over very broken terrain), and has the player taking the role of an Ark Hunter, a combat-savvy salvage expert who ends up involved in local affairs and saves the day (repeatedly) by shooting things.

The cross-media interaction seems to come down to special episodic content in the game, which may feature characters from the series – I’ve completed the first episode, which featured Nolan and Irisa. And there are what are called EGO codes featured in the show (or at least, outside the game) each week, which will give you an in-game bonus when added to your account. (They expire pretty quickly, so there’s no point in delaying entering them)

As I said, the game really satisfied a desire to shoot things – something sadly lacking in the MMOs I’ve played – I’ve never felt any interest in Call of Duty, Battlefield, or other military shooters, so I can’t comment on that genre. But, aside from occasional server irritations (lag, more lag, and sometimes everything-is-phased-most-of-the-time-and-also-laggy – which I came across briefly on the weekend) which usually comes right after server restarts, it’s been a fun and bullet-filled experience.

The levelling mechanic is called EGO, which refers to an implanted AI. As you do more – complete missions, pursuits (a form of achievement-hunting), challenges, local events or Arkfalls – your bond with your EGO grows stronger, and you unlock more powerful abilities. This takes the form of a board with four primary active (and upgradeable) powers (Blur, Cloak, Decoy and Overcharge) located around which are an array of passives which you also unlock and upgrade. You can only have one active ability at a time and a limited number of passives (up to 9 at EGO 1000), so it becomes a matter of choosing one and picking passives that support the ability’s style of gameplay (such as bonuses to cloak duration and cooldown, and extra damage while cloaked).

Another entertaining aspect of the game is the vehicle system. Especially the way it appears out of nowhere when you summon it. Sometimes you just whistle, and it appears. Anyway, there are three classes of vehicles: Runners (4x4 bikes, and my favourite so far), Rollers (cars or pickups, more durable than bikes but not as easy to control, especially off-road), and Cerebus (heavy vehicles, like driving an oil tanker when you’re fresh from a Runner). There are in-game challenges that award EGO for successfully completion, but I haven’t tried these yet. (There’s also a fast-travel system that takes you directly to a handful of locations around the map, which are handily also locations of equipment vendors)

Aside from your EGO rating, you gain specific experience with each class of weapon and vehicle, gaining perks with each as you use them more. There’s a level cap of 20 with each, so trying to cap yourself with everything is an additional challenge for those wanting a goal to chase.

There’s no crafting, but there’s a surprisingly subtle weapon-modding setup. Four components for each weapon (barrel, magazine, sight and stock) which affect the performance in various ways. (For example, I’m currently adding a fourth mod slot to my new sniper rifle to let me add a custom stock, which will cut down recoil by 10%) There are also sets, and using 2 or more of the same set can add additional bonuses. Also, sights come in three flavours. One which improves accuracy without affecting weapon zoom, and two which either increase or decrease default zoom level while adding the visual effect of using a scope while aiming.

The weapons themselves have several rarity levels, and can currently be upgraded through the use on an in-game currency (but that’s apparently being effectively taken out with the big upcoming content patch). But! A weapon being higher rarity is no guarantee that it will be better than a lower rarity weapon of the same class - the variety and performance between weapons of the same class can make a remarkable difference, regardless of their EGO rating (indeed, you might be using your beginning weapon for quite some time).

One limitation you run into pretty quickly is your limited ammunition capacity. Each weapon type draws from the same pool – 15 for heavy weapons (grenade or rocket launchers, for example), 50 for sniper rifles (both bolt-action and semi-automatic), up to 500 for light machine guns (LMGs). This can be worked around by using different loadouts (new players have access to two and can purchase more in-game, or by manually switching to different weapon types), but you’ll often find yourself looking for a nearby weapon locker to reload.

There are three other consumables: grenades (which are fairly self-explanatory), spikes (which create a small area buff), and stims (a personal buff).

What you wear is purely cosmetic, and has no effect on stats - headgear is separate to outfits, so you can mix-and-match (for better or worse). Some do look cooler than others though, but you won’t have access to many for a while (unless you pick up some in the store for real money). Also you can expect a good many reskins of the same costume models, but I guess that’s par for the course.

Along with the public events that you’ll run into while exploring (this is usually a fairly simple combat event, maybe repelling a couple of waves of bad guys (or bad aliens, or bad bugs, or sometimes bad cyborgs). The meat of the game (other than following missions) would have to be the Arkfalls, which are public events on a larger scale. (There are also player-summonable Arkfalls you can unlock with the Arkbreaker DLC, where you fight your way into fallen Arks and have interior areas to clean out – the standard ones are pretty much all exterior events)

These are pretty hard, requiring as many people of you can get – fortunately this isn’t that hard (provided there are people on), as the rewards for participation are pretty good. Just don’t expect to be very high on the scoreboard at the end, if you’re a low-EGO player. The open, tagging-free nature of the game is a definite plus in this situation. (Along with WildStar, I really wish WoW would take more steps in this direction – their group-centric philosophy really grates sometime, and not just when you’re fighting to tap mobs)

The game really has a theme-park feel to it, feeling like a super-violent Disney which is heavy on the Mad Max and Starship Troopers homages, especially in the early levels. But I found the curious thing is just how small the terrain feels – in some ways like a compressed version of something real, but much more static especially when you cross the (smaller) remains of the Golden Gate bridge. (Seriously, the vehicle physics are fun if not too realistic, but it’s still kind of jarring to watch your character drive into alien vegetation and instantly come to a halt as if it was made of concrete – and remain seated and not reacting to the deceleration, but that’s a different complaint)

On the whole, despite the lag and difficulty spikes (and wooden characters, and the fact that your avatar NEVER SPEAKS), I’m enjoying the game. Well, apart from a couple of boss fights in the main quest line that frustrated me by bumping up the difficulty substantially. The earlier one wasn’t too hard once I worked out the mechanics, but the one I’m on now (I think it’s very end of the main quest chain) is a very unforgiving 3-phase fight which has really left a bad taste in my mouth. I think I’ll end up abandoning the chain completely, and focusing instead on the episodic content and DLC (having picked up two of the five DLC packs so far). Plus there’s some new content due in a couple of days

As a pick-up-and-play game, it’s proven to be very entertaining. And it’s left me curious to see how Rift will run now – on my old system I had to turn off the advanced renderer in order to get a playable framerate; I’m hoping I’ll be able to get better results out of my new system (even though the video card is still the weakest link).

I’ve also started watching The Strain. The first episode was actually, well, just kind of mediocre (apart from the makeup effects, which were mostly pretty good – I think there’s just something about the actor playing Eph which grates on me). But I’d heard good things about the novels, so I gave them some time and intention. And after reading the trilogy came to the conclusion that they don’t suck, but they felt like a pretty sparse read (possibly due to the influence and origin of the first novel which started as a script and was then expanded into a nominally full novel). They do put an interesting twist on vampire mythos, and the origin story revealed in the third book takes them into an interesting new place.

Anyway, as a result of this I’ve been thinking about cross-media franchises (of which quite a few big games have become – not least of which has been WoW, due on the big screen in a couple of years).

It could be fun. I don’t recognise the logo, though. (Did they really need to change it?)

Off to see Guardians of the Galaxy later this week though. Which should make everything better. (Well, apart from the mobile game, which was just a Battleheart clone with irritating controls.)

Just Like Starting Over

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 00:39:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: what else?

Almost three years? You’d think I’d been busy or something… So many games, birthdays, the discovery of an entire genre of music, more games, coffee, weight lost and regained, still more games, health issues, coffee, old love lost and new love found, and – to top it all off – yet more games. Oh, and coffee.

I’ve been contemplating getting back into writing for some time now, but I’ve just had my original WoW account unlocked (after some credit card annoyances at the time of the annual pass, which left me locked out unless I jumped through hoops which I refused to do at the time), which has brought me full circle, with Ringle, Pringle, Dingle and all my other alts playable yet again. And I’m looking at slowly easing my way back into my writing on here.

