My Guild Wars 2 Beta Experience: Round 1

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Thor

This is going to be a long post. This past weekend I had my first experience with Guild Wars 2. I had a blast playing, and while I loved the game, it wasn’t perfect, though that is to be expected.

Guild Wars 2 HAS changed the MMO design…for the better

Not once during the weekend did I see anyone spamming local for a particular class. This, of course, is far too common in traditional MMOs. There were not quests in the usual sense. The things to do came in three primary flavors, your personal story, a favor hub for specific people, and events.

The personal story is of course your character’s storyline. This storyline is determined by your choices in character creation. The only personal story I really dove into over the weekend was my Ranger’s story. She came from common folk, and never found her lost sister (presumed dead). The people you interact with are (initially) determined by where you came from, but start to generalize into interacting with human leadership (Thackery). Your story focus is determined by the scenario you select, in this case, the lost sister.

It seems like a good system…and when you play it, it plays well and is enjoyable. My problem is, it almost seems like an after-thought. That has more to do with the other two flavors I talked about, the favor quests and the events. They keep you occupied like no other quest series I’ve experienced so far. I had to remember to play my personal story. I actually found myself forgetting to play it. After level 4 or so I didn’t go back and play any story quests until level 10 or so. I guess this is no different from regular MMOs…your main focus is the story, and the side quests keep you busy. My problem is…the game is those side quests and events.

So onto the second item, the favor gaining quests. These show up as hearts on the map. They consist of tasks you have to complete to gain the favor of the person the heart is on. This ranges from kill creatures, feed farm animals, water plants…typical side quest fair. You do these for a while for the person until their bar fills up…then you’re done with them and you move on. The beauty of this is it leads to the event system. It gets a bunch of people together in one place, each working on similar tasks…then adds in a local event, and most people jump in, regardless if they are grouped with other people or not.

The event system is the shining jewel of the game. It is as little as defeating a particularly strong foe or group of foes, or as much as a series of events in a chain. When you play an event, you end up wanting to see the next series of events. So when you hold back a Centaur onslaught…you end up wanting to get revenge and go wipe out the source, and that sometimes leads to another event focused around that battle. After you take the source, you enter a sort of maintenance period…where occasional events require players to hold onto the base…and if they fail it gets taken over.

That force then starts building strength and striking out at other outposts. This can go all the way to your own base being captured. So when you enter new regions, there is usually a status of the local battle going on. In the human starting area it’s the Seraph versus the Centaurs and is primarily focused around the town of Beatletun. That doesn’t mean that’s the only events in the area, that is just the primary series of events for the area. Every heart has the potential to spawn events from it, which may or may not be related to the primary event series in the area.

This system worked very well, though the objectives of the events aren’t always obvious. I ran into this in one particularly vicious fight with some Centaurs at one of their bases. The primary objective was, of course, to kill Centaurs. However, the secondary objectives, which are required to establish control over the outpost, were to destroy Centaur supplies and weapon racks in that base.

The battle carried on for a while until some of use finally convinced a large portion o our forces to start attacking these objectives. When we started doing this, we started to progress towards victory. This battle was one hell of a battle. We had probably 30 or so players at one point…fighting who knows how many Centaurs. It was a blast to play. The beautiful thing about this was it grew out of a local favor quest hub.

The people participating in the event weren’t grouped…we just started attacking the centaur base…and event triggered. When the event triggered that lead to more people joining the battle. The events send out notices in the general area around the event, and that usually always draws more people in. Grouping isn’t required as everyone gets credit, there isn’t kill-stealing, it is truly a cooperative effort. You are all working toward a common objective. If someone falls in the middle of the battle someone is usually there within a few seconds to rez them. They do this because they want to see the event succeed. The more people who are up and fighting the easier the fight will go. It is a blast. Well done Anet.

I don’t really have any complaints about this Favor Hub/Event system they have in place. It works well so long as you are actively leveling because you will soon outgrow the area and move onto new higher level areas.

Gone is the Holy Trinity

This was the claim Anet made of Guild Wars 2. For the most part, this is true. There is no one class who specializes in healing or tanking. Everyone can do everything, it just depends on which skills you have active. I did find that some classes are more viable healers simply because their healing skills seem to do a better job. I noticed this between my Ranger and Elementalist. Both can do damage…but the Elementalist seems to favor damage over everything else. The Elementalist healing skills are not the greatest from what I saw. Ranger, on the other hand, has some powerful healing skills, making them very resilient. One in particular is an AOE healing spring that heals in a general area. I’m not exactly sure if this only affects your party, but I imagine it doesn’t, as the game seems to favor playing without having to group up.

The Ranger

The classes I tried include Ranger, Elementalist, Engineer, Necromancer, and Thief. The one I spent the most time with was of course my favorite (going in, based on my main from the original Guild Wars), Ranger. It seems like a well balanced class. It can survive through it’s healing and ability to evade combat. It can deal lots of damage with its skills and conditions. One thing in particular which I enjoyed, was the synergy of using a bow with some of the elemental aspects of the game. You fire your bow through a fire, and your arrows will catch fire, dealing additional damage. Your arrows will also pick up some ability to do water damage from a healing spring, your AOE heal. This means that it has a nice synergy with the Elementalist class (maybe others), in that when an Elementalist lays down a firewall or fire circle…you can use it to deal more damage. Getting these opportunities isn’t that frequent in non-group play though, so it helps to have Healing Spring, or some of your traps which do elemental damage.

My on-land pets

My on-land pets

My acquatic and anphibious pets

My acquatic and anphibious pets

My Armor Fish "Ironsides"

My Armor Fish "Ironsides"

Then of course there is the pet, which, unlike the original Guild Wars, is always available, since you don’t have to equip a pet skill…it’s just always there. My pets included the usual 4 legged variety, but also included birds, as well as fish. Yeah, there’s an entirely new world to explore under the water, now that we can actually dive in. I ended up getting a Blue Jellyfish as well as an Armor Fish. I never found the Shark though.

The Elementalist

Elementalist was my next favorite. I’ll admit, I never played my elementalists in the original Guild Wars that much. I always favored playing my ranger for DPS…probably because they are much more resilient and able to stay alive easier (in my experience at least). I found I liked my Elementalist in GW2 a lot more though. They are powerful damage dealers no doubt, but they also have a bit more survivability now. You don’t have to rely on having a tank to take the damage for you…as you have healing and tanking skills at your disposal from very near the start (tanking comes a little later if you choose it, but only in short bursts enough to get healed up). Trying to assist Rangers with an Elementalist isn’t as easy as it looks. After I got my flame wall, I attempted to run about making Rangers more effective. but by the time I got the flame wall up…the target was usually dead. It probably just takes some practice though.

The Engineer

Next came the Engineer. For that I chose to play as a Charr. The class, at first, felt weak to me. I think though, that was due to some bugged events in the Charr starting area. A couple of them spawn enemies 3-4 levels higher than the event is designed for. This lead to roaming packs of NPC Charr running about slaughtering anyone who dared trying to participate in the event. After a bit though I managed to complete some objectives and move on to other areas, and it seemed to get easier too. After I got my first turret, I started liking the class a lot more, though that was only after I spent skillpoints to get that ability, as it is not given as a skill through leveling your weapons, or general progress.

