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Kill Ten Orcs

I have been playing Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (I know), and I am finding the gameplay rather satisfying. It uses the same base mechanics as the Batman: Arkham * series, which is good. It is, however, more than a little bloodier. Batman does not kill anyone; Talion puts his sword through every skull he can. That dude’s gotta have some serious upper body strength, the way he’s moving steel in and out of bone.

I need to start paying more attention to the missions. I have been enjoying the open world aspects of it a lot: wander around, sneak up on uruks, gather herbs, maybe find a little boss mission. Most satisfying boss missions? When the captain is vulnerable to ranged attacks. Get in the right position, one fully charged headshot, assassination complete, gg.

: Zubon

[GW2] Four Maps Metas, pt. 2

The first part dealt with the really good entry in to the Heart of Thorns’ map metas. Now we get in to territory that I feel could use some smoothing.

Thanks to Aspeon who commented on there being an event timer, which is super helpful! I personally like GW2 Ninja’s, but I believe it’s kind of all the same.

Tangled Depths Overview

Much like the first two maps Tangled Depth is about the outposts. There are four, similar to Auric Basin, and again like Auric Basin building them up helps the final meta event. Continue reading [GW2] Four Maps Metas, pt. 2

[GW2] Four Map’s Metas, pt. 1

The Heart of Thorns expansion brought with it four new open world PvE maps. Each map has a “meta”, a map-wide goal, much like the core Dry Top and Silverwastes. Overall, there is good and bad. I hope that ArenaNet takes the time to smooth out the rougher issues, and I hope they learn from what works.

To just jump in, the overall issue I have is the player knowledge requirement of when a map starts. I have to remember that the Auric Basin boss occurs on the odd hour. I think Verdant Brink resets half an hour earlier with night then occurring an hour and twenty minutes later. No idea about Tangled Depths, which is not fun, and Dragon’s Stand does its own thing.

It was easy enough to learn one map, Dry Top, which reset on the hour, every hour. Silverwastes, like the new Dragon’s Stand, was map dependent; although, the latter is timed. Now there are a bunch of new maps with varied start times, and I feel that there needs to be something in-game, such as the map UI, that tells players the timed status of the map. Then armed with that knowledge, and knowledge of how long I can play, I can make pretty good decisions on what I want to do. Anyway, off to each map… Continue reading [GW2] Four Map’s Metas, pt. 1

[GW2] Masteries and Markets, Part 2

Besides masteries, the other giant gameplay piece is the markets. They are moving and shaking! The current drivers are precursor crafting, guild halls, scribe crafting, and collections. Plus, ArenaNet really brought the stock up on a lot of items.

With precursor crafting, the big ticket is getting to and getting through the second tier. I have been working on Dawn, a greatsword precursor, and I really enjoyed getting through Tier 1. It was a collection where I basically had to save the free peoples of the realm. Very thematic. I did it, got my flash new recipe for creating the first step and hit a gorram wall. This crappy, mangled weapon required 10 Elonian leather and 30 Deldrimor ingots! Leather raised in stock quite a bit from that step alone, which is there in some fashion, I believe, for every precursor’s precursor. Continue reading [GW2] Masteries and Markets, Part 2

[GW2] Masteries and Markets, Part 1

The initial furious dust of an MMO expansion launch is beginning to settle in Guild Wars 2. People are beginning to claim about the PvP meta more. Lore delvers are finding hidden nuggets and putting things together. And, Mrs. Ravious and I have moved from the immediate to the long-term.

There are only two immediate goals in Heart of Thorns. The first is the story, which does have some very soft mastery walls, but I felt getting through the story was as available as going from level-limited quest hub to quest hub in any conventional MMO. The other, which was changed on the fly, is getting the elite specialization. It is interesting because initially getting the elite specialization would have been more of a mid-range goal. Now, it is much more accessible from the beginning.

