Speed Run Time

Hello everyone! I'm officially back. I kinda forgot that this is one of the things I'm doing with my time. I wanted to say that I was happy to watch yet another Games Done Quick (GDQ) event. Summer games done quick was as fun as always. My sister and I got our shirts ordered, and we watched a good bit of it together. I guess I must just be getting old because I slept through a lot of it, but I still saw mostly everything I had intended to see.

After spending several days watching all of the runners it got me (as it often does) thinking about what I would like to speed run. Well, I won't keep you in suspense. I've decided to run Oblivion (No OoB). I already went to Speedrun.com and found guides. I also got set up with the 1.0 version of the game. I'm having trouble finding splits for LiveSplit though. I'm just going to make my own. I started a game and tested out the item dupe glitch.

I'm also going to start playing Oblivion casually with my sister. I know it'll sound dumb but we're going to play the game side by side with me on my PC and her on her laptop. I think it'll be a lot of fun because the game has so many ways to develop. I love the Elder Scrolls series. Anyhow that's all for now. I'll be working on the other stuff I've promised here and on social media soon. See ya' around!

Dragons and Titans

Hello! I'm trying to be regular. I really need to work out when and how often I'll be doing this. Some days are better than others and I'm not talking about my schedule. I don't have a lot of money for games so I'll mostly be reviewing games I already own or free to play games. Some of these reviews will be, "timely." It just so happens I downloaded a free to play game a few days ago. I haven't played it for very long, but I do have some initial thoughts on it.

Dragons and Titans:

As the title suggests I've been playing Dragons and Titans. It's a game where you ride dragons into combat with your enemy with the ultimate goal of destroying your enemies' titan. The controls will feel familiar if you're already used to the DOTA/LOL control scheme. The game itself is actually very similar to other MOBAs.

There are multiplayer, coop, and single player modes. The game has a thorough tutorial so you wont be left scratching you head not knowing what to do. Playing through the game gives you currency to open loot packs that give you more dragons to use. It kinda reminds me of Puzzle and Dragons / Hearthstone in that way. There's a season pass that gives you access to all of the current content. If things stay the way they are or the game gets more popular it's definitely worth picking it up. It's also a short download so pick it up and try it out. I had a lot of fun in my short time playing it.

Well I know this one is short but that's all for now. I haven't really decided what I'm going to be writing about here on a regular basis, but there's more to come. Thanks for reading and see ya around!

Charity Marathons

Hello! It's been a long time since I've posted. I haven't done much more than play a little Diablo 3 here and there, and watch The Walking Dead on Netflix. I've also been talking to a friend of mine and tossing around a few ideas for games. I've been wanting to make a game for 2 years now. I'm just really lazy and haven't bothered learning what I need to be able to do it.

I don't know why for the life of me I never thought to come back to this blog. There's a lot I can talk about other than games, movies and TV. I'm getting really hyped for the next few months. There's two charity marathons on the way: RPG Limit Break and Summer Games Done Quick! You can find all the info about these charity events in the links below.

RPG Limit Break

Summer Games Done Quick

I got started watching these marathons on YouTube years ago. RPG Limit Break is rather new, and as I understand it's a replacement for Crystals for Life, another marathon from the past. These events are a lot of fun and have prizes for your donations, so take some time and check them out. RPGLB is benefiting NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) and SGDQ is benefiting Doctors Without Borders.

That's it for now. I've just installed another free to play game that I'll be talking about soon. So, thanks for reading. See ya around!

Diablo 3 Season 10 Thoughts and Tips

Hello! It's been a few days since my last blog post. I've been well though. I had a few bad nights because I'm still missing Randy, and I don't quite know how to deal with it. It's hard to let go when your life revolved around another person for years.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I don't know what rock I had my head under for the past few years but I've totally been missing out on seasonal play in Diablo 3. I know I've already talked about how much I love this bad game. To be honest when I played it in 2012 I never used the auction house or the real money auction house, so I don't really get it when people say it ruined the game. I will admit though that it may have cheapened the fun for some people because they could just plug in whatever stats they wanted and gear out as long as they had enough gold

Anyhow on to seasonal play. I love this idea. It took me back to when I first started the game. I had to level everything all over again. It's slow going in the beginning. I never felt like I was out of stash room or anything though. Which is a good feeling. I like to have a lot of room for gems. I don't play hardcore yet so I'm not stashing tons of gear in case I die.

