Tag Gaming

Friday Randomness

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An example of a random picture.

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.

2014 was a crazy time

-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.

My Take on Lootboxes

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All images will have only limited relation to the topic, because I’m on my laptop but addicted to posting pictures.

From the scuttlebutt I’m hearing, lootboxes are ‘back’ in the news. I guess the major console makers are trying to get ahead of the various governments to “do something” about this “menace”. And it looks like they are going to make those games that do use their systems, or perhaps will use their systems (I didn’t read any articles or anything; why do actual work and/or research for a blog post?), publish odds for winning the various prizes in the boxes. I think would make industry practice at the very least follow gacha rules in Japan, which is pretty much the same thing: the rates for the items in the gacha must be published (and presumably actually be accurate, too). (For further reading on this, search for “Monkeygate”.)

As for my personal views on this, I think this is a good move. I’m morally opposed to gambling, but I don’t think lootboxes are gambling, in the strictest sense: the player (or someone else, presumably) pays for a chance to get something they highly value, which they have a low chance of getting; but unlike real gambling, what they are wanting isn’t anything of actual real value, and if they lose, they don’t end up with nothing. I’m not opposed to lootboxes in the abstract. I do agree that the way they are used is predatory, that lots of psychology and research goes into it. But that’s not, in-and-of-itself, bad – that’s just marketing and research. Just because this way might be more effective than others of getting people to voluntarily trade their money for something of questionable value doesn’t make it wrong.

However, I do think they should be what people are led to believe they are: that the player has a random chance to get the various things in the boxes. If the boxes are being manipulated to change the odds at various times, or to tailor the results to specific individuals, that ain’t right. It’s at the very best misrepresenting what these things really are, and at worst it’s fraud. Having the odds published prevents that kind of thing: if anyone suspected that the odds were wrong, they could complain to Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo, and the game could be audited, or at the very least the publisher/devs questioned. The player (or rather, payer) knows the odds, and can make a rational decision based on those odds, and what they value the various prizes to be.

I also think that the box should give something of ‘equal’ or greater value compared to the cost of opening the box. For example, in Star Trek Online, even the worst booby prizes in their boxes had equivalents in the normal cash shop that were the same or greater price than the keys to open the boxes. Even if you didn’t get what you wanted (and most people just want the top prize or two), you still got something for your 125 Zen that would cost 125+ Zen if it were in the store. (Whether those things were worth what they cost in the cash shop is another argument entirely.) This also, conveniently, throws out the gambling argument, at least from a legal (and thus actionable) angle. (Also, all of the actually decent prizes are tradable, so you don’t even need to engage the boxes themselves to get even the top prize.)

The most common thing said against lootboxes is that they are predatory towards children, in that children can’t control their spending, since they don’t associate the price with what they get, or something to that nature. That might be so, but the counter to this is: children can’t get credit cards, and they can’t get bank cards very easily. If they are running up their parents’ credit cards, that’s on the parents not having control of their financials. And as for going to the corner store to buy Google Play cards or whatever? That’s got a limit, because they have to use money they actually have, in-hand, to get that stuff; and if that’s how they want to spend their money, that’s their thing, and it’s between them and their parents.

I’ll leave with my personal view on personally using lootboxes, myself: I don’t really mind that they exist, but I don’t make much use of them. I’m certainly not averse to putting up my dosh for random chance stuff: I do play gacha games, after all, and even sometimes pay for those rolls. But lootboxes are different from gacha, in a sense. More limited, I feel. But they are fun to open, on occasion, just to see what comes out. I’d never open them for the chance at the top prize. But, like going to Vegas just to play the games, opening the boxes can be somewhat fun in itself.

A Little Burnout With the Little Games

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Man, I’m really not feeling it, with the mobile games at least. This happens every so often; I’m sure folks who play the same type of games every day get that burnout feeling. But it’s odd for me to get it with two games at once. I haven’t really played Granblue Fantasy, in any significant amount, in like, a week; I even missed a day of getting that free 10-roll. And with Dragalia lost, I haven’t even done my dailies yet, and it’s an hour before reset.

I was wondering why. Like I said, burnout for two regular games at once is not usual for me. Partly because I don’t really go hardcore, so even on days when I’m really into a game it’s only for a couple hours, at most. But on thinking on it, I have a few ideas.

