A Week of Adventure

Happy Friday!  Welcome to More Rambling Than Usual!  A one time post.  Because I’m a flibbertigibbet and can’t be repetitious for long.

Rotations

I have played everything except GW2 so far this week, not necessarily in it’s assigned day slot.   I find myself as I’m writing the PlayNotes, kind of becoming involved in each game and character’s story, and sometimes I can’t wait to get back to a particular set of adventures.

I am enjoying playing most things more because of that what happens next element.

One thing that I have learned from this is that for me, MMOs are certainly not “all the same”, each game in my rotation is successful in creating a very unique world.  It doesn’t matter to me if the mechanics or frameworks are similar, each is very distinct and immersive.  I’ve never enjoyed playing more than now, I think.

The only thing I am seeing is I need a nice grid or chart that reminds me what button is for capturing a screen, which removes UI, various basic commands like opening bags, calling pets and mounts, adding toolbars and removing skills.   I take it this is common and it is why people are always tweaking the UI in the game settings to make them all the same in every game if they can so they don’t have to make the switch mentally. 

I don’t do this, because early on I became very interested in how the game is built from the ground up, and I respect the choices made by those who designed the thing, and I’m going to adapt rather than choose these aspects of the game to “make it my own”.

Secret World

Working on the Kingsmouth Code sequence I found myself in an Illuminati tunnel that was very familiar to me from the first go around.  I think I had a post on it whose title included the words “Don’t Gas Me!”    I took the poisonous gassing at each puzzle much better this time.   Dead, dead, dead, ho hum.

I’m really pushing to get Kingsmouth finished so I can move on to Solomon’s Island.  I’m up to level 14 and am working for crazy Edgar at the junkyard who has no concept of personal space and I bet he hasn’t bathed in several years.   Still stuck on that Dawning of Endless Night Tunnel with the motion sensors and Cassandra, another person with no concept of personal space.  I’m going to save that till last.

I’ve decided not to try to work with the old game as well,  after playing SWL, it is all I need, and nothing is so different that I can’t just enjoy the game as it now is.

World of Warcraft

My shining glory character this week is my low level (less than ten) Arms Warrior.  She’s my first Elf who wasn’t a Druid or Mage.  She’s just uber lean and powerful, and is making her own finery.  She has these cool moves, that I don’t notice on my higher level Warriors.

I’m working in the Dolanar area and dang, this new to me server is really high population and for the first time since I’ve been playing, there are a bunch of people around.  This is usually a quiet spot in Azeroth, but I actually had to fight for mobs at one place, particularly against a Hunter who tried to hit and loot out from under me every mob.  Sucker.

I hadn’t started any new characters in WOW in a long time, and didn’t realize that last year they stuck you in a particular specialization for your first ten levels of the game.  They used to just give you a sprinkling of the skills from the three specializations.

Cone of Alt-a-holic shame, I now have ten characters here, and this wasn’t a real problem on any of the others, though I didn’t care much for the Warlock assigned Affliction spec.   I got Frost Mage, which I always use, and Retribution Paladin, always my choice.

The Warrior comes in as Arms, which is what I turn out to have on my other two.  However, though they stick you in that spec, they give you a one handed sword, and Arms can’t use their skills without a two handed sword equipped.   For a level 6 person, I could just buy a claymore from a vendor.

The problem came in for a new Death Knight.   They make you an Unholy, and you have a two handed sword.  I couldn’t change her to Frost, my usual, because you now must have a one hand equipped to play Frost.  Quest rewards two-handed, why no choice?   She, I don’t feel, could just buy a trick one handed sword from a vendor, because she’s fighting all higher level stuff.  Once I was in Stormwind, I could have bought one from auction, but pricing is pretty crazy.   Luckily for me, I was long in the habit of using the Blood spec for adventuring and questing and Frost for dungeons.  Blood can use two handed.  I’m just going to run her through questing till she is offered a one hand or I make enough money to buy one (all these characters are broke).  PITA for no good reason.   At least be thoughtful of the fact that you are making someone play a particular spec, and aren’t giving them the equipment they need to play it.

Everquest 2 Fallen Earth

I felt like I should try to get my level 10 Fury namesake someplace, not just let her flounder.  She didn’t get the nice teleport skill or the turn into a pretty wolf spell at level 10 as did the AB character.
I’m giving it my best power leveling kill everything you come across technique, but it’s crawl crawl goes the xp.

I’m having trouble finding some Young Bears for a quest so I was exploring all over the Antonica area outside the Qeynos gates trying to find them.

Criminy, out from behind an innocuous tower pops a level 16 Dark Shaman guy.

