This Week in MMOs

[Cygnia]

Vendors for replacement items for minor glyphs that no longer exist, like Pally Contemplation. At least it's some of them.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20747734667

I was just going to post the Reddit link this morning...

[Christopher R Taylor]

Star Wars the Old Republic is still running x2 xps and if you level a character from 1-25, you get basically 5 free cartel packs full of goodies, really nice goodies.  I just got one of those daffy "podracer" speeders out of one.  How it fit in that little box, I'll never know.  I'm not sure how much longer this is going to last, probably until their next expansion drops.  SWTOR has more expansions faster than most games.

[Cygnia]

More Legion goodies

 

http://www.wowhead.com/news=254101/all-legion-glyphs-books-and-class-toys

[Nolgroth]

Star Wars the Old Republic is still running x2 xps and if you level a character from 1-25, you get basically 5 free cartel packs full of goodies, really nice goodies.  I just got one of those daffy "podracer" speeders out of one.  How it fit in that little box, I'll never know.  I'm not sure how much longer this is going to last, probably until their next expansion drops.  SWTOR has more expansions faster than most games.

 

Glad you did. My soldier hit the level 50 and three Flashpoint mark and got 8 of the 10 boxes full of armor that would have looked really good on my Sith Warrior. Too bad it is bound to character. Grrr. On the other hand, she did get the fancy bonus XP armor...at level 50 (out of 65). I also got a useful color crystal and some XP bonus coupons that I was able to sell for a hefty price on the GTN.  The XP armor (something "Pioneer") is legacy, not character, bound so it went to my next up and comer.

 

My next goal is to finish the soldier story and go through the expansions. The event lasts until this Fall sometime, but I don't know the exact end date. I think (hope) it is enough time to finish the story so I can get more of the XP armor and a special speeder bike. 

[Pattern Ghost]

Are they still being super stingy with their free to play model?

[Nolgroth]

Are they still being super stingy with their free to play model?

 

It is pretty stingy in comparison. However, a small purchase of Cartel Coins makes you a "Preferred" customer, which is significantly less stingy. Because of the Dark vs. Light event, they seem to be revising the benefits. I think that more character slots are being added to all tiers. Anyways, the links to the comparison chart are auto-directing back to another page that urges you to subscribe so I cannot link to a definitive list of benefits per tier.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Once you subscribe even a month, I've noticed a lot of the benefits seem to "stick" to your account, like faster quick travel recovery and permanent fleet pass

[Pattern Ghost]

Sounds like they're improving on that front. I may check it out again some time, at least to play through once for the story bits.

[Christopher R Taylor]

You can by unlocks for many of the restrictions, in fact you kind of have to, because you make money so fast that you reach the non-subscriber cap fairly swiftly and may as well spend it on something.  I recommend slicing for a money making profession

[Nolgroth]

You can by unlocks for many of the restrictions, in fact you kind of have to, because you make money so fast that you reach the non-subscriber cap fairly swiftly and may as well spend it on something.  I recommend slicing for a money making profession

 

Yes. Not only does Slicing give you Credit Boxes for finding harvestables in the environment, sending your crew on Slicing missions may crit and give you some purple quality crafting supplies. Those things can run a fortune on the GTN.

[Nolgroth]

Sounds like they're improving on that front. I may check it out again some time, at least to play through once for the story bits.

 

Thing is, while many of the settings are the same, the individual class stories are different enough that it would require 8 plays through to get every one of them. In other words, while all Republic characters go to Coruscant, the Jedi Knight story is different than the Jedi Consular story, is different than the Trooper story, is different than the Smuggler story. I have finished the Jedi Knight story and have entered into the final chapter on the Trooper story. It takes a not insignificant amount of time to trudge through all the grindng content to advance the story. The good news is that only one character has to do the non-class missions for you to get those little side stories out of the way. Those don't change. My personal technique is to do the Heroic weekly missions and the class story for each planet. The Heroics grant level appropriate goods, credits and a ton of experience. Plus they have a convenient fast travel button to go to them. The class mission is the meat of the story and once the Heroics are done, I don't have to worry about grinding through the endless hordes spread out everywhere.

 

And I hate Balmorra. HATE.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Also, you can play through a given story a few different ways as well.  How much light side or dark side you use, or how you interact with your followers.

[Pattern Ghost]

Oh, I know there's a variety. I'm just talking about playing it through once, for one character's story. It's exactly that feature that would make my altoholism work against me. Better to find a class I like, and to focus on one character so I can at least finish the one story, than have twenty half-finished characters.

[Pattern Ghost]

Looks like Tidy Plates has updated! Glad to be rid of the stupid, buggy mess that they made of nameplates with the patch.

 

I also snagged Deja Character Stats so I can at least stick my movement speed back on my character stats panel.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Not happy with many of the changes in WoW, particularly the character changes which appear to have been done mostly just to make things easier for the programmers.  Glyphs weren't really eliminated, they are just books you can get and buy for some of the abilities.  Almost all character specialization and customization is gone now.

[Pattern Ghost]

Random bit of news: I found out that the Otherland MMO is back from the dead. Steam has an alpha up. It's based on the Tad Williams series. Seemed interesting when I first heard about it, but less so now. It's been taking so long to get anywhere that it's getting dated before it's even released. Here's a link anyway:

 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/376310/

 

Mostly been doing demon invasions in WoW. Got my Monk to cap. May cap my last two classes before launch. Apparently, the invasions are going to increase in frequency, and they give a good chunk of XP.

