Monthly Archives: August 2014

Blaugust News and the Gaming Questionnaire

The blogosphere has been busy blaugusting under Belghast’s lead, an event I have been absent from due to a very hectic August and final examinations upcoming next week. Not that I would ever have managed a daily posting schedule, anyway. There were more great things happening this month however, the birth of the 8bitkitchen among them – a brand new gamer foodies blog graciously set up by Liore, so the blogosphere has a place to blog collaboratively about the foods they enjoy cooking and eating (welcoming more recruits!). I am loving this, also for its insight into fellow bloggers’ lives and our cultural diversity that we don’t necessarily get from MMO-related blogging. Needless to say, this should totally be on your reader / twitter feed!

More recently, a couple of podcasters from the blogosphere have started discussing a shared directory, maybe even a future podcasting network. Roger has been so kind to set up an aggregated page of all the known podcast feeds for now, so if you’re into discovering new MMO/gaming related shows, check it out and let him know what’s missing!

This brings me to the Gaming Questionnaire, a shared topic by Jasyla which seems to have timed perfectly in with Blaugust and is a ton of fun to read through on other blogs. It is tangentially also something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, so in lieu of much else from me this month, I am embracing this challenge (with few omissions due to not having an answer)! As far as a more in-depth gamer bio goes, I’ve already talked quite a bit about mine on Gameskinny before, the focus of that interview being more narrow.

The Gaming Questionnaire

1. When did you start playing video games?
I started playing VGs in the early 80ies, the first console to hit our home being the ill-fated Intellivision around the time of the great videogame crash. An Atari ST and NES soon followed, so these would probably be my formative years and platforms.
2. What is the first game you remember playing?
Tough one. I don’t actually remember much of the games I played on Intellivision, so I’d rather go with my first ever favorite game on Atari ST, which was Mousetrap in 1987.
3. PC or Console?
I grew up with a lot of consoles and still own quite a few, SNES and PSone being favorites because RPGs. However with the coming of the MMO age, my platform of choice has become the PC and there’s no going back for me ever. I love connectivity, digital gaming and WASD.
4. XBox, PlayStation, or Wii?
If I was actually buying next gen consoles, it would probably still be an XBOX (the 360 was awesome, ROD or not) – certainly never another Nintendo console. Wake up, Nintendo!
5. What’s the best game you’ve ever played?
Chrono Trigger. Duh.

The best gang in the world.

6. What’s the worst game you’ve ever played?
I tend to forget bad games and nowadays it’s so easy to avoid them. I remember really hating Vib Ribbon back when I bought it though.
7. What are your favourite game genres?
RPGs, MMOs, (Action-)Adventures, Sandbox / Building Sims, Survival, silly things
8. Who is your favourite game protagonist?
I don’t really have one. I like Chun-Li, Frog/Glenn, Kefka, Conker and Vivi even if they aren’t main protagonists. Okay, Conker is.
9. Describe your perfect video game.
The perfect game is a polished package with intriguing story, open world, memorable characters, dazzling music and overall aesthetics. And an immersion factor that manages to make me forget about dinner. So basically Skyrim.
10. What video game character do have you have a crush on?
I don’t develop crushes on fictional characters so much but I really like Geralt of Rivia from the Witcher series, which is testament to the authenticity and quality of the games. Geralt is more or less a typical, taciturn lone wolf protagonist but the maturity level and atmosphere of Witcher2, paired with fabulous character design and an amazing voice-over (I have a thing for low voices à la Alan Rickman) make him incredibly attractive and intriguing a character to me that is also well developed story-wise.