I'm playing a Wizard this season. I'm not really out to top the charts. If I was I would have started a couple weeks ago. I'm not even using an optimal spec. I also have no idea what the optimal gear is. I can look it up later if it becomes an issue. At the time of this writing I'm paragon level 47. I'm still a baby when it comes to my paragon level. You can check out my character Parathunder here.

While I'm not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to Diablo 3 but I do have some advice when it comes to the Wizard. Make sure you keep your buffs up at all times. This should go without saying. Try to keep a high damage weapon in your hands when you're leveling. It can be easy to miss the increase to damage when you get a weapon that isn't a typical weapon for a Wizard. Just realize that everything scales based on your weapon's damage. While I was leveling I had usually a big two handed weapon. Try to focus more on your weapon while leveling. Gear is nice but when you get a good weapon upgrade while leveling you could be getting like 100% higher damage from a new weapon.

My next bit of advice is for battle. Pay attention to your position in battle. I try to focus on choke points as I'm a disintegrate Wizard. I know that makes me a pleb but like I said I don't really care about the charts right now. I tend to plant my hydras far ahead of me and fall back to a corner or a choke point and blast with disintegrate I use Storm Armor so that I get a little passive damage. So far I'm doing really well playing on Torment I. I may switch things up later so that it's more optimal.

Anyhow all this talking about Diablo 3 makes me want to play some Diablo 3. Thanks for taking the time to read this. My next entry will probably have links to guides and stuff as I'll probably be moving to a more optimal build. If you want really good guides / builds /specs for all things Blizzard check out icy-veins.com/. Thanks again for reading see ya around!

Jesse's MMO Romp Part 4: First Impressions

Hello! This is it. This is the end of my MMO Romp. If you've read my previous post you already know I reached the conclusion that I do not want to play MMO's any more. I still wanted to finish putting my thoughts on the games I've played to paper. I actually didn't play too much Runescape so I'm leaving it out of this article. Without further ado here's my thoughts on Firefall, Age of Conan, Order and Chaos 2, and D&D Online.

Firefall:

I really wanted to like this game. I'm more of a shooter oriented gamer so I thought for sure I'd fall in love with this one as it is an MMO shooter. I did fall in love with it in fact. I mean what's not to love. The game has fast paced shooter action. The environments were nice and you get rocket boots.

I experienced a game breaking bug though. I got to one part on a mission where I had to activate a terminal to continue. When I activate it I get a loading screen. After the loading screen either nothing happens or I get logged out. If I try to go about the mission after the loading screen I eventually get to a point where the quest tracker literally tells me to go up over a vertical wall and return to the console to begin the quest. So I like this game, and may come back to it. For right now though I just don't want to bother.

Age of Conan:

I like this game immensely. It's the Conan universe which I love. You start out playing as a slave whose ship has run aground resulting in your freedom. The Combat is fun. I still don't have it quite figured out, but it revolves around you chaining combos together for big damage.

I played as a Cimmerian Ranger. I thought it was going to be more like a hunter. To my surprise my skill set was mostly Melee starting out. I didn't like that I the only bow I could find required me to be level 10 before I could use it. They even gave me a ranged ability even though I can't use the starter bow from the first trade post. I don't want to sound like I didn't like the game though. It's fun! Give it a try. 

Order and Chaos 2:

First off I have to say that I have played this game before on my phone. Yep, that's right, this game lets you play a full fledged MMO on your phone or tablet. There's also a version of it on the Windows store that will let you play the game on Windows devices. I installed the desktop version and set off to romp around and see the world.

I like this game. I have an instant interest in any game that will let me play as an Orc. I just like Orcs there's something powerful and primal about them that I love even if they are big ugly brutes. Anyway I dove right in and started questing. They're really good about directing you where to go. You get blue dotted line to help you find your way.

