Holiday Break and Gaming Update
Posted by Mordiceius at 11:40 am
I apologize a bit for the radio silence, but expect it continue for the next two weeks. I have been doing quite a bit of gaming with Rynala. Between World of Warcraft, Darkfall, and the games I have been buying from the Steam holiday deals, I have almost had too many games to play. Tomorrow, I am flying home to be with my mother for a week and a half to care for her after she undergoes surgery. In my down time I hope to get the chance to write some, but I am not making any promises as of yet. I do have quite a bit I would like to write about.
I have been getting deep into the World of Warcraft economy and have made over 15,000 gold since patch 3.3 has come out. I finally get it and I am finding myself quite addicted.
I stopped playing Borderlands for the most part. Rynala and I got about 50% through the game and the flaws of the game are starting to hinder my enjoyment. Not to mention the developer essentially lied to PC gamers about the game.
Darkfall has taking somewhat of a back burner. I am not turning away from the game as I still really love it, but I have just had so much to play, I just have not been able to make the time for Darkfall. I plan on playing more soon.
Titan Quest is the game that I have been playing for the past week. I had picked it up from Steam during the Black Friday deals and have never played it before. Rynala loves Diablo clones so we gave it try. We are currently in the second act of the game and I really have been enjoying the game. The game is about three years old but it is still a very beautiful looking game and gameplay-wise it feels just like Diablo to me.
The holidays have truly provided quite the gaming boon to me and I hope it has been just as good to all of you.
Going Broke Saving Money
Posted by Mordiceius at 10:42 pm
Steam seems to know my weakness is deals. Within the last month I have bought more games than I will ever be able to play but I cannot help myself.
Today - You now own Prototype.
Dec 25 - You now own King's Bounty: Armored Princess.
You now own Cogs.
Dec 23 - You now own Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, The Dig, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Loom.
You now own S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky.
You now own Gumboy Crazy Adventures, Gumboy Crazy Features, Vigil - Blood Bitterness, Obulis, Chains.
You now own Defense Grid: The Awakening.
Dec 15 - You now own The Last Remnant.
Nov 30 - You now own Mirror's Edge.
You now own Monkey Island Special Edition.
You now own Evil Genius.
Nov 28 - You now own Borderlands.
Nov 27 - You now own STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, Full Spectrum Warrior, Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers, Titan Quest, Titan Quest: Immortal Throne, Company of Heroes, Dawn of War Gold, Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, Dawn of War Gold: Winter Assault, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights, Dawn of War: Soulstorm, Frontlines: Fuel of War, Saint's Row 2, Warhammer® 40,000™: Dawn of War® II, Red Faction: Guerrilla , Red Faction, Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor, Red Faction II.
You now own Starwars: Knights of The Old Republic.
Nov 16 - You now own Overlord, Overlord: Raising Hell, Overlord II.
Holiday Update 09
Posted by Mordiceius at 4:00 am
Somehow I got in the Darkfall Spotlight on the forums. I do not personally read the forums, but it is not because I am lazy. It is simply because I am afraid (that, and I cannot access them at work).
Being that it is the holidays, I hope you do not expect too many posts from me over the coming weeks. I am going to be working all this week but I will have all of next week off work (though Rynala and I may be driving up to see her folks around New Years). I will be gone for the first week and a half of January to fly north and care my mother while she has surgery.
I have been devoting a majority of my time to Darkfall and World of Warcraft. Since Darkfall is not a system resource hog, I am able to play both simultaneously. This works even better for me since I can set up my character in Darkfall to mine or log and go run an instance or work on auctions in WoW. In WoW, I have had to find unique ways of making money as enchanting and engineering are not huge money makers right now. I am thinking of taking my level 70 warlock out of retirement and making them an alchemist.
As for Darkfall, I have been spending majority of my time in small scale PvP. The Goons have largely moved from Aerngardh to Darkmoore since Aerngardh was not so newbie friendly and apparently the spawns are broken all over the frigid north lands. The journey was absolutely terrifying.
