project gorgon

Wandering Aimlessly

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Wandering Aimlessly

Right now I find myself struggling a bit to gain purchase in most of my MMO options right now.  World of Warcraft I am back and active in because of the Wednesday night Mythical Nonsense thing we are doing.  I was logging in every night to try and eek out the last bits of experience needed to unlock the Void Elves and Lightforged Draenei but even then…  I have faltered considerably.  I really do not enjoy Argus, so logging in every night and grinding every single quest available just seems grossly unpalatable.  Final Fantasy XIV failed to catch my attention with Eureka, and I lost momentum catching up on the main story quest patched in with the latest expansion.  Destiny 2 is sitting there largely untouched because when I log in…  there is really nothing that I want to be doing which is ultimately where that game falls short of the original..  there are no long running breadcrumbs for me to follow when I spin out and lose purpose.  Monster Hunter World is always easy to get back into…  but there are nights that I just don’t want to spend my evening upstairs and the fact that my PS4 is there limits my play time.

In the end I keep coming back to Project Gorgon and its weirdly charming neostalgic experience.  On the podcast Tam talked about the game feeling like the way we remember playing Everquest.  While this might sound confusing at first… this is exactly what this game feels like.  We have incorrect rose tinted feelings about how Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot for that matter felt to play.  If you go back today you end up with a cludgy mess of a game that feels ancient and quite honestly not that enjoyable.  However our in our memories the Everquest experience is still vibrant because we have edited out the rough spots and filled in the way those actions made us feel in place of the hard facts of just how limited that game actually was.  Project Gorgon remembers those things that were lacking in Everquest and has supplied the spackle and paint needed to make those memories feel true and vibrant.

Wandering Aimlessly

Sure I am doing the same kill ten rats quests I have been doing my entire MMO gaming career, but the fact that I seem to have a relatively limitless quest log…  and the fact that I can complete the quests by killing ANY ten rats…  not just the ones five feet away from the quest giver makes the experience feel more open ended.  If I have a quest to kill wolves…  Sickly Wolves, Mangy Wolves, Supporting Wolves, just plain wolves…  specific named character wolves…  all count towards a quest that says “kill wolves”.  This means you can do the quests while roaming around the world and exploring… rather than feeling tethered to a specific location to be able to clear out your log.  There are quests I picked up on my first day that I just managed to finish two weeks later because I had not actually encountered the thing I was needing to find yet.  I dig the long tail that this cycle has and the fact that it feels like you are “questing” for something more than just completing a task list.

I am sure some of this is just my inherent lack of familiarity with the world or the fact that the maps don’t really have locations marked on them, or my habit of running the opposite direction I need to go.  Whatever the case the specific combination of broad objectives and happy accidents along the way lead to a very immersive experience in spite of the fact that you spend a good deal of time running along and encountering nothing at all.  The only real complaint I have so far is the fact that most of the gear that I use looks like complete nonsense…  like right now it feels like I am wearing thermal long-johns…  but they were unfortunately the best item I had and finally got rid of that horrible yellow bandage appearance.

Wandering Aimlessly

At this point I have managed to hook two more people on this game, in part because I knew it would be down their alley.  For the most part I am limiting myself to just Sword and Psychology…  but I am contemplating trying out a few other secondary skills.  I spent the 2000 councils aka gold to learn beast taming so it might be interesting to try a pet secondary for awhile.  Similarly I now have the ability to learn fire magic, so that might also be interesting to shim in over top of Psychology.  The one thing that I am finding weird… and cannot quite reconcile is that our hotbars have six abilities on them…  but right now I have seven in both psychology and swords.  I cannot however seem to be able to replace the spells from my bar…  so how exactly do we use that last one?  I might try dragging it to the optional bar and see if it becomes usable that way.  Among all of the other games that I have access to at this very moment…  this one feels the most comfortable and suited to whatever I am needing at this very moment.  I’ve not really streamed much because nothing I am doing right now seems interesting enough for someone to watch.  Grinding factions in WoW is boring as hell… and I am afraid me wandering around aimlessly in Gorgon will also be boring to watch.

