Skyrim: Monsters of the Northern Sea

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

After unloading the loot from at my estate in Solitude and practicing more smithing, I ventured into the Winking Skeever pub where a bunch of sailors were talking about great monsters in the Northern Sea. One of them, a sombre giant of a man named Captain Guomundr agreed to join me in hunting them. I even knew where to start, as I noticed new nearby islands when previously raiding the Thalmor Embassy.

A giant, talking, crab!

On the first isle we came across large mud crabs crawling along a ship wreck and one HUGE crustacean named Karkinos. The monster was very dangerous in melee so Guomundr and I switched to bows. It took a lot to penetrate the thick shell but with perseverance (and a lot of arrows) we finally killed it.

Nearby was a frozen iceberg full of frost atronarchs and "ice giants", who looked suspiciously exactly like frost atronarchs only twice the size. They made easy prey for sniping, but I couldn't shake the feeling I was being watched the whole time - even after slaying the last one. Then I saw it. The iceberg that wasn't an iceberg...

At least he's easy to hit!

Ymir, the Father of Ice Giants could easily pass for one of the smaller islands. At least that explained all the shipwrecks around him. Such a danger could not be allowed to live and so even more arrows were spent taking him down. Fortunately I think the sharks circling him actually prevented him from getting close, so he turned out to be an easy kill.

MMOs: Stale Worlds

[Part of my MMO Design Folder]

One of the things I miss most about the free shards of Ultima Online are the GM's and their impromptu quests.

Yes, some were incredibly silly ranging from "catch the talking cat" to "suddenly - SKELETON ARMY!" while some were obviously just there to kill you, like "A pit fiend pops out of hiding... in your house!" Most were still very well thought out and actually did have storylines running behind them, and given the nature of the game all of them were just one time events that you had to be at or miss them entirely. Half the time there weren't even notices to let people know that something was happening. It was always a surprise, and that is actually what made them so good. Their random encounters that could happen along any part of the map, even the middle of the ocean, was what made constant exploration fun. Sure you could fast travel to spots, but odds are you risked missing out on stuff in between.

Not all random encounters are hostile.

Compare that to modern day MMO's. There's a main quest everyone can do, at anytime they choose. The spawns pretty much stay in the same place. The "dynamic" events, if there are any, are looping on timers. Special events are held in major populated hubs or are specifically announced to the world. Sure, I appreciate the theme park nature of getting everyone to come try out your new ride but with that system it somewhat of kills the adventuring part of the game and the uniqueness, the story of your character.

Despite being unable to attend, I didn't mind the one-time event karka finale in Guildwars 2. I felt they were on the right track for that (apart from overestimating their server capabilities). Where they fell off though was when they declared that they would only run events to their highest populated time zone. That's a big nope right there. Simple rostering is all that's required to cover multiple events for global time zones, or they could have just said the next one time event will be at a favourable time for Europe, then China, etc. The backlash they got was so severe they've not had a one time event since.

When was the last time you encountered a unique quest or event that was just for you or your party in an MMO, which no one else got to experience?

Your reward is Crabs

Part of my Explorer of Tyria journal - you can find the rest here!

As the "Secret of Southsun" draws to a close I can only speculate on the many questions left unanswered by this living story arc, mainly "WTF was this crap?". With the cowards (ahem, refugees) from the previous storyline relocated into Consortium slave-labour of Southsun Cove all the action was taking place on that not so little island paradise/hell. Quelling riots and running about re-exploring the island for weird flora samples were actually the highlight for me, but really there was not a lot of quest direction given at all so for achievement hunters the best bet was still to go ask Dulfy. A new PvP game called Crab tossing was also introduced where you basically use the young of the highly dangerous local crustaceans as a ball which for me was ok entertainment but got dull really quick since I'm not a PvP sort of guy.

Story-wise there were basically only two main things to do: recapture the sylvari terrorist Canach personally (because the Lionguard and Consortium are completely inept) and escort the contract papers out to a waiting ship, which is a little weird given there was a working asura teleporter right there. Both of those were solo quests which is great, and the second one was actually pretty fun and had a good twist. The first one was quite crap, given that regardless of your class/previous experience in the game - the only thing you needed to be now is a minesweeper. Literally. Canach was on god mode, and the only way to beat him was with his -own- mines. If that doesn't make sense, wait till I tell you about the new Karka Queen Mega-Meta event where the only way to remove her armor is by throwing her own eggs at her. On second thought, I won't bother. It's amazing people are paid to make this stupidity.

His defences are down NOW! Attack quickly before he gets a towel!

I guess the storyline was successful in that it managed to bring people back to the island, but if people are going to voluntarily stay there afterwards despite the terrible wildlife and faecal rewards (an ANet staple as they have a serious aversion to handing out gold, or letting people gain wealth other than from the Trading Post) is another matter as there are easier places to get already. Coming up next, the Dragon Festival in the only city that matters to Anet: Lion's Arch... again. Starting to wonder why they bothered making the other cities to begin with. They could always cycle the location of the festival/events but nope.

