New Beginnings
I have never been a fan of alts. They always seemed like such a waste of time for me. Whenever I would get the urge to create an alt, I would always think how I would much rather spend that time either doing more to enhance my main character or spending time in another game for some variety. In the past, I created alts when I needed something from them. For example, I created a warlock alt when Rynala started playing so that we could level together. We leveled from 1-70 together so she could be ready for Wrath of the Lich King. When the expansion came out, I leveled from 70-80 with her on my paladin. To this day, that warlock is still level 70.
Well, this week her and I both created new alts. This is her first real alt ever. She wanted to be able to try something different. Being a hunter, the new Dungeon Finder tool always took a while to pair her up into groups. She would see how I would get 1 minute queues when I played and did random dungeons, but when she played it would take 15 minutes. She wanted to create a new character to try something different.
So as of this week her and I are leveling new characters together. She is leveling a feral druid and I am leveling a shaman. At 80, she will use the druid to tank and I will use the shaman to heal (yes, I use my paladin to heal too - I just don't like DPSing). In the past, I have always burned out on alts at low levels because I have done the 1-70 content so many times now. But, things are always better when experiencing it with others and I am really enjoying leveling with Rynala. I can understand why people form "leveling groups" with friends.
Bioshock 2: Better Gameplay, Lesser Experience
I managed to wrap up Bioshock 2 a few nights ago and I have finally compiled my thoughts on it. Overall, I am left feeling lukewarm. I guess it was a flaw on my part to hope this game would capture the magic of the first game again. I am a story freak. I love good stories. The game play can be terrible and I will still play it if it has a compelling narrative. I struggled through Bioshock 2.
In the end, the game is roughly 10 hours long. I started playing on launch day and only played 30 or so minutes a day because I just did not find myself interested in what was going on. The other night, I sat down and marathoned through the last half of the game to just get it done with.
The game play has been tightened quite a bit since Bioshock 1. Plasmids can be upgraded to have more effects and they can be dual wielded with guns. The gun upgrade stations are still in the game and I actually found them to be a lot more centrally located. In Bioshock 2, it was no challenge to find all 14 upgrade stations. I maybe had found half in the first Bioshock.
The story in the game is really what left me so lukewarm. It just feels... unnecessary. It is not bad, but just not necessary either. The most apt description is a "straight to video" sequel. Another way it has been describe is having an "expansion pack feel". It is like Half-Life: Opposing Force or Half-Life: Blue Shift. That is what the plot of this game feels like. The villain is ret-conned into the game and does not seem that threatening in the first place. There are quite a few massive plot holes that tend to stick out as well. The story of the first game was not perfect, but the Andrew Ryan "would you kindly" twist was one of the most memorable moments in video games for me. This... did not pack any punch.
The game is not bad. The game play is much improved over the first, but for me good story is always more important than good game play. I am probably in the minority in this, but I am more willing to play a flawed game with fantastic story than a game with improved game play with an inferior story. I am more about the immersion and experience than the game play. Bioshock 2 is not bad, it was just a story that did not need to be created.
My Auction House Addiction
I had quit playing World of Warcraft for the most part around April of last year. I had been heavily raiding and my guild was working on 25man Yogg-Saron in Ulduar. We were probably the 2nd or 3rd guild for Horde on our server. Though that is not saying much because Bleeding Hollow, while populated, is still a back water server. The #1 guild on our server was only about #500 in the US and they had the top players so that the drop off between them and all other guilds was quite significant.
I just could not taking committing to raiding so much each week. Between 25mans and 10mans and working on getting the raiding achievements, I burned out. After four years of heavy raiding, I burned out hard. I am honestly surprised I lasted that long. I had taken a couple month long breaks in the past, but I always jumped head first back into raiding. I never closed my WoW subscription since I liked to occasionally pop on and talk to people and see if anything interesting was going on, but I never really played much. When patch 3.2 was released, I did the dailies for the coliseum so that I could get the Crusader title, but then I stopped playing again. In my time off, I explored many games. I went back to LotRO and I played Wizard 101, Aion, as well as spending a little time in some single player games.
World of Warcraft's patch 3.3 changed everything for me. It hooked me hard. I absolutely love the three new 5mans and have had a blast with the dungeon finder. I still have not formally returned to raiding. I have done the Coliseum once in 25man and once in 10man, the same goes for Onyxia. I still have not even stepped foot in the Icecrown Citadel raid. One thing that caught my eye like never before has been the Auction House.
I have never been good at making money in WoW. In vanilla WoW, I had my epic mount but I never really had more than a couple hundred gold at a time. I remember having 500g and staying at that for a while made me quite proud. In Burning Crusade, I bought epic flying for 5000g as well as paid 4000g for a Sunwell engineering goggles recipe. Other than that, I stayed around 1000g most the time. In WotLK, I have most of the time just hovered around 1500g. I did get addicted to dailies for one month and made the 13000g+ needed to make the motorcycle mount, but after that I burned out on dailies and never went above 1500g again. When I came back in patch 3.3, I had about 5g to my name. I have no idea what I ever did with all my gold, but it was gone.