Wandering Aimlessly

by

Wandering Aimlessly

Right now I find myself struggling a bit to gain purchase in most of my MMO options right now.  World of Warcraft I am back and active in because of the Wednesday night Mythical Nonsense thing we are doing.  I was logging in every night to try and eek out the last bits of experience needed to unlock the Void Elves and Lightforged Draenei but even then…  I have faltered considerably.  I really do not enjoy Argus, so logging in every night and grinding every single quest available just seems grossly unpalatable.  Final Fantasy XIV failed to catch my attention with Eureka, and I lost momentum catching up on the main story quest patched in with the latest expansion.  Destiny 2 is sitting there largely untouched because when I log in…  there is really nothing that I want to be doing which is ultimately where that game falls short of the original..  there are no long running breadcrumbs for me to follow when I spin out and lose purpose.  Monster Hunter World is always easy to get back into…  but there are nights that I just don’t want to spend my evening upstairs and the fact that my PS4 is there limits my play time.

In the end I keep coming back to Project Gorgon and its weirdly charming neostalgic experience.  On the podcast Tam talked about the game feeling like the way we remember playing Everquest.  While this might sound confusing at first… this is exactly what this game feels like.  We have incorrect rose tinted feelings about how Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot for that matter felt to play.  If you go back today you end up with a cludgy mess of a game that feels ancient and quite honestly not that enjoyable.  However our in our memories the Everquest experience is still vibrant because we have edited out the rough spots and filled in the way those actions made us feel in place of the hard facts of just how limited that game actually was.  Project Gorgon remembers those things that were lacking in Everquest and has supplied the spackle and paint needed to make those memories feel true and vibrant.

Wandering Aimlessly

Sure I am doing the same kill ten rats quests I have been doing my entire MMO gaming career, but the fact that I seem to have a relatively limitless quest log…  and the fact that I can complete the quests by killing ANY ten rats…  not just the ones five feet away from the quest giver makes the experience feel more open ended.  If I have a quest to kill wolves…  Sickly Wolves, Mangy Wolves, Supporting Wolves, just plain wolves…  specific named character wolves…  all count towards a quest that says “kill wolves”.  This means you can do the quests while roaming around the world and exploring… rather than feeling tethered to a specific location to be able to clear out your log.  There are quests I picked up on my first day that I just managed to finish two weeks later because I had not actually encountered the thing I was needing to find yet.  I dig the long tail that this cycle has and the fact that it feels like you are “questing” for something more than just completing a task list.

I am sure some of this is just my inherent lack of familiarity with the world or the fact that the maps don’t really have locations marked on them, or my habit of running the opposite direction I need to go.  Whatever the case the specific combination of broad objectives and happy accidents along the way lead to a very immersive experience in spite of the fact that you spend a good deal of time running along and encountering nothing at all.  The only real complaint I have so far is the fact that most of the gear that I use looks like complete nonsense…  like right now it feels like I am wearing thermal long-johns…  but they were unfortunately the best item I had and finally got rid of that horrible yellow bandage appearance.

Wandering Aimlessly

At this point I have managed to hook two more people on this game, in part because I knew it would be down their alley.  For the most part I am limiting myself to just Sword and Psychology…  but I am contemplating trying out a few other secondary skills.  I spent the 2000 councils aka gold to learn beast taming so it might be interesting to try a pet secondary for awhile.  Similarly I now have the ability to learn fire magic, so that might also be interesting to shim in over top of Psychology.  The one thing that I am finding weird… and cannot quite reconcile is that our hotbars have six abilities on them…  but right now I have seven in both psychology and swords.  I cannot however seem to be able to replace the spells from my bar…  so how exactly do we use that last one?  I might try dragging it to the optional bar and see if it becomes usable that way.  Among all of the other games that I have access to at this very moment…  this one feels the most comfortable and suited to whatever I am needing at this very moment.  I’ve not really streamed much because nothing I am doing right now seems interesting enough for someone to watch.  Grinding factions in WoW is boring as hell… and I am afraid me wandering around aimlessly in Gorgon will also be boring to watch.

