Gaming: Thoughts on the Future

Right now I’m in the thick of Mass Effect: Andromeda, but massive as it is, it isn’t going to last forever. It was such a landmark release that all my gaming plans for the last several months have dealt with Andromeda and the lead-up to it. As a result, I’ve given very little thought to what I’ll play after I’ve finished.

My monk strikes a pose in World of WarcraftHere are some of the leading candidates.

World of Warcraft:

This is probably the safest bet for where I end up after Andromeda, though I wouldn’t quite declare it a sure thing yet. As always, I maintain very mixed feelings on the game, but there’s still a lot more I’d like to do in Legion, and now that flying has finally been turned back on, now seems the time to start.

My main goal is still to go alt-crazy and see as much class content as possible. My monk has already started on the Broken Isles, so she’s probably next, but I’m not sure who to level after her. My paladin, shaman, demon hunter, priest, and warrior are all in the running.

Elder Scrolls Online:

I’m in a strange place with ESO. I almost always enjoy it, but I’m never particularly blown away by it. It’s good enough, and it’s consistently good enough, but it’s never more than good enough.

So I remain very open to playing more without feeling a very strong push to do so. There is an expansion coming soon, but there’s still so much in the base game I haven’t done yet that I’d be in no rush to move on to it.

My templar alt in Elder Scrolls OnlineI did rather like the templar alt I was tooling around with, and it’d be a shame for all the effort I put into crafting my gear to go to waste, so there are pretty good odds I’ll be back in Tamriel at some point, but I’m not sure when.

Star Wars: The Old Republic:

I was pretty heavily invested in SW:TOR for a while there, but as you may have noticed, I haven’t touched it in a few months. I was getting burnt out, but don’t think I’m done with the game. I just needed a break.

I will be back, but as with ESO, I’m not sure when. There’s a major story update coming soon, but I don’t necessarily want to jump straight from Andromeda into another Bioware game, so I may hold off on that for a while.

There are also still two class stories I fully intend to finish. Again, it’s all just a question of when.

The Secret World:

Sigh.

Entering the Savage Coast in The Secret WorldI’m still pretty heartbroken over what’s happened to TSW. I don’t like to ever rule anything out (I certainly never could have predicted getting into SW:TOR as much as I have), but I currently don’t have much interest in making the transition to the new game. It sounds like a much shallower experience, and I just don’t think I can start over from scratch.

There isn’t much point in investing much more time in vanilla TSW, as it will undoubtedly be shut down before too long, but I do think there are a few more things I might want to do before it’s over. Dorothy is very close to getting her Panoptic Core, and even though there couldn’t be less of a reason to do so, I’d kind of like to finish that.

I may also run some of my favourite missions one last time, and I’m thinking about where I want to park my characters before they log out for the last time.

For a game that I once considered my virtual home, this is really hard to cope with.

Old favourites:

When I was younger, I used to spend a lot of time replaying games. It was often a matter of necessity, as there simply weren’t enough good games to keep me fully occupied in those days, whereas now there’s more good games than there is time to play them, but I still kind of miss it. Lately I feel a slightly stronger pull to revisit some old favourites.

Hawke battles the Arishok in Dragon Age 2I’d really like to play through Dragon Age II again, but the lackluster gameplay has always driven me off. Recently I’ve been considering downloading some mods to try to make it more palatable, because I loved the story in that game. For that matter I’ll probably replay Andromeda at some point, but probably not right after I finish it the first time.

The thought of more StarCraft replays is also in my mind. At the very least I should do another playthrough of Covert Ops at some point, as I’ve only done it once so far. Plus there are still a few Legacy of the Void achievements I’d like to get, and I have a vague desire to do another replay of the original (via Mass Recall), if only to once again bask in the awesomeness that is old school Zeratul.

Then there’s Diablo III. I remain very bitter that the story is apparently being abandoned unfinished, but I still have a lot of fondness for the game, and the new necromancer class is seeming increasingly tempting. Have you seen the blood golem model? It’s the most disgustingly horrible thing I’ve ever seen, and I need it in my life.

I even briefly considered reloading Neverwinter the other day. I was organizing my screenshots and realized how badass my Half-Elf paladin looked. I never did try tanking in that game…

Other possibilities:

I maintain a list of games I’d like to get around to playing if I ever find the time. The Division is prominent on that list, especially now that I have a computer that can run it a bit better. I enjoyed what I played in the beta, and while I don’t think it’s a game I’d stick with for a long time, I think it could be an enjoyable diversion for a few weeks.

My bridge crew in Star Trek OnlineStar Trek Online also pops into my mind every now and again. It’s not a great game, but I did really enjoy the whole “I’m a Romulan commanding my very own warbird” part, and every time I get a jolt of Trek nostalgia I want to play it again.

