Hearthstone Open Beta

Pull Up A Chair By the Hearth

One night back in 1994, on the eve of my birthday, my best friend gave me a deck of Magic: The Gathering cards as a present. While I was a firm believer in the maxim "Save Gaming, Kill a Magic Player" thought process at the time, it was my best friend, and he wanted to play the game with me.  So I was willing to give it a try.  Unfortunately, I have a mind like a sieve, and left the bag of goodies at the rec center where my birthday party was being held.  And some schmuck got a nice deck for free to either use or sell.  And of course, given my dislike for the game prior to that I had the dickens of the time convincing my friend whose feelings were justifiably hurt that I had not done it on purpose.  These are the ways youthful angst gets us and often leads to midlife guilt.  So with that in mind, this article is dedicated to my favorite Tasmanian Devil.

Blizzard Entertainment has created a game called Hearthstone, which is a CCG that is played online. It is currently in open beta.  If you have a battle.net id, you can talk to any of your other blizzard games friends through the battle tag system.  It is a free to play model, with the ability to buy more cards through their store. Both in game currency and real currency can be used to buy a pack of random cards, or to access the Arena.  Each pack includes at least one "rare" card or better, and extra cards that you don't need can be disenchanted into a crafting material that can be used to make cards you want but don't have.  Thus, if you are on a budget, you can play completely for free if you don't mind grinding away to earn the currency.

Game play is pretty straight forward.  Each of the classes in World of Warcraft is represented by a "Hero" of Warcraft.  Each class has a specific deck of cards available to them, 20 basic cards that are earned by leveling the character through both practice and real matches.  Matches against other players are more productive as they grant more experience points to allow you to level up faster.  Each hero other than Mage needs to be unlocked by defeating them in practice games.  And each deck has their unique play style, that grants a pretty good feel for the class it is representing. Thus, you might find yourself playing the class of your main pretty well, unless of course, you don't have the cards to make that deck work.

The Choose Your Hero Screen shows you each deck you have open.

 

Once you choose your hero, you are off to play.  There are three play modes available: Practice, Play, and Arena.  Practice is versus the AI and is a good way to learn your deck. It's useful to level starter decks up and find out which decks are interesting to you.  Once you get enough basic cards to make a custom deck you like, you can start to play against other players in Play Mode.  Arena Mode is a special mode where you make a deck from random cards and play against other players for enhanced rewards. I won't go into that much at the moment, since I have only played one game of arena since that costs money/coins which I am currently hoarding to craft cards.

Once your opponent is selected by the computer, you get a load screen where you get to choose either three or four cards for your initial deck.  If you go first, you get four, if you go second you get three and a card called  "The Coin" which allows you an extra mana crystal at any time you play the card.

Mana crystals are used to pace what you can use when, with each card having a mana cost.

Choose Your Starters

In the image above, the top number is your card's cost in mana crystals. The lower left is the minions attack value, the right hand number is it's health. From these four, you can choose to replace one card with another random card.  Once both players select their starter hands, the game begins.   Mana crystals start at one, and add an additional one each turn up until a maximum of ten.  From there, the strategy begins.  Each Hero has a Hero Power, a special two point ability that they get to use if they choose so long as they have the mana.  In keeping with tradition, the Warlock doesn't use mana to use their Hero Power, they Life Tap and take two damage instead.  For the Paladin in my example, he gets to summon a one health/one attack minion for two points.  My opponent, the mage, gets to do a one point fireblast for two points.  Once the game starts, the cards are played in turn, and each is graphically represented on the table.

Not a Gnome!

This screen shows a number of game features. First off, the bear on my side of the screen is a taunt unit, which forces minions and hero abilities to attack them first.  Not all abilities are linked to this, as there are spells which can be used to target minions other than the tank.  But most abilities do require you to attack the one with Taunt, and thus they are a good way to control the battlefield.

The card being played, the Novice Engineer, has a "battle cry" which is, it does something special when played. In this case, it allows its player to gain an additional card.  These cards are particularly useful if you have a lot of low cost cards in your deck and as a result have a few cards in your hand later in the game. 

The purple "?" at the top of the mage's portait indicates that they control a secret.  A secret is an ability that is played that only becomes visible when the action that triggers them occurs.  In most cases these are either upon a summoning of a minion or upon an attack.  In this particular case, it was when I played a minion a copy was summoned for my foe.  Secrets can be very nasty, and have to be earned through decks in most cases.

