Guild Wars 2...Months Later

For a game that I was extremely excited for, Guild Wars 2 ended up being a bit of a disappointment. This isn't because of the game itself (well not completely), but because of the way my friends reacted to it. Since the Old Republic, my friends and I have been routinely playing together (on Wednesdays and Thursdays) for quite some time. We did TOR, and then Tera, and had a blast with both games.

For one of my friends, he was against the game from the start, and I'm still not sure I understand why. Well, no, I'll take that back. I do know why. Though he no longer has the time for it, he is a hard-core MMO raider. He is into the gear grind, endgame, and progression. And ultimately Guild Wars 2 doesn't have that in the way that he wanted. And because of that, he just wasn't that interested in even hitting 80 because at that point he was already 'done'. In that regard, the game was never going to please him in the way he wanted...and I'm sure that he was not the only one with this problem.

In addition to that he also had two other problems with the game. The first was that the game did not really promote grouping while leveling. This one seems odd on the surface--GW2 is very forgiving with working together on quests with random people. But, heart quest progress isn't shared in groups; and for every other type of open-world encounter you receive no real benefit for being in a group. And in fact, due to the somewhat distracting nature of the content, formal groups of people tend to get pulled in different directions because of the distractions. That is, if one guy sees some new event and goes off that way, inevitably not everyone would follow.

The second problem he had was the level capping. This is designed to keep the entire game challenging throughout--you can't overpower content at any point. But in reality, rewards are always worse in lower-level areas and the level capping mechanic tends to make the feeling of power progression non-existent. And this in turn is made worse by the fact that you unlock your weapons and skills so early.

Another of my friends had a more ambivalent approach to the game. He was interested, and played, but ultimately he had absolutely no interest in grouping up in it. The game was too easy, he said, and you get no real benefit from grouping. This was often quite frustrating, but emphasizes to me the way certain players interact with the game. Because leveling content was so easy, there was never any incentive to actually group up--it didn't speed things up at all, and in fact grouping often seemed burdensome in the game because you couldn't just go off and do things at your own pace.

Another friend absolutely fell in love with the game, and to this day spends almost every non-working moment playing. He has numerous characters, many of them at high level, and he massively enjoys virtually every aspect of the game. I think he is a perfect example of the type of player this game specifically caters to--someone who is interested in exploring, and performing a wide variety of different activities and challenges without any real sense of grind. Guild Wars 2 excels in that above any other MMO I've played.

For myself, I got a character to level 80 (an elementalist), and greatly enjoyed the game. But, as I continued to level and my friends mostly stopped playing as a group, my interest began to wane. MMOs, even good MMOs, aren't that interesting to me as a solo activity and the group just wasn't interested in doing things together. After spending some time grinding at 80--dealing with Orr, which I slowly grew to hate--I realized just how pointless it was. Orr is buggy, and a pain in the arse to navigate, and the major events presented nothing but frustrating repetitiveness. Maybe things have gotten better there, but Orr was just not a very good end-game experience for me. And so after a few weeks at 80, and puttering around with other characters, I just stopped playing and moved on to games like Borderlands 2, and XCOM.

Finally, I want to mention something about the dungeons. The dungeons are basically the main grouping content in the game. And they are relatively hard. Now I say that with a bit of a grain of salt here, because as has been very obvious with my friends for a long time, not all of them are very good at that sort of experience. And since we were just 4 people instead of 5, and certain members just didn't want to include a 5th outside of the group, we were forced to do these dungeons a man down. With people who were not properly geared, and weren't necessarily good at that content in the first place. To put it bluntly, attempting these was a disaster, and it was just an exercise in frustration--certain individuals in our group just couldn't adjust to the difficulty, and didn't have the patience to try to learn the dungeons. As such, our attempts were mostly a failure and in fact to this day I haven't actually seen many of the dungeons.

I mention this because I think it would have been nice for them to include a more casual mode--even the story mode dungeons are pretty hard for a very casual group (which we were), and explorable mode was mostly out of the question. Some form of dungeon-finder tool would have been nice as well...for the most part I found it very hard to find groups and those groups I did find universally couldn't complete the dungeons either. I think this was because of the difficulty difference between the dungeons and the rest of the content--there seemed to be less patience with the dungeons because everything else was so easy.

Overall, Guild Wars 2 is the first MMO I've played that I've really enjoyed, but completely stopped playing less than 2 months after release. And it shows me just how much the social aspect of an MMO can be--while the game is fine, good (even great), without the social aspect its just another single player experience. And as a single-player experience Guild Wars 2 doesn't have any benefits over any other game. Sad, perhaps, but true.

Guild Wars 2 Stress Test...Tonight!

Every since the end of the 3rd Beta Weekend I've been steadily getting more and more hyped for the game. There have been two stress tests since then, but both during work hours so at most I got to spend about 30 minutes in game before it ended. Tonight there is going to be a 3rd stress test lasting from 6 PM to 10 PM central time and I am psyched.

For several reasons I deliberately limited my time with the 3rd beta weekend. For one thing, I really wanted to keep my experience with the game as fresh as possible. This was coming off a very good experience with experiencing Tera w/o any foreknowledge about the game coloring my actions. I just wanted a taste of the character creation and a quick peak at some of the classes and beginning areas in the game. But I deliberately avoided doing very much just so when the game did release it would remain fresh and new.

Since that beta weekend I've become more and more interested in reading up on the game's core mechanics and classes and I've started regretting the fact that I really didn't spend much time with the beta when I had the chance. Since that beta there have been two stress tests, one last week and one yesterday. Both during hours that I work, and in both cases I was able to get in only about 30 minutes before they took the servers down.

Tonight there is going to be a third stress test, and it's going to be happening between 6 PM and 10 PM tonight. This will be a good chance to see the game in action again, and a chance to spend some time actually looking at the classes in (a little) more detail. And this is more important that I originally thought it would be because Guild Wars 2 limits you to just 5 character slots. That means that you can't just create 1 character for each class.

*while I assume that you'll be able to buy more characters slots once the game ships, I don't know any details about who many, or how expensive that will be.

At this point there are several classes that seem very interesting to me: Elementalist, Engineer, Necromancer, and Ranger (in that order). The other classes all have things of interest I like (Thief, Warrior, and Guardian). Mesmer actually sounds cool, but the 10 minutes I spent with one didn't impress me. Though I am well aware that it's impossible to base a real impression on a class based one look up to level 3, with just the default weapon (and not all of the skills unlocked).

At this point I would really like to spend some quality time with the Elementalist Class. When I first played it in the beta, I got to level 4, and 'unlocked' the staff. But now I realize just how off I was. I now know about elemental attunements, and skill chains, and etc. So really I just have unlocked the Fire skills on the staff; and nothing else. Heh. There is no weapon swapping for the Elementalist and I can see why: with elemental attunements Elementalists have access to 25 skills at any given time. 10 more than the other classes (at least from what I can tell). The Elementalist may have a limited weapon selection, and no swapping, but they seem to actually have even more flexibility. This has increased by interest in the class even more.

Another thing I want to spend some time with is key bindings. The default key bindings in the game are, in a word, unpleasant. Considering my mouse and keyboard setup a different binding setup is going to be required. I spent some time with that last night, but with game time so short I really just set one thing and wondered around until the game kicked me out. Hopefully I'll get some time to refine things a bit without feeling like I'm having to rush.

Tera Midgame

I've been playing Tera for about a month now. I've had a chance to see many of the game's systems in play and I'm now past the honeymoon phase. The new look and feel shine has worn off a little bit, and the reality of the game is starting to sink in. At this point I have a level 41 sorcerer, my original priest is level 36, and I've played both Warrior and Lancer into the 30s. I've done crafting, and instanced dungeons, and grouped up for BAM fights. And while I have no idea what Tera's endgame is like, I feel that I've had enough time to figure out the leveling game. Fortunately, I'm still having fun with Tera, enough that I'll probably be keeping my subscription past the release of Guild Wars 2.

  

There are some harsh realities that have set in though. The most obvious is the fact that Tera stays too close to the WoW foruma--and it's the vanilla version of that to boot. Tera's game systems are rather simplistic. There are fewer gear slots and fewer meaningful stats. It's questing system is beyond simple, with a very limited variety of quest types. It's crafting system is even more simplistic than WOW's, if that is even possible. It's dungeon finder tool is next to worthless, and it's LFG channel is a cess pit that's worse than I've seen in most MMOs (and that is saying something).

All of these were problems with SWTOR as well. However, while The Old Republic tried to make up for that with story, Tera tries to make up for it's deficiencies in it's combat system and class mechanics. And without this combat system, Tera would be a true flop. As it is, though, Tera's classes and combat save the game even into the mid levels. It's not fresh, or exciting anymore, but it is still fun.

