Archeage and a little bit of Guild Wars 2

    Aelithar has passed the level 38 hump and made his way safely (for the most part) to level 42 so far. Hellswamp was interesting, pretty yet creepy.

     But he caught a ship bound for better pastures and is now enjoying the wonders of lovely tropical Sandeep.

     Mostly it's been questing though here and there when the labor points build up high enough I feel comfortable there's been a bit of crafting. Mostly more Hereafter Stones.

     Which is what he's industriously working on here. It's no secret that Archeage is a pvp game. I also make no secret of the fact that I am bad at pvp and (probably as a result) don't particularly like it. I still love this game. I'm glad that the pvp doesn't give xp penalties, because one of the other reasons I dislike pvp (aside from being bad at it) is that pvpers for the most part seem to fight like cowards. I've been killed by several level 50s. Two at once even. And people like to wait until a mob's got my health down a good bit and then start something. But the guy today takes the cake. He was only a few levels higher but such a coward.
     Fighting mobs in Sandeep I'd just finished a couple that had Aelithar down to a sliver of health when this fellow attacked him. I fought back some but the result was inevitable. Respawned at the shrine, rebuffed, filled my health bar and then noticed the guy was just up the hill where I'd been fighting the same mob. His health was down to about half when I thought turnabout was fair play and went up to give him a go. Charge off horseback, hit him hard with my shield... out of range... what, where is he? Spin around flailing only to see him running off at top speed down the hill into the safe little no combat zone around the shrine. I couldn't help rolling my eyes.

     Finally got to try the Jury Duty thing once one morning when I logged on quickly after downtime and got a low number in the queue. It was interesting.  I'd wondered what it was like and now I know. Like a true paladin Aelithar thinks evildoers should get the maximum sentence.
     So I'm still loving this game and pvp cowards or not I'm feeling very confident that Aelithar will get to level 50. What he does then I'm not sure. Maybe he'll build a ship.

     Tonight though, a bit late I felt like logging on for something, but warzone didn't sound like fun so I thought Guild Wars 2 (which I bought at half price a while back and semi-abandoned for Archeage) might be good for just a quick session. It is.
     I'm still trying to decide on my Guild Wars 2 main. I made a Sylvari Ranger to start: Tamyrlinn Ferahn but he felt so squishy and it was frustrating. (Probably partly because mobile combat)

     So after 100% map complete in Caledon Forest and the Grove I gave him a little break and rerolled my originally Norn Guardian idea into a Sylvari as well.

     Alystaer Starleaf is definitely growing on me, though the new feature pack's changes for low level characters soured me briefly even before Archeage released. I don't like the changes, don't like the Skills on my map that I apparently just can't do yet when Tamyrlinn could before. I don't like the nagging indicator up top. But I do like Alystaer and he's definitely in the running for main against Tamyrlinn. The plan is to get Alystaer through Caledon as well and then decide who the focus is moving on. But tonight was a nice relaxing play session, which I needed. Did two hearts and an event and then completed the Grove map. 

     I do think it's a good game it was definitely relaxing and enjoyable tonight. But even as a very big noob to GW2 I can't help thinking it was better before they made it noob friendly. Still I'll be poking around in there off and on, and in a few more sessions maybe I'll have picked a main.

I'm slow at leveling

     Aelithar is level 38. I'm slowly getting there in this game, though I feel slow. Aside from the two Harani the hubby and I play sometimes, my friend SprYte and I added a pair of elves on Calleil. But mostly I think what makes me slow is that there are so many things I can keep getting distracted by doing. Some of them help with leveling like the dungeon I ran with three guildies and a random dps we picked up. That was an adventure. We were dps (and in my case rather tanky) things and we'd been hoping to find a healer outside the dungeon. Turns out the only thing we could find was another dps. As a paladin I was the only one with any Vitalism skills at all. So rather than attempting to tank I found myself attempting to heal with a grand total of two healing spells. Thanks to a well coordinated group we did finish Burnt Castle and it was loads of fun.
     I'd only intended for Aelithar to have Silverbirch for a mount. After all in a game where your mount is persistent in the world and has to be carried in your bag, collecting seems silly. But then I found out that the Lilyut Horses you could purchase on Mirage Isle not only ran faster and had melee based attacks, but also could be leveled and upgraded. Needless to say he promptly went to Mirage Isle and spent most of his gold on a foal. Raising it up was simple enough once I realized I needed a carrot and then Blackthorn got most of the way from level five to level ten simply running the longest way from Solzreed back to Cinderstone Moor.

