Assassin's Creed: Bought and Downloading

I bought that bundle I told you guys about and now it's downloading. So yeah. Thanks to my slow internet connection, though I started downloading yesterday afternoon, it is currently at 3.07/6.35 GB. Well, I'd expected that. In the meantime, I either sit here looking bored/Tumblr all day, or play another one that I already have in physical form, so the load isn't bogged down any more than it already is.

That leads us to: Dragon Age II; Spore; The Sims 3; Guild Wars Trilogy; and Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party. Except yeah, that last one is not for the PC. So not that because I don't want to mess around with the Wii again. Bleyehhh.

I figure I'll play DAII until I get bored of it. If I do get bored of it, I install Spore and kick all of the asses of other evolving creatures.

Flash: Feature Time of Wonder, Fun, and Excitement

Here's a couple of lovely flash/online games for you to try. ♥

(What, looking at me funny because of the heart? Look, I'm pretty girly, okay?)

Alrighty...

Deep and Blue is something I'd recommend only as an "art game," but at least it isn't the generic "retro pixel-simple" 8-bit. Frankly, what drew me to it was the music. This is an extremely short point-'n'-click puzzler, but the puzzles are easy. The best part is really just the art and some of the miniature stories each scene tells. The game, despite its claims, does not reveal the true meaning of life. The whale does get a pretty girlfriend, though.

Army of Ages is a really prettily pixeled time management game where you evolve through the ages (primeval, medieval, classic/"steampunk," modern, and futuristic) in order to fend off aliens. I played on Easy, so I can't really vouch for the difficulty (what can I say? I'm really, really bad at time management, and puzzles, and, er, everything that isn't an rpg, fighter, or shooter)... but the music is pretty awesome, the graphics are nice and clean (and colorful!), and I had fun. Completed in just under half an hour on Easy mode.

Interlude: Games to Play

Having now finished my 896th playthrough of Mass Effect II, I turn to other games. Unfortunately with the combination of both schoolwork (classes have started again) and lack of money, there isn't much I can do right now. I'm either going to replay Dragon Age II (ALL I OWN IS BIOWARE?!), mess around with Guild Wars again, borrow my friend's copy of LIMBO (note: "borrow" or borrow? Not sure, need to look up legality), or save for and download Assassin's Creed.

Here's my thought process.

1) Dragon Age II I love this game. I truly do. It struck a place inside my heart that I find difficult to describe. It made me love Leliana all over again. It made me love Merrill all over again. It made me love Isabela... well, not all over again. (I've heard she was a prostitute of sorts in the original, Origins? Well, I probably caught a ton of STDs, 'cause my FemHawke and her totally sexed it up, even though in real life I'm pretty much a straight chick). It made me love Varric (and dwarves in general). ANYWAY. The problem is, I can't just sit on BioWare's ass and play their games forever and ever and ever. I need something new. Granted, BioWare and EA are all I own, and money's tight--but if I'm going to play another game it's gotta be a new company.

2) Guild Wars Trilogy Here's the issue. After going through the process of retrieving my account as I looked for some old-school massively-multiplayer gaming, I logged in. The graphics befuddled me; I worked past that, though. I made a new character, I played... and found it boring. Dry. Badly written, badly plotted. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Arenanet. Rift has spoiled me forever.

3) LIMBO Not a platformer fan (not good at them either), and moreover I'm not sure if taking Kate's copy is legal. I'll look into it; it depends on the usage, I think. But it's iffy, and anyway I suck at platforming. Period.

4) Assassin's Creed I and II I use Direct2Drive for my online stuff (right alongside Steam, when necessary). And I recently found a bundle pack, with the original and also ACII. I'm very interested, but frankly it's expensive and... I'm just not sure about it. I know my computer can handle it (Guild Wars Trilogy, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effects I and II, The Sims 3, and Spore all currently installed with no lag; I'm actually cleaning it out today, but only because I have nothing to do), but... well. It all depends. I'm going to take stock of my fundage and we'll see from there.

New tag: #update. Noted to self.

Mass Effect 2: Replaying

I've already played this once. Therefore, since I have no urge to document it again, I'm only going to post brief summaries of my choices and actions.

