January | 2013 | Superior Realities

So… I got stuck in The Secret World. To begin the main story mission for Transylvania, you need to first complete a mission to infiltrate an Orochi compound, and said mission involves a difficult jumping puzzle.

I can’t do it. I can’t even get close.

To be fair, it may have something to do with the fact my computer lags so badly I can barely maneuver my character, let alone achieve any kind of precision.

I’m hoping to get a memory upgrade at some point, which might help, but in the meantime, I need something to do other than level my Templar alt.

So, yeah, I’ve slunk back to my dark master already. Here are my quick and dirty thoughts on coming back to World of Warcraft.

I have to read quests?

I’m not going to lie: there are many aspects of WoW that feel positively archaic after playing Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World.

“WTF, I take damage from falling?”

“This inventory system is awful!”

“WTF, I can’t loot a mob because someone else hit it first?”

“Why does this game have so many buttons?”

In terms of difficulty, it’s complete night and day to go from TSW to WoW. At one point while leveling my paladin, I pulled about eight mobs at once by mistake, and I had a good ten seconds to casually peruse my bloated action bar because I forgot which button was divine shield.

And I haven’t had to translate ancient Roman ciphers or learn Morse code or anything.

To be clear, I’m not knocking Blizzard, per se. Something would be seriously wrong if a game from the middle of last decade didn’t feel archaic compared to ones from last summer.

But still, it takes some adjustment.

Terrace of the Endless Spring:

This raid was released shortly after my sub ran out, so I never did it before now.

I’m pretty happy with Terrace, actually. Maybe could have used a cinematic or an RP event to cap it off, and the council fight at the beginning felt very generic, but all in all, a very fun and satisfying raid. The last three bosses were all quite interesting and enjoyable.

Also, my Sha-touched staff dropped on my first kill. So that’s nice.

New scenarios:

Dominance Point was a little long for my taste. One of the main appeals of scenarios is how quick they are, but this one just seemed to drag on.

Dagger in the Dark was a bit more interesting. Actually, by all rights, I should have loved it. It was lore-heavy, featured a character I’m very fond of, and began a plot arc I’ve been begging for since Cataclysm.

Unfortunately, Blizzard is really terrible at making plot twists that are actually surprises. Despite not reading any spoilers beforehand, I knew everything that was going to happen in Dagger in the Dark before I ever queued up for it. So that kind of sucked the fun out of it.

But I will say say this: any of you out there who didn’t swear the blood oath with Vol’jin? You are now my sworn enemies. I will end you.

I haven’t done Assault on Zan’vess or the Alliance ones yet.

New daily quests:

Day one: “Collect five crab meat.”

Day two: Okay, this isn’t so bad. Crabs aside, most of the quests are decent. They’re clearly designed to emulate the old strategy games, and I do appreciate the blatant attempt to pander to my nostalgia, although the timing of it feels a little odd.

It’s also nice that the quests are pretty quick to get through. This is nothing like the abominable grind that was Golden Lotus.

I think the most interesting thing is the cooperative mechanics they’ve introduced with the capture points, the wild beasts, and the bonuses you can buy with commendations. Reminds me a little bit of the spirit of cooperation that exists in Guild Wars 2.

I think the current implementation of the concept is a little underdeveloped, but hopefully we can see more ideas like this down the line.

Honestly, though, I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to get really excited about WoW-style quests again after having played TSW.

Day three: LOR’THEMAR’S NEW VOICE ACTOR PRONOUNCES “QUEL’THALAS” CORRECTLY.

A return to stabbing (now with 35% more stabby):

I started leveling my paladin, but I decided I wasn’t quite ready to give up on my rogue, so I decided to actually use my subtlety spec for once.

As it turns out, sub isn’t so excruciatingly dull as combat has become. Energetic recovery and cheap builders mean I’m actually hitting buttons, and my mastery means those buttons actually do damage.

I thought maybe I had over-estimated the dullness of combat, or it was the new gear I got from the AH, so I switched back to combat for one mob just for comparison. It took me about three times longer to kill it, and most of that time was just picking my nose (metaphorically speaking) because I didn’t have enough energy to do anything.

Going sub is not a perfect solution. I don’t like using daggers, I miss killing spree, and sub has a lot of hoops you need to jump through just to do decent damage. Although I played a demo warlock in Cataclysm, so sub’s hoops are minor in comparison to that.

But it’s better than giving up on the character altogether. My characters are more than just avatars; I get attached to them. After four (ish) years of adventuring with Maigraith, I wasn’t ready to move on to someone new.

So let the warning go out to all enemies of the Alliance: Maigraith is back, and she misses her swords, so she’s pissed.

The rest of the gang:

Not too much else is new in regards to my characters. My warlock remains my main du jour. With the removal of grouping requirements to solo old raids, I’ve been giving dark apotheosis a workout.

So far, I’ve found most bosses from Wrath or earlier are complete pushovers. I didn’t even need to use defensive cooldowns on Marrowgar, and Attumen was like fighting a quest mob. Gunship appears to still be unsoloable due to mechanics, and while doable, Kael’thas is very, very annoying.

My mage remains an alchemy bitch, my monk remains the latest neglected alt, and my paladin looks like she might actually be the alt I intended her to be.