This game is also controller enabled. I plugged in my Xbox controller and went at it. The controls weren't the best though. I think the controls would be a lot better if turning the camera angle also made the character turn, but you get used to it. You also will do a lot better if you use the mouse to interact with the various interfaces in the game because they're not very intuitive with the controller. Sometimes pressing “A” does one thing sometimes it seems to do another.

All in all I had fun with this one though. It's free to play and you can take it with you on the go. So download it and have fun!

Dungeons and Dragons Online:

This one was a pleasant surprise as well just like Lord of the Rings Online. Once again if you can handle the HD textures by all means do it. It makes the game look much better than it would otherwise. I played as a human ranger. Unlike Conan I was able to use a bow from the get-go.

Leveling up in this game is more in line with actual D&D than it was in Neverwinter. I played about as much as I would have to get to level 10 in other games, but I'm still level 1. In this game you rank up before you level. At rank 10 you graduate to level two. You still get skill points for every rank so it doesn't make leveling up seem too daunting.

The game play wasn't too grindy there were all kinds of bonus zone objectives and quests. I had a lot of fun with this one. There are also puzzles that were semi-challenging. I think I might leave this game and Lord of the Rings online installed for whenever I feel the itch to play something MMO-like.

In any event thank you if you stuck around for my ramblings. Thank you to everyone that +1'd this blog at any point. I'll be back, but I don't know what I'll be writing about next.

I'MMOut: My Personal Conclusion on MMO Style Games

As the title suggests I've come to a conclusion concerning MMO style games. In short I think they're for the most part not worth it. Right now you have two models the free to play / no subscription model and the subscription based model. They both have their good points.

Free to play is free which is good. There are still things that you'll have to pay for eventually though. If you want vanity items, extra bag room, or character slots then you'll end up paying. There are some games that still require you to purchase expansion content which is actually true across both models. But, for the most part these games would have you pay to take shortcuts for achieving most of the goals of the game from crafting to pets and mounts.

Subscription based games are probably going to end up being a little bit better. This is because the people that make the game are for the most part obligated to keep adding quality content. They can also give you pets and mounts from various achievements. World of Warcraft I would say has a great balance of vanity items for real dollars and others that you can earn.

By the same token developers are also making content that requires you to spend a good bit of time to achieve certain things whether it's mounts, pets, achievements, or even just leveling up. It's a delicate balance though because too long or short of time invested can lead to people leaving the game to go play something else that will reward them at a better interval.

At the end of the day I see this (just my personal preference) as just a big mind game. There are a lot of other games that I find to be better because these games actually have an end to them. Still though, modern games come out with a lot of DLC which I find (again just my preference) to be a better method of delivering content. There is DLC out there that feels like a whole new game (Assassin's Creed Freedom Cry for example) too, which I find to be a serious plus as the developer is giving people more bang for their buck when it comes to buying a season pass for something.

Of course content is added to MMO games all the time. I'm simply saying that the motivation is to keep you grinding away for something that seems less personal than other types of games. I know I've said before on this blog that I don't mind the grind, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately and that's what these games eventually turn into for me. To me it's either a ploy to keep me paying a subscription, or to have me pay for quality of life be it from short cuts or extra features.

I just think it's not my thing. Moving forward I think my focus is going to be on more single player games. I will miss multiplayer, but there are a lot of single player narrative games that have a multiplayer aspect to them, so I don't think I'll be depriving myself of that kind of play either. I know some people might think I'll be paying more money for less content because new games are upwards of 60 dollars or more. I'm an older gamer though, and I'd like to think I'm more patient than most. I can wait for a game to go on sale, or catch it in a humble bundle.

I think I still might keep a couple of these games installed at the end of the day. You never know when I'll get the itch to just mindlessly grind mobs. MMO's are alright sometimes. I just don't see myself dedicating a lot of time to them the way I used to.

Well if I go too much further with this rambling it's going to turn in to a specific rant, and That's not really what I'm about. So, I'll be dropping the last of my first impressions on the rest of the games I've been playing soon. From here on out this blog will be more about my [semi] collected thoughts from playing single player games. I still didn't touch much on my social anxiety when it comes to multiplayer games. I think that's best saved for another time.