Leveling from 1-20 is very simple, and takes a very short amount of time. 20-30 is slower, sure, but still very fast and painless for pretty much every class I've played. So when I say that I've gotten 3 classes into the level 30 range that's not saying much. It's only at around level 30 where the leveling slope starts to turn verticle and the newness of the game starts wearing off.

It makes me wonder...would a game like this do better with a much higher level cap (say in the 200 range), but with faster levels? It would necessitate a lot of marginal power-up skills, but most of these MMO systems are designed to scale well anyway.

Anyway, it's around level 30 where you hit the leveling brick wall and everything slows down a lot. I've read that a lot of people give up on the game at this level, and I can understand why. Everything is the same...it just takes longer. Kill quests get longer, and give a percentage smaller amount of XPs for the next level. And by this point, the simplistic quest design really starts to show the failings of the system. Levels 1-30 does not feel like a grind. Levels 30 to 40 most certainly do.

The pace does settle, though, and it remains pretty constant from levels 30 to 40. And in reality the amount of time it takes to level isn't all that bad--a few hours at most per level, less if you know where everything is (which I do not). I think I've read where it's possible to get from 1-60 in about 72 hours, and I can certainly see that. And while the quests do not become any more complex, the environments and monsters most certainly do.

This is a common feature of most MMOs, especially when leveling. It's not uncommon for characters to actually feel LESS powerful as they go up in level because the monsters outpace the power of the characters. This is partially by design, especially at low levels. Developers want you to get comfortable with the system before upping the challenge. But in Tera, this difficulty usually manifests itself as monsters having more HP. This is a very bland way of upping the difficulty because it means that the monsters you are fighting aren't really substantially different to what you fought earlier...they just take longer to kill.

Sorcerers seem less susceptible to this, but this is mostly because they seem almost rediculously overpowered in the 20s, and they still do very well in the 30s. Lancers, however, seem to start moving at a glacial pace because everything takes way too long to kill. And at the same time, it becomes much more difficult to solo BAMs in the 30s. Doable, but more difficult. I've had very good luck doing this on my Warrior and Lancer, but very little luck with Sorcerer and Priest. Even then, the fights just start taking too long for the rewards to justify it. My lancer can still pretty much solo any BAM, but at 10-15 minutes per fight it's simply not worth it.

  

While the quests and the classes don't change much, the environments you encounter in the 30s do open up a bit. Not only do you find some large open environments, deserts and such, but you all start finding various open-world dungeons. There's a mine, a pirate cove, and a wizarding school that comes straight out of harry potter. These open-world dungeons are a bit more difficult, mostly due to tight corners and limited space limiting movement (a big deal in Tera combat). Not to mention the trains and adds that inevitably pop up. The variety, though, helps and does create some more focused experiences and story lines. But it's still not something that makes you forget the grind.

There is a lot of talk about some of the negative aspects of Tera here, but really I'm still having fun with the game. I just wish that as a whole Tera was in a more polished state. And I'll admit that I'm a little concerned about how 'gridy' the game is getting. Right now it's about 'right'--slow enough to make each level seem like an accomplishment, but not so slow that it's painful. My goal at this point is to try to hit 60 on my Sorcerer, but at this point that seems less and less likely. Guild Wars 2 is less than 3 weeks away at this point, and while Ive decided to maintain my subscription for a bit after the GW2 launch, I'm not sure how much time I'll be spending with the game past the 25th.

Guild Wars 2 Guilds

When my friends and I began playing The Old Republic, we decided to create a guild for ourselves. In hindsight I think that was a bit of a problem, especially for me, as it limited me from the social aspects of the game more so than any other. And since at least one of my friends is very anti-social (in an online sense), trying to join another guild wasn't really possible. He would have quit first before ever considering that kind of switch. So, my options were limited in that regard and by the time I hit 50 I really had no social pull for any of the more difficult content.



With Tera we have not created a guild at all, though at this point we probably should go ahead and make one. I'm certainly not interested in the political aspects of the game--they are cool and all and present a more interesting form of end-game. But it is also something that is just as much of a commitment as a high end raiding guild. To be successful at that you need a big group, and you really need to commit to it to be successful in any meaningful way. And even if some of the Vanarch seats aren't heavily challenged, it's still way too much of a commitment for a game that I'm really only planning on playing for another month.

With Guild Wars 2 it looks like I can have my cake and eat it too. Apparently in Guild Wars you can create, and join any number of guilds, though you only 'represent' one guild at any given time. That means that we can create a guild just for our friends, but still reach out and join other guilds for more focused content (such as PVE, or PVP, etc). This is a very cool concept (FFXI had something similar, and hopefully this won't take up inventory space like Linkshells did in FFXI). This is again something that points to the way Guild Wars 2 seems to invert core basic concepts with an eye towards usability and openness.

Guilds also seem to include some leveling functions that allow you to increase the abilities of the guild. I looked at this, and this seems cool, though less impressive than the guild leveling I've seen in Warhammer Online, and in World of Warcraft. Of course, this could be expanded later and probably isn't really necessary for release. But I'm not entirely sure it's worth it just to purchase basic 24 hour buffs--it's cool, but not cool like some of the abilities you got in, say, World of Warcraft.

Thoughts on Guild Wars 2 Classes

Thoughts on Guild Wars 2 Characters

After my short experience with the beta I'm looking at playing several different characters. At this point I'm not sure what I'm going to be using as my main (and I won't for a bit), but here's what I'm considering at this point:

• Human Elementalist
• Asuran Engineer
• Sylvan Necromancer
• Char Warrior

Elementalist seemed like a lot of fun the time I spent with it. It's certainly fits with my play style (being a closet mage and all). Lots of options, lots of effect types, and lots of pew-pew. Glass Cannons, however, seem like they will have a hard time in this game, so this may or may not be the best class pick outside of PVE. I also have a friend who is definitely playing this class, so I might have to pick another instead. You can definitely make some very cool looking humans to with this game.

My next choice is an asuran Engineer. The asuran Engineer starting zone is just awesome. I really liked the human starting zone, but the asurans are just cool. The Engineer itself is a cool class, though I didn't get access to all of the class's weapons, I generally liked the mobility and flexibility of the class and it looks to be a lot of fun. It takes a bit of work, but you can also come up with very cute/ugly looking asurans through character creation.

Past that I'm looking at a Sylvan Necromancer. The Sylvan starting zone was the least interesting to me story-wise, but has a cool alien aestetic that I really liked. Everything I've read from people were stating that Sylvan = Elves, and that is definitely not true. They seem much more Fae-like to me--more like nature spirits than anything. The Necromancer Class itself looks a lot of fun--and it seems like it could be a very effective class. The mechanics of the class seem very interesting to me--and my work as an alternate spell caster if Elementalist doesn't pan out. Sylvans are somewhat hard to make look 'good' in the game, though I managed to make a few 'ok' looking characters.

My last thought was to try a Char Warrior, or possibly Thief or Ranger. I spent the least time in the Char zone, so I didn't really get to see much of it. Warriors look OK, and are apparently beasts in PVP. I usually don't like melee classes, but since there are very few true melee classes in this game I think Warrior might be good.

Honestly I didn't do much with Warrior (I only got to level 2). I never even touched Ranger, Thief, or Guardian, though a thief for PVP seems like that might be good. Whatever my main turns out to be, I'll probably be creating at least 2 other characters to play around with, and with those other characters I'd like to hit a wide variety of play styles.

Oh, and as you might have noticed I haven't mentioned Mesmer here. I did create one, but honestly I didn't like it very much (though admittedly I only got to level 3 before I quit). Mesmer is the only class that I'm not planning on touching at launch.

Guild Wars 2 (Beta Impressions)

So I failed. My intention was to completely skip the Guild Wars 2 Beta even though I had already preordered the game. My original plan was to simply look at the character creation options available, but not play the game at all so it would be fresh and new when I started playing next month. Instead I ended up playing the game for about 6 hours, including the end-of-beta event. And as expected I very much liked what little I saw of the game.

During my time with the beta I created 6 different characters of various races and classes: a Human Elementalist, a Auran Thief, a Norn Engineer, a Sylvan Necromancer. and a Char Warrior. The highest level I got on any character was level 5. This was enough to see some of the basic mechanics of each class. It was enough to unlock several weapons, and to see the 'heart?' quests and dynamic quests in action.

I have to say that Guild Wars 2 could very easily be relabeled ADD Wars and with good reason. Maybe it's just the game front-loading the starter zone, but with the heart quests, dynamic quests, and world events going on it became very hard to stay focused on one task. Event were popping up left and right, making the world seem very active and packed with content. This was both good, and bad. Good in the sense that there was always something to do, and it was easy to just get caught up in it and lost in the world. But bad in the sense that it quickly became a bit overwhelming at times. And this was made worse considering the sheer numbers of people in the game doing the events, where there were often scores of people doing the same thing at the same time. Things often became confusing and hard to follow, and since the world doesn't wait around for you it can sometimes end up with you getting lost, or missing out on things because you couldn't keep up.

