Featuring: Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
We are back! Bel was sick last week from an unknown illness that is very likely, not Covid and as such we did not record. Tonight we had a wealth of topics and in the end, made it through very few of them. We start off by talking about one of Ash’s comfort games Okami and his recent experiences playing through it on the PlayStation 4. From there we talk about Stray and how Bel and Grace have deeply mixed feelings about it and Tam loved it. Since it is always fun to dunk on NFT projects, we talk about Microsoft decimating NFTWorld by declaring that there will be no NFT projects associated with Minecraft. While this is a bit of an old topic we talk about the return of E3 and how Reed Pop will be running the show in 2023. We also talk about what this might mean for a shift in the show from being largely industry-focused to more fan service. Finally, a number of us have reached the end game of Path of Exile and we talk about those experiences.
Good Morning Friends! On the list of things that I thought I would be doing this week, I did not include “playing Dragonflight Alpha” but it seems fate has conspired to change that. While I have been in multiple alpha testing processes for World of Warcraft, I did not think I would be getting into this one. I’ve not exactly written the kindest posts about the game and Blizzard as a whole, but I have always tried to temper what I said because I still have several dozen friends who work for the company. I have had a lot of great years playing World of Warcraft, but before I talk about the alpha process there are a few caveats that I need to get out of the way. Firstly I have not actively played World of Warcraft in roughly eighteen months. I bounced pretty early in the Shadowlands cycle and never really looked back so I am out of touch with a lot of things about the game.
Secondly, you need to know that I have no real attachment to dragons. I tried to read some of the novels but bounced off them as well. I know roughly the shape of the story arc of the dragons and how at the time of the dragon soul raid they gave up some of their powers to protect us. However, I am not nearly as engaged with WoW Lore as a lot of people are in the community. I used to play a game called Horizon Empire of Istaria, later rebranded to Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted and it featured fully playable dragons. I had a friend or two who were super into this and stuck around playing a dead game for far longer than they probably should have, just because it fulfilled their player fantasy of getting to be a Dragon. I feel like the Dracthyr and the Dragon Isles, in general, are going to be heavily tailored to this player, the folks who love the dragon flights.
That said the dragons are really rather cool to build and I did my best to craft a character that makes visual sense. Essentially one of the things I have enjoyed about the dragons we have encountered is that when you see Alextrasza in “humanoid” form or in Dragon form… there is a visual sameness to it. You can absolutely see one turning into the other and still maintaining a certain number of visible traits, and this same design language carries through to ALL of the dragons we have encountered so far. So I was pleased that as I built my Dracthyr I was able to more or less carry this same concept forward. I do however wish that horn types for example were more similar between the dragon and humanoid forms. I went with something that matched about as close as I could but I would have liked little elements like that to carry over completely.
As far as the Alpha goes, Blizzard seems to be going about it a little differently than in my past experiences. Generally speaking there is usually some sort of forum post asking testers to focus on specific things, or at least tell us which areas of the world are open for testing and which are unpopulated. This time around they seem to be doing focus testing where currently until July 25th we will have access to The Forbidden Reach, which is the Dracthyr starter zone. You can create other characters, but none of the quest hooks are in place to allow you to start the expansion content. I spent a good twenty minutes on my dragon… only to immediately get hit by a game-breaking bug that forced me to delete it and start over.
My second dragon was purely random in order to actually get into the action just in case it happened again. I played through the entirety of the Forbidden Reach zone and now have deleted that character and did my best to recreate my original look and am now in the process of playing through it again. My only real complaint with the starter experience is that the zone is really large, and objectives are spread out from each other. In theory, you have dragon flight in order to get you between the destinations, but this is on a 5-minute cooldown timer. This means that if for some reason you are moving faster than five minutes between objectives… you are going to be spending a good deal of time walking around which feels bad.
My theory is that there should be some sort of zone-wide aura that lets the Dracthyr use their dragon flight as often as they want. This would allow for players to spend a bit more time getting used to the mechanics because right now it feels like you pretty much have to nail it immediately or suffer the experience of running everywhere. The other thing that I have noticed is that I feel very weak as a Dracthyr. There are several mob types on the island that are just a bit overturned for my character. I am very much used to starter experiences being something that you can pretty much sleepwalk through, and so far this island requires me to spend a lot of time healing myself.
The other thing that is somewhat awkward is the Evoker class itself. It has been announced as a hybrid between a caster DPS and a healer, and it does in fact do both things. However, remember how awkward druids are for the first twenty levels or so? That is how Evoker feels to me right now. You have a bunch of different abilities that do different things, but there doesn’t really seem to be much synergy between most of them. Living Flame for example is both your primary nuke and primary heal, and it is fine at both of them. Disintegrate is your standard channeled ability that slightly slows things as they head towards you. The most interesting ability you get early on is Fire Breath, which allows you to charge the ability before releasing it… and it deals more damage the longer you charge it. However to get the maximum amount of benefit you need to charge it for quite a while, and it has a 30-second cooldown… so it mostly just feels bad to use.