First, it’s kind of a dead period in both games. GBF has a rerun going, and the prizes are not inspiring. The game mode to get those prizes is also a bit annoying. DL has a new event, but it’s been out for some time now. One of the problems DL has, in general, is that its events go on quite a bit longer than they should. A week is a good length, I think, but DL has theirs for at least ten days. I especially think the raid events take too long to play, over and over and over again.

Next, I just don’t have anything real to work towards. Like I said yesterday, the thing I like about these games is the story, and a lot of the story is in the gacha. In both games I have quite a lot of resources saved for drawing the gacha, over a full spark’s worth in GBF (388 at the time of writing this; ten more for sure when I get the surprise ticket). Since I don’t have incentive to save much more in the immediate future, I don’t want to play.

Additionally, and maybe most importantly, I’ve got two new games I’m playing at the moment. The new and shiny has made the old and well-known (and well-worn, in some cases) games lack luster in comparison. Why play these old, simple, kinda boring games when I can play these other games I haven’t played before. During the work week I only have so much time for games, after all.

Not a crisis by any means, but just something I was thinking about. Some new event will come soon in both games, and then it’ll be back in those mines, too.

Loner, playing MORPG’s

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Just a generic Wood Elf

Yes, that up there is missing an ‘M’. I’m going to be talking about multiplayer online RPG’s in general, not specifically the ‘massive’ ones. I’m a loner, in real life. That’s just how I roll. I’ve got some friends, but I mostly just keep to myself. My ideal vacation is sitting in my room, lights off, being on my computer. Alone. In game I’m pretty much the same way – I just stick to myself, only joining random groups for missions that I absolutely can’t do by myself. In some games this is quite a bit of content; in others, it can be rare (or I just ignore it).

So why play these games that are specifically designed to get me together with other players. There’s even a chance someone could talk to me! I’ve said it before, but in my case it just happens that the kind of games I like to play are can be found in MORPG’s, even MMO’s. I really like RPG’s. They’re pretty much almost exclusively what I play. (I have a pretty wide and non-specific definition of RPG, in the which I would include games like the Far Cry series as RPG’s. But that’s a subject for another day.) I’ll even create a story for what’s going on in those few non-RPG games that I play, like Crusader Kings, or Cities: Skylines. I like stories. I like headcanon. I like real canon. All of that, I can find in online RPG’s.

I also tend to like action games. Games where you move your dude around, pressing buttons and moving the mouse/stick to make said dude do stuff, directly. I can stand turn-based RPG’s, but action games are where it’s at, for me. Don’t really like tactics games, which are unfortunately (for me) increasing in popularity. But, fortunately for me, online games generally don’t do turn-based very well, at least not in an exciting way for a lot of people at once; so, they tend to be more actiony. Even if it is tab-targeting, waiting for cooldowns, sort of action.

However, I’m not terribly good at action-action games. I don’t know if it’s my reflexes, or my Stupid Fingers, or what the deal is. Never was good at them. Things like Devil May Cry, Soulsbourne, or any of that, are way out of my league. Even things like FPS are out of my ken, unless I push the difficulty down. And I don’t like not winning, because the alternative is failure, instead of merely losing. But, action RPG’s tend to be pretty forgiving, for the most part. Online ones even moreso, as they (supposedly, and ideally) take things like lag, latency, and so on into account, from the base design stage. (And it’s why things like Soulsbourne games have funky online experiences, since they try to have the precision gameplay of the single-player experience, while having online issues that always crop up that mess up that experience.)

Also, Online RPG’s just tend to be longer – they have more story. Because they add more story over time. They have to, or players are going to move on. The gacha-based games add story with every new character. I joined ESO and FFXIV yesterday – I have years of story to catch up on. That’s appealing to me, even if it isn’t terribly dense, and even if the gameplay isn’t the most exciting.

That’s why I play these things, and why I keep coming back to them.

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

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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.

We run this city.

Granblue Fantasy Summer Stream Impressions

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Not very summery, but I wanted a picture here.