 Naturally, my level 10 Fury tries to make a run for it.   And again with the running backwards thing.  See my health bar go down as I run!  It was down to nearly zilch before miraculously he stopped chasing me.   Bonus: I found I can hit my heals while running backwards!  This is what saved me really, the ability to run and heal.  I hate when you have to be stationary to heal.   Honestly, I’d prefer you could use almost any skill on the move.

This character is on Fallen Earth, the new progression server.   I’d like her in a guild for the advice you can get, and hopefully for grouping.

Thanks to a post from the Ancient Gaming Noob, I knew you could search for a guild that was recruiting and actually talk to a person who could invite you and ask question who was online now.  Whoa.    https://tagn.wordpress.com/2017/07/05/looking-for-nostalgia-in-fallen-gate/

I tried this, but didn’t see anything that seemed a good match.  But it was midnight, and I was tired and feeling tso social, so I decided to wait.

Which brings me to thought on Guilds once more.

I posted a week or so ago on guilds and what I wanted them to be.  I’ve left the Wow guild I was in and via a random invite almost immediately joined another.   My thought now, because I’m such an introspective dolt, is, how can I be a good guild member?  What makes you a valuable addition to a guild?   What do I do well as a guildie, what should I work on?

Being part of a group should be a whole package thing, what do they do for your gameplay, how do you contribute to the gameplay of others.

Sticking points for me:

I can’t stand having a guild name over my head that I don’t like.   Babsie’s Bobbers, no.   Deathly Dreamers, ya, ok.

Discord      Everybody’s got it.    Everyone wants you to be on it.  I honestly don’t want to randomly chat with anyone I don’t know.  I don’t want to talk politics, or anything else that isn’t related to the game world.  I’m almost always playing late, like 9pm to 1am, and zzzz you don’t want to talk to me at that time of the day either.   So everyone who is all proud they’ve got Discord and wants you to chime in:  Gamebreaker.

You’d Think I Wasn’t Playing Anything….

…Since none of the posts I compose in my head ever make to the virtual space.

  

Galaxies: playing like a fiend.  

Lord of the Rings Online

Once again I thought my Loremaster was on her way into Moria, but no, off to Mirabel, which I remember from the past and its a morass of new quests.

My Hunter is going back into action, so I have new content to play. 

I used my Turbine Points (which I’ve never spent and they were hefty in number) to get all of the existing expansions.  Truly I felt guilty not buying them with real money, as buying expansions is something I’m always willing to do.  I did buy three lifetime subscriptions as soon as they became available, back in the day.   Never in a million years did I expect that the game wouldn’t go on forever as it had begun because it was truly great.

Secret World

With all the exciting news coming out the Secret World space, I filled my two open character slots, and have plenty of adventures ahead.  I personally like what I’ve seen and read about Secret World Legends.  I think it’s spectacular that Funcom is investing in the game, in a version that doesn’t look remarkably altered, but may be more accessible to some.   I understand all too well the fear that the game will be dumbed down, made Steam player and even console friendly.  That the world we know will be ruined and destroyed.

Perhaps because I am such an avid Galaxies fan,  I also see that the base game will still exist, the world as we know it will still exist, even if in “maintenance mode”.   If you hate the new game, the old world is there.   It has been on my mind that if Sony had made Pre-CU servers available even in a maintenance type mode, even if they did it a few months from NGE launch, anything at all, history would be so different, many lives virtual and real world would have taken such a different path.

I think if a game makes drastic changes, offering the classic version is a win win.   It’s there to play, to compare, to allow tweaking of the new perhaps where the old was actually superior.  Nobody gets to say the game was broken and you’re wearing rose colored glasses of memory, because its still right there.

Fallout Shelter

My little Vault is in action once more.  I abandoned the one where I had the max number of characters, because I was having to turn away or turn out into the wasteland little characters to make room.  You should see how awful they feel when you boot them, they have a little suitcase in hand, and their little shoulders slump, and each has some different last words to make you feel even guiltier.

Jade Empire

This old classic is available on the iPad.  Combat isn’t bad, and I mention it because this game is all combat, but it’s unique and a cool story.

Mass Effect 4

They appear to have fixed the facial animations but I still haven’t purchased it.  I think in truth I don’t like working with the Origins store which is a shame, but I’ll get it soon ™.

Rotations Once More

I’m working my way back to where I was about a year ago, giving at least some play time each day to a different game.   The games I’m going to drop in on are:   Rift, Lotro, GW2, Lord of the Rings Online, Secret World, Elder Scrolls Online, World of Warcraft, EQ2, Galaxies.

Those are my favorites, and I should be peeking in.  My games will be updated regularly so there won’t be those long downloads when I want to play, and I won’t forget where my characters were and what they were doing.   I just assign a day of the week to them and try to log in and make a little progress.  I’m a happier gamer when I have variety.