Then there are a handful of arguably melee abilities with Azure Strike and Tail Swipe, that doesn’t really seem to fit in terribly well into the kit. Sure you can rapidly hit multiple targets in front of you with Azure Strike but you are dealing so much less damage than you would if you were casting a spell. Tail Swipe serves as a knock-up… but everything recovers so quickly that it doesn’t really do much to buy you enough time to cast something in the meantime. The lack of active dodge in World of Warcraft also limits its usefulness as well, because I could see hitting it and then rolling out of the way in a game like Guild Wars 2. Similarly, Wing Buffet can be used to knock a target away, but it is on a 1.5-minute cooldown means it is a one-shot ability. I think the problem with coming up with a new class this late in the life cycle of the game is that essentially everything I am seeing from the Evoker is done better in another class that feels more focused.
The real highlight for me however is seeing the early functionality of the new UI. I think over the course of the alpha and beta we will see more of this roll in, but right now we have a new cast bar and the ability to edit hotbars. Currently, I have a layout with one large Hotbar, with two small ones stacked across the top of it, and then to 3 column wide blocks on the right side. Admittedly MOST of why I continued to use mods in World of Warcraft is because I could not stand the default hotbars. Another huge reason why I installed addons is that I prefer a single large bag as compared to multiple small bags, and that is now also just in the default UI as something you can configure.
The other thing that I am interested in is the new talent system. Like I said I rolled a Death Knight and while I can not actually start the new campaign, I did spend some time playing around with talents. I really like that the tree is split between having a more generic class-specific tree that everyone has access to, and a tree specifically for your specialization. More than this I like that they have seemingly put abilities that you would want in both trees, some of which previously defined a specialization like Icy Talons being in the general tree. I think the purpose of a Talent tree is to leave you with the feeling that you wish you had more talents because you could not take everything you wanted. This means there is a reason to ACTUALLY run multiple specs for different reasons and will make it a bit harder for the “one true spec” to arise.
I need to create a Warrior and play around with those talents since I miss the days of hybrid tank specs that spend most of their points in fury or arms rather than just everything in protection. Some final thoughts about my experience. I did not get into it as much as I thought I might. Sure there is some nostalgia for World of Warcraft, but it just feels like a really old game design at this point. It might be that I have spent so much time lately playing more action-oriented games, but essentially mentally I am lumping it in the same mind space as I keep Everquest. What I find interesting is that Final Fantasy XIV does not feel nearly as old of a design to me, and I think the key difference is that everything in that game feels tightly designed to work together. Whereas World of Warcraft has always felt like making the best of a bad situation. All of that said after bouncing off both Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands, I am curious if the campaign will ultimately pull me in when we get to test that.
The post Dracthyr Initial Thoughts appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
This morning’s post is in part an addendum to yesterday’s post. My opinion on Stray is changing a bit as I get further into the game. Essentially the game seems to be a repeating pattern of miserable alien blob infested “endless runner” segments perforated by moments of exploring adorable robot settlements. I feel like on some level the alien segments are there only to be able to claim that the game has some skill-based gameplay when in reality the studio should have simply embraced the fact that it was a walking simulator. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the game would have been much better if I was just a cat roaming around a dead city talking to cute robot friends and never having to deal with these alien abominations.
In fact, I can outline the exact moment my opinion of this game started to shift. Light spoilers but The Slums is the first settlement that you spend time in, and during your travels, you find out that one of the robots has figured out a way to fight back and went out into the sewers to test this weapon never to return. So you go through a series of events to uncover this technology and when you have it… it is great. The weapon overheats so you have to carefully time your attacks but it works… you have some way of dealing with the alien swarm other than trying to run perfectly without getting captured. Then just as soon as you have the weapon… “story elements” take place and rob you of your only line of defense pushing you back into the “endless runner” territory. This feels so phenomenally bad and only serves to make the next sequence of awful alien-swarm-time feel all that much worse.
I talked briefly yesterday about the “red screen” where you get overwhelmed by the alien blobs and your cat lies down… and the game asks you to reload from a save point. Admittedly I was fine with this the first time I saw it after sorta learning the ropes of how to dodge the blobs. I was less fine with it the several deaths that I took trying to install a transceiver on top of a very tall, very blob-infested tower. Then all the deaths I took trying to get through the sewers… made me significantly not fine at all with it. I crossed that threshold from “it’s okay this is just a game” to “this is a sweet baby cat that I want to protect and I am failing”. This is the danger honestly of including cats or dogs in your games, because if you make our failure cause them to die… it hurts a lot.