The chaotic nature of the game made my transition with the interface itself a bit problematic. My fingers are now used to Tera, which has an interface different than most MMOs. Guild Wars 2 has a slightly more traditional interface, but it was one I was having a hard time adjusting to. I don't think this will be a major problem for most people, but I did end up heavily modifying the default interface to get it to where I liked it. By the time I was done, and Hunger Royal started, the interface wasn't bothering me so much.

I never figured out how to gather (I guess you have to purchase items to enable this but I never got a chance to test it). I also didn't get to do any crafting at all, so I don't know how good or bad that system is or how good the gear is. I avoided doing story quests (except for the ones you have to do in the starter area). Instead I primary focused on heart quests and dynamic quests, and a bit of exploring. I did a couple of skill challenges, found several vistas (which are very Assassin's Creed-like). There will be a LOT of possible exploring in this game, which should really help with the longevity of the game.

Overall my first impressions with the game are is that it is very beautiful, very smooth, and it can clearly scale pretty well. Combat is very tight, and combines some of the best elements of WOW and Tera. It seems faster paced than either of those games, though, and the game does suffer from having so many effects on screen that it can be sometimes hard to stay up with the action. I'm also not quite convinced about the way skills are tied to weapons. From what I can tell it doesn't take very long to unlock things, so it's pretty obvious that you can unlock all of the abilities of your character very early on. Weapon swaps will certainly help, and I presume will be a cornerstone of the system when that ability unlocks.

I'm definitely excited to get a chance to play the game in late obvious. Perhaps more excited than I was before. In the meantime, I've still got Tera to play around with and that's what I'll be doing in the short term I think.

On another subject, I finally cancelled by subscription to Star Wars: The Old Republic. While it had it's problems and the game lost its luster long too soon I have to say that I really enjoyed the game and will remember it fondly. Too bad TOR's end game was so boring. I have about 20 days to log back in and do stuff before my last play period expires.

Tera Mystic (First Impressions)

After getting Priest to level 30 I've now manage to get a Mystic to level 25. This wasn't really my intent, but as my other friends have been playing now I decided to create another healer to run through Bastion of Lok, and leveling Mystic to 20 was pretty easy. While I'm no means a master of the class, I do have a few things to say about it at this point, though keep in mind my impressions are limited to the level 1-25 range.

And unfortunately my impressions of the class up to this point is that it is a poor man's priest, and no where near as interesting.

Offensively Mystic works very much like a Priest (except with fewer spells). Mystics have a standard ranged attack (just like Priest, and Sorcerer), a short ranged cone-based AOE (like Priest), and a short ranged high damage strike (just like Priest). This combination is very effective at low level, just like priest, and I have to admit I was MUCH faster soloing this time around. But this isn't because Mystic is faster or harder hitting (quite the opposite I think), it's because my soloing tactics have changed due to experience.

While I leveled this range as Priest I stayed at long range, plinking and jumping to stay at range. This is a mistake, in fact. At low levels (up to 25), it's much more effective to pull packs of mobs, stay at close range, and chain your AOEs at close range while circling your opponent to avoid most hits. While before I was taking on 1 mob at a time, I'm doing 4+ as a mystic. And with packs of small mobs I'm pulling 3-4 packs at a time, and AOEing them. Priest could do the same thing, but I just didn't even think about it at the time.

Mystics do get an effective lock-on poison effect that is very effective and has the advantage of being castable in motion. This is a cool spell, which can stack up to 3 times on a target, but is hampered by a 10 second duration, which means that you will be casting this a LOT. Too bad, because with this spell, and other DPS spells, the Mystic would be much more effective, but as it is it can actually be somewhat annoying to keep 100% of the time this up while healing.

As a healer Mystics just don't have the options that a Priest does. Mystics can drop healing orbs, which are very nice. And they have an effective lock-on heal. They also have a lock-on cleanse...and a very expensive healing fairy that stays up only for a few seconds. That's it. Priest definitely feels more versatile.

Of course Mystics DO get summons, but in practice I've not been enthused with them. Besides the tanking summon, most of the summons don't last very long (10-20 seconds), have a high MP cost, and aren't  that affective anyway. The tanking pet, for example, holds aggro 'ok', but on average is hitting for about 28 damage and gets knocked down a LOT. The Thrall of Vengeance, a ranged attacker, lasts for less than 20 seconds, and does just about 180 damage a hit (about the same as the primary nuke at this stage), and uses a lot of mana so you can't just leave it up even if you wanted to.

In fact even with using my main nuke, with the DPS pet, and the poison debuff at 3 stacks I feel like I'm doing...less damage than any other class than perhaps priest (at range anyway). And this is simply not sustainable for very long even under the best of circumstances.

And unlike Priests, Mystics seem to have a mana issue. While Priests can easily get mana back pretty easily Mystics only have Circle of Corruption at this level and this is a low damage AOE that's short range and returns a relatively small amount of damage (though on the plus side it provides mana to everyone in range). From experience the spell is not that useful solo, and is harder to use in a party where there is a lot of movement and AOE. That's not to say it's worthless, but the spell would be much better with a slightly larger radius, or a reduced channeling time.

As for evasion the Mystic class gets Teleport (just like the sorcerer), which is a pretty cool spell by itself. But priests get two evasion skills, one with a damage component, so even in that regard Priest seems more versatile. Fighting BAMs solo, I definitely preferred the two jumping skills that Priests get over Mystics single (if cooler) teleport.

At 25 I think I have enough information to say that while the class is not broken, it may not be the one for me. It's features mimic those of other classes too closely and it's distinctive abilities (such as its summons) are just not that cool. They need to last longer, and be more effective than they are right now (it would also be useful if you could heal them). Party Auras are much more useful (at this point I've only got the party speed buff), but burn mana which is already a scarce resource.

The two Bastion of Lok runs I did with the Mystic showed me that unlike Priest, who can still DPS in a fight, as a Mystic mana was too much of a precious resource to burn. Every time I tried to heal and DPS, I ended up having to stop for fear of running out of mana. And Circle of Corruption was completely worthless in a boss fight--it wasn't worth the risk of getting that close and staying in one place long enough for it to be effective. At least 50% of the time I tried, I'd get knocked down, and loose the channel anyway.

So at this point I'm not likely to take my Mystic much farther. I might do a few more BOL runs, or possibly SM?, but I'm much happier with Priest at this point and am looking forward with the rest of my group catching up to 30.

Tera Priest (Impressions)

I decided to try the Priest as my main in Tera. This is not my normal choice—as this blog suggests, I prefer mage/wizards (the Sorcerer seems to be the Tera equivalent for the play style). I chose priest mostly because as a Priest I’d have an easier time getting into instances and seeing other content, which is especially important if I’m doing this just by myself. And I’ve gotten used to healing from my time in The Old Republic, so why not give it a shot?

At first you don’t really get a good feeling for the mechanics at first. This is very true of most MMOs, but it is especially true of a game like Tera which relies on skill chaining ability sets to distinguish the classes from one another. I didn’t really start getting a ‘feel’ for the class until around level 16 or so, and I suspect that this is true for all classes in Tera (and why the prologue provided starts at 20).

As a solo class, Priest is slow and steady with no downtime but taking some time to kill stuff. They are adequate solo, and effective but I’m sure other classes are better (or at least faster).

(And you’ll have to forgive me in advance. This is an impression post, and I do not remember the names of the abilities I’m describing here).

Priests have two main ranged nukes—a low-damage bolt with no cool down; and a higher damage bolt that you can fire in groups of 3 before hitting short  cool down. Both of these bolts chain into other abilities. Some of these are auto created for you, while others you get to set up and customize. This is one of the reasons why Tera’s combat is so interesting, and figuring out how to do this takes some real time and experimentation. 

For example, my main low-damage nuke chains into a short range cone-based AOE (useful for close mobs), which in turns chains into a staff-strike which does considerable damage to any enemy directly in front. The triple-strike bolt also chains directly into staff strike, so if you time it right you can hit them with that, and then immediately fire off a hit with the staff for high damage. Priests also get a short range ball of lightning that does considerable damage—and chains directly into the staff strike. That last example is a particularly heavy hitting damage, even though it’s short range.

As for moving and positioning the Priest has two key abilities:  a jump back, and a jump back-with-fire which does the same thing, but also does a little damage to everything close by. But you often have to do a lot of running, and these abilities are more useful for getting out of the way instead of kiting. This may change at higher levels, but I doubt it. Priests, from what I’ve read, are one of the least mobile classes in the game.