1. Recruited Miranda and Jacob. Like Miranda a lot more. She knows what she's doing. Jacob's just... eh. Which is a pity, because I'm a girl. On a male Shepard playthrough, I'm totally gonna snatch up Miranda. Just saying.
2. Recruited Mordin. He's... eh. Not my favorite character.
3. Recruited Garrus. He is pretty much my favorite character... one of them, anyway. With that super sexy voice acting. Yes please. Also, it is pretty much 98% guaranteed that he's gonna be the object of my romantic subplot. I can't help it. I'm a sucker for his voice acting. Also his whole "renegade justice" shtick.
4. Recruited Jack. On my first playthrough she was one of my favorites. Now, she doesn't irritate me, I just don't have quite the same enthusiasm for her personality. I do like her honesty though, and the way she makes decisions for her own good. "Turns out, mess with someone's head enough and you can turn a scared kid into an all-powerful bitch. Fucking idiots." So true, Jack.
5. Recruited Tali. I love that chick. Another returning character. Frankly, just another character I like for their voice. Her accent! And also I'm fascinated by their suits. Really good design on BioWare's part.
6. Watched a very cool scene in Nos Astra because I released the Rachni Queen on Noveria in the first game. Totally looking forward to the outcome of that in Mass Effect 3. I am seriously excited for it.
7. Recruited Samara. I like her and what she does, but... I don't know. She's not emotional enough to be one of my favorites... or something. Her suit looks like a strawberry. Also her companion quest is so amusing.
8. Recruited Thane. He's pretty rad. I like him just 'cause I like hearing about the drell culture.

I've also done a handful of companion quests and the plot line up until you find out that you need the IFF. Before that, though, I have to upgrade the ship and finish all my side quests.

I am really looking forward to the sequence where you get to be Joker. :)

Mass Effect: Starting over

I'm angry at myself. I only completed 2 companion quests, didn't fulfill all of my side missions, and didn't complete a romance subplot. As a result, I will be redoing my whole game with the same character. This will also help me to gain more codex entries and earn more achievements (the level 50 and 60 ones, especially).

I've barely started and already found a side mission I hadn't done before, the one involving the Asari Consort. I am not sure if we ended up having sex. If so, it was completely involuntary. I am totally confused. Also, she gave me a Prothean trinket. I'm sure it'll do something awesome come Mass Effect 3 or something. Haha.

Mass Effect: Irresponsible Me

So I played Mass Effect until I got very, very tired. Which is bad, because I was too tired to document and post it.

It's granted that this post will contain spoilers, right?

• Kaiden Alenko died.
• Saren's an ass.
• The Ambassador betrayed our cause.
• I snuck off with the Captain's help to go get the Conduit.

And that's about all I remember.

I'm now going to clean up with some side quests before I head off to the Conduit.

End of Hiatus

I'm happy to say that I've finished my vacation and am back to keep manically devouring Mass Effect and other games!

Stay tuned for more posts!

Mass Effect: Awwwright, I can see myself liking this.

I stayed up until the ungodly hours of dawn last night (or this morning, rather) playing Mass Effect. I understand it now. Now that I'm used to the controls (still worse than ME2 default controls, but I know them now so it's alright) I'm pretty good at it. I also set it on Casual difficulty, liiiike a wimp. I didn't have to for ME2, but hey, I'm in it for the plot. And actually, I meant to set it back to Normal, but forgot. This was after one particularly tough battle (in the mission to get Liara T'Soni, I believe).

My Shepard continues to be mostly Paragon. In all seriousness, though, all I want is to get that up to max, then I'm Renegade alllll over. My Charm skill is maxed already. I'd say I'm about level 15, though I didn't check before I went to bed.

And things happened. Like I found Garrus (YAY!) and Tali (who I seriously fan-squealed about. I don't know why no one likes quarians, because I could spaz about them all day). Unfortunately, with me an Adept (100% biotic) and Garrus a something-or-other that's 50% tech and 50% combat, Tali (100% tech) just isn't cutting it for my play style, so instead of her I'm using Ashley (100% combat).

Same deal for Liara T'Soni. Since she's also an Adept, I can't use her on my team. Foo.

And of course, before all of that, Tali provided some evidence for the Council and I was crowned made the first human Spectre. Insert me doing a lot of fanart.

I finally got a hand on the land rover, Mako. Its control schemes are... mildly irritating, but I've learned to deal with them.

Thus far I've completed the mission to find Liara and the mission in which there is a massive plant infecting all of the people, on... Feros, I believe it's called.

Sorry for the brief, emotionless update. I'm about to go on vacation until the 29th. That also means that there will be an update hiatus.

Mass Effect: Oh god what is this

Mass Effect is... so much harder than Mass Effect 2. Goddamnit.

