Archeage and Continuing the Cash Shop Hate

Archeage makes me hate free to play, and no that isn’t so kind of hyperbolic. I’ve always been rather partial on the payment model and even supportive at times as it does have many good points. Now I’ve ranted about this all before, a huge AAA rant of awesomeness with part 1 and part 2 still available for your viewing pleasure and I thought that would be the end of it. Unfortunately I find myself in the same position again of liking a game, or liking what it could have been but with a monetization scheme that does it’s best to ruin that for me and now I’m becoming far more negative about ftp in general.

Listmas 2013: Favourite MMO Experiences

It has been a really slow year for mmo’s; limited schedule of new releases, what seems like only a few major expansions and a bunch of patches containing the same drudgery. Despite this though I’ve still has some amazing experience throughout the year that I will look back on fondly for years to come.

So here’s my favourite MMO experiences of the year

Firefall

There was just something about the focus on freedom and lack of restraints on content that made it an amazing experience. Even starting out from the beginning I could join in with major raids or open world bosses; I could join in and contribute with some of the hardest content available and I could play where and how I wanted whole still being able to progress my character and account.

It was a game with a plethora of options on how to progress. Multiple frames focusing on a style of play, further your crafting abilities, collecting cosmetics and accumulating wealth and you can do all this in a variety of ways. I could always play with friends in whatever was happening, Battleframe progression didn’t matter in terms of  dungeons and alternative zones and my damage or healing was still useful… and I was always being rewarded useful materials and items.

There was also a wide world of events that were actually dynamic and not just events bound by restraints, they could and did spawn anywhere and at any time. It was also a game that encouraged you to be in and explore the world.. and it was rather lovely to explore.

Rift

Rift was my first hardcore mmo. I spent countless hours levelling , researching and healing people in battlefields and I was in love with it for many many months. I also believe it was an important point in bringing me to this blogging lifestyle so to say I have a soft spot for the title is an understatement.

Coming back after over a year has been an extreme nostalgia overload, something I’ve never felt as strongly as this before. I’ve gone back and played plenty of games from my youth but Rift was the one that filled me with that warm fuzzy feeling. Remembering all the good times, the people I met, becoming part of a great guild and challenging my abilities far more than I had done before. I was hooked and, still am to that MMO buzz.

Rift has changed a lot over this last couple years, so much so that it’s always like a new game at time but the core of what appealed to me is still there, maybe not as bright but there’s still a twinkle. An interesting world to explore, a sensibility towards playing with others and that familiar sense of combat once more. Plus I get to collect shiny things again aaaand make a HOUSE!

Guild Wars 2

I’ve ranted and raved a lot about GW2 over the year, more so than I would have liked but it was a game that incited me to rage based on how much I loved many parts of it. It has a wonderful foundation waiting underneath.. if only those god damn devs would stop squandering it..

Anyway, there were a lot of great point to the game but my favourite experiences would always come from the Wuv Wuv mode. If I was to write a top 10 events in GW2 they would all be some sort of battle that began either defending and attacking keeps or one of those brilliant open field engagements.

.I loved the thrill of this battlefield, the adrenalin that pumped through your body during a fight and the hidden complexity of combat that only seems to come out with your coordinated group. It was something that created that sort of trained focus, that challenge which seems to come out when you’re working together as a group: mindlessly working, moving and fighting as one in some sort of brilliant interactive dance that is forever changing its inner tune. There is nothing quite as exhilarating as open world combat and even with all its flaws Guild Wars 2 never failed to disappoint during combat.

It was also the resurgence in community I felt due to our inclusion in WvW. It is a game type that brings servers together for a common goal, constant communications amongst its members that creates long-term friendships and guild connections. A strength of bringing people together through mutual goals and of course mutual hate.

Darkfall

I’ve said a lot on Darkfall‘s failing and how it just wasn’t the pvp experience I was looking for. The combat was lacklustre and cumbersome, and it was missing a lot of features to make it an interesting sandbox experience. I don’t think it will ever be the PvP mmo people are looking for but it still has that unmistakable open world appeal.

That feeling of caution when travelling the world, apprehension at seeing another player nearby and that all-encompassing feeling of tension the world has. That alone is a thrilling experience to have at times and is what I’m after. I don’t want to feel like some invincible hero, and I miss the choice that comes from giving players control of their experience.

With the full loot and item loss it was also experience that brought out those risk reward analysis of each and every situation whether that be the thrill of attaining something amazing and then that utter crushing feeling of having it taken off you in the next instant. Those extremes of play can only be found when you allow the extremes of loss as well and I would love to feel that more often.

Even though there wasn’t much new out this year I’ve still had a fantastic time gaming in our multi-player worlds. There are some great titles out there for every interest and it seems, this will only be getting better in the new year.

Progress report: Enticed by New and Old

I’ve been diseased this previous week…dang kids again. The start of the week was great until some kind of poisonous green slime crawled into my respiratory system and decided to take several days to come out again.. bit by bit. Still sound like a drunken horse as well as coughing up lots of.. well.. that’s enough visuals for now

It did leave a little more time for gaming as I had the Friday off and I didn’t really move nearly the entire weekend. Just made a cocoon for myself with Tea cups and tissues. Luckily the hubby was here and on pamper patrol so he cooked and cleaned up over the time leaving me time to do all those other important things.