I still dabble – currently MMO-wise I have WoW, WildStar and STO installed on my just-upgraded pc, along with some single-player games from Steam and a handful of games on my mostly-wonderful iPad. I ran into some fairly crippling performance issues with WildStar after upgrading my pc (which left me unable to play enjoyably for the second half of my free 30 days – something I’m still feeling a little bitter about, as the game has a lot of potential), and reinstalled Neverwinter out of curiosity (it runs much better than it previously did - unlike WildStar).

Last week I finished a marathon paragon play through of Mass Effect 1 and 2, now I just have to finally buy #3 (and all the DLC) so I can put the series behind me. (I’m not sorry that I missed all the kerfuffle about the truncated ending, and hey, now I’ll be able to experience the complete DLC-inclusive experience!). I tried to start a second renegade play through, but I just couldn’t do it – I’d like to think it’s just that I’m that nice. Feel free not to disillusion me.

I’ve also playing through Fallout 3, with Skyrim and BioShock 1+2 installed and waiting for me to give them some time after I’m bored exploring the wastelands. Briefly dabbling in Landmark, but I’ve never been much of a builder – maybe when they add combat? Might give Rift a little play as well, as it should look a little better now I’ve upgraded.

But at least for now I think I’ll be spending the next few days updating addons and getting re-acclimatised to my much-loved old WoW characters, and making a start on levelling somebody up to 90. I actually invested in another copy of WoW after my old account was locked, and have levelled a few characters up to 90 horde-side, but I just haven’t had the emotional investment with them that I have with my dwarven family. Hmmm, with two active accounts I can even transfer all my old characters into my vanity guild – Lobsters, Ho!

It may be good to be the king, but it’s even better to be the dwarf. Again. Finally. (But ooooooh, that horrible gear…)

The Only MOSTLY Dead Post

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:57:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “Time” by Freddie Mercury (From the excellent and unavailable soundtrack to the musical “Dave Clark’s Time”)

"It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.”

Kind of like this blog. (Goodness, where has the time gone?)

This has been an interesting year, with my gaming becoming increasingly portable and small-scale (I love my 4th-gen iPod Touch, although I’d love one of those prohibitively expensive iPads even more), and my MMO time being increasingly short in duration and generally tourist-like. Needless to say, I’ve been short of things to write about. (Although I’ll qualify that by mentioning that my life outside of gaming has been entertaining, with 23kg/50lb of weight lost since my last post in January with a new interest in fitness and diet now sharing my spare time, and a mostly painless 40th birthday now safely behind me)

Anyway, with SWTOR almost upon us (Impatient? Me?) I’ve been feeling the desire to dabble in writing once more, with a focus on TOR while it holds my attention but ranging a little further afield in time. (It helps that a good number of MMOs I’ve spent time in the past with have either become or are in the process of transitioning to free-to-play – have to love that kind of low barrier to entry)

My initial plan (once the head start begins) is to re-roll my beta bounty hunter (admittedly, mostly because of delightful starting companion Mako) and see where the game takes me. (I played Kia, the character in my screenshots, up to around level 28 in the last beta and enjoyed myself thoroughly, and now I want to see where her storyline takes her – and me.)

I enjoyed most of the mechanics of the class (unfortunately I have a tendency to pull more than I could handle on occasion, and even with a healing companion to back me up I found that it’s not really easy to burst down one mob and heal myself and tank the other two mobs beating on me, all at the same time), plus the storytelling (and the accompanying voice work, which worked wonders to help immerse me in my character) was easily good enough to keep me from pressing space to fast forward through the dialogue in the best WoW tradition.

In other personal gaming news, I’m still subscribed to WoW (having made the foolish, in hindsight, decision to sign up for the Annual Pass – I’m giving serious thought to taking the nuclear option of deleting my account completely), but am not playing other than transmuting truegold once a day and selling various pets in the AH – I don’t have the patience (or the thick skin) needed to spend time in the dungeon finder and LFR to gear up for… Well, for no real reason, if I’m not raiding.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the Star Trek Online F2P beta, and found that the new Duty Officer system is curiously more absorbing than the rest of the game (indeed, the character XP it awards is actually quite effective for levelling your captain on its own). Skyrim claimed my attention for a while before TOR beta, but I find it hard to go back to it now with its less-than-immersive storytelling, regardless of how open the world is. Dungeon Defenders also claimed my attention for a while (I’ve levelled a squire to level 58, and an apprentice to nearly 30), but I’m running into the limits of my solo-play patience again. Champions Online was an entertaining enough brief distraction, but it didn’t really hold my attention, much like City of Heroes (although CO had less of a “What can we sell you today?” vibe than CoH).

The F2P Everquest 2 tempts – or rather, the Ratonga do – but I just haven’t been able to find the appeal in the rest of the game world. Global Agenda is currently still installed despite my lack of playtime, but Dungeons and Dragons Online has finally been uninstalled, along with a few other titles that had been gathering digital dust and electronic cobwebs. (Oh, the Defense Grid expansion, You Monster, tempts me to the bottom of my tower-defense-loving-soul but I’ll probably leave that for the time being – Also, Hey! Isn’t it nearly Steam sale time?)

Anyway, I’ll leave this entry short and to the point (insofar as I’m ever really all that concise) and get back to mentally urging time to pass faster.

Has my headstart email arrived yet?

How about now?

Now?

/wave

DCUO – A Brief Distraction

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 01:09:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” by Five For Fighting

It’s deja vu all over again. After about 48 hours play over about two weeks (according to the Steam client, including time spent dabbling with other characters), I’ve hit the level cap with my superhero in DC Universe Online. I’m reminded in many ways of Star Trek Online, to be honest, and I can see a similar future ahead for DCUO.

Quick micro-review time:

The two games have some interesting things in common. The two games launched with very solid game engines, stable servers, and very low level caps that didn’t take long to reach. DCUO has a little more endgame content at launch (2, 4 and 8 player instances, and hard versions of single-player instances), but the UI is pretty unimpressive (especially the chat system).

The character customisation system is kind of nifty, but the UI around it is pretty minimal (like much of the UI, to be honest – it does just enough to get the job done, but don’t expect much usability). You can change the look of each gear slot (without changing the actual item equipped in the slot, which is a very nice touch) and alter the displayed colours on each piece, but are limited to the three-colour palette that you’ve set for your costume (although you can change these colours for your entire costume at any time). Unfortunately there’s no way of saving costumes, so if you have more than one that you wish to change between, it’s a matter of manually changing each piece in your inventory whenever you want to switch. If you have multiple gear sets for your character’s roles, you’ll have to switch out items individually as well.

Grouping is also fairly hit-and-miss, if you don’t have friends to play with or a league – the game’s guild-equivalent. You can get into alerts – the 4-player instances – with a LFD-styled queue, but for the harder ones you’ll want players for each of the four roles (tank, healer, controller, dps). Unfortunately while the game has you select your role when you queue up, it fails to explain what the roles are to players and doesn’t force players to take non-dps roles, so alerts with 4 dps players aren’t uncommon (and they usually aren’t all that successful).

I soloed most of my way to 30 (with a handful of alerts, where my ice tank hero attempted, sometimes successfully, to tank) and my 30 ding was something of a relief – my first thought was “Well, now I can cancel my subscription”. It’s not that the game is bad – indeed, the combat system is actually quite fun, and is a lot more visceral than games I usually play – it’s just that there isn’t much to the game besides the combat. Actually, the only other activity is collecting items and briefs. Oh, there’s the costume customisation aspect as well (supported by collecting new costume parts from combat and collecting), but without something like the WoW Armory or the Sporepedia where you can show off your creations outside the game, it’s of very limited interest to me.

Unfortunately a combat-based game with an item-collection sideline just isn’t enough to hold my attention – and definitely not enough to justify a subscription, no matter how nice the combat system might be. (Maybe I’d be more inclined if I was a DC fan, but I’ve been more partial to Marvel’s stories and characters, so I don’t even have the franchise to hold my attention)

Still, in the same way that STO has managed to overcome its disappointing launch and prosper as a niche MMO, I can see DCUO still being around in a year with an enthusiastic (albeit smaller) player-base, with active development continuing to add new content (and improving the lacklustre UI). I won’t be playing it, though.