It was like this with Dragon Age 2, as well. DA:O was so hard, even on Casual mode (at least for my wimpy self), but I breezed through DA2 in a week. Conquered that game so hard on Normal (sometimes Hard when I was bored). Well, I played ME2 first, and loved it. The control scheme was so intuitive that it made the game feel so smooth and clean; the graphics, gorgeous; the premise and story, made me vomit happy rainbows.

Well, I want into ME for the story... but with the horrid clunky controls, repulsive tutorial system, and difficulty curve (?) I can't even get past the first level.

Also, you know what's ridiculous? Husks. Husks are fucking ridiculous. In ME2 they were an occasional fear, that scary thing that makes you think "oh god not these again, please not these again," but in this one apparently they mind-rape you right from the start. Those things creep me the fuck out. And in this game they have shields! Wtf?!

And your health and shields! Your health doesn't auto-regenerate...? You can't revive people in the middle of a battle...? The teammate controls are so clunky and unresponsive! And my goddamn teammate AI. They're standing around a wall and I tell them to target a goddamn Husk and they're like I DON'T HAVE A CLEAR SHOT! I'm like THEN STEP AROUND THE WALL, YOU GREAT USELESS ASSHATS!

Then I die, 'cause they don't.

Jesus. I hate Husks.

And I see Ashley and Kaiden... yeah, I know what happens to these two. Or one of them, at least. Thank you, ME2, for telling me. My favorite "returning" characters from ME2 (not that I would have known had they not told me) were Tali and Garrus, but... eh. Hoping they pop up soon. (All these turians and no Garrus! The heresy!)

Maybe it's just late. Iiiiiii need some sleep. Or maybe someone to play this game for me so that I can watch and make decisions. Alas.

IF: Emily Short's "Bronze"

I've been playing a bit of Emily Short lately, one of my favorite IF (interactive fiction) authors. If you have the patience for that sort of thing, maybe you'd like to check out Bronze? Not as famous (or, debatably, fun) as Alabaster, not as short 'n' sweet as Glass, but it depicts her writing style quite nicely.

Since obviously screenshots won't work on a text adventure, I don't have any. I didn't copy any quotes either. Boo-hoo. (Hint: use "look" repetitively in the Dining Hall for extra plottage.)

Dragon Age 2: Blam. I win.

Spoiler heavy.

Yep: within the span of less than a week, I've conquered Dragon Age 2. My Hawke became the most badass of badasses. My party hit level 20-21 right near the end.

An update since the last post: when I finally went on the Deep Roads expedition, I ended up taking myself (obviously), Varric (required), Bethany, and Anders. The latter because I may have peeked in the guide for companion help and accidentally seen something very important about whether my sister was going to live or die in the Deep Roads. Anyway, my sister became a Grey Warden (like old times! Wish I could live through the golden age of the Wardens, not just the Blight where there were three of us).

Through the rest of the story, I never saw Flemeth again, which surprised me a tad. I like Flemeth, and her presence in the story was so emphasized... It made me a bit sad, to be honest.

My favorite party became Hawke (tank) + Merrill (damage) + Isabela (damage) + Anders (heal). Early on Isabela was replaced by Varric. I maintained full friendship with Isabela, Anders, Merrill, and Varric and moderate (above 50) friendship with Aveline and Fenris, but Fenris left in the end and battled me. It made me sad. Not because I particularly liked him (my favorite part about him was either his voice or his hair), but because I had to kill one of my friends. I mean, come on.

And Anders. Jesus, Anders turned out to be this huge jackass. I didn't want him to rejoin the party. He wouldn't have been in the party had I not needed a healer badly. I would have executed him. So. Hard. Because Jesus, Anders, you are such a goddamn extremist. Blowing things up is not the answer. I do not condone terrorism.

Anyway. Thanks to Stupid Anders, Meredith invoked the Right of Annulment (basically said that all of the mages in the Circle were going to be executed). So I took the mages' side because I'm an avid supporter of freedom and blah blah yada yada. Turns out Meredith was an evil bitch who had been possessed by that artifact from WAY BACK in Act 1, in the Deep Roads. Oh, and Orsino turned into a huge evil abomination that we had to fight (lucky us). The first time I fought that fight, it glitched up halfway through and he didn't "respawn" when we killed little-evil-Orsino, so I had to reload it and do it all over again. Yay.

The final battle with Meredith was pretty awesome. I hadn't expected her to go insane. It was bloody amazing. When Cullen decided to fight with us, I got so excited. And when the statues jumped off the walls and decided to punch through us with enormous stone fists! Impressive. Hehehe.