Priests have two abilities that give them a considerable amount of sustainability. They have a short-cast self-heal that heals for a considerable amount of damage (about 25% of the character’s health at this level), and a channeled mana regen that can be used in combat, and while moving, which can restore up to 800 mana in one channel. Both of these abilities mean that Priests can heal themselves, and keep doing so for an effectively indefinite amount of time. If a priest or someone in the group falls, it is normally due to the priest either being out of position, or simply overwhelmed by the amount of damage being thrown around.

As for healing the experience is a bit different than in other MMOs. Since you don’t really target people, healing is most definitely NOT whack-a-mole. Instead Priests heal primarily through lock-on abilities (which have to be targeted), and AOE abilities which affect an area of the ground (and this changes based on the ability in question).

Lock on heals are interesting in that when you use them you target them. You hit the ability, then have to lock on to them by aiming at them, and then you trigger the ability again to cast it. Priests have a lock-on heal that affects 2 targets (and up to 3 with a glyph). It’s a cool mechanic, actually, and it’s affected by line-of-sight which is frustrating, but again speaks to the fact that positioning is critical.

AOE heals vary a bit more (and I’ve not seen all of them by any means). Priests get a potent HOT with a relatively short targeting circle; and a much smaller HOT with a much larger radius. They also have a cleansing AOE, which cleanses friendlies within the range of the circle. This creates a different healing play style, since healing involves using the right heals, and then targeting them in the right location. It’s even more important since some of these abilities have fixed ranges/areas, so targeting them involves moving into the right position to cast.  

Other heals show up later, including a group shield and various hot-like effects. But the basics seem very straight forward, and they do a good job of showing just how Tera plays different than most MMOs. And while the classes damage options are relatively limited, they are effective enough and the class doesn’t lag far behind when it comes to soloing performance—if it lags at all. At this point, I’m not sure that it does.

At this point I’ve only scratched the surface of the class, and of Tera itself. Priest is fun with a variety of options on how to play. Its only downside is its lack of options when it comes to DPS—the abilities it has are fine, it just doesn’t have a LOT of them (at least through level 20 or so). If anything, I’ve heard people say that leveling Priest is easy-mode, which may or may not be true.

Either way I’m going to stick with the class until at least 30 before moving on to try some other things for a bit. As I go I may continue to post my impressions of the whole thing and if I do I’ll continue to post them here.  I’m definitely wanting to spend more time with Sorcerer, and Lancer, both of them look like fun, useful classes that will be worth checking out.

True Blood (Season 5)

So, am I the only person out there that thinks that True Blood Season 5 is much improved over last year’s disappointing season? I remember liking a lot of the individual episodes in Season 4, but taken as a whole, the season was a major disappointment.

And on the surface, Season 5 seems to have some of the same problems.

• Too many characters I don’t care about.
• Too many plot lines to keep track of taking up air time.
• Too many characters doing stupid things in service to the plot.
• Sookie
• Tara 

Yet, none of these things have bothered me so much this year. Even though so far Season 5 has spent way too much of its time with THE AUTHORITY, and vampire politics that have always bogged the show down. I’m not sure why this is, honestly…has my tolerance for the show simply gone up since last summer? Or is it that I find the character interactions much more interesting this year.

Whatever the reason, I’m finding that I’m much more interested in what’s happening on screen this year. I like the interactions between the characters more even if the plot is moving at a pretty glacial pace and Russell (presumably the main villain of the season) hasn’t even been fully seen yet.  I just have the vague impression that the whole thing is leading to some form of Vampire/Faery showdown, though at this point the season could veer off in virtually any direction at this point.

I just hope that the show does a better job including all of the main characters in the story as a whole, like it did in Season 1 and Season 2.  

Tera First Impressions

So I’m pretty much done with Star Wars: The Old Republic. And I’m pretty much committed to playing Guild Wars 2 in September. And while I’ll still be playing TOR for another month or so, mostly doing 4-mans with friends once a week, I really have no interest in trying to level another character to 50, or even doing more on the Imperial side. To make things worse, I don’t really have any new single-player games to play right now. So, I went ahead and downloaded the Tera trial and installed it.

Tera is a fairly straight forward fantasy-based MMO. I’m told it is a Korean MMO, though I haven’t done ANY research on the game. It came out earlier this year (May, I believe), and what little I know about it has been its combat system which has been mostly praised from everything I’ve read. The game definitely has a distinctive Asian theme to it, that’s both pretty and colorful, and the game itself is gorgeous.

The reviews I read indicated two things: first, the game’s combat system is very good. And second, the game’s leveling system is about as generic as you can get. And now that I’ve spent some time in the game (I have a Priest at level 26) I can say both of those statements are very accurate.

As First Impressions go, Tera is a little bit of a mixed bag. Like every MMO I’ve ever played, you pick a server, and create a character. You have a good variety of characters you can make, and you can customize the characters more than most MMO’s I’ve played. And you can make some very cool looking characters in the system—it’s better than SWTORS by far, while offering considerable flexibility. And it gives you a chance during creation to view the character under multiple different types of gear which in itself is useful to people who care a lot about the look of their characters.

Character classes seem fairly varied. You have tanks (Lancer, Warrior…though apparently there is some debate about the effectiveness of Warrior tanks); Slayer and Beserker for melee DD, Sorcerer and Archer for Ranged DD, and Priest and Mystic for Healing. This is actually one of the areas where the game really shines: because of the way in which the combat system works, there are a lot of new ways that a class can distinguish itself compared to a lot of other MMOs.

The game starts with some ‘epic’ cut scenes, and a rather bewildering ‘Prologue’ which also serves as a form of tutorial. I’m not sure if this was just for the 7 day free-trial, but the Prologue makes your character level 20, with a full set of abilities, and then shows you some of the basic mechanics. I did this as a priest, and I was a bit frustrated by it mostly because in the end you fight a boss as a healer, but actual healing didn’t seem to work. In hindsight, I think I understand why…you can’t heal NPCs not in your party…but it never TELLS you that.

The story itself is rather bland and doesn’t really explain things very well. Basically there are two sleeping titans, who formed the continents (or, I think ARE the continents), and now some new island has formed. And the combined nations see this as a threat of some form, though I have no idea why. An expedition was sent, yet everyone died. So, now you are part of a second expedition of level 1 characters who will have to succeed where all of the established veterans failed. And while you are there you are to find out what happened to the leader of the first expedition that was with you in the prologue.

This is where Tera certainly missteps. The graphics are pretty, and the art style is great. Yet the story and presentation is lacking in every way. Most of the quests in the prologue involve you being sent from person to person to person, not really doing anything but running back and forth and reading quest text. And this definitely follows with the ‘and the questing is as generic as it gets’ point above.

Tera is a quest-based leveling game that is definitely very WOW like in regards to leveling and execution. You go to an area. You receive a group of quests to kill/collect something with genetic quest text that you can fully ignore, and then you run in a circuit doing everything the quests ask you to do. Then you turn everything in and move on to the next area. There is actually LESS variation from what I’ve seen than WOW…WOW had the benefit with Cataclysm of revamping the questing system and using new scripting tech to increase the types of quests they could present. Tera shows little of that. It’s ‘kill 10 things, or ‘collect 5 things’, or ‘kill things till you get ‘x’ drops’.  It’s simple, and mindless, and deliberately designed to flow easily. But even at its best it’s as generic as it gets.

On the plus side questing help is very useful and things are easy to track. Hyperlinks in quest descriptions allow you to identify objectives, and follow things; and you can easily arrange the orders of quest in your screen however you want. And the quests are definitely designed to flow together—though they are generic and boring, they are designed to be inoffensive as possible. So when combined with the combat system the game actually flows pretty well.

And speaking of the combat system, Tera’s is good. I’ve seen several classes now and the game rewards being actively engaged with one’s target and situation far more than most MMOs. And skill very much reflects on how well you do rather than gear and mindless stats. Gear lets you do things faster, but not necessarily ‘better’. This is because positioning, avoidance, and maneuvering is more important in the game—you avoid damage by NOT BEING HIT. And a lot of the game’s mechanics involve maneuvering into positions to attack (say from a flanking position or from behind), all while avoiding being hit yourself. Combat therefore takes a bit more time in Tera, but it’s more engaging and more fun, and feels much more mindless.

Then there are the BAMS, or ‘Big Assed Monsters’—their name not mine. These are larger mobs designed to be taken by a party. They are basically like mini-bosses (though some of the lower level BAMS I’ve encountered actually have more mechanics that saw an old Molten Core boss in WOW. I’ve killed some of these solo—but this can take 10 to 15 minutes to kill and I’m not sure that the rewards are worth it. The risk involved is relatively high, but it’s also good practice and I suspect this is fairly indicative of the game as a whole.

At this point I’ve gotten at least one class to Level 26 (Priest) and I’ve played several other classes past the starter area (Lancer, and Sorcerer). Each of these classes plays different from the other, and in ways that I like. The start zone itself doesn’t change though. And I suspect that the level grind pretty much has the same problem SW:TOR had—it seems very likely that you will have to follow the same level path through the game, with only a little variation to keep things moving.

