« July 2007 | Main | September 2007 »
Because it is late, simply a brief screenshot summary of some of the better moments from the last 10 levels or so, including (thanks to the magic of photo editing, to cover up my mistimed click) the simultaneous Level 70 ding of Grezzk and Lee's warlock, Blynd.
Here's what's been going on in the last week or so:
MMO - WoW
Grezzk Level 69 orcish hunter. Farstriders server. Blood and Thunder Guild
Ran the first Hellfire Peninsula instance twice, and got some phat loot from that. Cleared all the non-dungeon-group quests in Hellfire Peninsula, Zangarmarsh, and I'm through MOST of the stuff in Nagrand, except for the stuff that *really* requires a group (to differentiate between that and quests that say they require a group and really just require a hunter and his pet. :)
Also got a nice new ranged weapon, and should get a real elephant gun of a weapon pretty soon.
Level 69 right now. 10% done on the way to 70. If things continue at their current pace (and there's no reason to think they won't), I'll probably ding 70 on either Wednesday or Thursday this week, maybe Friday, and I should have enough money for the riding lessons and manticore flying mount at almost exactly the same time as I level. (No point in getting it earlier, since you can't get the mount until level 70 anyway.)
I can't wait to ding 70, simply because it's going to open up so much more stuff to do without thinking about 'is this getting me xp' anymore. I've spent lots of time on little 'non-earning' side projects in the past, but now?
* I'm going to run all the Outlands instances.
* I'm going to go to Mulgore and run all the newbie starting-zone missions for the Tauren to finally get my rep with them up to Exalted, so I can get a war kodo.
* I'm going to get a dragon (fine: netherdrake. whatever) for a flying mount.
* I'm going to figure out where the quest line is that lets me walk up to Garrosh Hellscream, kick him in the nuts, and say "man UP, for chrissake -- you're an embarrassment -- you give 'mamas boy' a bad name."
* And aside from all that, there's 3 more regions in the Outlands that I haven't even touched yet, in terms of doing the quests and checking out all the cool content. :) That's fine: I really like Nagrand -- it's a hunter's paradise -- so I think this will be a good place to ding 70.
MMO - CoH
Haven't done a ton in the last week or so, but the Brightsides have gotten a lot of play recently, and they're lots of fun to play, so that's good. I think the last thing we did on them was the "Cape" mission... by which I mean "find a hero in Paragon City, beat them up, and take their cape." Funny.
MMO - LotRO
Lord of the Rings Online continues to impress me with the evocative setting. The interface is a little unfamiliar to me, still, but it's getting better. Pretty sure I have one of every class and probably two of every race, just to play around with different stuff until I find the stuff I really like. Also, it takes a lot of work in the character creator to come up with a halfling male who doesn't look dumpy as all get out.
Tabletop -Spirit of the Century
Kate was in town and I finally got to run session of Spirit of the Century with her in attendance. I asked her earlier that week to pick a good town for a pulp adventure and she said Hollywood... she was, unbeknownst to me, thinking "Noir" and not "Pulp," but it worked out. The story opened at the grand opening of the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, with a big display of Egyptian antiquities that turned up missing...
... cue a car-chase (our first real use of the change mechanics that I like so much), a mook fight, the first use of the incredibly deadly explosion/grenade rules... and a MUMMY! Woot.
From the last week or so.
MMO: CoH
Pummelcite:
I've been messing with the Rikti War Zone stuff, but my current contact has a timed mission I'm not in the mood to do, and the new contact there doesn't want to talk to me until I'm 40.
So, having hit level 35, I organized and tanked a chunk of the Numina TF, but a server crash meant some members left the teamand we couldn't finish Jurassik with just Lukacs and a badly-slotted blaster. (Though I did tank the thing for about ten minutes, no problem.) Dinged 36 during that, finally passing up Strategist, and would REALLY like to go back and run/finish that TF again.
TFs are a great way to get cool inventions, also. I like that.