Currently on my radar are Rift and Dungeons, both of which I’m sure are rife with opportunities to disappoint (and the next wave of the Rift beta starts in a couple of days). For now, though, Protector: The Planes awaits my attention.

/wave

So This Is Cataclysm…

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:37:00 +0000

Well, long time no write. In my defence, so many more talented bloggers have been keeping us informed (and entertained), and I really haven’t had anything to add, other than a heart-felt “Is that it?”

Yes, I’m another person who’s underwhelmed with what Blizzard has brought to the table with Cataclysm, and I’m currently spending my time turning my small pile of gold into a slightly larger pile of gold through various machinations on the AH.

I’ve currently leveled Mingle to 85, and she’s decently geared for heroics (only two greens remaining, her wand and one trinket, and wearing the epic crafted healer belt). Her tailoring and inscription are both at 525, and inscription is proving a nice money-spinner with mysterious fortune cards and inferno inks.

Pringle managed to get to 82 in Vashj’ir, and has maxed jewelcrafting and enchanting. Prospecting ore is still more fun than milling herbs, by the way.

Dingle is still sitting at 80, having very briefly ventured into Hyjal, but hasn’t really had much more time spent with her.

Ringle has been through Hyjal a little further, but I just haven’t been interested in leveling her to 84, where she’ll need to be to gain access to the recipe vendors in Twilight Highlands (she’s currently sitting on 490 leatherworking and 511 blacksmithing).

The surprise has been Kringle, who I’ve enjoyed levelling the most – hunters are still the most solo-friendly class. It’s kind of telling that even so, he’s only managed to reach 83 (but has 525 alchemy, and switched from herbalism to skinning to help provide leather for Ringle’s leveling, reaching 525 in that by the end of Hyjal). Kringle’s currently sitting in Deepholm, having completed the first of the pillar quest chains (with a cute pet turtle from BFD).

I’ve also run a Worgen through the new starting zone (and been… underwhelmed by the theme-park linearity and the feeling that you’re along for the ride) and have a Goblin most of the way through their starting zone (also underwhelmed buy most, but not all, of the experience – still a themepark, but occasionally a fun one). All I can say is, they had to make those zones once-only events – when you’ve been through the ride once, there’s nothing to come back to (and I can see the need to go through the ride for new characters to be a disincentive).

Incidentally, who else can foresee Worgen being left in the background while Goblins get thoroughly integrated into the WoW lore in the same way that Draenei and Blood Elves came to be treated after Wrath? (No, I’m not saying “Blizzard love Horde more than Alliance”, just pointing out that they really dropped the ball with Draenei after they dropped them into the WoW lore with TBC, and from what we’ve seen of Worgen and Goblin presence in Cata so far, it’s looking like Goblins will be favoured in the same way that Blood Elves were)

Now, there have been quite a few things that I’ve enjoyed about the post-80 Cata experience – a number of quite fun moments in the various zones, and some fun new mechanics (although I’ve yet to abuse Lifegrip with Mingle). But on the whole, Blizz seem to have substituted the breadth of gameplay pre-Cataclysm (for example, wrath levelling which had multiple paths all the way from 70-80) with a very linear leveling path brightened with the occasional patch of polish and occasional illusion of choice.

Incidentally, I’m really surprised they let the issues through in the final release where if you miss a quest-giver, you’ll find yourself locked out of further questing in a zone until you’ve managed to find the lost quest-giver (with no suggestion from the game that this is the case). I’ve been caught out by this twice in Hyjal, but fortunately haven’t tripped over it in Vashj’ir yet (which is apparently problematic, with the 3d terrain).

I’ve managed to force myself to grind Mingle to 525 archaeology (over several days and many hours, with most of the time spent auto-flying while I read a book or played another game on my ipod touch – thank goodness for Archy, which cut-down on the time-wasting quite substantially), and it confirmed my suspicion that it was going to be less fun than fishing, and mostly just a massive travel time sink. (Seriously, who thought this implementation was a good idea?)

I didn’t have the confidence to do any LFD while I was levelling, and my experiences have consisted of a healing a single run of normal Lost City of the Tol’vir with Mingle – horror stories from guildmates about the new state of pugs (now that healers can’t heal through stupid, and being blamed and/or abused for wipes because of this change) and the challenge of Cata healing (with mana management being the new measure of a healer’s ability) really made an effective deterrent to my giving it a try.

However, doing a normal run at 85 wasn’t excessively painful, aside from half-expected mana issues (there was just one wipe, but a couple of the dps had a couple of extra deaths while I was trying to keep up the tank). The problem for me is that healing just (as I’m hearing increasingly often) wasn’t fun. The change from “I want to decide who lives and who dies” from Wrath healing to “I hope I don’t run out of mana, and and please please please let the dps remember to run out of the fire” hasn’t been especially entertaining (especially as someone who used to LFD almost exclusively).

Currently? I’m mostly logging in to prospect for, cut and sell gems. And transmute Truegold. And mill herbs for cards and inferno ink to sell. And I’m hard-pressed to raise the enthusiasm to ~~run alts through the new theme-parks~~ level up other characters, as there’s nothing of interest for me at 85. The thought of hardmode raiding makes my skin crawl, and even normal modes aren’t appealing (although I suspect finding a guild which is just running normal modes may be challenging). Heroic 5-mans? Pugging them isn’t something to be done voluntarily (especially as a healer), but I have no interest in guild runs (probably because I still don’t feel comfortable in this guild). Normal 5-mans? My single attempt just didn’t engage me, even though the group did manage to complete it. (I’ve also heard a number of complaints about the length of Wrath 5-mans – do they need to make them quicker? Or is that solely a result of group competence?) Rep grinds? Well, if you’re not doing Heroics, they’re not really needed.

The sad thing for me is, there just isn’t really anything else. I’ve never been interested in achievements (aside from Loremaster on Mingle), I don’t collect pets, and… My dream of levelling more Dwarves lost substantial momentum when I realised that the revamped 1-60 levelling, while a substantial improvement over vanilla, was a lot more linear than I cared for (although not as bad as 80-85 has turned out to be).

I think I’ve run out of interest in WoW again – which is kind of unexpected, considering how much Cataclysm promised. Unfortunately it would appear that much of what it offers has a real lack of replayability for my playstyle, and I’m starting to run into that already.

But hey, it’s looking like there could be some interesting new titles in the near future - DC Universe Online (check out TotalBiscuit’s beta footage of the character creator and starting zone footage if you’re curious) and Earthrise come to mind (along with Rift in about two more months) - not to mention the substantial number of games recently on sale on Steam and other digital vendors (I’m currently knee-deep in Darkstar One and revisiting City of Heroes briefly).

WoW, on the other hand, is just something I’m playing if I’m feeling bored (or more accurately, until I get bored, which isn’t taking long). Cataclysm might have changed the world, but it wasn’t really a change that’s worked for me.

/wave

Priest PvP Gear: 4.0.1 Update

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 10:25:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “Act of War” by Elton John and Millie Jackson

I’m still easing my way back into the game, but thought it was time to start getting my head around the changes Honor Points have made to buying PvP gear. My old guide here still covers most of the available gear, but it’s now possible to buy items that previously required an arena rating (namely weapons and accessories).

I’m also expanding the list to include all available caster cloth (I’m not really up with the play as far as the preferred stats for different specs, so the math is up to you). Basically these lists will tell you what is available, but it’s up to you which pieces you buy.

First, the PvP sets that are now available for purchase. There’s not really any reason to purchase the older sets (unless you like the aesthetics of a particular set), so you should really save up for the best – however, you’re unable to purchase the Wrathful shoulders which still require an arena or battleground rating of 2000 (which can’t be earned until the next season, at which time this gear will be obsolete). The difference between the two sets is (now, at least) that the Investiture set has spirit where the Raiment set has crit rating.

