Games | Superior Realities

But it’s also madness:

Let’s not mince words: the Lost Shores events in Guild Wars 2 over the weekend were a train wreck. They were not simply a clusterf***; they were a catastrof***.

An endless spree of glitches and bugs, everyone experienced their own unique flavour of ArenaNet’s virtual faceplant. Personally, my experience varied by the day.

The first day wasn’t too bad. The first fifteen minutes or so were unplayable due to DCs, but after that, it was just a lot of lag. The event itself was nothing special, consisting mainly of fighting crab monsters (called karka) in Lion’s Arch.

Saturday’s event was a bit more interesting in concept. We landed on the Lost Shores and set about taming the land, establishing bridges and camps that will be used by all future visitors to the zone.

Unfortunately, this is where things really went off the rails technically. Among other issues, I spent most of it unable to see anything but my character and the terrain. I also had no sound for most of it.

And this was after a half hour of waiting because the event was late in getting started. I think there was an entire stage of the event that never triggered. On the plus side, we had a dance party on the lighthouse in Lion’s Arch that proved surprisingly entertaining.

The third day was the smoothest technically, but consisted mainly of hours of grinding through a single event chain. The length came not from the amount of content it held, but from the fact that all the mobs had approximately fourteen quadrillion HP and possessed abilities capable of one-shotting a dozen players at once. At one point, all my gear had been broken but for my coat, leaving me to fight karka half-naked.

It was brutal.

The loot at the end was very good, but after what we went through, nothing short of legendaries would have felt like sufficient reward.

Words cannot adequately describe the surreal horror of these events, so I’m just going to spam you with screenshots.

Picture time:

You just haven’t lived until you’ve danced with a candy corn monster and an eight-hundred pound Norn man in fluorescent pink armor.

Yeah, it was sort of like that.

Each of those blue symbols represents a dead player. This was a common sight. Very common.

A brief moment in which my fellow players were visible.

I’m actually surrounded by players and NPCs in this screenshot. The shield icon hovers over the head of the main event NPC. Also, BACON SQUAD, OO-RAH!

Rage and reflection:

Oddly enough, though, I don’t feel ready to join the legions of angry players howling for ArenaNet’s blood — though I certainly don’t blame them for their feelings.

I won’t defend this most epic of fails, but I will say that I appreciate ArenaNet having the guts to even attempt a live event like this. MMOs should be the most unpredictable and ever-changing genre of game, but often, they’re the most static. I salute ANet for breaking the mould, and I hope they do more such events.

I just hope that those events are nothing at all like Lost Shores.

Also, for what it’s worth, I did quite enjoy the second day, purely because of the people. I did more chatting that day than I have in any game since my Alliance guild split up. It felt good to be a part of a game’s community. Felt like a proper MMO — game-breaking bugs aside.

New article:

My latest article at WhatMMO is 6 MMOs Deserving Resurrection. I always wanted to try Tabula Rasa, but it shut down before I got the chance.

Farewell, Pandaria. Au revoir, Azeroth:

You may remember my extensive review of/rant on the Mists of Pandaria endgame not too long ago. What I didn’t mention then was that, immediately after posting it, I logged into my WoW account and cancelled my subscription. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to turn that post into another “QQ I quit” post, but… QQ, I quit.

The dailies grind has sucked the fun out of World of Warcraft for me. It’s not that I have anything against dailies as a concept — I loved the Molten Front, and I have fond memories of Quel’danas. But Golden Lotus and Klaxxi are simply awful. So awful that I stopped doing them, but now I have nothing to spend my valor on.

This basically leaves me with nothing to do, since valor is worthless to me. I log on once or twice a week to do the Raid Finder and some Tillers dailies (which I do enjoy), and then I go play Guild Wars 2. It’s not worth paying $15 a month for that.

The irony amuses me. In Cataclysm, I didn’t have enough to do because I didn’t raid. Now I have nothing to do but raids.

The daily issue, and other recent questionable decisions by Blizzard (including cross realm zones), were summed up quite well by a thread on the official forums today. If you want to hear more of my thoughts, skip to page 18, which is where my posts begin appearing. Maigraith is me.

I’ll come back in a few months when this error is inevitably fixed. I want to get out now, before this makes me lose sight of the many things MoP did right. In the mean time, I have Guild Wars, and I might also check out The Secret World. I miss my (undead) homies in Kingsmouth.

My sub runs out later today, but first, I had one last romp in Pandaria.

Enter the Heart of Fear:

I won’t get to try Terrace of the Endless Spring before my sub runs out, but I did manage to get through both wings of Heart of Fear.

Overall, I’m quite happy with this raid. Definitely more interesting than Mogu’shan. It’s visually distinct (if a bit monochromatic), and it radiates dread in the way a good raid ought to. The impaled — still living — Klaxxi at the entrance were an especially nice touch.

I thought the boss fights were largely entertaining. Not the best I’ve experienced, but very solid. Though I did find Garalon and Wind Lord Mel’jarak a little irritating.

Semi off-topic mini-rant: Why does everyone hold up crowd control as the pinnacle of player skill, and describe AoE as faceroll? To do optimal AoE damage, I need to stance dance so as to maintain two DoTs on as many targets as possible while using hand of Gul’dan on cooldown, spam void ray while watching my positioning to ensure it hits all targets, maintain aura of the elements, and watch my fury to know if I can use immolation aura or not. To keep my add CCed during Mel’jarak, I have to hit the extra action button once every forty-five seconds.

As it should be, the final boss, Grand Empress Shek’zeer, was the most entertaining. I especially liked the way the Sha of Fear played puppet master in the background. Excellent voice acting for the Sha, and I like how the raid ends on a cliff-hanger.

We really need more continuity like that in this game. A good story never has the heroes defeat the villain during their first meeting.

Down on the farm:

That same day, I also earned my final vote and became an official member of the Tillers guild.

I still can’t believe how much I liked the Tillers dailies, nor can I explain why. It’s not the epic struggle I usually look for.

I guess it was just a really well-designed series of quests. The friendship system and the way they threw in the one-time story quests seemingly at random amid the dailies really helped to make it feel like an evolving story instead of a repetitive grind.

Plus, songbells are a great way to make gold, and that never hurts.

And that’s that. Next stop, Tyria, and the Lost Shores!

Superior Realities

Category Archives: Games

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