Note: With Granite Armor, I can tank anything up to level 50 without a sidekicking. HOWEVER, I can't actually hold aggro if I can't HIT the guys I'm fighting, so sometimes I have to take the sidekicking for the benefit of the team. In numina, this meant fighting +4 purples instead of +7 purples.
Mister Brightside
Mister B and Lady Optimism have dinged about four and a half levels in two weeks. I respecced him around 16 to get him further along the Stamina tree and got him more armor at the cost of less attack -- yeah, I'm building him like a tank, but being short one big attack doesn't matter when 8 guys are pounding on me and I don't die (Lady Optimism has both of the Thermal Armor powers now also, and that REALLY helps) -- the rage bar builds so fast fighting that many mooks that I'm taking guys out with plain old "Brawl", and with Stamina all taken care of (as well as four powers slotted with Invention Sets that improve his Recovery Rate), plus a new business suit and the "Salesman" badge, I'm all set to pick up a ton of new attacks in the upcoming levels.
Stamina, even one-slotted, plus the Inventions I've slotted, changed the gameplay -- I went from needing a rest after every fight to... well... NEVER needing to rest.
Need to put a few screenshots of Mister B and Lady O up here. We've moved into Sharkhead now and are rolling through missions exactly the way I'd expect a Brute/Corrupter duo to.
MMO: WoW
Grezzk is level 67 now. I've finally got to run the first of the Outland dungeons and really, REALLY enjoyed it. For Grezzk, there's nothing better than killing orcs corrupted by demonkind, and at the end, we got to fight a DRAGON.
... That said, the dragon died SO FAST that it was almost anticlimatic. Grezzk and Tusker ruled the damage output reports, and the tank complimented the Pig on being "a good off-tank", which basically means that I am, since I'm sending the pig around to pick up aggro from the mobs that get away from him...
... which maintaining constant shot rotation
... and trapping another mob in an ice trap to keep them busy
... and topping the damage charts (as a combined pet/hunter unit).
Afterwards, the guy running the group told me "a good hunter is just one who doesn't get in everyone's way, so you're a great hunter -- probably the best I've played with."
That made me feel good. Really really good, actually. I like it when I'm playing well enough that strangers notice.
Plus, I got a really really good set of gauntlets off of the second boss fight. :)
Tabletop
Crazy schedules the last couple weeks have meant not a lot of gaming. We did get a chance to run Primetime Adventures on Sunday, but that was because I canceled the Spirit of the Century game due to being tired and having a headache.
For some reason I thought I could still run some other game, despite those same things being a factor.
My instinct was to suggesting playing Settlers of Catan instead, and I think I should have done that, because we didn't finish the episode up, which I'm trying to do every time we play, and we just didn't get much done.
Anyway, still a fun time. I like that game a lot, and it was good to get back to the table after a few weeks away -- HUGE improvement over not-so-very long ago when 3-month lapses were more the norm.
The Human Side of WAR -- this is an easy to ready two-page interview, and I recommend it. Lots of great quotes, and exciting descriptions of the 'living world' they're working on with Warhammer Online, but this is the one that got me:
WoW is The Beatles, who changed music forever. You can't be the Beatles; they already exist. You can't copy them. If you try, you become The Monkees. You've got no chance. We're not The Beatles. We're Led Zeppelin.
Having played a lot of Warhammer back in college, both on battlemats and as an RPG, that stuff got me excited. That's always been Warhammer -- heavy metal.
Heavy, sharp, slightly rusted metal.
Check out the trailer at their website (http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/home/index.php). See if the orc and the catapult make you laugh. If so, this might be your kinda game.
((If WoW = the Beatles, what's CoH? Shinier, with a smaller, much more niche-oriented fanbase, and more system resource requirements... I'm going to say something like the Cure. :)
I can't seem to find that vital crossover audience of people who appreciate the subtle genius of taking Little Einsteins songs and rewriting the lyrics for World of Warcraft.
