Mystic Worlds

Out of Town

I'm out of town on business.  I tried leaving with a copy of Eve: The Empyrean Age, by Tony Gonzales.  Unfortunately, Amazon was sold out when I checked and none of my local bookstores had stocked any copies.  I've had to settle for a bunch of magazines instead.

I haven't played AOC in over a week.  Between work and packing, there hasn't been much time.  It's rather late in the evening when things settle down enough for me to have some leisurely moments.  Even though I was having fun playing AOC it's not the type of game that inspires me to stay up late or miss sleep in order to get some play time in, so I haven't.  Instead I've closed out my evenings reading other gamers' blogs and listening to my favorite podcasts.

I'm in the land of lots of things to do for the next six days - also known as, Chitown.  Lots of catching up with friends in the evening and partaking of all the excellent ethnic restaurants I miss so much!  Mmm, GOOD!

I Want to Play This

I’m very busy at work getting ready for three huge portfolio and finance presentations – that’s the side of slime I’m working in these days.   Game and blogging time is very short.  I have half of the AOC review written.  Since I don’t have time right now to finish, I might go ahead and post what I have ready.

I have to travel for two of the talking-head shows so I wanted to find a light-weight game to take along on my Tablet PC.  It’s the new Dell Latitude and runs as goods as and custom configured better than, many laptops.  As a result, I’m hoping to find a good game to take along with me.  While I was searching for something like Harvest Moon, which Natsume simply refuses to develop for the PC, I ran across this.

I really like the look of the graphics.  The mechanics sound interesting, especially how the board game comes into play.  My family used to be into board games big time.  That has tapered off a bit in the past year or so.  The release seems still quite a ways out but I will be keeping tabs on it.

I’ve searched a lot of sites and used Google until I’m blue in the face.  If The Sims 2 wasn’t such a heavy client and I’m a bit over it, I’d install one of those.  Anyone have any ideas?  Something RPG-ish, Harvest Moon wanna be or TS2 sandbox like???  I need something to do in my downtime.  I’ll be with friends in the evening but I’ll have airport time and limo time to kill and I just refuse to work 24/7 just because!

Quests I Like and Ones I Don’t

I’ve frequently said that I’m not a fan of questing.  Thinking back, I didn’t always feel that way.  I didn’t ever think of “not questing” when I played AC1/AC2.  Questing is what you did when you weren’t farming for items, pyreals or crafting materials.  It wasn’t until World of Warcraft that I hit types of quest = that I couldn’t stand and the frequency of them, formed a negative opinion on questing.  Luckily, there were easy alternatives to the WOW quests that I enjoyed more, also know as grinding.

The quest that stands out in my mind as the antithesis of meaningful and enjoyable quests, involves fuking Billy Maclure and that whole series of quests bewteen the Maclures and Stonefields.  These quests employ two mechanics that I HATE WITH A PASSION.  First is running me back and forth for short lived tasks – deliver a note, get a single item, etc and race it back to the requesting NPC.  Second is sending me to farm an item that should drop from each of the mobs indicated but doesn’t.  I hate killing pigs for pig items that miraculously, most pigs don’t have, such as a chunk of meat.  Not sure how I can slay a pig and it doesn’t drop a single chunk of meat.  That pisses me off to no end.  I’d rather collect a high amount of the item with every mob dropping it, than a random drop rate where you might get four pieces in five kills, six kills or twenty.

Harry Potter MMORPG

I’d like to resurrect a post I made last year about Harry Potter being the next big MMO.  There are rumors spreading across the internet that might the HP IP might be in the process of formalizing an agreement to create an MMO.  A kind reader recently posted a comment to this old thread concerning HP as an MMO.  Is this inevitable with such a popular IP that already has RPG games released coinciding with each of the movies and a theme park underway?  To attempt bringing Harry Potter and his adventures to the MMO masses is probably a no-brainer.  I would love to see the virtualization of J.K. Rawlings master piece book series in virtual world.  However, I will restrain my enthusiasm and pledges to play. 

