Author: Ethic

I own this little MMO gaming blog but I hardly ever write on it any more. I'm more of a bloglord or something. Thankfully I have several minions to keep things rolling along.
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Super Day 10

[City of Heroes] The static group rides again. We did a few missions in the Hollows and one in Atlas Park. The XP flowed like cool tar, slow. At the end of the night I had three more bars than when I started (1/3 of one level). *yawn*

My brother commented before the third mission that he was done after we finished it. Asked why and he said he can’t take much more of that game in one setting. He said it is too repetitive. He is right on that point, CoH does feel very repetitive, always has to me. I had hoped the static group would make up for that, but it is starting to make itself rather obvious.

When you compare to other games like World of Warcraft, you can really see the intelligence behind the design of the quests. It certainly hides the repetitive nature of the game better than CoH.

Is there more to CoH that shows up in later levels? It certainly feels like the missions are all mostly the same. Kill all the guys indoors or kill 10 outdoors. Sometimes they toss in something to destroy or someone to rescue, but the motions you go through in each mission is exactly the same. Need more variety.

Migration Day

[Asheron’s Call 2] I was finally prompted to migrate my billing from Microsoft to Turbine last night. What a relief. It is my opinion that Microsoft held down both of the Asheron’s Call games, keeping them from being the best they could have been. AC2 is really going through an upturn in quality design decisions, but I wonder if anyone will come back. The expansion pack coming soon is adding a lot to the game, but is it enough to tempt many people to give it another try (or try it for the first time)?

I also joined the Beta Rewards Program, so bring on those MEO and DDO betas!

Static Teams, Pickup Groups And Solo, Oh My!

I’ve really enjoyed the static group we have been running in City of Heroes. Heck even a static group of two is good fun. Doing this has caused me to ponder my gaming habits lately.

I really enjoy gaming with other people. I have fooled myself into thinking I prefer to solo by using many justifications. Bad pickup groups, odd schedules, having a wife and kids that need me to drop everything sometimes, etc.

I started playing Asheron’s Call. That was my first MMORPG. My brother came over one day and installed the game on my computer and forced me to make a character. Once in-game, Inhibit wandered over and helped me get started. Shortly after that, my brother and Inhibit spent many a night taking care of my low level guy, teaching him the ways of the world. It was great fun. Not only did we adventure together, but sometimes we just gathered on the top of a building and talked for hours. We role-played on the spur of the moment, someone would just break into it and everyone else would follow the lead.

Eventually we moved on to Anarchy Online. Still had lots of fun. My brother played a lot more than I so he gained levels much faster than I. Then it was just Inhibit and I that could play together, but soon after he was too high level for me as well. The fact that I like to make a character of almost every class doesn’t help, it really slows me down.

We moved to Asheron’s Call 2, Final Fantasy XI, City of Heroes and then to World of Warcraft. I always tried to get the static group thing to work, but it never did. For some reason, it has worked pretty well this 2nd time into City of Heroes.

So naturally I wonder if we could do the same in World of Warcraft. That is still my favorite game but the server instability pissed me off one too many times. I’m pretty sure Inhibit won’t go back there any time soon, and that is ok because we are still having fun in CoH. But someday down the road, maybe we’ll go back to WoW and give it a try.

Not having my static team around last night, I logged into WoW for a little bit. I do miss the game, that is for sure. However, it feels like level 22 is at least a year away from 60. Some level 50 Alliance players attacked a town I was in and a few level 50 Horde fought back. I joined in the fight but was not of much help. It was fun, and made me wish I was near 60 so I could have actually done something. For the most part it was just miss, miss, miss. I just can’t bear the thought of leveling from 22 to 60. Certainly not solo anyway.

I feel like I cannot tolerate gaming solo any more. I just sit there in game and hope someone comes online, or I logout and go read a book. I think I am anti-social in-game because I never seek people out or ask them to group up. Sometimes I get random invites to join a party and instantly I think of all sorts of reasons not to join them. I might have to log out soon! How dare they invite me without sending me a tell first? One of my friends may log on in 5 minutes and then I’ll want to leave! They probably don’t know how to play!

What is wrong with me? What is my fear of grouping with people I don’t know? Isn’t that the point of an MMORPG? I used to think I like to solo and that the games should cater to my wishes, but now I wonder if that is bringing about the downfall of what is *really* fun about an MMORPG. I mean people *do* send blind invites all the time now. When I have been in a group, nobody talks. It’s like a bunch of people soloing in the same spot or something. People in a group often only think of themselves, not the team. That is part of what makes our static team so good, we compliment each other’s abilities so well.

Where is the line? If a game is going to require grouping to encourage the social side of things, does it make sense to use lengthy quests to force grouping? Is it worth it to make classes unable to solo in order to force grouping? I certainly demand to have the option of doing something fun and worth my time while solo. I simply would not play a game that had no solo option. The game should have the option to solo, but make it a lot more fun to be in a group. Make it easy to join and to leave a group. Do not make any class that is a “must have” in a group, but don’t make any class worthless to a group. Is this even possible? Is it completely wrong? I don’t know, it’s just what my experience is telling me at this particular time in my gaming evolution. Don’t force grouping, encourage grouping by making it a lot more fun than playing solo. Fun.

The Streak Ends

Our City of Heroes static group marathon is over. Nine days. I knew it wouldn’t last forever, but oh the glory while it did!

Anyway, I had some work to do tonight, my brother was busy courting the ladies and Inhibit had some early work in the morning so we just ended it right there.

