Games | Superior Realities

I feel like every big MMO fan has at least one or two games that they always mean to return to, but never quite do. Nearly every day, I see a comment on Massively to the effect of, “Oh, yeah, this game is really great. I need to dust off my old account one of these days.”

I’m no exception. In fact, I have several games that I am constantly tempted to return to, but never quite get around to rejoining.

Guild Wars 2:

You may remember that I was pretty enamored with Guild Wars 2 when it first came out. But as time went on, it lost some of its luster, and I ultimately moved on. The main issues were the appallingly bad story and the lack of creativity in the design of dynamic events, which somewhat robbed the game of its sense of exploration.

I still hold the game in high regard. Ask me to list the best MMOs right now, and it’ll be near the top of the list. I respect GW2’s fresh take on the genre, and it’s easily one of the most polished and high quality MMOs you can find. And I do not regret buying it, because I did have a lot of fun for the first few weeks.

But ultimately, I decided it’s not quite the game for me. I need to care about a game’s world if I’m going to immerse myself in it long term. This is why I’m still fool enough to play WoW, despite its unending gameplay stumbles and archaic design philosophies.

But while I don’t miss GW2 overmuch, I do miss my characters. I miss blasting zombies with my thief’s pistols. I miss my warrior’s roguish charm. I miss being a mesmer period — it’s such a fascinatingly unique class. Sometimes I’m tempted to download the game and play a few events for old times’ sake.

Neverwinter:

Neverwinter, taken all in all, is a fairly mediocre MMO. It has incredibly fun combat, and it’s very accessible, but its classes are very limiting, the story is weak, and the business model is a little on the obnoxious side.

Even so, I’m often tempted to give it another go. I’d never consider playing it full time, but it’s such a casual game that it could easily be something you just dip into now and then.

The main thing that tempts to load it up again is the Foundry. Even in the early days I played, people had come up with some truly excellent missions in the Foundry that were vastly better than the game’s professional content. There was one storyline in particular I wouldn’t mind getting closure on…

Aion:

If there’s one game I’m constantly tempted to return to, it’s Aion.

My fondness for Aion defies rational explanation. While highly polished and content rich, it’s not really an exceptional game. There isn’t a whole lot to differentiate it from the ten thousand other WoW clones on the market.

But something about it just always got under my skin — in a good way. It’s got really interesting and surprisingly deep lore, and a setting like nothing else. The graphics are still gorgeous despite being a little on the old side by gaming standards. It has the best character customization around. It has an actual proper ranger class that isn’t tied to buggy pets or as exciting as watching paint dry. It has one of the better free to play models around.

Not to mention that a new expansion came out not that long ago with some impressive new additions. The new gunslinger class looks decidedly awesome. A gun-toting sorcerer with enchanted bullets and a devil may care persona? Sign me the Hell up.

The main problem with Aion is that it’s just too similar to World of Warcraft. The main times I’d want to play it are when I’m burnt out on WoW, but in that case, I don’t really want to play a game with almost exactly the same mechanics.

But still, the temptation never quite goes away. Hardly a week goes by when I don’t catch myself thinking, “I should really get back to Aion one of these days.”

If nothing else, I should reload it someday to recreate more of my novel characters. I want to make the new additions from Human Again, and maybe some more characters from my other works.

The Secret World: Gilded Rage

TSW has come out with another two week event, Gilded Rage. It’s essentially a repeat of the anniversary’s Guardians of Gaia event, with just a few differences.

Instead of different bosses for each zone, this time it’s just multiple copies of one boss spawning all over the world. There’s also no cooldown on the mission this time, so you can grind to your heart’s content.

The rewards are a little different this time, too. There’s a chance to get the Shem of Lunar Metal pet for those who missed it due to the Fusang clusterfrack during Guardians of Gaia, and there’s also a new pet, the Shem of Solar Metal, that can be assembled from various pieces dropped by the bosses.

There are also a few new clothing pieces. Personally, I’ve got my heart set on the golden eye glow. Much as I liked the green eye glow from the last event, gold was the colour I really wanted. After all, I’m a bee, not Green Lantern.

The first three days of the event also take place over another Golden Weekend, which offers double AP gains and other perks. One bonus is free months of membership for recruitment, so if you’ve been looking to give the game a try, contact me for a buddy key.

Mind you, the offer of a buddy key will still be open after the weekend, but I’d much prefer sending them out over the weekend so I can get the extra benefits.

I’m not finding this event quite as exciting as the last one — mainly due to the “been there, done that” factor — but I’m still quite happy to be raking in loot and XP hand over fist, and it certainly beats chasing my tail until issue 8 launches.

As an aside, while I feel bad for those who lag too badly to avoid the boss attacks, there’s nothing more hilarious than watching a dozen or more players getting hit by Upheaval.

