[Rift] Fast Travel

I mentioned in my initial impressions of the game that fast travel should be a necessity, but I'd like to push that idea a little further.

One question that comes to mind, do sub games really need to give players the constant run around? Themepark games like WoW and Rift seem to be following the trend of streamlining the quest experience into the monotony of going from hub to hub with very little backtracking, having such linear questing requires a straightforward flow in traversing the zone so as not to annoy the player. Could fast travel be a feature to break up the linearity and allow quests to at least expand across a zone if not the world? And that's just questing, Rift's invasions are zone-wide and thus fast travel would be a boon.

The only counter-argument that seems to ever get thrown-up is that it diminishes the feeling of the world, which I always find ridiculous when it's the linear structure of questing and the static nature of the zones that are the biggest culprits. Players could always imagine that whenever they fast travel, it's like whenever a journey is described by a single sentence in a narrative, and nothing eventful occurred, the end.

The simplest solution for Rift, is clicking on the round symbols that are already on the map and instantly travelling to that hub. The cost should be a planar charge. On a sidenote, I had the same three planar charges from the time I landed in Freemarch until I was level 42, only recently did I buy the wardstone upgrade power and the other power that boosts your character against planar creatures, and found them useful enough to start spending planar charges on. If planar charges could be spent on fast travel as well, then these powers might be neglected. Storing up to 5 planar charges might be the solution, the planar charge consumable that can be bought for 500 planarite is a little on the expensive side for low levels. Some other restrictions to fast travel could be to prevent it if the ward stone is destroyed, on the other hand maybe allow free travel when the wardstone is contested. In relation to GW2 should they allow their fast travel for karma only, thus tying fast travel to their events system, rather than the easier to acquire gold?

That's the basic idea, to be a big idea, there should be an additional feature to go along with the fast travel system, a flare that creates a fast travel point that could be used by anyone on the user's faction. The flare would create a focus point, the first person to use it would get charged 1 planar charge and the person using the flare would be charged 1 planar charge as well, the port would then remain for a few minutes and could be used by anyone else for the cost of a planar charge. It could be limited to only being used in proximity to a rift, foothold or an invasion boss, on the other hand if you were using it for a group quest then the players are down a planar charge, and would have to find a rift to replenish the charges some other time.

I really like that it could lend some sociability to a system, even if it's just to signal that you are going to work on a rift, and nearby players see the ping even if they don't choose to fast travel, they could either travel by foot or just be content in the knowledge that other players are nearby working on the content.

[GW2] Little Wonders

So asura week has come and gone, it's always surprises me the amount of coverage these race weeks get, with other games not being so lucky as to get a single acknowledgment about their races. Then again a lot of depth is provided by various persons at Arenanet each race week, it's an example of providing a bit for everyone, while the lore and design articles may pass the bulk of the potential audience the videos are seen by many more. I'm greatly invested in the game at this stage, so every piece was interesting.

Am I going to be rolling one as main? It's still hard to say because at this stage each one of the five races are appealing, I don't think I can decide until I get my hands on character creation. As far as the 'little guys' in MMOs goes, the asura are much more intriguing than most. First thing is the origin of their architecture, basing it on EOTN, I'd have guessed there was south american influence but apparently it's in fact Hindu, which also suggests that they share their name with deities found in Hinduism. Their architecture certainly is impressive, especially seeing Rata Sum from a distance as below, but it has some tough competition already in the game. The notion that they wrought these impressive structures from the earth as monuments to their ambition is bewildering.

Their motivations for doing what they do, is the most intriguing thing for me, and why haven't a race of megalomaniacs destroyed themselves or the planet by this time. This is something that should become clearer interacting with this race in game, and the lore should be interesting and comprehensive if not initially then certainly when Quora Sum is released. The lore does seem to be quite expansive already, someone on the forums spotted that the asura protagonist in friday's story had a quote in the skritt article released previously.

It's impossible to describe asura as cute, the over-sized eyes and if they open their mouth not only do you have those pointy teeth but the snark, snark, snark and more snark spilling out ("Shut your talk-hole, bookah. Every time you open it, you drip stupid all over my floor.", although resorting to a racial slur such as bookah maybe displays some insecurity). Yet the animations were designed to be on the cartoonish side, and my favourite description of them:

"When I look at an asura—particularly one with the larger weapons—I see a character setting events in motion that are larger than himself, or unleashing forces almost beyond his control. If he were less arrogant, maybe he’d hesitate or hold back, but that just doesn’t seem like the asuran way."

