An Update

September 29, 2019TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

I have been playing games. Really. I’ve been playing ESO almost religiously. It’s just, there’s not a lot to write about here. I’ve been mostly going through the faction story areas for the Ebonheart Pact, and am just cleaning up Eastmarch right now. Not a lot to blog about there, though I have gotten some amusing screenshots, at least. (The above isn’t mine, because I’m not at my PC, but I have one identical to it, because of course you take a screen of Naryu being cute.) I also did the Clockwork City DLC quests, which were a nice break from the main stuff.

I hit the “max level” (Really for reals this time!) again, meaning CP 160. So now I can max out my gear and stuff. I’ve been trying to improve my builds and play, so I don’t embarrass myself out there in dungeons. But I’ve discovered that I don’t really like that aspect of the game, and that the gear I can get that’s good for my build isn’t in the dungeons (there’s some in trials, and some from crafting). I’m going bow/bow, like a chump, but it’s pretty simple for my casual brain. Not the ideal setup for dps, but I like to actually fit into my role and class (which is apparently what the devs want too), and five active abilities doesn’t really do that for me. I still need a better self-heal than what I’ve got, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

Granblue Fantasy got a new event, and in short, it’s kino. It’s also somewhat amusing how some people miss what little subtlety and literary merit is in these mobage stories – they say it sucks, when it’s clear that they are the problem. Not to say it’s going to change anyone’s life, or get any sort of writing award, but it’s not bad in the slightest. Now, there were some missed expectations – some were hoping for an All Siegman All the Time flashback event, when it was instead the usual fujo/yume-pandering Dragon Knights event, but that should have been expected. Lancelot got another skin, but at least it’s free this time. And no deus-ex-Siegman this time (though they accomplished this by making him part of the problem…).

And the Dragalia Lost 1st Anniversary is upon us. No event at all, but lots of free stuff. Euden got the gala this time, as expected; and he’s not broken, which was somewhat unexpected: I guess Cleo was just a fluke. (Though looking at the actual history of the game and genre, that much powercreep was really out of the ordinary, and it’s kinda a surprise that she hasn’t been even slightly nerfed yet.)

Oh, and part of what kept me from writing is that I finally had my gallbladder surgery a few days ago. (I do have a picture of what they took out of me, but I’m not going to post it, since that’s probably what would be the Twitter post picture…) Probably the best-case scenario, as far as recovery goes: I was up and at ’em five hours after walking into the surgery center, and haven’t had any additional pain medication needed; indeed, I’ve actually used less (fewer?) painkiller than I normally do! Still sore – feels like someone(s) punched me in the gut a few dozen times – but not painful unless I do something that uses my core muscles. There was one uncomfortable complication, but I hear that’s normal with general anesthetic, and it seems to be resolved at this time. But this basically gave me another weekend to play games (ESO), which was nice.

ESO Update: Hit the Cap!

September 8, 2019TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

So, I’ve already hit one of my September plans. I finally hit “level cap” in ESO, after about a month of playing. Of course, that’s just the end of the tutorial. I have to put on my big boy pants now, and grind out those champion points, which are basically just more and more levels. I think the current (effective) cap on those is 810, though I might be off on that.

Even though I’ve made it this far, I’m still running the same basic build I was at lvl 10. Archer, with bear. I’ve got the sword-and-board as my secondary, but apparently that’s a tank build, and I’m not set up for that, nor know how to do that. Would be nice though, not having to wait 10+ minutes for a dungeon queue to pop. But dps is for dummies like me, and I’m probably not even doing that correctly.

I’m currently running through Deshann, and am almost done with it. Of course doing the dalies for the event tickets, which seems like a horrible grind for a fancy horse. I guess that’s how they get you – oh, just buy the event tickets from the cash shop! You can get your fancy horsey without grinding forever! And the kicker is, you can only hold 12 tickets at a time, so you can’t hoard for the next events, if you don’t like this fancy horsey (I don’t – my starter horse just werks; if I’m to get another mount, I want something cool, like a tiger, or a giant mechanical spider), but want to save for the next cool thing, SCREW YOU BUDDY.