[Greywind]

[Christopher R Taylor]

WoW's introductory events for Legion are the best they've done so far, they are quite fun and interesting.  Its a bit buggy and loading time has increased significantly for zones in some areas, but they have come up with some pretty good stuff.  The big introductory film is unsatisfying; its basically a movie featuring NPCs instead of yourself (poor choice for a MMOG), but after that it really picks up and gets interesting.  You can take part in the events at low level as well and get some fine equipment.

[Pattern Ghost]

Got my Warlock and Priest to cap off of the event XP. So, now I've got one of everything at cap.

[Cygnia]

Legion is up and MAN, I already miss flying...thankfully, no Lagaran -- yet...

[Christopher R Taylor]

Legion is pretty solid, best and most stable release they've done so far with an expansion.  They gutted a few pet battle tactics (the infamous howl bomb, for example) and halved the rewards for pet battle bosses in Draenor but the tokens for that can be used to buy new pets in Dalaran now.  The game so far has a good epic feel, more so than previous expansions, in terms of how you're treated by NPCs.  By this point you're a legend in the world and everyone recognizes it.

[Enforcer84]

Ok having run 3 characters through the initial quests and farting around on the Broken Isles I have come to the following conclusions. 

 

1) Smooth as silk. This Expansion has been almost flawless from my perspective. No bugged quests. Blizzard has really evolved their ability to tell stories through this medium. Scaling is pretty incredible. 

 

2) The Class Halls/Artifacts and their quests. These are by and large good. The Artifacts are easy to get used to but I'm not sure I prefer them to finding weapons in game. The three Class Halls I've established are Paladin, Shaman, and Demon Hunter and each has been a refreshing bit of nostalgia, even in the case of the Illadari hold. I approve that Blizzard has made this expansion (much like the last two) geared towards treating my PC as *the* hero on a world of PCs. It is welcome. Even if my pampered stay at home paladin really shouldn't be leading anything. I love that the quests for the Artifacts have us travelling all over Azeroth and visiting places from previous expansions. My Shaman got her first artifact in Pandaria.

 

 

3) The Broken Islands themselves. I've been to 2 zones starting a third today and the environments have been great. the NPCs have been interesting and the quests have been standard MMO fare. 2 out of three is usually good enough for me.

 

4) My big regrets. Honestly, the MMOs I've played the most are WoW and GW2. The Former is the granddaddy and the latter does some things so much better it makes me sad. GW2 made the personal story centric to our heroes and gave you a feeling of importance. The last expansion brought forth a key element that has been lacking in WoW. And still does. Blizzard's choice in some scenes to not use voice actors is curious. But worse is the fact that my character who has a voice for telling jokes, flirting and other emotes, stands by mutely as the powerful talk about me. The most recent example is making Astrid the Paladin Highlord. Someone else gave the speech. How am I supposed to be a leader if I never speak?  

 

And that's it. I wish Blizzard would up their voice acting chops. They have good actors but I suspect the expense is what keeps the story telling from being all it could be. 

[Cygnia]

Since the husband wants to level together on our usual mains (his mage and my pally), I've taken my worgen hunter out for a spin this time out and he's already 110.

 

So far, I like Legion -- though if they job Jaina out and continue with crappy writing to make her a one dimensional strawman (or worse, a strawman raid boss or killed by Thrall/Khadgar after we do all the work), heads are going to roll at Blizzard HQ.

 

I'm annoyed at their insistence in trying to sneak PVP in every zone.  Bad enough the Underbelly in Dalaran caters to the jackasses, but trying to explore and suddenly getting flagged with no warning is NOT fun,

[Enforcer84]

Agreed on both accounts. But I don't sweat pvp anymore. I can recover from death and have little pride

Jaina's struggles are more annoying

[Pattern Ghost]

I got kind of a slow start. After getting the expansion on the 1st, I spent the first few days screwing around on lower level alts. I got a bit obsessed with fixing transmog on my guild inviter characters on my second account, because leather became un-moggable on Hunters. These guys are just level 20's that I have to invite new alts into guilds. I think I got a little burnt-out from grinding the pre-patch invasions, and looking at my long list of alts, didn't have the energy to dive in right away. 

 

So far, I've gotten artifact weapons on all of my main server alts, one of each class. I got them up to the pick a starting zone quest, and parked in front of the starting zone picker clicky for their order halls. As everyone else has said, things were pretty smooth for a launch. I had minimal issues on WoW's end. I only had issues with three (of 12 so far) artifact quests: In two of the quests, I was allowed to accidentally leave the scenario boundaries and had to reset the scenario. That shouldn't have happened. During the final stage of the Shadow Priest scenario, the NPC helper puts up a wall to block incoming enemies. I had to reset that one too, because the idiot NPC threw the wall up between us. The Kara scenario with Khadgar doesn't allow you to move to the wrong side of the wall even before it's cast, so that shouldn't have happened here, either. So, a couple of minor annoyances. (The scenarios are short enough that it's not the end of the world, even if I tossed minor hissy fits about them each time.) Overall, the artifact quests were pretty enjoyable.

 

I took my Fury Warrior out for a spin a couple days ago, and got through the my first zone. Pretty fun, overall. Got her to 102, almost 103, and did the dungeon quest at the end of the zone story. The dungeon group had a 110 tank in it, so not sure if they're using scaling tech on the dungeons or if the tank just queued for it to get a quest done or something.

 

Overall, not bad. I haven't really been in a mood to play a lot lately, but that's more me than the expansion.