The animation is comical and appealing, but it's an overused trope that the smart ones must be bungling boffins, unless of course they are the bad guys where superior intelligence just adds to their frightfulness and is another reason to crush them into oblivion. The Inquest, the evil fraction of the asura actually make a lot of sense with their organisation and preservation of knowledge, but of course they are depraved in their actions and hold up a mirror to the ethical actions of the other asura. Where that goodness derives from is a little unclear, by all accounts they should have tried to take over the world by now.

Arenanet pigeonholed themselves somewhat by sticking with these two restrictions: each profession can be all races, and that there is no difference between races in terms of game mechanics i.e. none move faster than others. Of course this is a pretty common situation in MMOs, but where are the games that there is a noticeable differences between races and not meaningless things like +5 skinning or +20 resistance to nature damage. The charr really should be the fastest moving when they go down on all fours, the norn should hit the hardest and the asura should have the smallest hitbox. An asura should look at tools and gadgets used by engineers and dismiss them as primitive before whipping out their dicrystalline etherizers.It does seem a bit of a cop out to say that some professions are rare for some races and that the players are exceptional individuals, I'll try for some semblance of realism in my choice at least.

[Lotro] Exceeding Expectations

I had in mind recently a topic along the lines 'why is there expansions anymore?', with an expectation that the forthcoming expansion would be priced about 1500-2500 TP in the store, oh how wrong I was on that prediction.

However, I'm still of the mind that expansions don't work with the free-to-play model. For a start the 'expansion' is now used as an excuse to charge subscribers for content, when the big selling point of being a subscriber is that all content is available for free* (yes there is fine print to the contrary, it's a clause that makes the constant ads on the loading screens something of a joke). By all accounts the RoI 'expansion' amounts to no more content than the mirkwood questpack, two questpacks would have covered it, one for dunland, then another for the Isen fords and Isengard, 700-1000 TP each. I would have prefered this method of delivering the content, if not only for the possibility of getting more timely updates (Dunland in July, Isengard with the delayed instances in November), but also it splits the amount of cash required needed in two portions. I was under the impression that smaller content packages are what is attractive to 'pay-as-you-go' premium players, it certainly appeals to me, buy one now then months later when I get an interest to play again buy the other. In addition, it's a worrying trend that content that was supposed to be in a free update before the 'expansion' and also content delivered later than the release date of the 'expansion' are also termed expansion content, and hence subscribers can be charged for two-thirds of the years content this year.

It certainly is contradictory now that the 'second-class' premiums have the chance to get the best deal by buying the 'expansion' for cash, while players planning to buy the game with saved up TP are having the squeeze put on them because of lifetimers I'm presuming. Codemasters didn't help matters much for offering such a cheap lifetime deal just months before F2P launched, it wouldn't surprise if most players that migrated from Europe were lifetimers, me I couldn't afford the €75 or was that the cost in pounds. It can't be a simple matter for Turbine to come out and say they made a mistake in giving lifetimers points every month, they'd already provided ample bonuses when F2P launched and all content free* in perpetuity. If a lot of the players invested in the game are lifetimers, it doesn't make sense to piss them off while providing more appealing offerings to the more fickle premium crowd, but where are new incomes going to come from then.

I think I'm at the stage where I'm constantly shaking my head at the attempts to see how far gameplay can be divided up and a pricetag placed on it and that players still find acceptable. I pay for content, but the very existence of convenience items is particularly off-putting when there is no onus on developers to streamline and improve the base experience. It's just getting pettier and pettier scrabbling over scraps, with the ethos of 'if we make good content then players will pay us for it' lost to the wind and now it's 'if you pay us we'll make the game enjoyable enough and then you can buy the content to play to your heart's content'. At least Turbine isn't as bad as Funcom, who expect subscribers to pay for non-expansion content or aren't they? With the latest stunt I'm just not sure anymore. It's probably the strongest reason to hope GW2 becomes the top contender when it is released.

[Rift] Take Two

I was in Rift beta. That's about all I can say on the matter, I got to level 8 on a defiant character, but my old computer was suffering under the strain so my experiences of the game were curtailed. With the recent half-birthday celebrations giving a week of free playtime and having acquired a reasonable powered computer I gave the game a more thorough trial. Initial impressions were positive enough that I bought the game for a tenner and subbed for a month.

