Planeswalker Analysis 1: Kraken

I have been playing GW2 on and off whenever I can, totally enjoying WvW with the lack of culling (although replaced by lag in huge fights, which is to be expected), ready for new rounds of spvp (scenarios)with my new phantasm build for my mesmer and getting in a bit of map exploration and T6 mat grinding with my girlfriend.  Although it is thoroughly enjoyable (hats off to Arenanet by the way), I don't feel like there is anything particularly interesting to write about. So I thought it might be a nice exercise to write about the decks that i've built for Magic: The Gathering, to show the type of player that I am.

This first deck, is one of my oldest and (thus) favorite, besides my Dragon deck. The Kraken deck was originally stacked with countless enchantments, but over time, i've changed it to be more of a combo-type deck. A 60-card deck, built to be a multi-player deck, rather than a duel deck, it gets increasingly stronger at end game.

A mostly blue-green deck, it has a splash of red for one card in particular that you'll see later. It has one of my favorite enchantments which allow me to use my incredibly powerful creatures a second time:

I like using Back from the Brink so that I don't feel so bad having incredibly strong creatures such as:

I've played quite a few games where when i've been able to protect this creature, the game comes to a grinding halt and my opponents are not able to do anything at all, but watch me sweep over them.

The main strategy of this deck is to use vast amounts of mana to destroy my opponents with one timely card. I try to get all my mana out with Boundless Realms.

Typically, if you can get this card played on turn 7 (or earlier), and cast it again, all your mana will be out and everything else are spells or massive creatures.. which will eventually lead to the following cards:

 The reason for the splash of red...basically.

Imagine doing 24 direct damage to a player.. or making them mill 24 cards late in the game.. pretty devastating. My type of playstyle, high risk (a simple counter will make me cry), but high reward.

Stay tuned later this week for a look into my second favorite (although possibly most powerful) deck: Dragons.

Frost and Flamers

So. New content: Flame and Frost. Go read it.

Whats with mini pets? So much for a cat with a hat, and a mini wolf.. that reminds me of a fox/dog. I hope alot of people spend their laurels on that instead of gear. I like the new dailies you need to complete CONCEPT, but hate it in practice. If you asked me the thing I hate most in GW2, I would shout out: underwater combat. While better and more immersive than other mmo's, underwater combat sucks imho. Having do a certain number of dodges to complete your daily, while easy.. is also a bit annoying to complete as well. Lets give it a few weeks and see how it turns out before we start flogging ANet on trying something new.

A Whole New World

Guess what?

Chickenbutt!

I really never understood that 'joke' or reference when my coworker told it.

Anyways; great fantastic, amazing news: We've switched to cable internet and its as fast as it was advertised. No longer does one need to start a video, pause it right away to let it buffer. No longer do I avoid Steam purchases for fear that it'll take over a day to download. Now there is no pressure to sneak some gaming in before one of my siblings come home and causes massive lag. Welcome to the future; i'm never going back to the type of internet plans I had before.

My good friend Kossi sent me some mail yesterday and she wanted me to post a picture of how I look; it was Midnight Fushcia.. which as you can see is a wicked dark purple. Still trying to find the right color that will mix well with it. Maybe a red.. or gold. Maybe its just the cheapo armor I have on where the color doesn't seem to pop out at you.

 By the way, one of the coolest (and unique) features of Guild Wars 2 is the ability to both chat and send mail to people in different servers. So altho Kossi and I are in different servers, we're still able to send each other mail (her dyes to me, and I sent her some birthday cake). Come the 28th, ArenaNet will be implementing guesting, meaning you no longer have to change servers to party with your friends (if they're on all different servers), and can just join their server for that session of gameplay.

Don't know how many people (doubt any of my friends are) following the card previews for Gate Crash.. but there are some wicked cards.. although i'm waiting for a cool Kraken-type card to add to my Kraken themed deck. Krakens totally fit the Simic (green-blue, watery experiment) theme.

Elusive Krasis! I choose you!