	Savage Inv/Rai	Hateful Inv/Rai	Deadly Inv/Rai	Furious Inv/Rai	Relentless Inv/Rai	Wrathful Inv/Rai
Head	550	660	770	935	1100	1650
Shoulder	348	417	487	591	695	n/a
Chest	550	660	770	935	1100	1650
Gloves	348	417	487	591	695	1040
Legs	550	660	770	935	1100	1650
ilvl	200	200	213	232	251	270

You also now have a wide variety of weapons to choose from, as the lower tier of arena weapons are no longer require an arena rating to purchase.

Weapons and Accessories (ilvl264)
Wrathful Gladiator’s War Staff (Haste)	2550
Wrathful Gladiator’s Focus Staff (Hit)	2550
Wrathful Gladiator’s Battle Staff (Crit)	2550
Wrathful Gladiator’s Energy Staff (Spirit)	2550
Wrathful Gladiator’s Spellblade (Crit)	1830
Wrathful Gladiator’s Blade of Alacrity (Haste)	1830
Wrathful Gladiator’s Gavel (Spirit)	1830
Wrathful Gladiator’s Endgame (Crit)	70
Wrathful Gladiator’s Compendium (Haste)	70
Wrathful Gladiator’s Grimoire (Spell Pen)	70
Wrathful Gladiator’s Reprieve (Spirit)	70
Wrathful Gladiator’s Touch of Defeat (Crit)	260
Wrathful Gladiator’s Wand of Alacrity (Haste)	260
Wrathful Gladiator’s Piercing Touch (Spell Pen)	260
Wrathful Gladiator’s Baton of Light (Spirit)	260

And of course there are the accompanying accessories and non-set items available from the usual vendor.

Wrathful Gladiator non-set items
Cord of Dominance (crit)	945
Cord of Alacrity (haste)	945
Cord of Salvation (spirit)	945
Treads of Dominance (crit)	945
Treads of Alacrity (haste)	945
Treads of Salvation (spirit)	945
Cuffs of Dominance (crit)	600
Cuffs of Alacrity (haste)	600
Cuffs of Salvation (spirit)	600
Cloak of Dominance (crit)	725
Cloak of Subjugation (haste)	725
Cloak of Ascendancy (hit)	725
Cloak of Salvation (spirit)	725
Cloak of Deliverance (spirit)	725
Band of Dominance	725
Pendant of Dominance (crit)	725
Pendant of Subjugation (haste)	725
Pendant of Ascendancy (hit)	725
Pendant of Salvation (spirit)	725
Pendant of Deliverance (spirit)	725

It’s still possible to purchase Relentless and Furious non-set items, but for the minimal saving you may as well buy the best you can. The Battlemaster’s trinkets are still available (along with an updated faction Medallion) and may have some use, along with the PvP shoulder enchant.

Medallion of the Alliance/Horde (ilvl264)	945
Battlemaster’s Ruination (int)	630
Battlemaster’s Fury (crit)	630
Battlemaster’s Vivacity (haste)	630
Battlemaster’s Precision (hit)	630
Greater Inscription of the Gladiator	165

Wintergrasp items now also cost honor points – a change that could be argued is long overdue,especially if your faction has had trouble winning or defending Wintergrasp. Admittedly at this stage the only pieces worth bothering with would be the shoulderpads (at a stretch - the Relentless set shoulders are the same item level), and possibly trinkets.

	Price	ilvl
Titan-Forged Cloak of Ascendancy	280	245
Titan-Forged Pendant of Ascendancy	280	245
Titan-Forged Shoulderpads of Salvation	490	251
Titan-Forged Shoulderpads of Domination	490	251
Arcanum of Dominance	65
Inscription of Dominance	50
Flow of Knowledge	280	200
Titan-Forged Slippers of Dominance	280	200
Titan-Forged Slippers of Salvation	280	200
Titan-Forged Hood of Dominance	490	200
Titan-Forged Hood of Salvation	490	200
Titan-Forged Raiment of Dominance	490	213
Titan-Forged Raiment of Salvation	490	213
Titan-Forged Cord of Salvation	280	213
Titan-Forged Cord of Determination	280	213
Titan-Forged Rune of Audacity	280	213
Titan-Forged Rune of Cruelty	280	213
Titan-Forged Rune of Accuracy	280	213
Titan-Forged Rune of Alacrity	280	213
Platinum Disks of Sorcery	280	213
Platinum Disks of Swiftness	280	213
Titan-Forged Cloth Trousers of Salvation	490	232
Titan-Forged Cloth Trousers of Domination	490	232
Titan-Forged Cuffs of Salvation	280	226
Titan-Forged Band of Ascendancy	280	226

In any case, it’s now entirely possible to gear up in battlegrounds (now that weapons, off-hands and frills are available).

Hope this is helpful, now it’s not really neccesary. (Will we have the Shattering next week? I’m certainly hoping so!)

/wave

Glyphmas Comes But Once An Expansion

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:17:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “They Say It’s Spring” by Blossom Dearie (in honour of some glorious spring days of late)

Hmmm, has it really been so long? (Considering my last post was over three weeks ago, signs point to “Yes”)

I haven’t fallen off the edge of Azeroth, at least not all the way down. I’ve been taking a breather, and enjoying things outside of WoW, not least of which is a change of diet (tried buckwheat noodles for dinner tonight, and it was particularly yummy) and getting some exercise into my day (inspired by Xeonio’s progress). I’ve also been reading about Stoicism, after coming across a link to a book review on the subject on Boing Boing a couple of months back.

In-game, I’ve been reaping the profits of being a Scribe; Glyphmas has been and gone, and I’ve made over 200k in sales (only 150k of that being profit, as I hadn’t prepared for it with anything remotely resembling diligence, and I missed the first couple of days). I’ve also been spending some of my collected Justice Points to gear up Ringle and Mingle (Isn’t the new community site nifty? I’ll admit to a “They wouldn’t dare” moment when I saw my RL name displayed above my selected main character, but it appears to only show up for you when you’re logged in), despite the fact the gear will be replaced by quest rewards in under a month (and I definitely won’t be keeping it, especially that truly awful rogue T10).

I’ve also been farming crusader seals with Ringle (although not from jousting) in order to purchase the third hippogryph mount for her enjoyment (probably my favourite mount in the game); tomorrow will put her over the magic 150, which leaves me in search of a new goal.

And I’ve been roped into joining a guild which a friend is an officer in(ostentionably to help with guild leveling, but probably really because they just don’t have enough gorgeous dwarven women). I’m keeping Pringle in OOTA as my banker (I really wish we had goblins on Alli side for that), but Dingle, Ringle and Mingle have all jumped ship.

I’ve been doing a little bit of writing for my arty project, but it’s still early days and I’m trying to decided what format to take it in. (My inability to write accents doesn’t help, especially with the dwarf-heavy cast. Actually, writing dialogue at all is a challenge.)

For now, it’s time for more writing (although no NaNoWriMo for me, unlike other more talented writers), the occasional daily LFD, and the tail-end of Glyphmas. Oh, and sleep. [3AM Crits you for 100k]

/wave

WoW: An Artistic Experiment

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 14:30:00 +0000

I’ve been contemplating a new project (related to this blog), and as part of my deliberations I put together this little combination of screenshot, WoWModelViewer, Photoshop (and a couple of nice little 3rd-party filters).

It’s just a proof-of-concept image (click for the full image), intended to make it look like I’ve been busy while I consider my options (and take lots of notes). It’s called “Entering Ironforge” – what can I say, I love prosaic titles.

/wave

WoW: Guess What’s Hiding In 4.0.1

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 12:55:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “Moondance” by Van Morrison

I noticed something interesting while 4.0.1 was installing, and now I’ve found a working version of WoWModelViewer (the ‘DEV WORK’ version, so you should be surprised if it works) I found something veeeeeeery nice.

Isn’t Miss Goblin cute? And she has company.

Meet Mister Goblin. Some great little touches in his animations – I particularly love the way his ears sag when he cries, it’s quite touching.

