New Year Update

Nearly midway through January and I’ve barely posted.  Hmmmm. I have some articles I’m working on, but they aren’t ready yet, so let me just leave you with a quick rundown of what I’ve been playing:

  • Lord of the Rings Online
  • Fallout 3
  • World of Goo
  • Fable 2
  • EVE Online

My EVE time has been solely limited to training since the end of December.  I had been doing a bit of mining both as a way to replenish my wallet and since its pretty easy to do when I’m busy with the baby.

Fable 2 has sat on the shelve since my initial run through.  I had started two more play-throughs intending to try out the other two endings, but no more progress on that (similar to my KoTOR and Mass Effect plans in the past).  I did pop in recently on my original character and buy up some more real estate with the funds he’d been saving up.

World of Goo is an awesome game. I highly recommend it if you haven’t already tried it, and for pity’s sake please buy it.  It’s not that expensive and its produced by a tiny developer.  If you don’t like DRM, this is a way to both vote with your wallet and have some fun.

My main two games since Christmas have been Fallout 3 and Lord of the Rings Online.  I had been playing Moria quite a bit up until the holidays, but took a week off from MMO’s to dig into Fallout 3 while I was on vacation.  It’s a good game although very empty, which I suppose is part of the point.  My only problem with this game is it reminds me of why I so rarely play shooters.

So since coming back to work on the 2nd, I’ve moved back to my primary game of the last six months.  I’ve advanced to level 56 with my hunter and am really enjoying my time with Moria.  My only disappointment so far with the game is how small of an area of Lothlórien is accessible.  I did a fun run from the Twenty-first Hall through Durin’s Way t o the First Hall and then out the eastern gate.  Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much to do east of the Misty Mountains yet.

So that’s been my gaming time for the year to date (really including time since mid-December).  Please stay tuned, there’s more comign shortly.

Boss Battles in a RTS?

I’ve been looking forward to and following news about Dawn of War 2 for quite some time now.  I have the original game as well as all of the expansions, including that last one (Soul Storm) which was rather weak.  Every tidbit of news and video clip that I’ve seen as served only to increase my interest in playing the game, until today.

Edge is running a story about boss battles being included in DoW2.  I’ve never been a fan of boss battles, especially as they tend to be a bottle neck to game play where the difficulty spikes temporarily.  In an RTS, this seems especially artificial.

It appears that Steam is running a beta so I’ll be rewarded for buying Soulstorm, so I’ll get a chance to check out the game early.

Quick Update

Haven’t posted in a bit, between the holidays and the new baby, my gaming time has been severely limited.

I’m popping into Eve every couple of days to queue up another skill.  I don’t have a real goal in mind just now, so I’ve been using the new certificates to fill out some of my level 1 and 2 skills and get them up to 3-5.

The rest of my playing time has been devoted to LoTRO.  I’ve completed the entrance quests to get into Moria, but before I got too involved there, I decided to go back and clean out some of my old quests.  So I went back to Forochel and finished off the zone.  Next is Angmar where I’m still on Book 7.  I want to finish the rest of the Books before I really focus on getting into Moria full-time.

I hope to get a few more posts in before the end of the year, but if not Happy Holidays.

Why I’m Not Playing Lich King

I have considered getting Wrath of the Lich King several times and resubscribing to WoW.  Each time I do, I think about what level my characters are, and that kills the impulse.  Se, my highest level character is in the mod 40’s.  So I would have to slog through 30 levels of original and Burning Crusade quests to get to the new stuff.  No thanks.

So, how many former WoW players out there are in the same place?  Given the scope of the player base past and present, that number has to be pretty large.

When Burning Crusade came out I snapped it up and re-activated my account.  I was interested in the new races and rolled up a Draenei Mage.  The first 20 levels were great, and I thoroughly enjoyed the new zones.  But after 20, it was back to the same old same old.  To understand how sick I am of the early game content let me point out that I shifted servers from PvP to PvE once and had to restart my main.  I’ve also played quite a few alts to try out some of the different classes and races.  All told, I’ve played through the 1-30 levels nearly a dozen times, and I just can’t bring myself to do that again.

So as well as Wrath is doing, how much better would it sell if there was a way to pull new players or lapsed players with low-level characters into the new content?  Some way to allow players to create a new character at say level 68 so they can jump straight to Northrend?  Blizzard could charge a small fee.  There could be an unlock quest in the 20’s somewhere.  Blizzard could just limit characters created this way to the Northrend continent, or require a quest or gold fee to unlock the other continents.

None of this is unprecedented.  Guild Wars allows players to make a max level character, but only allows access to some basic skills and requires you to play through the game to unlock additional skills.  Dark Age of Camelot developed a similar problem where 98% of the player base was max level and the lower half of the content was empty.  They allowed players to auto level alt characters via a slash command once they’d leveled at least on character to max level normally.

I may get back into WoW eventually, but with the expanding level cap and the way Blizzard has been consistently abandoning old content I doubt it.

Fable 2 Follow Up

Last time I posted, I was enjoying Fable 2 but not loving it.  It turns out that I didn’t have to restart my character.  Apparently I had turned off the game without saving my progress so the marriage and a couple of evil actions I had performed were undone.

