Weekly “What I’m playing” Update 5/04-5/09 (with some commentary)

flulogo

It played me more than the other way around.  I had to cheat to win though by exploiting the use of Tamiflu, Tylenol Severe Cold, and some yucky purple syrup that knocked me out at night.  I’m 90% better now with just a lingering cough and a tad bit of congestion.  Thanks to this little virus I wasn’t able to play anything this week until just the past two days.

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Amidst the Eurogamer review drama (Short version:  Eurogamer reviews it 2/10 and Aventurine cries foul, demands re-review, gets offered one, decides they don’t want one) I was able to squeeze a little bit of time in to Darkfall.  I would have been able to get more time in, except Aventurine was so involved with protecting their “livelihood” from one particular bad review that they must have missed their account management section being down for two days.  Aventurine already communicates… well you can’t really call it communicates… I guess it’s more of a forum post stating whatever they want to state – anyway – they made three posts about the Eurogamer review (one each day for three days) which is more volume of communication than the community has ever received on any topic.  You’d think they might be willing to mention their account management with at least one post.

I have decided to give the game one last chance to win me over.  My account will run out in about a month and if it doesn’t win me over then I will not be renewing.  The only thing keeping me logging in at this point is my friends.  Friends are key for me in a game because without them it doesn’t feel like a complete experience.  They are also what keeps me playing a game, but I swore off sticking with a game because someone else wants me to long ago.  I’ll ride out my subscription doing what I did the past few days which is log in and participate in whatever action (pve or pvp) that I can and hope that fun finds me.  For the most part, “action” has been roaming around finding someone to fight.  We come across the occasional Inquisition who pull the plug when they’re caught, Hundred who fall for the same trap every time, and Duchy who like their formations but can’t actually fight to save their lives.  There exists a nanosecond of fun, but that comes at the cost of 30-40 minutes of looking and seeking out (or laying traps).   I PvP’d for four hours the other day and we killed maybe 20 naked people harvesting near their clan cities, tried to kill a bunch of people who did nothing but run away or pull the plug, and ended up finding NO ONE wanting to just plain fight.

Yesterday the server stability was so piss poor that we had someone decide that they were done with the game altogether.  Can’t blame them really since we spent the day sitting around harvesting.  There were 3 or 4 sieges going on and the server can’t handle two at the same time without lagging.  The result was trying to PvP with 7-10 seconds of server lag (meaning it took 7-10 seconds to mount or pull out your sword) or having mobs teleport and be unhittable.  I logged off when the group decided to to just sit around and wait it out.  That’s Darkfall in a nut shell really… “wait it out”.  I’m just tired of waiting, but I’ll give it a month.

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I spent about two hours playing WAR this week.  My goal is level 25 before LotD.  If you missed it, watch the LotD preview (part 1 and Part 2) from G4’s X-play.  I’m really finding it hard to get into the current WAR gameplay.  It’s too shallow for me right now.  I need something that I can really dig in, invest myself in, and see results.  I’m really thirsting for that DAOC or EQ experience right now and the more quick get in get out arcade-like pvp action of WAR is fun but not what I really want at this time.  Still, I’m pushing on to level 25 with my Choppa little by little in order to be ready for what I hope will be my re-launch of WAR.

One thing continues to concern me with LotD though… well two things.  First is the comment in the first video that Jeff makes when he says that level 25’s will have a hard time getting in….why?  It’s like Darkness Falls right?  Second,  the sheer number of times Jeff and others have mentioned “public quests” really, really bothers me.  I think I counted over 15 PQ’s in the video podcast showing the map.  Not a fan here guys.  The PQ system, while innovative and really clever at first, has been more of what feels like an excuse to pack in the content but not really have to invest in anything deep – none of that immersive gameplay that draws the player in like the dungeons from DAOC or the zones in EQ.  I want the camps of mobs and roaming that groups had to do in Darkness Falls.  This needs to feel like a traditional MMO zone and not just another Chapter like we’ve seen already.

I think what’s really hurting my enjoyment factor is not having a guild or friends playing.  I’m sorta all by myself and that makes it harder to feel tied-in.  Any decent sized and active guilds recruiting?

  • That’s 18 PQs buddy. And don’t forget the ‘console style’ action in the dungeon itself. That’s from the latest producers video.

  • Oh and Casualties of War is recruiting – casualtiesguild.com – awesome group of casual players!

  • Jeez, 18? I have a feeling that one won’t be able to walk 30 seconds without entering the next mad dash for objectives and loot bags event. The console style action in the dungeon itself could be neat.

  • I have to say I think the opposite for WAR. I think the RvR zones needed PQs and the Land of the Dead is exactly what every single Tier 4 RvR zone should be like (minus the access requirements).