I loved Lord of the Rings, both the books and the movies.  I just KNEW that if anyone ever created a virtual world based on Tolkien’s lore, I would live out my days as an avatar there.  As it turned out that was not the case.  What I envisioned in my head as playing a game based in Middle Earth, was not what the developers had in theirs.  There’s a lot more to making an MMO that I enjoy playing than delivering faithfully on the lore.  Turbine did a great job creating a game that was true to LOTR lore and visualizing that world.  However, the game mechanics preclude me from enjoying the game as it runs counter to my play-style and preferences.  Now on top of that, the game will surely be designed to consider the needs of a younger audience.  I’ve played with pre-teens and teens in WOW because they were allowed to play an adult’s game.  I’m not sure that I will want to play a game designed with them in mind.

While I’d be happy to hear confirmation that HP is in fact going to be developed into an MMO, I know that it takes two halves to make a whole.  A perfect rendition of that world that lacks requirements for my play-style such as solo content, mature interactions of death and consequence, character progression, crafting, meaningful player housing, ability to grind as an alternate leveling track, some form of world PVP and end-game for casual and hardcore just to name a few, I won’t be playing, regardless of how much I’ve loved that fictional world.  Turbine knows how to deliver a world that stays true to the intention of the IP.  However, what they build has been too restrictive and monosyllabic for my states.  If Turbine is the developer, here’s to hoping they open a few more play-style doors this time around.

AOC: A Few in Game Images

The world of Hyboria is looking better all the time.  Sometimes I can play with the graphics set on High and other times I can't, without suffering very low FPS.  Here are a few images I was able to take recently.

Age of Conan and Instanced Content

One of the charges leveled at Age of Conan (AOC), is that it’s too heavily instanced.  Be these instances public zones or private group dungeons, the world is restrictive and lacks the ability to roam and explore.  There is no counter argument to those sentiments because that is the nature of how Funcom decided to design its Hyboria.  I hazard a guess that players who are dissatisfied with that design feel that it violates one of the core tenants of a Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), much like players dislike people who want to solo in an MMO.  However, if we take the term MMORPG on face value, there is nothing about massive that means seamless, and nothing inherent in the word multi-player that means grouped.  Yet many players do expect a pretty seamless world where the content is meant to be experienced in a group format.

If we look at the notable MMO titles of today, we see that these two elements – seamless and “group required” content are handled on a wide spectrum.  In terms of group content, I think AOC handles itself much like the other popular massive titles.  There is a lot of content that you can do solo.  It appears thus far that you can reach the maximum level solo.  However, if you do so, you will miss the group designed content and rewards.  They’ve also implemented explicitly solo content, called Destiny Quest.  This is a private instance that is very large – from levels 1 to 20 it is a duplicate of the starter city, Tortage.  If the Destiny Quests were the only or at least the majority of the instanced content, some of AOC’s detractors would probably be happier.  But it’s only the first of many such zones.

EVE Online Empyrean Age – Almost Tempts Me Back

I’ve been listening to all the podcasts discussing this new EVE Online expansion, Empyrean Age.  I’ve read many of the blog posts and visited the EO Dev Forum.  I think this is some very exciting stuff.  Earlier in the year, I did a review of EO as a re-visit to see changes and improvements.  I of course reviewed the game quite favorably, what’s not to like about EO???  However, I did offer some enhancement ideas that might make PVP more approachable to new players.  Low and behold, here it comes in Empyrean Age.  Guess I wasn’t completely crazy in what I felt was difficult as a new player.

A CCP employee was kind enough to drop by the blog during the review and provide some commentary.  Obviously, he couldn’t reveal any details about FW or that it would actually address some of my observations.  I LOVE THIS IDEA.  With or without rewards, hell you don’t have rewards for the risk right now, I think this is an excellent way to open up PVP to a larger player population.  My understanding is that the numbers clearly show that a vast majority of EO players remain in the high security sectors not low sec, where all the PVP action happens.

Ashron’s Call 2 Fans Rejoice. Come Play Age of Conan

It’s hardly worth mentioning that there were fans of the now defunct game, Asheron’s Call 2.  Clearly, there weren’t enough of us to keep the game alive.  Yet that doesn’t mean that we didn’t exist at all.  *Smile*  I tired of the game toward the end.  There was no “end game” to speak of, something I wasn’t even conscious of at the time.  Having graduated from AC2 to numerous other MMOs since then, I’m clearer about what was missing and why I was logging on less, as I got higher in level.