The Others plus the Skill System

Then there was Necromancer and Thief, two classes I didn’t spend a lot of time with, so I can’t comment on them a lot. I hope to play them much more in upcoming betas. The Thief, though, highlighted one aspect of the game that stands out alongside of events, the skill system. It is not like the original Guild Wars, where you directly pick all of your skills for your bar. The weapons in the game determine your base skillset. Then you get a healing skill and several utility skills which you chose from what you spend your skillpoints on. Finally, at level 30 you can pick an elite skill. The combinations of weapons you can use determine what 5 skills are available first on your bar. So the combination of a dagger and a pistol results in having an ability to slice a foe up close, then jump back and take a shot at them with the pistol.

You start with a basic auto attack skill for each primary weapon. The more you use it the more skills you open up. If you have an offand weapon, that will open up two more abilities that you can unlock through the use of that combination. Of course, some weapons can only be used in two handed mode, and that results in all 5 of your skills being specialized for that weapon.

For Ranger, I found I loved using my longbow, but I also saw potential in other weapons. The Horn, allows you to call on nature to help you do your job, in addition to the pet you already have. The shortbow also looked good, as it has it’s own set of skills which are entirely different from the longbow, providing for some variety. One particular shortbow skill, which I wasn’t able to acquire yet, is Crippling Shot, a skill that directly references the popular “Arrow to the Knee” meme from Skyrim.

For Elementalist, they get to attune to a particular element, all getting unlocked as you level. Depending on the element you are attuned to, and the weapons you select, your skills change. So using a scepter and a focus while attuned to fire will give you a different set of skills than if you’re attuned to water. Of course, using a different weapon, like a Staff, will also give you a different set of skills based on which element you are attuned to.

For Engineer, your choices on weapons is rather limited, but your skillset is augmented by your choice of kit to use. I didn’t get a chance to really play this a great deal, since I avoided playing my Engineer after getting slaughtered in a couple of events.

Graphics, Visual Styles, and Sounds

The game is a fantasy game, so it’s appropriate that the graphics are not based on reality. That said, the weapons and armor feel like they were modeled closer to real-life weapons than they were in the original Guild Wars. They have a very “blah” feel to them. In other words, the weapons just aren’t that flashy in the early low levels. I would have like to have seen some slightly better looking stuff in the time I played though.

The Art Style of the game perfectly matches the art style that has been presented in the media released so far. The art style seems to be sort of a painting with a broad brush of sorts. It looks good and dramatic. Overall I like it.

The effects in the game are a distinct step up from the original Guild Wars. Barrage has a quite satisfying barrage of arrows. The fire spike for Elementalist provides a nice satisfying crash to the ground. All the effects just look upgraded, and they look great.

The music and sounds are good as well, as has been standard for the Guild Wars series.

One area I feel they’ve taken a step back with is their cutscenes, or as I call them, convo-scenes. When speaking to someone in a convo-scene your presented with two figures who are speaking to each other…as more people get invovled one of the two are swapped out for the new speaker…this is all done on an artwork background. I don’t like it a lot, though I will admit it shows off the animations of the characters more. Combine that with the voice acting, and it’s ok…enough to be passable, though I really wish the background actually showed the environment you are in rather than a generic regional background.

A Guild Wars 2 Convo-scene

A Guild Wars 2 Convo-scene

As the picture, says, Anet considers this to be a “Work In Progress”. I certainly hope so…I hope this is just a placeholder for the time being and that we will get something a bit more fleshed out…otherwise this is a step backward.

Crafting

I didn’t spend a lot of time on crafting, in fact, I crafted nothing at all, I just took on a couple of the professions. It seems like it will be a solid crafting system. One nice thing they added was the ability to send your crafting materials straight to storage wherever you are at…so you can clean up your inventory pretty easily.

Downed and the Death Penalty

I loved the downed aspect of the game. Giving me a second chance to defeat my foe is nice.

The death penalty wasn’t really explained well I felt. It is the same as GW1? I don’t know honestly, all I saw was that I occasionally had a death penalty. Not how much or how it was affecting me exactly, just that I had it. Nothing more.

Achievements

I didn’t pay a lot of attention to this, but I looked at it long enough to know that they took what they did in the original, and expanded it massively. I really liked the titles and achievements in the original, so I’m happy they brought it back.

What didn’t I like?

Account logout only, no character logout (ie go to character select screen) – This is a step back Anet…please reintroduce this feature you put into the original GW.

Generic background on character select screen – I’d like to see backgrounds ideally based on where the character is at…or perhaps based on the character’s personal story (where they are from what kind of people they grew up with)

It is a little too easy to get in over your head – While I loved the events system, several times I found myself starting events which were a bit higher than my level. Most of the time this was ok, since I was with other people. Might be nice if a notice pops up upon entering an event area saying that you’re a little lower level than the event was designed for.

Generic Merchants – Can they be given a bit better description of what they carry? Some areas are just insane…such as Lion’s Arch. There was one area where there were literally 10 merchants and I had to visit each one to find out what they were carrying.

Generic background on “Cutscenes” – You can do better than that Anet…come on.

Overflow – What is the point? 98% of the time I joined the overflow immediately upon logging in…and stayed there for the majority of the time I was playing the game. Just give us the districts we had in the original Guild Wars. That was a good system and it worked quite well. And no ability to switch between overflow and the main world was just bad design…it splits up groups needlessly.

I’m really loving the game, it’s not perfect, to be sure, but I think it is already one of the most solid MMO’s our there. Really looking forward to launch and I’m glad I reserved a Collector’s Edition copy of the game.
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SWTOR Feedback

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Thor

So today I received an email from Bioware asking for feedback. I took the time to write this little bit of feedback for them. Just thought I’ve post this here to see what everyone else thinks.

First of all, I was not one of the people who was eagerly anticipating the release of SWTOR. I knew about it, but my general feeling was “meh”. I think the reason for that was partly because of my experience with SWG (I left behind 3 accounts after the NGE hit). That was until I got to play it in a couple of weekend betas and experience the story. I’ve had a lot of fun playing the game. I’ve gotten two classes to 50 so far, Mercenary and Sorcerer. I’m working on a 3rd, an Operative, but I’ve been finding that the luster of the game is starting to wear off. I’m probably what you could call a hardcore casual player.

Since I am participating in an active guild who is running hard mode flash points and prepping for Operations, I feel the need to get geared up. Problem is, I’m done with dailies….they’ve gotten far too boring and repetitive. I did that grind (and yes, it is a grind) with my Mercenary, and I got thoroughly tired of it.

But that’s just the level 50 gearing up…surely the story will keep me going? Yes and no. I have a desire to play through the story for both Agent and Warrior, as well as some of the Republic classes. My desire to prepare for Guild Wars 2 is stronger though, I’ll be honest. I find myself playing my main in Guild Wars doing some of the grindiest things you can do in that game, getting titles and filling my Hall of Monuments. Despite the fact that it is just as old as WoW is, and that it’s graphics are just as dated, it is still a pleasure to play. I play that game through the grindiest parts despite my hatred for such grind, because of what I have seen from Guild Wars 2 so far (and I’ve seen plenty of fan-made beta videos of the gameplay).

The reason for this attraction is summed up to one word, innovation. It truly looks like they (GW2) are changing the MMO landscape. SWTOR on the other hand, looks like it’s just trying to meet the status quo. With 1.2 we’re getting stuff that will no doubt make the game much easier to live in, but this is all stuff that should have been in at launch…not 4 months after launch.