Hot hot hot! 😳

11. What game has the best music?
Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy 7-11, Xenogears, Skyrim, Fable, Lineage 2, AION, WoW, GW2 and many more. I follow composers more so than titles or franchises, so I’d have to mention Mitsuda, Uematsu, Elfman, Soule, Zur, Hayes, Kurtenacker and C. Thomas to name a few.
12. Most memorable moment in a game:
I will never forget the descent of Sephiroth in the final battle of FF7, mostly because of One-Winged Angel.
13. Scariest moment in a game:
I scare easily which is why I don’t play horror games. One of the coolest scares I remember was Psycho Mantis making my PSone controller “hover” over our carpet floor. Long live MGS and rumble packs!
14. What are your favorite websites/blogs about games?
Anyone that’s on my blogroll. I don’t really follow any more mainstream gaming websites due to lack of transparency. My best references for picking and recommending games have always been friends.
15. What’s the last game you finished?
The Wolf Among Us.
16. What future releases are you most excited about?
Witcher 3, Everquest Next, Dragon Age Inquisition, Destiny, The Division, Tales from the Borderlands
17. Do you identify as a gamer?
Absolutely.
18. Why do you play video games?
Immersion, escapism, art, challenge, entertainment, team work, creativity, inspiration, community. And because nothing else will satisfy my rampant imagination.

[Wildstar] Of Unfun Raids. And: That Attunement just got Nerfed

Following up on Monday’s post about the complexities of healing Wildstar dungeons, which clearly doesn’t entice everybody, I came across this interesting link on Wildstar’s raiding being a major pita (my words) by one who seems to know what he’s talking about. Now clearly, no raider speaks for everybody but it’s rare to find one of the cool kids looking back and saying”yeah, that sucked” or “I don’t miss it one bit”.

To paraphrase some of Fevir’s points in the video, raid encounters are such hectic and constant telegraph dodge-fights that everything else that’s usually fun and rewarding about raid challenges – such as employing different tactics, improvisation and saves – has no room whatsoever. Fights boil down to dodging 40+ mechanics per boss while staring on the ground, or alternatively looking for healers so you can position yourself in green telegraphs. The unforgiving survivability test requires such a degree of focus that multi-hour raidnights are mentally draining and exhausting. Not to speak of the blame-game.

To be honest, I don’t fully buy into Fevir’s commentary. Much of it sounds like 40man vanilla WoW style raiding where raid nights were as draining at times as they were rewarding. At the same time, 40mans were great because there was actually room for error and creativity, and room for carrying people. And they were far, far from being mobility checks. Once more, I am getting the impression Carbine are out to combine everything other MMOs are already doing in terms of difficult mechanics. That makes Wildstar a game of grim satisfaction a lot more than lighthearted fun. It sure feels that way to me.

Not that I’m particularly fussed about raiding at this point. If we can’t make it, there are plenty of other games to play.

Raid Attunement going Bronze

I’m not going to fake surprise at this week’s news in terms of the Wildstar attunement. I put myself on the spot declaring the chain over the top and snottily giving Carbine six months to reconsider some of the hefty requirements, so three months it is. No condemnation from me for evaluating player concerns, the way they did for more varied body types, too.

forums.wildstar-online.com

The related forum topic is naturally, already 46 pages long and consists largely of whining about whiners. To clarify what really happened: silver dungeons runs (with timer) weren’t nerfed – instead, the attunement requirement was dropped to bronze mode (no timer). To some kids who clearly don’t belong to the hardcore who have already begun raiding in Wildstar, that is the end of the world as we know it, despite the fact that you can still do silver (and gold) runs and best timers for feels and extra loot. That last point demonstrates the underlying motive of exclusivity over actual content difficulty; you can still do ‘better runs’ but the fact that the attunement just got nerfed, mildly, means endgame has become just a tad more accessible. Amagad.

As far as skill checks are really concerned, Carbine’s primary reason for the change was timers not effectively serving as such. That’s the actual development team saying “yeah, not really working as intended”. Timers promote rushed runs, skipping trash and risky pulls that put most of the onus on yes, the healer. No biobreaks allowed, no disconnects, no swapping specs manually (thanks to the inane interface), not even time to sit down for consumables. Raids are just like that?

What “remains” now are difficult veteran dungeons full of running, dodging, frantic resource management and wipes, only without people hating each other as much afterwards. Anyway, given Wildstar’s current raiding difficulty, I’m not sure how much more accessible raiding really got. There is however value symbolic or otherwise, in being allowed through the door, sniffing some of that endgame air for yourself. What’s the harm?