Despite these minor problems and nick picks the game has proven to be very fun and I’ve had a blast playing it. It may be generic question, but the combat and new scenery makes the experience as a whole anything but boring. And now seems to be a good time to be playing it. The server I’m on seems active and lively, and there is plenty of content to see that is new. I’m looking forward to checking out some instances as a healer (healing in this game as a Priest is definitely more involved), and I’m interested in seeing if some of the higher level content shakes things up a bit.

I don’t know how long I’ll be playing this. Certainly up to the time of Guild Wars 2. But, who knows, I may end up keeping up with the game past GW2 if the end game is interesting and accessible enough. It certainly seems like the game will keep my attention at least to the level cap at 60.

Star Wars: The Old Republic (Final Thoughts)

Star Wars: The Old Republic was the game I knew for a while was going to be the game I quit World of Warcraft over. Several of my WOW friends were invested in the game, and so burned out on WOW that there was no way they were going to stick around after TOR came out. Even I quit WOW before The Old Republic shipped—there was no point in playing any more when everyone I knew was pretty much gone and raiding in Cataclysm had become too much of a social drain.

I had high hopes for the Old Republic, and at first the game made a very good first impression. The idea of a story based MMO was very cool to me, and the presentation of the game was worlds above that of any other MMO I’d played. I had various fantasies about my days with FFXI, which had some very interesting stories wrapped around a completely unforgiving social system that left people spending more of their time waiting to get into a party than actually in a party. And I had a core group of friends that I had to experience the whole game with.

And now, some 6 months later, I see SW:TOR as something of a failed experiment for Bioware and EA. Yet, I also think the game shows a blue-print for how other companies might very well be able to succeed moving forward.

Yet I did call TOR a failed experiment. And I truly believe that. The problem is that TOR tried to take a traditional single-player WOW experience and wrap its quests around a central narrative. This, I think is actually a very good idea as it turns what is in every other MMO the least interesting part of the game into its central feature. But, in reality Bioware completely failed in the execution of this concept.

TOR may have had 8 separate storylines, and two completely different experiences, but simply put it ALL sucked. In fact it sucked hard. At first I really tried to get into it—but very quickly the reality of it set in and it was apparent that TOR’s storylines were bland, disinteresting, and in many ways completely infuriating. It took something that should have been truly grand and epic, and made it very much like watching C-SPAN.

TOR’s story presentation was about as bland as you can get. Almost every cut-scene was simply about people talking. Actual action was rare, and poorly presented. I mean when the War starts—the one hinted at for 40 levels, you don’t even get to see a newscast or a single ship. Instead someone just says, ‘The War Started. We’re already almost defeated and about to lose the war. Here have a quest that has nothing to do with that.’

It doesn’t help that the Republic storylines were horrible. And as a Republic player who hit 50 with 2 characters I can say with certainty that the Republic should fall. And just about every senator and military official should be shot as a traitor, or shot for complete incompetence. J

To put it in better terms, a Star Wars story should be epic. It should be epic-feeling. It should have serious consequences. It should be about the battle between good and evil, and the shades of grey in between. Yet, SWTOR’s story never at any point showed any evidence of being epic. Mostly the storyline was presented in the most boring and generic manner possible. You go up to a quest giver, you watch him spout off whatever BS he has to say, spout a few agreements/insults in return…knowing that none of it had any real consequence at all. Because consequences would screw up the quest line for the zone you were in, and the game couldn’t compensate for that.

Just how many times can you directly disobey General Garza, only for her to bitch you out one second, only to give you praise and a new mission in the same conversation before you realize that none of it matters? How many sith agents can you uncover before you realize that if the Republic was that heavily infiltrated that you might as well hand them the keys to the Kingdom (and of course, in some cases, like on Corellia, that’s exactly what happens).

Let’s face it. TOR’s leveling game was short—yet STILL extremely boring and unfulfilling.

There are other areas where the game failed. Its combat system wasn’t tight enough, for example, especially in instances or PVP where it really mattered. The game engine just couldn’t handle it without lag. Its end game (at least non-raiding end game) was a snooze-fest of dialing and instance grinding that got old fast. Its PVP was at best annoying (and I’m beginning to realize that faction-based PVP, especially 2 faction based PVP is a very bad thing), and each class just had too many abilities to feel comfortable at high levels.

It wasn’t all bad. The companion system was cool (and really helped keep solo combat interesting). Its legacy system was good. Its starter 2-man dungeons were kinda nice—and I would have liked to see a lot more of that honestly. And the gearing/mod system is something that is actually pretty cool. I won’t comment on TOR’s raiding game, because I’ve never experienced it. It could be awesome, I don’t know. I do know that there are several very active and successful raiding guilds on my server, so it’s certainly not horrible.

Despite its troubles, TOR remains one of the better MMOs out there. And while it’s not even a year old and already in decline, that I think is more of a general MMO trend, and one inevitable with TOR’s more story-based design. There is still a lot of promise in the game, and if Bioware can pull off regular story-based expansions that actually feel more like a epic single-player experience with an MMO attached to it, I think they can keep this game going for quite some time. (In some ways I think TOR would benefit from the Guild Wars model…no monthly description, but you buy regular expansions).  

But, for me, my time with the game is quickly coming to an end. I’ll be quitting soon, and really I’ve only been logging in for ‘game night’ for over 2 months now anyway. I’ll probably come back to check out its next major expansion (just like I plan to come back to WOW for Mists of Pandaria, even if it’s just to level to 90). But TOR wasn’t able to hold my interest in the long term. And I probably wouldn’t have stayed as long as I had if not for the group I was with taking so long to get to 50 in the first place.

Still, those first two months were the game were a blast, and that while the polish certainly wore off, I’ll probably still look back with my experiences with the game with fondness years from now.  I just wish the developer's had not stuck so close to the WOW formula, and really worked towards making a completely different story-focused experience. The concept feels right to me, and who knows, maybe there's still time for an expansion to fulfill that goal. Or for some other company to take the core concepts in TOR and execute them well.

My Life as a Retired Raider

(but not a retired MMO player)

It’s been over a year since I quit World of Warcraft, and quit raiding. The reality of it was that my personal life, despite not being married, is just no longer compatible with the raiding life-style, and hasn’t been for quite some time. I seriously stressed over it for a long time in WOW before I gave up, and I would have probably stuck with it even longer if my friends had remained playing. But, people moved on, and the reasons I had to stay evaporated just as my patience with trying to revolve my life around a 3 or 4 night a week raiding schedule ran out.

But even though I’ve quit raiding, I’ve not stopped playing MMOs. After WOW, a group of my RL friends began with The Old Republic, which we started when it came out. After the initial rush, we settled  into a 2-night a week schedule, where we leveled as a group and did instances. It took us a long time, four months, to hit level 50 (in a game where even semi-core people were hitting 50 in 2-3 weeks). And in that time I played several different characters, getting 3 others into the level 35 range, and another to level 50.

The SWTOR end game is very much like WOW. It revolves around raiding, and hard mode instances for gear in PVP; and badly unbalanced PVP grinding for PVP. Raiding is pretty much a no-go for me. Even if I was interested in it, none of my friends are, and those that do are in the same boat as I am. Raiding is fun, but it’s not worth the time commitment anymore.  

This has completely changed the end-game for me, for obvious reasons. It means that as a level-capped character, I am pretty much limited to daily grinding for tokens for better gear…and I’ll pretty much never be able to keep up even if I wanted to. And daily-instance grinding just isn’t that fun by itself.

Playing with a group of RL friends really helps with an MMO, but the specific way we went about playing the game also hurt us. For one thing, we formed our own guild. It was only the 4 (and later 6 of us), it was just a group for us to have a shared channel, etc, and in that regard it was perfect. But it also meant that when we were together, we never really made contacts with anyone else. The entire experience of the game became very sheltered—I’ve yet to do any instance with anyone outside of my friends (even though I’m a Sage healer, and shouldn’t have too much trouble getting a group).

And since I played SWTOR much more casually, I never even now understand all of the mechanics of the game. MMO mechanics—changes to game systems, item lists, crafting, new vendors, etc, are usually pretty cryptic. The developers pretty much expect you to look this stuff up yourself. And even now I find myself out of the loop. SWTOR is a game that needed a lot of polish and changes, and I’ve not really tried to keep up with them.

Of course part of the problem is that as a group, I’ve pretty much just played with my friends and have no outside contacts in the game. And as a non-raider, there is something of a glass ceiling—already I’m slowly reaching the point where better gear becomes a near impossibility without taking the next step. I’ve hit level 50. I’m in the instance-grind. But when I’m done, then what?