I started off on a trial server, which I found to be a big mistake, it was the MMO equivalent of wandering around a ghost ship. I got to about level 14 before heading to Meridian, only to find it strangely devoid of life, NPCs don't count. I couldn't find any larger bags or any item at all on the auction house. Some vague recollection of having casted a glance over Rift news brought to mind that the trial servers are defunct and players can't transfer to them. Despite the undeniable logic that trial players should be on trial servers. The situation was very easy to resolve, just transfer my character to another server, which turned out to be such a quick and straightforward process, I ended up on a bustling RP server in minutes. As far as I could tell, only one high population server was unavailable but all the others were available. All sub games should have this functionality for free, no ifs or buts or please wait.

It's been about one week of my sub, and so far I'm still enjoying it. Questing is only tolerable, I can't take any more of this style of MMO gameplay, finding drops or quest items out in the world is alright but working through a zone quest hub by quest hub is not. The story is interesting enough, there is some quests that are marked with gold backgrounds which I root out and skip the rest, some places I take an interest in the story, other hubs I just skip. On the other hand I love collecting artifacts, attempting to find the cairn and the zone puzzle without cheating. I like the landscapes presented so far, not bland at all despite what I've heard, exploring them and attempting the achievements (especially the ones to find certain places, or jump off heights) is more to my liking than questing.

Rifts are still fun to me, the rest of the population might be ambivalent on occasion, but if I start working on one, then more than likely someone else will pitch in, major rifts are usually avoided. Invasions on the other hand are a different matter, in Silverwood they fire off all the time, and there is usually a few groups working together on them. I've taken part in a few in Stonefield, while there is plenty people who pitch in, there is a higher failure rate so the source stones are harder to acquire, in comparison I managed to kit out a guardian alt in the rare planar gear in Silverwood. There seems to be some new water rifts involving dwarves that are harder than normal rifts, unless I'm mistaken and they are not tied at all to the latest raid, hopefully Trion continues to add new rifts to fill out this aspect. I'd also love invasions to persist for longer when they fail, or for the boss to not despawn after a time, or to spill from one zone to another.

One of the things that annoys me is the lack of instant travel, recall abilities on an hour cooldown just don't cut it anymore. With GW2 out next year with instant travel to multiple places all over a zone and with no cooldown, Trion would be really remiss to not address it. For instance, last night I was working on an invasion in Stonefield, I was in a group of three and we closed three rifts and took down several invasion units. All of the wardstones save one were destroyed, and this last one was at the opposite end of the zone from us, there was never the chance to rally there for a last stand despite flicking the map and seeing about ten invasion forces on their way. Then when we pulled through the boss spawned down at that end too, it was probably designed that way. Even riding straight there, I got there with the boss almost down, merged with the raid, managed a few hits but never received an achievement for my efforts. It was certainly disgruntling, I suppose I must be content with the experience.

The soul system is a case of love/hate, even in beta I was of the opinion that they should really have cut down the talent trees. Is it really engaging to most players to decide the value of + 5% crit chance or +15% dexterity, when you are just starting off and don't have much dexterity it might seem obvious but when does it change, maybe the additional crit is always effective, oh you know what who cares. Or trying to determine the cumulative value of a bunch of talents is better or worse than another. I've always been of the opinion that talents should only be qualitative effects, I've seen the future and it's Diablo 3 and GW2. The ideal for me, is a limited set of abilities and then to add runes or traits that alter these abilities in a distinct manner, even giving an ability a new name. In addition, it would have been more interesting if while you pick three souls, only one could be active at a time, but you can swap freely at any time and adapt to changing combat.

On the plus side the roles feature is great, I've only just bought the first two and already have all three filled and would love if the last two were more affordable. Being able to switch up the style of play between different activities or situations or just for the sake of a change keeps things really interesting.

Will I be subscribing for another month, I'll just keep that under consideration for another three weeks, I'm hoping to see what expert rifts, crafting rifts, the hopefully soon to be released chronicles are about and the escalation of the current world event first to make my decision.

[GW2] The Mesmer

Well seeing as everyone knows it is coming, I thought I'd jot down a few ideas about the form I think the profession is returning in.

It can be hard to define a profession that was previously built around 'punishment', but have it fit in a game where each profession has more versatility in the roles they can perform, oh and hexes are no more. Mesmers, more than any other class were annoying in the wide array of hexes they had, they might even have used some obscure, useless ones just to mess with my head because I could never remember what most of them did. So the basic mechanic of most mesmer skills is no more, what could they have in their place?