Oh yah, almost done with Deshann. Well, except for the world bosses. I guess no one does those outside of the starter areas, or with their guilds. (I tried to do one with my guild last night, but I was there, and no one else. I guess they were on a different shard – Sad!) Just a couple of quests more to kill that chica who started the plauge. Then I’m off to the swamp, to solve lizard problems.

Dress-up In Games

August 26, 2019TheRoyalFamily 1 Comment

I think one of the draws of some games, especially some RPG’s, is the ability to customize the characters’ looks. Sometimes it’s pretty simple, and sometimes it’s really complicated. When I read reviews of RPG’s in particular, a big deal is often made of character customization – how deep it is, how complicated it is, just what it can do, or if anything is absent. MMO’s in particular tend to be pretty heavy in the character customization game, both in the creation and in the later parts of gameplay.

For me, this is one of the reasons I will start a game, and a potential reason for me to keep with a game, or if I drop it if I get bored. For example, I’ve been playing Star Trek Online ever since it went F2P in 2012. I’ve done just about everything I give a single care about doing, many multiple times. And I’m not really digging the direction it’s been going the past year or so. So, why stick with it? In part, because of the character customization. I have more than 20 current alts, with several I’ve made and deleted over the years. The character customization is very deep, while not being too complicated. Not only can you customize your PC, but you can also fully customize all of your bridge officers. And not only that, but you can customize your ships too! It’s great. In fact, it’s so great that the few problems really stand out – limited color pallets, same colors sometimes don’t match on different outfit pieces, and do on. There’s a reason people say the real endgame is space barbie.

And part of why I wanted to get into FFXIV and Elder Scrolls Online was some fantasy character creation, with the ability to get more gear and nice outfits. FFXIV has really delivered, even though I’m still in the early game. ESO, though, has been a bit of a disappointment, personally, despite the very wide array of outfit pieces. To get into why, I’ll have to explain a bit of theory.

The way I see it, there’s a three-way continuum for how outfits can go: a sexy-cute-cool continuum. For these purposes, I’ll define ‘sexy’ as ‘designed to emphasize the (ideal) physical form,’ ‘cute’ as ‘designed to invoke a feeling of youthfullness or childishness,’ and ‘cool’ as ‘meant to looks awesome’. Not exactly scientific, but it’s one of those things where ‘you know it when you see it’. And these are sort of objective; while a ‘sexy’ outfit might not be particularly sexy to you, or me, it’s clearly meant to be that way, as opposed to cute or cool.

(And of course, there’s another axis orthagonal to this spectrum, which I’d say is something like ‘extremeness’. Kinda like a contrast, or darkness/lightness spectrum. So, say, the traditional Amish dress, and a gothic lolita cosplay dress, would both be at the ‘cute’ corner. The Amish dress would be at the unextreme end, while the gothloli dress would be at the extreme end. In fact, I’d say most of the things normal people wear normally would be at the unextreme end, somewhere on that triangle.)

I’m going to give some examples, from Granblue Fantasy, for both male and female characters. Male is a bit harder, since what (straight) dudes, which is what most game devs are, would find cool, others would find sexy. And ‘cute’ male outfits are few and far between, for the same reason.

And of course, there’s everything in between.

My problem with ESO is that almost every piece of gear, and even the outfits, are weighted towards the ‘cool’ corner. Some of the cash shop outfits are heading towards the ‘cute’ corner, but even there they’re pretty much all at the less extreme part of that spectrum. And of what few things are at the ‘sexy’ part of the triangle…they aren’t very sexy to me. I mean, this is I think the sexiest outfit available for PC’s:

And that doesn’t do a whole lot for me. Part of it is that I’m more into the lower body, and that’s completely covered. But another part is that the character model itself doesn’t lend itself to much sexiness, at least as far as they’ve made sexy outfits. Look up there: if you didn’t have the bra thing, would you even know it’s female? (The male version of this outfit is just that without the bra.) Heck, there are boob window dresses (common in Vvardenfell, especially in the Telvani areas), but because of the anti-cleavage body models, and the dress colors that tend to match the skin tones of the NPC’s, it’s hard to tell that that’s what they are.

Now, it’s pretty shallow of me, but if I’m going to make a female character, I want her to look quite different from a male character I could have made. If I just wanted some cool armor (and especially a cool helmet), does male or female even matter at that point? What I want is a female character that is sexy and/or cute, somewhere on that left side of the triangle. Or in the extreme part of the center.