All I can say is…all these standard of living improvements will do wonders to keep people here. Keep implementing all the suggestions people have for standard of living, because they come up with these suggestions from experience with your competition, other MMO’s. Or they bring you wish-list items from their experience with other MMOs that have become stale (so their hope is that you will bring them what they couldn’t get with others). You’re already behind the 8-Ball and playing catch up. Times may be good now for your team, but rough times are ahead. Guild Wars 2 WILL cut into your subscriber base in a more significant way than you cut into WoW’s.

Really, content should be less of a focus right now. By releasing more and more flashpoints and operations, you’re catering to a vocal minority. You’re catering to the hardcore players who have already beat your current content 10 times over. More of the same is not going to be enough. I don’t know what WoW did to get the serious hardcore faction loving it (never played WoW), but you need to emulate that and more importantly improve upon that. More content is not the answer as they’ll just beat that another 10 times and ask for more, and that’s not a trend you can live up to, no development house can.

Overall, I think I’m just in a waiting state. I’m waiting to see what 1.2 will bring. I could login to the test server to see how it looks, but most of the improvements I want to see are with the legacy system, and I can’t be bothered to level up a character. I’m not one of the privileged few that has a guild big enough to get my character copies over (this peeved me quite a bit). So I’m stuck waiting for what will come. That’s probably contributes the most to me laying off the game and only doing stuff with my guild instead of leveling up my characters and experiencing the story. I’m tired of playing in the substandard MMO that got released. I want the game I was promised. I want the rival to what WoW is, not what WoW was.

That paragraph brings up another point. I’m on a decently populated server. Finding a group isn’t really difficult if I really want one. There’s lots of servers that aren’t like this. More and more what I see are people complaining that their servers are a ghost town. You need to do server merges and allow character transfers. You’re losing people who would otherwise be happily playing if not for the fact that they can’t find people to play with because their server populations are too low. Get over yourselves and realize that even though you did your best to find the right amount of servers, you couldn’t anticipate the full rise or fall in populations, and that you need less servers than you have now.

One particular point I’d like to bring up is your in game customer service. When I submit a ticket and the issue is not resolved, DO NOT close the ticket if you escalate the ticket and the issue is still specific to my case. It’s fine to do this for a bug report that is not something specific to me, but when I submit a bug report and expect compensation as a result of the bug (and made that clear with my ticket), I expect that the ticket will remain open until the matter has been resolved (either compensated or not, but after the full investigation). Closing it makes it look like you’re sweeping it under the rug.

I’ve gone on too long. I’m sure the chances of this being read by someone who gives a damn are slim to none. I hope that’s not the case though. I hope you will read this honest assessment of your game and take it to heart. I hope you can get your game in shape to rival WoW and more importantly, GW2, but I fear you won’t be able to. I fear that you will become a victim to lack of innovation. Please prove me wrong. I’ve only scratched the surface on the Star Wars lore with what I’ve experienced with your game. I want to be around to experience much more, but that’s up to you.
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Mass Effect Series Playthrough Thoughts

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Thor

Mass Effect 3So I said a while ago, around the time Mass Effect 3 launched, that I would be replaying the entire Mass Effect series in order to know what choices I made. I have a save file that I had created back in the original, and carried it through to Mass Effect 2, but I didn’t really know the details of what I did in both games. Yes, I get a short summary when I import the save game into Mass Effect 3, but I also forgot a lot, so I felt the need to play again.

Well, that complete play-through is now complete. As of this morning I finished my first play-through of Mass Effect 3 and the entire series. To sum it up, I thoroughly enjoyed the journey…just hated the destination.

<What follows is a discussion of the entire Mass Effect series (though Mass Effect 3 in particular). There will be HEAVY spoilers, you have been warned.>

 

 

Hating the destination is not an uncommon thing with Mass Effect 3, and neither is loving the journey. That journey is what has made the series so popular.

So what was my journey like? Well here are the major choices I made:

Mass Effect

  • Saved the Rachni Queen
  • Rescued Ashley Williams on Virmire (sacrificed Kaiden Alenko)
  • Kept Wrex Alive on Virmire, destroyed Genophage cure at Saren’s facility on Virmire
  • Chose to sacrifice the Council
  • Put Anderson in charge of the new Council
  • Romanced Ashley Williams

Mass Effect 2

  • Saved Maelon’s Genophage Cure Data
  • Chose to destroy the geth heretics
  • Sided with Samara over her rogue daughter Morinth
  • Destroyed the Collector Base
  • All 12 squad members survived the suicide mission to the Collector Base
  • Romanced Miranda Lawson (though I tried to Romance Jack)

Mass Effect 2 DLC – This covers only the major storyline DLC packs that affected the story in Mass Effect 3

  • Played through the Lair of the Shadow Broker – Liara becomes the Shadow Broker.
  • Destroyed the Alpha Relay and 300k Batarians to slow down the Reaper invasion.

Mass Effect 3

  • Let Mordin cure the Genophage, told them of the plan to sabotage the cure ahead of time.
  • Gave the Rachni Queen another chance after serving the Reapers.
  • Continued romancing Ashley and Miranda. Ashley’s romance went nowhere, had one last fling with Miranda.
  • Let the reporter onto the Normandy…and romanced her too.
  • Did not let Legion upload the Reaper Code to the Geth, as a result the Quarians decimated the Geth, and Legion was killed by Tali. This was basically the only major group I did not recruit as a War Asset. In an interesting twist I think may have resulted from this…I caught Tali and Garrus together (no not all the way) in the main battery on the Normandy. Here I thought I would find Tali hung in a closet or something after her drinking binge in the lounge. I was literally looking all over the ship trying to find her.
  • Let Samara kill herself to protect her remaining daughter and blew up the monastery.

The Infamous Ending

Now why did a lot of fans hate the endings? All these choices, in the end, don’t really affect the ending at all. I was quite disappointed by this. I chose to destroy the reapers with the Crucible, wipe out Mass Effect technology and apparently kill myself in the process. Leaving all races stranded without the the powerful Mass Effect technologies built into their ships was not something I realized would happen, nor did I expect the Citadel to be destroyed. I expected that only the Mass Relays would be destroyed. I did not enjoy the ending to this great series…and I’ve seen the variations of the ending on Youtube. They essentially amount to someone playing with tint controls (yeah there are some slight differences in what happens in the videos (troops getting vaporized, reapers peacefully taking off, etc).

There are only a few minor variations on the ending. They just don’t stack up well to the vast number of choices made in the series. The fans of the series wanted branching story lines like they got with the choices they had in the journey. We wanted a complex network of endings…giving us a reason to play the ending over and over just to see what all our changes did to the story.

edit: This guy does an excellent job going over just what is wrong with the endings:

The choices certainly affect the journey, as can be seen in some of the later choices that are able to be made. They only serve to affect your effective military strength in your build up to the ending in Mass Effect 3…so that game mechanic, making those choices, ultimately falls flat. I worked hard to put together a hell of a fighting force for the final battles. The only major faction that I didn’t get help from was the Geth, because I chose to prevent Legion from uploading the code and making them self-aware, and let the Quarians finish them off for good. I also chose not to try out any form of multi-player to boost my readiness factor. I shouldn’t have to be forced to play multi-player to make my single player game easier to complete.

The journey is what will keep me playing. I do intend to make a few more play-throughs, going all the way back to the original Mass Effect to make changes to my choices. I want to see how those changes affect the overall journey.