When returning with patch 3.3, I decided to give the Auction House a shot. In my 5 years of playing WoW, I had never put a major focus on the auction house but now, I finally get it. I got up to about 500g from using the dungeon finder and used that as my base capital. Between ammo, enchanting mats, and enchanting scrolls, I was up to 4000g in about a week and a half. I then realized I had a level 70 warlock alt that I could be utilizing. The warlock was at 375 herbalism but nothing else. I spent 4500g (I had to borrow 500g from Rynala) and power leveled my warlock to 450 in Alchemy. I sold the potions, flasks, and gems that I had made while leveling alchemy as well as continuing in my other markets and was back to 5000g within a week.
In under one month of the patch, I had essentially made 10k gold (though the 4.5k was spent on alchemy) and it did not take nearly the work that the relentless daily farming did. By the time Christmas rolled around, I had 15k between both characters. Visiting family in early January stopped me from being able to log on to WoW and when I came back, I put a bit of time into Darksiders and Mass Effect 2. I spent a bit of time playing with the auction house, but it was not my focus.
As of this post, I have 25k gold between my two characters. I know it is not a lot since so many people are at the gold cap nowadays, but this amount makes me proud. It is more money than I have ever had at one time and though the economy in game has slowed down after the post patch rush died out, I still have a steady cash flow coming in every day.
My loftiest goal would be to reach the gold cap by Cataclysm, but I do not think that will happen. Even if I just reach 50k or even 100k gold, I will be happy. I am tempted to start buying things that I could never afford before like one of the Dalaran rings or one of the 3-person mammoths.
I know the real money is in Jewelcrafting and Inscription, but I do not have the patience for either of those. I have seen people like Gevlon or Tobold using inscription and listing thousands of glyphs a day. It gives me a headache just thinking about it. As for now, I am happy with the business I have and I am addicted to getting more gold.
Mass Effect 2: Post Game Review
Disclaimer: This post contains mid and endgame spoilers from Mass Effect 2.
I finally wrapped up Mass Effect 2 this past weekend and I am really happy with the experience. This game is what a sequel should be. Bioware took what they did with the first game and refined it into an even better experience. It is very obvious that they took to heart a lot of the fan criticisms of the first game (mainly the mako exploration and the inventory managing). Had this game come out a month earlier, it would have been a toss up between this and Dragon Age for my 2009 game of the year.
I finished as a paragon male Shepard and am already itching to start up as a renegade female Shepard. Between waiting to see if they put out any DLC and this week's release of Bioshock 2 however, I think I am going to put my second play through of Mass Effect 2 on the back burner.
My problems with Mass Effect 2 are really minor nit picks in the grand scheme of things.
I thought there were too many characters. It was not that the characters were not interesting. The only character I did not ever really use was Jacob. The problem was that I liked so many of the characters and you could only take two with you at any given time.
After being spoiled on party interaction in Dragon Age, I wish there was more banter between characters. I also wish the characters would also interact more in conversation with NPCs. Most the time, characters will only have conversation points if you are doing a quest for them or are talking to directly to them on the ship. But, I can understand that this game is supposed to be the story of Commander Shepard so he should have the focus.
I also thought it was very unfortunate that by the time you got Legion into your party, there was a time limit put on your character. Once you get Legion, your ship is attacked by Collectors and all of your crew is taken. The more time you spend running around the galaxy doing side quests at this point, the more of your crew dies. Legion is a Geth and so having him on your side makes for some very interesting interactions. I would love to take him to more of the character and loyalty missions, but I do not want to end with my crew being wiped out.
I was reading an interview with some of the Mass Effect 2 developers and apparently usage statistics are from people playing are getting sent back to Bioware so they can see which characters people use the most. They are going to take this information to give the more used characters bigger roles in Mass Effect 3.
The only other minor nit pick I have is that if you do 100% of the quests in game and hack and loot every locker and safe and body, you will still not have enough money to buy all of the games upgrades. I was using an imported character so I started with a bonus of 150k credits and by the time I reached the point of no return, I was still about 300k credits shy of being able to afford everything.
Nonetheless, these are relatively minor things. They are nothing like the glaring problems of the first game. Word in the pipeline is that they are going to put out some decent DLC for this game (unlike ME1) and that we could see ME3 as early as first quarter of next year. Between the top notch gaming experiences I have had with Dragon Age and Mass Effect, my confidence in Bioware to put out a great game has never been higher. It makes me wonder if The Old Republic could actually turn out to be the "Next Big Thing" in the MMO sphere.
Relics of RPGs Past
I am about 80% done with Mass Effect 2 now. Rynala wrapped up the game on her character yesterday. Being a bit of a completionist myself, I have been doing every little side quest possible before moving forward with the story. For Rynala, she was lukewarm on the first game. She saw the game as "good, but flawed". She was originally reluctant to event start playing ME2. Now, she loves the game so much that she just started her second play through. She is probably even more excited than me for Mass Effect 3.