I have to say, though: having played a Mass Effect game all of the way through (2), and a Dragon Age game all of the way through (2), I prefer... Mass Effect. Less strategy, more badassery, thank you. Don't get me wrong, I love strategy, but I love it even more when I don't get stuck again and again on one battle.

In Dragon Age 2, I did end up switching to casual. The three times I remember doing so were 1) in the duel with the Qunari leader (and that only because it was taking bloody forever to whittle down his massive health bar and I was losing patience, especially with me being a tank and having no damage output and all), 2) in the battle with the High Dragon in Mine Massacre (bloody hell! Didn't even finish that one), and 3) in a really tough battle during The Last Straw in the Docks (with a lot of shades and a Blood Mage and a Pride Demon). After the last one, I realized that actually it wasn't the difficulty itself keeping me down, it was the fact that I needed to wipe that Blood Mage out quick. But I did end up slaughtering Meredith and her statue slaves on Normal difficulty, much to my cheer and delight.

Romance-wise, my Hawke did in fact eventually become a lesbian. It's not my fault. It's the fault of Anders and his horrid extremism. It's the fault of Fenris and his anti-mage campaign. Varric is in no way romance-y. He is one of those friend people that it just does not occur to you to flirt with. And then all of the girls are fascinating with these awesome personalities and back stories! It's like begging me to swing the other way. They were begging me. So Isabela and I hit it off and my uncle Gamlen made some crude remarks about it.

Next time, I'm totally going for Merrill. Heheheh.

I didn't score any maximum rivalries, but I'm going to next time. Maybe with Fenris, or Isabela.

Post-game rating: 4.5 stars where 5 is impossibly perfect.

Dragon Age 2: EXCITEMENT.

SO after months of salivation over this game, I finally got it for my birthday (it's my birthday, just by the way). It's delicious and easy on the soul. To entertain myself, I started out on Hard mode. That didn't last long. (I am NOT good at these games. Can you say "tactical fallacy"?)

In another effort to try something different, I went for a Warrior this time. Oddly... I absolutely love it so far, to be honest (no matter what this stupid game guide says about it not being fun). What does upset me is that there's no way I can do the two-handed tree, and let's be honest here, I want the two-handed tree because it is awesome looking. What can I say? I'm vain.

Anyway, let's just say my Hard mode encounter began to end once I hit up the first boss. Heh...

But there's no bloody way I'm going to Casual ANY TIME SOON. I made that mistake in my first DA:O runthrough, and let's just say... I, ah, wasn't able to finish it. I got to the final dungeon, literally the final castle before the final boss, and hit a brick wall. Just... like... that. (Did I say I wasn't good at tactics?)

Anyway, my fem Hawke (I used the default appearance, the one with the badass blood smear/suspiciously red birthmark on her nose) is mostly humorous/witty, with a slight tendency toward niceness (because everyone loves a sarcastic girl with a bit of care somewhere hidden deep down in there, perhaps one in every twenty responses). The best part of that is how she comes up with these outrageous jokes.

I'm not a fan of Aveline. That's good since I'm my party's tank, and also because I like sucking all the money I can out of my enemies before I kill them (which Aveline disapproves of). So she's the only one of my companions not in my party right now.

Speaking of which, Bethany survived the Prologue, obviously (me being a warrior and all), and she's my makeshift healer until I get Anders (which is pretty far off). If/when I replay the game, I'm going for healer mage... Dragon Age hasn't been promising with healer AI in the past (cough, WYNNE). But so far, I'm liking this AI. It's noticeably improved, to the point where I paused to make Bethany use a heal spell, only to find that she was in the middle of doing so at that very moment. It made me very happy, to put it lightly.

I also like Merrill, though I suspect none of my companions do or will. She's funny. And she's my damage mage. Some of the ambient dialogue cracks me up. (Varric: Could you please stop going out in Lowtown at night? Merrill: Why? Nothing ever happens. Varric: I know, and that nothing is costing me a fortune...)

And Varric is my rogue. I genuinely like Varric. And I like Bianca. I think it was pretty well-done character design, he and his smart-assery and his awesome named bow and his aesthetics. He's probably one of my favorite characters in the game so far (I'm not attached to any of them much... Bethany is so... childish...? I like Merrill but I just know she'll cause problems in the future, despite the awesomeness of blood mages. I've heard a lot about the trouble Anders stirs up. And I, well, I'm my own snarky, unhelpful, facetious, sarcastic dramallama.)