After sinking fifteen more hours into the game, I can now say that I’m loving it.  I think the major problem was getting over the initial learning curve.  There are so many activities, with very little structure, that you can get to a point where you are missing some expressions that you need but haven’t yet gotten.  That’s how I got into the situation where my character was married, his wife was constantly asking for sex, yet he hadn’t picked up the social action needed.

Having completed the sortyline as a good/pure character.  I’m working through the story again as an evil character.  I haven’t decided yet is he’s going to be totally corrupt or not.

The story itself is very good and there are several interesting moral choices that come up when playing.  Some choices even have game play repercussions.

Moria D2

After a great first day, I was looking forward to playing again.  While I did spend some time with my hunter, I did not get a chance to play my Warden any further or create a Rune-Keeper.

With my hunter I did finish the Dwarven Expedition quest line, which is gone once you unlock Moria, and several more chapters of the Book 1 quest.  My initial encounter with the Watcher was fun, and the session play flashback to the fall of Khazad-dûm was excellent.  I also received my first legendary item.  When you get your first weapon, in my case a bow, you have to get it identified.  For me, this involved a trip to Thorin’s Hall.  I’m hoping that other classes don’t have to make that same trip, since it is about as far away from the Walls of Moria as you can get.

In Thorin’s Hall, I identified and equiped my bow and then slotted some settings, gems, and runes to add some different bonuses to it.  Slotting these items into the weapon is semi-permanent since you can’t get them back out without having the weapon reforged, although you can slot someting new but you’ll lose whatever is currently in that slot.

After your legendary weapon is ready, then next step is to get it to level 10 by fighting anything that will give you experience.  I mapped back to Echad Dûnann and picked up several quests to get started on levelling my bow.  Like with a new character, the first few levels with a new item come pretty quickly, then the experience curve gets a little steeper.

Moria D1 – Play Experience

You can read about the UI changes for Moria here: Moria D1 – UI Changes.

As a hunter, anytime a new area is opened I check around for the fast travel intro quest.  I was in Forochel so I got the quest to travel to Eregion from an elf wandering the frozen city of Sûri-kylä.  Next, I went to Bree to the Prancing Pony to turn in my preorder tokens for items.  The preorder items were ok.  Mostly just cosmetic but in-line with most of the previous bonus items.  Finally, I travelled to Rivendell before getting on my horse for the short ride through the Trollshaws to Eregion.

Riding into Eregion initially, you come over a ridge into Glad Ereg and the elven camp of Gwingris.  Glad Ereg looks much like any other hilly woodland in Middle-Earth.  I wasn’t sure how packed the new area would be, especially given the fact that Moria itself must be unlocked, although I was hoping that it would be heavily populated (meaning that the expansion was selling well).  Eregion was heavily populated, but not so much that I couldn’t complete quests. From Gwingris in Glad Ereg I explored south into High Hollin and Low Hollin, finding the camps of Echad Eregion, Mirobel, and Echad Dûnann.  Echad Dûnann became my new base camp, as that’s where the fast travel quest giver is located as well as the entrance to Moria and the dwarf who gives the Volume 2, Book 1 quest to open the gates.

While Eregion is a beautiful zone, it wasn’t until I entered the Gates of Moria area to start on the Expedtion and Book 1 quests that I had a Weathertop moment.  Basically that describes anytime that I see a landmark in the game that I loved from the books.  Early on in the game, I enjoyed visiting Hobbiton and similar places, but it wasn’t until I entered the Lone Lands and first saw Weathertop in the distance that I really had an emotional involvment in the game.  I had a similar moment the first time I rode around a mountaint corner and saw the valley of Rivendell layed out in front of me.  With Moria, it was climing the stairs to be confronted with the Black Lake.  Even before seeing Durin’s Door, just seeing the lake and the darkened atmosphere was a great moment for me.  Turbine has completely nailed the feeling of these iconic areas, and it made me even more excited to open Durin’s Door and see the interior of Moria.

After working my way through most of the Expedition quests and the first three chapters of Volume 2, Book 1, I decided to try out one of the new classes.  I created a Warden and played through the introduction and the first two quests in Archet (created a Man of Rohan).  It’s wasn’t long enough to know whether or not I’m going to enjoy the class, but it is enough to know that I might.

My next play session, I plan to get through a few more chapters of Book1 and then try out the Rune-Keeper.

After the first few hours, I’m extremely happy with the Mines of Moria expansion, and judging by the chat conversation on Landroval last night, it will only get better.

Moria D1 – UI Changes

Weeks ago I pre-ordered the digital upgrade from Turbine and registered both the pre-order and expansion keys.  Once it became available, I torrented the Moria update patch, and then on Monday installed it.  So, when I got home from work on Tuesday around 6 pm I was able to launch the client right away with the intent of getting some time in on the new content.

Unfortunately, Turbine was in the middle of an emergency patch and the servers weren’t scheduled to be back up until 7:30.  Oh well, that gave me time to do some stuff around the house and take over baby duties from my wife for a bit.