This is just a minor complaint about ESO though. It’s quite the fun game, with lots to do, and the cool armors and outfits are quite cool. But the character customization and dress-up isn’t the thing that’s going to keep me coming back for years and years.

ESO: Outta Vvardenfell

August 25, 2019TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

I’ve done pretty much everything I can do in Vvardenfell at my low level, so I figure it’s off to the rest of the world. I think the place to be would be the starter zone for the Ebonheart Pact. Which would probably be the province with Ebonheart, which is Stonefalls. Conveniently that’s just across the sea a bit, although it doesn’t matter because there’s a wayshrine in Davon’s Watch. Being one of the zone hubs, there’s a ton of fresh quests waiting. One is pretty insistent – I need to see some guy RIGHT NOW. So, off I go, and what do I get, but being knocked out and sacrificed, and sent to Coldharbor. Which is basically Hell I guess. Not quite what I had in mind. Fortunately, this seems to be a rookie quest, so it’s easy (and I guess all my stuff I was carrying got sent to hell with me, so that was helpful). Break out of hell, no sweat.

But then we end up in some weird place, not Davon’s Watch, or even Stonefalls. Turns out someone found a girl falling from the sky (just like my Japanese animes), into the ocean. Fortunately, all that heavy armor floats, and they were able to fish me out. Unfortunately, there was a massive hurricane, so the ship that rescued me got shipwrecked itself. Now we’re at some place called Khenarthi’s Roost, which is an independent island the Dominion is trying to court. All the way down at the south end of the map. Some friendly Khajit tells me to blend in.

I’m sure my Bouyant Armiger and Ashlander gear fits in well with the Dominion guys. Maybe I should change that…

Well, I just hope they don’t recognize that tattoo as relating to Vivec. But whatever. I guess this is the Dominion player newb zone. Perhaps the game thought that, since this is a Bosmer character, it should go to the Dominion zone. Or maybe the allegiance one picks during character creation doesn’t matter. Anywho, I do all the quests, save the island, and end up helping the enemy get a new port island. I’m sure Vivec is proud of me.

That eventually getting done, I go back to Stonefalls to get on with what I was doing. Somehow end up going to Orsinium, but again I go back; I guess that’s DLC stuff that I don’t want to deal with right now. There’s an invasion of Stonefalls by…someone, I don’t know if it’s the Dominion or the Covenant. But they’re fighting the guys that gave me a quest, so they’re my enemy too. I save Davon’s Watch, by letting some guy defy his ancestors and summon an ancient monstrosity that’s totally not going to bite us in the butt any time in the near future, I’m sure.

Then I find another quest marker, and it’s some person that tells me they’re the ones that fished me out of the water. I guess if I wasn’t trying to confuse the game by going against the racial allegiances, they would have, after I escaped Coldharbor. They then send me to what is the Ebonheart Pact newb island. I’m now 31, so I’m sure I won’t be overleveled for that either.

Timelines In MMO’s (and Other RPG’s)

August 22, 2019TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

I was reading a reddit thread earlier, about a recent (in-character) blog post for Star Trek Online. Most of the thread was grousing (yet again) about the official timeline for the game: everything in the game takes place in the years 2409 and 2410. And the year isn’t over yet.

Now, said thread has the author of the post (a fan, not a dev) in there to justify said timeline. Basically, all that stuff happens quickly, and in rapid succession. And I can see how that could theoretically be justified.

But really, I think it’s a big stretch, especially since these things don’t take place in a vacuum. Part of the whole “RPG” thing is “role-playing,” ie, taking a role. The PC is a Character, after all. And while all the stuff in STO could, in theory, possibly take place in two years – two TV seasons, in other words – that would only really work with an established crew with an established captain. But that’s the trouble – in STO, no matter which faction you pick, you start out as a lowly junior officer, and end up as a full admiral (or its equivalent) well before even getting to the real “big damn hero” stuff.

