Dragon Hunter Rox

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

Met up with the charr ranger Rox at Sparkfly Fen recently. She was hunting the reincarnation of the local dragon "Tea Kettle" in the swamps to impress Tribune Brimstone. Stupid cats. Anyway I helped her out, finding numerous tracks of the beast as well as leftovers from the Shatterer and Jormag's little friend. Ironically during all of this I only encountered the last one up at Frostgorge Sound and helped the local army defeat him. Nothing really heroic about it when you have half a legion behind you combined with heavy firepower provided by the nearby stationary guns. The dragons in this land are stupid, they always seem to attack in the firing lanes of the cannons that await them. Not sure what else there was to do since none of the other beasts dared show their face while I was active (the cowards) so I moved on to other things.

I think Rox spotted a dragon.

I've since heard tell of the local militia swarming to Rox's aid, often spending many hours just waiting in anticipation for the arrival of their foe in the sticky, smelly swamp. I guess they find the waiting fun, or are they just waiting to have fun? Reports say the dragon has grown in strength - more often defeating or escaping from the angry mob than not. Commanders have taken it upon themselves to meld the troops into a well fused, fighting machine - posting tactics and requirements on the local forums. I had one look at this and rolled my eyes. I was never really one for filling a "role" like an automaton. I suppose they are keeping the ... swamp... safe? Hmm. It's not like Tea Kettle has made any move to push further North, or has ever attacked Fort Trinity to the South. Whatever - it is there. That's all that Rox needs to know. I think it will be hard for her to prove herself with an army behind her though, especially one she doesn't lead.

Maybe she'll have better luck assisting Caithe with the Scarlet(?) distubance being investigated at Twilight Arbor. Sent her a letter via carrier pigeon wishing her the best of luck while I headed back to the deep woods of Sharandar (in Neverwinter Online) to continue the campaign against Malabog's forces. I still wonder how those fomors got there. Possibly a rift between the shadow realm and the feydark? Maybe I'll yet find out.

Box 2: A Less Super Adventure

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

The first time the Super Adventure Box came out I had a total blast doing it. Now that it has returned with World 2, I'm finding it less fun than before - probably for the same reasons echoing throughout the forum. It's good to see that the creator fixed up some places that were causing major headaches after a few days though, and the infinity continue coin is a good gold sink which I happily sunk gems into. Definitely "pay to win" or at least, "pay to win faster" (which I think embodies regular "pay to win" anyway).

After the somewhat irritating level of the Frog King's swamp, players venture forth into the way more irritating rapids (knockback land - toned down), pain cliffs (insta dart death land) and storm top mountains (annoying ice slidey grind land). I went through on infantile mode first with the happy clouds to observe what horrors awaited me, followed my normal mode which was only slightly more troublesome but WAY too long in some bits that seemed designed purely to irritate the player, like having a mini-boss atop a slidey ice hill.  You have to run up and evade his boulders and then whack him. Getting hit knocks you back down the long slope. On paper that's fine. But said mini-boss has so much HP that you'll probably do just that, over and over for 10 minutes. Difficult? No. Annoying? Yes. Fun? What do you think?

At least one of the long maps has a shortcut somewhere, but the irony is you have to clear half that level first to get an item before you can use said shortcut. If you think that's bad, there's a part where you need to purchase an item with 400 baubles to proceed through the level. There's no warning before reaching it, and I didn't find 400 baubles in the zone prior to reaching that point so you'd have to either be lucky or informed before attempting it, otherwise you'll hit a brick wall (frozen, actually) that will curb your fun level like an anvil dropped into the sea.

Lastly comes Tribulation Mode, which exists purely to create rage within the player. One wrong step and you die. Everything is out to kill you. The rocks, the flowers, the floor... everything. Fun in Tribulation Mode is finding the right path instead of grindy mechanics, and it's super cool. Despite my strange liking for this mode though, the very nature of latency is what is stopping me from enjoying it fully. I don't mind dying if I run into traps, but when I jump to the correct spots I expect to survive - and I do... 50% of the time. This is what annoys me most, and probably what will prevent me from completing tribulation. It sure would have stopped me from completing IWBTG. Here's an example of someone else experiencing this pain.

