Category Archives: Games

Deep & Meaningful.

My character is modelled after Y’shtola, those who know, know!

Flying mounts at level 50 makes such a huge welcome change from running around on foot everywhere.

I’ve spent way more time watching people play Final Fantasy 14 (FFXIV) than actually playing it myself. I initially installed the game a few months ago but just couldn’t get past the clunky character movement, bad graphics and even worse colour grading so I uninstalled it, but a few months later I reinstalled it to give it another go and for the past month I’ve slowly been chipping away at the Main Scenario Quest (MSQ).

I’ve read and heard so many hardcore FFXIV players suggest that the MSQ is a real slog until the second expansion and man they’re not wrong. Considering how apparently amazing the game gets from the second expansion on I fail to see why the devs don’t simply go back and outright delete all the absolutely useless fetch quests in the first expansion. There were times where I just struggled so hard to pick the game back up as the gameplay was just so mind numbingly boring, and even when I did launch the game sometimes I’d only finish off a mission at a time. IE: I just found it near impossible to get rolling.

That all changed last weekend though when I found myself in a dungeon with a player who called me out for trying to do a level 40 dungeon with level 20 gear. IE: The rest of the group were carrying me. Up until this point the game just felt ridiculously easy, but all of a sudden the game started to get a little more challenging, and the storyline has gotten WAY darker and more interesting and I’m finally starting to connect with some key characters.

I upgraded my gear, worked on my job quests (I’m a tank) and last weekend I put in huge hours to finish off the first MSQ (A Realm Reborn). I’ve now completely finished off my job quests and doing a much better job at tanking in dungeons with random players (I’ve gotten a fair few player commendations and positive comments from random players which feels pretty awesome). I’ve been invited to an FFXIV Discord and I’m committed to at least finishing off the rest of the free trial which includes 2 expansions; A Realm Reborn and Heavensward.

I’m still unsure of whether or not I’ll end up paying for the game after Heavensward as FFXIV uses a monthly subscription model which I really don’t like the sound of (IE: If you stop paying you can’t keep playing), but for now I’m happy that I’ve persisted and gotten through A Realm Reborn.

The grind to max level (60) was huge.

Initially I refunded the game after 2 hours of playtime, but I’ve since bought it again and put in 140+ hours. The grind is real and fuck I love the grind!

Like many gamers out there I’m hungrier than ever to get into a new MMO. New World is a new MMO made by Amazon (yes, that Amazon). I didn’t take part in any of the beta’s but I’ve watched a lot of videos over the past few months and whilst I didn’t exactly like what I saw I still thought I’d at least give it a go.

I only put 2 hours into New World before requesting a refund and I’m well aware that 2 hours isn’t anywhere near enough time to review an MMO so I decided against leaving a negative review on Steam, but I did feel the need to rant!

I thought the intro cinematic was good, levelling and progression felt right and the UI looks and works well. Character movement both looks and feels quite clunky to me though. Not being able to have the freedom to head in any direction I wanted to (IE: at times being on a track/path that I could not steer off of) and having enemies spawn in front of me from nowhere, and not being able to smash up wooden crates in the world (non-destructable objects) just broke immersion.

Then there’s the combat.

I chose to level up a hatchet which gave me health on kills which meant I didn’t have to eat, or dodge. All I did was mash the one button over and over again. The lack of complexity in combat blows my mind, especially coming from Black Desert Online where over time I’ve developed the muscle memory to perform 10+ skills via various button combinations.

After putting in 2 hours I had to ask myself whether or not I was having fun. I checked out the in-game store and saw some really ugly armour skins that I wouldn’t even wear even if they dropped for free in the game. At that point I exited to desktop in order to request a refund.

Ultimately New World feels like the end result of a massive company making an MMO by reading the MMO for dummies handbook. Nothing at all inspiring, nothing innovative, the game doesn’t bring anything at all new to the MMO genre. There are games with arguably much better character creators, graphics and combat, three things I value when looking for a game to put thousands of hours into.

PS: New World is the 2nd most played game on Steam right now. I’m 100% sure the number of concurrent players will fall off drastically in 3 weeks from now but the fact that so many gamers out there are hungry for a new MMO makes me happy.