Here are some of the changes I want to experience:

  • Killing Wrex on Virmire – he played a major role in Mass Effect 3…so I suspect that with him not being the head of the Krogans, gaining their loyalty will be much more difficult. Also inserting Grunt into Krogan society is probably much more difficult.
  • Save the Council – Both Mass Effect 2 and 3 are heavily based on this decision. The way I went, there was a lot of animosity towards humans
  • Put Udina in charge of the Council – perhaps this will change his role in the Cerberus storyline in Mass Effect 3?
  • Romance Liara – She has a large role in all three games…and is probably one of the more satisfying romances throughout the series.
  • Prevent the Genophage cure – I suspect that this will make getting the Krogan as allies insanely difficult.
  • Side with Morinth over Samara – I think I did this once before and she essentially takes her mother’s place, but she’s a wildcard…and may affect the storyline a bit more.
  • Side with the Illusive Man and save the collector base.
  • Romance Jack
  • Romance Tali
  • NOT play the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC – and thus, Liara does not become the Shadow Broker
  • Spare the Alpha Relay and the 300k Batarians – will probably mean the Reapers will hit Earth in an even more unprepared state, but I probably won’t have a Batarian General pointing a gun at my head on the docks though. It will probably be much easier to gain their support. The start of Mass Effect 3 seems like it was heavily influence by this mission, though I wonder how much it will really affect it since it is optional DLC.
  • Let the Geth become self-aware by allowing Legion to upload the Reaper code to them – I’ve been told this leads to me brokering the peace between the Geth and the Quarians, but I suspect that this also leads down the path of Tali eventually committing suicide which I heard about and was expecting (as I said above).

This is not going to be a single play-through though…and they will not be using the same type of character (played as Vanguard). Also, I will be using a lower difficulty level, as I’m not interested in a challenge, just the story. My first play-through was entirely on the Veteran level (Normal in Mass Effect 3). I just want to switch a few of these things up at a time. I want to try other classes. I just want a different overall experience. I’m not interested in playing all the way through the end though, as I’ve seen that, and I’m not interested in playing through that again. So my focus will solely be on how the changes affect the story before the end fights with Cerberus and the Reapers.

Gameplay Review and Comparison

So now that I’ve discussed my journey, how about we cover the differences in game-play mechanics.  The combat system changed significantly between the 3 games. If I had to order from my least favorite to my favorite, I would order them like this: 1) Mass Effect 3, 2) Mass Effect, 3) Mass Effect 2. The combat in Mass Effect 2 was my least favorite. The change in controls was easy enough to adapt too…and carried over to Mass Effect 3, but the combat itself in ME2 seemed clunky and not very smooth.

Mass Effect 3 on the other hand, vastly smoothed out the combat and made it much more fluid. Though I frequently had issues with the cover system (causing quite a few deaths), I still loved the smoothness of firing. I especially loved to use sniper rifles. It just didn’t feel clunky at all. Mass Effect felt rather smooth, though it’s combat was a bit clunky, but it was an overall better experience than Mass Effect 2.

How about the interface? It can be broken up into 2 basic sections, Skills and Weapons. For weapons, the interfaces in ME and ME3 were very similar. I think that the ME3 weapons interface took everything good about the ME interface and just spruced it up like it needed to be. Mass Effect 2 dumbed down the weapons interface to the point of almost no customization.

Skills, on the other hand, feel like they took a step back with Mass Effect 3. While I like the customization of the skills after level 3, I think the interface needs some tweaking to make it a little easier to perform skill upgrades. I have no real problems with the skill interfaces for ME and ME2 though, other than ME2′s lowering of the number of skills.

Conclusion

Overall, I’m glad I made the decision to start fresh. There was a lot of information I had simply forgotten since I played Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. Playing through it all again brought all that information forward and made my experience that much more enjoyable. It’s a bit like sitting down and watching the entire Star Wars movies series from the Phantom Menace through Return of the Jedi, though obviously much more time consuming. I highly recommend it if you love the series.
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The Walking Dead Recap: The end of Season 2

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Thor

So on Sunday the Season 2 Finale aired. I ended up watching it on Monday night.

The Walking DeadThis contains spoilers for both the TV series as well as the comic book. If you don’t want spoilers don’t read after this.

I loved the finale. It wrapped up the farm storyline in a nice satisfying way. I felt that they dragged out the farm a lot longer than they should have, and that’s what made Season 2 a little boring for some people. Season 2 was pegged with two back-to-back boring story-lines, the search for Sophia and the time on the farm. They were both story-lines that stalled the series. There was some nice character development during both of those, but the pace of the show was much slower than it should have been.

The finale introduced a new threat, a new character, and hinted at a new home. New to the TV series, but not new to people like me, people who have read the comic the TV series uses as a guide. It’s not following the comic exactly though. It hits many of the same major plot points, but does it in a different way. So reading the comic doesn’t really spoil the tv series for me, it just gives me new insight on what MAY happen.

The Threat

Zombie Shane

Zombie Shane

I’ll start with the new threat…the threat that everyone is infected (ok ok not entirely new, only hinted at before). We primarily know this from Shane’s reanimation after Rick stabbed him in the meadow in episode 12, Better Angels. Rick doesn’t reveal this reanimation to the group, and thus make it official, until the finale, where he must deal with the fallout of holding back the info. They don’t have to be bit by a zombie to turn. If you die you turn (unless your brain is traumatized), end of story. This is a rather new concept in zombie story-telling. I’m not sure if it’s entirely new, but it is certainly new to me. Normally it’s some form of contagion that is spread by the exchange of bodily fluids. You get bit or get blood splattered in your face…you’re infected. No, with The Walking Dead, something has changed in the world that reanimates the dead with no infection required.

The same old “hit a zombie in the head” applies, which I find unsatisfying from a biology standpoint. If the brain is so pivotal to the zombie’s survival, wouldn’t it stand to reason they would be a bit more functional than most zombies are? It is, of course, satisfying from a pure “bash them in the head to kill them” standpoint…and makes for great action sequences of course. But, I digress.

The threat of everyone being infected makes things like a gunshot wound or a broken leg that much more dire. Someone wasting away is no longer just a burden on survivors, they are a potential threat and must be dealt with if the group is to survive with no or minimal losses. This does something major for this series in particular, it brings out the personal stories and the character relationships. The Walking Dead has always been more about the survivors’ struggle of living in this new reality rather than the man-eating zombies. This threat pits people against each other when it rears it’s ugly head, straining or breaking relationships in the process.

The Character

Michonne plus her zombies

Michonne plus her zombies

Second, is the new character we run into in the woods who saves Andrea. Those who have read the comic will know this cloaked figure wielding a Katana and followed by two armless zombies on chains is none other than Michonne, one of the principle ass-kicking characters in the Walking Dead series. There is only a slight difference in who she helps to gain entrance to the group. In the comic, it’s Otis, but he’s already gone in the tv series. In the TV series it is Andrea. We see her save the day with a quick chop of her sword, just like she did with Otis in the comic. I heard that this scene was in the finale on Monday morning, before I had seen the episode, and I was hopeful it was going to be as badass as it was, and I clapped after I saw it, nicely done. While she apparently is helpful, she presents another problem. She is an outsider with unknown intentions. She presents herself in a way that will undoubtedly put people on edge, seeing how she is leading two armless zombies on chains and wielding a sword.

With Andrea out of the picture, it makes the group that much more vulnerable, since she has become known as a kickass marksman with a gun. With Michonne saving her, it puts her in a stronger position than she was with Otis, since Andrea plays a strong role in the group as a whole, which Otis did not. I think this will help to tie Michonne to the group even more than Otis did.