Like Everyone Else: Highlights 2012

I liked MMOGC's (why do I want to type mmogoc?) format to the highlights of her year of 2012, so I thought I'd have an entry myself on it. 2012 was a great year for both gaming and photography, for me and in general.

I had my first official photoshoot in 2011 and I loved it; I had spent 8+ hours doing something I absolutely loved. I was creative.. tried new things.. struggled with lots.. (beautiful women! lol)but was very successful with many of my photos. I craved more (photo)shoots in 2012. My vacation coincided (luckily) at the same time when my parents were away, so for 3 days in August, I had 4 photoshoots at my house. I had one of my oldest friends, my photoshoot stylist, with me, helping me build confidence, so that I had the mental fortitude to have 3 additional shoots all one my own. 

I'm afraid though; there i've said it.. or atleast this is the first time that i've written it out; I'm afraid of making photography a full time gig. I've seen my photos and think they're good, but I see what other photographers have done and theirs is very good as well and it makes me wonder if I can make that a full time job.

With that said, I hope to have even more photoshoots and even better quality photos this year.

As my friends have gotten older, we've stopped doing outdoor activities (frequently) and clubbing (thank god) and have transitioned to having game nights. We used to play Trivia Pursuit.. Settlers.. Agricola, but this year we changed our retinue and had a whole slew of new games that we tried. Dungeon!, Ticket to Ride, Guillotine, Bonanza, Risk.. tons of new games. I like how we have so many different kinds of games available to us.

MAGIC! lol. In the first half of 2012, we (my group)must have played Magic: The Gathering, every. Single. Weekend. And from the stories, one of my friends played it with her husband, every. Single. DAY. But the start of the football season, came a waning interest in Mtg and a new passion (for all the guys except myself[I like watching, not doing]) for fantasy football. I love the multitude of strategies, rich story and could literally spend hours on deck building; probably something you can do with fantasy football, but as I wrote, I would rather watch the game, than do anything more with it. Its not the main reason, but a big thing that kept me even thinking about fantasy football was:

All the video games that came out this year! Borderlands 2, X:Com Enemy Unknown and Guild Wars 2. Borderlands 2, Game of the Year, by the way by some people's count, is a fantastic game.. very similar to the original, but improved across the board. Still a few issues/bugs.. some incredibly hard parts.. *cough* people duping (not me but friends, which takes the fun out), and it was partially GW2 and a crappy 1st dlc that kind having me let dust settle on the Borderlands 2 cd. I used to play (10+ yrs ago) X:Com: Terror from the Deep. An incredible, but punishing game that never let up on you and made no apologies if it beat you. I was almost deathly afraid that 2K would either keep the insane difficulty (I basically never won and lost 75% of my squad on every mission) or/and ruin the game and the nostalgic parts that made it a great game. And I was so surprised that not only did they do a fantastic job (although a bit shortish, research-wise), I was able to finish the campaign! The only problem I encountered, once again due to GW2, was I didn't have an urge to play another campaign.. whether for keeping my perfect record.. or just boredom from a completionist first-time play-through  For the longest time, I was trying to resist GW2.. mostly because I don't have the willpower (yet) to become addicted. I have good enough willpower to do daily self improvement (stock research, career opportunities, learning a new language, blog etc), but I still spend more time than I want to.

The MMO Gamer: Short Attenti... ooo! Shiny Penny!

Now.. I figured i'd post this article first while its sort of still fresh.. don't worry, I'm still going to write up a newbie intro guide to Guild Wars 2! I like to post screenshots anyways and I haven't taken any yet for the guide anyways.. so possibly the first part of the guide will be up Friday evening.

One of (the many talented)bloggers on my bloglist, Bernard at Diminishing Returns, writes a short entry on how ArenaNet has failed to stick to their 'unique philosophy' of creating a game with near limitless ability to keep the attention of their audience. From the way it is written, it seems to me that he is implying that the game is boring already.