AggroChat #198 – Mining Our Memories

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Featuring:  Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen

aggrochat198_720

Tonight we are back recording an normal show after last week’s game of the year show.  This also marks the first show we are purposefully trying to time box at around 90 minutes worth of recording time…  which turns into roughly an hour of run time after editing.  The plan is to make this show a little easier to consume… and also easier to record for those of us who are in central and east coasts because some of our bigger shows lead to getting to bed occasionally around 1 am.  As a result we whittled down the list of topics a bit and wound up with essentially four solid topics to discuss.  As a result oddly enough the conversation seemed to flow much more easily so it may also be a good decision for our content in the long run as well.

Topics Discussed:

  • Bloodborne
    • Soulsian Games
  • Spring Blossom Event
    • Monster Hunter World
  • Neostalgia MMORPGs
    • Project Gorgon
    • Shroud of the Avatar
  • The Way Games Start

 

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Unintentional Spiderman

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Unintentional Spiderman

I had every intent of doing some World of Warcraft faction farming last night, but I ultimately did not really follow up on those plans.  When I got home we wound up running a couple of errands and going out to eat, and by the time we made it home I largely planted myself on the sofa and roamed around Project Gorgon some more.  Yesterday I looked like I was wearing some urine soaked bandages…  and today I am essentially the stuff of nightmare as some sort of living web creature.  The armor designs in this game are “interesting” but I have seen some completely reasonable options that give me hope that maybe just maybe I won’t look like an experiment for the entire time playing.

Unintentional Spiderman

A couple of things have transpired since last playing.  Firstly I realized that psychology is a combat skill, and apparently pairs extremely nicely with swords…  also freeing up my second hand for a shield while using it instead of needing to hold a bow.  I kept getting gear with both swords and psychology on it… and never could figure out how to level it.  I thought that it would involve talking to people since everything in this game seems to have a skill but after a trip to the wiki I realized that I needed to be assigning it to my secondary attack.  After doing so…  I started questioning the parentage of my enemies and applying damaging taunts that seem to debuff them making the sword hits a little easier.

The other thing that transpired is that I took a trip back to the starter island after figuring out which sequence of prompts would get me to that location.  This allowed me to do the hangout I missed…  get my louse comb and finally remove the lice debuff that I picked up by fighting a mangy wolf somewhere along the lines.  This also allowed me to venture down into the starter dungeon, defeat the monster that the game gives you tons of warning about…  and find a back way out of the dungeon because apparently previously I didn’t go down anywhere near deep enough.  It turns out there are two ways off the starter island…  one of which is through a series of spider infested tunnels that ultimately leads to a place called Serbule Hills.

Unintentional Spiderman

Of course this zone connects directly with Serbule proper which allowed me to get back to town and do some turn ins…  all without needing to take the return trip from the island.  The only problem with this concept is that the route does not go the other way quite so easily because there is a wall in the dungeon that requires someone from the Anagoge Island side to open it.  However while sitting there inside the dungeon the door was opening constantly so in practice you should be able to use this route to get back to the island if you ever need to.  As far as Serbule Hills… I personally found it way greener pastures than Serbule proper with a seemingly higher mob density and way more interesting camps to hunt.

I was introduced to the games version of the Froglok…  the Ranalon.  They are a race of fish creatures that don’t necessarily want open war… but absolutely have no interest in peace as they attempt to displace all of the other races.  They have these one eyed flying manta ray looking creatures called the Scray that they treat like guard dogs, and I now have quests to kill plenty of both.  Over in Serbule Hills I was also able to finish a bunch of quests that I picked up in Serbule Keep but struggled to find the appropriate spawns for like Deer and Tigers that actually drop eyeballs.  I see in my near future a bunch of time exploring this zone which is honestly a short jaunt away from the Keep and my normal hunting grounds.