I am sure we will get together again in the future, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps the day after, but it will never be quite the same. It was great while it lasted boys!

Oh the drama, hehe.

Super Day 9

[City of Heroes] All three of us managed to log in again last night for 90 minutes or so. We ran through the FrostFire (or is it FireFrost?) mission twice, once for me and once for Inhibit. My brother had already done it. Was suprised that killing FF one time did not complete both quests, but we did notice that the location for FF was different for each of us so that must have been why.

That mission was fun, because there were patches of ice all through the building. Trying to fight someone while sliding by them over and over again makes for some good laughs.

We also ran a few outdoor missions in Perez Park (my first time there). We had to “arrest” 10 Circle of Thorns for one of them. This was my first time fighting these creepy guys. Was quite interesting. I sure never tire of jumping smack into the middle of a group of bad guys. Tanking is fun.

Speaking of tanking, I’m starting to feel like I am best used for holding aggro by standing in the middle of them and letting them roast in my flames. My additional attacks only seem to use up my energy faster. I wonder how this will change as we go up in levels.

I spent some more time “burfing” again. Managed to get on top of one very high building, jumped to a 2nd and finally a third. the third building had a badge on the roof that you can normally get only by flying up to it. Was a nice challenge for me.

We only had one “death” and that was my brother. At the end of the evening he was level 10. Inhibit and I both hit level 11 right at the very end.

WoW March Patch Notes

[World of Warcraft] I read over the patch notes for the upcoming (when??) patch for WoW. I’m glad to see it is very long. I’ll make some comments here on the notes and their impact on me and my desire to reactivate my account:

“Diremaul, a new dungeon for players level 56-60”: No impact at all. There is a lot of high level content out there for me.

“Meeting Stones are located outside of each dungeon to help players find a group to adventure with in the dungeon.”: Well, this looks interesting. After playing in the CoH static group I am really finding out how much I am tired of soloing. If this makes it less painless to find a group for me, that is a plus. However, it still leaves me at the mercy of stupid players.

“All dungeons now have a cap on group size to limit the number of players that may enter the dungeon.”: No impact.

“General”: Nothing here impacts me.

“PvP”: No impact here either.

“Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Warlock, Warrior changes”: No impact to me.

“Rogues changes”: Nothing here seems like a bid deal to me as a Rogue. I did not have my lockpicking up to a point that I was struggling for ways to improve it, but it is nice to see more ways added.

“Shaman changes”: All changes seem minor, nothing makes me want to play my Shaman.

“Monster changes”: Nothing here appears to have an impact on my play and levels.

“Item changes”: Holy cow I did not know there are so many items in this game I have never heard of. Since I never heard of them, the changes really mean nothing to me.

“Profession changes”: Sama as the item changes.

“Raids and Dungeons”: No impact to me.

“Quests”:Lots of changes there which is good, but most of them are above me so I had nothing to complain about before. I do like the added Dungeon description in the quest log.

“Pets, Faction and Reputation”: Meh.

“User Interfaces changes”: Lots of nice stuff here. Improvements are good to see. I still don’t understand the removal of /bug from the game. It seemed like a nice painless way to report a bug. How many people would do that, but would not bother to go to the website later to report it? I bet a lot of people would.

“World Environment”: Nothing really of note to me.

“Flight Paths”: Nothing of note here either.

“Bug Fixes”: Lots of them, and good to see. However the most important issue for me: server instability and downtown is not listed in the notes at all.

Account will remain inactive until I see the improvements in the servers that I want to see.

Super Day 8

[City of Heroes] Managed to get my brother to take a break from his movie watching to log in for the evening. We ran a few missions in The Hollows and made it to level 10. Really feeling like a tank now, and the best is yet to come. We are really starting to gel as a group and it is working really well. It is interesting that the game play changes as we level. We have come across some bad guys that are using powers against us, like putting us to sleep. That is certainly changing things around.

Inhibit is really turning into a great healer and my brother is cranking out the damage. I love that as a fire tank I can see the bad guys dropping to the floor before any of us get a chance to take a swing at them. It really makes me feel like I am contributing. I also am really thrilled to jump into the middle of a pack of bad guys and start swinging. Feels a lot like I would think a superhero would feel.

I found a little bug of some sort, probably not a big deal. I have combat jumping, and I found out that I can slide right up any building that has a sloped side. I managed to get on top of several very high buildings just by sliding up them. I have decided to call it building surfing, or “burfing” for short. Or maybe “builfing”. Hmmm.

Super Day 7

[City of Heroes] I should be attempting Super Day 8 as I type this but I wanted to fill out this short report before my brain goes blank.

SD7 involved just Inhibit and I as my brother was doing some real life stuff (yawn). Losing the damage dealer certainly slowed us down, but we still managed to get to level 9.

It was also during some sort of cool cave mission where I started to feel tank-like. We were taking on groups of 6 or 7 yellows and not getting the royal beatdown. It was great fun. Slow, but fun.

Now my brother needs to catch up to us! How about them apples?

Costume Contests Everywhere

This morning I had some free time so I logged into City of Heroes. Of course nobody from my static team was on so I just stood around looking at costumes. Eventually people started having costume contests. I entered three of them and won two of them. One was for “ugliest” costume. I logged on my ugliest alt for that one, hehe. The contest I didn’t win was won by a girl in a very small outfit. It basically looked like a swimsuit, a very small swimsuit. Also, some nice high level guy offered 100,000 influence to everyone that came up to him. I added him to my friend’s list in case I ever get a chance to pay him back.

Total profit: 230,000 influence. Not bad, eh?