Redwolf's Journal (continued)

So, having completed the story of the expansion, I have to say my previous feelings stand. This was longer, and definitely includes more map space, than a Living Story release, but it doesn't feel big/new/different enough to me to really be an "expansion." Expectations are a bitch sometimes. I'm sure I'll go back and finish more of the maps and learn more of the mount abilities in time, but I don't feel any particular rush to do so. I don't even really feel I hurried that much through the campaign (especially with work preventing play for a few nights last week outright). My biggest complaint, however, is (also) not new to the expansion. I feel the story instances are tuned too hard, with combat biased toward more than one player whereas the plot aspects are more suited to soloing. I ran these quests in full ascended-level gear that is perhaps not perfectly itemized, but you can't get much in the way of more stats. And at that, the fights ranged fr...

So, I got in some hours of play time with GW2's new expansion over the weekend. I've not finished it, but... I think I cleared Act 2 of 3? So far, I'm a bit conflicted about it - or at least indecisive. First, there are the technical issues. There are always technical issues. Somehow, it's more annoying when I can't play on a weekend than a weeknight, and I don't know why Arenanet pushed this out on a Friday rather than the industry-standard Tuesday. Whatever the case, issues of being unable to log in or change zones plagued the game on and off. I played for a couple hours Sunday, then there was an update and I couldn't even stay connected to do guild missions that afternoon. Go figure. None of that is surprising, just kind of disappointing. I've unlocked the thief deadeye specialty, but haven't actually tried it yet. I don't really feel like learning a new gameplay style while trying to make story progress. The mounts are a mixed blessing....

Friday? That's just weird. Game releases are supposed to be on Tuesdays, everyone knows that. Heh. Well, fine. So, the new GW2 expansion is out Friday and... I guess that's fine. I'll be the first to point out I haven't really been digging into the meat of what's coming. I haven't tried any of the beta/preview stuff. I've only really looked briefly at the one new spec that applies to my main character. The talk of mounts makes me think "about time" rather than "awesome" (and I'm not really fond of the idea of having to do mastery tracks for them). The only new guild thing I've heard of is a new hall (which current guilds will already have one of) rather than any new missions to run. Overall... I think I've not been this unexcited about an expansion since... WoW: Warlords of Draenor. It probably doesn't help that the recent Living Story content has fallen a bit flat with me with too many abrupt changes of direction. Sea...

The Long Dark remains my go-to background game. The first couple chapters of the story mode were enjoyable enough, though there's a bit of a disconnect when having to gather a bunch of supplies for one of the few NPCs you enounter. Comparatively, the survival mode is all about you. I'm still learning some things about it, and I find it enjoyable, if quiet. I'm easing back on Secret World Legends play. Transitioning from blue to purple gear feels like a pretty steep climb, and some of the later content in Transylvania and Tokyo is a bit rough to solo at that gear level, it seems. So the game's feeling a little more grindy at the moment. I've considered paying a month to be a "patron," but the rewards are surprisingly unmotivating to me. Lockbox keys and a few extra skill points seem unlikely to make much difference in the experience. GW2: Path of Fire is out at the end of September, which otherwise looks like a fairly bleak month for new releases from ...

So, watching the  Angry Joe review of The Dark Tower movie , I'm stricken by his use of the terms "dull" and "boring" (repeatedly). Though he hadn't read the book, his overall reaction to the movie was actually a lot like mine to the book - which I found to be atmospheric, but unrewarding and not interesting enough to draw me into the series. So, between that and what I've read elsewhere about the movie, I'll probably give that a full pass. Playing through the most recent Guild Wars 2 story, I was asked to do it with someone. So it's been slower. And I've been shoved off to the side in some of the scenes as a spectator - the game lets party members take credit for those segments, it seems, but only the primary character who starts the instance is actually in the center of it, swearing into a secretive sect and facing its trials. Normally, this sort of thing would make me feel left out. And it might on some level. But I also find it unusua...

In GW2 , I keep telling myself I'm done replaying the Battle for Claw Island, yet it keeps happening. Ah well. Playing a little bit following others through story, otherwise just doing Sunday guild missions and keeping up with the basic living story releases. In WoW the Broken Shore content has gotten me a bit more interested of late, at least. And I did put the effort in to level up my druid to be my 4th max-level character over a weekend - so much easier with flying unlocked. I've some dungeons I want to do at some point, but it's all okay right now. Cryostasis I've been watching playthroughs of some "horror" games of late - stuff I wouldn't generally both to play myself, but listening to the experience is interesting. Cryostasis was the latest, and I was quite impressed by it, actually. It apparently has loads of technical issues, but looks decent when it runs, and has some interesting themes with health based on warmth and the ability to sort of ...