Mr Worgan. Pretty much what you’d expect. And last, but not least…

And Ms Worgen. While she’s still prone to lycanthropic Chihuahua-ism when viewed from certain angles (and some of her animations have clipping issues with her armour that you wouldn’t believe), she’s not as poorly modeled as the initial screenshots of her from the char select screen would suggest.

She does seem to need a good few layers of polish, though.

Roll on 4.0.3!

/wave

WoW: Vanity Thy Name Is…

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 12:16:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon

I decided to do something about my unguilded state, and the easiest route was a vanity guild for myself. I purchased the guild bank slots while I was at it, so there’s a lot of space for me to fill with bits and pieces while I wait for Cata.

I’m not planning on making the guild a ‘real’ one (I’ve been a GL before, and it turns out I’m pretty dire at it), but it gives me somewhere to put my alts while I fail to get around to finding a raiding guild for Cata.

Now to go fishing for Mr Pinchy.

/wave

Shared Topic: What’s In A Name?

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 02:27:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “Who? Where? Why?” by Jesus Jones

I’m usually not motivated enough to take part in the shared topics on Blog Azeroth, but this one caught me at a time when I’m reassessing my naming habits in preparation for adding new characters to my roster, come 4.0.1 and Cataclysm. (Warning: incoming stream of consciousness!)

I initially touched on my naming habits a looooooong time ago, but for those new here it can all be traced back to a mouse. I love the name Dinglemouse, a character from Spike Milligan’s book Badjelly the Witch (which I really need to buy a copy of). When I initially considered using the name for one of my characters, I decided to save it and try a variation first, which was Pringlerouse. Variations begat variations, and soon I had seven dwarves to play with (although Fingle has since moved servers, leaving me with an open spot in the roster, and there’s still no Snow White to keep them in line).

My current assortment on Dath’Remar, nominally my home server, is Pringlerouse (80 rogue), Kringlelouse (80 hunter), Dinglemouse (80 warrior, and star of my last few blog posts), Ringleprouse (80 rogue), Mingledouse (80 priest), Binglerouse (80 pally), Tingleflouse (35 druid and the only non-dwarf) and Ninglethouse (very disposable 58 DK and AH mule). On other servers my highest level characters are server transferee Finglethouse, an 80 dwarf priest and Pringle, an 80 gnome rogue on Argent Dawn (home of SAN-US), and Dinglemouse, a 70 troll rogue on Aman’Thul.

While Pringle, Dingle, Mingle and Ringle are pretty much guaranteed to stay around on Dath, I’m looking at re-rolling (and probably renaming) Kringle and Bingle with 4.0.1, and replacing (and definitely renaming) Tingle with a Worgen druid come Cataclysm. My quandary now is how best to name these new characters - it’s been hard to come up with names that fitted the system I’d been using yet sounded as good as the original ones (Kringlelouse never really rang true, and Binglerouse sounds more like a gnome), and I’ve been resistant to the idea of breaking tradition (at least, until now).

Incidentally, one little exercise which has helped me firm up the identities behind the names of my characters was a collection of little thumbnail descriptions I did of each of the main characters when I entered the Cataclysm Comic Contest a few weeks back on Disciplinary Action. (The winners’ prizes were really quite delightful, by the way)

Mingledouse, the pathologically pessimistic priest.
Dinglemouse, the timid tank.
Kringlelouse, the hunter who’s allergic to pets.
Binglerouse, the paladin atheist.
Ringleprouse, the clumsy yet ridiculously lucky rogue.
Pringlerouse, not a serial killer, honest.

Needless to say, while I’m definitely not a roleplayer it was fun to come up with simple hooks upon which I can hang the identities of my characters (even if they are just currently purely cosmetic hooks – although the behind-the-webcomic-scenes post on DA today has left me… a little contemplative of possibilities).

But I digress. (Like usual)

As I said above, for my dwarves my current system hasn’t really scaled beyond four of the first five, which means it’s as good a time as any to come up with something new (and probably more individual this time round), which means time to hit some online name generators to see what I can find which sounds good (probably my only criteria).

As far as other characters go, well, they’ve pretty much inherited dwarven names out of habit. My troll desperately needs a unique name of his own, and I’ll have to get creative if I roll some more horde-side characters (including a goblin, of course). As names are pretty much forever (or until you spend some cold, hard cash), they’re not something I want to come to regret. Time to cogitate.

After all, the Cataclysm is coming, so what better time to make some sweeping changes. Not just to how you play, but also to who.

/wave

WoW: D1 Mission Accomplished

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 10:52:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “Uam Uam” by Povo

After much trials, tribulations, and many many runs of UBRS, I’ve not only completed Dingle’s D1 set, I’ve also completed the quest chains to upgrade it all to D2.

For the D2 set, WoW Insider helped out again with its mini-guide for the upgrade quest chains. But there’s several bits and pieces that they didn’t elaborate upon, which took a bit of doing on top of the ridiculous amount of travelling required for the D2 quests.

The first noticeable hurdle was Anthion’s Strange Request, the third quest in the chain to upgrade your leg, feet and shoulder pieces. This quest has you provide three Dark Iron Bars, 20 Enchanted Leather, three Mooncloth and four Cured Rugged Hides. The mooncloth was easy to find on the AH, but I had to make the Enchanted Leather and Cured Rugged Hides on my enchanter and leatherworker. The Dark Iron Bars are a little trickier, as you need to complete The Spectral Chalice in BRD before your miner is able to smelt them from ore. It was an easy solo for my level 80, and it took longer to procure the 10 truesilver bars than anything else.

Anthion’s Old Friend was the next hiccup, requiring the Crescent Key to get into the Dire Maul library. Fortunately this is just a minor speed bump, requiring a partial run through Dire Maul East to kill Pussilin for it.

The Three Kings of Flame is another speed bump, with Duke of Cynders being noticeably subject to the RNG. I stocked up with several sets of the Twilight Cultist gear (and a couple of Abyssal Signets) from the AH to use in the numerous attempts at summoning which you may (or may not) need to get him to appear – he’s a 1-in-4 chance from a Wind Stone, so good luck!

The last hold-up was getting a Flask of Supreme Power to turn-in for Final Preparations. As a vanilla flask, it wasn’t listed on the AH all that frequently, and I ended up taking one of my alchemists into Scholomance to farm Ras Frostwhisper for the recipe.

In the end, the longest hold-up to completing my D2 was actually getting the last item of my D1, the Breastplate of Valor, to drop. It was only on Dingle’s 19th run that Drakkisath finally relinquished it. And then it was back to Ironforge to turn in the final quest, and receive the last two pieces of her D2.

Accessorising is still a work in progress, but for now I’m using Dal’Rend’s Sacred Charge and the Draconian Deflector, along with the Knight’s Colors tabard. The weapon isn’t perfect, but it looks more substantial than the usual one-handed weapons, and the colours of the shield are close enough.

Next? Well, that’s a good question. Which is to say, I have no idea just yet. But with luck 4.0.1 is under a week away, and that’ll mean new toys (or at least, new abilities) to play with.

For now, I guess I’ll go on a road-tour of capitals or something suitably exhibitionist.

/wave

WoW: More D1 Farming

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 03:42:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere” by The Moody Blues

Now I’m busy farming for Dingle’s pieces of D1 (as opposed to planning for it), I’ve come across some useful tips (and things that would have saved me some time, had I thought of them earlier).

First, of course, is WoW Insider, who’ve put together a list of all the Dungeon One pieces for all 9 classes who have a set. Have a look here.

Scholomance:

Guess who forgot that the place needs a key? You’ll want to make sure you’ve unlocked the quest chain by doing Clear the Way and All Along the Watchtowers, at which stage you can pick up Scholomance (and get ready to go to Gadgetzan and Un’goro Crater).

Kirtonos the Herald? Well, turns out he needs an item to be summoned, Blood of Innocents. Quest time again! You’ll want to talk to Eva Sarkhoff, who stands just outside Scholomance. After several pages of dialogue, you’re offered the first quest in her chain, Doctor Theolen Krostinov, the Butcher.

