Cormyr and the Dalelands

I know what I'm doing in April.

Part 1:


Part 2:

My title for ESO: Disappointment in a Box.

Too much MMO, not enough Elder Scrolls.

Well, it's an MMO. Not TES VI.  

I got into the beta for a bit.  It was fun until they made you grind =/

my hope for next gen MMO's is with EQ Next

Pretty risky move, I think.  MMOs spawned from single-player franchises have a long, storied tradition of destroying the lore of those franchises - Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, The Old Republic, etc.  What makes ESO an especially ballsy gamble is the fact the Elder Scrolls series is renowned for its lore, the very thing they stand a very high probability of shattering into tiny pieces.  We'll see how it goes.

I think they've mitigated some of that by setting the game a few hundred years in the past.  But we'll see.

FUS RO Don't fuck up this franchise.

I tried out the weekend beta I received a few weeks back and was thoroughly underwhelmed. A few hours later at level 3, I quit and didn't look back. Found it generic and uninspired.

I couldn't even get into the Beta with my key. I applied for a ticket to get it resolved and they didn't respond to it until AFTER the beta was done with.

My friend had better luck getting into the game. Logging in, I mean. He kept crashing on character creation.

Wooooh.

I can't play a subscription based MMO or a traditional MMO anymore after GW2. I'll keep playing it and hearthstone until Planetside 2 drops for the ps4, I think.

They're not catering to ES fans, they're catering to MMO fans. That's the problem. They could have easily done both, but they didn't. Honestly the Borderlands/Diablo Lobby-style where you just play with a few friends at a time would be absolutely great for an ES game. The sub model kills the single-player mentality of the ES games. There's a reason ZeniMax is making the game and not Bethesda--If the game totally flops, Bethesda doesn't take the loss. It's the same reason Tencent is making Monster Hunter Online instead of Capcom.

Well, since GW2 can't hold my interest, I need a new MMO until EQN shows up.

I think it's worth the try just to experience it. I have a feeling it's going to pull a Neverwinter and try to be a better version of Gw2(and probably will fail), but it's worth the shot at least.

Final Fantasy XIV pretty much nails the old school MMO feel with a new-age look, imo. It's basically GW2's dynamic events, WoW's simple dps rotations/ tanking, with a fanserving, final fantasy, social aesthetic. There's plenty of grinding.  Your character can be every class if you want so you don't have to be an altoholic anymore. And you get a free 30 days of play when you buy the game, so it may be worth checking out in the meantime. I was really close to buying it, but my friend told me, "Dude, fuck that. It has guys with cat ears or something," and well, who can argue with that?

I honestly think this MMO was the dumbest idea they could have had. I mean, how could they possible have thought that this was a good idea while the regular TES games would be so amazing with even some basic LAN support or such? If they'd throw in the option to mess around with some friends in Skyrim, I'd be all over it.

There's this Skyrim Online mod in the works, and it's at an extremely early stage. However, if it takes off, I'm hoping we'll see something not unlike NWN take shape.

I'm more excited about the far away EQ:Next game. I just hope they don't make it pay to win.

Neverwinter is better than GW2 IMO simply because there's ACTUALLY ENDGAME PvE CONTENT.

And it's actually challenging.

There's the living story, fractals, world bosses, jumping puzzles, guild missions, dungeons, exploring, crafting and stuff for PvEers to do in GW2. I don't know about you, but being in a top raiding guild on WoW for a few months(they were also the server's best PvP guild) was easier to clear content than finish a fucking jumping puzzle in Gw2. Holy shit, I rage so hard. Haha. Then again, I've only ran a handful of dungeons, and they are pretty easy if you know what to do(this goes to every mmo, Neverwinter included where they skip everything). High level fractals are suppose to be really difficult. The newer world bosses are very difficult, because they require communication between a hundred people or so.

The end game on Gw2 is having the option to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and have plenty of it to do without feeling stuck in one thing because you'll be behind in the other.

Neverwinter is just worse than Gw2 in every way, in my opinion. The cash shop is worse with power creep, expense and pay2win elements(not so bad now). The PvP is god awfully balanced. The leveling is a complete snore. It was fun to play with friends, but it's a nightmare to play solo. If I didn't like FR lore and stuff now, I would've likely stopped playing it immediately. The foundry was a great idea, but it doesn't seem to be fully taken advantage of yet.