Ah, what to say? I seem to be suffering a seasonally-enhanced melancholy. Less daylight has an effect. So do the holidays. As much as I am an introvert and find gatherings of people to be wearying, I have to acknowledge there's a sort of validation to it. Without interaction with others, life rapidly starts to feel pointless - or at least not rewarding. It's difficult to feel connected and involved in anything when you have trouble finding someone to even share thoughts and experiences with. And while holiday visits are often burdensome in my experience, they are enjoyable at the time and make such days feel special. And I do seem to have some psychological expectation for certain days being "special" in some way. When they aren't, even if they aren't bad , it makes them incredibly disappointing. That sucks. My WoW play has tapered off some, though I still like Legion and I'm occasionally surprised by the new Suramar content being released every week,...

Living Story update! Yay! Total redirect from Primodus to Jormag! Okay... Braham being a bull-headed dick! Uhh... Taimi being Taimi! Yay! New Shiverpeaks zone! Okay, though not nearly as interesting as Bloodstone Fen was. Orca quaggan! I'm down with that, sure. So, the play experience is okay in general. I'm not a huge fan of the zone's torch-carrying mechanics. It's nowhere near as interesting as Bloodstone's gliding, and is a little annoying as a hotbar-replacing skill set that has limited uses. The story doubles down on elements of the dragon mythos that I'm not fond of, but that's to be expected at this point. It's painful to see Braham in a headlong rush, still mourning Eir. Aurene is cute, and provides some levity during the training missions at the beginning (though that slime maze gets a little annoying). For all that, what stands out most is the last instance. I get breaking up a walk through the caves with combat, but a couple waves of...

I have no plans for it whatsoever! That's not abnormal or anything, so that's fine. I got to watch the local production of Rocky Horror Friday night. They regularly do "themes" for the yearly (?) local show, with actors dressing up one way or another. This year was a cowboy/Western theme. Overall, it was sort of a mixed experience, but a positive one. On the down side... well, I find the theming sort of unnecessary. The original rings in my mind, so seeing a layer of something else over it is a little jarring. As a show experience, the rowdy audience was a milk annoyance. And the bar lacked simple syrup, of all things, so I had to settle for a basic gin and tonic. The horror! ;) On the up side, there's quite a bit of energy to a live show that watching the movie just doesn't have - and it was my first time experiencing that. It was performed well, and generally pretty cool all around. Things have slowed down in WoW . I made a push to make sure my death ...

I was recently asked to make the comparison between Legion and Heart of Thorns. Straight-up, I have to say that's something of an apples vs. oranges comparison. The two base games have some fundamental differences that result in very different MMO experiences from where I sit. So... it's pretty hard to compare that. HoT has been around significantly longer. Mechanics: It improved the basic game with, more than any of the other masteries, gliding as a way to get around. That's not as liberating as actual flight, but introducing movement in that third dimension is a pretty big deal for the feel of a game. The news skills, class, and specializations didn't really make a big impact on me personally. Story Content: The HoT story and Living Story add-ons are... narratively okay, I guess. I've had issues with some of the goings on. Overall, it feels "fine" without striking me as good or bad. The primary NPC characters are a highlight, with a good range of p...

So let's see... WoW: Legion continues. It's nice to see many familiar guild faces out and about. I've now run all the normal-mode dungeons. Over the weekend, my main just hit revered with Legion factions and exalted with Nightfallen - a notable step that finishes out the class hall armor set. And I'm sitting at an item level of around 844 - enough that it takes a really good random upgrade roll for a new item to even merit a second glance. The normal dungeons seem pretty forgiving to me at this point, and I'll probably have to try heroics or LFR before too long. The Nightfallen storyline has been enjoyable, though continuance is now gated behind a raid quest that I can't imagine I'll be able to do for a few weeks when that wing is open in LFR mode. I've started on alts a little bit, largely dipping into things to learn professions, though the way those are tied to quests now, I can't just do that entirely from the safety of town. Amusingly for as ...

So, I've managed the time to sink my teeth into the new Guild Wars 2 living story content over the weekend and such. Not sure how long that will be the case with WoW ramping up pre-Legion stuff and things like DX: Mankind Divided coming up on the horizon rapidly. I suppose I'm just glad you don't have to finish the Heart of Thorns story missions to actually participate, since that last one still stymies me (a lot like requiring the Arah dungeon did in the main game). Story-wise... well... hmm. On the up side, we see many of the core characters in the wake of the main expansion events, and that all feels pretty solid. Fallout from those events is what would be expected with minor exception. I don't want to spoil anything for certain folks, so there's only so much I can say. Then there's the gearing up of a new threat, which... feels a little out of the blue to me. Maybe it's because I didn't experience the raid, so I don't really know what transpire...

With the release of some new living story content, I figured I'd go back to the final fight of the main Heart of Thorns story. And... yeah, I have confirmed my general belief that whoever designed it is a dick who consciously or subconsciously hates solo players. The fights leading up to Modremoth can be annoying enough themselves. That one, though... my hate is so very strong. Even playing pretty well for not having been at it for a while, I clear about 75% of the fight, but one slip in the air phase sets up an unrecoverable death spiral, and means having to start the whole fight over. Maybe I'm getting too old for this, because I just don't have the tolerance for that kind of frustration myself. Haaaaate.