The Home

The Prison

The Prison

Finally, the home I speak of only comic-fans will know about. It is of course, The Prison, one of the central homes the group uses for safety throughout the series, and arguably one of the major pivotal points in the series. I literally cheered when I saw this. With the prison comes a host of potential new characters. We have any remaining inmates left in the prison (there were a few in the comic). We have the discovery of the town of Woodbury, led by one of the primary antagonists in the Walking Dead story, the Governor. The pieces have been laid out by the comic, so now we get to see how they will be put together by the tv series. We know who Michonne is and we also know who the Governor will be. Michonne has, of course, already made her appearance, though we know virtually nothing about her at this point in the tv series.

The Changes

So now we have 2 seasons of the TV series complete. With this we have certainly hit on a lot of major plot points that were done by the comic. We have missed a few, added a few, and changed a lot. I want to summarize the changes I can remember and comment on them:

  • Shane kills Otis while on the trip to get medical supplies to help Carl – this does a few major things for the series. First, it gets rid of Otis, the guy who shot Carl, shortly after this happened. For some, this might seem like a good thing, a karmic event happening. For ( I would argue) most, it paints the picture of what kind of person Shane truly is. This was the defining moment in Shane’s storyline, which didn’t happen in the comic book. Finally, it takes away Otis as the person who gets saved by Michonne and used as her route to get into the group. Instead, Otis is replaced by Andrea, a much stronger character in the series, who will no doubt throw her weight around when she introduces Michonne to the group. How that will play out, I do not know.
  • Instead of Hershel kicking Rick and the group off of the farm, they are all forced off by the herd of walkers that showed up as another important event took place. They showed up because of a Helicopter, presumably this could be the same Helicopter which they saw go down in the comic, and which lead them to find Woodbury and the Governor.  The way they were forced off the farm in the comic was somewhat unsatisfying for me. I think the way they forced them off in the tv series was quite satisfying, and kept the group together for the most part (the exception being Andrea).
  • A couple of losses to the series that lasted much longer in the comic: 1) Sophia – she was a sore point for me in the storyline. The search for her carried on far too long and made the beginning of the season quite boring. Without her in the group, we no longer have the crazy little girl who pretends she has different parents. This takes away a moment where Carl’s callousness is shown. 2) Dale – This was quite a surprise, as he has been the conscience of the group all along. Still, I think he instilled that conscience in the group, and especially Andrea, who grew close to Dale.  So I think his loss will be felt a while longer and will help to guide the group in their decisions.
  • Rick killing Shane instead of Carl, followed by Carl killing Zombie Shane – This accomplished two things for the series. 1) It established Rick’s character as a guy who will do what he needs to do to see his family and (if possible) the group survive. This was a character trait that hadn’t really been established yet, in either the tv series or the comic. I think it is good that this was established, as it makes his character a stronger character who is less wishy-washy on his actions…and we’ve already seen it in how he has talked afterwards. It’s no longer a Democracy. 2) It maintains Carl’s hardened character even while establishing Rick as one, and of course, nods to those of us who read the comic, since Carl was originally the one who shot Shane.

One thing I’d like to touch on, and this involves a little speculation, is the introduction of the small band of guys in the bar in the nearby town when they were on the farm. First of all, this gave Shane an avenue (Randall) to isolate and attack Rick…a necessary plot device I think was kind of missing in the comic. It also focused the conscience of Dale just before we lost him.

Second, I think it introduced us to the folks of Woodbury. We don’t know for sure, but their mentality would certainly fit the fine folks of Woodbury. I think the tv series will find them again, and the killing of the two guys in the bar will be a major sticking point in Woodbury’s and the Governor’s treatment of the group, giving them a reason to treat them like they do in the comic other than them being just a heartless bunch of bandits as the comic makes them out to be. I think this is being done to make the Governor a more sympathetic person, dividing the fan base on what kind of person he really is.

It is really looking bright for the series with the revelations of the finale of Season 2. For people who haven’t read the comic, it leaves a lot of questions, as Finales tend to do. For comic fans, it sets us up for what should be an excellent Season 3.
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SWTOR Update 10: Darth Cell’ax

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Thor

Yep, I said I was going to get my Sorcerer, Cell’ax, to 50 this weekend. Well that happened early evening on Sunday.

Lord Cell'ax hits Level 50

Lord Cell'ax hits Level 50

Don’t read below unless you don’t mind spoilers for the Inquisitor storyline.

You have been warned.

I spent a lot of the day on Saturday planting trees (6′ trees, so it was fun, and I’m still sore) at my dad’s house. I committed myself to only one day this weekend to helping him. The rest of the time was mine. So Saturday early evening, I started Corellia. If you’ve played Corellia you know what that planet is all about. I thought the integration of the Inquisitor storyline into the planet storyline was particularly well done.  I’ve played through Corellia on my Mercenary, Jianna, and I didn’t get the same kind of connection there. I think that was because, frankly, the story for the Bounty Hunter is the weakest at the end. I can’t honestly remember what the Bounty Hunter storyline was on Corellia, I only remember what happened after that.

So to sum up the storyline, Thanaton is a cowardly little pussy. I easily beat his ass the first time we met on Corellia, and he got away and ran away crying to the Dark Council. Meanwhile, I finished up the Corellia planet storyline, and put the Empire in charge because I freaking hate politicians (especially with the real life primary elections happening in Illinois tomorrow, my state, and yes I’ll be voting). Darbin never had a chance with me….though he might when I get around to playing Idunna, my sniper, as she’s the sole light character I’m playing at the moment.

So after I got done with Corellia, I moved onto Korriban, home of the Dark Council. When I arrived at the Dark Council chamber, I was met by one of Thanaton’s allies of course, again trying to stop me. I then entered the Dark Council chamber, only to listen to Darth Thanaton ranting about how I need to be killed. One of the members of the Council made a good point…if I need to be killed then why has Thanaton found it impossible to kill me. Thanaton then went on about how the Kaggath (a major Sith duel, which took place on Corellia, one which I WON) must be honored because it is a big tradition with the Sith. My problem with this is…if it’s such a great tradition…why isn’t it good enough for him? I’ve already kicked his ass once…but he ran off to the Dark Council.

Thanaton being a hypocritical little bitch

Thanaton being a hypocritical little bitch

So after his little rant, I proceeded to kick his ass again. Then in a nice cinematic, he puts on a nice light show, then I use all my power and bitch slap him resulting in his death. So now I’ve not only been made a Darth (wtf is up with calling me Darth Nox?!), but I’ve also taken Thanaton’s seat on the Dark Council.

I have to say…I loved the Inquisitor storyline. I started off well with the end of Chapter 1. It got a little bit slow in Chapter 2, and into Chapter 3, but it ended quite strong.

So I’m still finishing up the storyline on Ilum. I managed to make enough money to pick up the 3rd tier speeder training, but I haven’t quite got enough for a rank 3 speeder. After I do dailies tonight, I’ll easily have the money to get one. My goal is to always have one 50 running dailies, and I want them to be benefiting from them with something other than just money. So Cell’ax reaching 50 was timed nicely since Jianna, my mercenary, just got done putting together her set of armor with post-50 mods.

Next up is my Operative, Lurch. I’m really looking forward to the agent storyline as I’ve heard great things about it.

I took a whole bunch of screenshots from my play this weekend. So enjoy.
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SWTOR Update 9: Never Enough Time

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Thor

Ok, so I haven’t had a lot of progress in recent days due to playing the Mass Effect Series. So this is a quick post.