    The PQ system is great, but unfortunately its about worthless at level 40. For as much work as Mythic put into the PQs, it is a damn shame that each and every fucking RvR lake is empty of PQs and any decent content. This is one of the largest failures of WAR IMHO.

    Also, if LotD proves fruitful, I would love to see them go back through places like Bastion Stair and Gunbad and retro-fit them to have similiar RvR mechanics.

  • Hey Keen,

    I posted details how to get acess to Aions Chinese retail in your topic about what your playing. Curious wether you’re going to try it or not.

  • I’ve proofread your bit on Eurogamer for you:

    “Amidst the Eurogamer review drama (Short version: Eurogamer reviews it 2/10 without the reviewer actually playing the game significantly and Aventurine cries foul, demands admission of guild by Eurogamer, gets offered a re-review instead of taking down the slanderous one, decides they don’t want one)

  • @Squit: Phoenix Throne – Destruction

    @Heartless_: Well I agree that PQ’s would make RvR lakes more interesting, but I think that’s a testament to how bad the RvR lakes are and not to the quality of PQ’s.

    @Larek: I’m going to wait until I can do it without having to impersonate a Chinese person. If you have a spare account and want to let me try it then I’m all for it, but if not then I’ll just wait. I can say that I am very, very interested in Aion.

  • @yambu – Good Edit

    Darkfall has been allot of fun for me and given me a feeling I haen’t had since original EQ but ya, it’s starting to wear a little thin after being in a “good” aligned clan that fell victim to the zerg alliance rush to rule the server and we lost our city.

    Ah well, I still give AV more credit then Mythic/EA by a large amount.

  • Sorry for not being around Keen, but I feel that leveling another character at this point for me would just be a waste of time. Short of logging in for 2-3 hours per week for a bit of T4 skirmishing, WAR holds zero entertainment value for me. Our guild is pretty much done too.

    Land of the Dead might be fun, but I’m approaching it extremely cautiously. At this point, I’m actually more interested in starting up a Champions Online account to hold me over until Aion’s release.

    Also, Global Agenda looks insanely awesome. Hoping to get into that beta.

  • I burned out on DF too, took a break and went back to a few different MMO’s. (WAR, AoC, WoW) After a few weeks of hopping around I’m completely done with the standard WoW clones. Even with Land of the Dead on the horizon, leveling in WAR is so painful. I just don’t see how they can make that zone fun, when the rest of the game just isn’t fun.

    My taste is different now, and logging in to kill 10 boars and run back to a guy with a question mark over his head is no longer appealing to me. Darkfall is flawed as shit. The skill system blows, the grind sucks, and the server stability is god awful. Even with all of that, I’m still going to play it and EVE at the same time until MO comes out. At least they are different, and more fun to me at this time than anything else on the market.

    Playing both games at the same time should help the burn out that I was experiencing just by macroing in a city 24/7 in DF haha.

  • @Keen

    I completely understand with WAR. I started playing at launch with some RL friends but they all quit. Since then I have come and gone all because of a lack of RL friends to play with. About 2 weeks ago some friends called me and said they were all playing on Order so I rerolled again. I’m in love with WAR this time. Check out my little fight last night.

    http://spritesarefun.blogspot.com/

  • Sounds like Ed got it spot on with some of the stuff in his review of Darkfall (Darkfail/Dorkfail) about hit and miss when trying to actually fight someone. PC Zone have actually scored it lower than Eurogamer – 17%

  • @Keen

    I don’t care what anyone says. I liked PQs, even the grindy-feeling ones. I hated that once I hit 40 that there wasn’t any available to do.

  • WAR is a complete failure imo. I stuck with the game from launch until a couple weeks ago and enjoyed my time overall, but the game has done -nothing- to improve. Server stability has gotten WORSE even. Mythic makes all sorts of moves that make little to no sense. WAR isn’t even a good PvP game at its heart (that is if you can somehow find decent PvP…server dependent of course).

    The MMO market seems stale right now. A lot of failures with a few existing games doing well. I really hope a decent MMO is laid before us soon. Aion could be good, but I don’t have my hopes up. I imagine the game will be polished and probably well made (which itself might be enough for me to play it lol), but I don’t have much confidence in their PvP system. I suppose I’ll have to watch your blog more for further info on that =).

  • @Dorkfail – link, please? If you’re right (it’s not anywhere on their website), then let’s see it, otherwise you’re just trolling…

    ~Ripper

  • Lords of the Dead (www.lotd.org) is one of the larger Destro guilds on Dark Crag still recruiting for all classes. If you are playing over there, feel free to look us up.