Story wise there's some evil, 4th wall breaking, AI in the box modelled after Moto (ala Tron, the new one) that wants to affect things on the outside. Not much more yet about this, but it's good that it is just more than a simple asuran VR game. My only issue with it is it could mean that the box is permanently destroyed after world 4 where as I'd rather that it became a permanent fixture in Rata Sum after world 4. *shrug* Would be a shame to throw out all this work right? Oh yeah, and Scarlet is still invading in the background randomly but she's mostly insignificant for this arc.

In SAB, you grant the genie's wishes!

My very last concern is in the future of SAB. Could worlds 3 and 4 begin to introduce forced group content, which in my opinion is the worst design in the universe (like the aetherblade dungeon)? And if so, can the infinity continue coin negate it? This is the creator's response to someone who was having problems attempting things solo:

"This is as designed. Dungeons are designed for up to 5 people. If you choose to solo a dungeon you should expect this sort of thing. At least that’s how I look at it. Maybe because SAB doesn’t look like a dungeon there are different expectations? We did clearly communicate when you enter a world that 5 are recommended."

GW2 Dungeons sure. Five player 8-bit games? Unlikely.

Where to Next?

My brothers and I recently finished Diablo 3 (finally) and of all the enemies it was Belial, the half-way mark boss, that caused us the most trouble. Everything else pretty much got curb-stomped, the titular main baddie included. So what's next outside of Guildwars 2 where all the heroes will ignore Scarlet's threat to Tyria to return to the wacky world of the Super Adventure Box (I know I will) and the slow progress of Neverwinter Online's Fury of the Feywild (it decided to let me log in again)?

I'm not that bad, honest!

Well, there are rumors that World of Warcraft may be going F2P - if that's true then the guild would probably check out Azeroth if given the chance. Funny reading angry subscription players posting on their forums "Well, if it goes F2P I'll stop giving them money!" Yeah. That's the point. Whether WoW actually makes the switch is another matter. Also was somewhat interested in trying Granado Espada out upon stumbling on some of its awesome music again but caught myself thinking do I really need another MMO (which I'd probably play solo) right now? Instead I am just hunting down all the tracks to listen to.

What else am I looking forward to then? The Thief reboot for sure (which looks a lot like Dishonored), and to a lesser extent the next game in the Witcher series. I didn't actually play the first two but I watched my brother go through them and it was cool. Lastly I was introduced to some D&D cosplaying silliness which I found to be rather entertaining and funny: The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. Worth a look especially if you are or were a pen and paper RPG player. :)

Invasion of the Everything

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

Guildwars 2 zones have come under attack by the forces of the seemingly too smart for her own good jester sylvari, Scarlet - who made her grand(er?) entrance during the closing ceremony of the Queen's Jubilee. She's far too interesting to be Trahearne's evil twin, so I'm now guessing she is the "Harley Quinn" to the Mad King's "Joker"... and I'm Batman! Well, no I guess I'm just one of the Gotham PD in that analogy because everyone is a hero and because I'm not rich. :P

Harley is way hotter than Scarlet though.

She's been a busy little plant though as not only does she have the tech and forces of the steam creatures, the sheeply stupid molten alliance and a small country of aetherblade pirates at her disposal - she also has twisted the watchwork knights in Divinity's Reach to her will turning them into... uh... Decepticons? From her barricaded position within the Crown Pavillion she sends them out in huge numbers via steam portals, and joins the forays herself just to remind everyone who is behind the attacks.

Really have to keep an eye on the clock if you want to participate in stopping these though (and to continue the story, you NEED to participate in at least SIX or have a buddy who already did that for you). A window of 10 minutes at the start of every hour is all you have to waypoint to the hot zone and once there expect to be way pointing around more to stop the gazillion foes warping in. Thank the gods Kiel won with her cheaper WP costs!

If you miss the entry window you will be sitting on your hands for 50 minutes, being left out and simply "waiting to have fun". GW2 likes introducing mechanics where you wait to have fun. They really are carefully going through that first manifesto and breaking every point they had. One of the achievements needs you to participate in 13 at the minimum (13 hours on the hour) but likely it will be more since you need to luck out and get 13 unique zones.

Fortunately the rewards are pretty good, better I think than the Crown Pavillion circuit but that may look more appealing after Kiel's WP reduction runs out after the next few weeks. I know I'll be participating as much as I can, that's for sure. Never had as much gold as now, yet I still don't have enough for a commander tag. I'm poor. :(