Good Morning Folks! I could do a blog post about my meager progression in Path of Exile, but I will be honest that gets boring over time. Instead I am going to talk about a few games that stumbled into my awareness over the last few days. First up YouTube actually served me something interesting in the form of a video about a new MMO called Spirit Vale that is from a one person development team. Essentially the game is free right now and exists in a sort of permanent open play test state. It is very Ragnarok Online inspired, which I only know by the appearance because when folks were playing Ragnarok and Runescape… I was playing Everquest because I was gainfully employed and could afford the subscription fees. There is an entire era of MMORPGs that I have no real experience with, but the video I linked above interested me enough to give it a shot.
I’ve not done much in the game yet, but essentially you roam into the low level zone and play murder hobo for awhile until gear and upgrades drop, and then take that gear and the levels you gained… to the next zone and repeat ad infinitum until you get bored. I like killing things, and while I don’t have much in the way of abilities yet there is something deeply satisfying about the sounds of combat in this game. I am not sure how much I am going to be playing it, but it might be worth a look, especially if you were ever a Ragnarok kid. Definitely plays on the cute side of MMORPGs, and there are little quest NPCs in zone who will craft gear for you if you gather enough items from killing baddies. That is how I got the charming bear hat. Supposedly the content stays somewhat evergreen because there are items that drop from even low level NPCs that can be used as upgrade components in later gear. If curious you can pop over to the Steam page and join the play test now.
Next up we got some new gameplay footage from Hytale, which is a game I was deeply interested in when it was first announced… but then promptly forgot about its existence. Originally this was a Minecraft-alike that was started by the folks behind the popular Hypixel Skyblock Minecraft Server. It then got picked up by Riot Games, and eventually cancelled by Riot Games, and most recently was sold back to the original developers who are attempting to pick up the pieces and keep it moving forward. Essentially the promise of the game is Minecraft but with good combat, and the gameplay demo seems to show that it is making good on that concept. Will this ever actually release? Who knows! However I am still fairly interested in seeing the development progress. I have a friend on Mastodon who is also making a Minecraft-alike that I am watching closely but I am not sure if even they have any idea what the core gameplay loop of that is going to be. Minecraft as a concept is still something fairly compelling for me, so I will probably always like breaking blocks.
Yesterday we got a bit of a mic drop from Arena.net as they announced that Guild Wars Reforged is a thing… and that it is coming really freaking soon. Reportedly it is releasing on December 3rd, and everyone who already owns copies of the original Guild Wars games… are going to get copies of it for free. There is not a lot of information available yet on the game, but essentially it seems like they are targeting a Steam release that is going to be SteamDeck compatible and will bundle all of the existing Guild Wars Trilogy content into a single package but with updated graphics and graphical engines. It also reports to have full controller support, which will be interesting… and might honestly become the best way to play this game. There are a lot of articles on this game but most of them are largely regurgitating the original press release.
My favorite Guild Wars 2 creator/streamer Laranity is hosting a Developer Q&A today at 11 am PST, after which I am hoping we have a better idea of what is coming. Weirdly the original release did not mention anything about Eye of the North and I am really hoping that was not an intended exclusion. I am legitimately pumped about this because I want to experience all of Guild Wars 1… but the engine is pretty damned clunky. I doubt they will give me the ability to jump… but one can hope. I would love for the game to have the option of a more standardized MMORPG control scheme rather than click to move and click to attack. If they support Direct Input… there is the possibility of someone creating an interpretation layer that will support a friendlier keyboard control scheme. I will definitely be watching today to see this discussion, but look forward to the various articles that will likely summarize the details.
That is all I really have to talk about this morning. I’ve also heard that there is a resurgence of folks playing Rift again, but I need to do a bit more research on that before I feel comfortable talking about it. What games are on your radar in the MMORPG space? Drop me a line below.
The post Games to Watch: Spirit Vale, Hytale, Guild Wars Reforged appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Folks! Yesterday about mid day the Visions of Eternity expansion dropped in Guild Wars 2, giving us access to new areas and new elite specs. I’ve not made it past the first zone, but I have to say that Shipwreck Strand is freaking gorgeous. Probably the most interesting thing about the zone so far is how much of it was designed explicitly for the skimmer, and more specifically the ability to use the skimmer underwater, because there are giant swaths of caves believe the surface. Essentially we head to the new far flung locale of Castoria, a sort of rumored island that is shrouded in unnatural fog. I won’t go into too much detail as not to spoil the experience for anyone, but I found the whole navigation sequence of finding our way to the island interesting.
I am not sure if there are some tangible upgrades to the engine for this expansion, or if they are just using artistic flare in new and interesting ways… but the zones look freaking amazing. Specifically the ocean itself looks more alive than it ever has, as it swells and drops in very believable ways. There is this bioluminescent foam-like texture in the water that collects around these tidepools that just looks so good to watch play out in front of you. It feels like they have really pulled out all of the stops of zone design to make something that really looks new and interesting. Greebles are normally a term that is used to describe surface texture… but the sky itself feels like it is greebled with motes of magic and such everywhere, making the entire scene look absolutely enchanted.