Finally, one feature of Guild Wars 2 I found really cool — if poorly implemented — was town clothes, so I’ve decided to bring the concept to WoW.

Not bad for something I threw together in half an hour.

New article:

My latest article at WhatMMO is Eight Underused Class Archetypes. Main thing I learned from writing this one: I would like to play an alchemist.

Also, who do I have to stab to get an arcane archer?

Engage tinfoil:

If you’re not familiar with Project: Titan, here’s a quick rundown. Titan is the codename given to a new massively multiplayer game being developed by Blizzard Entertainment. We’re not technically supposed to know about it, but enough info was leaked that Blizzard had to acknowledge its existence.

But aside from the fact it’s an MMO, we still know only a few small things about it, such as the fact that it will involve product placement and/or in-game advertisements. This means it will likely be set in the modern day or maybe a near-future sci-fi setting.

Blizzard is also on record as saying it will be a new intellectual property — IE: not Warcraft, Starcraft, or Diablo.

But a new rumor challenges this notion. This rumor states that it is not entirely a new IP but instead occupies some strange gray area where it both is and isn’t a new franchise. It’s described as a “spin-off” of a current IP.

Now, it is just a rumor, but supposedly, the source is fairly credible. (Information on the source can be found here.) If true, this may be the final clue we need to figure out what Titan is, because I can think of only one thing in all of Blizzard’s lore that would fit everything we think we know about Titan.

I think Titan is set in the Starcraft universe, but takes place on Earth.

Earth is something of a non-factor in the Starcraft universe. The UED invasion in Brood War aside, Earth has been largely forgotten by the Koprulu Sector, and after what happened to DuGalle’s fleet, it’s doubtful the people on Earth want anything to do with Koprulu.

Furthermore, everything that makes Starcraft Starcraft is intrinsically linked to the Koprulu Sector. A game set on Earth would not involve the Zerg, the Protoss, the Xel’naga, the Dominion, Raynor, Mengsk, or Kerrigan. If Blizzard is true to their own backstory, there wouldn’t even be any telepathic humans.

Thus, Titan would technically be a part of the Starcraft universe, but it would be so different that it would, for all practical purposes, be a completely new game.

Think Portal and Half-Life. Technically, both those franchises take place in the same universe, but barring a few Easter eggs, there’s almost nothing to connect them.

Titan would also be set in a future version of our world, opening up the possibility for those in-game ads and product placements. Granted, it’s a little far-fetched for corporations from our time to still be running 500 years from now, but it’s not completely implausible.

There’s also no guarantee Titan would be set at the same time as the Starcraft games. It could take place closer to our own time, perhaps even before the launch of the super-carriers. In which case telepathy would be back on the table.

Because let’s be honest: if we can’t play as Nova clones, what the Hell is the point?

This leaves us with a dystopian, over-crowded Earth lorded over by a totalitarian government possessed of a fanatical belief in “human purity.” That certainly seems like a concept with a lot of potential for interesting stories and gameplay.

Food for thought, at least.

Review: Honor Amongst Thieves:

“Honor Amongst Thieves” is the final installment of David Chandler’s “Ancient Blades” trilogy. It continues the story of Malden, the witty thief; Croy, the absurdly chivalrous knight of the order of Ancient Blades; and Cythera, whose most noteworthy personality trait is that she has a vagina.

Cover art for “Honor Amongst Thieves” picks up where the last book left off, with the barbarian hordes of the east poised to invade the kingdom of Skrae. Through a series of ludicrously improbably events — even by fantasy standards — Malden finds himself with the responsibility of saving the kingdom from the onslaught.

Meanwhile, Sir Croy struggles to regain his honor by protecting Skrae’s royal family, and Cythera tries to earn the award for Most Uninspiring Heroine in a Fantasy Series.

Unfortunately, David Chandler seems to have decided to shift gears and write this book as a serious fantasy epic. This was not a good move.

“The Ancient Blades” is a series with many flaws, but its wry humor and light-hearted sense of adventure made it fairly easy to overlook them. The books never seemed to take themselves terribly seriously.

Now I’m forced to wonder if Chandler meant this to be a serious trilogy, and not a self-parody, from the start. If true… yikes.

Without the books’ trademark humor, Malden is just a cliche do-gooder, Croy is just a pompous ass, and Cythera… Well, she always sucked.

Art of Cythera from At least Cythera stopped letting her life be entirely dominated by men in this book. Instead, she let it be entirely dominated by her mother.

I don’t think Cythera has any will of her own. Maybe it’s supposed to be some commentary on her being raised as a slave, but it sure doesn’t make for interesting reading. Good characters forge their own destinies; they don’t just let themselves be led around by the nose.

The ending of the book was very weak and inconclusive, too. Very little was resolved, and all in all, it felt more like an ad for the inevitable second trilogy than anything.

“Honor Amongst Thieves” isn’t totally without its strengths. It’s still very fast-paced and action-packed, and even despite all my complaints, I still found it to be very much a page-turner.

I’ll also grudgingly admit the villain was interesting. Normally, I don’t care for villains with more brawn than brains, but this guy was so evil and nuts I just had to appreciate him.

Overall rating: 5.7/10 Not completely without merit, but largely mediocre.

Superior Realities

Monthly Archives: January 2013

This Is Embarassing

New Titan Theory + Review: Honor Among Thieves

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