The Big DING! Warlords Edition

It took some of my guildies a little less than 24 hours, and a lot more of my friends aren’t even anywhere close, but for me it took about eight days. Last night, a week after the release of World of Warcraft’s newest expansion Warlords of Draenor, I hit the new level cap of 100.

I have to say, the experience just keeps piling on in this expac. My husband and I weren’t pushing hard towards 100 by any means, mostly keeping to our regular gaming schedule and only playing a couple hours in the evenings, a bit more on the weekends.

Not to mention, I kept getting distracted from questing by about a million other things — treasure hunting, collecting and battling companion pets, archaeology…and most of all, I got constantly waylaid in my leveling by my Garrison. Every half hour or so I’d be hearthing back to my base to set up new missions, check in on progress and status of my buildings,  start new work orders, etc. It’s bloody ADDICTIVE.

It’s actually a wonder I made it to the new cap in only about a week.

Obviously there’s so much to do in WoD. Even though I’ve achieved level 100, I know I’ve only scratched the surface. I’m happy about a lot of the new content and while my overall impressions are positive, it’s still probably too soon for me to do any in depth write-up. The expansion has been keeping me quite busy though, and that’s good thing (though not for all the other stuff I have to do this month)!

ESO: Happy Launch Day

While those who preordered have been playing in headstart, today is the official launch day of Elder Scrolls Online for PC. If you’re already in the game, I hope you’ve been enjoying the experience as much as I have.

Despite some server down times which is to be expected, the game has nevertheless been always up during prime time evenings and nights which is when I usually game. I wouldn’t say launch has been perfect; there were a couple instances of major quests bugging out, but thus far ESO has been one of the smoothest launches I’ve personally experienced. Maybe it’s because it’s high time we’ve had another major MMO launch again, or the fact I refrained from going anywhere near beta in the weeks leading up to the release date, but starting out in ESO these past few days felt fresh, exciting, and even more fun than I anticipated.

I’ve rolled a Dragonknight, because for all the flexibility in the classes available in game, I always have a soft spot for the warrior archetype. Imperial race, Daggerfall faction. Perhaps not surprisingly, I’ve tentatively decided on a tanky-type route when it comes to leveling and allotting my points. At this time, House Stalwart the new guild I’ve joined is almost 90 members strong and it’s been kickin’ every night!

Things I’ve been enjoying so far: questing and exploring — now that the game is live, I’m taking my time to poke around in every nook and cranny, loot every crate or barrel, talk to every NPC. Barging into people’s houses and stealing all their crap has always been one of my favorite things to do in Elder Scrolls games (oh god, you should have seen the way I hoarded in Skyrim) and I won’t even go into how often I get distracted in my adventuring by a lone trunk or urn sitting by the side of the road that I just have to stop and check out. Even if all it holds is thin broth, pathetic drippings or a bunch of stupid grapes.

And another thing I love: CRAFTING! Who would have thought? ME! The person who has always thought crafting in games was a pain in the ass, who always leaves it until level cap because before that it’s just a hindrance to questing and progressing. I don’t know why, but there’s just something about the crafting in ESO that appeals to me. It’s so layered and complex, but not so challenging either that I couldn’t be bothered to gather materials and actually try my hand at all the professions.

I love that expression…

So, those are my opening thoughts. If you’re playing, how have you been feeling about it so far? I hope to get more time into the game later this month; because of my lack of time and my dawdling, I haven’t gotten very far yet. Currently my Dragonknight is at level 8 but I’m hoping to share more of my experiences as I progress further into the game and see more of its world.

Making Landfall In Landmark

My closed beta email for Landmark finally arrived late last night, so it wasn’t until this morning that I got to jump into the game to check things out for myself.

So you might still pretty unsure about what Landmark really is, given its attachment to the name Everquest Next. What it is actually is a branch of the game, but also a game in itself. In a nutshell, building and creating is central to Landmark, involving the gathering and crafting of materials, then building your flag and staking your claim in the open world so you can start constructing your dream project. Some people have likened it to Minecraft on steroids, and from others’ experiences that I’ve seen, that sounds like a fairly accurate description.

As of this afternoon, I have not even staked a claim yet; most of my time has been dedicated to running around gathering materials. A couple setbacks have slowed me down, the first being that my stuff for the Founder’s Pack never did show up. I’m hoping that when I log in later today I will miraculously find those items in my bag, because a Founder’s Pickaxe should speed things along, not to mention letting me have access to higher tier resources.

Showing that tree who’s boss.