When we moved from Janhalek to Aerngardh, there were about ten of us on a raft making the trip, this time there were only four. A third of the way through the trip, there was a cry of pure horror on vent. Closing fast on us was the kraken. One of the people on the raft tried to push me off as a sacrifice but was instead knocked off the raft himself by the kraken. We could not rescue him so we made haste out of there. Fifteen minutes later we saw the kraken once more on the horizon pursing us. One of the other members of the ship sacrificed his life to save the raft. The raft owner and myself made it to landfall safely, never forgetting the sacrifices our two brave comrades made.
I found the move to Darkmoore very amusing because it is about a ten minute mounted journey north of Mir Bellith, the elf area I started at. I had gone from Mir Bellith down to Janhalek and north to Aerngarde only to end up ten minutes north of the start of my journey. Since I was so close to my origin, I returned to Mir Bellith to work on getting some skill ups (and to look for some PvP).
My favorite targets so far have been people in the NEW clan. NEW is the clan for people new to Darkfall, but has lately received some scorn. When they were originally created, Goon Squad declared war on them as a joke, and made a couple enemies from other clans in doing so. Since then, I have seen many clans declaring war on NEW. In clan chat, people were explaining that there were some players exploiting the clan and using it as a safe haven to avoid PvP so a lot of guilds were getting sick of it.
I have had a lot of good PvP in Mir Bellith. Since I am still quite new to the game it is nice finding people that mostly match my skill. I have lost quite a few times though. Luckily, beside my mount, I have not lost anything of any importance. As for the mount, that situation did not make me happy. I was running away from a guy that was killing my mount with arrows and so I ran into the city to safe corner to try to desummon my mount and then bank it before I died. While dismissing it, some blue player came, jumped on it and rode it off. Since they were blue, I could not attack them due to the guard tower and an alignment hit. There should be penalties to mount thieves. It would nice to see them take an alignment hit or go rogue for a while. If that guy had gone rogue, the guard towers could have taken him out. Other than that, it has been a lot of fun in Mir Bellith.
All of this good MMO gaming has made it hard for me to go play any other games. I have yet to finish Borderlands and I still have a load of games from the Steam sale I need to play including Last Remnant, Overlord 2, WH40K: Dawn of War 1 and 2. Plus, the good games are going to keep coming with Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, and Final Fantasy 13 coming out in the next few months. What is a gamer to do!
The Best of Both Worlds
Posted by Mordiceius at 1:02 pm
I am playing two MMORPGs right now. World of Warcraft and Darkfall. It would seem like those games are polar opposites of each other and that they would not go together. Well the do not go together and that is why I like it. I could be playing World of Warcraft and LotRO or World of Warcraft and Aion or World of Warcraft and Warhammer or Darkfall and Fallen Earth but in all of those cases, the games are the similar style (themepark and themepark or sandbox and sandbox).
Now, I have a great themepark game and a great sandbox game. If I want to go socialize, leasurely group with others, kill some random things, see purples fly, or even just sit in town and idle, I can play World of Warcraft. If I want to travel a harsh land fearing for my life and expecting death around every corner, I can play Darkfall. I think it is a logical fallacy to believe someone could only ever want to experience one of these feelings. Variety is the spice of life.
I generally save my larger play sessions for Darkfall now so that I can get more accomplished in that game, but I still will often alternate between the two. The other day, I ran an instance in WoW, then went to Darkfall for a few hours, then went back to WoW to run another two instances to take a break, and finally returned to Darkfall to do more gaming.
Having both of these games satisfies almost all of my MMO urges and lets me better game to my mood. I do not want to fear for my life every time I log onto a game, but sometimes I do. I do not always want to have rewards raining from the sky with zero risk, but sometimes I do. I think that playing both games helps me develop a greater appreciation for the differences in the two.
Both games tried to do something different. World of Warcraft took the Everquest model and opened it up to the masses while Darkfall went back to the MMO sandbox roots like Ultima Online.
