Blaugust – Page 53

Why Do I Raid?

August 7, 2015 by Grace

Blaugust 2015, Day 7

The pinnacle of raiding in FFXIV before the expansion. Please ignore my corpse…

Wednesday nights are my main FFXIV raid night. I look forward to battling various monsters, dragons, and bad guys each week. But it has been a while since I sat down and thought about what keeps me coming back for more.

I started raiding back in World of Warcraft in 2007. I was still new to MMOs, and had finally leveled a character that I was happy doing group content with: a forsaken priest. I dutifully ran dungeons and healed butts for max-level content, slowly making a name for myself and filling up my friends list. Eventually some of those friends turned out to be raiders. A couple times a week they ran off to do this mysterious raiding thing with lots of other people. Raiders had the fanciest gear. Back in the days before cosmetic options, raid tier sets reigned supreme in terms of looks. If the promise of challenging group fun didn’t entice me enough the lure of fancy new gear sealed the deal.

I’ve raided in several MMOs now, and they each have their pros and cons. There are some constants that keep me coming back no matter what universe I’m playing in. First and foremost is a great raid group. They might be great in terms of player skill, or just great people I enjoy spending time with. Ideally both! My very favorite raid experiences have been in 8-10 person raids full of excellent players who were also my friends.

Even when I’ve had great groups I’ve sometimes walked away. Raiding is most fun for me when it is challenging and when there are still more achievable goals to meet. The times I’ve taken a break are often either when there’s an encounter that just feels insurmountable with our group, or when everything is on farm and there’s no new content in sight. This doesn’t mean I run away from difficult fights, but there is a difference between a fight that feels fair and that my group is making progress on every week, versus a fight that seems to stop us cold at the same point no matter what we do.

So why do I raid? I guess the answer is equal parts friendship, challenge, and sweet sweet loot! Do you raid too? What keeps you going?

Blaugust Games of Week – Week 2

August 7, 2015 by Belghast

Another Week Down

One of the things that I find easiest to blog about is when I am experiencing a new game, or re-experiencing a game after some time has passed. As a result last week I started doing the Blaugust Games of the Week thing, and for the first week I posted three vastly different titles. While Marvel Heroes 2015 has been in my gaming rotation for some time now, Everquest II and Dirty Bomb were not and as such I spent a bit of time this past week playing both. While I didn’t really talk much about any of the games this week, I hope some of you out there at least gave them a shot. I spent the most time playing Everquest II on the Stormhold Time Locked Server. It has been so strange starting from scratch without having some of my favorite leveling spots. The later leveling zones like Darklight Wood and Iceclad Ocean are just better designed than the original Everquest 2 leveling process was, and as a result you could tear through them so much more quickly.

As of last night I hit level 10 on my Iksar Shadowknight, and in part I think I was doing things the hard way because I stormed right out into the Commonlands and attempted to start leveling off the mobs out there that tend to be significantly higher than my level. One of the things that I had forgotten about the Commonlands were all of the Small Chests that drop additional quests. At this point my quest log is full of level 15-20 Far Seas supplier quests that essentially ask you to kill X of a thing and then turn in the end result at an NPC. I remember these being the bread and butter of early leveling, but I have to say the thing I miss is all of the individual neighborhoods of Freeport. I think it was a huge disservice to the game when the revamp of Freeport got rid of these completely. They are now instanced zones that you can only enter on specific quests, but I have to say these zones made up a lot of the feel of both Freeport and Qeynos and did a good job of explaining why the cities were the way that they were. Of the three titles from this week, this is the one that I am most likely to keep playing because I am finding an odd enjoyment out of retracing my EQ2 roots.

Trion Theme

Since it is once again Friday it is time for me to pick another three games to talk about and suggest. This time around I decided to go with a theme and as a result I am picking three games from Trion. Again I am limiting my selections to games that you can download and start playing immediately without having to purchase a game client or pay a subscription fee. My goal is to make it so folks who are stuck and in need of inspiration can pop into one of these games and get instant “blog fodder”.

