Mystic Worlds

Crying on the inside - No GW2 BWE this weekend

Appreciate knowing for sure.  Now I can tell my kids (young adults) to stop asking me every time they see my face or hear my voice.  Having enough trouble containing my own excitment without having to carry theirs too! :-)

Oh well.  *sigh*

https://www.facebook.com/GuildWars2/posts/10150882710644209

Journey Back to Gaming

I took a long break from gaming and blogging after my mother passed away. What initially brought me back was the desire to level from start to finish with a gaming friend.

RIFT STILL FELT FRESH

Our game of choice was Rift. A long time WOW player, he hadn't joined the crush of adventurers when the game launched. The character I created would turn into my third to have made it into level 30 content, third cleric and second to max level.

Although the excitement of highly populated zones was gone, Rift's leveling content holds up exceptionally well. The options are diverse and the content so dense, that I never felt bored from having done those levels before.  For me, Rift’s PVE game ranks right up there with the behemoth, World of Warcraft. 

A RETURN TO WOW

After a few weeks being at max level again, my excitement started to wane.  We ran chronicles and quested in Ember Isle, one of the most beautiful zones I’ve ever seen.   However, with no new levels to  be gained, my interest fell off.  I decided return with my friend to WOW and see what I’d missed by leaving shortly after reaching end game in The Burning Crusade.

As expected, leveling content was good, instances great, crafting worthwhile and an active economy.  It also didn’t hurt to have a wealth of alts to choose from all of whom had decent trade professions to help me along the way.

Although I can't imagine WOW ever being my full time MMO again, I see why and how, many long time players return after completing the leveling experience in other games. You can't rely on keeping your player base at max level by being as good as or comparable to WOW. You have to be BETTER THAN and MORE DIVERSE THAN whatever I came from before. Otherwise, why should I restart the end game treadmill in your game, when I can return to another game where I may have a staple of characters, trade-skills, long time guild mates and in some cases, player houses and guild halls at my disposal?

Many of the so-called WOW tourists aren't that intentionally. I think they want to invest in a new game but get to the end/top and realize they've done this all before and a new skin on isn't enough to keep them around.

UP NEXT IN GAMING

Guild Wars 2 will be my main MMO home for the foreseeable future. Other than time commitments, I know I will be there for the ride to max level. I knew from the beta that I enjoyed Rift enough for a jaunt through and was excited for the launch. The enthusiasm I feel for GW2 is leaps and bounds above what I thought of Rift before launch. I can hardly stand the wait much longer.  ANet please don't break my heart. I need GW2 this summer!!

GW2 BWE - Needs Improvement List

Now that the heady pleasure of finally getting to play a bit of GW2 has worn off here are some additional improvements I’d like to see implemented. 

More Explanation of Basic Mechanics
I know GW2 is about a non-linear, experimental, free roam and exploratory experience.  However, there is so much that it borders on too much for the introductory experience.  I’d like to see the personal story cover some of the new/unique GW2 mechanics.  You’re set in a very immersive setting.  A bit too much has to be known going in or looked up somewhere external while you’re playing, which immediately breaks immersion.  Confusion is not entertainment. 

More Options for Key Binding
Increased key binding options – Doesn’t support alternative key settings or using multiple keys which means using CTRL or ALT + another key is out.  As someone who relies almost exclusively on the keyboard, I found this too restrictive. 

Set Default Left/Right to Turning
Reverse the default key settings for left/right movement interaction.  By default it’s set to strafing.  People who know how to strafe are more likely to be aware of options for setting up key bindings.  Whereas players who use the default game settings, have no clue about how to change them, which means they won’t know how to activate turning left/right.  Repeating it in local chat got old quick and these are proactive players since they obviously had been following GW2 enough to pre-purchase it and participate in BWE yet didn’t understand the issue and how to fix it. 