For the more hardcore players both imagined and real, there’s mostly this concern: now that they’ve nerfed / showed sense on the attunement, Carbine might adjust more things about raids in the future (noes?). I’m sorry for the lack of empathy in this case because MMOs constantly evolve, balance and change their content. They already do that! Also, I lied about being sorry! Life is too short, yo.

This week in Wildstar: Common Sense 1 – Vainglory 0.

Wildstar Healing and all the Ways it’s different

For the last two weeks, I’ve been on a roll with my Esper getting her through the first 7 steps of the raid attunement which includes silvering all veteran adventures. Having also healed through my first veteran dungeon last night, I’m finally back to the point where my old healer muscles and reflexes run on auto-pilot; healing is a routine and if you’ve stared at other people’s healthbars for years in WoW or elsewhere, you own the mindset that comes with playing support classes.

The main reason why healing is appealing to me is the complexity of choices, not just for yourself but everyone in the group. It’s the splitsecond decisions on what action to prioritize next and if need be, whom to sacrifice for the sake of the greater good (or a much needed lesson in self-management). While most roles are centered around the interplay between ‘self and the other’, healers focus on three units in combat and depending on the MMO, they’ll be asked to do this while being more or less mobile. Healers are also the guardians of time, as far as their role within trinity-based MMO combat goes.

sylheal

And Wildstar asks for a lot from healers. I wouldn’t say it’s more difficult than in some other games but in terms of complexity, there’s an adjustment phase that can feel bewildering to someone coming straight from WoW, Rift or LOTRO. I’ve tried to put my finger on what initially felt so different about healing and decided that similar to Wildstar’s doubly-active combat system, it’s a new combination (and accumulation) of several aspects:

Positioning telegraphs
Focus and combo management
Mobility
Limited actionbar

None of these mechanics are new. MMO healers are used to managing mana and optimizing their healing, for instance via proc timing. Games like Age of Conan have featured non-targeted and instead more area- and conebased healing. Many newer titles come with some form of action combat and minimal UI. For some of them like GW2, that makes sense too.

Speaking from an Esper perspective (which more or less applies to all classes), the biggest difference about Wildstar’s healing is that it combines all of the above added difficulties or restrictions at once. The most noticeable change for me personally, was mana management in combination with a resource / combo system, similar to a rogue’s combo points in WoW or a warrior’s rage. Not only will you manage your focus (manapool) but Espers can stack up to 5 combo points (and only with certain builders) which are required to heal efficiently and dish out the big single-target or area heals. That’s two numbers to monitor for your healing at all time while making smart builder- and finisher choices.

Of course this being Wildstar, even as an Esper many of your heals and cleanses aren’t targeted but come as a cone or AoE. So, in addition to moving out of red telegraphs constantly and staying in range of the tank, you’ll have to try position yourself in a way that affects as many party members as possible. They should do their utmost to stay in range / in front of you of course but in the heat of battle, well…we know how the theory usually works out.

The limited actionbar (8 skills) in Wildstar is my only real gripe, because it makes no sense. There are games like GW2 where the minimalistic UI covers all player needs and is perfectly tuned to combat. Wildstar on the other hand, with its fussy skills menu and plethora of situational abilities in the offensive/support/utility department, forces you to manually swap skills for every other fight with only two specs per default (although you can buy more later for Elder Gems). Every time you swap something manually, you have to go back and fill in the points to boost said skill, too. It’s awkward and feels out of touch with the game’s overall approach to combat.

Healing in Wildstar

Wildstar certainly adds its very own flavor to group healing but once you’ve had the opportunity to heal a couple of dungeons in a decent group, you’ll adjust to its resource management, telegraph positioning and mobility requirements. Maybe more than for other MMOs, Wildstar relies on players knowing a dungeon and specific boss abilities (esp. also due to the limited action bar), so it’s advised to always do a practice run or two on normal mode before attempting to crack veterans.