Flame, Frost and Donkey Kong

Part of my Explorer of Tyria journal - you can find the rest here!

ArenaNet has been pushing out its Living Story the past few months with all the pace of a sun-bathing glacier. Basically the proud Norn and warlike Charr are getting their butts kicked by a Dredge and Flame Legion alliance (aka "the Molten Alliance") so badly that they are mostly withdrawing not just to their capitals, but all the way to the karka infested isle of Southsun Cove. Well, supposedly. Sure, the molten dudes are popping out from magic portals and APCs here and there but there are still lots of towns out there that haven't noticed this supposed on-coming force; Butcher's Block is still in endless party mode and that place up in Wayfarer Foothills where they cook wurm eggs and have dozens of snoozing patrons hasn't changed one bit. Maybe they're just too drunk to notice anything wrong? Seems the only people actually affected come from previously unknown areas and I suspect part of the reason they are so pathetically weak is due to their unnatural clumsiness.

Or maybe they were also just drunk?

With their meager possessions (being refugees) lots of them still manage to "misplace" them along the various routes they took to run away while defacating themselves like the cowards they are. One of the tasks given to the COMMANDER OF THE FIRE-TRUCKING PACT is to go poke the mounds of dirt and feces left behind by these losers to retrieve them. Yep. For some reason this is one of the "highlight" activities of this story arc. Shovelling shit. Thanks ANet. As for the molten alliance themselves there are hints laying about in another scavenger type quest that indicate it's not Primordus driving these two armies together but something else. Popular theory is it is the Consortium, the competitors of the Black Lion Trading group. Their previous actions included happy things like letting the karka invade the mainland and opening the irritating and unstable fractal dungeon which now requires eternal vigilance lest it destroy reality. Far as I'm concerned all these pirate scum should die. May as well wipe out the barbaric Charr and soulless Sylvari while I'm at it too.

What's that? The Asura? No I love those little goblins, especially since part of the April release was the Super Adventure Box! Personally I feel this is ANet's best content since the Mad King (I did miss Wintersday so maybe that one was good too) which is ironic given all of its 8-bit Mario-ness. There's definitely a certain charm in the nostalgia, and for someone who absolutely dislikes the dungeons in this game I find the Super Adventure box to be awesome. No idea why, but it's a strong enough reason for me to get back into GW2 for a bit. Hopefully it sticks around and doesn't vanish at the end of April like ANet has said, because if it did - they really would be April fools.

Belated Happy Easter too! :)

Week #11 - Setting the Board

Part of my Explorer of Tyria journal - you can find the rest here!

My ranger finished her story segments this week, ultimately joining the Vigil on level 25. Gotta love all the little side stories that each race gets to do and I'm glad I did them. If you ever wonder where all the steam creatures are coming from, ask an asura who has an "infinity ball" background. I got her to run more jumping puzzles and grab more dive goggles afterwards, and positioned my other mules to do the same - my thinking being that since gravity doesn't really discriminate, it's better for my lower lev chars to do the lower lev jumps leaving the 75% in the harder zones for my main.

Speaking of jump puzzles, I'll briefly mention Pig Iron Quarry which my thief and DL ran this week. Very fun, just wait for the screen to stop shaking before you jump! :P However there is something I love more than jump puzzles and those are mini dungeons! We raided a large shiney treasure guarded by lotsa golems, as well as a hylek temple with Yue. These really encouraged coop play rather than the individual skill that is also fun, but in a different way, for jumping segments. Looking forward to finding more!

We also ran Twilight Arbor Explorable this week with Austea Scarlet and a random fifth. Quite tough, especially the spider queen and whipping vines - too bad the main boss was a bit of a loser (easy), unlike the bosses I faced with a pick up group (PUG) at the new fractals dungeon. Very pretty place those fractals. Our first spot was the swamp, but after failing a few minutes we restarted and got the cliffside which was spectacular! Alas our fighter glitched out into space so being the nice people we were, we left to get him. Next one was funny, since we were all turned into dolphins, though i didn't particularly enjoy that - why the frig would I want to -sneak- past things I would otherwise easily kill? Whatever. Blizzard map was next and that was awesome, and we finished off with the dredge base which was challenging but very fun especially when we finally got that legendary drill-suit down.

Fractal Dungeon - more fun than these.

Ofcourse this also meant the new enemies, the Karka, were beginning to appear with the Lost Shores patch. Alas since one of the NPCs during the investigation phase was not spawning, I couldn't really do much here but DL and I did bump into a Karka "raid" at Morgan's Spiral which served as a good introduction to our new crustacean enemies. Lastly Juris is now also level 80, which hopefully means we'll have enough people to attack Arah, and Zhaitan, soon.