This is a core issue with most MMO’s I’ve played, but one that’s never been a real issue because I’ve always been on the other side of the ceiling. Most of the raiding guilds I ever played in were always in the top 5 of the server I was in—capable of doing the most intense raids, but not as quickly on the uptake as the best.  And most PVE end games cater to the raiding crowd, at least in the games I’ve played. And that leaves the rest to always sit in second place, at best.

I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon. But it also means that my commitment to any one game isn’t as great, unlike it was in WOW. My time with SWTOR is almost done. I’m ending my subscription in 2 months, when Guild Wars 2 comes out. My friends and I are pretty much committed to making that switch. And in a lot of ways the game sounds like it will fit my new play style very well.

In the meantime, I’ve tried Tera, which I’ve also had a lot of fun with even with the short amount of time I’ve spent with it. It shows me that even now, I like the MMO style. Tera may have an interesting combat mechanic, but in every other respect it’s a traditional Everquest/WOW like MMO. Yet, I’ve enjoyed the questing, even if it’s as generic as it gets. Everything is fun, and new, and interesting. And I’ll probably stick with it for the next 2 months, or until I hit 60 (which is the level cap in that game right now). I may even do some PVP and other activities. And then I’ll move on to Guild Wars 2 and start the cycle all over again. And then maybe I’ll try the Secret World, or another MMO that has already come out, but I never checked out the first time through.

This is my life now as an ex-raider. I’m still playing, still having fun, but as my commitment towards a specific game is much lower so is my loyalty to it. It’s not that I’m burned out. But, as the best rewards require more commitment than I’m willing to make—or more specifically the methods of obtaining them are simply not fun enough to go far—in most cases I’m not even bothering to try. I’m much more willing at that  point to switch to something new and different than stick with the grind. This is a perspective that I know most hard-core people strongly abject to, but the reality is that the non-raiding game just isn’t as interesting because of the lack of social context. And because of that I have no incentive to continue, and little loyalty to any one game.

TV Series Renews

Yes, I haven't blogged here for quite some time. Been busy. :)

But, in the spirit of the TV season...I'm very very happy that my two most favorite shows have been picked up for another season! Fringe is getting a season 4 (though this has been known for a while), and now Chuck is getting a series-ending Season 5...awesome.

I'm not going to go into details here, but it's no secret at this point that Fringe's 3rd Season started with a bang, but ended with a whimper. The fact of the matter is that sometime about episode 16 the writers clearly started running out of ideas and the show consistantly returned to annoying concepts. The Soul Magnets / Bell return was cringe-inducing, and the final three episodes regarding the end of the Universe were surprisingly filler-filled and had what I could call a very unsatisfying conclusion. Still everything else about the show this season was top-solid...so I'm quite psyched that we're going to see a season 4 (even if the prospects of a s5 are low).

Now Chuck has consistantly had more problems this year. Most episodes haven't been bad, but they haven't been good either. And while there have been a few standout episodes, there haven't been as many. Chuck is now certainly a show in decline...but despite that it's great to see that it's going to get a series-ending 5th season to (hopefully) go out with a bang.

Chuck's problems are much deeper than Fringe's though. While Fringe suffered from too much padding near the end (and cringe-worthy plots), Chuck's problem is the change in dynamics. And this goes right back to Season 3 and Chuck becoming a 'Real Spy', which was made even worse when Morgan also became a spy.

Chuck was always cool because he wasn't a spy, but when it was necessary he proved that he could consistantly pull through when it was needed. Sure he was unorthodox, and goofy, but his heart was in the right place. But now, as a real spy, his goofiness no longer seems funny--it makes him seem stupid and out of place. And throwing Morgan, who is ten times worse, robs most of the menance from the show as the situations often get too unrealistic and goofy to take very seriously. The bonding of the team has improved, and that's a plus side, but the dynamics don't fit right anymore and the writers have never really adjusted to that. There have been some obvious course-correction attemps (Chuck is no longer quite so super-powered...he now can loose fights even when flashing, for example), but really none of those have helped.

Still, Chuck vs. the Push Mix was one of the best episodes of the show and that alone makes S4 worth it.

Filler

This is filler.

Fun with Books!

I haven't posted here in a bit...many reasons (many still apply). But, as an aspiring writer (admittedly with little ambition at the moment) I've always enjoyed reading. Except in recent years, I've barely done any reading at all. And while this isn't a new years resolution, it's something I've consciously tried to change. In the spirit of that, I've purchased quite a few books last month (mostly cheap) and I've started going through them slowly but surely.

At this point, I've read:

Flood, by Stephen Baxter
Hull Zero Three, by Greg Bear
and Consider Phelbas, by Iain M. Banks.

I might go into a little bit more about this a little later, but man all three of these books (each Sci-Fi, but each quite different from the other) are depressing as hell.

Of the three Consider Phelbas is by far the best, and perhaps the best well known (it's the first Culture novel). It's also the most action-packed of the bunch, telling the story of a single mission by a determined and drive main character in the midst of a galaxy-spanning war. Interestingly, considering this is the first Culture novel, the main character (whom I'd say is an anti-hero) is an enemy of the Culture itself and as such much of the setting is told through his view of things. Very good book, with some admittedly stupid sections, and a devistating dark ending where it becomes clear just how hopeless the main character's mission was all along, considering just how many people he killed in the process of completing it.

Hull Zero Three is a dark sci-fi book set on a mysterious generation-ship gone wrong. It reminded me very much of the movie Pandorum in places; but this is still more of a sci-fi story with some horror elements. The story itself gets dark and twisted, as the main character, Teacher, begins to understand (but never fully) who, and what, he is and what the implications of that are. Another book with a very dark ending, one that I didn't really like honestly.

Flood is a more technical oriented sci-fi book about the end of the Earth, after cracks in the Earth's crust cause a massive subcontinental ocean to spill to the surface in an event which will eventually raise the ocean levels by kilometers--effectively plunging the entire world into the water. It is a rather cold, clinical effort, where the characters are more witnesses to the horrific events as civilization collapses over a period of 50 years, leaving very little hope for humanity's by the end of the book. The book reminds me too much of 2012...without the nice glimmer of hope at the end.

Next up for me, is Ark, the sequel to Flood, which jumps back in the story a bit to tell about a different group of 'survivors' trying to survive the flood (by a effort to colonize another planet). After Flood, I'm not entirely sure how much I want to read it...but we'll see.

Oh, and I forgot about another book, David Weber's Out of the Dark. This one is a war story told about the invasion of Earth by an alien species bent on conquering the planet as part of various manipulations of a larger alien hegemony of worlds that believe humans are too dangerous to survive. The book is very much in the style of John Ringo, telling various tales of human inguinity as they try to fight off their attackers, who just can't understand human psychology and therefore cannot predict their actions. It's actually a very good book, until the end when Dracula and his vampires show up to save humanity in the last 20 pages of the book. Dracula. Vampires. Yeah, I couldn't believe it and it's so out of tone for the rest of the book that it completely ruined the otherwise good story for me.

Just a reminder...

Now I know people really don't read this blog. And my goal with this has never been to earn page views or get any form of recognition. That's why posting here is occasional at best, and I rarely proof reed what I post here. However, there have been a few occasions where it seems possible that people HAVE been coming to this site--rarely at best. And because of that I just wanted to put this out here.

The purpose of this blog is simple: it gives me an opportunity to practice a different form of writing style than what I'm used to. It's also intended to try to practice writing, and practice at being more accurate the first time, so I do limited proof reading. The idea being to make a serious attempt to do things right on the first draft, while still maintaining a reasonable writing speed.

For those one or two people who have read the site at one point or another...feel free to make fun of me.

Fringe S6E7 - The Abducted

After last weeks merely 'good' episode, Fringe returned this week with another great hour of television. I'll have to admit that my anticipation of this episode was pretty damned high, and I wasn't disappointed even if the previews lied a bit about what was going to happen. And, after last week's exposition dump, this episode features a good, creepy, investigation and some great character interaction. And, like ever good episode, it leaves you longing for the next episode...which with the Thanksgiving break we have 2 weeks to wait for. Bastards!

Interestingly, Olivia's quest to return home took a back seat to the Fringe investigation of a young man by the Candy Man...a man who would kidnap and destroy the lives of young children for some unknown purpose. It's an investigation that hits home for the Fringe Division, as Broyles son was a previous victim, leaving everyone on edge. And while Henry was back, his role was much smaller this time and didn't have as much opportunity for the character. Too bad, as his character was the highlight of the first episode of the season.

Again, avoiding spoilers it's hard to talk about specific details. But I will say that the investigation was probably one of the most logical that Fringe has done in a while...oftentimes the show relies on 'fringe' tech or science to solve cases which stretch reality. This one was all about solid detective work and following leads. It also showed an opportunity for Olivia to show her chops more than once to Fringe Division, to her partners, and to Broyles.