Many of my friends have finished the game as well and while most are giving it nothing but praise, there are some that think the game has drifted too far from the RPG roots. You can see this sentiment echoed in various places on the internet. Personally, I feel this game is just as much of an RPG as the original and the areas of the game that were changed were areas that did not enhance the game originally.
One friend of mine complained about the lack of inventory. He wanted more guns to drop and more variety. Personally, I do not see the point. In ME2, there are 2-6 different weapons for each slot. Each weapon has different pros and cons. One weapon may have higher damage but another may have higher accuracy while another may hold more ammunition. You are allowed to pick a gun that fits your style and go with it. In Mass Effect 1, people just kept upgrading to the best guns until they got the Spectre weapons and then they would never upgrade their guns again. Now, you pick the gun you like and that will always be the best gun. You can still upgrade its damage and accuracy through the tech lab but you do not have to spend half the game dealing with an inventory full of guns you will never use anyway.
To me, an RPG is not about constantly fiddling with the inventory or allocating stat points. To me, a role playing game is about playing a role. It is playing the personality of the character and changing the world around me. So many of the things that were trimmed off Mass Effect 1 make sense. They are shackles of the past that are just busy work. Streamlining role playing games is not a bad thing. I would much prefer more time playing the character out in the world and less time having to check spreadsheets and min-max characters. When playing games, we need to ask ourselves: "Is this really enhancing the game or is this just busy work?"
Mid-Game Review: Mass Effect 2
I am currently about 20 hours into Mass Effect 2. I would have been further but between, work class, and getting new furniture this week, my gaming time has not been where I would like it.
So far, I think Mass Effect 2 improves on the foundation of Mass Effect 1 in every way possible. The action is better, the character interactions are more cinematic, and the monotony has been reduced.
From what I have read, I am just around half way through the game. I am going a bit slow and being a completionist though, so I may take longer than most people will. Some friends of mine have already beat the game and clocked in 30-35 hours. I am expecting to get in 40+ with doing all the side quests.
Gone is the planet exploration with the Mako and the relentless gun and armor drops (that would always just get reduced to omni-gel) and replacing it is a streamlined game. I have seen complaints from people that they think Bioware toned down the RPG and dialed up the shooter parts too much but I could not disagree more. I think this game delivers a perfect balance between shooter and RPG, but this is something I will probably deconstruct more in another post this week.
The best quality of the game is hands down the cinematography. I believe that the directing in this game is a huge step forward for video games as a genre and will go far to show the kind of personality and emotional response that games can invoke. The characters are not just flatly delivering lines, their faces and bodies give the visual cues that real people give.
This was more eloquently described by CharlieFoxtrot on the SomethingAwful forums:
"I might be flaring up the discussion about ME2's writing again, but I thought there were some interesting points brought up earlier. Basically, it boils down to this: complaining that ME2 isn't up to Planescape: Torment's standards is like complaining that that Steven Spielberg can't write novels like J.D. Salinger. They're trying to accomplish two different things.
Because games are still relatively young as form of expression, they have to borrow their narrative grammar from other forms. P:T chose a novelistic style, full of dense prose, reflection, and introspection. Technology has reached a point where ME2 can choose a cinematic style and use the grammar of film. And it does it so, so well.
It's helpful to compare it to Dragon Age, a game made by the same company but also trying to accomplish something slightly different. For all the amazing stuff Dragon Age pulls off, they did not put as much energy into cutscene presentation. The camera angles tend to be flat and workmanlike, purely designed to convey the necessary information, and the world and its characters are not expressive enough to stand alone without little parenthetical descriptions from time to time.
ME2 spends so much energy making the game's presentation as flawless and emotionally charged as possible. It's all composed of the little things, like that you can see Shepard smirk a little after making a one-liner, or that people walk around and shift positions when having a conversation instead of standing perfectly still, or that the characters' eyes are articulated enough that you can follow what they're looking at like an audience does a thousand times when they watch real people in a real movie.
It really hit me in Miranda's loyalty quest, in the scene where she looks at her sister and her family and the camera drifts from over her shoulder and racks focus into the distance, and then it cuts away and has Miranda step away towards the camera so that you can read every nuance of her expression. Any film buff can tell you that that is a cinematic technique to get us closer to a character's perspective and get us to relate to them better. But most game designers either aren't sophisticated enough or don't care enough to make use of techniques like that.
Of course it would all be for naught if that kind of detail didn't carry over through to everything; it would be like the FMV craze of the late nineties where everyone was saying "It's like a movie and you're the star!" when in reality you were playing a discrete gameplay segment, then watching an FMV, then playing the game some more. Everything BioWare has done in ME2 is about streamlining and perfecting -- not just the gameplay but the story as well. The main directive in ME2 seems to be never to break the flow, and to make every part of the game as seamless and immersive as possible. Rejiggering the systems so that you're not shuffling through an inventory screen or a level up screen every few minutes not only streamlines the gameplay, but also prevents as many jarring immersion breaks from the narrative as possible."