I migrated my housing to the new island and that was pretty straight forward. You just talk to the NPC who then warns you that any customization will be reset and that your decorations will be placed in storage when you do so. This was fine for me because while I placed items in my house, I didn’t really do anything specific or intentional with them. I was largely running the default state of the previous island. The only customization that I carried forward was using the aurora borealis themed sky, which really blends nicely with the overall look of the zone. This one feels way more detailed than the previous homestead zone, and honestly there are a few places where I would like to try and erect some custom structures. I’ve not really spent much of any time decorating my homestead and maybe the new island will change that. The default structure feels way less of a “complete” thing as it did with the bearkin area.
Now all of this goodness aside… there is a really frustrating bug at play. Essentially very early on in the quest chain, you are given a collection to finish for an NPC named Pete. It feels bad to halt your progress for this unlocking the wavehawk quest sequence, but I remember them doing something similar for the warclaw in Janthir Wilds. However this time around, I thought they had learned their lesson because I was able to progress past the quest once I had filled the renown heart in the area. DO NOT DO THIS. Currently if you progress your quest past the point where you are given the Wavehawk quest chain, you will no longer be able to complete this chain. This harms you later down the line because you are halted from progressing the story because you do not have a Wavehawk mastery as a result. I’ve tried resetting my quest progress back to this chain to essentially zero luck. I am certain they will resolve this issue at some point, but right now… if you move forward with the quest line called “Solid Ground” you will brick your quest progress sequence seemingly permanently.
The only reliable advice that I have seen on this problem is to break out an alt and progress them up to the point where they receive the Wavehawk quest chain, and then complete the collection on them. This should then in theory unstick your entire account, because mastery unlocks are shared at an account level. Effectively when you are in this broken state, the items just do not spawn in the world that are needed for the collection. Anyways, at some point today I intend to starting this content with my Necromancer, and will be bringing him out of retirement. This is not that big of a deal, given that it has been ages since I have played this character and they were effectively the character that made me fall in love with this game universally.
I threw together a very rudimentary Power Galeshot build and it felt pretty good. I don’t love the disengage shot, but it lives on the same slot as the stealth ability from Longbow, so I was already not in the custom of hitting that button most of the time. Essentially I was able to maintain almost 100% uptime on quickness, 12 stacks of might, and have Aegis up more often than not. This seems like a good kit, and way less selfish than my normal Power Longbow build. I need to play around with it more to get used to it, and probably should also keep tweaking the build a bit to improve it. Nothing much is out there so far for Power Longshot other than a PVP focused build. Hopefully the buildcraft geniuses will come up with something beautiful in the next few days. However for the time being this works well enough to keep rolling and questing with it.
Other than this one egregious game breaking bug… I am pretty happy with everything I have seen so far from Castoria and Visions of Eternity. That said, I am not engaged enough that it is going to stop me from going fully degen mode on Path of Exile come Friday. I’ve done the first zone meta twice, and it is fine… but mostly just felt like a giant bag of hitpoints making the entire thing drag on a bit too long. I had more than enough points on the Necromancer to fully spec out the Ritualist tree so I might see what is available for that before I start questing. I tend to prefer GuildJen over Snowcrows or Metabattle because it seems to favor way less sweaty meta builds, and more general purpose things. I don’t care to run multiple builds for multiple purposes, so am always just looking for something that is fun to play that does “good enough” in most content. GuildJen sort of feels like the spiritual successor to Dulfy now that she has “passed beyond memory” or at very least retired from updating a guide site.
Anyways. Have you played any of Visions of Eternity? What were your thoughts so far? Drop me a line below.
The post Visions of Eternity Early Thoughts appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Featuring: AmmosArt, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Hey Folks! This week, we start off talking about Four Job Fiesta and how Ash’s playthrough is going as he takes the donation route to fix his class choices. Bel talks about the Absolum a new demo up on Steam which mashes together Streets of Rage, Hades, and Darkest Dungeon into a really fun Roguelike Beat Em Up. From there, Kodra talks about his recent foray into Minecraft Dungeons and how it is a really good entry point to the ARPG/Diablo-like genre. Ash has been revisiting Guild Wars 1 and talks about his progress so far. Thalen shares his early thoughts about Persona 5 The Phantom X and how it seems to be a non-egregious gacha. Finally, Kodra and Bel go on at length about the current Path of Exile league.
Featuring: Â Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
This weekend we talk about a whole slew of topics that have gathered over the past week.  We talk about Pax West and Gamescom and how the hype and announcements surrounding them seem to not be keeping up with past years.  We talk about Thalen’s descent into Guild Wars 2 and a whole slew of topics related to it.  We talk about arriving on Argus in the 7.3 World of Warcraft patch.  We talk about the recent Destiny 2 PC Beta experience and how it cemented the decision to play on the PC for most of us.  We talk about the Kung Fu MMO of a sort Absolver.  We talk about the Ashes Rise of the Phoenixborn card game, which leads to some discussion about Magic the Gathering Commander and Star Wars Destiny.  Finally we wrap up with a discussion on mobile gaming and some more talk about Legendary Game of Heroes… and a little bit of pining for Glitch.