Rift

Considering the announcement of the World of Warcraft expansion yesterday, I thought it was fitting to lead off this morning talking about Rift as it was the first game to actually pry me away from the WoW Juggernaut. The game is designed in such a way so that in theory you can play one character and provide every possible role in the game. This was not necessarily the case at launch but over time they have provided additional talent trees or “Souls” to help flesh out the missing abilities. So now you can absolutely be a healing warrior or a tanking mage. This game has an absolutely phenomenal early leveling game, and the first fifty levels are an absolute joy to level through. The expansions however are a completely different thing. I personally found both leveling in Storm Legion and Nightmare Tides to be extremely tedious, and found myself wishing they had not abandoned the early game that I enjoyed so much.

The core of the game though is great, but there are various things you are going to have to content with especially along the lines of ability bloat. One of my key complaints about Rift has been that you end up with a lot of abilities where ability 2 and 3 are absolutely better than 1… but have long cool downs. The end result is that you usually end up macroing all three together, which can lead to some fairly uninteresting game play. That said the game excels at letting you literally branch out in any possible direction and build a character out however you want to. There are some less than optimal options, but in theory any combination of three Souls will make a potentially viable character, which gives you a lot of freedom to customize things as you see fit. Fortunately the game has an excellent set of prebuilt specs to at least get you going in the right direction. As far as the free to play goes… it is among the least restrictive and there are not really any pay walls standing in your way.

Steam Download – Direct Download

Trove

I was lucky enough to get in on the first wave of Alpha invites for Trove and having played it that long… has been an interesting experience. The game has changed massively in that time, and the key elements have shifted and morphed but the basic game is still the same. I tend to think of Trove as Minecraft meets Diablo, and my recent Bel’s Big Adventure series of Minecraft videos has made me appreciate how important this really is. Minecraft has a fairly horrible combat system, that is passible but frustratingly bad if you are going to spend much time fighting anything. Trove on the other stand decided to go in a direction that allows you to pick one of several classes that each have their own built in abilities and a MOBA style character design. I tend to have a natural synergy with the base Knight class, but have spent significant amounts of time playing the Gunslinger and Neon Ninja as well… and they are all extremely well built. The core gameplay loop in Trove centers around going out into the world and fighting baddies to find interesting stuff in level ranged based worlds that steadily increase the challenge.

On top of this however there is a very awesome building system where you can build extremely complex custom worlds for your “Club”, or you can build out your cornerstone which is a traveling spawn point that you can move with you as you go out exploring the world. I love this aspect of the game because it feels like I am able to take all of my most important resources and keep moving my base of operations as I go exploring. The other thing that makes this game amazing is the community support, and the vast majority of the weapons that you will get were created by fans just like you. The game has a silliness to it that is contagious, and I will forever cherish my Dapper Raptor mount that you can see above. Another favorite of mine is the ability to collect item appearances and then make ANY piece of gear that you get look like that, so as you keep exploring you just keep opening more and more unique looks for your character. If you have never played Trove I highly suggest you download it and give it a shot.

Steam Download – Direct Download

ArcheAge

ArcheAge and I have an extremely checkered past. I was in the early Alpha process of this game and found the community to be among the most toxic I have ever experienced in any game genre. As a result I pretty much actively ignored the game for some time. However with some of the AggroChat folks started testing the waters and playing it… I decided to give it another shot. The end result has been a pretty enjoyable leveling experience and allowed me to see just how subtle and nuanced the game really is. I am not a fan of open world ganker style pvp… and early in the game that seemed to be extremely prevalent. More so than that, the players seemed to revel in griefing others in non-combat ways as well. If you AFK’d in town, someone might come along with a tractor and push you out into the middle of a dangerous area just to watch you die. However all of those elements seem to have gotten bored and moved on, and what is left seems to be a bunch of generally nice folks.

The game play itself is also rather good, and while the quests are pretty basic the world is gorgeous and huge, and the class designs are really interesting. While Rift has an issue with duplication of abilities, ArcheAge seems to be designed in a way so that there is natural synergy between talent trees without giving you a bunch of abilities that you will never actually use. I have gone full circle on my opinion of this game and you can track the progress if you flip through some of my blog entries. The game is absolutely playable on the free to play model, but there are some serious constraints. Namely it is very difficult to do more than just one thing as a “free” player because every action is throttled by your abysmal labour points. As a Patron player your labour regenerates when you are offline… as a free player you have to be logged into the game waiting on your points to come back. The other huge constraint is that free players cannot own land, which means if you get very serious about this game you are likely going to end up subscribing. However in the meantime the free model does allow you to get your feet wet.