On Jianna, my Mercenary, she’s finally completed her set of armor with mods and enhancements from daily missions. She’s now only doing the dailies to generate credits (hey, it’s decent income). I also switched her to a nearly pure healing build to focus on that for doing Hard Mode Flashpoints and Operations. I’ve been running her through a few Hard Mode Flashpoints with my guild as the healer. I alternate with another healer (a sorcerer) for nights we run the flashpoints. Jianna has managed to get some of the Biometric Crystal Alloys and has crafted some end game (at least for now) Reusable Rakata Adrenals, Stims, and Medpacks making her that much more effective.

Finally, she got all of her companions to max affection level, and with Torian being the last one, it was capped off with the Proposal. Yeah Jianna and Torian tied the knot. Pictures from the moment below. I think it’s only fitting for her to hook up with another Mandalorian.

The other character I’ve progressed a bit is Cell’ax, my Sorcerer. She finished up the story-lines on Voss, and is now working on the Bonus Series there. She got Xalek for finishing the Voss storyline, and made it to level 47. Finally, she’s been working her magic on Andronikos Revel, and while she’s not as far with him as Jianna is with Torian, you can see the results below.

That’s all for now. I’m going to try to finish up Cell’ax’s story this weekend since she’s close to hitting 50. After I do that I’ll start working exclusively on Lurch, my Operative, as I really want to experience the Agent storyline. You might have noticed that my Juggernaut, Tolgana, hasn’t been getting any play recently (after getting a fair amount before). That is primarily because I was building her as a tank, and I’ve been listening to one of our guild’s tanks struggle through playing his Juggernaut as a tank. So, I’m putting her on the back burner for now. If Juggernauts haven’t gotten a healthy boost by the time I get done with Lurch’s story, I’ll probably work on my Marauder instead to experience the Warrior storyline.
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SWTOR Update 8: I Love Stealth

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Thor

So another update on my Old Republic activities.

I’ll start with my main, Jianna, my mercenary healer. She’s been working on gearing up for Hard Mode Flashpoints. For a while now I’ve been doing the daily quests on Belsavis and Ilum to get geared up. She’s gotten to the point where those are of limited usefulness, and are more used for fund raising more than anything. My guild is now regularly running Hard Mode Flashpoints on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We’ve cleared Black Talon multiple times, improving our runs each time. It has gotten to the point with Black Talon that it is our warmup flashpoint to prepare us for the more difficulty flashpoint afterward. We cleared both Kaon Under Siege and Boarding Party with some difficulty. We tried Directive 7, but failed to defeat one of the big robot bosses, Bulwark , as we just didn’t have the DPS to take him down fast enough. Although, we were running with a Powertech skilled for DPS but geared for tanking, so it wasn’t ideal.

We have 2 healers (me and a sorcerer), 2 tanks (a juggernaut and a powertech), and 2 DPS (a marauder, and an operative). So with those people we have two solid groups with the DPS crossing over between groups.  I’m most frequently healing for our Powertech, though it seems like I’m becoming the favorite healer for the guild. I’m very happy with my build, though I am optimizing it by swapping out some better armoring, mods, and enhancements. My initial build focused on endurance, as it made it easier to level. So I’m working on making it a more Aim focused build, to optimize my healing.

I’ve been collecting sets of armor, and now have a complete set of Hellfire armor (including belts and bracers). I’ve been working on outfitting it with the proper modifications to optimize my healing, and retiring my old Mercenary Elite armor I got from Taris. Through the hard mode flashpoints I’ve gotten some nice upgrades which include a Columi Bracer (2nd tier (of 3) end game armor), Rakata Medpack (highest tier medpack, got the crating material to make it), and some nice enhancements off of energized armor that dropped.

In addition, I finally got around to collecting all of the datacrons in game, as well as creating my custom Matrix Cube to boost my stats. While doing that I also continued my attempts at World Bosses, this time taking on Trapjaw on Tatooine while waiting for the Dune Sea Jawa balloon to make it’s way around. The first time, I managed to get him to about 70% before a Jedi decided they needed to help me out, and we finished Trapjaw off together. The second time, I did it completely solo, but failed to catch a big hit when he was around 20% health while he was enraged, and that killed me in the process. The third time was the charm though, and I took him down despite him going into enraged mode at around 60%. Screenshots of the third attempt are below.

Three other characters have been getting attention, the first of which is my second highest character, my sorcerer, Cell’ax, who is currently sitting at level 46 on Voss. She’s still using Khem to tank, and she is setup as a lightning dps, with a mix of madness abilities (primarily focused on making lightning easier to use). She seems to be playing easy mode, as locking down all but the strongest mobs is a cakewalk for her with her 3 way CC ability, Whirwind. It’s not overpowering though, as it will only affect 1 strong or higher opponent, and catch to other weak or normal opponents at the same time. I’m using this custom build for leveling through, and intend to change it once I get to 50, to have a proper DPS build I can use for endgame content (when I’m not healing with Jianna).

The second character receiving attention is my operative, Lurch. I was hesitant to really start playing a stealth character. I decided to switch him to a DPS tree, so I decided to dive into stealth, and went with the concealment tree. To say I am happy with this decision would be an understatement. Though I still enjoy playing ranged primarily, I love playing a stealth melee character. He reached 22 over the weekend and got the abilities that really make the stealth gameplay shine. Those abilities are the abilities that let you go undetected for a short time, and even escape combat by entering stealth in a smoke screen.

The third character receiving attention grew out of my love for my operative’s stealth gameplay. If you know your SWTOR classes you know that means it’s my assassin, Hav’ok. I started playing him on Sunday, and I have been enjoying his gameplay just as much, if not more than the operative. I am taking him down the tanking path and building up the defense tree. Though I don’t have a taunt yet, I find it an interesting dynamic change using Khem for DPS rather than a tank. He still serves as a nice “Oh shit” button with his taunts sitting there, allowing me to take some heat off myself if things get a little too hot and heavy for my tanking abilities. He reached 16 by the time I started running flashpoints on Sunday, getting his ship in the process. I am really looking forward to playing him as well as Lurch more in the future.

The last thing besides the screenshots was that I reviewed my crew skills in relation to the companions each of my characters have and will have. I decided that only Jianna had a proper crew skill set with Biochem, Bioanalysis, and Diplomacy. The rest of my characters played musical crew skills and inventories this weekend to give them better bonuses with their companions to make their crafting faster and more rewarding. The current rundown of all my characters can be seen here.

Finally, I will be taking a little time away from SWTOR to focus on playing one of my other favorite franchises, the Mass Effect series. Starting tonight I will be playing the game from the beginning (ME1) and documenting all my decisions and thoughts on the series as I play through them.

 
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SWTOR Update 7: Picture Summary

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Thor

Ok, So I haven’t posted an update in a while. Things have been busy in my life and finding the time to write up a post just hasn’t happened recently. So instead of trying to remember what I’ve done over the past week or whatever, I’m going to summarize based on the screenshots I’ve taken since the last time I’ve posted. Warning: lots of screenshots and lots of spoilers, particularly with the Warrior and Inquisitor storylines. (screenshots at the bottom)

Let’s start with something I posted a while ago on Google+. My guild and I banded together to get the +10 to all stats set of datacrons. We had 6 people (all 50′s), a video guide, the required items, and a general idea how it was supposed to go. Well the video guide wasn’t exactly the most helpful. It got us started, but when it came to positioning ourselves to hit the switches, we needed something more detailed. We found a nice guide that was posted the same day over at oldrepublic.net. We spent an hour or so figuring out all the logistics even with that. We finally figured it out, and I was the first to get the datacron set. Yes, we did it on Valentine’s Day, that was the day that worked best for everyone. Between people planning things on other nights and people just not celebrating the day, it was the best day that week. Fun was had by all once we got past the frustration. After getting my set I spent most of my time at one of the switches simply because it was a very buggy switch to get to and I didn’t want to move.