More Variety on Karma Vendors
Karma vendors in the game world had little to nothing I would see myself buying.  Dinging is great as a reward but with very few formal quest rewards, I’d like more desired items for purchase on these vendors.  It doesn’t have to be gear.  I’m not looking for huge, OP or “I win” items but something of interest. I’d be happy with fluff and cosmetic items.  I’d hate to find that all I want from the Karma is to be saving up for the 9.6K to 60K+ per item gear options I saw on three vendors in Divinity’s Reach.   I’m helping out the locals.  That NPC has been put there with items for sale.  I hope there are plans to increase the variety. 

Improved Introductory Experience
I’ve heard more complaints about the starting experience, especially the inability to get all of the weapons at the lower levels to see how a profession play-style and skills change.  The Garrison in the human zone had a really nice setup for this but you had to figure it out.  You could participate in the Garrison event plus there was skill point NPC.  The event starter NPC also sold all of the available weapons for coin.  He leaves as part of the escort event.  So if you don’t see him near the waypoint go out and join the event until he resets back to his idle location.  I really favored this location for all of the professions I tried after figuring it out.  It’s viable from level 3 to 7.  

Explain or Provide Feature for Moving across Instances of Zones
Absolutely no explanations how to get into the same content instance with members of your party who may have been were split across the overflow copies of a zone.  We attempted looking for features similar to other games such as EQ2 and AOC to no avail.  Eventually, we were successful by sending people back into the capitol city and exiting again, in which case, the game determined it would make sense to put you in the same instance.  

Raise Awareness of Lion's Arch
Early on, the content should include something that encourages players to visit Lion’s Arch to see that there are portals there to access the other racial zones.  Friends creating characters from different races didn’t know how to get to each other to play. 

Map Missing Iconography when outside your Racial Zone
You can complete the content from areas outside of your racial zone however, the map iconography isn’t displayed – hearts, skill points, points of interest, etc.  This might have been a bug. 

Provide Speed Buff or Mount for Exploration
So much to see in GW2 and it’s absolutely gorgeous but I want a mount.  Fast travel via portal is fine but when I want to roam to see all the wonderful and detailed areas – explore, I’d rather do it at some increased movement speed.  You can get a small speed buff inside Divinity’s Reach which helps navigating inside the city.  We need an increased movement speed outside as well.   I’d be perfectly happy if you’re dismounted inside the cities.  And honestly, with the technology on display thus far in the world, I can’t imagine they’d be hoofing it everywhere. 

Short list and no deal breakers but improvements in these areas would enhance my overall player experience.  I can hardly wait to play more.

GW2 BWE - Legendary White Bunny Must Die!

EDIT: It appears the critter hunt and attempt at the White Bunny was planned by dev.  Someone in our group must have been a ringer or had been tipped off to lead us in that direction.  :-)

I spent what time I could in the first GW2 Beta Weekend Event. I wasn't alone in being sad when it was time for the event to end. I had a great time overall.  Initial server instability was the only large hiccup over the course of the event.  By late afternoon on Saturday, things stabilized and I didn’t experience any issues accessing or playing the game beyond minor bugs here and there.

My biggest challenge was deciding which profession I liked most.  I want to start the game knowing what I’ll be playing as my main character.  However, the versatility of the classes I tried combined with how the play style changes based on the equipped weapon(s) made it a very tough call.  What I thought would be near the top of my list, Necromancer, was quickly removed as a candidate.  While the Guardian, something I hadn’t even considered until until recently, ended up at the top of the list. Thanks to GBTV's Editor for showing us the way of the Guardian in his personal story videos.  Okay, he rarely remembers to dodge out of the fire but we'll forgive him that faux pas.  The Elementalist and Mesmer are neck-n-neck for second and no matter how many times I flipped between them, trying this and that, I'm still undecided.

