General Updates
It feels like all the conversations are elsewhere, but I guess I'm just resistant to change, so I keep posting here...
Car registration - taken care of. I seem to have weathered the week off my co-tech has taken without too much trouble, though last Wednesday was hectic as all getout. Probably gaming Friday night, unless something comes up.
I sampled a little of the escape from Lion's Arch last night in GW2. There's some impressive and flashy stuff going on, yet I find myself disappointed, frankly. Scarlet has overrun Lion's Arch and started drilling for... something. That's basically the extent of the narrative development in what is supposed to be the penultimate release for this living story arch. It feels to me like there are still a lot of questions, plus a big reveal, that all have to be crammed into the next release in about 2 (?) weeks (or ignored).
Mechanically, it's mostly functional. There are hourly raids back into the destroyed city zone with events trying to escort people to safety and fight the varied forces under Scarlet. If find the credit for the escort missions to be very, very finicky and I think I missed credit on several because I either 1) wasn't at the start of the event and/or 2) may not have actually killed anything while running along to keep up with the escortees who did survive. Many of the event fights are tough. Population is throwing people into overflow servers left and right. In many ways, it feels to me like a replay of the invasion events. It's all so timed and rushed that I don't feel much actual impact to the fall of the major hub city in the game.
I've started playing Dark Souls. This sounded like a game that was virtually the polar opposite of what I enjoy in an RPG - light on presented story, sparsely populated, designed around frequent character death and occasional spontaneous PVP. Yet it was also the best-reviewed/respected RPG I could find that I hadn't played and didn't make me go "ugh" at the mere thought of. I had some initial difficulty in that I couldn't find a locally-available PS3 copy, then the Steam-downloaded PC version required jumping through several hoops with Games for Windows Live to get working at all and Motion in Joy (which I used back with Dust as well) to get working with a PS3 controller.
After those hurdles, I've found that I actually sort of enjoy it so far. While there is very little direction, I find myself cautiously exploring more often than I feel completely aimless. It plays pretty well, though there are a few quirks to combat. I'm sure I'll never be the best, but I have gotten better at handling certain opponents, and just learning how to deal with them has made some things that were initially daunting a breeze later. I've died a bunch, sure, but accepting that's part of the game it has only been frustrating a few times when I was far out from the save point of a bonfire. I do wish there was a little more story and interaction to go with the atmosphere, though.
We'll see how things go. So far, though, it most evokes the feelings I had when playing Diablo (yeah, the first one), and I like that.
While I feel more positive in general, I still find myself lamenting the same things. Is it good to feel better about it? Hmm.
I lack ambition, goals, and inspiration in my life. That's probably the biggest "shadow" that looms over me constantly, but I don't seem to be able to do anything about it.
It feels like my interests are diverging enough from some of the people I regularly interact with enough that it's hard to find anything to talk about sometimes. Whether this manifests in not finding any common ground to run an RP scene or discussing anime and going "meh" at suggested series, it only seems to be getting harder to be on the same wavelength.
Okay... Full disclosure: since seeing the first video of Rocket Raccoon cutting loose with automatic fire, I think I've been on board with the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Also, I do agree with assessments it may well be the biggest risk (and thus most likely to fail) of the recent Marvel "continuity" movies. It seems like a fair shift in setting and possibly tone from what we've seen in the Avengers.
But having seen the recent trailer, which is mostly just intro of characters, I actually think I want to see it more. Heh.
Car registration - taken care of. I seem to have weathered the week off my co-tech has taken without too much trouble, though last Wednesday was hectic as all getout. Probably gaming Friday night, unless something comes up.
I sampled a little of the escape from Lion's Arch last night in GW2. There's some impressive and flashy stuff going on, yet I find myself disappointed, frankly. Scarlet has overrun Lion's Arch and started drilling for... something. That's basically the extent of the narrative development in what is supposed to be the penultimate release for this living story arch. It feels to me like there are still a lot of questions, plus a big reveal, that all have to be crammed into the next release in about 2 (?) weeks (or ignored).
Mechanically, it's mostly functional. There are hourly raids back into the destroyed city zone with events trying to escort people to safety and fight the varied forces under Scarlet. If find the credit for the escort missions to be very, very finicky and I think I missed credit on several because I either 1) wasn't at the start of the event and/or 2) may not have actually killed anything while running along to keep up with the escortees who did survive. Many of the event fights are tough. Population is throwing people into overflow servers left and right. In many ways, it feels to me like a replay of the invasion events. It's all so timed and rushed that I don't feel much actual impact to the fall of the major hub city in the game.
I've started playing Dark Souls. This sounded like a game that was virtually the polar opposite of what I enjoy in an RPG - light on presented story, sparsely populated, designed around frequent character death and occasional spontaneous PVP. Yet it was also the best-reviewed/respected RPG I could find that I hadn't played and didn't make me go "ugh" at the mere thought of. I had some initial difficulty in that I couldn't find a locally-available PS3 copy, then the Steam-downloaded PC version required jumping through several hoops with Games for Windows Live to get working at all and Motion in Joy (which I used back with Dust as well) to get working with a PS3 controller.
After those hurdles, I've found that I actually sort of enjoy it so far. While there is very little direction, I find myself cautiously exploring more often than I feel completely aimless. It plays pretty well, though there are a few quirks to combat. I'm sure I'll never be the best, but I have gotten better at handling certain opponents, and just learning how to deal with them has made some things that were initially daunting a breeze later. I've died a bunch, sure, but accepting that's part of the game it has only been frustrating a few times when I was far out from the save point of a bonfire. I do wish there was a little more story and interaction to go with the atmosphere, though.
We'll see how things go. So far, though, it most evokes the feelings I had when playing Diablo (yeah, the first one), and I like that.
While I feel more positive in general, I still find myself lamenting the same things. Is it good to feel better about it? Hmm.
I lack ambition, goals, and inspiration in my life. That's probably the biggest "shadow" that looms over me constantly, but I don't seem to be able to do anything about it.
It feels like my interests are diverging enough from some of the people I regularly interact with enough that it's hard to find anything to talk about sometimes. Whether this manifests in not finding any common ground to run an RP scene or discussing anime and going "meh" at suggested series, it only seems to be getting harder to be on the same wavelength.
Okay... Full disclosure: since seeing the first video of Rocket Raccoon cutting loose with automatic fire, I think I've been on board with the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Also, I do agree with assessments it may well be the biggest risk (and thus most likely to fail) of the recent Marvel "continuity" movies. It seems like a fair shift in setting and possibly tone from what we've seen in the Avengers.
But having seen the recent trailer, which is mostly just intro of characters, I actually think I want to see it more. Heh.
Comments
Post a Comment