How I Deal

Hello! I'm back again for a short post or two today. The past couple of days my anxiety has gotten the better of me, and I haven't posted anything. I said previously that my character flaws would be the topic of a post later on. Seeing as it's gotten the better of me I figured now would be an OK time to talk about it.

In 2012 I manifested schizoaffective disorder in the form of multiple paranoid delusions and a big, long outburst on social media. I had my moment of clarity eventually though. Since then I've been having severe social anxiety and depression. Situations where I would normally be fine are terrifying to me sometimes. I get scared that I might be saying the wrong thing, and might anger people. I also worry that what I'm doing might be yet another byproduct of delusional thinking. This causes me not to say anything, or do anything. I've had moments where I just sit there looking at my computer screen for several minutes petrified to do anything.

I've had cognitive behavioral therapy though. That's what I want this post to really be about. I don't want to just cry and whine on the internet about my problems. I want to help people by talking about what I've been trained to do to make the situation better. This doesn't work 100% of the time but it does help out.

When I'm feeling depressed, or experiencing anxiety in the form of bad thoughts I've been trained to do thought replacement. Instead of just letting the same old wheels turn in my head I collect a lot of different more positive subject matter that I force myself to think about instead of focusing on bad thoughts. Like I said this is still not 100% because sometimes I can't turn off the bad thoughts no matter what I do. It sucks I know but at least it's better than nothing.

Another thing that I've been taught to do is to occupy my hands with something productive or fun. I'm a gamer so usually this part is easy. Lately though it still isn't enough for me. Sometimes I'm just too depressed to do very much. I take long naps and sleep for most of the day. This is an example of something that you shouldn't do. I just feel down because I lost my partner of 7 years late in 2015. I know I should probably be over it by now, but I'm not. Sometimes it makes the days hard. At the end of the day you have to give yourself a pass sometimes. Nobody's perfect.

I'm going to break this recent cycle today though as I'll be forcing myself to play a few new games so that I can talk about them in my MMO romp posts. I'll be playing more D&D Online, and I'll be playing another game I found on steam: Age of Conan Unchained. So far it's been fun, but I'll have more on that later. So for now take care, and just know that at the end of the day nobody is perfect and you're allowed to take the time you need. Hopefully my writing this helps at least one person. See ya around!

My thoughts on the Assassin's Creed Series Part 1

Assassin's Creed 1 and 2 So Far

Hello! I'm taking a short break from writing about MMO's mostly because I haven't had time to sit down and play them to the point that I have something new to say about them. I'm also not done giving my first impressions of all the games I've played. I have a few ideas about what I want to do after I'm done writing about these games. That's what I'm here to write about today.

I'm more of a casual gamer. I don't typically play a game on the highest difficulty. It's because of this that I want two write about two series in particular; Assassin's Creed, and Dark Souls. Assassin's Creed because there aren't difficulty settings, and Dark Souls because it's notoriously hard.

I had to sell my PS3 quite a few years ago, and my computer was also broken during that time period so I didn't really get to enjoy these series as much as I would have liked. I got another PS3 2 years ago, and had been meaning to play the original Assassin's Creed. Well I completed the game recently and started on Assassin's Creed 2. There are a few things I've noticed moving from Assassin's Creed to Assassin's Creed 2.

The combat in Assassin's Creed 2 is a lot easier. There are also a few quality of life changes that were made to the combat. I say that combat is easier because I typically use counters to dispatch my foes, and countering has been made quite a bit easier. Whereas in Assassin's Creed I would most likely get hit for trying to parry too early the timing window in Assassin's Creed 2 seems to have been extended.

As far as the quality of life changes go there's the addition of health bars for the enemies which makes it easier to tell if you're about to kill someone. There's also NPC markers to make it easier to see someone that you're supposed to protect, or to tell you when guards are on the verge of going after you. They've also made climbing up and down a little faster than it was in Assassin's Creed. One major change that I've liked very much is the ability to blend with any group of people on the street. This makes avoiding the guards seem a lot easier. I've also noticed that whereas in Assassin's Creed guards would chase you to the ends of the earth unless you broke line of sight and hid in Assassin's Creed 2 you can lose the guards if you break line of sight and flee the area.