Tempted in by Avocet, and as a long-time Tolkein Fanboy (let's not talk about how many times I've read the Hobbit, LortR, and even the Silmarillion), I gave Lord of the Rings Online a try last night.
Overall review: Very very good. Visually appealing, very intuitive "explain it all" interface, very evocative of the setting. A little buggy during scene transitions. Not beta-level buggy, but a bit -- I'm encouraged to upgrade my video card drivers.
More beneath the cut.
Installation
This thing requires a lot of space. A couple gigs for the downloaded install files, than a handful more for the install itself. The download takes most of a day, the install a couple hours. No hitches, otherwise.
Account Creation
Relatively painless, though annoyingly twitchy about requirements for both an account and forum login/ID/password, and that they not be the same.
Start up
Glitchy. In two starts, I got the audio voiceover (very professionally done) accompanied by a black screen. Alt-tab to another screen, then back, and I could see, but still...
Character creation
This was LOTS of fun. You get Male/Female option on Humans, Halflings, and Elves, as well as a non-gendered Dwarf option (if you nodded and smiled when you read that, understanding why that was, then understand that you'll be doing a LOT of that during the game -- many of the design choices were made to evoke the setting).
Once a race is picked, you select a sub-division of the race, and depending on THAT (are you a man of Gondor? Rohan? the Dale lands? Bree?) some of your choices for apperance (skin tones, hair color) are limited appropriately -- there are no Blondes or Redheads in Gondor, people; live with it.
Which brings me to the character-builder -- the thing where you pick hair styles and faces and stuff. It's not quite as robust as CoH (nothing is or CAN be, simply because other games have to be able to put 'found' gear onto your character's frame at any moment, while CoH puts all the clothes onto the character to start with), but it is MUCH MUCH more robust than WoW. I spent quite a lot of time just 'playing' with the character appearance editors, making of several different characters.
Character Class selection includes (and I might forget one, so sue me):
- Burglars (Foe debuffer)
- Guardians (Tanks & melee)
- Captains (Team buffs, ''pets", and melee)
- Champion (Melee DAMAGE)
- Loremasters (Ranged... umm... spells? And natural-critter pets. I didn't look too hard at them)
- Minstrels (Healer. Also lots of stuff with music buffs and debuffs and demoralizing shouts and such.)
- Hunter (Ranged DPS, meh-decent melee, Traps, Snares, and Tracking things -- you apparently need a high level Hunter to get a group into places like Rivendell -- just to FIND it.)
I think that's it. Lots of fun choices. Has the same kind of low-magic, high-fantasy feel of the books and movies. Good good stuff.
I really want to know if there's a way to Dual-class, later. I'd love to be a Hunter/Captain.
There is a craft system, but it's much more of a "gestalt" thing...
"I am an Explorer, so I'm good at collecting Wood, Ore, and ... making some light armors and clothing."
"I am a woodcrafter, so I can collect wood, craft it into Weapons, and... "
So there's some overlap in each Gestalt, with each other -- your Craft is really kind of a secondary class. Liked that a lot.
Running Missions
Good storylines. Great starting areas, and it introduces The Thing that LotRO Does That No One Else Does.
Any successful MMO needs to have this thing. CoH is known in the great MMO circle for Sidekick and Exemplar -- no one else does that. WoW is known for... well, being WoW.
LotRO's "killer ap" in my opinion are "MIssions that move you through time, as well as (or even instead of) space."
What do I mean?
I'm going to use City of Heroes as an example here. Specifically Perez Park. We all know Perez Park.
We don't? Okay, Perez Park is a Hazard Zone in the city -- one of the places that regular citizens don't get to go, and that Heroes need a certain minimum security level to enter.
Perez Park is (almost) unique among all the hazard zones in that it has never suffered a catastrophe. Every other zone is a Hazard Zone because something blew up, or some aliens took it over, or something.
Perez Park is a hazard zone because it's basically been taken over by the criminal element(s) of the city. It's crime rate is really high. That's it. So there's no shops. No functioning stores. No Hospital. No support network in place at all.