The second setback was due to my own neglect; having found a nice copper vein in the side of a mountain, I set my mind to a-mining, and I sort of let myself get carried away with it. Long story short, I literally dug myself into a hole, but instead of using the Safe Evac option, I chose to dig myself out instead. In the face of obstacles like tight spaces and the horrific things they do to the camera, I finally managed to escape and came away with a ton of copper to boot.

I’m okay, I think I see sky!

Despite only having scratched the surface (though that gigantic hole in the ground I made might say otherwise!) I’m finding the game very interesting so far! Can’t wait until I can make my flag, stake a claim and start my first project.

All My Games Are “Casual”

Here are the MMOs I’m currently playing:

• quite a bit of Neverwinter
• some World of Warcraft
• a little Defiance
• weekly dose of The Secret World
• a light smattering of Rift

I used to tell myself I’m a horrible juggler and that trying to play a whole bunch of games at once never works out. Indeed, given the choice I’d prefer to be able to give an MMO my full attention, do things like reach level cap, explore the entire world, finish “everything” before moving on. The “hardcore completionist” way of doing things has always been a better match for my own personality and play style.

But since the year started, game time for me has pretty much been reduced to about 2-3 hours a night on weekdays and I’ve long come to the realization that doing “The One Game” thing isn’t going to fly anymore, especially with so many new releases that look so fun and amazing, and many older titles I still want to stick with. So…unless I win the lottery or learn how to bend time: A limited gaming schedule + MUST PLAY ALL TEH GAMEZ = everything I play must become “casual”.

The great thing is the majority of MMOs on my list now are subscription-less, and are completely adaptable to my current schedule. TSW Mondays are enough for me to do grab enough AP/SP to advance each week, and I’ve always thought Defiance is the perfect game to jump in and out of if you only have an hour or less of free time. Even in WoW, the one MMO in which I’m participating in even a semblance of an endgame, is now a lot more suitable for the more casual player; through LFR I’m still able to raid and not have the encounter take up my whole night.

It does mean I don’t get to play as much of one game as I’d like each week, but on the other hand I get to experience everything I want to — remember how I almost gave Neverwinter a pass, and looking back now I see what a shame that would have been. I’m glad I didn’t; it’s been a lot of fun so far. Cramming it into an already full gaming schedule felt like a crazy thing to do, but it was totally worth it.

In The Time Of Neverwinter

My decision to hop aboard the Neverwinter train came as a fairly recent one.

To understand how it came about, you have to know that in our family, I’m the one who keeps up with the news in the gaming industry, reads the reviews and blogs, researches the games and decides in the end whether to get them or not. So it’s not uncommon for my husband, even though he’s an avid gamer, to be completely clueless about what games are out there or what’s coming out, because he’s perfectly happy just letting me fill him in and playing anything that I play.

It definitely helps that we have very similar gaming tastes. I’d like to think I’ve always chosen well and that I know the kind of games he prefers and never had to push my luck or his self-respect with anything like Hello Kitty Online. The most important thing is that we get to play together, and bless him for trusting me enough to follow me into whatever MMO world I want to explore.

But still, I almost made a faux pas with Neverwinter. I’d gotten my hands on a beta key earlier this year, played a few days of the beta and liked what I saw, but when “soft launch” came this week I took one look at the sea of games we’re already swimming in and said to the mister, “Maybe we should pass on this, or at least wait until after the open beta when we can both play free at our leisure.” His answer: “But why?”

In retrospect, I suppose I should have foreseen this; that as someone who prides himself on having owned the original Dungeons and Dragons basic boxed set, my husband would be hard-pressed to pass up anything attached to the franchise, let alone an actual MMO based in the Forgotten Realms city of Neverwinter. So he promptly went ahead and bought us both each a Guardian pack, which is how I found myself in front of my computer Saturday morning downloading the client and trawling the multitudes of D&D name generator sites for ideas.

Ultimately, my husband ended up rolling what he calls a “classical cleric”, while I rolled a Wood Elf Great Weapon Fighter. Because if there’s one thing I like more than elves, it’s elves wielding big honking swords.

Alistara Arborshale

It was pretty much all we played this weekend. I can already tell Neverwinter is not going to be as deep as some of the more involved MMOs I’ve played, but it’s still very engaging for a story-based online game supported by lots of dungeons and opportunities to play with friends.

The important thing is, I’m enjoying it; but apparently Neverwinter has gotten its hooks even deeper into my husband — which is incredible, for he is usually so even-tempered and takes a judicious attitude towards new games. I’d say 60 bucks, which is the usual price I’m used to dropping for a brand new game anyway, was definitely worth it for the chance to see things a little early and play with the gang of usual suspects, not to mention the items and perks that come with the pack.

