Variety is the spice of life

While SWTOR is my primary game, I am mixing things up pretty well lately.  I do a chapter of Fallen Empire every weekend, run a Tactical Flashpoint, and do heroics throughout the week.  That will likely change once I complete the expansion and I start doing alts again.  But it leaves me with a lot of free game time. So I am spreading it around.

I am still working my way through Halo 5.  I tend to do a mission a day on weekdays.  It's really well done,  even if I am a little lost.  I think I finished Halo 4, but I never did the DLC.  So there is a gap in my lore knowledge.  The game has some very epic moment which are not even cutscenes.  That's one thing I love about Halo.  I should be coming up to the end, just in time for Fallout 4!

I've also been playing with the STO Admiralty system.  It has some interesting variety, but there isn't much gameplay.  So I just end up spending about 15 minutes a day in there messing around.  I'd like to start playing for real at some point, but just haven't lately.

Thanks to expansion hype, I have been spending some time in Guild Wars 2 as well.  My Engineer (of course) is still only level 26 I think.  The zone exploration theme really supports short gameplay, so I hope in for short amounts of time.  GW2 does some things really well.  I love how easy it is to sell items on the Trading Post.  

ESO is on the outside looking in right now.  They have a new DLC which looks really cool, but I just don't have time right now.  I want to be playing more of this game.  Someday ESO, someday.

Read More

GW2 or The Zerg Lives!

I have been missing my pvp since leaving WAR.  Plenty of games offer scenario type pvp, but I crave some RvR style gameplay instead.  Mykiel recently live streamed some of Guild Wars 2, and I was intrigued.  I played GW2 at launch, but it never stuck.

I re-downloaded the client, and found out which server Mykiel was playing on.  Turns out to be Stormbluf Idle... and a transfer to that costs 1,800 gems.  Of which I have none.  So I spent $35 on a pack of 3,000 gems and transferred my level 15 Norn Engineer.  I also bought another bag slot and the Copper fed Salvage-o-matic which was on sale.

WXP. One nice addition to the game is their World XP, which is like Renown.  I really like earning regular XP and the World XP at the same time.  During my play this afternoon I gained 4 levels of it.  It's nice to get WXP drops as well, I got several +250 WXP potions.  I also got my 1 year anniversary gift, which included a 'make me 20' potion so I used that too.

People Everywhere.  On to the PvP itself.  It was jam packed!  There were huge battles going on as we held the central keep while being attacked by both other realms.  It's been a while since I've seen any really massive battles, so it was nice to see pvp alive and well again.

Zerg.  All the combat I saw was zerg on zerg, or blob warfare if you will.  Without collision, it really just is masses of players tightly packed together clashing.  I did the zerg thing as I was still trying to learn the game again.  However, I don't feel as if I contributed in any meaningful way.

Targeting and AoE.  My biggest issue was I could not really target anyone.  Between the mass of players on my side, the enemies, AND the mass of half-dead players from both sides  I could not really get anyone targeted.   That just leads to the dark side:  AoE spamming.  Maybe I am missing something though, as it seems AoE spamming is the order of the day.

Performance.  I was really impressed how well the game performed with the massive battles going on.  Of course, my computer is pretty decent, but it still was a nice surprise.

Long Term.  I'm not sure GW2 will keep my long term, mainly due to the zergy nature of it.  Don't get me wrong, zerg is fun sometimes, but if it is the order of the day...  I won't judge it based on one afternoon though.

Read More

Guild Wars 2 Tracker

Guild Wars 2 has officially joined the Dev Spy family (up to 14 games).  It's been on the page from the beginning, but it now enjoys full support and customization.  As always, the page live updates so there should be no need to refresh. What is tracked?

• Developer forum posts
• Reddit
• Live Streams (Own3d and twitch)
• Facebook
• Twitter

Dev Spy also supports Desktop Notifications for browsers that offer that functionality.  They are little popup windows that show even if the browser is minimized.  You can enable them by going to Customize -> Notifications.

http://devspy.weritsblog.com/

Enjoy!

Read More

GW2 Lockboxes

I put some more time into GW2 yesterday, reaching the ripe old level of 7 (and getting my first turret!).  Not much has changed from my impressions yesterday though.  I did however come across an old unwelcome acquaintance:   The Lockbox.

More specifically, The Black Lion Chest.  You get these as random drops seemingly at any level.  What do they contain?  I'm not really sure.  The description says a random tool, buff and a stack of tonics.  It is locked of course, and the only way to open it is to buy a key from the RMT store.