Gw2: 10/10- Endgame is whatever you want it to be, which scares away more traditional gamers, because they're use to be constantly told where to go, what to do, and for how long until they move on.

NW: 7/10- Easy to pick up with friends. The hack and slash is fun. Too punishing for people who want to explore different builds. Cash shop is too expensive and provides good advanatages through people who dump enough money in the game to buy a better game, like Gw2.

Hearthstone, my current addiction.

"Just...one more game... okay, make that three more to grind that next bag of 10 gold."

I've historically heavily played Final Fantasy XI, World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic under subscriptions. They were all good pieces of entertainment for the money with their own issues, but I've found I felt too pressured into going "all in" and devoting myself to just playing that single game when a monthly fee was attached. Plus, they all ended up being grind-fests in the end. Not that grinding isn't rewarding (or even relaxing) at times, but I found in my years spent in MMO-land that I was building up a huge backlog of offline games that I wasn't playing. I've also been dabbling in The Secret World after it went buy-once-f2p.

Yeah, I screwed myself really good on Hearthstone so much that it almost isn't enjoyable anymore. I spent the first couple days leveling each class to 10 so I could learn what they had and build a better constructed deck. I didn't know a "total" level existed, so now I have a bunch of low level decks and getting matched against level 130ish people. Not fun. I only play Ranked and Arena now since the decks that I get faced up against in casual are all extremely op. No amount of good deckbuilding can compensate when you're dropping legendaries and epics every turn.

Huh, really?

To the extent of my experience, class level has nothing to do with the casual pairing. I've levelled every class to 16 at a minimum and while I've faced the occasional deck with rares or epic, I've not run into anything crazy - the most rare packed deck I played was against some full on Warlock/Murloc build, but I was able to keep it under control and still pull for the win. I had my own worries early on that levelling would affect the pairings and was sticking to a single class, but after reading several sources that said level had no bearing, I went ahead and started working all classes to get to know them better and unlock the basic cards fully.

I have yet to try Ranked, where I was worried about exactly that issue - the pay to win players slamming me with Epics and Legendaries.

I'm mostly grinding casual for gold or trying not to suck at arena (my performance is still all over the place mostly due to RNG, although I did get all the way through 12 wins one time with an absolutely insane Rogue set).

12 wins, that's really impressive. I haven't had much luck in Arena so far. It seems pretty RNG by what cards you get. You could get paired against someone who got far better slots. I have a bad habit of building for mid range control, but it seems a low curved aggro deck is best atm unless you're playing priest or druid.

Each of your class levels is added together for a "total level". You can see it in your quest log. In casual, constructed, you are matched against people within similiar level ranges(I don't understand why not just against deck levels).

Ranked is a lot more enjoyable to me. I get to the point around rank 13-19 where I'll face a few OP decks since the ladders just reset. But you'll just float around the same ranks and not really get paired against people who have way, way, way better cards than you do.

I'll probably try it; I'm not holding my breath though.  I'm more interested to see maybe EQN and Pathfinder.

My problem with GW2 is an internal problem and that's the "Too much to do" idea. With no direction, I end up getting intimidated by end-game stuff because there's SO MUCH and I want to do ALL OF IT because I'm the laziest completionist ever. By that I mean I'll WANT to do all these things, but inevitably give up because it's too much work. I Crash/Burn on games so very rarely will I spend more time playing something more than a few weeks, unless it's REALLY good (Borderlands 2) or I have friends to play it with (League of Legends, DOTA2, PSO/PSU back in the day) It's why I don't play Pokemon games much longer after I beat the Elite 4 because I have SO MANY Pokemon I want to raise, it's better off I just do none of it than all of it. FFXIV looks solid, but I have been completely spoiled by the more active combat systems of Neverwinter, GW2, Phantasy Star Universe, Phantasy Star Online 2, and other more action-y MMOs. Stand there, press buttons, occasionally move out of red circles just doesn't appeal to me anymore. I do agree that NW isn't the greatest game ever, and a 7/7.5 out of 10 is probably where it stands. lv 60 PvP is wildly imbalanced because there's no rating/Elo system and people playing since release are set against new 60s. But the cash shop is relatively fair. It's a noticeable boost, yes, but just plain being good at the game will get you farther than a $12 ioun stone.