Anyway, it’s only been a couple days and I still feel so green, but I’m slowly discovering that there’s a lot more to Neverwinter. Every hour, I still get surprised when I stumble across new game mechanics or systems that I didn’t know existed, while continuing to be impressed by how much is already in place. I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface, or looked into the Foundry. As I only reached level 15 yesterday, I’m looking forward to a whole new world still waiting for me.

Defiance: Time-Limited Episode Missions

Thanks to catching the tail-end of a twitter conversation a few days ago, I was reminded to complete all the current Episode Missions in Defiance.

Good thing too, since they won’t be around in-game after the 15th. Because of Trion and SyFy’s collaboration on this cross-media project, the timeline content in both the game and show have to mesh and be in sync — so it would follow logically that at least some of the content will be time-limited. The two particular NPCs involved in the current quests, for example, will be gone after the first episode of the show airs Monday night, since it wouldn’t make sense for them to be in the San Francisco Bay area anymore. So, it’s bye bye for now, Nolan and Irisa!

On the one hand, these are exactly the kind of dynamic world changes I would expect to participate in on a cross-media undertaking such as this; part of the draw for me was being able to see events in the show affect the game, and hopefully vice versa. Of course, this will mean working more diligently to keep track of these connections and do content like episode missions on time, but I’m also fairly certain stuff like that won’t be popping up every week, allowing me ample opportunities to catch up. Speaking of which, last night’s polishing off of the episode missions wasn’t bad at all, taking me no more than two hours to complete, especially since I did them in a group with my husband and a guildie.

There are four of this type of quests in all, designated by a star-inside-a-square symbol on the map, and easily accessible to new players as far as I know. All of us had already done A Little Competition earlier in the week, so we hit up the next mission The Searchers, which appeared the first in a chain. This was followed up by The Heist (which contains a solo portion) and The Departed. That these missions are special are obvious right from the start, with longer and more elaborate cutscenes, as well as more challenging enemies and cooler-looking instances. They’re also fun as hell.

So be sure to hit them up; there’s still plenty of time before tomorrow night. You get some decent rewards out of it too, including a couple of outfits and an amazing purple-quality assault rifle. Not only is that my weapon-of-choice, I’m also now proudly sporting a spiffy fur-collared mauve jacket (also known as the official uniform of “We Love Irisa” fan club!)

First Days Of Defiance

Ever since Defiance officially went live on Tuesday, I’ve been playing Trion’s new MMO third-person shooter every night for approximately 1-2 hours each session. Granted, that’s probably optimal for me, given my hopes that this game can become a fun and casual pastime on the side. Still, I’m sure I’ll need a lot more time with it before I’m comfortable with forming more solid opinions.

However, I’m happy to say that so far all my experiences have generally been positive. Even spending just mere minutes with the live version erased a lot of my previous misgivings, given that I was in the alpha and the beta…and let’s just say it hasn’t always been pretty. In light of some of the more persisting issues, I even occasionally had my doubts about my pre-order.

For one thing, I’ve always wondered to myself, “Can you imagine how stupidly fun this game would be when grouping with friends?” I envisioned a lot of running together as a squad with my guild, but alas I was never able to get the friend and group invite working for me properly during testing. So you can imagine my excitement and relief when I fired up the live client on Tuesday night to find the grouping system working flawlessly.

That one thing probably increased my love for Defiance tenfold. I mean, how surprising that a broken grouping system in an online multiplayer game can completely cripple your enjoyment! Who’d have thunk it, right?! 

Sure, you don’t absolutely need to group in Defiance, but I definitely experienced a whole different layer of gameplay dynamics after a few hours running with my husband. There’s an added immersion you just don’t get when playing alone or out-of-communication with others; playing the game is so much more interactive when I find myself planning out attacks with someone else, whether it’s splitting up the work during missions or laying down cover fire when the other player is interacting with a quest object (or running like hell for his life).

Last night, I even had the chance to participate in one of those big Arkfall events. Now, ain’t that a whole different kind of animal. It’s very similar to the rift events in Rift that happen very randomly and without warning. One moment, a small group of us were just la-di-da shooting away, and then all of a sudden you’re swept up in a massive crowd like a wave and flaming hellcrabs are jumping at you trying to eat your face and your poor mouse is just gripped in your sweaty shaking hand while you’re desperately firing that assault rifle like it’s nobody’s business and…it’s just one big mess. The good kind of big mess.

That’s the thing. I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about Defiance, other than it’s rather fun and addicting. But if there’s one aspect that really surprised me about the game, it’s how quickly I took to it. I’ll admit I’m not the biggest fan of shooters, I honestly never thought I would get into a game like this. That I did and got hooked onto it so quickly speaks volumes about it, I think.