Destiny 2 is apparently getting a PC release, which is tempting, but since I never had the chance to play the first one, I’m not sure it’d be worth it, since the story is the main thing that would interest me. Plus I’m not sure I’m okay with them replacing an MMO with its sequel so quickly. I know they don’t like calling it an MMO, but let’s be real here.

Plus I’ve got a Steam wishlist a mile long at this point.

For those who are playing Andromeda, what are your plans for when you finish it?

ESO: A Crafty Stratagem

A few weeks after I hit what we would generally think of as the level cap in Elder Scrolls Online, I have now hit what could be argued to be the true level cap, 160 Champion Points. It is only at this point that you cease hitting new tiers of equipment and can begin gearing up in earnest.

Teleporting via wayshrine in Elder Scrolls OnlineThis is where all those long hours I spent leveling my crafting finally paid off. Normally at this point in an MMO, I’d be hitting up dungeons or world bosses, or perhaps grinding daily quests or even doing PvP. In ESO, I had to do none of that. Like Tony Stark in a cave full of Middle Eastern stereotypes, I simply built my own equipment from scratch.

This first entailed several hours trekking all over the length and breadth of Tamriel to find enough materials, as the final tier of gear requires ten times more ingredients than what came before it.

I thought this would be a chore going in, but I actually didn’t mind it. It seems a small price to pay to free myself from the shackles of RNGesus, and this is a genuinely nice game to ride around and explore. I actually started the journey a bit before hitting 160 CP and made it the rest of the way thanks to the XP from exploration, killing mobs that got in my way, and doing the occasional Dolmen as I happened across them.

I had planned ahead and saved a bunch of crafting surveys for every profession, so that turned what could have been weeks of grinding into something that only took about a day of pleasant wandering.

My one complaint is how vague the survey maps can be. I had one where X didn’t so much mark the spot as it covered the entire northeast quadrant of Reaper’s March. That’s less than helpful.

Gathering Ancestor Silk in Elder Scrolls OnlineIn the end, I wasn’t entirely able to achieve my goal of 100% self-sufficiency and had to buy some things from guild traders. Most notably glyphs, since I didn’t level enchanting. Thankfully 160 CP glyphs are fairly cheap as long as you’re willing to settle for them “only” being epic. I also needed some extra leather, as I wound up a few hundred short of my goal even after clearing out all my surveys.

Once I had everything I needed, it was finally time to craft my new set of gear. That’s not exactly an exciting story, since it mostly entailed my going to some crafting stations and clicking some buttons, but it is interesting how much thought I put into those clicks.

I did what is for me a surprising amount of research and planning before making this final set of gear. I read online about the various crafting sets before settling on the ones I wanted, and even I drew up some basic graphs to track what traits I’d unlocked on what pieces and which I wanted to use.

I was a bit disappointed by how lame most of the five-piece bonuses for crafted sets are. The only one that really stands out is the double Mundus Stone one from Craglorn, but I’m not going to have nine traits on everything anytime this year. In the end I settled on two four-piece bonuses instead.

The end result of all this work and planning is that I’m now 100% equipped with gear made by my own pixelated hands.* Every piece has been tailored to have exactly the stats, traits, and appearances I want.

Crafting a legendary greatsword in Elder Scrolls Online*(Excluding jewelry, which can’t be crafted.)

Every piece is at least epic quality, and I also managed to make a few legendaries, most notably both my weapons. In my bow stance, my crit chance is now near 60%, which calls to mind fond memories of being a fire mage back in Wrath of the Lich King.

I’m also mostly happy with the appearances. I still miss my mid-level Argonian chest, but what I’ve got now is okay.

On the whole, I’ve found this a very satisfying experience, though I’m not entirely without complaints, of course. Getting three crafting professions fully upgraded was pushing the very upper limit of what I’m willing to tolerate in terms of grind.

This is also something of an example of rewarding time spent over skill, which is a design philosophy I’m not fond of. I’m honestly not sure I deserve to have gear this good. Maybe instead of surveys just giving you a pile of mats you should have to fight bosses who drop the mats, or maybe they should entail puzzles or mini-games of some sort.

And I’m now living in terror of the inevitable gear reset. Hopefully it’s still aways off — I don’t want to do this again anytime soon.

My final set of crafted gear in Elder Scrolls OnlineBut there is something deeply gratifying about being able to fully craft my own gear. It’s not even the fact that I don’t have to worry about being screwed over by bad luck, or that it’s a viable gearing path for solo players, although I love both of those things. There’s just something special about building the gear yourself that’s hard to explain in rational terms. It just feels good.

Crafting is something I’ve always liked as an idea but rarely enjoyed in practice. Elder Scrolls Online is a very welcome exception to that rule.

And now I can craft gear for any future alts, too.