You can get 800 Gems for $10, which makes each Gem around 1.25 cents.  Keys cost 125 Gems, so in real money that is $1.56.  Do I want to spend that much to see what is in the chest?  Is what I find in there even worth that much?

I'm really too new to the game to know what's worth a buck fifty to me.  It better be a long lasting buff, or a large stack of tonics.

There is also the currency exchange, which lets you buy and sell gems for gold.  Right now it is at 27 silver per Gem.  So that key would cost about 33 Gold and 74 Silver.  Are the contents worth that?  The currency rates could be all out of whack since the game is new, so who knows what they will settle at.

Even though I hate the idea of Lockboxes, the mystery of them is inescapable.  At least they don't put all their new and interesting stuff in them like certain games, STO, I'm looking at you.  I put the Lockbox in my bank, maybe for a rainy day if I have some leftover Gems.

Meridith points out, "You can get the keys as reward from doing your personal story quest. Inside includes often more keys, some potions, etc."  So that's great that you can get them in game.

Some Twitter feedback:

Scarybooster @werit actually you can get the keys for lock boxes as a drop. I've gotten 2 keys and 9 lockboxes

Stargrace @Oakstout @Scarybooster @werit I bought 5 keys with gems, got 2 back. Looted only 1 in my 30 levels so far. 10 chests.

Read More

Werit goes GW2ing

So the head start for Guild Wars 2 happened over the weekend.  It seems like it went ok, not as smooth as some other MMO's but also not very badly.  I eventually made my way in and created Werit the Engineer on Jade Quarry.

I actually only managed to make it to level 3  over the weekend.  I just did the first couple Wayfarer Foothill events, nothing too crazy.  The game does not do much to keep me interested when I am sent out into the world with "Go forth and help people, and your legend will grow."

In SWTOR recently, I started out trying to get a Hutt gangster to support the Empire, which I found a little more compelling.  I still have to start my personal story in GW2 though, so that might be interesting.  I chose 'lost a bar fight with a rival'  so I really hope it gets more epic than that :)

Good thing about GW2 is that there is no sub, so I can really take my time.  What I spent most of my gaming time on this weekend was Europa Universalis 3.  I started up as Venice and have been building a Vassal Coalition throughout the Mediterranean.  Seeing those plans through has been greater than my will to play MMOs.  That'll end soon though, as it always does.

Read More

Werit and GW2 - Round 2

If you have read this blog before, you probably know I am not the biggest fan of Guild Wars 2.  it's interesting enough for me to drop the cash on it, but something about it just does not really resonate with me. Over the weekend, the seconds Beta event was held.  How did it go?

PvE.  One of my goals during the event was to give PvE a serious chance.  I've seen the videos of how intricate the events are so there seems to be a lot of potential.  I ended up getting my Human Mesmer to level 10 doing PvE, and I could not stick with it.

I found the Human area to be extremely boring.  None of the events I witnessed kept my interest.  The 'personal story' was ok, but did not keep me hooked.  I'm glad to see they make use of personal instances though.  At launch I plan to play a Norn, so we'll see if their areas are any better.

Mesmer.  I can safely say, I have no interest in playing a Mesmer.  The only fun I ever had with him was using a torch and blinking around.

Engineer.  After my PvE experiences, I rolled an Engineer (yay!).  I do enjoy him more than the Mesmer, but only advanced a few levels.  No turret for me yet.

WvW.  I immediately took my Engineer into the Mists.  Sadly, I found that our side completely dominated the other two.  There was a token resistance from one and none from the other.  The only fights I saw were at the enemies spawn.  It was mentioned on Twitter that they raised some population caps which could have emptied out some servers (where have I heard that before).

On the positive side, the fact that GW2 changes the server match-ups every two weeks means these situations may not last.  The downside is that means two weeks of no pvp.

That pretty much covers my GW2 time for the weekend.  I can't say it improved my opinion of the game.  It is beta, so I'll cut it some slack for the WvW.  As for the PvE content, I don't know if there is better stuff at later levels, or if I will be able to get through the boring stuff in order to reach it.

Read More

Werit does GW2

When it comes to Guild Wars 2, I am not really on the bandwagon.  That doesn't mean I'm not interested in the game though.  It is a high quality effort with no subscription, so of course I am on board with that.  Since I pre-purchased, I was able to participated in this weekends beta event.

My primary interest in GW2 is their WvW (RvR) Pvp stuff, so that's where I headed first.  Once I finished the introduction mission, I was able to wisk myself off to the Mists.  I think I was around level 3 at this point.  I love being able to WvW from the start, so that's a big plus for GW2 in my book.