Each Hero starts with 30 health and the first to reach 0 loses.  At that point, the game is over and the victor is declared.  You get a nice splash screen, win or lose, though the win one is cooler naturally.

All Hail The Triumphant Hero

At the bottom of the screen, you will note the three crowns followed by the bag of gold.  This is a quest completion. It grants you 10 gold for winning three games in play mode.   This quest is completable once per class.  Daily quests are granted each day and give more gold for completion. They are either the "win x games with hero x" or the "complete this objective x times" sort.  My current one was to win two games with either a paladin of a warrior deck.  Others have been to destroy forty minions in combat, or to cast forty spells, etc.

The game is fun, fast, and of course, addictive.  This game will be coming to tablet soonish, and eventually smart phone.  Next time, card creation.

Sorry For My Absence

Friends Don't Let Friends Blog When Off Of Their Meds

Author's Note: If you are not interested in something totally off topic regarding to the darkness of a man's soul, you may want to skip this post.

As many of you likely realized I haven't posted in several months now.  And for this I am deeply sorry. Not only did we have a couple of major holidays in that span, with all that it entails, but I have been through a rather difficult time personally.  For those who don't know, I suffer from depression.  After several years of being on medications to attempt to control it, I ran into a period where I was unable to get my medications due to financial concerns for nearly two months.  While there are those who would argue I am not a nice person ever, I am most certainly not a particularly nice person when I am off my meds. I can be downright viscous and cruel, often without provocation or instigation. It's a rage built off of self-pity and guilt.  It's very destructive.  I have, over the years, lost many very good friends by attacking them mercilessly when they only tried to help me due to this issue.  

So when this happened back in October, I was working on an article about BlizzCon, which thanks to a guild mate and friend in World of Warcraft I was able to watch (Thanks, Sav)  However, as I was writing it, I realized just how brutal I was in the tone attacking people I didn't even know, whom I felt had "betrayed" a game I myself have had a mixed relationship with in recent years.  I realized in proofing it, that there was no way I could post this thing.  And as time moved on, my window to post the article and it being timely passed. Now there are a number of other very good recaps and though provoking insights on what the next expansion brings.  It would have been nice to have that on my resume, to be on the cutting edge for a change.  But alas, due to my condition, it was not to be.

Those of you who know me from other games, likely haven't seen much of me in recent months. And again, I am sorry for this.  I have hid in WoW like a hermit, clinging to those people I have known for years who I trust myself to be around in this state.  Even there was friction, but less than would have been in a game where I have less history with the people around me.

For every extroverted and gregarious moment I have shared with others over the years, there is an equally dark and secretive side to me, which only comes out when I am deeply down in a dark chasm of my mind's own making.  When I am in that place, few have had the fortitude or desire to stick with me.   I don't blame them at all.  I hate that person, that doppelganger that appears from time to time.

While I am back on my meds now, I know that until I can find a way to control that beast, there will be other times like this last one. Periods where those few people I trust to be true friends, will keep me from posting for the sake of my readers. For those who have, either directly or indirectly helped in that regard, I thank you.

                                                                                   ------------Procyon

You Still Play That?

Why WoW Still?

I've been asked on numerous occasions over the last nine years, "You're still playing WoW? Why? That game was OK at best, before expansion x" Where Expansion X is whichever expansion gave that player the impetus to leave the fold.  I've heard all the reasons NOT to still play. "They dumbed it down," "too many casual gamers ruined raiding/pvp," "Pandas? Really?," etc.  Quite honestly, I've been part of the problem myself in the past. I am enough of an old school gamer to consider the current incarnation of WoW "dumbed" down at times.  Looking For Raid certainly feels like it.  And the way dungeons are run today, its essentially a race to the loot and time to get onto the next one before some cataclysmic anomaly rips the fabric of time and space.... err or... we get bored.  However, there are many solid reasons to play the game still. It is after all, still the number one MMO in terms of users, and contrary to the Pay to Win trend, still subscription based.  Clearly, Blizzard knows something the haters do not.  Let's take a look at some of my personal favorites.