In the followup quest, Krastinov’s Bag of Horrors, you’ll be called upon to kill Janice Barov, who’s tricky to find (especially if you don’t know your way around the place, as was the case for me). Once you’ve completed and turned in this quest you’re given your first Blood, and future kills of the Blood Steward of Kirtonos (an NPC in the library), Doctor Krastinov and Jandice usually drop additional bloods.

To summon Darkmaster Gandling, who drops the Helm, you need to kill the six mini-bosses around his study, along with all the mobs in Instructor Malicia’s room. This can be tricky for a strictly physical damage class like a warrior, as the Scholomance Occultists have a nasty habit of turning into ghosts who are immune to physical damage when their health reaches around 40%. This is a good time to be an engineer for the Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket (Stratholme Holy Water is a useful alternative for a non-engineer). The best way I found was to use devastate until the occultist reached around 60% health, then Shield Slam (or Revenge, although that can cause problems if you’re specced into Improved Revenge as the damage to a second occultist can cause it to transform) to kill it before it could transform.

Blackrock Spire:

Lost much? (Well, yes actually.) I was surprised to realise that the dungeons referred to as Lower Blackrock Spire and Upper Blackrock Spire (LBRS and UBRS respectively) are actually two areas of the same instance. While you’ll likely to learn your way around after some time, expect to get lost a lot. The Atlas addon is highly recommended in here (and looking for walkthrough videos on youtube is probably a good idea as well).

For warriors I’d recommend working through UBRS first (as two bosses drop D1 pieces) and then clearing out LBRS for the small chance that your Bracers drop (and bear in mind when they say those are a rare drop, they’re not kidding).

I’ve managed to accumulate seven pieces now, with only the Breastplate eluding me (and let me say now, I really dislike Drakkisath’s conflagration attack). Time to take a break and upgrade the pieces I have into their D2 equivalents. Queue “Farming D2” post!

Which leads to the eternal question: how best to accessorise?

/wave

WoW: Boredom And Dungeon 1 Sets

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 03:29:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “Maniac” by Michael Sembello

In my quest to make my characters look like my characters (as opposed to your average I-pug-for-badges tier-wearer), I discovered a new self-evident truth: when you’re feeling bored and are looking for something to farm, there’s always your class’s Dungeon 1 set. (Ok, in this instance ‘your class’ doesn’t include death knights as they don’t have any item sets in vanilla or TBC content, but who plays a DK anyway?)

Now that I’ve a comfortable quantity of gold under my belt, the lull between dull, dreary old content and ZOMG exciting new content is subject to a little nagging temptation: “Hey, why don’t you spend some of that gold on your alts, with prices for mats and gear getting so low?” Needless to say, it wouldn’t take long to turn that comfortable quantity into a very small pile, regardless of low prices. (Plus with Cata coming Soon™, why spend gold on something soon to be replaced with questing greens?)

The character who’s been tempting me the most has been my warrior tank, Dinglemouse. This is fortunate as she’s not only capable of grinding through old Azeroth content (although pretty much any characters can manage it at level 80 with half-decent gear), but is also an engineer which offers some time-saving abilities when out in the field with Scrapbots to vendor trash (quite inexpensively as well, at a cost of only 2 saronite bars per bot) and Moll-E and Jeeves for extra ways to empty my bags of more valuable items if needed.

First, though, you need to work out where the set pieces drop. Cue this handy table for the warrior items:

Item	Dropped By	Found In
Helm of Valor	Darkmaster Gandling	Scholomance
Spaulders of Valor	Warchief Rend Blackhand	Upper Blackrock Spire
Breastplate of Valor	General Drakkisath	Upper Blackrock Spire
Bracers of Valor (BoE)	Trash mobs, Quartermaster Zigris	Lower Blackrock Spire
Gauntlets of Valor (BoE)	Ramstein the Gorger	Stratholme
Legplates of Valor	Baron Rivendare	Stratholme
Belt of Valor (BoE)	Trash mobs	Stratholme, Lower Blackrock Spire
Boots of Valor	Kirtonos the Herald	Scholomance

Now, three of these pieces are BoE and can be picked up in the AH (usually for a song). However, the gauntlets and belt are easy to pick up in Stratholme while farming Rivendare for the legplates, so purchasing them is likely unnecessary. The bracers on the other hand are worth purchasing if you come across them, as they’re the only item (once you have the belt) that requires running LBRS.

For convenience I started at the north of the continent, running Stratholme until I had the belt and gauntlets – I’m currently waiting for Rivendare to cough up the legplates (although if his mount drops, it might convince me to forgive him). Next will be Scholomance for the Helm and Boots. If I haven’t found the bracers by this stage, LBRS will follow on. And last (but not least) is UBRS for the spaulders and breastplate.

Once I’ve accumulated them all, maybe I’ll look at upgrading them to their Dungeon Set 2 equivalent. We’ll see how it goes, though.

For now? Stratholme awaits!

/wave

WoW: The Coming Add-on Cataclysm

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 03:16:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “Cataclysm” by Blizzard.

There’s nothing like visiting the PTR to convince you it’s time to re-subscribe to WoW. Hence I’ve returned (albeit not especially triumphantly).

So I’ve started tidying up some loose ends on my old main characters on alliance side and have been trying to get my solitary high-level horde alt (ding 64!) up in level enough to do the new troll quest chain (despite the likelihood that it’s probably going to be just as truncated and as underwhelming an experience as the Gnomes failure to recapture Gnomeregan was).

But my limited time on the PTR reminded me of one important little detail: when Cataclysm strikes and (insert rampant hyperbole here, describing how things changing ruins the game you know and love, while simultaneously bitching about the game you know and love because it’s all the same and nothing changes and… oh, wait), it’s also likely going to be losing a number of the addons we currently know and love. (Ask yourself how long it’s been since some of the addons you may be using have been updated? My oldest was last updated Jul 2008…)

I transferred an 80 rogue and 80 priest onto the PTR, and while I can play a rogue with the default UI (well, I can solo; raiding would probably be kind of difficult) there’s no way in heck I could even heal a 5-man without Vuhdo. Looking at the collection of addons in my live install, it’s clear I’m going to have a lot of work ahead of me to get ready for Cata, not just in winnowing out those which are now unsupported, but also in searching for the new and improved.

There are three parts to the UI that my UI layout revolves around:

Action Bars: The default bars are almost the only part of the UI that I leave untouched – not only are they perfectly functional (and guaranteed to work the day after a big patch), but I also like the art used when you’re controlling vehicles.
Player/Target Frames: While sparse of information and truly awfully positioned (especially for classes with rapidly changing resources to manage, such as rogues, hunters and warriors) they do the job; in the past I’ve usually replaced them with XPerl, which is the best implementation I’ve come across so far of “It Just Works” in terms of unitframe addons. I find unitframes, once more sanely positioned, are best supported by a HUD in the centre of the screen, so important information is located where your attention is focused. (MetaHUD is my current HUD of choice, having dropped DHUD which hasn’t been updated for a while)
Raid Frames: I rely upon these for my healing, and experience shows I perform best with spells bound to all four mouse buttons (left/right/forward/back) with shift/ctrl/alt modifiers. My addon of choice for this is Vuhdo, which handles both frames and mouse-over healing quite capably (but isn’t currently PTR-ready, although apparently there’s a version for the Beta).

After those, it starts to get cosmetic. Unlike minimalists, I like having access to more information than the default UI usually reveals (although not necessarily displayed all the time). A Data Broker bar addon (and assorted modules) is great for this, my current being ChocolateBar. The minimap gets replaced and moved to the centre-top of the screen, cue Chinchilla. A more detailed buff/debuff display, Elkano’s BuffBars. Replace Blizz’s Floating Combat Text with MikScrollingBattleText. Replace chat windows with Prat and WIM. Then there’s Auctioneer, of course. And who can forget DeadlyBossMods?

