What I'm Currently Working On: EQ2

Seven posts and eight days later, the finale of my annual labor day wrap-up with my latest progress in EQ2.  Maybe next year I will need to do this under twitter rules or something.  :)

A big Troll Merc, a small level 91.5 Fae Dirge

SOE also continued their longtime tradition of double exp for the weekend, and I picked up 3 AA (currently 310/320) and about half of level 91->92.  A few weeks ago, I had mostly written off the possibility of getting to level capped characters in seven different MMO's simultaneously - with the delay of LOTRO's expansion from this week and WoW's expansion not slated to arrive until the end of the month, I now have a legitimate shot of making the seventh ding happen.

Still on the slate for the next couple of months are plans to switch factions - possibly twice - to check out some of the changes to the game's evil side (and the other bard subclass).  Sometime in November, I run out of game time that was purchased through the strangely short-sighted sale promotion stacking, so the next expansion will almost certainly have a far greater price tag (for both the expansion and the game time that seems required to take advantage of it).  Time will tell where this game sits on my list when the dust settles. 

What I'm Not Currently Working On: Rift and Others

More stuff from my labor day roundup, this time featuring Rift and other stuff that I'm not playing now.  EQ2 should have happened before this, but I was working on the bonus exp weekend over there and I finished writing the below material first. 

Rift
Much as I like my level 50 Cleric on paper, I'm thinking I may have chosen horribly in terms of class.  Cleric melee is slow and plodding.  Cleric casting is powerful, but includes so much passive healing that the content feels trivial.  I actually enjoyed Purifier healing, but it seems you don't actually need that level of healing power, and could have gone for something paired with Justicar that does more damage instead.  Ironically, the game's relatively open soul system just leaves me wishing I could pick from ALL the souls, instead of merely a quarter of them.

If there is indeed a new parallel leveling path in the expansion, the best bet to hold my interest would be to re-roll with a different calling.  The downside would be fifty levels just to get back into the the new expansion endgame content, and there's limited evidence that I actually enjoy soloing in Rift that much.

Others
Ironically, my next major new release may be Borderlands 2.  I don't ordinarily play first person shooters, but I got a free copy for purchasing a new nVidia 660 Ti graphics card.  I may or may not like the game, but at no cost to me I think I'd at least give it a try to see how it looks with the new hardware.


Guild Wars 2 is a question mark - I like some of the things I've been hearing, but I wouldn't mind seeing how the game holds up as people get out of the newbie areas.  Access to the game's beta was unusually structured in terms of how much of the content players could see and how often they'd be allowed online, so I don't think we have any information to judge the game's longevity yet.  If I had time, this would be a tougher call, but I don't have time.  Ironically, being an MMO tourist makes it EASIER to sit out a major launch, because it isn't GW2 versus "same old" in one game, it's GW2 versus "same old" in eight different games, at least one of which I'm not going to be done with at any given time.  

Amongst other MMO's, in principle I can sign back onto Vanguard, but I don't know that the monthly fee was what was keeping me away from that game after trying it out last year anyway.  Allods remains vaguely on the list of major non-subscription MMO's I have yet to try.

Finally, the console roundup - I'm currently working on Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.  Other games on my radar if/when I replace the console due to broken disc drive include Infamous 2, Uncharted 3, FF XIII-2, and possibly the two remaining Assassin's Creed games that will be out by then. 

What I'm Currently Working On: SWTOR

I've been writing the annual PVD Labor Day gaming round-up since 2009.  I usually have some non-gaming activities for the holiday, and at the time a matter of fact summary of what I was doing, with little analysis attached, seemed to be a good sort of filler.  In today's non-subscription era, the filler is looking like it will take over a week - I may need to re-evaluate.

In the mean time, the rundown continues with SWTOR.

SWTOR
Ordinarily, the looming free to play shift (along with last month's inexplicably short live event) would be enough to keep this game off the calendar until they finish re-launching.  However, there are some perks that could make a month of subscription time - especially as the relaunch gets closer - a worthwhile purchase.

Like some other conversions, there is going to be some bonus in cash store currency for staying subscribed despite the pending relaunch - with an extra bonus for being subscribed when the conversion actually happens.  Turbine approached this type of promotion for LOTRO by ruling that players had to remain subscribed continuously from the announcement to the relaunch in order to get any of the loyalty bonuses.  By contrast, EA is apparently not going turn away any customer by telling them they missed a deadline.  Bioware has also announced that species access will be grandfathered for existing characters - this could actually add up to more than $15 depending on how many alts you plan to make of how many different species.

Currently, I own a level 50 Trooper and a Sith Warrior in the mid-teens.  I really want to like the Sith Warrior - the storyline is excellent - but I just haven't been enjoying the gameplay.  Perhaps I've been spoiled by the medium range combat on the Vanguard trooper.  SWTOR combat encounters usually involve packs of several weaker enemies, not all of which will be in melee range, and my Warrior often finds that he has struck down his foe and that Vette is busy killing the next target while he stares ahead blankly.

At this point, my plan is to shelve the Sith Warrior and roll up a Chiss Agent.  I have yet to play a healing-specced character, and this particular combination was just about at the top of my to-do list anyway.  I guess I could even roll up all of the remaining classes - Sith Inquisitor (ranged force user), Jedi Consular (stealth melee - I may hit the same concern with melee, but if I'm doing ranged force user I feel like it should be purple lightning), Smuggler (though I might prefer to get the Chiss legacy unlock first for this), heal spec Bounty Hunter (on the theory that it may be like the Trooper, which I liked), and maybe Jedi Knight (though that's the same class I dislike on the Warrior). I won't finish most of these before the relaunch, but there's no harm in getting started. 

What I've Been Working On: LOTRO, STO

As part of our Labor Day holiday weekend, we went down to the Smithsonian yesterday to check out the Art of Video Games exhibit.  It's a fun walk down memory lane - amusing to see stuff I owned copies of 20 years ago behind glass at a museum.  If the trip to Washington in the next few weeks is not in the cards for you, take a look at the tour schedule to see if it will be anywhere near you. 

Anyway, the trip into town put me behind on the schedule for covering all of my MMO's within a week, so today we cover two games.

LOTRO
The six week delay for the Rohan expansion to avoid the crush of Guild Wars 2 and Pandaria's release dates is a minor reprieve for me.  I did hit the current level cap and complete the epic story, but there is a large amount of reasonably high quality quest content that I have yet to see.  I'm torn on this, because I hate to skip good content, but I'm not sure if I will get to all of it even with the extension.  Moreover, there are deeds for traits and Turbine Points at stake.  If I left the Dunland area and Great River areas now, they will be the first where I have failed to finish the local quest deeds.

Realistically, I'm expecting to run out of time here.  Perhaps I'll just hold onto the in-progress quests and then go back to one-shot through them at level 85.  On the plus side, at least they're producing content that I want to complete.

STO
I'm technically at the level cap in this game despite having done almost none of the leveling content, thanks to a focus on the duty officer system.  The developer responsible for implementing this mechanic has since left the studio.  In his absence, very little new content is being added to the system for its own sake - for the most part, new duty officers entering the game are added through lottery items in the cash shop, and are being used to introduce more abilities that affect the regular portions of the game (which I almost never play). 

Cryptic has always stated that part of the point of the system was to add a minigame that was consistent with microtransactions in the post-subscription era.  That said, I'm definitely feeling like I've mostly "beaten" this aspect of the game.  Meanwhile, as combat abilities continue to be added, I can see the officers rewarded through the duty officer system becoming increasingly less optional for people who wanted no part in it.  As they say, all good things come to an end, I suppose.