Review of Wildstar

So yes I'm not the best blogger out there, as I am unable to stick to a single game. I've tried Wildstar out for 4 months now and I've lost my interest in the game. So here is my review of what I liked and didn't like about the game.

I loved that there was a lot lore and text to read through in the quests, I'm a huge lore fan so it worked out in my favor.  The customization options were amazing, Housing especially was very fun to figure out how to create something completely new. Housing and Role-Play were probably my favourite parts of the game. The ability to customize the housing plot any way you wanted to, allowed for nearly endless scenario's for Roleplaying. I created 2 characters, a scientist and a settler as such I got a lot of lore and I got to create several structures in the world.

That said I found the settler path to become a chore after the first month as most players had power leveled to max in order to hit the end game content as such I ended up alone creating structures by myself which took a lot longer than I would have liked. I'm not a power leveler, in my opinion doing that kind of thing takes away from the wonders of the game. As such it took me a couple of months to reach max level, and even so I found the game to be very grindy.
 
In fact there was a grind in pretty much everything there was in the game, which made me wonder....why am I paying ~$15 a month to work instead of having fun ? The crafting was interesting but involved playing a mini-game where you had a chance of getting exactly what you want. Coming from Guild Wars 2 this seemed strange. In my opinion if you had the materials, and the necessary crafting level then you should be able to craft it, not play a RNG game to have a chance at creating it. I found this annoying and going through the levels I found I leveled my character faster than my crafting skill as I just couldn't bare to continue playing the mini game anymore.

As of October 2014 here is my verdict :

I am rating this game a 7/10 based on how much I enjoyed playing the game. In terms of graphics yes I will give them the full 10/10 because the world did look quite beautiful and at times a bit awe-inspiring. I had heard that Wildstar was being aimed at the more hardcore crowd of MMORPG players, it wasn't until I played it for a few months that I realized that I probably didn't count as a member of this hardcore crowd. If you are a hardcore MMORPG gamer I do recommend giving wildstar a try, if you are not such a player hold off... this game is extremely punishing in terms of how much time and effort you have to put in to get much out of it.

Touching Down on Planet Nexus

 

So Wildstar is officially out and I took my first steps on the planet Nexus, the main planet where the game takes place. I planned from the start to have a Granok - Warrior as my first and most likely main character when starting this game. 

So far I've gotten up to level 17 with my character and I'm loving it. As a settler I can build all sorts of upgrades to the environment that give myself, and anyone who visits my area in the short while after, stat boosts that make it easier for us to take on the PVE mobs. I love the challenges, but unfortunately as I'm playing with a 100 others who have been dying to try this game, there aren't much opportunities for me to get the kills/points I need to win them. That said they are definitely fun. 

One of the main selling points of the game for me was the Housing plot. As soon as I reached the capital the first thing I did was find the housing specialist and pick up my housing plot. I even put up a simple Granok house to start off. It seems to me that the whole housing mechanic will be a huge gold sink, but a very addictive one.

The only bad part about this game is that my graphics card ( Radeon 7690m XT) isn't quite compatible with the game as I'm getting all sorts of flickering effects on the screen. That said it isn't too bad and I'm able to play quite well on the lower settings. 


Basically this post is to let the world know that Wildstar is an awesome game, that I am currently in addicted to. I did join an RP server with RP in mind so my next post will be a profile of my character Kaladar Stonehaven and his endeavor to setup Stonehaven Construction Co. -Nexus Branch.

Book Review: The Thousand Names

So I was browsing my local library when I came across this gem of a book. To be honest, I had never even heard of the series or its author prior to reading it. Having read it though, I have come to like the series very much.

About: 

The Thousand Names is the first book in The Shadow Campaigns series, written by Django Wexler. This first book follows the story of two soldiers serving in a colonial garrison of the Vordanai Empire, as they attempt to retake the country of Khandar which has suddenly gone through a religious revolution. However as the campaign reaches its end, there are hints that the new colonel in charge of the army has ulterior motives for taking part in this war.