Population:  First off, even the "dead" servers are more alive than many of the other MMOs I've played.  There is something to be said for and against a larger population. The against of course is that "that so and so stole my kill/mat/loot/fill in the blank." Sure, there is more competition for resources and you might have to wait for a quest mob to spawn after being killed by the last three people ahead of you.  But, for as many times as I have grumbled about those very same things, I have grumbled far more in other games for having nobody around to do anything with.  One of the biggest complaints I have heard from people about games that I personally enjoy is "I feel like this is a solo game, nobody ever around to tackle the content."  Let's take The Secret World as an example.  It's a challenging game, with the lack of resources and clear cut classes, it's not for the faint of heart.  However, for those with the fortitude to play the game, it is a thrill ride with rich story and a variety of game play styles.  But without resources online (that are up to date, not outdated because the person maintaining stopped playing after launch), the only way to learn how to make a character is from either a mentor or trial and error.  The latter can be painful, as you can spend a ton of time working on a character that "looks and feels" cool, only to find out they are so weak they can't kill time, much less the mobs you have to kill to move to the next area.    I know at least five people in my gaming circle that tried it, loved it, but couldn't handle the loneliness of the game. It was next to impossible to get all five online at the same time, so groups could never get put together.  

World of Warcraft offers you a lot of tools here.  Not only do you have stable servers (and to be fair a few less stable ones), but you also have cross-realm content. While Cross Realm Zones have not been the success story Blizzard hoped (ie, nearly universally reviled by many players) Looking For Group, Looking for Raid, and the new Raid Finder for other content give players even on the deadest server access to other players who are looking for the same content they are.  This allows your character to not remain stagnant indefinitely. If it is, the fault is likely user error, not the game.  This is something I know a bit of something about.  I took a fair bit of time off the last two expansions to play other games.  The idea behind this blog originally came out of my disillusionment with WoW.  When I had to upgrade my main because the raid group I was still raiding with was out-gearing me, I had to grind hard core through content everyone else had already done. A few were willing to help (thanks Greyfield, Likka, Miketsu, et al), but for the most part it was LFR and solo work.  Without the tools at my disposal, I never would have caught up.  I went from being undergeared to being in the top ten in the guild in a matter of weeks, thanks to WoW's massive player base. Try that in a game with barely a million players over however many servers they have...

Content:  "There's nothing to do, I'm bored..." I hear that all the time in pretty much any MMO I've played, including WoW.    Guess what Sparky, if you're bored, either you need to go outside and see what that wierd glowing orb in the sky is (no, it's not going to land you a guest spot on Ancient Aliens, it's called the Sun, and it's supposed to be there) or you have skipped a whole lot of stuff to do.  Now, not all content will appeal to everyone.  I don't like PVP much (read at all really), but it's less about the content than the attitude of many of the current crop of  players.  I am not a trash talker by nature (despite my snarky comments, it's true).  But in PVP trash talking is a must it seems. And then there are the endless yo mamma jokes... Having buried my mom at 68 from Alzheimer's and having her lost to me at the age of 62 due to her dementia and institutionalization, this strikes a bit of a nerve.   Be that as it may, there is a ton of content in that department, and let's face it, PVP pays the bills.  It's where a lot of games, WoW included, get a large part of the membership base.  However, many other games stop there, or make minor efforts in other areas.  

However, in Azeroth, one can also do end game content of various raid tiers.  This content requires other bodies of course, but it's challenging and rewarding for those who want to do it. And they wrap up the stories that you've run through while questing/leveling.  And don't count the questing/story line out. Sure it's not Star Wars or The Secret World with talking NPC scenes and flowing immersive questing experience, but let's face, everyone space bars through that at some point or another anyways.   Don't get me wrong, I would love to see that in WoW, but I realize that the cost/benefit analysis at the end of the day says no, as it allows them to spend that time and money on more content for people who will stick around and provide that population I desire. 

How many people heard the one about how "Pokemon" ruined WoW? Right? Pet battles are evil soul sucking and a rip off of Pokemon to make the game more enticing to kiddies, right? Right? Guess what, no.  While it may be something that appeals to the dreaded casual gamer, most raiders I know are hooked as well.  They may be evil and soul sucking, but not because they are a rip off.  They are engrossing.  Collectors strive to collect every rare pet imaginable, but they did that anyways.  Who doesn't remember when a Hyacinth Macaw drop was a windfall of tremendous wealth?   But now, you have multiple reasons to collect. Not just the completion aspect of getting all of them, but they have breeds, rarities, and even slightly different models for the rarities.  And then there is the strategy aspect of it.  As a formerly avid board gamer, this aspect really appeals to me. Trying to put together the teams that will beat other teams, both other players and those pesky masters at the Celestial Tournament. And the rewards are good.  For those who care only about currency, the prize I got for defeating all the Masters needed to get the dailies unlocked paid a tidy 3000 gold.  Not a bad purse for something you do while waiting in queue anyways.