The reddit thread offers some alternative timelines. One would be to have time in-game roughly match real life time. That’s how the shows worked. And it would at least be slightly sensible to take at least several years to build up rank. It’s still way too damn fast – even Kirk took about a decade as Captain to rank up – but at least it’s not crazy. Another option would be for each in-game “season” (major content patch) to equate to a year. This is also how the shows worked, although each show only had one season per year, so both are viable. This is better for the rank progression issue – we’re at something like season 18 or 19 I think, which makes for a much more sensible career path, even for a “saves the galaxy multiple times” hero.

(My own personal headcanon is that one’s career – and the events in the game – take place over at least a couple of decades, at least on the Federation side of things. Klingons can justify all this based on merit – this is the stuff songs are sung about, after all; and the Romulans can as well, as they’re basically the Rebel Alliance, promoting anybody to high rank as long as they stay alive and are successful. But Starfleet is pretty much a traditional, modern, bureaucratic military-complex, and while heroes get noticed (and thus placed first in line for promotions), there is still a process to all this. Hell, even in the US Civil War, brilliant officers still took the whole war to get from low to high rank.)

All that brought on the thought: what about other games? Especially MMO’s. From the games I’ve played, time doesn’t really seem to pass. I mean, some have day-night cycles, and some have seasonal events. But time doesn’t seem to pass in-character, for the most part, besides the occasional time-skip (like Dragon Age 2). When you have quests you can do in any order, especially sequence ones that can be interwoven (or, heaven forfend, out of order!), that makes trouble for setting up a timeline.

Let’s take Granblue Fantasy, for example. In a recent interview Director Fukuhara said that all the events were canon, but that they really didn’t think about where they fall in relation to each other (and the main story) – the players are all over the place in terms of what they’ve played (and I figure most are relatively low-level, and thus not as far along in the story), so making an extended timeline (a la Radiant Historia) is not something they’re terrible interested in. Of course, they’ve had six summer events now, and we can guess the game is five or so years along. And some events have characters that can only be present at certain times in the main story (like the recent Fastiva event…). I have my ideas, but that’s all they are – ideas.

But I was thinking about this in terms of, say, the Elder Scrolls games (including Elder Scrolls Online). We can guess what year they take place in (I think they’re actually explicitly stated somewhere, actually, even in-game) – or rather, the year they start. But how long do they take? In these sorts of games, you can’t even decide which events are canon, since there is the element of player choice, let alone what order events take place in, let alone when the events take place. (It was worst with Skyrim, which is perhaps at least part of why ESO takes place an age before any of the other games.)

Maybe I’m just being too big of a giant nerd about this.

Sometimes, Playing With Others Is Fun

August 21, 2019TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

Well, when you put it that way, how can I resist?

I was playing ESO last night, doing what I could to finish off Vvardenfell. I had a few delves left, and some dungeons and world bosses. I have to say, I really dislike when they put this kind of hard stuff on a completion tracker; it kinda makes me feel compelled to actually do the content. So off I go to the public dungeons.

The thing with the public dungeons is that they’re supposed to be done by a group. If you’re a big enough hero, I think you can solo them, but little lvl 20’s me ain’t that. But I could try. So I did. Didn’t get very far before some fellow came up to me to group with me. Seeing his much higher level, I agreed – always good to be carried. He was also more informed than I – he was looking for the skill shards, which I hadn’t even thought about being in this place.

And so it went. The first dungeon was also populated by other groups, so it was an easy time. Even the supposed hard boss was a breeze, to the point that I almost didn’t get there in time to get credit. We decided to do the other dungeon in the area. That one was a whole lot less populated – I think we only saw one other group, at the end. Going through that as a pair, when it was meant for parties, wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t too difficult either. And the end boss for that dungeon was pretty cool – not a big monster, but more a boss gauntlet, getting more hectic each time.

So, while I usually fly solo, joining up with this one dude was pretty cool too. 8/10, would team in the future. Now, to find randoms to do the world boss with…

I Have Actually Been Playing Games, Too

August 18, 2019TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

My last few posts have only been about games in the abstract. But I have really been playing video games, honest! A few hours a day, in fact! Just, most of the screenshots of the games I’ve been playing are on my pc, instead of my school computer where I blog from most of the time. And I haven’t been playing Steam games, either, which means no cloud storage.