Storyline movements:

First, is my Juggernaut Tolgana, who finished chapter 1. In doing that she found Normen Karr, and Jaesa Willsaam. She made Normen show his true side, and as a result that helped turn Jaesa to the dark side. She really embraced the dark side…more than I expected. Because of that I made a switch in a couple of my characters. I realized that I was limiting myself on what storylines I could experience (particularly romance storylines), by not having a male character on a couple of my classes. I want to see how wild Jaesa gets when presented with a suitable romance opportunity (I’ve heard she can be a bit of a crazy bitch when you romance her along with someone else). So I remade both my Assassin, Bellax, into Hav’ok, as well as my Marauder, Freja, into Tolgenn. I made a second change to my Assassin at the same time, in that I am designing him as a Tank rather than a damage dealer.

The second major storyline movement is with my Sorcerer, Cell’ax, who is now nearing 50 at level 44. Last time I left her she was working on collecting ghosts to build her power to take on Darth Thanaton. Well she did that, and took him on a second time, only to find out that taking on that many ghosts and that much power is deadly. So she visited the Mother Machine on Belsavis, and tempered the power inside her. She also freed the Dread Masters, who said they might teach her the art of Terror. Now she’s working on getting the voices out of her head, and working on the resistant Voss. She also paid a visit to her cult on Nar Shaddaa, only to find out that they were getting into the electronics business and have taken over the streets of Nar Shaddaa. All this in preparation for a 3rd encounter with Darth Thanaton no doubt at the end of Chapter 3.

Last bunch is a collection of smaller events.

  • Meeting the original, Coral, one of Mako’s twin in her personal storyline. Coral didn’t last long since I was level 50 and she was 38. Clearly I was meant to reach this point well before the end of the game. Oh well. This was a good storyline, the best companion storyline I’ve experienced so far.
  • Lurch, my Operative, going through Lord Grathan’s Estate. This is one of the more amusing starts to a quest in the game that I’ve seen so far. Gets a chuckle out of me every time.
  • Lurch getting his sleek ship, the X-70 Phantom.
  • Tolgana taking a solo baloon ride to get the Strength Datacron and Blue Matrix Shard on Tatooine. I’ve done this ride 3 times now, and every time it has been solo. I’m sure one day I’ll get a nice tense experience riding the balloon with a Jedi or two, but it hasn’t happened yet.
  • Tolgana going through the end of the Czerka dig site dungeon. This is one of good storylines you run into if you follow all quest lines to their ends.
  • Tolgana sitting atop a Jedi statue she just beheaded. This was a werid bug that transported me here when I destroyed the maintenance bot to destroy the Jedi statue’s head. In the Alde estate on Alderaan.
  • Taking down the general on Alderaan, whose former handmadien was now the padawan Tolgana was looking for.
  • Who knew the Twi’leks had a clone army on the Hutta Orbital station! There are literally 30 or so of the same Twi’lek on this station.
  • Tolgana and Quinn are the first romance I’ve progressed to in the game.
  • A couple of Datacron collecting shots, showing the brand new Lord of the Sith, Tolgana, and of course Jianna, my mercenary.
  • A series of shots from Hav’ok’s time on Korriban. He is my new Twi’lek assassin. I particularly like the sequence of him opening the doors to the area where you fight Khem Val.
  • One of the things I have been doing with Jianna, now that she’s 50 and geared up for hard mode flashpoints, is taking on various World Bosses. This was the Quesh World Boss, Gonk, a Rogue Cartel Warbot. I didn’t expect to win, as he’s far too high a level to really solo. It was a fun fight and ended spectacularly with his awesome Lightning Spell to smack you down if you let him be enraged too long. Another boss I tried was “The Ancient One” on Taris. It’s fun finding my limits.
  • Tolgenn, my new Marauder, meeting with the Revanite boss just prior to betraying them to Darth Chanus. Up until this point I have only done this a couple of times, and this was the first time I betrayed them. For some reason I kept forgetting that I could get dark points instead of light points from this.  For this reason I skipped this with a few of my characters.

Alas, my attempts to have an organized set of galleries, one for each section, was thwarted, WordPress won’t let me have mutliple galleries. So what you get is below, presented in order, but all jumbled together.
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SWTOR Update 6: Lord Cell’ax the Badass

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Thor

So it’s been a few days since my last update. I had to dig back into my screenshot folder to see what I had done in the past few days in SWTOR.

I spent a bit more time with Jianna on Wednesday and Thursday last week aside from her normal daily quests. I spent that time collecting Datacrons with her. She has roughly half of the datacrons in game, not counting the +10 to all stats datacrons, which my guild will be getting together to get soon.

Since I hadn’t been datacron hunting in a little while, and I hadn’t recorded which ones I had yet, I decided to go back and review all the early datacrons to make sure I had gotten them. While getting to one of them on Dromund Kaas, I stumbled across “The First”, the World Boss for the planet. It took a while, but I soloed him. Not real surprising since, he was level 18 vs my 50. He couldn’t do any real serious damage to Skadge (who had his attention nearly the entire time), so it was just a matter of time before I killed him.

While getting one of the datacrons on Nar Shaddaa, I had an interesting little encounter with a Republic Jedi. I had entered the Incinerator room to get the datacron there, and paused for a moment to record my progress in the collection of the datacrons (yes I track my progress with a spreadsheet, so sue me, there’s a lot of them). Well, as I’m standing there, in runs a level 36 Jedi. There is of course, only two reasons to be in that particular room: 1) for the datacron, or 2) going after someone going for the datacron. He was, of course, the former, and didn’t expect me there.

I just happened to be between him and the datacron, since I had just gotten done using it. I stood there for a moment, then targeted him (which of course, raised my pistols to him), and in a nice little sort-of RP moment, he uses the calm emote on me. I just had to laugh at that. So I played along, and I let him get his datacron and we both moved on. I only thought of taking a screenshot after the fact, but you can see in the chat log him attempting to calm me with the emote.

Now for me, the reason why did this was because, I sure as hell wouldn’t want anyone screwing up my acquisition of the datacrons. Since some of them take multiple tries to get, I don’t need someone with a grudge just happening to find me while trying to get them. The less people with a reason to attack is better for my chances at getting the datacrons, especially since some of them are in less than friendly territory.

The rest of the time was rather uneventful, except for one case of the game bugging out when I got stuck, where it dropped me into an abyss on Nar Shaddaa. I managed to get all datacrons up to and including Tatooine. I also got all of them on Hoth as well as Ilum. I have some more on Belsavis, but I have to check which ones I have acquired first.

On Friday, I spent some more time with my (now) sniper, Idunna. I got her off of Hutta and onto Dromund Kaas, and yes, she got her advanced class.