I really can't believe the short attention span, coupled with the insane addiction people have to games. Its only 3 months into the life of the game and people are complaining of lack of things to do. Granted, if i played with only 1 character(alt-aholic), i'd be close to max level in my near 1 month of playing; but this is free content and it looks like ALOT of content. I don't doubt people have 100% completion in this game, from the amount of hours I see put into it (8-10 hours a day; don't you have work people???).

I feel sorry for developers, for they seem like they are always stuck in a lose-lose situation. They must say their mmo is different (like suggesting unlimited attention grabbing ability), but a mmo cannot contain unlimited hours of gameplay, even with pvp, for people simply play too much, and eat up content too fast. These are also the gamers that are the first to complain and complain the loudest. Maybe it comes with the territory (being a mmo game developer), that you just take the good (developing a game you're passionate about) with the bad (trolls and mmo player demands).

Its a bit unreasonable to be bored if you haven't:
- watched every vista cutscene
- got 100% for every map
- got max gear from pvp and dungeons
- completed every dungeon
- watched every personal quest dialogue cutscene
- got max lvl for all crafting

At that point, I would say there are still more things to do:
- there is 4 other character slots (plus expanding it) to make alts for other races, other classes
- you can help other people with their quests, dungeons, etc
- you can become more dominant in pvp; defeating greater foes with lesser numbers (or do you like zergs?)
- people in COH boasted a great community; you can do something and make your server in GW2 a great place to play with friendly, helpful people

Publishers/Developers would absolutely LOVE to make a game that had unlimited hours of content. Why? Then you keep 'paying' (less so in this case of gw2: no sub). If they knew how to, they would. Its their goal to make a great game, but also keep making money. I'd say be happy with what you have, slow down and enjoy the game infront of you.. and worst case scenario, keep complaining or better yet, get off the pc and do something else with your life and get a real life achievement. 

Guild Wars 2: Personal Quest

Lets get straight to it people: I am still loving (see: addicted) Guild Wars 2. Its a great game, but not a perfect game. I question frequently why I can't trade items with players.. I can't think of an mmo game that i've played where there were issues with it. But when you have a free mail system.. it doesn't cause too much of a bother. The main issue i'm encountering these days is the Personal Quest system.

 I love the Personal Quest system in that when you customize your character, you have a background story which affects your actual over-arcing story in the game. You experience your story via a Personal Quest, which is a persistent quest that is always available to you; you can zoom through it (although it increases in level difficulty) or wait til you hit max level to tackle (it will of course de-level you so that it is still challenging). Your friends can join you and it will take you to the appropriate map areas that you normally would visit anyways, so its rather convenient. It gives a good chunk of experience, has good loot rewards, and you can save the gear for transmuting in the future.

While I haven't encountered how indepth/special your story gets (thanks to my alt-oholicism), the beginning always seems to be very tailored to how you chose your background story. But after you get over that beginning part, it seems to become a generic storyline of you needing to defeat the dragons.

That isn't my main issue I have with the game b/c I don't expect Arenanet to develop such a detailed questline for the many ways you can customize it. My beef is that the dialogues between you and NPCs are not engaging. I wish it was more like SWTOR; in SWTOR, you got to pick your responses, finding a balance(or extreme I suppose) between Light and Dark side choices. In GW2, there is a preset dialogue that you must just listen to. I guess we should be happy that your character has his/her own voice and isn't just a silent mute.. but its really boring to just listen to these preset dialogues. I would have loved to see (we can never expect to have choices in the future; NEVER! I have thus predicted it) dialogue options implemented in the future, but doubt it will ever happen.

To nitpick a little more, your party members that join you on your personal quest have no input (a la dice roll per SWTOR) and get no rewards other than the loot and xp of the monsters you kill in the instance. So very little reason for them to join you, other than to be helpful and participate in one's personal story.

Guild Wars 2: Living Under a Rock

Hi, my name is Jomu and I didn't play Guild Wars 2 when it first released, I only started this past week.