I have enough money to go on that expedition to the Deep Roads now, but I'm doing every quest I can in Kirkwall first, even though I'm going to take Bethany instead of Anders (which I'm in the middle of the quest to get) so that we can get out of Kirkwall for a little bit and the templars won't find her and yada yada yada.

Also where are all of the romance options. I don't like Anders so far and he's the only one. I'm serious. Except maybe I should give a bisexual/lesbian Hawke a chance because there are a lot of awesome girl characters. See, that's just not fair to all the fem!Hawkes out there who are at least somewhat heterosexual. If I were interested though, and at this point I might be, I would totally go for Isabela. Hot snarky pirate? We go together perfectly! WHAT WHO SAID THAT

 (Also male Hawke looks like a douche)

Anyway, my romantic complaints aside,  I'm liking the plot so far. Though I have to admit, every mention of the "Hero of Ferelden" makes me jealous of myself (or, rather, me as I was in DA:O). Why can't I be a hero? It'd be so much fun to actually have everyone's bloody respect for once! Pffft! But this "Champion" business sounds real interesting.

Man, why do these games have to end. Stupid Mass Effect 2 and it ending way too bloody soon. And I was good at that one, too! Grumble grumble grrrr angst.

Also, my Uncle Gamlen is a horrible person. I am going to kick him out of the house.

And I have the Black Emporium thing that gave me my dog. His name is Jackal.

This has been a nonsensical, rushed post so that I can get back to my game. Cheers!

Flash: Rush by Nitrome

This has been out for a while, but I just now got into Nitrome games. They have this really great pixel style that I find rather addictive... yes, the style.

Even more addictive is this stupid little platformer racing game. The premise is that you flip gravity and either race to be the first to cross the finish, or (in elimination mode) shock your opponents with each lap completed until you're the last one standing.

The music is fitting and smooth, but unfortunately at this point I don't think there's gonna be much replayability with only twenty stages. It's also heavy on multiplayer. To mess around with that, I conned my brother into playing against me. He lost, of course (the poor kid's only ten), but the multiplayer version was more fun if simply because it drew us into paying attention to the other players. (And in elimination mode it's fun when you're the last two standing.)

 

Oh, a word to the wise: something I've learned about Nitrome games is that you really should read the "help" section before you play. Sure, you might not need help, exactly, but if you don't get off of your ego then you'll miss the whole instruction section.

Play it here.

Rift: Dragonheart's Always Recruiting

My guild, Dragonheart, is recruiting on the Alsbeth server. I was recently promoted, so I said I'd put the word out (not that my blog has any/many followers, eh?).

It's a pretty good guild that's been around for awhile, and the only guild I've been in on my Cleric. (The only other Rift guild I've been in, period, was Suspiria, on my now-deleted Rogue, which as a whole struck me as very wholly end-game progression based, with a large pressure to get to 50 as fast as possible).

Right now, we have a healthy 50 population and do experts, rifts, etc. very regularly (I'm just starting to gear up; I turned 50 a few days ago! More on that later). The best part about the guild, in my opinion, is how very friendly everyone is. It's not small but it's not downright enormous, either; you grow to know the names that log on or off, and you make friends. I've been in the guild since 20, and that was because at the time they were recruiting 20+ players only, or I would have joined earlier.

Guild activity is very high. Everyone is allowed to speak in guild chat, as usual, and everyone does. Inactive members are kicked from the guild about every week. The guild leaders listen to complaints and pay attention to member activity. Active, helpful members get promoted; negative or abusive members get kicked. If you're a good person and play well with others, you're 100% safe, so don't worry! That's not to say that we don't have debates, mind you, and if you ask ten of us the answer to a question you'll as likely as not get twelve answers.

Dragonheart is always recruiting, though there's no active campaign right now. (Our slogan is apparently something along the lines of "have fun, run experts, eat pie..." or something.) I'm going to say that any friendly players, even (especially!) newer ones who need friendly explanations to mechanics they don't understand or suggestions on builds or gear, who are level 20 or higher, are completely welcome in Dragonheart.

Rift: DING! Level 40

Yep! I hit level 40 about a week back! Another milestone for me. I don't get to level 40. Ever. I've never ever been level 40 in any MMORPG ever. How's that for different?
Anyway, I never quite hit that slow spot in the upper thirties that everyone says they hit. Yeah, it got a bit slower, but that's to be expected. I remember looking at my almost-maxed experience bar at level 39 and thinking, This is it. If you can do this, you can get to level 50! You can have a maxed out character for once! Whoa!