I'm going with the mechanic of 'if the enemy is doing X, then Y condition is applied and/or takes damage', and twinned with the more supportive mechanic 'if your ally is doing X, then Y buff is applied and/or gains health'. I like the symmetry, and it definitely makes for a much more complicated class, but fits with the goal of having the player actively looking at their surroundings and what the enemy and other players are doing than focusing on the UI. There could be some controversy with 'if the enemy is casting a spell, then they are dazed', which is in effect an interrupt, they said they were going to play down interrupts or rather the mechanic of an 'interrupt' is no more, but instead you need to daze, stun, knockback/down/up, so it is a distinct possibility.

What appearance would I give this profession, because I think more than 'mesmer' could fit that mechanic. Arenanet has talked about creating a wide range of archetypes in the game, so there is something pleasing to everyone. There is at least two commonly occurring classes in MMOs that prove quite popular, a martial-artist/monk and a bard/minstrel. It would be odd to see a monk return with limited ally healing, but I'll leave that right there. I'm more drawn to the bard archetype, for the reason that in GW1 most mesmers tend towards the theatrical! Although, bard is likely not the right word more a travelling performer, a player or a trouper. I doubt they would go the musical instrument route which I find a bit silly in most games, but rely on the power of voice, either beguiling enemies or empowering allies. I like the concept of paragon chants and the various names indicating what effect they will have, arias, choruses, ballads and lyrics.

The profession mechanic I'm leaning towards is 'Echo/Refrain', i.e. the player can choose to extend any of their skills for a longer duration. Did I mention I'm a big fan of paragons and looking forward to a potential revamp, so I may be a little biased. Illusions, seem to come up a lot as a suggestion but I don't think it is very likely seeing as it could prove very hard to create a workable mechanic around it. Conjure phantasm/nightmare are something that I'd rather see on a necromancer, like the shadow fiends they already have, and hopefully they'll get other more ghost like minions too. Illusionary weapons if implemented is going to be too like elementalists conjures, who can call a flaming greatsword down from the sky, which would be a hard act to follow.

I can understand why they are delaying the reveal of the mesmer class, the primary mechanics may still be up in the air, after they pigeonholed themselves by deciding against the use of hexes. Whether they are called curses, debuffs, etc in other MMOs, they are so widespread in their use that it's hard to imagine a class that probably should be using them but doesn't, well I gave it my best shot.

[GW] One Dervish Army

With the EotN bonus rep weekend in full swing I was up that way when I thought I'd give the norn fighting tournament a go. It was mostly to unlock Xandra, but I was making proper attempts to finish it too, it's always been quite challenging to me without resorting to some gimmicky builds or to fill the bar with PVE skills and even then it is sometimes hit or miss to take down Magni. As I was on my dervish I was just trying out a few things when I hit on the build below, which really highlights the strength of the new buffed dervish i.e. fitting so much ability into a single bar.

From left to right: condition removal, blind spamming, hex removal + heal, knockdown + weakness, enchant removal, damage + heal, IAS and anti-knockdown. I was tempted by Armour of Santity but Shield of Force is good to quickly block Magni just after he uses Purge Signet, giving time to blind him again. Even as broad as it is, it could still only complete about 2/3 of the opponents successfully every time, and Magni was about 50/50, though in more skilled hands it would probably be a better ratio, someone who'd have thought to move away as he cleaned off the conditions. Funnily enough Melonni uses the same avatar, and it was really hard to take her down, watching out for mystic regen, to remove it before it undid my efforts. One opponent really stood out, Kisai with blinding surge, which I'd call a hard counter to any melee, even with conviction blindness could not be removed fast enough, at least she only appears in the first round.

Dwayna Vs Dwayna

Tried it on my necro later using the build below, it is a bit hit and miss but it tore through any melee and made Magni himself trivial. Still the dervish build was probably better balanced, and didn't need no PvE skills. At the end the question I'm pondering is that the biggest criticisms that people thrown at the dervish revamp is that there are bars that do far too much for a single character, and I'd agree but whats a good way to temper this newfound resourcefulness without nerfing the class back to where it was with only 1 or 2 workable builds. How do you even balance a profession like that?

Easy Mode

Before energy was quite tight upfront, but now there is hardly any energy problems, so some kind of reversal of the mysticism change, maybe flash enchants could be excluded or the full energy is expended but the longer the player holds on to the flash enchant the more energy they get refunded when that enchant is removed. It would encourage the player to put them up before they plan to use them and hold onto them a while before tearing them down. The armour issue where having just 1 enchant will give the dervish an additional 10 (blessed) + 12 (mysticism) armour, maybe the mysticism buff could give say 1...2..3 armour per enchant, instead of removing it in PvP completely, but not expecting it to make a comeback.