The Truth About Grinding:  One of the biggest complaints I've heard is that WoW is the World of Dailycraft (Guilty as charged for using that one myself at times).  Sure there have always been daily repeatable quests for you to do.  Every expansion has had a hub or three of dailies to do to grind reputation with some faction you will need to do end game content with, be it PVE or PVP.  However, that is how MMO's work. If there was no grinding in the game, you'd be completely geared in no time, and move on to the next game.  Without the grind, a game would have the same shelf life as your average console game, beat it in a week and sell it at Gamestop.  MMOs need you playing/paying to survive. Even the "Free to Play" games have that built in, they just offer you a way to save grinding time by opening up your wallet and using that piece of plastic that's on life support.  I actually knew a guy who took a second job for a couple of months to pay off his bill to one "Free to Play" game he had run up a bill higher than most people's mortgage and second mortgage combined all in the name of saving time in the grind.    Grinding is the nature of the beast.  It's a necessity of MMOs.   That being said, it comes down to personal choice in where you want to grind. For me, in the words of a wise old druid of dubious reputation, "Better the Grind I Know."  There is wisdom in that. Why grind away at something you know in six months you are going to move on from?  If I am going spend countless hours killing "mob x" to get "drop y" for "quest giver z" why not do it on the character I have nine years of my life invested in already?  Where I have friends who are doing the very same thing?  

When I started playing Procyon, my hunter main, my godson Charlie was in third grade.  He's in college this year as a frosh, and has grown into a rather smart young man.  Over the years, as he grew older and learned that I gamed, we grew closer.  No, he didn't play WoW (his mom would likely have disowned me as a relative had I tried to get him to), but we talked about it.  It was his question several years ago that I used as this article's post.  In many ways, my stubborn refusal to move away from WoW helped build a fantastic friendship with a tremendous young man that I am honored to be a godparent to.  So Charlie, this article is dedicated to you. :)

A Fast Ship And A Blaster At My Side

Star Wars: The Old Republic

  In the previous post I made on the game back in the early days of the blog, I talked about customization and some of the nice ways you could make your character look unique.  But that really only appealed to those who are already playing the game.  I felt that it was high time I posted something devoted to those who either haven't tried the game or have been gone for a while.  So we will take a brief tour of the game today, and address some of the items that I've seen change since launch.

First of all, we begin with the character.  There are two factions, Galactic Republic (Pubs) and Sith Empire (Imps).  Those who have somehow managed to avoid learning this much about the Star Wars Universe since 1977 likely aren't going to be playing this game, but hey gotta start somewhere, right?
A lot of people are going to say one side or the other is "better" or "more fun," but I have played both sides, and honestly have enjoyed both tremendously.  For this article, we'll be focusing on a character named Setnaris, a young smuggler who flies freight and takes on odd jobs for the Galactic Republic.  Each class has a story line quest chain that starts the moment you load in, and continues up until level 50.  Lots of cinematics, good voice acting, and the like are hallmarks of the class quest line.  Each one is unique and tells a part of the overall story-line.  For the role-play types, or solo gamers this is a large part of the game.  For the end game types, who race to the end to raid or do "operations" as they are called in this game, the questing system might be clunky. 

Setnaris, the Smuggler and his companion Corso Riggs.

The starter quests introduce you to the main story line, more or less in a how you got here sort of way. In the case of the smuggler, you need to have a reason to get involved in the coming war between the Empire and the Republic rather than just sell goods to both sides.  So you are a courier bringing in a shipment of weapons to the outpost on Ord Mantel which you find stolen in the opening scene. Oh, along with your ship.  So it's personal for you now, am I right? Of course, that's the idea. 

