This Week in MMOs

[Pattern Ghost]

Grats!

[Christopher R Taylor]

Star Wars: The Old Republic is doing a double xp event timed to take advantage of Star Wars movie, not sure how long it will run.  I'm really late on this, might even be over with by now.

[Pattern Ghost]

So, I decided to give Neverwinter Online another shot last week. I've been enjoying it so far, playing a Great Weapon Fighter, more or less following this guide. More on that later when I don't have a huge headache.

 

I got curious about the status of EQ Next (it's still a definite maybe), and found this article on what Smedly's been up to since he left Daybreak. Here's a video for the kickstarter (Which I'm not backing or recommending, but sharing as a point of interest):

 

[Greywind]

I haven't tried GWF yet.

 

I've got a CW, TR, GF, SW and OP. The CW sees most of my play time.

[Pattern Ghost]

GWF has been pretty smooth going. He's currently level 37, and his only death came at level 36 when fighting a dragon in an open quest. I bobbed when I should've weaved. I have a CW in my second slot, but I'm trying to focus on getting the one character capped first, and learning my way around the game.

 

I love the environments in the game. It doesn't give me the same feeling of seeing the same building fifty million times like a lot of other MMOs. I find the constant on mouselook annoying, but for the most part it's unobtrusive. The default UI choices are pretty solid overall. Aside from having to hit ALT to break out of mouselook, the only other major gripe I have is inventory management. When you're at the vendor, you vend, and that's it. You can't, for example, notice that an item in your bags is better than what you're wearing, equip it, then vend the inferior item, without breaking out of the vendor screen, opening inventory to swap the item, then reentering the vendor screen . . . even though you have your bag right there in front of you on the vendor screen. They remove the Equip option from the right click menu when vending. Mostly, though, things are laid out pretty conveniently.

 

The AI on the companions is pretty decent. I'd rate it better than DDO for the most part, and better than guardian pets (non-controllable combat pets and derpy NPCs that sometimes follow you around on quests to "help") in WoW. They do a good job of keeping themselves alive and aren't too bad about pulling adds in outdoor environments. Also, starting a new companion isn't too bad. They don't simply die if they're rank 1, just have less abilities to use, afaik.

 

I also like the web Gateway. The Sword Coast Adventures is a pretty fun dice-based dungeon crawler, and I've probably spent more time playing around with it than the actual game.

 

At the moment, I'm liking it overall. I still have plenty of leveling content to do, though. I'll have to see what the game turns into at cap before I decide if I'm going to invest anything into it. If I'm still interested after capping my GWF, I may get some more character slots from the Zen shop, and try some other classes.

[Greywind]

You think the vendors want to watch you change?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Anyone heard much about Everquest reboot?  With a better interface, updated graphics, and a more player-friendly attitude, that could be a terrific game.  SONY/Verant pretty obviously despised its players, but if you could get people who liked their customers it could be a more pleasant experience.  The world was terrific, and HUGE, the classes and races and lore were very interesting.  I'd love to raid Vox with a better experience.

[Pattern Ghost]

I found that Smedly 2d project when I was searching for info on whether EQNext was alive or dead. They claim it's still on, and that development resources have been moved from Landmark to the main game. When it's actually coming out, I didn't find.

[Pattern Ghost]

Champions Online is running Double XP Week:

 

Event Start: Thursday, January 28, 2016 at 10:00 am PDT

Event Ends: Thursday, February 4, 2016, at 10:00 am am PDT

 

Unfortunately, the little turd is back with DDOS attacks, and the game's nearly unplayable at the moment. I wish they'd do something about the moron.

[Pattern Ghost]

Looks like the new Teleios content is live on Champions Online now. Managed to get Heck Girl (Scourge) to 39 this week, and Runa (Devastator) almost to 38. Got four hours worth of XP buffs on everyone else, which should put a dent in their leveling.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I signed up for EverQuest Next beta.  Not sure about it, they're rebuilding the classes, but supposedly basically same map and lots of familiar characters.  Same races, I believe, although some might be held back for expansions.  Supposedly its a reimagining, not a sequel, but they mention 10,000 years of previous history so its hard to know what to expect at this point.

[Pattern Ghost]

MMO Site is giving away a code for a free Legionary Grav Chariot:

 

http://mmo-play.com/rpg-games/champions-online/giveaways/champions-online-legionary-grav-chariot-giveaway

 

You'll have to sign in to the site either with your Facebook account or a site account. I just made a site account. Relatively painless. Might want to use an e-mail address you don't mind getting spammed, just in case.

 

The freebie vehicle is bind to *account* so it'd be nice to pass around to your alts. It also has three weapons, so one more than the other freebies I've seen so far. (UNTIL Shuttle, Wasp gravbike, the holiday token bike)

 

Been doing mostly Champions Online lately, due to the XP weekend. Trying to get a few more characters to 39 so I can sub at some point and unlock a few more slots.