THE GOOD

• Too many fun classes to choose from for someone who has a rule of not rolling alts until there's a main at max level.  Grrr.
• Narrow selection of abilities based on equipped weapons didn’t feel as restrictive as it may sound.  Perhaps we don’t need to have a zillion skills crammed on their accompanying hotbars filling up the screen.  I never felt as if I lacked options once I unlocked the 1^st 5 skills per weapon.
• I played the game by looking at the actual game.  Go figure.  Except when learning the new skills, I really didn't have to stare at the hotbar to play and there's no skill resource to manage like mana or rage.
• The world feels alive everywhere I go.  The villages and cities feel as though they have a life of their own being played out.  I can’t wait to do my personal story for real.  I intentionally limited myself to avoid seeing too much of it.
• The playable content is dense.  I've only scratched the content from 1 to 10.  There's is plenty that will be new to me when the games launches.
• Combat is fast-paced and stylish.  There’s a visceral feel to it.  But please decrease the animations and particle effects.  They are cool with 2 or 3 combatants but a nightmare in small groups and above.
• The game has absolutely stunning art design and graphics.  You’d better have a decent graphics card.
• Variety of quests - err, things to do to level your character. 

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

My biggest concern is that the lack of linear quest progression, means little to no introduction to the game mechanics.  The first day of playing felt very OVERWHELMING.  I actually only enjoyed it “okay” because it was a bit confusing to get going.  While I don’t need my hand held to complete content, GW2 introduces new mechanics that aren’t explained anywhere as far as I could tell.

This is fine if GW2 is only targeting seasoned players who read blogs, research games on the internet, use wikis and read forums.  For those who don’t, I think the first few hours will feel a bit daunting and not much fun.  If WOW’s on rails theme park style loses most of their trial players before level 10, something they quoted a long time ago, I can’t imagine new gamers hanging until level 10 in GW2. My son, also a seasoned player and raider, felt much the same.  He ended the weekend with a less than favorable impression.

ON UNTIL DAWN

All is not lost, however.  GW2 could add introductory elements into the personal story line and make it something veteran players can elect to skip.  I’d really encourage the personal story starting with more basic mechanics BEFORE the story elements.  Story ISN'T everything.  Game mechanics are core elements that impact a player's gaming experience.  Other than being confused the first several levels, I had a blast and was reluctant to leave.  In fact, I stayed until Crystal Desert went offline at 3:04 AM ET.

 

 

THE WHITE BUNNY MUST DIE!

I followed a crowd of players gathered in Lion’s Arch.  They were determined to make their own BWE closure event.  Someone decided we should go raze Wayfarer Foothills in Hoelbrak and off we went.  No animal was safe between there and our target, the Legendary White Bunny.  As we cavorted across the landscape we did a Nessingwary on all living creatures in targeting distance.

It was a harrowing run for the players below level 10.  We resurrected our fallen brethren as we went.  Then it was all out war, lag and hilarity zerging the White Bunny.  Since the mobs scale to the combatants in GW2, killing even level 8 mobs proved treacherous when multiple players were engaged.  The poor bunny didn’t go down fast but she sure as hell went down.  Good times.  I’m looking forward to trying out the crafting professions during the next event.

 

 

 

A big MWAH to all the Casualties of War guild members
I ran into in game and on Mumble.

Rift, SWTOR & Crafting in Real Life

I'm stil taking things rather slow.  I knew the holiday season would be very difficult with my mother having passed so recently.  We did what we could for the little ones in our immediate family to enjoy themselves.

Duoing Rift with a Buddy

I've been back in Rift for a few weeks leveling the content with a gaming friend who hadn't played before.  Kudos to Trion and how well the content stands up for the 4th time around.  I'd leveled several characters up to Perspice and it's almost as much fun now as the first jaunt.  There were still so many quests I'd not done before.  With the options of questing, doing rifts, PVP, instances and grinding, I tended to out level zones without doing many of the quests which is a good thing!  It really makes replayability rather stellar.  We're a stone's throw from level 50 and I never felt like OMG, I've done all this before. SWTOR needs to take a queue from that and make it possible for players to mix up how they level without missing "required" quest chains.  More on that in a minute.