Each character at various points in the story line gets companions. Companions are combat helpers who quest with you and help complete your skill set.  In the original set that comes in Patch 1.0, each class gets at different times: a ranged tank, a melee tank, a healer, a ranged damage, and a melee damage.  As Setnaris is a healer, a tank is handy. And Corso Riggs, the original companion you get at the end of your starter planet quest line is a ranged tank.  So it works out well.  If you solo on your smuggler, odds are, you will play primarily with Corso much of your career.  One of the big things I hated about Corso when I first started the game was that he had a bad habit of harpooning enemy mobs and pulling them to you. Which is awesome if you're a melee class, but since smuggler is either a ranged damage class or a healer, having the bad guy next to you is bad.  They fixed that sometime around the end of the first year, replacing it with a charge-like ability.  Good thing to, because you won't get your next companion until the third planet in the story chain somewhere around level 24. But more on that in a later post.

Ord Mantel finds you in the midst of a small civil war, where you will find the non-force using Republic players (Troopers and Smugglers).  Due to the nature of the classes, early on Trooper will make you feel like you are stuck in mud as a smuggler.  The rapid run and gun style of the Trooper is much faster than the smuggler who crouches down and has to take long aim with his blaster pistol.  While it evens out later on, at the start Trooper has a huge advantage over smuggler in terms of speed and efficiency.  And why wouldn't they? They are special forces soldiers, trained in combat and in the latest high tech powered armor.  The smuggler lives by his wits, getting by with precision strikes and explosives. Each quest area will have 1 class quest and a number of other quests that are planetary quests.  In the case of Ord Mantel, the planetary quests deal with the conflict against a separatist movement that has the feel of being pulled from the headlines online.  There is a lot of options for being either heroic and a good patriot, or a sleazy scumbag out to make a credit.  That is the first major change from many MMOs that players in Star Wars find, an alignment system.  Old school RPers from the Dungeons & Dragons era will be familiar with alignment, but it's not something that most MMOs deal with that I've seen.  While not all quests have alignment choices, many do. You gain either Light Side or Dark Side points for each of these quests based on how you choose to handle the situation. The choices are often for play style only, but some have major consequences in how the story plays out for you.  And if you choose to keep it on, as your character grows darker, they are scarred and changed by the power of the Dark Side. 

Some items require you to have a certain attunement to one or the other to use, mostly relics which are small items that give buffs and some stat increases at later levels.  And there  are fashion sets that are unique to looks for a dark or light character.  Other than that, it often doesn't affect the outcome of the game, only in how you arrive there.  It's there for the flavor of the game, and to give you a full experience to be able to do the story different ways each time you play it.  Where my first smuggler, Peiper, was pretty much all hero and little scoundrel, Setnaris is a bit rougher around the edges and while still having a good heart, he's out for a buck and will look the other way when criminal activity happens.  There are going to be times he does the "right thing," and then there will be times where he is cold hearted and ruthless about making a living.  It's a tough world he lives in, and it's important to survive. Sometimes you have to break some eggs to make that omelet.

Ord Mantel teaches you the mechanics of the game if you haven't played before. And has a fun story that gives you a rather nasty villain at the end to draw you in further.  Once you finish, you will be on your way to Coruscant, the capitol of the Republic. See you there soon :)

FW: Guilds

Guilds: A Guide

In my previous posts, I addressed how guilds in Forsaken World made the game better.  I touched on the fact that had I not found Osiris, I would not still be playing the game.  I showed a quick picture of a guild base, but really didn't discuss them in depth. Well folks, that is about to change!

Anyone who has played in an MMORPG of any sort will likely have a basic concept of what a guild/clan is about.  Essentially it's a group of people who have a tie to one another for mutual benefit and to do things with.  That holds true in FW as well, of course.  However, taking it from where some games left off, FW takes it another step.  Being in a guild becomes nearly mandatory after a certain point, and more importantly being in an active guild with a base is vital for high end characters. Unless you feel like being a heavy cash shopper, and don't mind spending real life currency to get your in game currency to buy things you need in bulk or are really good at the Auction House.

First things first, however.  Guilds level from a level 1 guild to a level 6 guild, based on two criteria: Contribution and Zeal.  These are earned by members doing quests and events both pvp and pve.  The more of each a guild has, the higher level they can go. Once they reach level 3, they can bid on a base.  Although that isn't a sure thing, either. One of the guilds I have characters in, Shunned, has been level three for nearly a month now, and there are not enough competitors to bid against, so no auction for bases has been held.  It takes 4 level 3 guilds with enough contribution to be able to bid for an auction to be held.  One of those four guilds gets a coveted base, and the other three have to wait for another guild to join the fray.