Last night/this morning (it started at 3am local) was the now-annual Granblue Fantasy Summer Extra Festival stream. Had a bunch of voice actors, along with the director and producer of the game. Every player loves these streams, because they provide news about future stuff (there’s also stats about the past, and a variety/game show with the VA’s, but not many people would tune in for that). Big thanks goes to @granblue_en for both doing a live stream translation, and a Twitter translation as well. You can go over there to check out all the news, but I’ll just focus on what I really liked.

First, Re:Link actually had news! I figured it was alive, but I didn’t think it’d be mentioned this time, what with the Vs. hype and all. News wasn’t anything significant, just that there’d be news in the December stream. Pretty much the same exact thing that they said last summer, but it was nice that it was acknowledged.

Vs. actually was kinda exciting. No new character revelation, but rather a whole new mode. I’ll be honest, I was basically planning on skipping the game. I’m not a fighting game fan, and they rarely have enough story to keep me going through even the story mode on Easy (Persona 4 Arena is pretty much the only exception, and even then I never played the sequel). But the big announcement, that’s been hinted at since at least Anime Expo, is that this game has an RPG mode. Looks like a side-scrolling beat-em-up, with enemies, bosses, etc. They demoed it a bit on the stream, with some of the VA’s playing their characters (the VA’s for Charlotte and Ferry looked like they had never touched a FTG in their lives). They got rekt’d, since it was secretly on Hard mode. But it was interesting, and definitely got me thinking hard about buying a PS4. The game comes out next February, so I’ve got some time to think about it.

There was a new class announced (all pictures from @granblue_en):

Tormentor; Djeeta can torment me any time…

Some skins/recolors added to the existing classes, and in a complete surprise move, the MC can use existing skins of other characters. There’s also some Arcanum improvements, a new class of weapons, Magna/Omega+, uncaps to the Primal summons, the rest(?) of the summer characters, and some other skins.

Not so Thighsworn anymore; has she been skipping leg day?

The second season of the anime was previewed, with a whole different studio and creative staff behind it. Looks like it will be a continuation of the first season; the producer said that they took fan feedback from the first season into account when they made this one, so hopefully we’ll get something more than following the generic storyline this time. But we did get a shot of Aliza’s boob, which hints that we’ll get at least something like the few good episodes from the first season (like the treasure hunt one).

Good stream. Even though it was quite late, and I had a migraine, I’m still glad I stayed up for it (well, technically, woke up). Unlike some, I do generally enjoy the variety show segments, and the stats. Looking forward to the changes in the game that have been previewed.

Dragalia Lost Summer Event, and other stuff

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Dragalia Lost had its first summer event drop a few days ago, and I’m only now going into it. There’s just been too much on my mind that I’ve wanted to write about first, and this just kinda fell on the wayside. That’s OK, because it’s just a mobile game’s event, nothing huge.

Though this event looks like it had a lot of effort put into it, much more than most past events, for sure. New enemy models, an entirely new boss model and skeleton, new art for characters that won’t even be in the gacha probably, new stage art, new animations, the works. It looks like the most effort since at least the FEH colaboration, if not the New Year’s event. Even got another song for the OST (though it’s not for the raid, which uses the normal raid boss music for some reason).

The event itself even makes more sense than usual. Basically, Luca finds some “treasure maps” from a “reputable dealer in antiquities,” and the prince-king (don’t know when they’re going to actually refer to his assumed title) decides to use this as an opportunity for a team-building retreat at a beach resort island. There are games, traps, dragons, demons, adventure, the whole bit. It’s actually pretty fun and funny. And, for those concerned about it, the bathing suits are relatively reserved, as far as anime bathing suits go (bikinis of course, but nothing fetishy or otherwise in too bad taste). Also a good use of a couple of past gacha characters, and the return of a past event character; I thought those three (especially Estelle) would be overbearing with their various gimmicks, but they were fine.

By this point we’ve gotten the high-difficulty raid as well. /drag/ said it was easy, and when I asked if my team could handle it (mostly as a joke – they aren’t even fully leveled), I was told I was good enough. Well, things didn’t turn out so easy. Pubs gonna be pubs, so in at least ten attempts, only two were promising at all, and neither succeeded (one was a connection failure though, which ruined everything). Of course, the common element was me, so…

Make way for a day one player…

All told, it’s a good event. Probably my favorite event so far.