Another criticism that tempered my enthusiasm for the class is that it's a bit mindless to play, sure the spamming and tearing down of enchants is a bit frenetic but it's fun where before it was clunky. Even as a less hardcore player these still concern me, and how it all work out in the end. A dervish was my first character, but I've played more of the game as a warrior, but looking to make a change. I was playing both a ranger and paragon recently, I enjoyed the ranger and the paragon too though the latter is in a similar position to pre-update dervish, but the dervish is appealing now, so that's where I'll be focused with one eye on a paragon update and the other on more dervish nerfs to determine the profession I'll be spending time with in the future. Even though my playstyle is casual, playing a class that might be conceived as easy mode or overpowered or even the reverse in high-end areas is enough to dampen my affections for a class, even to the point that I'd be anxious going into casual PvP because of the stick I'd get. Nevermind I can try to put all that aside and enjoy the class for what it is at the height of it's power, in a game where I find it hard to settle on one class.

A Crowning Achievement
(I've never known any other class to
combine slippers and a dress)

[Lotro] The Thorough

A while ago a deed popped up for my warden upon logging on, and I was left scratching my head what it was connected with, shrugging my shoulders I logged off again, it was one of those quick checking in moments to see if everything was exactly how I left it. It was only this week that I figured out what place the deed was connected with, the name hadn't rung a bell. I was playing through volume 3 book 2 on my burglar and journeying to the Eregion to be sent after a kidnapped dwarf gem-cutter. And the same deed popped up upon finding this place (no I didn’t quite catch the name again) with a 'frightened hero' out front, then it struck me that when I was here on my warden I didn't have the Eregion questpack, so I had missed out on a notable deed tied to the epic story because I didn't have access to Eregion.

Why was it so notable, well getting a fair warning from my less brave counterpart, this place is the best kind of place to explore. It consists of two floors that are connected via multiple doors, with some tricksy parts where some doors can lead to single rooms up above or down below and disconnected from the rest of that floor, rooms with multiple doors, that sort of thing. It's not too hard to figure out, what is hard is making sure you find all 23 places for the deed i.e. being 'thorough'. The simple strategy I used was to pick one floor and work my way around trying every door, then swap to the other floor and connect the dots and try to spot areas where a door hadn't been used, still the last 2 or 3 took a bit of retracing my footsteps to fully complete the deed.


That side-quest with its nifty title for a reward kept my attention for a lot longer than the actual quest, it perfectly suits my personality to explore every nook and cranny for something interesting but on balance the deed is catering more for an achiever than a true explorer who might find delight in spotting some attractive area but often there is little additional content or treasure for taking the time to explore everything that looks interesting, sometimes you might encounter a 'rare' mob because you are going off the beaten track where they are less likely to be killed.


I must admit if I wasn't playing my burglar I probably wouldn't have been so enthused for the actually deed, which is why I leaning towards making him my main for the expansion. My captain has been parked at the dwarven town in Forochel for weeks waiting patiently to enter the mines but I've been there before and know it to be crawling with dourhands, the combination of no stealth, slow killing, confusing passageways and multitudes of mobs is so unappealing I think he may be there for a few more weeks.

The exploration deeds in the game aren't particularly engaging, sometimes like in the Trollshaws where ruins are spread around canyons it can get tricky to work out how to get where you want to go. Secret deeds like climbing the two towers in Mirkwood or the fishing hole in Enedwaith (which I've still not found) are a little more interesting, but not quite up there with eating a piece of old cheese I found in the barrows. The seven swords deed in Angmar was good because there wasn't a quest for guidance, but finding some guys sitting on their own in random places about the landscape wasn't really fun, and then the rewards, a title that wasn't 'of the seven swords' and a 6-man instance that there isn't the slight possibility of getting a group for seeing as it was in East Angmar.The solution is in the game already, walking through the epic book instance you see ghostly scences but they don't give much info, unlike say the flashbacks featuring Gandalf beneath Dol Guldor, but what if they had a bit more drama to them to piece together into a narrative and give clues to where a secret cache might be hidden or how to find some concealed passageways. Something that could be missed if you are not paying enough attention and that need a bit of thought. There does seem to be some light on the horizon with plenty of accounts for GW2 of players going off the beaten track and finding all kinds of events, objects to interact with and not being led there by the nose. Likewise, The Secret World is looking like it will incorporate plenty of puzzling, the need to pay attention to surroundings and spotting clues, with some of the story being played out before the players eyes if they are actively observing. I tempted to give Rift another go, because I never got very far in beta and they seem at least to have things hidden off the beaten track.