On my way to the Mists, I found myself in GW2's version of a scenario/battleground.   It was quite a jarring experience, since these instances basically give everyone a level 80 geared template.   I had no clue how to play my character at this level, so it did not go well.

After a couple matches, I made my way over to the real PvP in the Mists.  Now, I don't much much stock in these impressions since it is the first beta event.  Good or bad, the game will change as people figure out how it all works.

The WvW stat screen is pretty cool. It shows the scores and bonuses based on the status of the Mists.  My server, Eternal Grove, is not doing well at the moment but we are very close to getting a 2% critical crafting bonus for the server.

So what did I do in the Mists?  Pretty much the same thing I do in WAR.  Ran around, captured objectives, ran away from zergs and so on.  Sometimes, it was all too familiar like in the screenshot below.

My overall WvW experience was just ok.  There was a lot of 'ring around the objective' as groups avoided each other to capture undefended (or lightly defended) objectives. Performance was not very good at this point either, but it is the first beta so that is fine.  I did not experience much 3-way action this time around either.  I had fun though, so I'm looking forward to the next beta event.

Read More

Guild Wars 2 PvP

Since it is Friday, I thought I would take a peek at some PvP videos from Guild Wars 2.  I may not be the games biggest fan, but the more you know, right?  The pre-order starts next week, but I don't think there is a release date yet.





This one is just funny.  I do love games that have some physics involved.  And by physics, I mean things get tossed around the screen.





This one shows off a 1 vs 1 battle between a Guardian and an Elementalist.  Some interesting things I saw in this video....  the Guardian loads up some Caster stuff near the beginning of the fight, then switches back to sword and board.  Also, there seem to be a ton of self-heals going on.

Read More

GW2 Keep Siege

A week or two ago, one of my readers sent me a link to a video involving a keep siege in Guild Wars 2.  I'm never one to turn away some good PvP footage, so I gave it a watch.  Currently, GW2 is on my watch list but I'm not overly excited about it.  That said, come April 10th I will be pre-ordering the game.  Ok, back to the video...





I'm not sure I would go as far as saying the footage was 'awesome', but it was pretty good.  There is nothing really surprising about any of it though.  It just goes to show that there are really only so many ways to siege a keep.  What I saw was very reminiscent of WAR, which I like, so that means I'd probably like this too.

Things generally look good before the game is released, so we'll see how it actually goes once it goes live.  I'll be there though, can't keep me away from the pvp :)

Read More

GW2 and WAR

With an NDA drop this week, a ton of Guild Wars 2 information has become public knowledge.  I am, of course, only really interested in one thing and that's PvP.  There are 2 types:  Structured PvP (scenarios) and World vs World vs World (WvWvW or 3W) which is similar to Open RvR.

First, let me say that GW2 and WAR are fundamentally different games.  There is no campaign or city siege as a goal in GW2, among other major differences.  This post is to highlight some of the ways that they are similar.

Attacking the Door.  The keep siege videos I watched mostly consisted of players trying to beat on a door.  They also used siege weapons on the door.  It was very reminiscent of pre-1.4 WAR.  I've been told that there are destructible walls, but they were not shown in the videos.  Also, some keeps don't have walls.  Instead, they use geographic obstacles like cliffs.

Golems.  In one of the videos, a GW2 player became a Golem and went to attack the door.  This is pretty much the same thing as WAR's Play as Monster system where you can become a Skaven Rat Ogre.  What I did like was that this Golem was built in the field.  Can I get a Steam Tank?

Supplies.  In GW2, small objectives, when captured, generate supplies which are then transported to the keep via NPC (Supply Caravans).  Once there, they are used to build siege weapons, strengthen defenses and repair things like the door.  This is how WAR works right now with objectives and resource carriers.  GW2 does seem to take it a bit further and allow players to carry supplies as well.

Area Buffs.  Guilds can claim keeps and provide buffs to friendly forces in the area.  This is similiar to how Fortresses work in WAR at present.  It also reminds me of how keep claiming and banners worked in WAR prior to 1.4.

Guards.  Keeps in GW2 are defended by NPC guards, very much like they were in pre-1.4 WAR.  One complaint often heard was about having PvE in PvP, so those guards were eventually laid off.

These are some of the ways GW2 3W is similar to WAR RvR.  There are a number of ways in which it is different too, but that deserves its own post.

I think it goes without saying:  I'll buy and give GW2 a shot as soon as I can :)

Read More