I talk so little about Guild Wars 2 here that I don’t think anyone really knows I play it. It’s the only MMO I play, actually, but I only find myself playing it an hour a week, when Team Spode comes together to play it.
I finally finished the super extended long Janthir Wilds prologue. That’s the newest expansion that brings you to yet another new region of Tyria, with yet another new race, the bear-like Koda. They call themselves the Kodan.
It’s always funny to me when NPCs accord my character great honor when I’ve mostly just skipped through the content. “Call me Commander or Wayfinder? Why not simply… HEY YOU, YEAH YOU THERE. WHO ARE YOU AGAIN?”
After talking to approximately 1000 people over the course of 20 or so hours, I finally was set free in the Janthir Wilds, where I met the Kodan and then talked with them a couple more hours. I really feel like I should be taking notes. I also tamed a new Warclaw — a big kitty — but I don’t know if I want to replace my WvWvW Warclaw. It took a long time to earn it, back when we were doing WvWvW.
It’s actually only the second mount I earned; I found the Skyscale such a grind that I never finished either of the quests to unlock it. Still hoping they at some point just give it to me.
Anyway. More to come on that.
After getting the PS4 controller working with the PSX emulator so that I could play Um Jammer Lammy (after trying an XBox controller and a PS3 controller and been disappointed by both), I wanted to see how well that controller would work with PS2 games.
I have like a hundred PS2 games, between my collection and Kasul’s, and I bought more in California that I haven’t yet written about, BUT… I’d played Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II, same developers and same engine as used for Champions – Return to Arms, and it had a minimap, and I’d had problems with the lack of same the last time I played RtA… was I just missing something?
Turns out I was. The minimap works just fine. I’d tried an evil playthrough first time and didn’t make much progress, so decided to restart and work with a good playthrough — much easier.
This time, I am playing a wood-elf ranger. Having played both a melee and now a ranged class, I think melee probably has the edge in playability. Ranged is fine if things would just stay at range, but they rush you. Rangers start off at range but then have to switch to melee midway, requiring them to keep both their ranged and melee attributes up to snuff.
Anyway, controller works fine, even the vibration functions work. I haven’t tried it with a game with pressure sensitivity, like Mad Maestro, but I have read that it will not work — hence experimenting with the PS3 controller. Which worked a little.
I spent a couple hours yesterday making more progress on the MOC LEGO Thunderjaw. Part of the time was separating a lot of the bricks into similar shapes and doing some repacking so that every step wasn’t interrupted by looking through half a dozen bags for the brick I needed.
This pretty much finishes the body. I had to use a little glue for some pieces that just wouldn’t stay on. I expect to use a lot more glue. Even touching it causes pieces to fall off. I think this model is going to look great, and am looking forward to integrating it with my Tallneck, but I have come to appreciate the work LEGO does with its official models with the piece packaging, assembly instructions that don’t include pieces that have to hang unsupported in mid-air until the next step, and the durability of the finished model.
I can’t go crazy with the crazy glue yet (so, it’s “sane within normal limits” glue at the moment). We plan to put together a homebrew lighting kit and so some disassembly will happen once it’s done.
I hope to get some mini painting done this week, so look for that.
Have a great week!
I didn’t have any idea that you played GW2, love reading about it though – I found the introduction and the billion people I had to talk to / listen to very VERY boring and lackluster for a brand new expansion. I’m really glad to be done that part.
I’ve been playing GW2, on and off, for over a decade. Back when we first started, it was exciting and new, but each expansion has left me a little colder.
I’d thought I’d finished all the talking last time, but no. I spent the entire group time just finishing with the talking. Now I can finally start the actual quests, though the Claw’s son wants me to talk to him and to be honest, I’m a little concerned that doing so will mean another hour talking to people.
He should just try to explain what a “link” and a “wiki” are, and why he is just giving one to me instead of a long explanation.
I also did not know that you played Guild Wars 2.
You are full of surprises!
More “attends” or “participates in” than “play”, but yeah, I play most every week 🙂
I do remember you mentioning at some point that Team Spode was playing GW” because I recall thinking it was an odd choice. I mean, it has pretty much no meaningful group content outside of Raids, back when ANet were interested in those, and they require more than a single group, obviously.
The endless talking to people thing is very interesting. I just posted for the second time about how very much I’ve enjoyed the recent content drop in Wuthering Waves largely because it’s almost all talking and cut scenes and virtually no combat. I was thinking quite a bit as I was playing it about how the same thing would have been in GW2 and I have to say my mental comparisons were not flattering to ANet. I think how enjoyable it is to have to spend a whole session just travelling from one group of NPCs to another and listening to them talk depends hugely on just how entertaining you find the writing as writing.
In GW2 I always found the parts that told me something new about the characters or that furthered the plot quite involving but the actual writing *as writing* was generally pretty dull and workmanlike. Oddly, although I don’t think the writing in WW is better, per se, it feels a lot more heartfelt and the prose is better “sprung” so it reads more energetically. GW2 writing lies flat on the page too much of the time and even really good voice acting can’t always lift it up.
We do some fractals, some strike forces, some WvWvW, some world bosses, and we work through the expansion stories together.
It’s really just an excuse to get together and chat, and also kill stuff.
The problem with GW2 stuff is that I don’t feel like I am playing my character. My character is important, has worked with all these people before, feels like she’s earned some respect but not as much as is given her, does her best… it’s all a very well-defined character, but it’s not my character. Aside from hitting ‘F’ to start a conversation, I’m not really involved. In the end, it’s just filler until I can do the fun exploration, climbing puzzles and stuff. I don’t really care at all about the plot.
Another thing — no loot drops. No tangible rewards for doing anything. And the way the view distance is, I doubt I could pick out what any of my teammates looks like from a lineup. I didn’t know Lord Spode was a Silvari until a couple years ago. I’m the only Asura in the group, and I have a big green mech, so I know I am distinct, but usually everyone is just dots on a map that I follow and dutifully go through my cooldowns whenever a fight happens.
I don’t think I contribute; I can’t tell even if I am contributing. I feel like things would work just as well if I weren’t even there. I have never felt more useless in an MMO, than I feel when I am playing GW2.