The only thing missing from Rifts are the big crowds.  That intense level of heightened excitment is missing from the zones unless there's a zone wide event.  I wish my friend had been there to see the meyhem and madness of the earlier days.  He really enjoys rift chasing and doing the events. Regardless, we've had fun and are looking forward to doing the new level 50 content that I haven't seen yet myself.

Dabbling in SWTOR

Star Wars isn't a favorite IP of mine.  I've seen all the movies but I don't own a single one.  I wasn't excited about the game.  My only intent was to check it out and play for the first free month.  So far it's okay.  The settings aren't my thing being a die hard fantasy fan.  The questing is rather meh for me since I don't really care about the story and I'm not a huge questing fan.  I tend to mix it up with grinding mobs which isn't grinding to me.

What I do enjoy are the class quest lines, group quests and instance content (Flash Points).  For me, that's where the game really shines.  The story in those feel more compelling.  It's like playing out a part in a movie - it's fun!  My class is also diverse and interesting to play.  I've chosen Inquisitor > Sorcerer for ranged DPS, utility and healing.  She feels pretty bad ass in a group.  I've only clocked a few hours. It's something I log into as a late night diversion.

My Son Digs SWTOR

After watching me play for a bit my son decided to get a copy too.  He's also more of a fantasy person but is rather bored with Rfit.  After a few days, he came to the same conclusion - love the class quests, PVP and instances, wishes he could skip the rest.  Unfortunately, you can't.  There are necessary quest chains for picking your advanced class and getting the ship you'll need to access the higher level Flash Points.  Moreover, there's nothing that overtly leads you to these NPCs to get the quest chains.  You run across them if you're doing all the quests.  Both of us initially missed the quest to choose the advanced class.

I had to search on the web to figure out why I was level 12 but couldn't purchase the level 10 spells I could clearly see on the Class Trainer.  We weren't alone.  I found many threads and links where people were asking the same question.  My son ended up having to back track through content to get his ship for the very same reason.  I think that needs some tweaking.  Other than that, he's really enjoying it now that he's 20-something.  For me, it's still just something to do if I'm in the mood.  My money is waiting on GW2.

Still Crafting in Real Life

I'm still crafting in real life.  In fact, I had a nice little jump in activity the couple of weeks before Christmas.  It tickles me when people purchase or "favorite" the two rings inspired by my love of fantasy.  The ring called Rose of New Eden, inspired by EVE Online has done well.  The Inara Serra III ring has sold nicely when seen in person - flea market and jewelry showings.

I recently revamped my Nomadic Eclectic website to be more of a showcase.  With Etsy picking up steam for me, I couldn't see implementing the disabled ecommerce features that were part of that original theme. I moved to something designed to just give people a taste of what I'm doing before hushering them over to my Esty Shop.

That's all I've been up to the past couple of months.  Hanging in there as best I can.  I have my good days and my bad days over my mother's passing.  I've found making jewelry to be much more relaxing than sewing so I've sidelined that for the most part.  I lost the tip of a finger, sewed through another one and was accumulating more cuts and gashes that necessary.  My mind wanders a bit too much at the moment for the intense concentration needed to sew safely.  Plus I feel more creative freedom and contentment making jewelry so am sticking with it.

2012 - Be Inspired

Life is short and over before you know it.  Live with conviction and inspiration.  Keep what works and be your own change agent for the things that don't.

Be happy, fair, sincere, loving, honest, disciplined and inspired!

Really Sony??

Way to take the wind out of my sails.  I logged into EQ2X real quick to check on something and all was fine.  I try logging back into because I I'd forgotten to mail something to an alt but an update starts.  The update completes - EQ2X icon is gone, EQ2 launcher is there and patching.

When it's done it asks me to reset my password which I do but I'm still confused as to what's going on.  I see a link to a posting about a New Launcher and New Launcher FAQs.  BOTH LINKS GO TO DEAD LOCATIONS (505 errors).  Great.