But because of the nature of the place, you could totally see a group of heroes FIXING it. All by themselves. No construction crews necessary.
So... let's pretend CoH did what LotRO does.
You enter the City, a novice hero. Perez Park is as I have just described it.
Come Security Level 7, we get some missions that point us into the Park.
We get our butts handed to us, cuz that's what always happens. Mumble Grumble.
Come around level 10 or so, the Park's Security Chief calls us back for another talk.
"Listen," he says, "There's a lot to do in there, but I think we can take the Park back, and I think you're the people to do it. Interested?"
And you start on a long chain of missions all related to cleaning up the Park. Beat up some Hellions. Kill Skuls. Drive back the CoT. Figure out where the Hydra Spawn are coming from in the Lake.
You get to the end of the arc, and the Chief calls you in and says "We've made great headway, but something we did with the lake to stop the Hydra Spawn has riled up their progenitor. All signs indicate that the Hydra is rising SOON. Do what you have to do... call your loved ones, then get in there and STOP THAT THING!"
So when you take that mission, he opens the city teleport grid and ports you into PEREZ PARK IN FLAMES.
This is the 2nd version of the Park. The trees in the park are burning as CoT duke it out with the Lost. Half the Hellions and Skulls are in a turf war, the other half are FLEEING LIKE LITTLE GIRLS, BECAUSE THE HYDRA IS RISING! Half the contacts you've been talking to during this Perez Park Arc are dead or missing. One of them is feeding you info during the whole mess.
You battle to the center of the Park, and there's the Hydra. There are a few good cut scenes, a big battle, and it's over.
One of the surviving Contacts says "Freedom Corp is on the way! You saved us! You saved the Park!"
Fade to white.
You "zone in" to The New Perez Park. This is the version of the Park you will see for the rest of your career. This version of the Park is a little war-torn, a little singed around the edges, but it's SAFER.
The Skulls and Hellions are still around, but they don't roam the streets in packs of 20 -- they hide in back alleys.
The CoT and Lost stick to the darkest of pathways within the Park's forests, and there are a lot fewer of them.
The lake is pretty much cleared of Hydra spawn.
There are stores. There's a hospital. Maybe there's even a TRAM stop.
And you did that. YOU changed the city, and made it better. You moved through TIME in the game, and changed the city.
LotRO does that. It does it really, really well.
The human story arcs starts riiiight around the time that Frodo is fleeing the Shire, and moves forward through a small war in the starting zone that DRASTICALLY changes the face of the place.
The DWARF story arc starts before the beginning of THE HOBBIT! You're THERE when Thorin and the other 12 dwarves are leaving the Blue Mountains and heading off on their grand quest...
I would think the Elf arc starts even earlier.
And once you're out of the starting area, all of the races are in the same place in time... and the world has changed, and you've moved in Time as well as Space.
That's so, so cool. And Smart.
Anyway -- it's a good game. Lil' buggy in the video, but a lot of fun to play, LOVELY to explore, and very evocative of a magical place I love quite a lot. :)
Theory From the Closet: Interview with Fred Hicks
This is a really good, fairly long interview. Clyde does some really great interviews, and I enjoyed this one immensely. I'm also not done with it yet because it is, as I said, long, but it really offers some great insight into the design philosophy behind SotC.
(Here's a cunning scheme from NCSoft...)
Any and all Superpowered individuals are needed immediately to stave off the Rikti Invasion that threatens all of humanity! To support the fight against this ruinous alien invasion, all former players in good standing have their accounts reactivated from Thursday, August 2nd through late Sunday night (August 5th, 8:59PM PST / 11:59PM EST).Anyone who has previously played City of Heroes or City of Villains is able to log in get into the fight! Spread the word to your supergroup or guild mates and online friends who might not be playing CoH that now is the time to come back and check out the great new Issue 10, for FREE!
Welcome back to these Heroes and Villains! Join the fight against the Rikti Invasion Force and have a great "City of" weekend!