The weekend was spent mostly working on my Sorcerer, Cell’ax. She had pretty much just gotten done with Chapter 1 when we last left her. She was on her way to Taris. Well she has since finished Taris as well as Quesh. She has picked up Ashara, as her companion, and though I used her for a bit, I have since gone back to Khem for better survivability. She’s progressed quite a bit with her skills since before the weekend. She picked up the excellent Force Storm ability, which I love the effect of. Unfortunately, it’s not as damaging as I was expecting, so I use it, but I just don’t use it often. I only use it on large groups of regular enemies, since they’re the only ones that make it worthwhile to hit with it.

She also has eliminated her cooldown on Force Lightning (which is now her primary attack skill), and given Whirlwind the ability to snag up to 3 enemies at a time (the two enemies that I don’t target can’t be any higher than a regular enemy). All these combine to make her quite a force to be reckoned with. She’s not invulnerable though, as I found out when I tried to take down a couple of champions solo (when I say solo, I mean with my companion). She’s just not a good enough healer with her current spec to take on long fights like that.  I’m going to be redoing her spec soon, as I’m not happy with the points I’ve invested in the Madness tree (I feel like they’re wasted), so with that I may put some points into healing. She’s now on her way to Hoth, and her next companion, Talos.

Speaking of Healing, I changed my build on Jianna on Thursday last week, and really like the build a lot more. I switched to a more healing focused build, and switched from pyro to arsenal for damage. I had heard great things about the Tracer Missle…so I figured I’d give it a try. I wasn’t disappointed, and I feel like this skill may get nerfed soon. I had seen videos of it’s use in Warzones, which make it look a bit ridiculous, and it really is. I can rely on it almost solely for my damage output, as it can be spammed for a while before the level of heat requires something else to be used. So right now it’s my primary damage dealer, while I put the rest of my points into Healing.

The points in healing went to good use though, as I am now a very strong healer for Dailies. There are only a couple of Dailies that I cannot complete on my own (1 heroic on Belsavis, “Old Enemies”, and 1 heroic on Ilum, “Poisonous Strategy”). I can even solo the Champion boss for the “Freeing the Fallen” heroic. I cannot, however, solo Lord Raxxus (sp?), from the Old Enemies heroic, as his damage output is too great for my healing of Skadge. I think it’s just because he hasn’t been fully geared up yet. I can heal for a group taking him on just fine, but solo with only Skadge tanking is too much. Being able to solo the heroics means I can get through my dailies much faster, as I don’t need to wait for a group to get the heroic quests done. Of course, to solo those heroics, I’m skipping a lot of the fighting that should go on in them, by corpse-hopping through the instance. For dailies though I don’t mind doing this…as it’s a means to an end.

One thing that I totally forgot to record with screenshots was Cell’ax’s (wow that’s a lot of apostrophes) return to Korriban. She’s already taken an apprentice in Ashara, the fallen Jedi Padawan, but everyone seems to think that she needs to replace all of her apprentices which were killed by Thanaton’s Sith Assassins on Quesh. So she headed back to Korriban, now as a Sith Lord, and Overseer Harken shows a bit more respect this time. I suppose he’s just really supposed to be a bit more like a drill sergeant, in that he tries to be as hard as he can (in whatever way that he can) on the potential Sith so that only the best make it out of there alive. It’s made quite obvious just which potential Sith is going to become Cell’ax’s new apprentice, both due to the stories behind the characters, and well…the camera angles during the cutscenes (and I already knew who the final companion was anyway).

One problem I have with this sequence of events on Korriban is, if Cell’ax has what is essentially a warrant out for her death, as being a former apprentice of Darth Zash. Why is it she is able to go to Korriban to get a new apprentice in the first place? Wouldn’t Darth Thanaton prevent this sort of thing? Perhaps Sith are a bit more independent and the ability to take a new apprentice only has the requirement of you being an official “Lord of the Sith”…with no background check required. (I darken this out since it all has a lot to do with the Inquisitor storyline)

Like I said, I figured out what I did the past few days (all I could remember was what I did with Cell’ax) by going through my latest screenshots…so I have plenty for ya.

A little more context to them:

  • Post-Kill Shot of “The First”, the Heroic World Boss on Dromund Kaas.
  • After the little RP moment with the Jedi…look at the chat log.
  • Several Datacron gathering moments, including one glitchy shot that happened after I used /stuck to try to get unstuck. It “unstuck” me into somewhere in the world…but not somewhere that let me live for long. It got the job done, but I had to actually die to get unstuck.
  • Lord Cell’ax the Badass using Force Storm on the Rakghouls from “Calling All Rakghouls”. While it looks awesome, it’s ability to damage enemies is a bit “meh”.
  • Jianna soloing Jedi Master Averon from “Freeing the Fallen”, with Skadge as the tank and primary damage dealer (yes takes a while, about 10 minutes, still better than trying to wait to find a group).
  • Lord Cell’ax and Ashara heading away from their assassination of the head of the Cathar Resistance. I thought it was quite appropriate that Ashara has both a Blue and a Red Lightsaber, since she is a fallen Jedi Padawan.
  • Riding the elevator down from the shuttle landing pad on Quesh
  • The End of Jedi Master Berin Fraal, the final boss of Quesh.

Wow that was a long update…that’s what I get for holding off a few days.
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Mass Effect 3 Sales & SWTOR Storytelling

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Thor

So one of the few things that will pry me away from SWTOR is the game Mass Effect 3…yes, another Bioware Game. I have a saved game that I have been developing since the original that I will continue with ME3. The series is one of the reasons I considered looking at SWTOR after the mess that SWG was. (more on SWTOR later in this post)

I’m glad to see that the PC version is coming out at the same time as the console versions (March 6th). I say this because in the past they’ve chosen to delay the release of the PC version until well after (like 6+ months) the console release. Yes, I’m happy for this…what I’m not happy with is EA’s insistence on using their crappy Origin system (and yes, that’s where I bought SWTOR), as there’s no sign of it on Steam.

Why is it that they’ve gone with Steam for the past two games (though adding ME1 after the release)…only for this one…they have to insist we need to buy it from them on their online store? What is wrong with Steam EA? Why take that away from your customers? Despite the fact that I will be able to buy it at release for the PC, it still feels like something has been delayed. Why? Because I just know that I will buy it at release off of Origin, only to have EA get around to adding it to Steam later…like the asshats they are.

I’d like to mention something else, which bothers me with SWTOR. How is it that Bioware could get choice-based story telling SO RIGHT with Mass Effect, and yet miss it so horribly with SWTOR? The saved game I mentioned at the start of this point contains a number of decisions I’ve made throughout my play time of the previous two games. This is one of the few major gripes I have with SWTOR. There is no real true choice in the game.

Sure you are presented with choices, Light, Dark, and Neutral choices. They don’t have any effect on the greater story though. You get your light or dark points and you move on. I’ve only had one case that I can identify that came up later in my story, and that was my choice at the end of my time on Tython with my Jedi Knight, Idunna (on Tarro Blood). It was briefly mentioned by an Imperial guy later in my storyline. I haven’t played much more of that storyline though, so I’m not sure if that’s taken any further.

One of the things that people have noticed is the lack of choice in the companions we bring with us on our adventures. You can outright tell a companion “No you’re not coming with me”…and they’ll come anyway. Who’s fracking ship is this?! All classes must get all the companions available to them. This is a problem I have with how the companion system works. The companions are so integral with your character and your ability to go through combat, that you must take them all to give you the full set. They’re like pokemon, except that it’s not an obsession, they’re all forced on you….whether you want them or not.

That said, I still love the game, even though it’s story-telling is flawed, it’s extremely entertaining. I’ll be posting another update to my SWTOR Gameplay later today.
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