When the patcher allows me to log back into the game all my characters are gone?  Uh???  I do a quick Google search to see that EQ2 has gone completely free to play and they are merging X and Live servers.  An email to account holders would have been nice.  Not everyone plays regularly enough to have seen it on the launcher in advance.  I was in the game several nights in a row the week before last, trying to finish up a section in my new house before leaving town on business.

I'd say I could care less since I'm pissy that I wasted my lunch trying figure this out but I'd purchased 3 presetige homes a couple of weeks ago so yeah, I'd like them and the chars that own them back please without me having to chase down WTF is going on.  I opened a ticket.  Grrrrrrr.

 P.S.  I am a gold subscriber on EQ2x so I am less than a happy camper.

The Rose of New Eden

I have good days and bad days since my mother's unexpected passing.  The "immediate must do activity" is over and it's back to picking up your life.  I try not to think too far ahead.  Like to the other dreadful things to follow, like dealing with her house and personal possessions.

I haven't been motivated to play anything since re-subscribing to EQ2.  I think about playing and am excited about building my Wizards' Sactum.   At the end of the day when it comes down to it, I'm just too drained.  It would take me longer to log in and get started than my current attention span.  I've also slacked off lots on sewing for the same reason.  Well that and the fact of using a sewing machine with your mind wondering leads to lots of nasty little injuries like the couple I'm sporting now.

What has wrangled more of my attention recently is creating wire wrapped rings.  I'd already experimented with button rings as part of crafting in real life.  Expanding into wire wrapped has revealed even more avenues of creativity.  The real boon is that a ring can be started and completed in an hour or less, which is about all the enthusiasm I can muster some evenings.  In a small burst of crafting expression I created two rings based on sci-fi fictional settings - one MMO and one television series.

Rose of New Eden
Rose of New Eden is based on EVE Online and the characteristics that draw me back to that game in cycles.  I miss the striking contracts of its stark beauty, darkness, serenity and lurking danger.  EVE is as simple as or as complex as, its beholder.  Finishing this ring reminded me of the serial fiction I'd started here, "Shadows of New Eden".  More than adding to the storyline, I've become intrigued by the idea of creating a ring named, Red Alice.

 

Inara Serra III, Firefly Inspired
I worship Firefly and Serenity.  This is an upgrade to an earlier ring I created.  This version uses a Swarovski pearl and includes an insert band for more impact.  I could totally see this as her wedding ring.

 

 

 

Am I crazy to be fashioning rings after sci-fi settings and/or characters?  I certainly could be insane. But it was fun and in the end, I have two real-life items to appreciate.

Incoming shameless plug… You can purchase your own copy from my Etsy Shop.  *smile*

Re-Subscribed to EQ2 Ex as Gold Member

Just before my mother passed away I was preparing to spend time exploring the new Rift content.  Since then I’ve decided I want something creative and less on rails, so I’m returning to EQ2 crafting.  I don’t have the time, energy or patience for the effort necessary to re-open my furniture shop.  I’ve decided to start a long term, more personal project of turning a Felwithe Mansion prestige house, into a wizard city.

High fantasy is where it’s at for me when it comes to favorite genre.  I like the idea of having a big project I can come back to when I have the time and inclination.  I’m looking forward to the creative challenge without the pressure of what someone else wants or needs.  I have a little too much on my plate in real life at the moment for the demands of others in a game.

I haven’t done anything yet.  I had just enough spare time to re-subscribe and purchase the house on the market place.  No auction expiration ia another thing I LOVE ABOUT EQ2’S AUCTION HOUSE. Logging into a game I haven’t played for months and finding plat in my sales displays is lovely.  Even better is the almost immediate continuation of sales from pre-existing listings once the upkeep owed on the house is paid up. SAHWEET!

Thank you...

for your condolences and kind words in comments and email.  My Facebook account is currently inactive. Having worked in social services and the public school system, my mother was known by many.  The out pouring of well wishes and kind words while appreciated, exploded on so many friends accounts/pages with pictures over and over again it's too much for me.