    There is just so much about this game that's done right or at least right for me. Trade packs, farming and mount leveling conspire to keep all the zones busy and alive. (I can't be the only one riding a lot of places the long way to level up my mounts, can I?) Not only that but the world it pretty enough and busy enough to be a place I just want to be. Aelithar has several hereafter stones in his bag, but often as not traveling involves just riding because I'm simply enjoying that.
     Mounts as persistent entities in the world that you can level and gear is something I have always wanted in an MMO. Add in combat abilities for them and  they are something that I easily get attached to and that becomes part of my character's story. Battle pets are a wonderful concept as well though I've done very little to level mine. Aelithar's a paladin so for me his mount is a more important thing than his battle pet. Knights and trusty steeds and all that.
     The mix and match ability of armor and weapons is great for me too. Aelithar's been using a sword since level 20 (the same sword incidentally :P) but one of his guildies offered to make him a weapon if some of the mats were acquired and after some thought and internet research I decided the best thing for his primarily tanky build was a club. He got a new sword from questing the day the club was finished. The dps for the sword is slightly higher but the club is close enough to feel comparable when questing and his heals have at least doubled their output making him feel more like a paladin than ever.  It's great that some classes can function best by mixing armor types and possibly unexpected weapons.
     I love the way classes work as well, though I've got to talk myself out of taking Vitalism on everything. Aelithar had to have it to be a paladin, Mirzai ended up taking it because his hit things in the face partner sometimes needed healing. And Vanydor the elf I'm playing with a friend has taken it because that ended up rounding out his Archery/Shadowplay combination into something called Ranger than I couldn't pass up. I've got enough credits for one more slot, so maybe I can talk the eventual Firran out of being healer-y.
     Someday when more land is available I'd really love to go patron and make a house. I love the houses and the making and decorating them yourself part is another thing that feels great. I also think I might like a boat. A real one that's a bit bigger than the little rowboat he got from a quest.

     Something like the one he's on with his guildies here.

     I really enjoy the combat animations too. They look very dynamic. And if will admit to getting a kick out of this quest where not only were there the usual fantasy game succubi to fight but incubi too. I have very rarely seen incubi in games because they aren't sexy women so it was nice that the sort of sexy (mostly creepy) demons come in both genders for once.
     Overall I'm still loving this game. And Aelithar is 38, which is where Daethrys in Rift and Tirasiel in Aion have both ended up hitting hitching points. But right now I definitely feel like Aelithar's going to move on past and keep working toward 50.

Leveling in Aion

     Suddenly very aware that his Legion needs him Tirasiel looked at the massive pile of quests in his log, picked the few in Altgard that were nearest to complete and sounded most lucrative and went off to finish them up. When that was done he cleared the rest from the tracker and set off for Morheim, which is where he probably should have been back at level 19.

     It's cold in Morheim and Aion never fails to amaze me with the little emotes that have your character responding to their environment. When he stood still too long Tirasiel rubbed his arms for warmth and blew on his hands and then did little warm ups to keep the blood going. 

    He'd picked up some new and imposing looking armor from quests and coins awarded from quests, but I think one of my favorite parts is the very classy looking legion cape. It's not an actual item, it's just a graphic on your character showing they're part of their legion and I kind of love that.

     I also loved how welcomed and needed I felt when I logged on and everybody seemed shocked to see a Templar and wanted to know where I'd come from. Now if only I can get some real momentum going and churn those quests out to level for them. It felt like slow going today getting from 22 to 24 but I'll try and squeeze in enough time to hit 25 if I can later.

     A better shot of Tirasiel in his fancy new armor, all ready for trouble. He went to the fortress and picked up the quests, trying to be a bit more choosy this time and then headed out to handle some of them, gradually working his way toward the story ones. Hopefully this time more of those will get done and less of the sidetracked distracting ones that keep happening. Combat is fun to watch and fun to do and I'm practicing my abilities and their placement.

     But maybe my favorite thing today was running into an NPC that made me giggle.

     He's a pretty obvious reference, and what makes it even funnier is he gives you a couple of very egotistical quests to try to live up to his greatness. 

     I couldn't resist a few screenshots.