The game that’s been taking most of my time is ESO. I’m really liking (so far) how much the game experience is like a proper Elder Scrolls game. And the writing isn’t so terrible either. When I first heard of the game, and how they were doing the alliance system, and being in 2E without any reason, and how the UI looked a lot like the default Skyrim UI, and all that, I was a big hater, I admit. I am not a huge fan of Skyrim (it took me 200+ hours to figure that out…), mostly because everything was even more casualized and consolized than Oblivion, and ESO looked like more of the same.

This seems like it would be uncomfortable to walk on.

Glad to find out it’s not, really. It’s a proper action MMO that just happens to be in the Elder Scrolls universe. While I don’t think it’s the best that could have been done, it is competent. And I do miss some of the detail that gets lost when greatly increasing the playable area (all the towns on Vvardenfell, for example, are much smaller than they are in Morrowind, and the buildings that are in both games are smaller, too). But taking all that into account, it’s good enough. Good enough to subscribe to.

As for my actual progress, I’ve gotten up to 20 or 21. Haven’t gotten any of the crafting up very high; I’m wondering if it’s worth keeping all of those green and blue equips for Research, or just Deconstructing them to get the crafting xp. I’m mostly doing this without guides, since (so far) it’s easy enough. Going through the main Morrowind story (this is the weakest writing so far; as per usual with TES games, the strength in writing is in the small details, not the big picture or grand events), since I guess that’s what I get for starting on that expansion. I have no idea what the actual main story is, or how to start it.

As an aside, I wish the earbuds I’m using (because I generally play in the dark of the morning, and my roommates want to sleep then for some reason) had markers for L and R. It’s always a mystery until I get in-game.

Newbtacular Progress: ESO and FFXIV

August 14, 2019TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

I finally got out of the babby tutorial in FFXIV: I hit 30 on my main job, so I got to go to the summer event. This was my immediate main goal for the game (I wanted my happi, and I got it), so good for me. Wasn’t really prepared for the summer event, even though I was the correct level: two of the events were for cooking and fishing jobs, which I haven’t even started.

Luckily for me, the obstacle course gives out rewards too (including what you need for the happi). Was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Fell off the first part a dozen times; switching to a controller for these parts wasn’t helpful. Eventually I figured out that the jump is fixed; once I got that down, the jumping portions were simple (not running off a platform after I landed…that’s another story).

Getting to 30 also meant (for me at least) joining one of the great companies; basically joining a faction. Funny how all these militias are courting the great hero (You), but once you actually join, it’s bottom rank, just like every other recruit. My character happened to join the Immortal Flames (I think that’s what they’re called; definitely something about Flame in there); considering how she started out in that city, and became a hero for some reason, you’d think the sultana (or the general) would fast-track my character’s rank a few levels; at least start as an officer, for heaven’s sake! But no, Private, Third Class Toubii it is.

In ESO, I also made some progress. Not nearly as much, though. There, my character (also Toubii, I think; I was going for Tobi, but that was taken, as was Tobii; Tobiii seemed a bit much) is still just some nameless scrub, out making a name for herself. Or at least money, and something to stave off boredom. Anyone asks her to do any little thing, she does it. Find your kid? Sure. Kill a high-ranking official in her office? Why not? It’s all the same to her. Doesn’t seem to level very fast, though. I’m only at lvl 14 I think, with 4’s in all the main armory professions.

Speaking of crafting, those buggers did it: they got me to sub. I needed that crafting bag. Money doesn’t come fast, at least at the babby levels I’m at, and you need a lot to expand your bank and inventory. And crafting materials are what take up most your space. But the crafting bag, which you can only get by subbing, fits everything you could want to craft with. So nice to not have to play the inventory management game, when I’m still trying to find out what’s actually worth anything.

And, I’m still in Vvardenfel. Haven’t even gone very far up the west coast (went all the way up the east side though. Turns out I did finish the Telvani questline. That was actually really compelling, though I don’t think it really fits the setting (letting an Argonian rise up in rank from slave to an actual member of the House? Really?).

