Endgame Viable

Today I’ve got the blues. It’s been a generally lousy week. I was going to skip posting today because I didn’t have anything queued up and in the broad spectrum of life, who really gives a crap whether one blog out of a billion misses a post. Instead I’m going to attempt to rid myself of this funk by writing a little bit, because it’s Friday morning and my workplace is dead as a doornail on Fridays so I have eight full hours to kill. (476 words.)

For some reason, the topic of WildStar raid attunements seems to be nearly as volatile as sexism in gaming, but hey, it’s something to write about, so here it is. To summarize the story so far: Some elitist jerk guild made an infographic showing the 12 hardcore steps you need to complete before you can raid in WildStar, and various bloggers have commented on it, with viewpoints ranging anywhere from “That’s insane!” to “That’s awesome!” (582 words.)

I’ve seen some others reporting the WildStar addons they are using, so here are mine.Overall I feel like WildStar addons are going to allow people to do “too much.” I mean, there’s an addon to automate the Simon games. Really Carbine? You put that in your API? I would not be surprised if we see aimbots very soon. But in the meantime:Active: (324 words.)

Over the weekend I had a depressing realization: Playing WildStar is already becoming a chore. How can this be? I said before that questing is not inordinately challenging in WildStar, but I don’t know if I made it clear that the difficulty is higher than average. (Solo questing that is.) It takes some time and patience to thread your way through the packs of mobs out in the world without pulling too many. Up around level 20, you can’t just run around jauntily shooting everything in sight and expect to survive for very long, especially if you miss a telegraph. In other words, it’s work. (453 words.)

Just some amusing WildStar screenshots. Flying cows! Err wolves. Err ... whatever alien animals those are. I made the college football team! Got a toxic wasteland in your ear canal! (Styx reference? Kilroy Was Here? Get it?) Wait, I wanted fries with that Quarter Pounder. (45 words.)

I thought I would expand a little bit on my experience with the difficulty of group content in WildStar. But first, I don’t agree with Herding Cats that the overland quests are difficult enough to encourage grouping. They don’t seem inordinately challenging to me, at least through level 16. (Though I suppose it depends on which other MMO you compare them to.) They are not a cakewalk, mind you, and you will die if you slip up or get overwhelmed (or stumble into one of those stupid red-outlined mini-bosses), but if you pay attention to your surroundings and go through the mobs methodically there isn’t much to worry about. (However, the quests that are marked for 2+ people usually are too difficult for one.) (755 words.)

This post from Keen asked a question which I desperately clutched upon as a topic for a post. When a new MMO launches do you ever feel pressed to keep playing to stay at or ahead of the curve? Maybe you have friends playing who all seem to have more time than you do — does that bother you? I know it shouldn’t bother me and I’d be a much happier person if it didn’t, but unfortunately it does bother me to see other people in my circle of friends leveling faster than I am. I fall victim to thinking that one’s level is a measure of one’s gaming skill, when it is actually just a measure of one’s time investment. (Wouldn’t it be cool if your “level” was derived from the number of hours you’ve played a character? But it wouldn’t represent your character’s “power” level, just your character’s “age.” Of course, then a separate measurement would be required for power.) (281 words.)

It just occurred to me that I am a completely different MMO gamer on weekends when compared to weekdays (weeknights, actually). For me, weekends are about exploration and discovery and lore, but on most weeknights, I just want to “grind” and avoid a lot of mental engagement. This WildStar launch weekend has given me a great example of the distinction. On Saturday and Sunday I spent a fair amount of time reading lore and quest text (or trying to, with that microscopic, reader-unfriendly font) and looking around at things. (258 words.)

Before I’m writing this on Friday before the WildStar head start launch. By the time you read this, I’ll have already been playing for a while. I’m anxious to start playing, but I don’t feel nearly as much excitement as I did for the ESO launch. Part of it might be that I saw a lot more of WildStar in the beta than I had seen of ESO in beta. I feel like I know how everything works in WildStar. (I probably don’t, but I feel like I’ve seen most of the game systems.) I don’t feel like I’m going to encounter anything radically different in the gameplay mechanics after level 10. (1110 words.)

Just some random screenshots from the WildStar Headstart weekend. I started out playing a Spellslinger, thinking I would play an easy-mode ranged DPS class to tour all the dungeons, but I realized at level 8 that I was bored and disgruntled. I switched to an Esper, and started to have a lot more fun. It also helped to choose the Everstar Grove zone which I had not seen in beta. (194 words.)