Huh. I've been a bit tuned out of the meta-level news for the game. Really, I've only been logging in briefly once a day to grab a reward box and then a couple hours on Sundays to do guild missions. I've pretty much decided that I won't be raiding, so there's not much else to really work toward in the game that interests me. I haven't even gone back and done the Mordremoth fight again. So I'm a little surprised to hear Arenanet recently announced they were halting development on the new round of legendary weapons. They were planning to release a hold new set over the course of HoT, but have only done a few so far. Instead, they've said they're trying to shift focus back to Living Story content. I sort of approve of that decision, because the game really does need some more content at this point that isn't a raid. At the same time, I can totally understand how disappointing that can be to people and how it can seem like a betrayal when "n...

Okay, time to take a step back from stressing about deleted email accounts and breathe. What I can do directly about that is done anyway... So, there appear to be some neat little cosmetic toys out for the 11th anniversary of WoW in-game, but I don't see anything that makes me want to log in to get it. I'm also waiting on checking out the new content in FFXIV. GW2 has... settled some. I'm less grumpy about it, but it's also losing a little of the HoT luster. Mostly, I'm just not spending much time with it on a daily basis right now. I still did guild missions on Sunday, though some of them are a bit buggy right now. The first raid comes out this week, and it's appearing that I'll miss out on that for the foreseeable future. I'm interested enough that I would try to do it, but my schedule doesn't line up well with others'. ARIN picked up a guild hall Saturday (and let me say that's so ridiculously-much easier with one maw spawn per wave th...

The occasional game crash doesn't bother me much. After spending close to an hour on event chains leading up to actual victory of a reasonably difficult challenge, having a game crash only to get back into a map instance that does not have those event rewards unlocked is... frustrating. Beyond that... I'm seeing issues from a personal perspective with goals and progress the game offers. The goal targets offered by the game are mastery unlocks. The progress is... ugh... It takes hours and hours of play to get enough XP at this point for each one, and it's all repetitive stuff running off the event schedule in the system. I don't feel like I have any real control or much choice of direction, and most of it's feeling a grind. I look forward to some guild missions in a little while, so there's that, but otherwise my drive is definitely faltering. I wish there were more story content to sink my teeth into, but I think I have reached just about the end of the cu...

Well, it didn't measure up as one of my primary complaints, but it looks like Arenanet is changing the cost of the elite specialization trait lines from 400 total to 250 total. A lot of people complained about that. It bothered me a little, but not that much. After playing through the weekend, I ended up with most of the spec line unlocked on my main character. But perhaps the big difference is I wasn't really expecting to rely on it while others went into the expansion expecting to play this 'new build for their character' immediately. All about the expectations. Not much else to add, as my playable time has dwindled with the introduction of work schedules (and some odd at that).

Well, I'll start by saying as the weekend winds down that my experience with the GW2 expansion has gotten better. I've been able to play more story missions, which have been generally engaging. I have more access to movement abilities in the new zones, so I feel less restricted. And I've been able to engage in a little group content, which seems fine. That said, a lot of my complaints stand. The mastery points/XP issue seems part of a larger, systemic design choice. Guild hall improvements, for example, make use of at least two currencies plus various materials. Everything seems... complicated by multiple requirements. And all the while, there's very little instruction on how to use any of it. You sort of have to learn by doing. Or research online, I guess. Even then, I'm still not sure what these Resonating Slivers are really for . I got one for participating in a guild mission, but otherwise... uhh... ??? It's all still very solo-unfriendly, as most of...

Well... Prior to today, I might have said the MMO expansion that was the least fun for me to pick up and play would have been GW: Factions, largely because I found the main city annoying in layout, unappealing in appearance, and the enemies boringly repetitive and frequently frustration. HoT now gets the prize. Admittedly, I'm only a few hours in, but those hours have been... a chore. It's poorly explained, but to unlock the new mastery abilities, you need to earn both 1) mastery points (which seem to come from story missions that I've done one of and map challenges - of which I haven't reached any yet) and 2) XP earned in either the new zones (for the new area movement masteries) or old zones (for the masteries added to that including legendary crafting and such). And opportunities to gain XP? Seems to be largely tied up in the same event-zerging play that has become common in the Silverwaste and some major events prior. It's exactly what I commented on disliki...

Arenanet gets points for doing some cute things with some major news site(s?), like this . Still, I feel like Heart of Thorns is being rushed out the door. The pace of the reveals of new specializations has seemed to run up pretty darn close to the October 23rd release date. It feels like that stuff should have been shown off a fair bit earlier. Then there's news that their Halloween-style events are ramping up on the 23rd as well... that seems like unnecessary content glut that you would want to space out a little bit. A raid was just recently beta tested. A recent post about new legendary weapons indicates they'll be released into the game a few at a time, starting with three (of sixteen total?). Raids also apparently are going to be staggered in release. This is the stuff you want live in the game when the expansion is released. To me, it seems like they're trying too hard to get the expansion out in October when it should have been pushed back until more of its conte...