Steam Download – Direct Download

#Blaugust Day 7: Endings

August 7, 2015 by Thalen

All Bette's stories have happy endings. That's because she knows when to stop. She's realized the real problem with stories -- if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death. - Sandman #6 - Neil Gaiman

I've been thinking about endings recently. About how much we dread and resist them, but how joyous and cathartic they can be when they finally come. At least they can when handled well. A bad ending can retroactively taint everything that came before and turn something you enjoyed into something to be forgotten or even actively railed against. The way something ends is the last impression it makes, and often becomes the most powerful.

So much of what separates a good ending from a bad one is timing; leaving before the welcome is overstayed. It's more complex than that of course; even a well-timed end can fall flat if badly handled, but dragging things out too long seems to be the surest way to ensure a bad end.

Also, not bringing a friend

MMOs by their nature are not good at ending. They're created with the intent of continuing on as long as possible. When they do end, it's often after a decline in studio support that leads to a sort of stumbling half-life leading up to the end. Is it any wonder that so many players, when they do finally cut ties with a game, seem to be filled with hatred for the game they presumably once enjoyed? When the end did come for them, it had taken too long and was no longer satisfying.

It falls to the players to ensure a good end in these situations, by accepting when the time has come. Don't fall into the trap of forcing yourself to keep going when a game is no longer entertaining. Be willing to accept when the time to move on has come. That way, at least the memories can still be pleasant. And you might even decide to return at a later date. After all, the other thing about endings is that the best ones always leave you wanting more.

Shiphand Buddy: Outpost M-13

August 6, 2015 by Grace

Blaugust 2015, Day 6

Welcome back to another episode of Shiphand Buddy! Today we’re exploring Outpost M-13.

Don’t let that monkey steal your precious crystals!

What: Stop whatever is terrifying the poor miners of Outpost M-13

When: Available at level 13

Where: Algoroc, Celestion, Deradune, and Ellevar

Gold Timers: Normal: none, Vet: 20:00

Gracie’s Run Time: Normal: 4:40 , Vet: 8:20

Shiphand Buddy Says: This is a nice quick and straightforward mission. First up is the cargo hold. Enemies will come in pairs, one to shoot you while their buddy steals a crystal. As long as you get a hit in on the thief he’ll run back toward you, so you should be able to prevent them from stealing anything. They spawn on alternating sides of the room, so use movement abilities to switch between them if necessary. One trick I use is to let the first plunderer on either side actually pick up a crystal. They drop their crystals where you kill them, so the later waves will have to move closer to the center before they can start stealing, giving you more time to deal with them. Once you’ve killed enough a mini-boss spawns. Remember you can dash to get out of his knockdown, and make use of the health packs that can spawn around the area.

Charge Locations. They spawn in the same place every time.

Next you head out to the surface, where you can zero-g jump to collect all the floating charges. If you are careful you can grab all of these without having to fight anything at all. Once you have all 10, head inside and talk to the foreman there to start the next section. There are more than enough bodies to loot for datachrons for this part. Just be careful to clear around them first as they will always spawn multiple critters when you use them. If you saved enough crystals in the first part you’ll have a team of mercs who will fight their way through ahead of you, clearing a bit of a path before they eventually get overwhelmed.

When you head back outside a ship will land and spawn 2 waves of adds and then a miniboss. As a spellslinger I like to position myself off to the side before they spawn to help line everyone up nicely in my telegraphs. The miniboss himself is quite easy and once he’s dead you can head into the cave for the last section.

Big bad mother.

Inside, kill bugs, infected miners, and eggs until the queen spawns. I usually clear a little extra to give myself room to move around for the boss fight. She can be a bit of a pain but if you can keep her interrupted she can’t stun you!

Differences between normal and vet: No floating charges to gather in normal mode. The Captain Wiko event is Vet only.

I found the love bug.

Other Thoughts: If this is your first time running, or if you love adorable bugs, make sure to check out the easter egg at the end of the mission. In the last room there is a staircase on the left side. Once you’ve killed the queen, head upstairs to find the lonely lost larva for an achievement!