After checking back around 7:30, I found the servers were up and I logged in.  First thing I found out was I was overdue for my housing upkeep, so I pushed enough silver into escrow to carry me through the end of the year.  Then I was ready to play with my level 50 Hunter, who was currently in Forochel.

There were some small UI changes to accommodate the new trait and legendary item buttons.  The icons on the left-side of the bottom-bar were staggered up and down instead of in a straight left to right line.  I liked how Turbine reorganized the bottom-bar without making it any bigger.  I’m always trying to minimize the UI as much as possible so I can see more of the world.

The Legendary Items window is going to remain a mystery for a while since I haven’t yet completed the Volume 2, Book 1.

I like the new Traits window.  It’s a much clearer presentation of the information and it makes traits easier to manage.  At a glance I can see all of the virtues I have slotted and with a quick mouse-over to see what each one does.  I especially like the ring icon displayed on any virtue which has an available deed linked to it.  So I can click on a virtue I’m interested in advancing and jump straight to the deed I need to work on.  Awesome.

There are also quite a few new deeds.  It seems like every time I used one of my abilities I was getting a new deed popup.  Most of these new deeds unlock new class traits.  Also all of thetraits have been reorganized into three sets along with set bonuses.  So, now if I slot two or more traits from a set, I get an additional bonus.

A UI change I wasn’t expecting was moving a lot of the quest item junk from my bags to a quest bag.  There’s really no bag space to look at, but the items show up in the quest log for which ever quest they belong too.  Unfortunately some items didn’t move, since anything that needs to be used or traded needs to be accessible.  Overall a definite improvement and one of the features from Warhammer that I was hoping other MMO’s would copy.

Another minor change was upping the number of active quests from 40 to 43.  Not a big increase, but still appreciated.  I constantly have to cancel quests to make room for new ones.  If only there was no limit.

That’s it for the initial UI impressions; I’m going to break my initial play experience out into another post.

Fable 2

The opening and introductory section is really good.  Once you become an adult and get turned loose on the world, the game felt a little rough.  The world is pretty wide open which I like.  But the interface doesn’t give me enough feedback and is not intuitive enough.

The quest log interface is a pain, though I like the glowing trails that show up.  The trails are especially nice, since there’s no on-screen minimap (which I miss).  The map that comes up in the pause menus is ok, but there’s no way to distinguish what store is where just where stores are located.  I’m afraid I’m going to have to find maps online or make my own, because I’m constantly getting lost in towns.

The +/- purity and weight messages seem to disappear too quickly.  I haven’t looked yet, but I’m hoping there’s a way to increase the amount of time the on-screen status messages display.

Now let’s talk about the d-pad icons.  Can anyone else tell what’s what?  Beyond the thumbs up and down, I really can’t distinguish which icon is doing what.  Often the icons switch pretty quickly as well.  I spend most of my time just using the menu that pops up.

All of these feedback issues were highlighted when I got married.  I was able to bring the woman back to the gypsy camp and setup a marital house at my starting wagon.  Then I got some dialog about having sex and my wife keeps making suggestive comments, but I can’t find anything either on the D-pad or the popup menu.  Did I get married too early (which I can’t type without chuckling)?  Is there a social action I’m missing?  There’s nothing in the in-game help to address this.  Once married can I get a divorce?  How do I go about getting a divorce?

These kinds of questions illustrate the pitfalls of having such an open game without a more comprehensive and detailed interface (which are at least partly due to the platform).

So at this point I’m really early in the game and I already feel like I’ve messed up enough that I should start over.  I’ve packed on some weight (doing some taste testing in a bar) and married before I was ready.  Before I restart I’m considering going little nuts.  What would happen if I take a girlfriend (someone ready to marry me) back to the gypsy camp and see my wife?  What happens if I flip out and kill everyone in the camp?  If I kill my wife, what kind of reputation impact does that have on my character and on my girlfriend (would she still marry me after)?  While it sucks that I feel like I need to restart my current game, these kinds of questions are a good result of having such an open world in a game.

Overall, I like the game, its fun.  But I’m not loving it.  Yet.  I’m not thinking about the game when I’m at work.  We’ll see once I restart how things go.  I think I’ll do less exploring initially and stay a bit more focused on the primary quest line.

Moria T-7 Days

Only seven more days until Mines of Moria goes live!

Unfortunately, I have had no time to play games recently.  My son, Lukas, was born on October 31st (yup Halloween baby), so my evenings have been dominated by diaper changes, feeding schedules, and anything else I can do to support my wife.

This means that any games I play cannot require more than one hand and must be pausable, so no MMO’s.  We’ve also had a lot of company staying with us, so no Xbox for me since the living room is always in use.

I did get to play World of Goo (which I got through Steam) for about 45 minutes on night.  I was trying to get the baby to sleep and needed something to keep me awake.  But that’s been it for the last 12 days.

My son will only be 18 days old when Moria releases, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I can get a full hour of play-time during the first week.  I may not be able to do much with my Hunter, but hopefully I can get some time with the new classes.