Sorry for such a huge lag between posts! I haven’t felt inspired to write anything intriguing, analytical, inflammatory, or hyping. As I mentioned last post, I’m not playing WoD. My friends are all playing — even the ones who swore they were done with WoW. I don’t blame them. I myself, even after saying I didn’t want to play, have the itch to just jump in and level then quit.
This weird holding pattern I’m in for the first time in my life has me intrigued. I’m not actively playing any games. I dabble here and there on Fridays and weekends, but nothing is really luring me in with a huge temptation. Normally I’d be playing WoW or muddling about between games and feeling that longing for a game to just dive into. It’s that ‘between major MMOs’ feeling. I hate that feeling. … but I don’t have it.
I’m busy doing other things I have to get done right now, and I’m grateful to not have any distractions. I’m also grateful that I can recognize I’m not burnt out. Just the opposite: I’m waiting for those next games to come out (EQ Next, Camelot Unchained, etc.) but not having to suffer through the wait.
A couple of games launched recently that I want to try out. I want to give Assassin’s Creed Unity a go but I’ve heard some horrible things about bugs. Anyone try it out? I’m also looking at Dragon Age Inquisition which I think is out today… that’s also tempting. Maybe I’ll add these games to my Christmas list. If you have early thoughts to share on either game, don’t spoil the stories but share with me what you think!
Something else I’ve noticed… there are a few games in development, but there isn’t a lot of talk about doing things differently, or theorycrafting, or devs really making their games a discussion point. That’s something I thrive on for commentary. I suspect it’s due to the time of year and the current MMO landscape (WoD launching is a pretty big reason to hibernate for a month or two).
I would suggest Dragon Age. I only started playing it last night and experimenting with the class chooses but I already can tell I will be sinking many hours into the game. I loved the old school CRPG feel of DA and despised DA2 but this feels like a nice change to the system. I like that I can spend all my combat time playing as any member of my party if I enjoy that class over the main character’s class and the option to stop time and pan out to an overhead screen and issue orders is nice. That gives the game a little more of a CRPG feel than I expected it to have based on the videos I had seen. It still is nothing like the first DA but I must admit I am liking it so far.
Graphics wise the game is stunning and I am pushing my rig and not really seeing any stuttering during combat. Some of the cinematic scenes are skipping a bit for me but I can tolerate that. I have yet to really get anywhere and explore but from what I hear it is a very large and open world with tons of things to discover so looking forward to that.
AC:U I have zero interest in so no input on that one.
I know I said I was done with WoW for good, but honestly playing it again from a fresh character with people that want to play the game is invigorating. I think what I was missing wasn’t WoW but the social aspects of WoW coupled with a progression metric.
Diablo remains fun, but I was at a point where I was grinding for through a nebulous progression that I didn’t know when my next drop would come.
I think Civ:BE left me feeling unsatisfied, and WoW:WoD has been a fun distraction.
Keen, If you’ve got better things to do don’t join WoW, but stop into the vent from time to time. 😛
Might want to pick up Farcry 4 also
Turn to the dark side Keen! Me, yotor, eternity, phandy, damage, and Krig are all playing WoW!
Join us !
I was on vent for 6 hours on Friday. I listened to Damage play Queuecraft. Saturday I spent the entire day doing wedding appointments. Sunday the same. This week I have appointments with florists and I think a cake maker. This weekend might be promising for some game time.
Only MMO on the (distant) horizon I’m even a little curious about is Life is Feudal, and that’s only because of how well the shard version of it did on Steam. It’s not likely, but maybe this time someone will finally get 3D UO in *current year* right? (Answer: Not likely)
CU is on my list, but I feel like I already know what that’s going to be; DAoC without the PvE. I’m not sure that’s really going to work out long-term, but will get a copy due to Kickstarter so we will see.
@Nuke – When you say the new DA isn’t like DA:O, do you mean it’s worse? I liked DA:O, but wasn’t exactly blown away, and hated DA2. If DA3 is under DA:O, it will be a pass for me.
@SynCaine It is way to early to say how I would rank it in regards to DA:O but I can say already without a doubt that I like it more than DA2. My love of DA:O was that it hit all the right spots for someone my age (38) that grew up playing the old D&D Gold box games and the Baldur’s Gate series of CRPGs. Lots of group management and itemization. What I meant when I said Inquisition isn’t like Origins is that on the surface it plays more like Kingdoms of Amalur.. an action rpg.
While I said I did love Origins I was also not blind to some of its weaker elements and hopefully Inquisition gets past that. Origins also felt a bit constrained in the depth to the areas you could explore and Inquisition is said to be quite vast and open from some of the articles I read today. Fingers crossed it turns out that way.
I might be done with MMO’s for the long short-term, i’m totally hyped for No Man’s Sky.
@Nuke – Ah ok, get what you mean. I’m the other way around, adding ‘action’ to RPGs is IMO the worst thing that ever happened to them. I though even DA:O was borderline in that regard, but I liked it overall enough to finish it. Was hugely disappointed by the demo for DA2 because it felt like playing a bleh beat-em-up rather than an RPG.
@Keen Do yourself a favor and stay far away from AC unity.
Its ridden with bugs and it runs bad.
On console it has like 20fps and on pc 40 if your lucky.
I have heard good things about Dragon age inquisition.
It is a big single player rpg. (80+ hours long and more if you want to explore everything)
I am sure to pick it up sometime as it looks like a fun rpg.
Shadows of Mordor, Dragon Age Inquisition,Farcry 4…its literally a gaming Orgy right now. Haven’t been this many great games out at once in years.
Reading about the issues of AC Unity and Farcry 4 gives me a bad feeling. It seems we’re in a rough patch where games were rushed and still need a lot of polish after release. I think I’ll stick to my waiting game on recently released game.
My gaming buddy has a lot of praises for Wasteland 2. It might be worth looking at this one. I haven’t played it my self yet though. Shadows of Mordor has me intrigued as well as Lord of Fallen. I’m waiting for the right opportunity to jump in. Yes, I know LoF had some below average review, but most points were like ‘Dark soul 2 is doing this and this better’ while I didn’t like Dark Soul at all.
Looks like WWE2k15 is also plagued by critial bugs on launch day (some game modes crashing the system, DLC content not available while being paid for, stuck on demo mode, etc.). It’s really a bad period of new console games.
Just started shadows of Mordor last night, a surprisingly good Lord of the rings Game. Worth looking into!
The games ran flawlessly and had some very unique features like jumping right into one of your friends games, on the fly
without a hiccup, at least it was like that during the demo they ran at E3.
Within the next four weeks, NCsoft will treat North American and European gamers to
two opportunities to jump into the world of Aion and explore Atreia as Asmodian or Elyos
characters ahead of its release in North America on September 22 and Europe
September 25. We want to catch and analyze as many bugs as possible during this stress test period, so that we
can try to ensure a smooth launch on May 15.