Overall I can't wait to see how this series develops. I know there are people that have a lot of negative things to say about some of the games in the later series. I've watched a few streams and videos and I can honestly say I can see why people have a few things to complain about, but as I've said before I don't think some of these things make the games unplayable. Thanks to anyone out there that's reading this. I'll be writing some more about the MMO's I've been playing, and eventually the Dark Souls Series. Thanks for stopping by and see ya around!

Jesse's MMO Romp Part 3: First Impressions

Hello! I'm back again to discuss a few more of the games I've been playing as a part of my MMORPG romp. Today we're taking a look at Path of Exile, Tera, and Neverwinter I enjoyed all of these games very much, and I'm happy to be here again to tell you about them.

Path of Exile:

I heard this game was micro transaction heavy so I went into it feeling skeptical. I was pleasantly surprised though. While you can pay real world cash to upgrade your stash they do give you a very large stash, and I pick up nearly everything when I play a Diablo clone. The barter based economy in the game seems weird at first but you get used to it.

I played my duelist all the way to level 21 because I got super caught up in the game play. The skill tree is very awesome. It's reminiscent of Final Fantasy X's sphere grid. As far as abilities go you socket gems with abilities into your armor and weapons.

There are also linked sockets so you can modify the abilities you equip. In that regard this game has virtually limitless customization. And then there are prophecies and leaguestones. These add a little more randomness to the game by adding things like environmental hazards and elite monsters to areas of the game.

As for the graphics I was able to run the game with every setting turned all the way up with my 970, but I would say you're ok even if you have a dinosaur like a 9500 or even lower. The game has excellent art in terms of both characters and environments. I am definitely going to keep playing this game. It reminds me a lot of Diablo 2, but it pushes the game play a bit further than the immortal classic.

Tera:

Next up we have a game that I knew literally nothing about going into it. I was perusing the free to play section of the Steam Store, and I came across this game. I jumped right in with an Aman Berserker. I really enjoy the fast paced hack and slash play style. The game's combat is targetless so it's more skill based.

The graphics are gorgeous. My big burly dragon-like Aman looks amazing as do the rest of the character choices. The combat is a decent challenge. There are health pickups that randomly spawn after you defeat enemies to keep you going.

If I had to pick one thing I didn't like it would be the lengthy animations. This might just be because of the berserker's big heavy two-handed weapon though. When I try to activate other skills and abilities besides just the standard attack I had to wait until every last frame of animation played out.

Overall though the combat is challenging. I came close to dying a few times, but it was not too hard to handle. I played long enough to get out of the noob area, and flew to a city. I'm going to continue playing this game but I don't really see myself wanting to play high level PvP or PvE.

Neverwinter:

Last up on my list to talk about today is Neverwinter. I've always loved games based on AD&D. I played a lot of the old school bioware D&D games like Baldur's Gate, and Icewind Dale. I was a little worried about how well a D&D game would translate to MMO playstyle. It was wonderfully fun though. I don't think I re-rolled my stats enough, but I did my best. Again I'm not really in this for the end game. I just want to have fun questing and leveling characters.

The graphics are very pretty. I was very happy with how my character looked. I played a half-orc great weapon fighter. I was able to make him look how I wanted. I only wish they had a better balding hair style.

The quest tracking is good. They give you a sparkly line to follow for all your quests. I never really felt lost the entire time I played. I still have no idea how professions work though. I know you have to have a certain profession to activate the various profession nodes. There are also profession kits that allow you to harvest nodes you otherwise wouldn't have access too.

The combat is a lot like Tera. However, I was felt more in controll than I did with Tera. I'm still a noob (only level 11) but they challenge is pretty good when fighting powerful mobs. You have to know when to get out of the way when you're fighting. Stand too long in the wrong place and you're going to take a lot of damage.

I definitely want to play this game more after getting to know it. I still can't see myself doing a lot of high level PvP or raiding, but it seems like a fun quest grinder. 

Well that's all for now. I'll be back in a few days to finish this series up at least for now. I want to blog about these games all the way up until I reach the level cap. I also urge you if you're reading this to download the games I talk about and see for yourself. Everything is a matter of taste. Anyhow I'll see ya around.