In other news, as I had thought, I was able to get to a point in Atelier Lulua last night where I could go to the end boss right now, if I wanted. Which I don’t; I’m not prepared at all. Gained 1-2 levels for my party, when I need 10-15. Would have gone faster, but I’m also going to try to get 100% exploration on all the areas (I’m not usually a cheevo chaser, but that’s an easy one, so why not?). That requires an unfortunate amount of initiating battles and then fleeing, since that advances the clock, and many enemies are exclusive to day or night. And I have a lot of friendship leveling to do as well, to get the true ending – still missing quite a bit on Sterk and Niko.

For some reason, Twitter seems to be taking the second picture in my post when I tweet this out. Very annoying. Maybe I’m supposed to make the first picture the Featured Picture?

High Difficulty in Games Kills Me

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I really hate difficulty in video games. Or rather, I really hate losing. I know, pretty much everyone hates losing. But I’m specifically talking about video games, here. I play games for entertainment. I don’t want to be particularly challenged by that entertainment. I know some folks think something is boring if it’s not risky or dangerous (even in a non-real sense); that’s not me. Other folks get satisfaction from a overcoming an obstacle in a game; not me, either.

I see games just like a movie or a book. It seems silly to lose in a movie or book, as a consumer of that entertainment. I don’t want a test of skill or necessarily knowledge just to enjoy my entertainment (outside of the basics, like knowing how to read). Sure, skill and knowledge can, and should, enhance the entertainment experience. I’m all for that.

But I’m against getting frustrated at my entertainment. I think it’s really the opposite of what entertainment is supposed to be. If my jimmies are getting seriously rustled, if I can’t get what I want out of a thing just because I need to git gud, I think that’s not entertainment.

Now, I know that’s going to lock me out of certain games from the word go…and that’s perfectly fine. I’m not going to be playing Super Meat Boy…ever. Or any of those games like that. Cuphead? Nope. Most any multiplayer shooter? Count me out. Are those games good? Maybe. But I won’t enjoy them, but rather just get frustrated and crazy, and I’d rather live without the experience of the game.

Which takes me to RPG’s. I don’t like difficulty there either. But it’s even more frustrating in these sort of story games, because, generally speaking, the point of the game is to tell a story to the gamer, in an interactive way. I’m easy to please when it comes to those things, so I’m not too picky. But difficulty in RPG’s keeps the player from experiencing the story, which is, again, kinda the point. (In fact, it could be argued that the sorts of gameplays that go with RPG’s generally wouldn’t work on their own – too boring for the most part – but the story elevates the game as a whole to being worth going through.)

Now, of course devs can want to make difficulty a part of the experience, just like any other game. That’s their right. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. It’s the most frustrating when the rest of the game is…not difficult at all. But then you get to a point when Difficulty is a thing, often all of a sudden. These are the worst, in my opinion. I’m just doing great, and then BAM, progress is blocked. In RPG’s (especially JRPG’s) this usually means it’s time to grind, and I hate that too, especially in more modern RPG’s where there can be anti-grind mechanics as well.

The game that brought this up? Atelier Lulua. In an attempt to reduce difficulty, I look up guides, to prepare to make things easier in the future. I’m pretty late-game (at the last chapter, so yah, late game), so I’m looking up boss fight mechanics. Most of the bosses in the game have been relatively easy, but the bosses in the previous chapter got all sorts of mean, right quick, but not something I couldn’t handle with a bit of preparation. Even the final boss of the chapter (not all chapters had bosses, but this one did) was a real toughy.

Atelier games have historically had optional bosses of excessive difficulty. I’m totally cool with that. Note how they’re optional. Sometimes I even take the option, just to see what they’re like. This game is no different. I was taking a look at them, seeing if it was worth my time to go after them. Then I went further, and looked at the end boss. Below I’ll show you both the end-boss of the penultimate chapter, and the end-boss of the game (and the chapter I’m currently on):

They’re basically the same boss, just the latter is more advanced. Fine, that’s fair. But the top was one I was barely able to defeat, and is, in many ways, already stronger than the later optional bosses. That ~9k HP is quite a big jump (it’s right after another boss, which has ~9k total HP – which also makes this a sort of boss gauntlet). And of course it’s got stronger attacks and more resistances, etc. Oh, and the kicker? You can go from the top boss to the bottom boss extremely quickly, in terms of game time (if you’ve been keeping up with your alchemy, you’ve pretty much done most of the required stuff previously). That kind of sudden difficulty spike is something that, when I read it in the guide last night, totally killed my motivation to play last night.