Regardless of all the launch issues, persistent bugs and lag that couldn’t be fixed to save their lives – or their game, the developers put in features that remain favorites of mine to this day.  Player item persistence, seasonal landscape changes, pieces of lore and nostalgic items scattered throughout the content for “real” explorers to find.  Enough places in the world of Dereth where you could run off and just “be”.  A blending of leveling that employed quests and grinding in such a way that they felt one and the same – it all sort of blurred over the lines.  Vaults – OMG how I loved vaults.  The thrill of figuring out how to solo them by hook or by crook, was one of my favorite pastimes.  That was followed by graduating to the group Master Vaults which were mass confusion, riotous and pure lag-hell fun.  A reward and itemization system that didn’t dominate or decide the outcome combat.  Your spec and play-style, both highly customizable, determined your success.

Official Adieu to World of Warcraft

I’ve said goodbye to WOW before.  I stop playing for periods of time but continue paying.  I move characters from one account to another and close one account, while leaving something subscribed that I can come back to when the feeling hits.  When I’m bored, I play one of the other toons, roll an alt or level someone else’s alt.  I craft, I PVP but its all space filler now.  More often than not, I’d rather read a book, watch a movie or do most anything other than log into WOW.

Playing since BETA, we’ve gone from an all time high of five accounts in our household down to one.  Over the past few weeks I’ve moved the remaining outlier high level characters on to a single monster account.  However, no one has the slightest interest in playing on it at all.  My nephew has moved on to Wii pastures while my son and I are combo’ing thru Age of Conan.  In the fall or winter of this year, Warhammer will release – the game I’ve been waiting for and I’ll be playing there.  Whether or not I stick to AOC or WAR, I have no interest in continuing to play WOW.  I’m more likely to return to EQ2 or EVE.  I might even try Chronicles of Spellborn if it releases in my life time.

For the first time ever, I’m going to shut down the final account. It’s just stupid to keep playing for a game that we’re not playing.  At this point, I have no interest in coming back for WotLK.  I’ve loved WOW.  I’ve hated WOW and Blizzard.  From day one, WOW has been the most thrilling, sweeping and angst filled MMO ride I’ve had the pleasure to experience.  But the time has come for me and mine to move on.

Bye-bye WOW and take care.

PS – No, you can’t have our stuff!  KK.  Tnx.  Buhbye.

AOC: Struggling with Combat

I don’t play melee characters.  I especially don’t play melee characters where positioning is required to execute skills.  So why am I rolling a melee class in Ago of Conan where positioning is absolutely key AND you have to execute actions in specific sequences to maximize damage?  ‘Cause I’m crazy I guess but my game play is starting to show the strain of that decision.

The more skills I acquire, the more I’m beginning to struggle with the combat execution.  If there’s only a single mob I do just fine.  It’s when I’m trying to pull two to three and they are at my own level that I’m starting to die.  I get a bit flustered and my health as a Bear Shaman is actually low compared to other classes.  With a 1v3 fight, I’m going to finish with just a sliver of health in the first place.  Therefore if I make any mistakes at all, I’m dead.  Most of the time I die AND the final mob dies at the same time.  One hit sooner, one combo sequence not missed and I would have finished alive.
There are multiple factors making this hard for me:

1. I’ve played for many years with all my skills on the left side of the keyboard.  I custom map 1 to 5, Q to R, A to F and Z to V.  Primary skills are on A to F which is natural hand placement for touch typists.  Secondary are Q to R, personal buffs Z to V and things I only cast only (long cool down spells) 1 to 5.  My right hand is for movement and the right side of the keyboard for out of combat commands like long duration buffs, food, mounts, switching gear etc.  This setup doesn’t work well for AoC where I have to go off the 4 rows of skills all the time for combos.  When I’m trying to execute in a hurry, I may hit the wrong key because it’s fast combat, I’m trying to move while I’m hitting and sometimes there is a lag between what I’ve pressed and it’s execution on the screen.
2. No auto attack means if you’re not spamming buttons you’re just standing there taking damage.  I find that I often forget to press hit keys after executing a special command that doesn’t have a combo key sequence.  Struggling with the basic combat now, I can’t imagine adding in proactive blocking too.
3. I’m not used to playing a melee character.  The only melee class I’ve ever played is the Paladin in World of Warcraft.  I leveled her for the AOE grinding spec which was fun but went Holy at 70 to heal in PVP.