Jesse's MMO Romp Part 2: First Impressions

Hello! Well, it's been another day. I'm not having much luck working up the confidence to live stream so I thought I might as well continue my blog postings. I have character flaws, but enough of that for now. That will be another post altogether. The first game I wish to talk about is one that I really wanted to review in the last post because I liked it so much. Here we go!

Lord of the Rings Online:

I was very surprised by this one. If you have any kind of a decent video card definitely download the high resolution textures. The geometry involved with the graphics isn't very complex but they make up for that with a lot of low polygon high quality textured objects. I was also very impressed with the water which is something that I look for when I make up my mind about a games graphics quality. The gear that you get early on all matches as well which is something that I like to see in a game.

I played a human hunter. The quests in the game are nicely intertwined between side quests, and main story quests. There's also a fair amount of phasing so your sense of progression is nice as well. The combat was intuitive. Being a ranged class is pretty fun. They give you a lot of answers to deal with mobs whether you're kiting, or trapping.

They story so far is intriguing what little I've experienced of it so far. I haven't exactly played as much of this game as I would have liked, but I'll be playing it more soon. As I've said before my goal was just to gather a first impression of the game. The quest tracking isn't the best but I'd say it's nearly equivalent to what you get with the standard World of Warcraft quest tracking.

Much like Rift a lot of the content of the game is pay to play. I've been reassured that you can still solo for free all the way up. What I've heard though is that it will be very grind intensive. I don't mind a grind though. Like Rift you'll end up spending a lot if you want to unlock everything. I'd say it's well worth it though. I'm not saying buy it all at once either. That's a little extreme. I'm saying unlock what you want to play when you're able to play it. There's plenty to play through it you want to go full completionist with it. 

Arche Age:

Ok this one I'm going to make short and sweet. I didn't like this game. I didn't even really play it enough to give it a fair chance. You can go ahead and download it and see for your self. It's pretty mediocre. The combat was repetitive. I liked what little of the story I did get to see. Early on my character died, and I got a message about recovering some of the experience points I lost.

I've been spoiled on not having this happen. It started with World of Warcraft and it is just something that I expect. After having this happen I just quit playing and uninstalled the game. I'm sure the game is fine and I probably just noobed it up and got killed when I shouldn't have had any chance of it. It's just something that I wasn't able to get over so I quit because I personally feel like MMO's should be past this kind of thing.

Well that's it for now. I really need to spend a lot more time with these games because I feel like I'm not doing them enough justice. I'll be back in a day or two with more on these free to play-ish MMO's.

Don't Smoke and Game

Smoking Cigarettes: a lot of us do it. It's a really bad unhealthy habit. I started smoking when I was 17 and I smoked all the way up until I was 31. I'm 32 now and still smoke free after a year. I wont lie. It wasn't easy to quit. I tried multiple times over the years but it never took. Gaming was closely tied to smoking because I would either smoke while playing or I would take frequent breaks to smoke while I played.

While I was trying to quit I would start playing a game and when I got to the point where I would normally break for a smoke I just didn't know what to do with myself. What helped me this time around is that I decided to take a break from the game, and either go get a light snack of some kind or switch to another game. It worked and now I'm completely nicotine free. It's been an amazing experience for me. I go to the store and I can smell the food. I can smell the flour, sugar, and bread. I also don't get winded as easily. If you're a smoker trust me you may not smell it but other people can smell you.

I decided to stop because I got to the point that I felt physically ill after I smoked. I recently lost my fiance to heart failure. A situation that was no doubt made more severe because of his smoking. We each smoked about a pack a day. It doesn't sound like to much does it? Trust me even a little is bad for you. In the end he quit smoking about a month before he died, but it was already too late. He was already running on a pace maker with 10% of his heart working. As you can imagine this was another driving factor for me to quit.

As for how I did it; I used patches. The patches helped me replace my source for nicotine, and my new approach for how I handled my gaming hobby replaced the behavior. If you really want to quit give my method a try. I don't even need nicotine anymore. I still run into situations where I would want another cigarette but my body is no longer dependent on it, so it's easy to ignore. Anyway I hope my little blurb on this either inspired or helped whoever reads this. See ya around!