All of this just hammers in the point that we do not need more of the same. We need more new ideas. Do you want a good themepark game? Play WoW or LotRO. Do you want a good sandbox? Play Darkfall or Fallen Earth. Now give me something different (here is to hoping Planetside 2 is good).
Settling in Darkfall
Posted by Mordiceius at 2:14 pm
I traveled with the Goons this weekend as we relocated from their previous base of operations in Janhalek to a new location in the frigid northlands. I was still in the elf starting lands when the announcement went up in vent that the move would be taking place later that day. Both the old and new locations were equal distance from me. I could head south to Janhalek and then travel north to the new town. I had heard that traveling north took me through a bit more perilous territory so I ventured south.
The journey was uneventful but took the greater part of two hours on foot. While I saw a lot of wildlife, I saw very few enemy camps while sticking to the coast. Making the swim from the mainland to the island of Janhalek took over a half hour in itself. I could have asked for someone to bring a raft for me but I wanted to try to do it all on my own.
I arrived in Janhalek about fifteen minutes before launch time and had some time to meet and greet with the Goons before about ten of us got on a raft. The raft ride was pretty fun as we all laughed and joked while fishing and watching for the kraken. There was word that a trio of ships was assaulting the city we were heading to and as a raft we were pretty much sitting ducks. We made a wide angle entrance into the city and luckily arrived after the assault was over. Just hearing word of it made me excited.
When we tried to bind to the city, their stone was out of bind slots since their keep was destroyed from the attacking ships so myself and a handful of other people rode north to a hamlet to bind. It was terrifying as we left the city because about a hundred people on mounts were rushing straight at us. Luckily, they were just allies returning to the city.
I took another hour to get acquainted with the area and learn a little more of the game. I found a nice troll spawn about ten minutes away so I worked on my skills a little there.
Yesterday afternoon when I logged in, the owners of the city were about to make an attack on a neighboring city. A group of Goons had offered to join the charge and I decided to go with. My skills are still at abysmal levels but I wanted to see an attack for myself. I rode down from the hamlet to the city just in time for the army to take off. It was about ten Goons and a hundred other people heading out in this charge. We were told on vent that the enemies were some of the most skilled players in the game.
The destination was nearby and it only took about twenty minutes to get there. Unfortunately, our attack was very unorganized. It was more of a "everyone charge this point, okay now everyone head to this point, okay now everyone go to this next point" instead of "group one take this point, group two take this other point, etc". After about ten minutes of fighting, a full retreat was called. I fired of a ton of arrows and did hit someone with one arrow for 13 points of damage. I may not have contributed much, but I contributed!
When we returned back to the city, I went back to that troll camp to work on my archery some more. As I have only been in the game for about a week, I find myself being overly cautious. Especially in this location which is not just new for me, but the entire guild, I am wary to leave the troll spot for farming because I do not know what will annihilate me yet.
The hardest thing for me currently is just deciding on what skills I want to work on. It is weird playing this game after so many theme-park games because in Darkfall, there is just so much I can do that I do not know what I want to start first. I keep getting gamer ADD and working on one skill for five minutes before getting distracted and working on something else. I know eventually my completionism tendencies are going to kick in and I am going to start focusing hard on one or two skills at a time until I max them out.
I am having a lot of fun in Darkfall and I am excited to become more familiar with the area and the mechanics and more comfortable with taking risks.
Patch 3.3 – Present and Future Outlook
Posted by Mordiceius at 1:24 pm
Patch 3.3 is the best thing to ever happen to World of Warcraft. The looking for group matchmaking system is spectacular.
Within the last three days, I have run almost twenty instances without any major trouble. The new instances are fun and challenging but the best thing is just the efficiency of groups. It is also really nice playing a holy paladin because it never takes me more than about 15 seconds to find a group.