Plot:

The story takes place on the coast of a country with a great desert, where the soldiers of the colonial garrison of the Vordanai Empire, are trapped in the foreign land with natives who hate them. There are two main protagonists in the story. First is Senior Captain Marcus D'Ivoire, who was in charge of the entire colonial garrison up until the arrival of the mysterious colonel at the beginning of the story. Then there is Winter Ihernglass, a woman who is pretending to be a man in order to serve as a soldier at the garrison. A good majority of the story follows how they get their soldiers ready for war, and then the huge military battles they take part in. One of the more interesting points in this story is the detail Wexler puts into military strategies and knowledge of how one goes about fighting an enemy capable of using artillery

Overall:

This was a great story, and an excellent start to what may be a long series. The main characters have their stories clearly laid out, and by the end of the story you understand their motivations to continue their struggles into the next book in the series. I especially like how an event would start in the point of view of one of the protagonists and grow into a greater event in the view of another character. The explanation for the existence of magic and demons in the story is very complicated and I personally felt that there were a few holes in the explanation. Considering that it was only revealed towards the end of this book, and that the characters in the story seemed just as confused by the existence of magic as I was. It may be that the following book(s) will provide a greater explanation for magic.

This novel follows the stories of an army in an age where they are just discovering the use of guns, as such there is a lot of mature and graphic detail to various events battles and the end results of those battles. While I wouldn't recommend this book to a teenager, it wouldn't be out of place with most fantasy novels that are rated for young adults.

In the end, I highly recommend heading to your local library and finding this novel, it is a fresh and different type of story than most I've read. This is definitely one of 2013's hidden gems 

The trouble with subscriptions.

So the thing about signing up for MMOs that have subscriptions, is that eventually they run out. This week my subscription for EVE ended up running out and I had forgotten to refill my Paypal account. So now I've got to spend an entire week and a bit without playing EVE (Paypal takes 6-8 days for Canadians).

So with all this free time I thought I'd check out other titles in the market. First I tried going back to Guild Wars 2. Unfortunately the main reason I got out of Guild Wars 2 was the immense lag I had to put up with whenever going to maps that had all the activities I wanted to take part in. Even dropping to lowest graphical settings barely got me past 30 fps not including sections where there were mobs of players.

TERA Online: 

So I decided to go and try out TERA Online, which is a free to play MMORPG with a cash shop. I'd originally avoided trying TERA because of the huge download size (30 GBs) and the speed at which they switched from a subscription to cash shop suggested that there may be issues with the game. That said after finally finishing my download and trying out the game, I have to say. Its actually fairly good. Right now I'm playing at max graphical settings with speeds above 40 fps which is awesome considering I'm not running this on a gaming rig. The graphics themselves are awesome, while Tera has a slightly more cartoony feel than Guild Wars 2 the level of detail and flair of the graphical designs have me enchanted. After playing around with the character creation for a bit, I settled on an Aman Lancer as my first main character.

My Aman Lancer: Rhelgha

Tera is an action combat mmorpg that adds an extra layer to combat in the form of having to aim all your skills. Even the Lancer, a close range tank class, has to aim his strikes in order to hit. After flipping through a few of the classes I stuck with the Lancer due to the fact that the lancer's defense revolved around using a skill to 'block' the incoming attacks. By default this block skill is bound to my right click button and it makes for an interesting combat style. I use my lance with my left click or other skills to damage the target, and whenever it looks like its about to attack. I have to use the right click and make sure that my shield is pointing at the source of the incoming attack. At first because the level 2 monsters do very little damage this seems like a non-important skill, but after getting to level 20. I'm totally in love with this combat mechanic.

The Arakia, an early game World Boss (lvl 20).

I've also started doing some Armor-Smithing since my character belongs to class that uses heavy armor. Right now I'm farming a boss monster called the Arakia for materials to create a full set of enchanted heavy armor for my first attempt at a dungeon in TERA Online.  Farming in TERA seems to be a slight bit better than in Guild Wars 2 as you get something every time you kill a monster, and so far the drop rate for rare items from this world boss has been pretty high. Where as with Guild Wars 2, I ended up killing the claw of Jormag probably a hundred time to get a very low drop rate of rare materials. I'm aware that now that rate has been increased, but the practicality of having to fight through an intense lag fest to get the drop is very off-putting.

So all in all, even though my subscription ran out. I have now experienced TERA Online and I think I'll end up spending a bit more time on this game. Since it is a free to play MMORPG this is going to workout as a good breather/ change of pace from my usual gameplay in EVE.

A small farm I've been operating out of, to collect materials for Armorsmithing.

(despite the watermark these are all screenshots taken in game by players, 2 of them by me and 1, I got off the web, because I wasn't ready to get a world boss angry and then pause long enough to take the shot).

Its cold out there.