 

One thing that's annoying is the damned lockbox pop up crap from NWO is now in the game with the latest patch. On the other hand, at least they're still doing updates, even if relatively small. The new gear looks interesting, if a longish grind. I'll probably work on it on a few characters I play most and stick with the Heroic stuff on the rest.

[Greywind]

I have a hard time getting back into CO.

[Pattern Ghost]

Honestly, I'm having a hard time getting into any MMOs. I've been messing around on CO mainly because it's easy to jump in and out of, like an arcade game almost. .

[Pattern Ghost]

Well, I signed up for WoW again (spent a token) to do the holiday boss for the Big Love Rocket mount. No love again this year.

 

So, I've mostly been doing table missions (exciting) to make cash to buy tokens. Up to six tokens so far (had two left after resubbing), and well on my way to number seven. To add a little excitement, I noticed this on our horde guild:

 

 

/Kaibos steals guild.

/Kaibos becomes 5k gold richer!

 

#NeverTurnYourBackOnAnOrc

 

 

j/k 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I took over a guild once because it went inactive.  The guild maker eventually showed back up and I gave it back to him, though

[Pattern Ghost]

I was just messing with Chad. That's our Horde guild.

 

I'm up to seven tokens with 13 days left on the sub. I'm kind of tempted to stay subbed and stock up on a few years' worth of tokens while the garrison gravy train is still in effect, maybe level some alts. I capped my Shaman (was 99.5 when I unsubbed), and got an off server alt from 83 to 90. I might finish him, and a couple other higher-level alts. I dunno. I'm still kind of bored with it.

 

Meanwhile, over on Champions Online, they've nerfed the holy heck out of Two Gun Mojo. Sure, it was way too strong for a tier one power, but they've gone way overboard. Swapped one of my silver freeforms (not subbed at the moment) to Assault Rifle for now. At least they give free respecs with big changes.

 

Here's the beef: They moved TGM to tier 3, and introduced a new lower level dual pistol power. That's fine. But they also made two other major changes: First, it's now a very narrow cone attack that only does full damage if it only hits a single target. It's been reclassified as an AOE. Leaving absolutely no dual pistol single target attack. That might be tolerable, but they also jacked the energy costs through the roof. Maybe they'll adjust it, but I only picked it as a thematic single target attack, so I guess I won't be using it any more. Not too bothered about it, because I don't play CO too much anyway, but it's kind of an odd, and inappropriate choice to turn it into a cone AOE.

[Christopher R Taylor]

EverQuest Next development killed.  According to the lead developer "Unfortunately, as we put together the pieces, we found that it wasn't fun."  So... better than finishing and releasing it like ESO but still, too bad.

[Pattern Ghost]

That's a shame. I thought it had a lot of potential. Then again, wasted potential is par for the course with MMOs.

[Pattern Ghost]

It looks like Wildstar is on the ropes:

 

http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/11/11208284/wildstar-developer-carbine-studios-layoffs

[Christopher R Taylor]

Honestly, there have been so many MMOG projects that would have been better off cut before release I'm fine with that happening, I'm just disappointed that a more up to date and better-built EQ was one of them.  So much potential and such a great setting, its too bad they couldn't do the job.

[Pattern Ghost]

It was the only upcoming MMO I had much interest in, but after the long delay I wasn't too hopeful of it actually coming out.

[Pattern Ghost]

If you're like me and have a DDO account that you haven't logged into for a few years, it's their 10th Anniversary and they're giving away free loot (powerful items that are popular, mostly from raids) while the event's going on. I logged on this morning on all my characters to load up on goodies.

 

It seems they've had many patches while I've been ignoring them. They did a pass -- or a few -- on the enhancement system, so all of my characters have had their enhancements (like Talents in other games) reset. However, they didn't reset Feats, so I'm stuck with a few useless ones. [EDIT: It turns out they gave all of my characters that had their enhancements reset due to updates +20 Lesser Hearts of the wood. Just found them in my bags.]Mainly a problem for my main, but if I ever finish her off to 20, I'm going to TR her anyway a couple of times, so no problem.

 

I still haven't wrapped my head around the changes there. I may pick it up a bit after my WoW sub runs out. I'm hitting the wall on my tolerance for the garrison again, even though it's a huge wishing well that just fills up with coins every day. Still feels like a massive grind to log in all of my capped characters just to do table missions, though. I have five days left, probably time enough to bank one or more tokens. After that, I doubt I'll login until the Legion pre-patch hits, so I can see if they've left me with any characters that I want to play after the massive class changes.

[Pattern Ghost]

Found this:

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

I enjoyed when I played DDO, its "dungeons" felt much more like dungeons should, instead of artificial and clearly computer game-oriented arenas.  But its a game you really cannot play long without friends and its not easy to get a group.