I quested with my guildie friend Geis through my thirties and a bit through my lower forties. Following him around at 38-39 was a pain in the ass, if I do say so myself - the starter gazelle mount goes 30% slower than the lvl 40 Defiant robot-horse mount (which you can buy for outrageous prices, but I bought with favor earned in PvP warfront matches, with tons to spare). Which he had. I bought my 40 mount ahead of time and collected it as soon as I hit 40, and BAM - my life was made. Mounts are something I haven't ever gotten to do, but this? This was like... MMORPG GLORY.

Okay, now that I'm off that high...

My robot horse is a girl, and she's named Audrey. Unfortunately, when I hit level 50 in just three more levels, she's going to be discarded for a super-expensive level 50 platinum eldritch mount who will probably be a boy but I don't have a name for yet (attachment, much?). Apparently the level 50 PvP mount takes forever to get because it's based entirely on the Battle of Port Scion, the 50 warfront, which obviously you don't get until 50... and by the way, newbie level-50s get completely stomped in warfronts until they get geared up. Not looking forward to that, though I have fallen out of my warfront-junkie phase.

Rift: How to Not Suck at Black Garden

I'm a warfront junkie. I'm a bomb at Black Garden, getting good at Codex, and expect to be pretty good at Whitefall Steppes once I get used to the strategy. At earlier levels, the strategy for Black Garden (the lowest-level warfront) was pretty much "get the fang, run away, don't die," or, for a simpler and more reliable strategy, "roll as a Guardian." Indeed, Defiants sucked on my server, and we lost almost every game. The first day I tried warfronts, I can't even remember getting a single win.

Having listened to a bunch of people yelling directions at me and choosing which directions to take to heart and which to discard completely, I have now developed some decent rules and ideas, which are very not entirely shit.

1. For gods' sakes, don't go off by yourself and get picked off one by one. Even if your team has the fang all the way at their spawn point, they're only getting one point instead of the much larger quantities of points the holder would get near the middle. So if one or two people keep dying and respawning and dying again instead of staying with the group, the points the other team gets for the kills might outnumber the points your team gets for holding the fang. Even worse is when the other team has the fang and you do this. Not only are you not accomplishing anything by handing them a quick kill, you're also speeding up their win.

2.1 Offensively, healers need to heal. You are not damage. It probably won't feel very useful, but you will be helping by lessening the time needed to grab the fang, or if you're in a crappy PUG (pick-up group, or group that wasn't premade), you might be giving your offensive team members a chance if possible.
2.2 Defensively, healers need to heal. You are not damage. Healing your team isn't what you should be focusing on, unless you're up against a kamikaze-style kill-everyone team and your team is all close by, so you can do a quick group heal and be done with it. Most of the time, the opposing team will be (or should be) focusing on your fang holder. It's your job to prolong your fang holder's life for as long as possible. When they have low health, put on flat heals. Low health and getting attacked, instant flat heals. And at all times, keep HoTs (healing over time spells) on them, especially if the skill is one that can stack, or if it's a skill that heals for a lot and is activated when the person is attacked.
2.3 Healers should be fang carriers, especially clerics, and especially if there are other healers on your team. You can heal yourself better than anyone else can, since it's more likely you'll know exactly what curses, etc. are on you, and be able to time the fang damage better. Clerics also have a hefty chunk of HP to burn. With the combined effort of other healers if you have them, it could take a good while for you to die. And if you have an organized team, forget about it - the fang could easily pass back and forth between two strong clerics on your team the whole match, assuming the other team isn't more organized and efficient than yours.


3. Mages, ranged warriors and rogues, and clerics: use the walls. Near your spawn point, there will be a wall that leads to the beginning of the "official" arena where the fang spawns. It's tempting to get up on it, and a lot of people do. But if your team is on your side at the moment with your fang, stay up on the wall where no melee opponents can get you, and dish out all the ranged damage/heals you can. This is a popular one.


4. Use AOE (area of effect) attacks around the fang when it's dropped. If someone takes damage, their picking up the fang is interrupted, leaving your team to pick up the fang unhassled. Unfortunately, in matches where both teams do this, this can result in a stalemate for long periods of time, or at least until someone's mana runs out. If your team is spamming AOE around the fang, get it and get out fast.

5. Use snare and other slowing/stopping effects when someone makes a run for it: this can apply to either someone who's snagged a fang from your side and is running back to theirs, or a whole team trying to follow your own fang-snagger. Only a few non-PvP souls offer a talent that breaks people free from these snares, etc., so it's an effective strategy.