Healers learning the veteran drill should also insist that party members bring their own utility (healing gadgets) and medipacks to fights for as long as everyone’s performance is in those early stages of chaos. There is only so much you can heal / reach and what goes for every other MMO out there, also applies to Wildstar: The tank always comes first. Many whelps? Handle it!

Wildstar Light Armor Styles and Dye Customization

So you just hit 50 in Wildstar and wanna look fabulous, cupcake? You don’t have any of those shiny beta or early access sets to start off? Fret not, there are a few quick and cheap ways for the early light armor wearer to feel like a pro!

Before I get to recommendations, a few words about Wildstar’s current customization: the dye system and gear management are pretty bad. Not only is there no outfitter built into the game by default, the dye menu is fussy, buggy and will make you pay each time you apply a different shade of color to your outfit. Items can only be used once per set, so there’s no copying over the same headpiece to different styles.

On the upside: Wildstar lets you equip all armor classes as cosmetics! That means as a light armor wearer, you can still go for that heavy plate look even if personally, I choose not to. A guildie told me my character looks straight out of a fantasy MMO rather than a sci-fi one, which is probably true (a tiger can’t change its stripes?). I like pretty and magical things, what can I say!

Four awesome sets for the distinguished Esper (and anyone else)

Below you’ll find four of the light armor looks I’m currently using and which were all pretty easy to collect, either from zone reputation vendors and/or the auction house. Wildstar frequently recycles gear looks too, so better not cling to the one source/name I will be giving for every look. What you want to get right away however is the Item Preview addon which will make your life that much easier (it also previews decor items). Sets are numbered 1-4 from left to right and are mostly mix’n matches. Level requirements aside, none of them should be faction- or otherwise restricted.

1) The Quintessential Healer
My favorite set in the game, I got all the pieces for this look from the AH right after hitting level 50. The chestpiece, shoulderpads, pants and boots are all part of the “Fibermod Starloom” series, combined with “Hand of the Tumbling Torrent” and a bandana headpiece which exists all over the place. The Fibermod look can also be acquired through some rep vendors. I caution anyone not to trust the colors of item preview in this case(!): if you get these items straight from crafting or the AH, you’ll find the colors are buggy and the set needs to be re-dyed completely (which is totally worth it!).

2) The Starship Trooper
As close to a sci-fi look as I’m going, you’ll spot many color variations of this set from random drops and reputation vendors as you are leveling up. One quick way of obtaining all the pieces is visiting the rep vendors in your capital city, two of which will sell you the entire “Suede” set (lvl 45) for about 25 gold total. From there it’s up to you where to go with this and colors may vary from a shrill space look to much more delicate shades. This is a very transformable set!

3) The Galactic Explorer
A more recent acquisition, I love this set for both its royal and slightly goofy looks. All items bar the sunglasses (which are a soulbound epic boss drop called “Mindmender’s Mask”) are obtainable at the reputation vendors in Blighthaven (“Blighthaven” set items) for about 30 gold total (the original headpiece is this oriental looking facemask). As you can see, I rolled with my previous pants here instead.

4) The Classy Gentlewo/man
Not feeling the headpiece, I’m liking this set for its more low profile leather and velvety flair. The headpiece and gloves are part of the “Fibertronic” set items, chest and pants are part of the “Polaris” set (the chestpiece can also be acquired from the rep vendor in Grimvault and is called “Polaris Premiere Polyweave Hauberk”). My shoulderpads are called “Supply Master’s Burden” and the pretty awesome boots are “Crimson Crescent Slippers” – all of which were acquired through the AH.

Maybe even more than in other MMOs, dyes are everything in Wildstar and many sets will only shine once you applied better colors to them. While dye acquisition is harder leveling up and mostly up to lucky drops, housing challenges or the overpriced Commodity Vendor, you will be stacking up on dyes swiftly once you are eligible for the daily quests in Northern Wastes at level 50 (which can get you up to 5-6 dyes per day with several definite drops). With that, I’d say there’s no time to lose – tackle that max level already and enjoy playing around with different styles and colors! Happy customization – for science!