These sort of very hard bosses, and/or very long grinds, have killed games for me. I’ve only gotten through about half of the Atelier games I’ve played, for this reason. They have a very nice, mostly relaxed gameplay loop for the first 2/3-3/4 of the game, and then either a frantic rush to grind out whatever you need to do before time runs out (in the older games), or a long slog to grind out that last bit so you can get a good end. (I’m convinced that some of them are designed to be impossible to get the better/best ends until after playing the whole game over again in NG+.)

Call me a scrub, a noob, a heretic. I just don’t like that kind of stuff.

Oddly, not difficult to beat the knight in arm rasling.

Beginning of Blaugust

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Blaugust has officially begun. I figure that, as a newbie, I should state my goals and plans for the month.

First, I’m planning on blogging every day. I’ve been doing so, even if I’ve had to sneak them in under the wire, to get in the habit. But that’s the plan. Might be a hiccup or two in there (I’m probably needing a minor surgery, which might keep me in the hospital for enough hours to keep me from blogging one day), but that’s the goal, and I’m sticking to it. Maybe if I ever figure out how WordPress works, I’ll make a timed post.

Second, I’m going to get this blog in proper working order. Fix that stupid defaut picture at the top of the blog; make it actually thematic, or at least match the site name. (I’ll have to download some photo editor to do it, since I’m on a newer PC at home (got it in April, and it’s still pretty clean). I’m hardly experienced with that kind of stuff at all, but at least transparencies of Granblue Fantasy characters exist (straight from the game even! very convenient).) Figure out a way to auto-tweet (or at least make it easy to tweet). Put up a sidebar. That sort of stuff.

Not related to anything, but go check out this guy’s comic; it’s good stuff.

Next, my ‘gaming goals’ for the month:

  • Finish Atelier Lulua
  • Start either FFXIV or Elder Scrolls Online.

That might seem like a pretty light list, but if you’ve ever started a MMO you know that’s not a light thing. That first part is almost done, maybe a gaming session or three left (there is a complication though; more on that in the next post). Then I can, with clean conscience, move on to starting yet another MMO. I’ve never really stuck with most of them: I’m primarily in it for the RPG aspect, and a lot of MMO’s hit a story wall at some point, where you need to raid, or join a guild, or something social like that. I generally treat MMO’s as single-player RPG’s that happen to have other real people around that sometimes help you out, when you want. That’s one reason why I’ve stuck with STO for so long – you can play it like that. It’s really baked into the design. The queues are just things you do between story drops, at least in my play style. But most MMO’s aren’t like that. Or, if you are, they become an incredible grind. Stuff like Mabinogi or Black Desert Online can be mostly solo’d, but to do so requires a lot more grind than I want. Guild Wars was actually pretty much my ideal, but that’s done and dead, at least as far as I’m concerned. (I admit, I also want to Barbie it up.)

New Star Trek Online Expansion in September

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There it is right there: Star Trek Online: Awakening. Seems a bit late for a big expansion reveal. I guess Cryptic was waiting for Star Trek: Las Vegas hype for the reveal. All we’ve gotten so far is a short teaser (basically of the Stammets (or whatever his name is) hologram-man in the shroom dimension), the above image, and a pic of one of the new ships (which is based off one from the STD comics).

As we can see, the STD infection hasn’t been stopped. But, from what they’ve said, the storyline is actually going to move forward, instead of being mere holodeck recreations of the past. We’ve got a comic Klingorc that’s planning naughtiness, and I guess that involves the shroom dimension and the Elachi. And since it’s the shroom dimension, we need shroom man, even in holographic form.

Can’t say I’m too excited. I know they ‘needed’ to use current Trek, but STD was such a disaster, and I don’t think it helped anything at all, as far as the game is concerned. I didn’t like anything about the show, at least not enough to bring it into a game 150+ years in the future.

We’ll see what more disappointment comes when they do their panels this weekend.