Bases are a huge part of the game for guilds, as they unlock a number of options to do daily quests that help both the guild and the members of that guild.  First are the "GBQs" or Guild Base Quests, which are essentially construction quests.  Your base comes unfurnished.  You have to build it up, using these quests.  Most are simple and they come in packs of 4. The only requirement is that you need to be able to fly, so characters under 25 can't participate in them. One "envelope" of 4 quests gives a fair bit of guild perks to the guild, and decent contribution and merit to the player.  Merit is a currency that you use at your base to buy things which are very useful.  Merit can be used to buy high end crafting materials, experience buffs, experience buffs for your pets, and other items including soul gold, which is the currency used with NPCs.

Once a guild builds their base up, they can hold Campfires. These are guild banquets, which are open to anyone. They last half an hour, and depending on the guilds size and base completion can have up to three buffs. What this means that for half an hour people from all over show up at your base and sit there, often dancing, often chatting and soak up large amounts of experience points.  As you have to be guilded (not necessarily by the host guild) often campfires are a good place for a new guild to pick up bodies from the unguilded who want the buffs.

Campfires are a vital part of leveling for lower level characters.

 

The second event for guilds is the Base Exorcism. This is something that is done once a week by players, if they choose to, to get dedication (which is important for personal rewards) and merit.  It's also a huge amount of experience points.  An exorcism is an event where there are a number of phases to the event from running energy from one place to another to constructing towers and fighting baddies.  It can last up to two hours, but most last under one.  It usually is a good time, as there is a lot of joking around for the more social people.

The third event is the Immortal Rift.  Open to characters fifty and above, Rifts are guild vs guild territory wars. It's a pvp event on Saturday evenings.  Not only do you fight the other guild, if you are a pvper, but you can also run carts for your base. While this doesn't exclude you from PVP combat, it lessens the amount you do. It's actually rather fun, and this coming from a person who doesn't like PVP.  The guild gets things for this, among them currency to fund other functions, but also mounted combat licenses that can be given to those who participate.  These are better than those a player could get on his own.

Another event is the Guild Midas Event.  This is where characters level 60 and above can get a bonus twice a week for doing their guild base quests.  It requires a minimum of 80 dedication to get the better rewards: real gold that can be used on the AH. The more dedication you have, the more gold you get per envelope. At the high end, you can get 1 gold per envelope. Not a bad deal.

And lastly, there is the guild lottery.  Once you have 80 dedication, if you are in a level 3 or higher guild (with or without a base) you can trade 15 merit for a roll in the Guild Lottery up to 3 times per day.  The rewards can be anything from soul leaves (currency to buy a most racial mounts, pets, and fashion from the cash shop) to real gold to other things of varying value.  You can also get a VIP card either from the Cash Shop or the AH which allows you to wave the 80 dedication rule.

So that's guilds in a nutshell, and I have barely scratched the surface.  Next time I will look at the Mentor system in depth.

EdgeOfChaos, my personal guild that I created to explore some of the functions for this article.

 

Forsaken World: A Month In

Life In A Half Dressed World 

So I've been playing Forsaken World now for a month.  In that time I have leveled three characters to just over 70, and another to 62 as well as a bunch of little baby "check-in" characters.  I have learned a great deal about both the game and it's community.  While some of the luster has come off from the first few days, life in Erydia is good.  Osiris is still going strong, and I'm still happily a member.  While I don't necessarily fit the "mold" of the guild, in that I am not one to do the heavy flirting and goofing around that goes on in Guild Chat, I am an accepted and welcome member, and they have made me feel both useful and valuable to the guild.  And to be perfectly honest, what more could one ask?  

So what are my impressions of the first month of game play? Well to be honest, it's a very interesting game in many aspects.  Of course, since it is a PWE game, it's heavy on the Zen Market (ie Cash Shop).  However, if you have the time to put into the game, you can get by without cash shopping, though you are at a serious disadvantage if you do in pvp (or so I am told as those that know me know how much I pvp).  It is important to note that PVP is actually a fairly large part of the game, and I have been asked on numerous occasions to try it out. I may cave, and at least give it a look.