One problem I really have with the game is stealth. There have already been several stealth areas, but the game does stealth poorly. It looks like objects don’t actually conceal you like you’d think; there are only a few objects that you can hide in, not behind. That makes sneaking around very difficult. Also, it seems the NPC line of sight is funky, if not broken; you don’t know when they’re going to detect you. And, as far as I can tell, you get no backstab/stealth crit bonus, so no assassinations. It’s an MMO, so I’m not expecting it to behave like an action game (like, say, Morrowind…), but when the game tries to play like it is, but doesn’t allow it, that’s a bit discouraging.

He’ll certainly fare better than the last NPC adventurers we encountered there…

Friday Randomness

August 10, 2019TheRoyalFamily 1 Comment

I have a bunch of thoughts, but none of them coherent or thought-out enough for a whole post, today. Nothing special about Friday, though – how’s that for random?

–Syp of Bio Break asks, Do racial variants add value to MMO’s? It looks like the conclusion is, they can! But do they? I don’t know. On first thinking of it, I had thought the first time I saw this was when I recently started FFXIV, and saw that the Viera had two variants: a forest viera and a mountain viera. Besides a very slight favoring of the base stats to martial or magical pursuits, respectively, it didn’t seem like much of a difference, besides flavor. I don’t even know if anyone else can find out which one you picked. Maybe there was some slight difference in their starting fetishwear, perhaps.

But as I was thinking on it, Star Trek Online has a variation of this. There are, technically, three Federation factions: the normal one, the TOS one, and the STD one. All three have different starting locations, different tutorials (well, the STD tutorial is merely a literal reskin of the standard tutoral), and a slightly different post-tutorial experience. But after that, the only difference is cosmetic. It could be argued that the Romulan and Dominion factions are similar, especially in how the ship distribution has been changed recently. I know three Federations isn’t exactly a race thing (especially since there are actual race differences inside the faction), but it feels the same as what Syp was describing.

-Twitch is going to be making their own streaming software, to go with their service. Makes sense. The move is because they perceive that streaming is too complicated, and that drives away potential streamers. I believe that is absolutely the case. I’m no streamer, mostly because I don’t have content I think needs to be streamed (streaming for yourself is way more pathetic than blogging for yourself), but also because there was just way too much setup to get it going. I made a Twitch account for the purpose of streaming, once, so that I could stream me sparking in GBF. It’s always a hoot to get everyone in on someone’s bad luck, and I wanted to spread that joy. But instead of some easy pick-up-and-go thing, like I thought it was, there was a whole load of other software that was needed to do it right. And I wasn’t going to get into that for 15 minutes of streaming every six or so months. This is a very encouraging development, though one I think is way past due.

-I saw that FFXIV was having a summer event, and I wanted in. There was no in-game encouragement, like I thought there would be. It was just on the launcher. So, I followed that link, and find out you need to be lvl 30 to participate. Well, I’m only 17, so I was planning on powerleveling (as much as one can do so at low levels and not knowing what one is doing, like me) last night. But, I bump straight into global emergency maintenance! I’ve never played a huge game like this before, and I’m not really part of the active community yet, so this blindsided me. So no playing last night for me.

Oh well, I have another MMO to play. Went back into ESO. Forgot that they have login bonuses, which I’ve been missing the past couple of days. Whoops. Not that it skips or anything, but I figure most of the better stuff is towards the later part, to encourage consistent play. No sign of a summer event, so that’s somewhat disappointing. Went and did some quests, one of which wanted me to do some PVP thing. I did it, but for some reason they mix low-level people like me with almost-post-tutorial players. The whole bracket is lvl 10-49. That was crazy. I was nothing but a short distraction at best, and an active detriment to my team.

Also, tried what is apparently a dungeon meant for multiple people, by myself. Despite the quest being lvl 11, which was my level, I wasn’t able to even scratch a single one of the swarm of enemies that I somehow agro’d. There was no in-mission indication that this was intended as a group activity. And I saw one other player there, who looked to be about my level. They probably did the same exact thing I did: just followed the quest marker, and got wrekd. Not the best game design, perhaps.