Tirasiel Joins a Legion

     Even though I pop into my side MMOs mostly to play solo it seems, it also does get lonely sometimes. And sometimes I desperately wish I knew somebody to ask questions about things. But with the off and on nature of my play I usually can't bring myself to hunt for a guild or legion or fellowship, even if the lack of one probably contributes to that off and on play. I hadn't looked for one in Aion. Tirasiel was briefly invited into one with about 7 people about half of whom spoke English but after a while I dropped it.
     Then today as Tirasiel was wandering around Pandaemonium, sorting his bags I got recruited. I've been invited to things like the fellowship in LOTRO and nicely given a home in them like Daethrys' guild on Rift but I'd never actually been recruited until today. I got whispered even though my character was below Rebonds' character level requirement, because apparently Templars are in demand. The Brigade General had a lovely little chat for me and gave me a home and requests to level quickly. I might surprise myself and end up focusing on Aion for a while because Tirasiel and his shield are needed!
     It's funny. I'd been debating with myself off and on if I wanted to stick with him as my apparent main because even though I love his character design and have fun playing him it seemed like it would be tough to do anything later on or to do group content. Tanking in MMOs is something I have a love/hate relationship with. I love doing it, I love the feel of being the plate clad hero with the shield at the front of the line holding the monster's attention. I'm also a little terrified of that responsibility I'm so fond of. It's so easy to mess up and things can go bad so quickly if the tank messes up. But the adrenaline is fun, the feel of doing everything in your power to keep the attention on you and off of your more fragile teammates.
     And I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it was at least partly for the love of big plate armor and fancy shields. You can take the 'paladin' out of the game but you can't take it out of the player, I guess. Guess now I really have to work on getting Tirasiel to 65.

I'm a noob.

     Aion seems to be my game for making really stupid mistakes. Tirasiel has been slowly but steadily questing his way around Basfelt Village, with a few side trips around the zone. Very simple rotation, I'd been thinking, this Templar one. Sure lots of down time, but that's okay, he's a tank, it gets the job done. But then after dying to two successive quests where he got swarmed by groups of mobs and just couldn't take the damage I started to wonder... shouldn't he have an AoE ability or something?
     So since my obelisk is bound to the Great Temple and that's where I popped up when I died I strolled over to the warrior preceptor to have a look see. Picked up a few upgrade abilities... not much... slotted those, flipped over to look at my chains... and that's when I wondered... why don't I have these abilities I was supposed to learn at level ten or anything. Not in my skill list. Check back with the preceptor... he doesn't have them for me... And that was when I looked up at the top and realized there were two little tabs. Templar and Gladiator. It apparently defaults to the Gladiator tab. I switched the Templar one and lo and behold several abilities I should have had ages ago.
     Redoing of the action bar commenced. Still no AoE, though. But the good news is I took him out to hit a quest this morning to try out the new action bars and suddenly he is much less squishy and hits things harder and faster and is far more fun to play. It's amazing what a difference not completely gimping yourself by skipping out on all your spec specific skills makes. Progress should speed up significantly now. And I'm just going to be over here... feeling sheepish... and checking the priest vendor for Malieth. I wonder how many Chanter spells he's missing.

The post in which I feel like an idiot.

     Aion takes up an insane amount of drive space, though looking at it it isn't very hard to see why. Still I'd loaded it once onto one back drive and then had to reinstall onto another with more room. But when I had gone to patch that hadn't been enough room and it had errored out. After that when I'd been playing I'd just clicked play as soon as it was available and apparently... never actually finished installing the game. I wondered why I kept seeing people comment on Aion's lovely music when I never heard any. I kept wondering how anybody put up with a launcher that was always wanting to install and never finishing.
     So last night for some reason I thought... you know... after that last error you cleared a bunch more space and haven't let it actually sit and run to its heart content since. Yeah. I left it running while I slept and overnight it entirely finished installing. The launcher is no longer obnoxious. And what's more I logged into the game and there are NPC voices and really amazing music. I'm dumb. I've played this game for probably at least 15 hours all told without having it completely installed. I like it even better now and I'd already been fairly sold on the character customization and the wings.

    In playing Aion my original intent had been to make a bunch of characters and figure out what class I actually wanted to level. The first one I made... fairly at random, was a warrior, Tirasiel. I leveled him until he got wings and picked Templar even though I'm scared of tanking stuff I don't understand. Why? Because Templar. How could I not be a Templar? And well because Shields. I freaking love them. But I figured I'd probably move on and make an archer to actually level on. Only the rogue Visiel insisted on staying backstabby and went Assassin so that plan was down the drain but there were still the Elyos guys Malieth and Salafiel I could have picked and the possibility of making somebody else to go archery or something else ranged.
     But when I logged in today what happened instead was that I logged onto Tirasiel and went from level 12 to level 14 in fairly short order while remembering what all my buttons did and enjoying the music I should have had ages ago. Tirasiel might end up being what gets leveled after all just because I got attached to him in the beginning and I can't seem to get over it.

     He left Altgard a bit today and went into the nearby forest to kill some things and marvel at the weird animals and colorful scenery. (Also to look freaking awesome with his shield.) The animations in this game are as good as the character customization, full of movement and grace and life. And now I know from having heard it that the music matches. And I think I like the Asmodeans best. They're like winged dark elves with claws... or they can be anyhow and that pretty much ticks all my little checkboxes right down the line. Tirasiel is probably here to stay.