The rest of the goals feel really sticky. There is one reason for this: masteries. Continue reading [GW2] Masteries and Markets, Part 1

[GW2] The Word of Heart of Thorns

My review of the Guild Wars 2 expansion Heart of Thorns after a full weekend and many full weeknights of playing comes in two parts: (1) the amount of foreseeable entertainment is absolutely worth the price of admission, and (2) it is sticky.  The first part is an easy, subjective absolute for me; getting hours upon hours of stuff to do. The second part is good and bad.

Heart of Thorns is sticky. That is clearly the design intent behind just about everything in the expansion. It permeates so clearly that I feel it overwhelms the sense of bite-size. There are no micro-accomplishments, or rather there are, but the sense of stickiness overshadows them. For fans of Guild Wars 2 that have the MMO on top of their playlists this is a fantastic feature. For players looking for lighter fare, I am not sure. Continue reading [GW2] The Word of Heart of Thorns

[GW2] First Weekend in Heart of Thorns

Mrs. Ravious stared at the computer screen at one point this weekend and exclaimed, “there is too much to do.” The weekend was filled with that. Imagine heading to a grand Vegas buffet and instead of heaping a plate and walking away  you have to stand at each steam tray and eat from there. You start eating beef’n’broccoli while eyeing the roast carving station and listening to the chocolate waterfall behind you.  Continue reading [GW2] First Weekend in Heart of Thorns

[GW2] HoT Ultimate Limerick Contest

ArenaNet rocking down to the launch of the Guild Wars 2 expansion Heart of Thorns at midnight (Pacific) tonight decided to hand me a code for the Ultimate Edition. The Ultimate Edition gives access to all the upcoming Heart of Thorns content as well as 4,000 gems, another character slot, and a bunch of other goodies.

Well, I decided, having just re-read the Kingkiller Chronicle that limericks are fun and underused in our day-to-day musings. A contest with them would be a fun and necessary thing.

So you can enter once, and each entry costs a limerick from your mind about ArenaNet or Guild Wars 2. No personal attacks or other such nonsense. Please be sure to have an email I can use to contact you in the comment. I will randomly select a winner for the code, and to sweeten the pot. Second place will get a Shadow Sword skin for their revenant. Third place will get a Daydreamer’s Shield skin. A Guild Wars 2 account is required for each winning.

Colin’s smile was like a fable
He spread it across the lands as he was able
He thought it untoward
to swing another sword
But, you know, nothing is off the table

Good Luck!

-Ravious

EDIT: I forgot to say. I will pick the winner when I wake up tomorrow (10/23/15). I am guessing around 4-5 AM Pacific.

EDIT: Mach Dice has randomly spoken. Congrats to Vlupius (HoT Ult), Ithurien, and Jacob!

PMI Code of Ethics

When getting my PMP certification, one of the principles hammered repeatedly in the training materials was “no gold plating.” “Gold plating” is going beyond the approved project to give the customer more than was asked for. You give the customer exactly what was asked for, says the code of ethics, and you get approval through an integrated change control process if you want to go beyond that.

When crafting in Shop Heroes, you can randomly get a critical success, which raises the quality of an item. Higher quality items are worth more, are stronger, and break less often on quests. The customer, however, ordered a lance, not a good lance, and will not accept a good lance to fill that order. You can spend energy to suggest the good lance (at a higher price) or spend another 10 minutes crafting a lance. If you get “lucky” with crits, that customer might be waiting a half-hour while you keep trying to work down to his standards.

: Zubon

Bad Habits

I decided to play a bit of Borderlands 2 and see the quests I never did back in the day. I also stumbled into the Minecraft Easter egg, which was kind of neat.

I was playing as the Mechromancer. Her bullets bounce off surfaces to hit targets, and she has a pet that flies around to kill things. If you ever want to get in the worst possible FPS habits, play a character who negligently runs around and fires shotgun blasts in the general direction of enemies. And it works. It seems like that should not receive positive reinforcement.

: Zubon