Past the ability to buff yourself for end game and end game pvp in the cash shop, you can get a lot of outfits or "Fashion" as they are called in game.  The rest are pets and mounts, which are a big drain in currency.  The other big drain is bag/bank slot expansions.  So there is a tendency to shop heavily amongst the clientele from what I have noticed. 

Moving on to game play.  The game is essentially in three different phases.  The first phase is leveling, and has a hefty xp buff as I mentioned in my original post.  Level 1-60 can honestly be done in a couple of days easily enough.  The next ten levels are a little slower, but not too bad still.  After level 70, however, he big 300% xp buff for quests goes away and you slow down. The other item that slows you down after you hit 60 is the soul power and scroll unlocking tasks.

Essentially, once you get to level sixty you start acquiring Soul Power which is used to buy Vice or Virtue levels to unlock skill buffs.  The various classes and trees have different needs in this regard, while one type of warrior for example may go vice for maximum buffs, another build may go virtue.  As you gain Vice/Vitue levels, you reach plateaus or gates, which require quests to unlock.  This is a very grind intensive time, with kill quests that require 240 of a specific monster to be killed to gain soul power.  Fortunately, the game allows you to combat bot.  So you can essentially afk for an hour or two and kill what you need to and come back to turn in your quest.

Another aspect of the game that is unique to other mmo's I have played is the gemming/fortification system.  No gear starts with gem sockets, but most gear can have up to either 3 or 4 sockets unlocked. However, to unlock it takes a variety of different materials which can either be purchased from the cash shop, or gained in other manners in a more hit and miss manner.  This can be a pricy process in either real money or game currency.  To unlock ones "wings" takes 100 chroma, which are obtained from the number of gems and the types of gems in your gear.  Wings make your character stronger.

Thus far, I have not gotten wings yet, but we'll get there.

This makes the game interesting for me, as there is a bit of a twist on the leveling/gearing policy.  Which is a nice change from simply grinding dungeons over and over and over again. Don't get me wrong... There is a lot of that still. Both for gaining scrolls to unlock skills as well as for some of the massive xp amounts needed to level.   

The one downside to the system as I see it currently is the lack of an archer class. While there is the Marksman, it is not the traditional archer character most every game seems to have.  Though the Marksman is fun, having to be a dwarf is less so for me personally.  Add that the male dwarf sneezes constantly and is a bit on the gross side, it lead me to make Procyona, the dwarfette.

Along with her blunderbuss and trusty Whirlwind Puppet, Setnaris

 

Thus far, I have found the marksman to be fun for me. I am, after all, a hunter at heart.  I do also enjoy most of the other classes I've played. The Vampire seems a bit overpowered to me, at least the blood spec does.  Bard is tricky, but that makes it fun.  The Mage is a blaster, go figure why I might like that one.  Assassin, or Sin as they are called in game, are more pvp based, but fun still pve other than threat issues.  Warriors are fun, lots of dps and have the ability to tank if a protector isn't around.  That's essentially all I've played so far. While I have a priest, that character hasnt really done much, so hard to get a feel for the class as yet.

Forsaken World: Osiris- A Game Changer

Guilds and Mentoring

Looking out over  Guild Base

What a difference a random event can make in your gaming experience.  One night while bored out of my mind, I decided to play Forsaken World. I was having trouble sleeping so I logged into the game. Being that I play on a West Coast server, people are still up at that hour it seems.  While playing in town doing the daily grind of quests called "Life in the Harbor" which is repeatable 30 times a day for xp and coinage and is considered a prime grinding tool, I happened to notice in World Chat a guild advertisement.  Normally, in any other game, this would be something that would be an annoyance to me, but being that as I wrote last time, my experience with the FW community had been non-existent outside of a random act of kindness from a stranger, I decide to read it.  It was a simple add, one you see all the time.  "Guild X is recruiting, Any level welcome, we like to help one another out and just hang out" or something along those themes seems to be the majority of guild spam, amirite?  Well since the X was Osiris and not something borderline offensive and sophmoric like Pygmy Hermaphrodite Chinchillas, I decided to look closer. The person who was doing the advertising wasn't some wierd sexual reference and didn't have pwn or some other pvp reference in the name, so hmmm maybe just maybe.  So I whispered him, a guy named Bashbrother.  I have to say, I had no idea what I was getting into at the time, but I am so happy that I made that step.  So I mentioned that I was new, as in a day or two of playing the game new and had no clue on many of the mechanics and nuances of the game, but that I was looking for people to play with and learn from.  And amazingly enough, the reply was simply sounds great, welcome to the game.  As a gamer, one of the worst things many people can say to you to hurt and belittle you is to call you a n00b or some variations of it.  To have a potential guild recruiter so openly welcome a new player who truly is a noob in this game was... refreshing.  So in no time flat, I basically said "sounds like what I am looking for in a guild, I'd love to give it a try if you'll have me."  And boom! I'm a new member of the guild Osiris, thank you Insomnia!