To that you can add convenience addons like Atlas/Atlasloot, Fishing Buddy, Mapster, Opie, Outfitter, Skada, and little things like No Gryphons. And that barely scratches the surface of the various bits and pieces I’ve accumulated – I have 235 folders in my Addons directory, probably representing near on a hundred addons installed.

Methinks ‘tis time to cut back. And hey, what a great opportunity for it!

/wave

The Other Kind of Rock and Roll

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:22:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “I Feel the Earth Move” by Carole King

It’s been an… interesting week down here. We had a little 7.1 magnitude earthquake here in sunny Christchurch early last Saturday morning, and things are only just starting to settle down (finally). Thanks to a combination of timing and a solid building code, there was only one death (a heart attack during the quake) and two serious injuries (a man injured by a collapsing chimney and another man badly cut by glass).

Fortunately the suburb that I live in didn’t suffer any serious damage (both the power and internet remained on for me, as did the water although it was necessary to boil it before use for a few days as a precautionary measure); unfortunately, other areas haven’t been as lucky. A sizeable number of buildings have been left damaged, especially in the CBD and the east side of the city. Still, barring a much larger aftershock than the 3-5 ones we’ve been enjoy since the quake, the drama is all over and we’re working on picking up the pieces and getting our lives back in order. (And we don’t need charity; we’re pretty well supported already)

Personally, I’m still kind of on tenterhooks to some degree; I wasn’t particularly anxious during (and after) the quake itself, but the steady stream of aftershocks are starting to leave me feeling increasingly shaken (both literally and figuratively), especially when they’ve been going on for days as is the case here (apparently as I write this there’s been anywhere between 200 and 400 magnitude 3 or greater aftershocks since the quake a week ago, depending on which expert you ask).

Needless to say, my pc gaming has been pretty sporadic. I’ve spent more time over the last few days playing tower defense games on my ipod than I have playing much else on the pc. (And doesn’t the new ipod touch look appealing? I’m seriously considering saving for one, and maybe one of the new shuffles to free up space on my touch for more games if I pick up the cheaper 8gb model.)

Touching on WoW briefly, it was interesting to see the new Gnome and Troll quest chains have finally gone live. I wonder if that means we’re getting even closer to the Cata launch – anyone care to put money on it being under 3 months away? Needless to say, the news of something new to do in-game made me consider whether it’s time to re-sub to the game, but after reading of Gnomeageddon’s disappointment I’ve decided to give it another month. (I’d have to finish levelling a horde-side character to do the troll chain as well)

I very briefly logged into LotRO for the f2p headstart, but haven’t bothered to go past the store after finding that the turbine points I was supposed to have earned haven’t shown up yet. It turns out that a number of players are in the same situation, and leaves me wondering why they bothered going ahead with a headstart if they couldn’t give players their stipend to spend before the event ended. (The word “bone-headed” comes to mind…)

My time in EQ2E has also dwindled for some reason. I’ve joined a couple of guilds (each character in a different one), but for some reason I just haven’t been able to settle into the group, and my play sessions have been generally dissatisfying. It’s probably more my solitary nature coming to the fore, but it’s still left me irritated (albeit with myself).

On my ipod, on the other hand… Between Fieldrunners, The Creeps and TowerMadness, my TD itch is being well and truly scratched (and that’s not counting the other 6 TD games I have installed). I’m kind of ambivalent about the Game Center functionality that Apple added with OS4.1 though; it just looks like an unwieldy version of what you can already get with OpenFeint and Plus+ (and probably a number of other social platforms offer).

Well, it’s getting late so I’m going to cut my post short around here. I’ll just add that I’m now on twitter (like all the other cool kids), but don’t say much (in much the same way as I am IRL).

Two more links before I go: “Thirteen things I learnt from an earthquake.” and an alternate version of “I Feel The Earth Move” by Loretta Swit and the Muppets.

/wave

WoW: Making Old Gear Relevant

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:54:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “Q baiano” by Zuco 103

One thing about the gear-grind in WoW that tended to irritate me, is that it’s almost impossible to make your character look like something other than one more tier-X-geared member of class Y. This little proposal is one way Blizzard could give players back an additional degree of personalisation for their characters.

The idea, at its heart, is a very simple one: give us the means to upgrade the stats on old tier armour to something close to either the current or previous tier of raiding equipment.

Let’s see what we have to work with, using the rogue tier sets as an example.

Tier	Set Name	iLevel	Era
1	Nightslayer	66	Vanilla
2	Bloodfang	76	Vanilla
3	Bonescythe	86-92	Vanilla
4	Netherblade	120	BC
5	Deathmantle	133	BC
6	Slayer’s	146-154	BC
7	Heroes’ Bonescythe	200	LK Naxx
7	Valorous Bonescythe	213	LK Naxx
8	Valorous Terrorblade	219	LK Ulduar
8	Conqueror’s Terrorblade	226	LK Ulduar
9	Conqueror’s Blah	232	LK TotC
9	Triumphant Blah	245	LK TotC
9	Heroic Triumphant Blah	258	LK TotC
10	Shadowblade	251	LK ICC
10	Sanctified Shadowblade	264	LK ICC
10	Heroic Sanctified Shadowblade	277	LK ICC

That’s a total of 16 sets (10 if you exclude colour variations). Yet in game at the moment you’re unlikely to see anything less than the top two tiers, especially when raiding.

There’s several approaches that could be taken to achieve this, but the simplest is to offer upgrade tokens purchased with emblems rewarded by dungeons and raids.

Let’s look at the rogue t1 chest, as an example.

Nightslayer Chestpiece, drops from Golemagg in Molten Core. Look at those lovely stats: 10str, 29agi, 20stam, 10 fire resist, and 14 crit.

Now, imagine if you will, a ‘generic’ set of stats for each armour slot, not quite as good as the highest tier set you can buy with each set of emblems. As there are two tiers of emblems being awarded from dungeons and raids, let’s see what they can buy:

Conquest: Garona’s/VanCleef’s Breastplate of Conquest (ilvl 232)
Frost: Shadowblade Breastplate (ilvl 251)

Now, apply 95% of the stats from each of those, and you have two upgraded items that wouldn’t be out of place in a (starting) raid today.

Upgraded Nightslayer Chestpiece (purchased with normal emblems):
Stats: 95agi, 114stam, 68 hit, 76 crit, 137ap
Heroic Nightslayer Chestpiece (purchased with heroic emblems):
Stats: 136agi, 136stam, 91 hit, 151ap, 76 armor pen

Working from that premise, let’s create our pair of tokens. One that is purchased for standard emblems, and one which requires heroic emblems (that two-tier system being the standard for cataclysm, last time I checked).

The upgrade token, when used, replaces the tier item with a new piece that has the same model but with modern stats, which makes the item wearable for (non-progression) raiding. For balance reasons, the upgraded tier sets would have a standard set of bonuses and sockets for each class, shared across all upgraded pieces that a player wears.

There would be limitations, of course. Upgraded pieces would be bound to the person upgrading, and players could only upgrade useable tier pieces (which are limited to their specific class – no Pallies in cloth T1). If desired by Blizz (who like to have things for players to spend their badges on), items could required a new upgrade token with each new raiding tier. Perhaps allow players to sell unused upgrade tokens, which would offer another source of income for players who save their badges, and another gold-sink for players who want to spend their gold.

(While a similar scheme could work for pvp gear, it would likely be considered too much work for Blizzard, and not just because it’s almost impossible to acquire some old sets (and would make it hard to judge a player’s skill by their gear), but the likelihood of complaints skyrocketing on the forums about rogues wiping the floor with season-8-geared players while wearing upgraded Field Marshal’s Vestments could get messy…)

This would also act as an incentive for players to revisit old content (to acquire the tier pieces to upgrade), and give us a new way to invest ourselves in our avatars (which has been lacking in this new age of identical players in tier gear from running heroics).