There is a lot to like about the third season. Everything is more 'dense', and everything has context. This really adds a lot even to the seemingly unrelated cases...but it does have a side effect in that the cases themselves become less important to the plot of the show as a whole. This was noticeably true tonight...don't get me wrong it was great...but it was also a bit more simplistic (something that has become a bit of a trend in the third season). Personally i think it's a good move; the third season shifts the focus to the characters and is better for it. Lets face it, Fringe's greatest strength is located in it's characters and anything that shows them off makes the show better.

So, at this point I'm going to get into some spoiler territory...I want to do some speculation.

OK, so Olivia escaped, but was drawn back just like the last time she tried. I was wondering if that would happen--since both other times she got pulled back quickly after transferring. I was wondering if she would get pulled back, and if not how they would explain that...but now it's obvious that this is something relating to the mechanics of traveling between universes. And this makes her return even more difficult than before.

There are a few precedents for what happened...Walter's discussion about the car on the flag pole. The building of equal mass being forced to the other side to replace one moved to 'our' universe. Even Walternate being able to return home easily after finding Peter...obviously there is something of a rubber band effect happening. And my guess is that Olivia was being forced back because their Olivia is still there. This is probably something she can learn to master, I think, but it's a process that must be overcome when transferring and that is something she hasn't figured out yet.

So, now Peter knows the truth. I was hoping that he had known, but it had become more and more obvious that he was fooled and if there was any doubt left it's gone now. And the previews suggest that events in EP8 will pick up immediately after the end of this episode; with Peter trying to find evidence of the lie that Olivia is not 'his' Olivia.

Interestingly, it suggests that the pattern of alternate-universe shifting isn't complete yet. Will Olivia make it back at the end of the next episode? I'm thinking so...but I'm also becoming more and more convinced that Alt-Olivia will HAVE to get back (or be sent back) for Olivia to even have a shot at returning. And, now that Peter knows the truth, he and Walter will have a common goal.

Past that, there is a possibility that EP 9 will be another 'over there' episode, one with a more continuous string. And there is even the possibility that another switch might occur (though I doubt it). I'm also thinking that Alt-Fringe might have something to do with Olivia's survival there...Walternate certainly has no mercy in him, but they've gone out of their way to show Charlie, Lincoln, and Broyles as good men...and I think Broyles is going to feel obligated to help her out once he figures out what they are planning on doing to Olivia. Which, I assume, will involve a horrible death and a dissection, as they try to figure out just the stuff in her brain is and what effects it had on her.

My other guess is that a large amount of the pieces of the ancient device will have already been recovered either before, or during the next episode...I don't see the show turning into a treasure hunt. But, some idea of what Walternate is planning is almost essential at this point. What his interest in Olivia is made perfect sense in the context of the show, but his plans for Peter are much more murky. It's almost a shame, really, Walternate has always been portrayed as a villain...it's almost a shame that he's not more conflicted like Broyles.

But I did watch the preview...obviously Peter is going to find something early on..and Olivia is going to catch him in the act. But after that it gets more murky. Actually, on second thought...while this is an 'over here' episode, it is clear that Walternate and Alt-Broyles are definitely in it. There seems to be a shot of Bolivia at the typewriter place (which suggests that she doesn't get caught). It almost looks like Broyles may be forced to do something much more drastic to save Olivia. And there is a shot of a character that I don't really recognize (but could be an observer? hell I don't know). And there is another shot that almost looks like Bolivia is holding Olivia at gunpoint. And another that looks like the Fringe Team might finally uncover the typewriter room.

One thing I'm kinda hoping is that Bolivia turns out to be a 'good' guy...she's done some pretty despicable things. And while it's kinda hard to tell, I never got the impression that she was so cold or callous the small times we saw her in the second season. It was nice to see her show some compassion and regret for what is happening; as she is in the best position to know that her alternates are really not 'monsters' she's been told to believe. I'm also hoping that even if Olivia gets home, we'll still continue to see a lot from the other universe...hopefully Olivia will develop the full on ability to transfer by the end of this which allows for stories to continue on both sides. It would be a shame to loose Charlie and Lincoln if nothing else.

Now, will all of this happen in the next episode? Maybe they will spread this out more, honestly I don't know...but I can't wait to find out.

Fringe S3E6

Another week, and yet another good episode of Fringe. I would like to say 'great', or 'awesome', but unfortunately I cannot. This week's episode was probably the weakest of the entire season.

Now, don't get me wrong. Just because it wasn't great doesn't mean that it wasn't good. And it was good. There were quite a few things I liked about it, including the ever increasing sense of dread about the whole thing. But, 6955 kHz was a bit broader than many of the current episodes. And it's the first one in a while that just seemed to be talking AT the audience instead of showing us. That's a fault of the writers there, and it's what keeps 6955 from being really great.

This episode could really be described as an info dump in many regards. They talk about number stations. They talk about the First People. They talk about secret codes, etc, as if there is some huge mystery about it all. But there is no mystery. Olivia is setting them up. The signals embedded in the numbers were designed to be found by Peter and Walter, to create a 'fringe event' that would draw themselves to something the other side already knew--the location of the other hidden pieces of the 'ancient machine' built by the First People that can create or destroy universes.

In any case, the Fringe Team learn of the First People. They learn about the Numbers. And they can't figure it out. Until, that is, the script needs them too. And suddenly these numbers start leading to points on a calendar which now magically map to coordinates on Earth. And viola, they suddenly have the location for almost two dozen 'sites', the last one happens to match the site where they pulled up the box--part of the ancient device. And, Olivia again has to do something nasty to protect her cover. And that cover is starting to ever so slightly wear thin, even as she's starting to actually question what she's doing (if just a little bit).

So, who were the first people? Why would Walternate want Walter/Peter to figure it out? Why wouldn't he just use agents to collect the pieces for himself, if he already knew how to get them? Just how many bad things is Olivia really willing to do--the cracks, it seems, are finally starting to show. Just what is the end game they are setting up here?

Now, there were no real answers here, but I've been thinking about it a bit. Now, my first thought was First People = Observers. And that is actually be true, but also might also be too easy. But, why the amnesia? The 'Number Stations' are mysterious untraceable sources of random numbers, generated in random languages. I've heard of the phenomenon, actually, there are some that operated for over 20 years in Siberia, for example. But in Fringe World, the Number Stations have existed for a long time. In fact, the first radio invented picked up a number signal--suggesting their origin is a lot older than the current situation. Of course, the amnesia itself is just a red herring...Walternate didn't care if others figured it out; he just needed something to attract Fringe Division's attention.

So we know certain things. We know that Walternate is trying to build this device. That is seems to be spread between multiple worlds. And that the First People died out suddenly in some great disaster. We also know that he couldn't complete the device. And in this season, we learn that parts of the device, or perhaps another version of the device, is located on this side as well. My presumption is that Walternate discovered the truth about these stations, used them to collect the devices on his side; but could not get it to work. So, he needs his counterparts to do the same. Walternate wasn't responsible for these signals; nor was he trying to prevent this information from being found out (as is suggested in the episode)...it's clear he WANTED Fringe Division to find this. And so the amnesia thing was solely to attract Fringe Division to the case itself.

But that begs a different question. Peter responds to the device, which no one else does. That's still interesting, now, isn't it? My assumption has been that Peter is 'special' because he was from the other side--a result of the first rift between worlds. And he is somewhat unique in that he has spent the longest amount of time living on the other side compared to anyone else (save the observers themselves). But, what if Peter is special for another reason? Something that was different on the other side...like Walternate had discovered the truth of these numbers (and the ancient machine) before? I don't know, but I think that's going to be important before this is all done.

And the ending was also kinda cool. So, Olivia no longer needs to show up for the tests? That's a bad sign, for her. They have what they need, and at that point they have no more use for her. In a way, I'm going to be quite happy--next week's episode looks damned awesome--but in another way I'm going to be sad. The Alt-Fringe episodes have been consistently inspired all season and it'll be sad to see her get back home. Alt-Fringe is awesome, Charlie, Lincoln, Broyles, Walternate, are all great characters (too bad alt-Astrid sucks though). It's going to suck going back to a more traditional format.

And another thing. I still have no idea where this show is really going (other than it's been a blast watching them)...By humanizing the other side, it's really going to suck if they become the 'bad guy's' in a more complete way. I would love to see them team up. But, unless some new faction is introduced I just don't see how that would be possible with the way things are going. I am, however, still lending myself to the theory that despite what the show has been showing, Walter is not actually responsible for all of the devastation on the other side. I'm truly beginning to believe that Walternate himself was responsible...that his drive to retrieve his son (which he believed had been kidnapped by his alternate with another universe) drove him to any length to retrieve him--Universe be damned.