[Gasps, and a woman faints]

I tried to explain to a friend yesterday, how good Guild Wars 2 is.. but everything I could come up with, didn't come out right and he said it sounded like everything WoW does. I can't imagine WoW does the same thing as the below. Here you go Brown Magic (and anyone else that hasn't for some reason played the game):

Waypoints
While there aren't many traditional fast travel options in GW2, there are waypoints to each major area that you will travel to in the game; for a small price (1% atleast early game), you can teleport to towns. No longer are you twiddling your thumbs and 'enjoying the landscape view' as the flying mount flies you to the place you want to go; just go there instantly or as fast as your internet will allow. Borderlands had it, and it was good. Nuff said.

Weapon Sets

Remember in traditional mmo's where the skills you use are chosen by you? You'd open the skill/ability tab and click & drag it into your hotbar. Well in GW2, you cannot choose your skills (technically) b/c it is based off the kind of weapons you have equipped. For example, if you're a Ranger, and equip a longbow, you will have skills geared towards attacking single target enemies from very far away, while if you equip a shortbow, you'll be better equipped to do aoe damage instead and cripple them. You'd think that you'd hate something like that, but it is pretty decent and ensures you can change the way you play very easily, for as soon as you switch weapons (there is a hotkey to switch between two chosen sets), it changes the skills in your hotbar.

Jump Puzzles
There is alot to do in GW2.. one of the many diversions is jumping puzzles scattered throughout the land. Some are 'easy' while the one I did last night, gave me a heart attack, and apparently it was one of the mid range ones. So what, you may ask? By completing them, you get achievements and there are chests waiting for you at the end which respawn each day, so you can go back and get the rewards. There is also a huge sense of accomplishment, for not everyone has the finger dexterity to do these.

Dynamic Events
I never understood what they meant when they said 'dynamic events' and always thought ArenaNet had just 'ripped off' Mythic with their Public Quests. I do believe, that the game can tell if there are alot of people in the zone (and certain areas) and will supply 'public quests' for the players to join and work together on. If there aren't alot of people in the area, I find there aren't as many. Either way, it flows very naturally and fits in with the story.

Vistas
Didn't understand this one until I did it myself; a vista is a special area that normally takes a bit of creative exploration to get to, but is significantly easier to get to than doing a Jumping Puzzle. Normally granting you a small experience reward, it gives you a cutscene of a panoramic view of your area. Every screenshot provided are from vistas. It draws you more into the game and to make you realize how much work ArenaNet put into the game to make it beautiful.

Shared Bank
Yes. Shared bank. So no need to mail your alts stuff.. believe me, I tried and was sad when I couldn't. Its a smart shared bank though; when you craft, you don't need to have the item in your backpack, anything you have in your bank, you can use to craft at the station. This means, no going back and forth when you've forgotten material. Fantastic fantastic!

Graphics
Check. Not satisfied? My rogue has an ability called Death Blossom where when used, he does an acrobatic spin in the air while (I guess) throwing knives/daggers at his foes. I've never seen an mmo class that did that; it still amazes me when I watch it in action.

NPC and Creature Placement

There are many npcs placed all over the world, which really makes you feel like the world is populated and not an empty husk, just filled with quest-givers with legs glued to the ground. They walk around, talk and you're even able to have conversations (although a bit hollow) with them if you choose.

Map Innovations
The map feels like a similar innovation that I've seen in another game i've been playing recently, but I can't think of the name. Anyways, my girlfriend tends to get lost easily when we play mmo's which is maddening. In GW2, you can literally draw a path for people to take if they don't know the way. Amazing!

Mail System
Any sent mail seems to be free. Free. And you can send stuff to any player on ANY SERVER. You heard me. Wow. Did I mention it was free?

Many different ways to level
You can level the traditional ways... actually scratch that. There aren't any traditional 'quests' in GW2; although there is the Storyline quests which is your character's story, that is something different. There are Heart Quests which are like public quests (area specific) but for soloing. You can gain xp from exploring areas of interest, vistas, jumping puzzles. You can gain xp from crafting. Let me rephrase that, you can go from level 1 to max level (80?) by ONLY crafting. Yeah.

I'll write some improvements and annoyances later.. i'm busy having fun.. and writing this.. blah!