Now, I don’t really see this ever happening, to be honest – for whatever reason, Blizz is quite happy to let old content go to waste (both raids and gear – when was the last time you heard of a successful pug Naxx run?) while they implement the new shinies in the form of higher tiers of raid content and gear (and we’ve seen how well they put the raids together in Wrath… sigh…). But I for one would love to be able to step into the Cataclysm raids wearing an upgraded set of the awesome t5 on one of my priests.

/wave

EQ2: To Heck With It, I’m Having Fun

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 06:58:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “Pulp Culture” by Thomas Dolby

I know I ranted, and raved, and complained when EverQuest II Extended was announced… (I did draw the line at throwing excrement, however – something I’m relieved about in hindsight) But I’ve since downloaded and installed the Extended client, and have started working on a new Ratonga after reading an enlightening post on Mystic Worlds.

The post, Logic of Subscribing on EQ2 Extended, reminded me of two things that had slipped my mind. First, it’s possible to have fun despite external limitations. And second, it’s silly to be put off something wonderful by something (or someone) disagreeable.

Oh, and third, it’s fine to change your mind.

(Also, with the pleasure I took in leveling Mingle, the phrase “Cutting off the nose to spite the face” comes to mind)

Reading back to my throw-my-toys-out-of-the-cot post about why I was leaving, I think my complaints still hold true. I still expect to get lost. The lore isn’t really well explaining. And crafting is only going to be more difficult, with the chronic lack of bag space for non-subscribers.

But I’ve started to come to terms with the RMT nature of the game – I might not agree with the prices, but I’m not the target audience for most of what they’re offering. As it is, all the game has cost me so far has been the data to download the client (which is still streaming in the background – 12GB takes a while, but you’re no longer stuck until the download has completed) and my time.

I had sufficient station cash on my account from special offers in the past (SC is the currency that Sony uses in their various in-game stores) to allow me to unlock Ratongas (along with another couple of races I’ll likely never play), so buying that pack was a no-brainer. I’ll probably be making my initial purchase of SC this weekend, which will raise my membership level to silver and give me an extra bag slot to play with (and I’m thinking of buying some diamonds as well, the Runes of Magic currency).

Incidentally, I’d started playing before the news surfaced on the forums today that SOE are going to be allowing bronze and silver members to purchase classes in the near future, and are considering changing the bronze chat limitations (currently limited to /say, /tell, /group and /guild) and may be allowing bronze and silver some form of access to the broker. So that’s my biggest complaint about the EQ2E tiered-membership system fixed, and another one that might be soon.

Anyway, it’s been a nice, low-pressure couple of weeks – I’ve been playing Spellforce (a nice RPG/RTS combo from 2003, which was on special on Gamersgate), started playing Runes of Magic (which is deserving of a post of its own at some stage), (re-)started EQ2E, and briefly played Alganon (very briefly; after I was able to stop turning my nose up at it, uninstalled it and deleted the installation files, something I’m rarely driven to do).

I’m also having something of a dalliance with the idea of learning German. (Yes, I have a foolish reason why: Perry Rhodan)

And twitter… Well, let’s just say, I’m exploring my options. (On that note, can anyone recommend a good twitter client for windows?)

Well, Pringlerouse awaits my attention – she’s busy with her betrayal quests, working towards signing up with Qeynos. (Having run through 14 levels of Neriak starting quests, I’m very glad to not be dealing with their so-bad-they’re-almost-parody brand of evil any longer – I’m amazed there wasn’t a baby-eating delivery quest in there somewhere)

Oh, and a prize* for the first person to identify the source of the lyrics attached to the screenshot above.

/wave

* – 1x unopened sense of satisfaction – single owner, never used. (Offer void where prohibited by law)

GW: Fulfilling Prophecies

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 12:46:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “I Don’t Care” by Shakespears Sister

I have to say, Guild Wars is probably the most single-player-friendly MMO I’ve come across. When you’re the single human in a party with 6 computer-controlled NPCs, one player-controlled hero NPC, and an idiot pet, it’s actually surprisingly reminiscent of Dungeon Siege (the stupidly fun first one, not the beaten-with-the-idiot-stick sequel).

The change of focus from traditional MMO epic-loot-centric play to the much more skill-centric mechanics of GW is a curious one to work through. My ranger/monk is sitting on level 15 at the moment, and is working on some of the side-quests around Kryta (around #3 on the primary quest chain list here – which puts my progression at around 10 of the 25 co-operative missions in the Prophecies campaign), and is getting pretty close to the level 20 cap. At 20, further progression comes in the form of acquiring additional skills and working through the campaigns. While there are some further armor and weapon upgrades (at least, as far as I can see in the GW wiki), they’re not exponentially stronger in the manner WoW endgame gear is.

While the items don’t approach the degree of aesthetic variation that WoW offers (you really have to admire the sheer volume of different armor designs that Blizzard’s art team has come up with over the years), they offer sufficient variation to allow you to personalise your character quite nicely – I don’t think I’ve seen many people identically dressed in the crowds I’ve seen in Kryta so far. (I’m quite fond of the long-coat look of the Ranger Monument armor, although the Deldrimor armor has a certain charm as well)

I’ve also invested $10 into purchasing the Bonus Mission pack; after completing the missions it’s possible to turn in the verified quest item for some nice weapons - I chose a nice Charr shortbow for Ringle to replace the Nevermore Flatbow bonus that came (along with a handful of other weapons for other classes) with the Guild Wars Trilogy pack.

The mechanic of co-operative missions is also quite interesting to work with. The entrance is essentially an outpost (where you have access to a merchant and the bank), and from there you can form a party (either with NPCs, Heroes that you’ve unlocked, or other players) and then attempt the mission for that outpost. The biggest downside is if you fail the mission (you all die, or a key NPC is killed) you’re returned to the entrance zone, and have to restart the mission. Needless to say, if it’s a long mission, it can get frustrating. But with the ability to work through the missions single-handed (well, with henchmen) makes it a good fit for my anti-social nature.

The two styles of computer-controlled adventurers are also a nice touch. The original variety are Henchmen: they’re essentially computer-controlled NPCs, which you have pretty much minimal control over (you can set a waypoint for them to move to and stay at, but that’s about it). With the Nightfall expansion came Heroes: think of them as Henchmen v2. Unlike henchmen, heroes can have their skills and equipment changed like those of your player character (although only at a town or outpost).

Heroes, along with Ranger pets, are also subject to slightly more player control than henchmen: they have a control panel that gives you about as much control over them as an old-school WoW hunter had of their pets, which can be summed up pretty much as “Attack, Defend, Passive”. Needless to say, don’t expect to have any fine-grain control over your computerised party members.

All in all, I’m enjoying my time in GW – indeed, it’s quite possible I’d be subscribing if it had been a subscription MMO. And having seen the GW2 Manifesto video, I’m very much looking forward to ArenaNet’s next move.

But I’m not sure they can top this:

/wave

GW: What A Diff’rence A Space Makes

noreply@blogger.com (KiwiRed) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:43:00 +0000

Post soundtrack: “Space Oddity” by David Bowie

Well, NCSoft’s customer service has gotten back in touch, and it turns out I forgot that Guild Wars character names need to consist of (at least) two parts. Turns out the character I created was called “Mingle Douse”. …Sigh…

Needless to say, I’ve taken the precaution of taking a screenshot with character name showing. It’s not of ex-Mingle though, who I’ve deleted as befits such a troublesome disposable character. My new character is a Ranger/Monk called “Kay Pringlerouse”, who is level 5 and busy working through the initial Prophecies content. (Sadly GW only has the option of humans as your character’s race – I miss the options of most other MMOs)

I’ve also decided to give City of Heroes a try – it was a toss-up between that and Champions Online, but I prefer the scope of CoH’s trial (no apparent content limitations – although there might be some, as I haven’t seen any small print yet – just a 14-day limit) to CO’s demo (limited content, but no time limit).

Unfortunately the downloader for CoH is irritatingly slow, it’s only managing between 50-90kbs, and has been running for about 13 hours so far – needless to say, no fun screenshots to speak of.

Ah well, patience is a virtue. But then, so is preparation – and GW awaits my attention.

/wave