-Arena of Sompek is back in STO. Honestly, this is probably my favorite recurring event in the game, especially since they changed how the Crystalline Catastrophe event worked. I’m one of those weirdos that loves the ground game, and this is everything good about it distilled, without most of the bad parts (that aren’t inherent to the gameplay itself). And I’m very close to getting the free ship. I’d thought I would have it by the end of the last Featured TFO event, but I’m only a couple days away. Don’t care about the completion prize this time, and not just because it’s more STD material (though combined, I’m just not going to even get it for completion’s sake). But I will play this every day, because I like the event. Though it does lose some of the fun by trying to pack what should be a gauntlet into something everyone can do easily; both the infinite and timed versions are better, I think. But it sounds like maybe they will become permanent additions after this event is over, which would be so cool.

Starting Two MMO’s: Final Fantasy XIV and Elder Scrolls Online

August 6, 2019August 6, 2019TheRoyalFamily 3 Comments

Me, when trying to start two MMO’s in 12 hours.

I decided I was going to try both. My plan was to get ESO all up and going, then when I got a bit bored/advanced, start FFXIV, already downloaded, patched, and ready to go.

Didn’t work out that way.

The main thing I want to focus on today is the first few hours’ experience: from deciding to play, to the initial steps of play. These games are different experiences, and different from what I’m used to.

First, I went on Steam, as one does, to check out ESO, and what options I had. Boy, did I have options. DLC, expansions, and so on. So, I went to /vg/ to the general to check out their newbie guide. Very first thing was DON’T GET THIS FROM STEAM. OK. So, off I go to the official (and rather Web 1.0-looking) site, give yet another organization all my personal and financial info, and then start downloading. I just got the basic pack; if I like it, I’ll sub; and if I really like it, I’ll get the expansion.

First download: 60+GB. Yikes. So I sit there for a while, browse online, do some Dragalia Lost. First download done, start the game. Whoops, now need to patch. Another ~60GB. Took quite some time, even though I have a gigabit connection. But, once that was all done, time to start the game!

Rolled up a STEALTH ARCHER, as is right and proper for an Elder Scrolls game. Well, not really, but I did roll a Bosmer not-ranger, and am focusing on the bow. Nice thing is, I can just change it up at any time if I get bored with that. Nice start to the game, once it started. I guess Bosmers start in Vvardenfel, so it was quite a similar start to Morrowwind, after the nice tutorial. Gets you right into the thick of things, sending you almost straight to Vivec, and right into the crafting and specialty guilds. And that’s where I am – some low-level scrub learning how to make gloves.

About then it was time for bed, so I figured I’d just get FFXIV downloading while I slept. Big mistake. Getting it off Steam was easy enough. Then, when it came time for the download to start, I needed my Squeenix account. I go to make one, and it turns out I already had one (I figure from FF: Record Keepers: a game that preys on FF nostalgia, which nostalgia I don’t have). So I have to recover my password; that meant trying to remember not only which security question I used, but which fake birthday I used, as well. Soon enough I have it all figured out. Ready to go, I thought.

Not so fast! I then needed a one-time passcode. Comes from one of those app thingys, like the Steam phone app (which I also needed to access, to put the product key in on the website). Another ten minutes fiddling with that, finally get it all working, and I’m downloading, and off to bed. Oh wait, forgot there was a subscription…and I have 30 free days. Starting now. So much for my plans to start later.

Wake up, and ready to play. Get started on a new character, and realize I don’t get the Viera; I’d need to pay twice as much again to get Shadowbringers for that. Tough call: what if I don’t like the game? Why pay full price for this? Well, the Viera were kinda what made me want to get the game in the first palce. I really, really like the Harvins in Granblue Fantasy, but the Lalas here just aren’t the same.

Pictured: Sexy Potato from GBF. Not pictured: Sexy Potato from FFXIV, because they can’t exist.

Well, I splurged, and spent my entire monthly gaming budget for Shadowbringers (hope there aren’t any suprise tickets in GBF or Dragalia Lost). Rolled up a Viera thaumaturge. I actually thought to take some screenshots from this game, so here she is:

It’s interesting how different the starts are between the two games. Here, you are hand-held through a bunch of fetch and kill quests. Typical MMO stuff. I still don’t really get how the ice/fire thing works for this class, just that doing fire while in ice mode is bad, and vice versa. Made it to level 8 so far, after a couple of hours. Also, Viera apparently can’t wear hats. You can equip them, but they don’t show up. Kinda sad; I was hoping to see some hats with ears clipping out of them.