So for the last few weeks I've been raking in the cash as an Ice Miner in EVE Online. I've even gone and made the most efficient fit possible for a standard Mining Barge.That said Ice Mining tends to be quite boring. Most times all I do is warp to an ice belt, set my ship up to mine and walk away from my PC for about 15 minutes. That said there were a few close calls, where folks have tried to gank me while I wasn't paying attention. That said it was well worth it, right now I'm making 19 million ISK per hour every four hours when I'm on. I've gone and tripled my savings from my first month of gameplay, which seems like a small jump, except I've also been spending like crazy on new ships, equipment and skills.

Now I have more time and money to focus on getting my manufacturing business up and running. I've started producing ammunition and drones, both of which are things that many people use up quite quickly. Lately though my corporation (Guild) has been trying to get me to take part in more PVE/PVP activities. In fact for this weekend we are getting ourselves set up for a free for all tournament using tier 1 frigate class ships. During the last tournament, in the very first round I had the misfortune of being set up against the person who ended up winning the entire tourney. This time around I'm hoping to be ready for all eventualities and make it to the top 3 at the very least.

In addition to all this, my corporation wants me to start working on getting ready for incursions. For those who aren't aware, Incursions are EVE's version of raids. I'm currently working on getting a battleship ready for Incursions, but it seems like I'll need a lot of time to get my skills up to par for this challenge. Right now I'm thinking of creating a close ranged DPS with a passive tanking ability.

Edit: I've also updated my 'about me' page for those of you who would like to know who I am. 

Here come the Big Drills

So as I mentioned previously, in my attempt to fill the gap until the release of Wildstar, I have started trying out other MMOs. EVE Online being the latest attempt. So far I'm loving how the game is set up so that in order to make any real money you have to get into some kind of 'Career' in my case I decided to start in the Mining Career and slowly make my way into Manufacturing. 

I may have gotten a little carried away with my mining career. Just this past week I started work on an Excel sheet to figure out efficient ship/skill setups as well as which ores would make me the most money. The end result was this:    Mining Chart.

It seems safe to say I've gotten a bit hooked on the game. However my recent attempts to get into gas mining in Wormholes along with my corp-mates have met a bit of a roadblock. I've heard stories of pirates in EVE Online but this was the first time I've actually met them. They are a full corporation of players hooked on PVP and equipped with some serious firepower holding my Corporation(Guild) captive inside our own Player Owned Station, in a relatively unpopulated Wormhole.

Once more I find further confirmation that I am more of a PVEer than a PVPer in the way that I prefer to stay out of such engagements. I honestly don't get the appeal of sitting on an exit for 4+ hours, just to attack the guy(s) who try and make a break for it. It is a very slow way to make money, yes there is a small chance of a exciting battle. But more likely than not, it will be just a one-sided fight with the other team just being wiped out because they weren't ready for you.

Book Review : The Lies of Locke Lamora

(Book One of the Gentlemen Bandits Series )

So as I mentioned in my christmas update I'm adding a new section to my usual posts that covers books I've read and like or feel the need to comment on. As the title suggests the first book I will write about is 'The Lies of Locke Lamora' the first book in the Gentlemen Bandits series by Scott Lynch.

About:

For those who aren't aware the Gentlemen Bandits series by Scott Lynch, is part of the fantasy-thievery genre. It follows the exploits of a thief named Locke Lamora who uses cunning and trickery as the tools of his trade. The story takes place is a fantasy world where magic does exist, yet none of the protagonists are what passes for this story's version of a Mage. So don't expect many complicated magic battle scenes, it will mainly be sword vs sword type of battle, or in the case of the thieves an escape from such battles. The protagonists of the story are a small gang of thieves called the 'Gentlemen Bandits'. while most other thieves consider them to be small time crooks, their misdeeds however have the rest of the world in fear of their identity as the 'Thorn of Camorr'.

Story:
The story is a very witty one, it is told through multiple points of view. At first most of the points of view are by the Gentlemen Bandits, but overtime you get to see the points of view of their victims and main enemies. Throughout this book you see several flashbacks to the life of Locke Lamora as a child and his entrance into the world of thievery. While at first I considered skipping out on the flashbacks (I've never been a fan of flashbacks), they play a central role in explaining the motivations of the main characters. Personally I loved all the characters even the victims of their crimes, they were all fully developed and had several interesting quirks.

Overall: 
This is an excellent book, it starts off strong and gets you into the action fairly early on. If you are fans of films like Ocean's Eleven, then this is for you. Expect several plot twists and even if you get to the part where you know the plan, the ending will still elude you. The author has a very descriptive style that paints a clear image of the city of Camorr, and the characters. There is a lot of clever humor hidden throughout the story, if you pay attention it really makes you grin to yourself. I highly recommend this book to any fan of fantasy or adventure novels.