It’s rainin’ men!

Literally.

I’m ashamed of that pun.

There aren’t really a lot of TV shows to watch right now, so I’ve taken to watching HuskyStarCraft’s videos over dinner. But even then, I sometimes run out of new SC matches to watch, so I’ve turned to watching some of his other videos. Out of curiosity, I decided to watch him play several games of League of Legends and DOTA 2 to satisfy my curiosity about the MOBA genre.

MOBAs are the next big thing, for better or for worse. League of Legends is known to be the most played video game in the world, and may just be the most popular game in history.

Husky’s videos didn’t make the games look too exciting, but it peaked my curiosity enough that I decided I should try a MOBA myself. Again, if only to see what all the fuss is about. For reasons that are at best unclear to me, DOTA 2 had already been added to my Steam account, so that wound up being my pick.

After a few days of play, I’m not quite sure what to make of it.

I can’t tell if I suck:

Naturally, my first few matches were something of a baptism by fire. Early on, I had one player report me because they thought I was intentionally sabotaging the team.

But I pretty quickly gained a basic understanding of the game. I settled on a hero I liked, a fire mage named Lina, and developed a strategy of defense in the early game leading into cautious aggression at high levels.

Even so, I ended up on a ludicrous losing streak. It took me until my eight or ninth game — don’t remember exactly — before I found myself on a winning team. But this is where I start to get confused.

Initially, I assumed all those losses were on my head. I was the common denominator, after all. But while my performance was far from stellar, I usually wasn’t the only one failing miserably. In fact, I’ve rarely, if ever, been the worst player on a team.

And when I finally started winning some games, I found that I tended to do pretty well in such situations. My kill counts are high, I’m usually one of the top players for last hits from either team, I’m one of the few people who bothers to deny, I seem to effectively defend my lanes, and I get a lot of assists. I still die a lot, but I’m usually not the worst in that regard, and my kills tend to outstrip my deaths.

So I don’t know how to rate my performance. Were the losses the result of bad teams dragging me down, or are the wins because I’ve been carried? Both? Neither?

Learning curve?

For all the talk about how incredibly hard to learn MOBAs are, I’m not finding the learning curve terribly steep. If anything, I’m already getting a little bored by DOTA’s simplicity. I don’t deny that figuring out ideal hero combinations and builds for the high level must be very tricky, but in whatever newb division they dumped me into, there’s not a lot to the game.

To be fair, there are a number of things that lower the learning curve in my case. I’ve always been a huge RTS fan, so the controls are very familiar to me. I watched Husky play several matches, so I came in a decent idea of the general game mechanics. And DOTA borrows from Warcraft III to a ludicrous degree, so I already have a basic understanding of a lot of the heroes, abilities, and items.

Still, when you get right down to it, all you need is a good memory of what items can help your hero and some basic micro skills.

I can’t help but compare DOTA 2 to competitive StarCraft II, and in that comparison, it seems a bit like kindergarten. SC2 requires so much more in terms of reflexes and multi-tasking.

I suppose this can work in MOBAs’ favour, though. DOTA is a very low stress game, which is not a phrase I ever expected to apply to any form of video game PvP.

SC2 multiplayer is a constant panic attack even at the lowest levels of play, requiring lightning reflexes and constant attentiveness. In DOTA 2, the main challenge is fighting my urge to do anything. Mostly, it’s just a lot of sitting in my lane and last-hitting creeps. I quickly learned that most of my early failures were largely the result of being too aggressive.

Am I having fun?

You’d think that would be an easy question to answer. You’d think.

I’m enjoying DOTA 2 far more than I expected to, though that doesn’t say very much. I definitely see where the addiction people have for MOBAs comes from. There’s a lot of satisfaction to getting a lot of last hits or pulling off a good gank. And again, it’s a very low stress game.

But on the larger scale, it’s a fairly dull game. By far my biggest complaint is that the matches are far, far too long. You can generally tell which team is going to win in the first five to ten minutes, but the matches still drag on to half an hour or more. If you’re losing, it’s a slow and agonizing slide into oblivion, but even if you’re winning, facerolling the enemy team gets dull after a while.

The community is pretty awful, too. It’s not as bad as I expected — not really any worse than your average battleground in WoW — but it’s still a lot of asshattery flying around.

If nothing else, playing DOTA 2 has a bit more excited for Blizzard All-Stars. Blizzard has a knack for taking successful concepts by other companies and then refining them to perfection. If they can iron out some of the annoying things from other MOBAs, they could have a pretty awesome game on their hands.

And hey, DOTA may have some pretty cool heroes, but it ain’t got Nova.

Superior Realities

Category Archives: Games

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