So the first thing they tell me is, we have a base and the coordinates are linked in guild chat. Go have a look around they say.  So being the curious blogger by day that I am, I did.  Mind blowing this was.  Guild housing is something I've only heard about as none of the games I've played to this point have it.  To finally see it was, breathtaking.  Set up in the sky overlooking the desert (which is very Egyptian themed of course) on "Guild Island." the base is an elaborate maze of plateaus and floating structures.  There are quest givers, vendors, and more up there.  One of the things that at the time I was not able to do are the construction quests, as I was only level 23 at the time and the quests require you to be at least level 30.  Sleep finally came, so I reluctantly logged off and went back to my nice warm bed.  

The next morning, I logged on and immediately went to my newly guilded toon rather than the others I had been putzing with more or less equally up to that point. I was eager to test the theory that if I needed any help just to ask in guild and somebody would be happy to help out, as I was told in my welcome.  So many guilds claim this, but so few deliver I was skeptical.  Let's face it, even one of my most pleasant gaming families in all of MMOs, the Dragons of New Avalon, is very cliquey and hard for new people to fit in at times.  So what would Osiris be like once the noob was loose?  One of my burning questions was regarding the Master/Apprentice system that the game keeps telling me I really need to get involved in to progress. What the heck is it? And how does one find a Master? Most of the people on the list that comes up when you search for one have obscene references or silly characters in their names, and the few that don't are too busy to reply when you pm them.  So since guild was hopping with a lot of idle chit chat between people who clearly were friends, I asked my question, prefacing it that I was a noob.  I braced for the ignoring I expected, or the backlash for being rude and interrupting a conversation that I feared.  Instead I got multiple "welcome to the guilds, and the game."   I then got one player who started to ask me about my gaming experience and we talked about WoW some as most gamers seem to.  I mentioned my experience as a player but that I was new to FW.  Then the conversation on the Master/Apprentice thing started.  It seems that the system is a set of daily quests that the pair need to do each day, and they can do other things together as well.  The apprentice gets gobs of experience points and a high level character to help them out.  The Master gets mentor points which allows them to do things at high level that help in the farming of gear and such as I understand it. So I got invited to be an apprentice, and given a great briefing on the game. Apparently Bard is a popular class as it is OP (Over Powered) as a damage class, and I had through my reading of the game text, stumbled upon the top end game build, Wind.  However, it's a challenging class to play, or so I am told.  Thus far, I have not found it so, but I am still a lowbie.

So we did our M/A quest, and I learned that "skull" mobs take only 1 hp from any ability you have, so spam your free attack only, it gives you participation but doesn't make you go Oom (out of mana) so if you have healing abilities (which I do strangely enough) you have mana for that.  We then turned it in, and I went up a level.  Just like that.  We then went to two drag throughs of level 20 and 30ish dungeons. I got some gear, some loot to put on the AH and four more levels.  Toss in a sixth level from turning in all those triple xp dungeon quests, and viola six levels in under two hours.  However, my new Master, Arblockus, was not yet done. He gave me some gear for when I get higher level (including some nice level 60+ gear) and a lot of information.  What classes are like, how to level and gear, and what the differences in guilds were in this game from others.  I was hooked.

So when I logged back on later in the evening, I found myself more confident talking in guild chat. I felt I belonged.  Not that I have too much trouble with this being an extrovert the way that I am, but hey it's nice to feel you fit in.  The grind on my own suddenly felt so... slow.  Then I learned of a Campfire event. Not just for roasting s'mores apparently.  Basically, you sit around at the Guild Banquet around a campfire and get xp buffs.  And for thirty minutes, you get xp for sitting around and chatting. How cool is that?  I crafted, brushed my teeth, got ready for bed, and chatted with my guildies.  And made nearly a third of a level from it. Gotta love free xp. :)

Pass the S'mores will ya?