So while my opinion yesterday was extremely good in this game, after more play I am starting to create some sort of risk versus reward matrix in my head. The gameplay of me roaming around a settlement and making robot friends is delightful, but at what point does that joy not outweigh the pain of watching a sweet cat die over and over. Granted like I said yesterday the death sequence is tasteful and not graphic… but just knowing that my cat is lying down because I failed them and that they are getting eaten alive… is not cool. Having to continue to confront the blob bullshit while simultaneously being robbed of the only defense I had… is not cool at all.
The post Updated Stray Thoughts appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Friends! Last night I set out with every intent to play through the new Guild Wars 2 Season 1 chapter 3 drop. However Stray, a game where you play a cat in a city filled with robots also dropped yesterday. What originally started out as my sitting down to play it “for a few minutes” wound up being the game I spent my entire evening in. Instead of talking about the story this morning, I am going to instead talk about the sort of game that it is. I am playing this on Steam because it is my platform of choice if I am given a choice at all. You are greeted by a message that this is best played with a gamepad, but if you are a keyboard and mouse aficionado you can safely ignore that. I’ve yet to encounter any sorts of movement that would be hard to pull off on the keyboard if you are not also very familiar with that control scheme.
Stray is firmly placed in the genre that is referred to as “Walking Simulators” where you are set in a world where most of your time you spend exploring, with little to no combat. The key difference is that instead of playing a human being, you are a cat, and your only interaction with the world is through batting things, meowing at things, or scratching on things. There are a number of games that I feel vie for the modern title of “Adventure” game, where you roam around looking for objects to interact with that you then use on other objects. Stray is very much in this same vein where as you progress through the game you will collect various bits and bobs and then will use those to either barter with robot companions for other bits and bobs, or unlock different things barring your progress.
I place this in the modern adventure game category because all of your interactions apart from freely being able to meow at will… are driven by prompts. On the keyboard, the most common prompts are Q for doing some sort of physical manipulation of an option and Spacebar for jumping, and if you can actually jump the spacebar icon will appear hovering slightly over the thing you are intending to jump towards. Most of the gameplay so far involves roaming around a rich urban decay setting and looking for things that can be interacted with. As you begin to reach objectives, the game does a really good job of somehow highlighting where you should be paying attention either with illuminated signs or yellow lighting effects. This is nowhere near as obvious as the yellow-painted rocks in some games… but if you know what you are looking for can be similarly effective.
In your travels, you encounter a drone that has lost its memory, and through interacting with various objects it can begin to remember things. It can seemingly understand you and ends up acting as your translator for both the world and the robot companions that you eventually encounter. This adds a new button to your repertoire which is E on the keyboard, allowing you to have the drone explain things to you or communicate on your behalf. Additionally, you can toggle on a flashlight mode which is helpful for exploring dark spaces. When not in use the drone docks on this nifty backpack that you get outfitted with. I am guessing the drone is also the person who is storing all of the things you pick up along the way because you sorta have to suspend your disbelief that a cat can easily carry some of the items you end up carrying.
While most of the game involves peaceful interaction, that is not to say everyone you will encounter will be your friend. There is an organic menace that has taken over the dead city, and there will be times when you need to avoid swarms of these critters. You can run and you can weave to avoid them, and if my theory is correct I am about to get some sort of device that will help me hold them at bay. However there is nothing that I would refer to as traditional combat, and it is a series of active puzzles that you need to solve. For example, you can meow to draw a swarm to a specific point, and then use your superior navigation skills and speed to distract them while you run to safety. Thankfully there are effectively “safe” areas and “dangerous” areas, so the moments you need to traverse one of these hot spots are clearly delineated.
The best moments of the game so far however have been in the interactions with the robot companions. They have seemingly outlived the humans they used to take care of and now do their best to honor the memories. This is a game where rich stories are being told through the scenery and very limited interactions, allowing you to read between the lines and flesh out the setting, and begin to understand small snippets of what happened to the world around you. For example one of the companions that you meet styles themselves as a musician, and as you find sheet music around the world you can bring it back and they will play the song for you. The game is filled with simple moments of joy like that, and if you are needing a bit more joy in your life then this might be a game for you.
I found myself enjoying the chill vibe of exploring the dead city, and honestly am probably going to mainline this game until I finish it. I’ve heard that the entire game is somewhere in the neighborhood of five or six hours in length. The experience of playing it though has been great for me personally. You all know I am a cat person and I would already die for this sweet baby.
The post Stray First Impressions appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