Unfortunately I managed to lose my phone during the week, no idea where it is now so that will definitely hamper my ability to write posts in a timely manner. I put a lot of my notes and the basics of a post into it during the day and while travelling, which leaves home time mostly for cleaning cooking and killing things. Now it has to be at home… Oh well, claimed the loss on insurance so I should be getting another in the week to come.

I miss my phone though =(

Questing and Roles in Rift

I’ve spent a lot of time in Rift this last week and it’s surprising just how much the game has changed since release… for good and bad. Environments have been upgraded, quests and combat streamlined and a lot of new activities added.

Mostly I’ve just been questing, following the breadcrumb trail back and forth, endless killing and collecting but I kind of enjoy it. It’s a very comforting activity at times, especially when you’re feeling a bit ill and don’t feel like moving or thinking.

Revisiting Rift

Well I think Rift has taken me once more… or perhaps I’m just desperate for that mmo levelling style of play. I really liked that calming play when I jumped into FF14, it’s just that the game was lacking in other ways. Rift has a lot of what I love and the experience feels very.. consistent?.. comfortable?..hmm congruous?.. I don’t know. There are a lot of options for play that are designed well to complement each other that flow from one to the next.

It is an enjoyable way to play as there is enough variety in the actions you’re doing that you are kept engaged. I would go from questing, to closing a rift, an instant adventure here and there and the odd invasion to break it up. There are a lot of different pacing structures that increase the action to a peak battle and then you slowly come back to that comfortable questing routine.

A Rift Retrospective

The ghost of MMO past was knocking on my door this weekend, dragging those chains of nostalgia around and instilling an urge to explore a MMO from my past. While I have tried many mmo’s going back a few years now none of them really got their hook into me like Rift did. I tried WoW in its first years and hated it; LotRO and was kind of boring; even War in its release period and thought it was terrible designed and buggy. Going into Rift for the first time was a real shock to my gaming sensibilities. The combat and content style was widely different from anything else I’d tried and for some reason it was a world that felt unbelievably large to me. It was a rather naive thought but coming into the genre blind and ignorant meant that I appreciated the things rift did in ways I can’t really describe,

Ready for PvP Rifting?

I really did enjoy my time in rift and hearing all this recent news and playthroughs by Herding Cats and Bio Break has really got my interest back, there just seems like so much that’s new. It’s funny but I found the whole thing rather great from questing, to rifting, dungeon diving and PvP. This is probably due to the fact I have never played WoW beyond a couple hours of a free trial years ago, although to give rift a little credit they did refine the mechanics quite well so that would have hooked me as well.

Shockingly Rift was actually my first serious mmo, I realise that may sound weird but it was only just circumstance in a way. I had finished my degree that Christmas and was out of work for about 6 months mostly due to Rift and being lazy. It was great as I was leveling above the curve with some nice people I met, dungeon running with them was great as it is a time you really get to know people. Mostly though I really enjoyed the PvP and got quite good at it. If you ever faced off against Erinthia the Defiant Cleric on Bro’cliff or Dayblind you knew me.

As the weeks turned into months and those months flittered bye I started becoming very frustrated in PvP because of the gear advantage. It was my job to heal and I was Damn good at it but when players were dying without even a chance of being healed I got angry… Not at those dying, lesser gear because of less time was no reason for that, I got angry at the mechanics. With time it got even sillier and with rank 8 and the expertise normalisation it all just felt retarded. Rank 1 people couldn’t even kill each other and the few that were rank 8 (like myself) with a few consumables were slaughtering whole groups with aoe. I came to the realisation, as did many that the developers really had no idea how to plan and implement PvP.

But now things seem to be slowly changing over in Telara, with many new PvP features being implemented. We had conquest enter the realm a little while ago although going by a review it still seems to need a little work. And now Rift may be getting a rework to the fundamental way these instanced battlegrounds work but a few things to take note (which were ripped from the comments at massively)

1. IT IS NOT COMING OUT IN PATCH 1.10.  IF anything it will come out in Storm Legion. In other words, Rank 50 gear is NOT going to be trivialized come Patch 1.10.

2. This is NOT a concrete plan for them to normalize stats in PvP.   They’re simply testing, gathering data, and figuring out what to do from there.   They’ve said numerous times on the forums + on the PTS when it was being tested that this is just an experiment.

3. The testing will go on the live servers for a week when Trion’s ready to put it out.  It will only go on for a week, and after that the normalization will go away and they’ll figure out what to do with PvP based on the data they gathered.

Also going from the press release the gear probably isn’t going to just get thrown away, my thought is that it will become cosmetic rewards, although they are mostly butt ugly anyway.

It is rather amusing as I was one of the biggest spokesgal on the forums chanting this fact to them, what really annoyed is that there were no announcements or even dev forum posts regarding pvp… Ever. It may be too late to draw back the PvP’ers now though as usually once you leave you pretty much leave for good. We even have GW2 ramping up now who would arguable do the whole no gear PvP far better than Trion ever could as that was their original design and focus.

 

In saying all this though I would probably go back to explore and PvP now and after the expansion, but it has all been too long and I sadly sold my account a long time ago thinking Trion would never wake up. The question is whether to give it a go and what will be on my plate then, maybe in a few months time or even after Christmas.

Take note Funcom, the future is now and it is totally gearless… remove the grind for better pants. We are a remarkably fickle bunch, us that pvp and Lose us once and you’ll likely not see us again