At this point, I'm just hoping that there is not a definite 'switch' yet. If Olivia becomes capable of switching sides on a regular basis, then I think that could lead into very new territory. Especially if she can develop some other allies on the other side. And I hope they don't take the easy way out and kill alt-Olivia. It would be cool if they can keep the other side heavily involved in the proceedings; maybe even experience some more alt-fringe investigations. Maybe that will happen with Broyles? That would be the perfect person to become an ally, honestly, or Lincoln?

One other cool thing about it that I liked. I ended up watching this episode with my family last night. They haven't seen the show since the first season, and they were clearly enjoying it quite a bit. And then Olivia walked in on the bad guy, pissed that he'd blown his cover, and the realization that she was actually a bad guy hit them, and it was really fun to see their reaction. Obviously that was not intended by the writers, as by this point everyone knows what's going on, but it was fun to see them react to it, NOT knowing what had happened before. And now I'm pretty sure they are going to start watching it again regularly.

Fringe S3E5

There is a time in every TV shows life which represents the very peak of what the show can do. It's a moment, perhaps a string of moments, that really define the show. But not just define it. It sticks with you, makes you want to come back again. And again.

Chuck had it late in the second season. It was always pretty good. Fun. But it wasn't until the latter half of the second season where everything came together and what followed was a blistering string of awesomeness which ended in a kung fu bang. Battlestar Galactica did it in the first part of the second season, where instead of just trying to tie up loose ends from the S1 finally, they really ran with it and let the situation spiral out of control. Hell, even Big Bang Theory had it with it's stellar second season premier, and an inspired string of episodes that had little in common--but were consistently funnier than they'd ever been before or since.

Fringe, I think, has reached that peak. Fringe has always been good. But it's never had such a string of high quality episodes as it's having right now. Crossing seasons, Fringe is on a 8 episode winning streak which started with 'Northwest Passage' and now continues with episode 5. Season 2 was a good season--overall. But, it had a serious problem in that many of the episodes were truly random filler. Not that it is necessarily bad, I guess, some of those episodes were very good in their own right. But Season 1 managed to take to random, and connect it all together in a neat package. People, bad people, were experimenting, leading to hideous death to innocents...and all of those grisly deaths fit the same general them. And then we learned why, and it all started to come together.

Season 2, however, had to get past the why, and go to the what for. And it did just that, but at the same time it meandered. Episodes like Night of Desirable Objects, Dream Logic, Earthling, Snake Head, Johari Window, What Lies Below, The Bishop Revival, all had nothing to do with anything that had come before, and also seem to lead to no connection to anything else. That's 7 episodes out of 22 that had real connection to anything else. Which is actually a good ratio, really, but the first season had, what, 2 episodes that really had no connection to anything (the one with the computer virus killing people, and the one with the chimera, I believe). Everything else had a meaningful connection to ZFT, or to John Scott, or to some other important part of the mythology.

OK, maybe I'm nit picking a little bit here. It's not like stand alone episodes are bad. And some of those were actually quite good episodes in their own right. But, Season 2 really hit its stride when Olivia learned the truth about Peter, and the slow building of dread about what was going to happen when the truth comes out. And from the moment Peter disappeared, through tonight, every single episode of Fringe has been awesome. Not just good...but awesome.

Tonight's episode was 'over there' as they call it. Olivia is having hallucinations about Peter. She's strongly doubting herself. And she's agreed to allow herself to be experimented on. And even from the start, things happen. She crosses over, if only for a few minutes. And suddenly she's even less sure of herself. I've not 100% bought into the whole brainwashing thing, though I'd admit the reasoning Walternate uses does make a weird form of sense. At first I was hoping that she was just going to be playing along. And then last 'over there' episode I figured she had figured out the truth. And she has really, but she's in denial.

But ironically, the 'b' story is the fringe investigation. About a brother breaking his identical twin out of Amber. They are alive, apparently, and in stasis (which makes me wonder...in S1 the ones trapped in Amber were certainly dead...did they forget that or is this something different). Fringe team is investigating because, well if the truth came out there would be anarchy. So they need to find the brothers and shut them out before anyone figures out the truth.

Considering how invested I am with Olivia's story, the investigation was possibly the greatest part of the episode. The interaction with the brothers, the reasons for it, and it's pay off was quite powerful, especially since there wasn't really a lot of time spent with the brothers. Not only was that good writing, but it was good acting as well. And it worked in ways that really fit in with Olivia's situation, elevating both stories in the process. That's tried a lot, I've tried it in stories, but it rarely works so well as it did here.And Olivia let them get away with it because she knows exactly what the brother was going through.

And at the end, Olivia knows the truth. She went to the other side. And wished Ella happy birthday. A major cock tease, to be sure, but now there's no doubt. She may not remember everything, and I suspect that she won't be getting back home soon, but I want next week to come right now... And as a producer of a TV show that's exactly how they want you to feel.

So, how long with this streak continue? I hope for a while at least, but all things come to an end eventually. At this point, I just hope Fringe gets a fourth season. It's just too damned cool to end with just 3 seasons. But I have to wonder just what is going to happen when Olivia does get back? Quite frankly, Alt-Fringe is just too cool to not come back to on a regular basis. And having Charlie back is awesome. And the new character Lincoln is too awesome as well.

I'm also wondering. So far, the show has presented Walter as the bad guy. He first crossed over and started this. And certainly that's true. But, why is the other Universe so fragile compared to the main Universe. I think the presumption has been that it was because it was the one first crossed through. But honestly, I don't think that's the case. My theory is, Walternate realized his son was kidnapped and drove himself to find a way to return his son no matter what the cost. Their Universe is so unstable because Walternate could not let go, would not give up, and did not care about the consequences in his drive to get back his son. That's why the alternate universe is so fragile and failing.

But even with that theory, what is going to happen when Olivia gets back? Will she continue to be able to cross over at will? Fringe has a history of suggesting powers for her that they soon forget about...though it was cool they remembered Olivia's 'super hearing' from S2. What will happen with the other Olivia? She does not have that ability, though obviously the other side has some ability to travel back and forth. Will the show just go back the way it was before? Or will it head off in a new direction once more information about that strange device shows up? Maybe it will lead to more and more cross overs as the show goes on?

Whatever happens, Fringe has really established itself as a major sci-fi show, and it's the best of all of the TV shows I'm watching right now.

Chuck 10/1/2010

There has been something 'off' with this season of Chuck. It's been hard for me to pin down, but I think last night's episode was a really goo example of it. There was a lot to love about this week's episode. We got to see more of Chuck's mom. There was a considerable amount of action and suspense. We got to see Elle interact with her mother for the first time. And Timothy Dalton as an -awesome- guest star.


There was a lot to like about the episode. And despite my saying that the season feels off, it was a great episode over all. But, it also definitely points out more clearly just what the problems are.

Chuck is a show about delicate balancing acts. Between drama and comedy, romance and action. As a show, Chuck is generally regarded as a straight out comedy. And for most of the time it is. But as a show Chuck has always been willing to go dark, to stop playing for laughs and be serious. Those serious moments have always given the show more weight during it's lighter moments. And I think that is really what has changed here.

Last night is a good example of a show that the show would traditionally play straight in previous seasons. But this season, almost everything is played either as a goofy comedy or a straight action piece. And as good as last night's show was, playing it as a goofy comedy really hurt the emotional ending.

I hate to say this, but the show is simply focusing on two things that are weighing the show down. The first is the Chuck/Sarah relationship struggles...these two work best as a team working together and protecting each other. They do not work nearly as well as squabbling teenagers, which is what they are mostly portrayed as. The second is Morgan Grimes...Morgan's antics are really starting to get on my nerves. He's too goofy to be taken seriously in any way, and I think the writers realize this so they try to overcompensate in ways that are ridiculous. But what is really criminal about this is how much screen time he's getting, and how this is taking away from Sarah and more importantly Casey. It's a shame to, because the character of Morgan is pretty cool...but he's best used in small doses.

On the plus side, the show is definitely experimenting. Chuck's mother is turning into a very compelling character. And while I cannot imagine her truly being 'bad', there is still a chance that she is. And it's becoming more and more interesting to see where this is going (and what her true motives are). And Timothy Dalton was awesome last night. He certainly played against expectations for most of the episode, only to turn things around in the last few moments in a very interesting way. Chuck has always done well with its guest stars, and last night was no exception.

So, we have a 1 week break, so it will be at least two weeks before we find out (perhaps even more). I find it hard to believe that she erased the intersect from Chuck's brain, especially since that was a main plot point from Season 2. And I'm guessing that she's still trying to protect Chuck from Volkov, but, at this point there's not really enough specific information to explain what is going on here exactly. They've done a pretty good job of making Chuck's mother interesting, and it really seems like we are getting to the meat of things now.

Oh, and while we are on the subject of breaks, I know I haven't been keeping up with these reviews. In part because I actually missed the last few episodes, and didn't even see them until last Friday (where I watched them with friends).