PPS: I am not at all hating on the game (it’s just not for me) and I’m 100% totally happy for people who are having a lot of fun in New World. I totally understand that no one asked me for my thoughts and how defensive people can get over the things they love be it cats vs dogs, front wheel drive vs rear wheel drive, Macs vs PC’s etc. so downvotes and any hate I get from voicing my opinions would not at all be surprising, but just be aware that I’m all for “each to their own” and just to reiterate; I’m more than happy, and a little jealous, of those who are having a lot of fun playing New World.

PPPS: I’ve thought that the most fun that I could possibly have out of playing New World would be to play as a troll. IE: To go out of my way to make the game less fun for other players. New World will allow you to skin a bear that someone else has killed, or to hang around low level areas and kill (in PVP) low level players. The idea has crossed my mind, and I do think a LOT of this kind of thing is going on in the game right now and in a sad way, it could be really fun… but it’s not me.

On the side I’m playing Final Fantasy XIV. I 100% understand what this game is trying to do. It’s a Japanese thing. A feel good, good human being thing. They make it so you absolutely hate a character/an enemy, then once you kill that enemy you learn about their background, and you get to sympathise with them, to feel bad for them/their journey. The game tries to make you see the good in everyone. Culturally I respect that and I’m happy so many people are into a game which encourages people to think the same in real life (as opposed to say Amazon/New World being all about territory domination and ruling over others).

/rant.

I never got into World of Warcraft (WoW) as it doesn’t have controller support on PC but I’ve heard a lot about it over the years. It released in 2004 and has been the most played MMO ever since, but it seems like they’ve been losing a lot of their most dedicated (by dedicated I mean people who have been playing it since release!) players lately due to a whole plethora of reasons; monetisation, the devs not listening to the community, disappointing expansions and most recently allegations of a toxic work culture and discrimination against women.

The biggest WoW content creators are leaving Wow and now playing Final Fantasy XIV, and they’re loving it. The Japanese devs sure put Blizzard (the WoW devs) to shame when it comes to the passion and work they put into the game and perhaps most refreshing for WoW refugees is to note how much the FFXIV devs value and listen to their community.

I thought it would be a good time to at least try FFXIV as the community is welcoming the influx of new players right now and I figure that would make for a pretty good vibe. I spent a fair bit of time just getting my controller layout sorted before starting my journey (wasn’t easy but I got there), but a few hours in and I’m just really not sure it’s for me. It’s very “cute”, the colour palette is really drab and muddy and most concerning to me the combat is automated/disconnected.

Whilst I haven’t really given it enough of a go, the boys on Discord brought up Black Desert Online, an MMO that I’ve put 2,428 hours into. Initially I was quite pessimistic about encouraging everyone to give it a go as I’ve spent so many hours in the end game of that game exploring all of it’s complex systems and I doubt any of the guys would ever get that far into it (IE: it is not a game for casual players), but since I wasn’t really feeling FFXIV, and the guys were keen to try BDO, I thought why the hell not!

Last night we all created new characters (BDO hands down has the best character creator of any game I’ve ever played!). There are a handful of new characters that I’ve not given a go since I stopped playing, the new player experience has been re-worked too. Enough has changed and I’ve forgotten so much that I felt pretty lost, the guys did too, but after a few hours we all found that we were having fun. IMHO the live action combat just makes BDO stand out over other MMO’s and we’re all keen to jump back on tonight to continue our adventure.

Glass canon.

That damage tho!

I’m a ‘play every day’ Destiny 2 player, until I’m not. At times over the years I’ve burnt out for months at a time, but I always end up returning when there’s a big expansion.

The launch of Outriders coincided with a quiet period of the current Destiny 2 season (a real shame as Bungie had really been delivering this season with new updates each week). I spent a good few days hovering over the buy now button on Outriders in the Steam store as I really just didn’t think this game was worth the massive asking price, but to be honest I’ve clocked 130+ hours in Outriders, not had any sign in issues or excessive crashing on the PC, and all in all I do feel like I’ve almost gotten my money’s worth.

It’s been an awesome break from D2! I’ve literally not played any Destiny 2 for the past 2 weeks and the current Destiny 2 season ends on May the 11th so here’s hoping that Outriders will at least carry me until the next Destiny 2 season. If the devs ever release new content for this game I’ll be sure to drop back in.