I know that I will eventually have some bad experiences, but currently it has been nothing but fun. The matchmaking system also does a good job of pairing people with wide varieties of skill and experience. I am decently geared. Most my gear is on par with Ulduar 25 and now a couple pieces of tier 9 quality gear. I have had some groups with lesser geared tanks but great dps and other groups with over-geared tanks and lesser DPS. Either way, the matchmaker strikes a balance so that the group can make it through the instance with little difficulty and everyone can have fun. Hardcore geared players get their successful instance runs and the lesser geared players that would not usually be able to find a group get to actually just run instances.
The other thing that has struck me is just how friendly everyone is. Everyone has been very kind and considerate. If someone accidentally pulls or makes a mistake and wipes it is not a "NOOB!! LERN TEH INSTANZ!!!1!" but more of a "Everyone makes mistakes, do not worry about it" attitude.
This is all great in the short term but what about the long term. What does this mean for the future players?
Rohan wrote up his thoughts on the patch as well as predictions about players leveling characters.
"You know, in a few months there are going to be some sick skilled tanks available. Imagine levelling to max purely by running dungeons with PuGs. Those tanks who come out of that are going to be really good."
I completely agree with him on that. Before patch 3.3, when people would level characters they just quest their way to the level cap. It was the most efficient way. You could always list yourself under the looking for group interface but depending on your server, there might be no one running instances. Plus, you had to deal with the travel to and from the instance. If you are leveling in Hillsbrad, why would you want to make the journey all the way out to Blackfathom Depths and back? Simply put, it was a pain to find the group and with travel it was simply inefficient compared to solo questing.
At max level, people would complain that since other players soloed their way to the level cap, these players had no idea how to function in a group.
Now, there is no reason not to always be listed in the matchmaking tool while leveling. You get automatically paired up and can teleport to and from the location. It has taken all the work out of forming and instance group as well as given a larger pool of players to pick from.
This should push more and more people to run instances while leveling (but WoW is such a solo game, right guys?) and since more people are grouping while leveling, hopefully the skill of the average player will increase.
Between the immediately positive results I am getting now and the impact I believe this patch is going to have on the future of WoW for years to come, I have no doubt that this is the most important and well done patch in the history of this game.
And yes, I am still playing Darkfall on the side.
My Darkfall Beginning or Syncaine is a Bad Person
Posted by Mordiceius at 5:21 pm
I had my first experiences in Darkfall this weekend. Between me being a sucker for deals and Syncaine's propaganda, I could not help but finally pick it up. Aventurine was running a deal this weekend where you could buy the game and six months of play for only $87. My consumerist self could not refuse that.
Usually, I disagree with almost everything Syncaine says. The man is a psychopath (no offense intended). So it almost pains me to say that I am really enjoying the game in a deep primal sense. The game is really not as bad as I was expecting it to be. It is really not that bad at all, to be honest.
The first thing I noticed is that the graphics are not as bad as people say they are. With shadows on, the game looks pretty decent. It isn't going to win any graphical achievement awards but good graphics do not a good game make. I used to joke that the game looked like Morrowind, but the game actually looks quite a bit better than Morrowind.
But on the subject of the Elder Scrolls, that is what the gameplay most reminds me of and that is a very good thing. I love the Elder Scrolls games. They have always had a soft spot on my heart. So when I jumped into this game and it felt like an advanced MMO Elder Scrolls, I almost immediately fell in love with it.
The game has quite the learning curve though. I died twice to goblins before I ever killed my first one. World of Warcraft, this is not. Though there is a newbie questline to help you get a better feel for the game. I am told that this was a recent addition, and in my mind, a very helpful one.
I only played yesterday, so I only was able to get a few hours in but my experience was quite positive. I joined up with Goon Squad and had my first experience in ganking. It did make me rage a little bit, but that was only because I had not found the bank yet and was still carrying all my spoils of war. Luckily, every experience is a learning experience and thus I know better now how I should handle myself. I am really excited for when I get to play some more.
Darkfalling
Posted by Mordiceius at 2:32 pm
God help me, but all the posts from Syncaine and the video of the Kraken destroying a ship are really making me interested in Darkfall. I am still not sure if I will play it as I do not know if I really hate myself that much, but it is starting to look quite tempting.