Jesse's MMO Romp Part 1: First Impressions

Hello again! I've spent most of this week playing MMO games that are either free, or do not require a subscription. Well, I just finished playing each game to level 10 so I thought I'd write down my first impressions of the games. It should be noted that I'm not trying to prove the superiority of any particular game. I'm also not trying to review the high end content such as high level PvP and Raids. I'm just recording my thoughts as I play these games very casually. This is more for the person that only wants to spend an hour or a little more a day playing doing mostly single player questing. Today I'll be reviewing Wildstar, Rift, and Elder Scrolls Online.

Wildstar :

First up we have a game that I was very excited to play as it was made by a lot of people that worked at Blizzard in the past. The game as you'd expect is highly customizable. If you have the Twitch Desktop app you can automatically install and keep up to date with several user made mods that can improve your experience in the game.

During my time with this game I played as a Mechari Engineer. If I had realized that this was a tanking class I probably would have picked a different class as I'm pretty burnt out on tanking for good. However, as a tanking class you can handle many mobs at the same time without any real fear of being killed. I did an instance by myself, but I think that was intended. It did feel nice to take out a flock of monsters with powerful abilities though. Quest tracking was amazing if you get really lost you can just click on the quest in the tracker and you'll be provided with a glowing blue set of arrows to point you in the right direction.

Graphically the game is great and has a surprising amount of detail considering how cartoony the game is. I actually joked with one of my friends that I felt like I was playing a Sly Cooper MMO. I ran this game on ultra with a GTX 970 and it ran great never dropping below 30 FPS. The gear is nice and detailed. I haven't looked into it yet but I'd like to have the option of coloring my gear later on as it looks mismatched otherwise. In the end I don't consider the multi colored gear a big negative cause I'm only like level 12, and the gear is going to change frequently

I had a lot of fun with this one and I can't wait to review the housing aspect of this game. I've never played an MMO other than Final Fantasy XI that let you customize your own space. 

 

Rift:

This one has been around for a while and I did play it back when it first came out. I will say this. The customer service is awesome I got locked out by an authenticator on the account that I had many years ago on an old phone, and the customer service team at Trion got back to me in about a day and helped me through the process of removing the device.

Graphically the game looks a little dated, but the graphics are still very nice. If you're on an older machine this game has some major late night grind potential. I played this game with mostly the highest settings on my Nvidia 9500 GT back in the day. This game is also very customizable so you can link it to your Twitch Desktop and install mods in a flash.

I actually played this game past level 10 to level 15. At first I felt a little bored by the game but once you get into the questing grind it gets better. It actually reminds me of old World of Warcraft where quests were more hub based than story line based. You go to a hub, and pick up 2 to 5 quests and explore the zone while completing them. You're going to have to make good use of the map in the game to get quests done, but that's part of the fun.

As far as the free to play aspect of the game I did a little research on the steam store. There's a lot to purchase to open up every aspect of the game if you want to play end game PvP and Raids. Looking at the user reviews there are a lot of people expressing hate for this game because of the huge price tag. At the end of the day It's not about that for me anyway, so I could care less. If you're bored and feel like hitting up some MMO style questing late at night then this game is a pretty solid choice.

The Elder Scrolls Online:

This game is not exactly free to play. You have to pay for the initial game and you can either buy the DLC or pay a subscription fee to access all DLC. I'm including it because there's not subscription fee for basic play. I actually played this game for 2 months as my main MMO back before I decided not to focus too much time on them, and play other games, so I have a lot to say but I'll try to keep it short and sweet here.

One of the great things about this game is the level of customization. Any class can wear any type of armor, and there's not really a set spec to play unless you're trying to do a lot of solo PvP, and be a top end raider. My main character in this game is an Orc Dragon Knight. At first I was a complete noob at this game and was using a two handed weapon. I later switched to dual wield.

This brings me to my next point: crafting. Crafting is a really big part of the game and it is very useful. From potions to armor, and enchantments your bag should always stay stuffed with crafting materials. If having a cluttered inventory bothers you then subscribe and you'll get a large crafting bag among other things.