6. Melee rogues are best near the center of the arena with few exceptions. Being all the way over on an opponent's side is a bad idea because of rogues' low HP, but rogues are offensive and meant to deal damage, so they can't hang back either. Offensively, from the center they can pick off the other team's stupidest members (stragglers, effectively, who get too far from the pack). If the fang returns to its prison, rogues can be and are fast and elusive, and overall, good at escape, meaning that they can snatch the fang before anyone knows what's happened. Alternatively, with a good Assassin/stealth mode build especially, you can pick off lone players who think they can grab the fang unopposed.
6.5 The main exception to this idea is grabbing the opponents' fang and running back to your side with it and/or creeping around to their side and dealing tons of damage to their carrier, also with stealth. Riftstalkers also make good fang carriers.

7. If your team is good and/or their team is bad, carriers should hang near the center if they can. It means a faster win.

8.1 Carriers: if they're heavily offensive, running around will make you harder to hit, especially around the black tentacle things in the center where the fang spawns if possible, or around and between the trees on your side.
8.2 If not, then focus on staying rather still in the safest spot possible for your healer, or so that you can heal yourself with spells other than instant heals. Of course, every situation is different, and so you should decide for yourself what will work best.

Rift: Level 30 + Healer Spec + Guild

I checked to see if Rift had fixed the lag issue, and it was fixed miraculously. Hotfix 4? Coincidence? Does it matter? I'm playing again!

In a nutshell, I quested until low-experience level 29, then queued for warfronts the rest of the day. Slow leveling, but fun. I finished my "win 5 Black Garden matches" quest, and finally managed to win my first Codex match. Of course, right as I won the Codex match - and I mean the very moment it ended - I leveled up, taking me to level 30 and a new warfront queue bracket. So now, since I'm level 30 in the 30-39 bracket, I suck at warfronts. Again. Ugh.

In any case, my guild has a shiny-new level 30 on her way to 50, and we could use more 50s. Speaking of which, I've never hit an MMORPG cap, and have only gotten to 30 once... so this is a major milestone for me! The other 30, in case you're wondering, was my Dancer spec in Dream of Mirror Online... bet you didn't guess that one, huh?

Heh.

Well, speaking of which, I finally put my healer spec into practice. It's very strong on the Warden soul (new favorite healing soul!) and almost as strong in the Sentinel soul, with a couple points in Purifier for instant-cast attacks, which I was severely lacking on. While I was questing, I activated it on a whim, and learned a lot about how to effectively organize my skills into my... what, four bars, now? The bars are sorted into attacks, buffs, shields, HoTs (heal over times), instantaneous casts, and non-heals/attacks (Kelari camouflage, mount, etc.), with my crafting, tracking, etc. on an out-of-the-way fourth bar to the side. I figured out that my healer isn't at all a good spec for PvE. But I can deal with it well enough, and it's good to practice.

When I healed for Black Garden, I discovered something amazing: I am nigh invincible, assuming I have a good team. You cannot fell me. I will hold the fang for five minutes before I will die, and even then, it'll be a one-hit K.O. because of fang damage. I am invincible.

Okay, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. But that's okay. Now, in the Codex warfront, on the other hand... well, I can heal, but I die. A lot. I die, and I die, and I die over and over again. Maybe because it was Defiants Suck Day? We declared it this after losing fifteen Codex matches in a row before I finally got that first win ever. Took long enough.

But I now have three good specs: tank based around Justicar, dps (which is really best for 1v1, but feasible) based around Inquisitor and Cabalist, and healer based around Warden and Sentinel.

In the meantime, while I was queuing, I talked a lot more than usual with my guild. Involved myself a bit more, gave out advice that I knew was right, asked questions, answered questions, even sold a ton of iron with a friendly "guild member discount," and got free runes from a person training up his runecrafter skill. In the end, the money loss that I suffered for that iron sale was worth it (and the runes were definitely worth going out of my way for). I made a few friends in good places, kinda got a bit more public, got congratulations on an achievement and got good-byes when I logged off kind of familiarity. I figure the longer I stick with the guild, the more fun it'll get to talk with them, and it never hurts to start early. Right?

This has been Vaethereal/Mnemosyne, signing off at an obscene time of the morning.

I'm going to maybe replay DA:O.

It all depends on if I can fit the whole game in the free time I'll have between now and mid-July when my birthday is, because I'm definitely expecting Dragon Age 2. Between this and Rift, I'm not sure how well that's going to go.