Even though I'm not taking on this MMO as a hardcore end gamer I hold it in very high regard. I'm going to play it all the way through for the main story quest and maybe even go completionist and try to finish every free to play zone. I'll also say that the game is very close to being an Elder Scrolls 6. If you're bored with Skyrim give it a try. It's the closest thing to an Elder Scrolls 6 that we're going to have for a few years.

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Anyway, these are my first impressions of the games above. I'll be back in a day or two to talk more about the other games I've been keeping myself busy with. I'll be reviewing: Arche Age, Firefall, Tera, Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Neverwinter, Path of Exile, and Runescape. See ya around!

Hello

Hello. My name is Jesse and I'm a life long gamer. I'm 32 years old and I live in West Texas. I don't really have any big plans for this blog. I just want to put my words down and voice my opinions on all things gaming related. I believe that games were made for you to have fun with. What this means for this blog is that I'm going to try to remain positive, and optimistic when it comes to the games that I end up writing about.

This does not mean that everything I have to say will be positive. I just think that people today are way too critical when it comes to new games. I believe this to be especially true when it comes to sequels for games. For instance: I really liked Diablo 3. I know a lot of people who think it is a terrible game that pales in comparison to the games that came before it. My take on it (and it's not an original one to be sure) is that Diablo 3 could never have lived up to the hype. I don't think it's as good or better than the previous two. However, I do believe that it is a very fun game. I spent a lot of time playing the game with friends and family on different platforms. I have to say that the single screen co-op that I played with my sister on PS3 is one of the best times I've ever had gaming.

I feel that there's a lot that goes into games these days that people take for granted. Subtle facial animations, and detailed layouts of entire cities are just a few things that people simply just expect from game developers. I know I'm going to sound like an old fart but think about how simple games where in the beginning. A lot of them weren't simple by choice. They also required the same hard work that games still require today. This is not to say that new games are all good because they take a lot work. When I hear complaints about a new game's graphics I chuckle a little to myself. I think that at this point things have come so far that graphics should be the last thing on anyone's mind. I think that graphics can still be considered good even if a game is 20 years old. If the art holds up then the graphics are still good they're just dated. I don't think being dated makes them bad

I know a lot of people that try to stay away from the N64 and PS1 era of games because they look "bad". Yeah the frame rates were lower than the previous consoles, but they had their own aesthetic. You have to keep in mind when it comes to that period there were limits to what was achievable. The N64 for example only had 4MB of RAM (8 if you had the expansion cart) Looking at it now it's amazing they were able to do anything at all with it. People working on games found a way to make what inspired them a reality. This is what lead to games like Final Fantasy VII, and Resident Evil. They pulled of amazing things with the pseudo 3D pre-rendered backgrounds they created.

My point is that those games never lost what made them good simply because of their graphics. However, graphics aside I know a lot of people would be pointing out game play flaws. There are some games that have game play flaws for sure. This usually is a combination of a few things rooted in how the game was made.

And then there's the writing. I'm all about game play so I don't care if the writing is bad. My best example of this would have to be Red Faction 2. A lot of people hated it. I played the PC version on Steam a full decade after the game was released and I experienced no bugs or glitches. It was (to me) a fun shooter. The story was pretty bad. The way they wrapped everything up at the end made me cringe. Would I consider it to be bad though just based on that? No I would not. Another example I like to use is the original Doom. That game had literally like 3 paragraphs of plot, but people still come back to it to this day. There are sites up right now that are dedicated to enhancing the original game. I personally use GZDoom.

At the end of the day what I really look for in a new game is it capturing the spirit of older games while pushing boundaries that held previous games back. A game having a good story definitely helps tremendously, but as history has shown a game doesn't have to have a Hollywood story, to give you a AAA experience.

In any event I seem to have rambled on quite a bit here. Welcome to my blog. In the next few days I'll be detailing my experiences with several different MMORPG's that I've been trying out. They are all mostly either free to play or don't require a subscription service for basic play. I've already been having a great time with a few of them and one of them in particular is way better than I had anticipated. See ya' around.