In the meantime, I'm going to continue to play as Elissa Cousland, my Human Noble rogue. Alistair is going to be my tank, as usual (what's with all the tanks at the beginning? Alistair, the dog, Sten?). Morrigan is going to be my mage until I do the Circle of Magi quest, which will probably be the first one I do so that I can get the blood mage spec in the Redcliffe quest and get Wynne, who'll be my mage after that... a healer. I hate AI healing, like I've said, but oh well.

I played through the irritating first "dungeon," the Tower of Ishal, and only died once on the boss (yay!) after figuring out that I should, actually, keep the add-on Circle Mage alive. I discovered the wonder of bow-and-arrow rogues, but didn't put much stock in it after giving myself that second weapon set. I also discovered the wonder of venoms, poisons, and bombs. But they're not all that efficient for quick, strategy-less damage. Speaking of which, the only way that I won the Tower of Ishal boss on the second try was that I kited him around the room with only my dog still alive, besides myself, of course, and he pretty much just went to town on him until the ogre got tired of chasing me around and knocked him out. Then I just kept kiting and threw acid at him until his last two specks of HP were dissolved. Easy enough, I suppose.

I don't really like Morrigan... like, really don't like her. But I'll put up with her for now, because I need her to not leave me for now. Even if she does leave, she'll come back at the end... shudder, shudder. But really I just need her for hexes and ice spells right now. In the meantime, I AM going to finish this run-through, as my elf mage. I'm so close! But ugh... I'm tired of being a squishy mage. I die... ALL... the time...

DAO: Origin stories pt. 2

Human Rogue (Noble)

As a human rogue, my family, the Couslands, invited Duncan into the castle early on, as well as another man whose armies were delayed named Howe. My brother was taking our armies to the south, where I'd eventually, of course, be joining them.

I was almost immediately surprised, after going to see my brother, when I was interrupted by another man who told me that my Mabari hound was in the larder. This made me extremely happy. It meant not having to use a stupid generic soldier in my party at the end of Ostagar (oops, spoilers!). It also meant not having to do that stupid Mabari quest early on, which is a time waster and rather boring. I decided my dog would be a girl this time around and named her Valeria. That unimportant detail attended to, I faced off in my first official battle against a horde of giant rats.

I said good-bye to my brother, who was leaving for the war early that next morning. His son was amusing. He said things like "Git away, dire bunny! All darkspawn fear my sward of truthiness!" Instantly endearing. Too bad that he (Spoiler Alert) died, along with his mother, that night, when Howe's men attacked us. I dispatched them like a good little girl and got my mother, who was a surprisingly good fighter... rogue, I believe. And my dog is the best guard dog ever. Also, if I hadn't checked my inventory, I would've been fighting that fight in my underwear. But I'm smart like that.

When we got out, we killed ever more of Howe's men. I slaughtered my first mage, for one. There was also the constant beheadings and bloody, gory stabbings that are the glory of a Dragon Age rogue and the reason I love playing them. I was transfixed.

My father was gravely injured at the servant's exit, where we were to make our escape. Duncan came in and bartered with my father: my service as a Grey Warden for his assurance that he would get me out alive. My mother stayed to protect my wounded father, but I'm sure she died. You could kind of tell; the achievement for finishing the origin story was called "Last of the Line" or something like that.

In conclusion, Cousland is a good fantasy name.

I believe these will be the only two origin stories I summarize. It was fun for kicks and giggles, since I had free time... at, er... two in the morning. And the whole point was really just the pictures. You could tell, I think, that all I really liked doing was taking the screenshots, haha.

DAO: Origin stories pt. 1

Elf Rogue (Alienage)

I decided that I didn't have the patience tonight to beat a tough battle of any sort, so instead, I'm humoring myself by playing through the origin stories. I've already played through the Magi one as an Elf Mage, and I'm not sure I'll be covering it again. But now I'll do the elven alienage one.

I started in my bed, woke up to a character I recognized from the major alienage plot event in my first run-through... a girl with short, choppy red hair and a defiant voice whose name I can never remember. The starting cutscene immediately made me fond of the alienage, where before I'd honestly really only thought of it as sort of a dirty hick town. Amazing what cheerful cutscenes can do for you.

The background information was unfortunately rather vague. I was getting married, and I had a friend named Soris, and we were going to escape? It all made little sense to me at first. Of course Duncan arrived... I'm starting to get attached to that guy. He just pops up everywhere!

So we're standing there talking and a human comes in. It's the son of the Arl of Denerim, Vaughn. Eventually my redhead friend knocks him out with a bottle. I play it cocky and threaten him half to death until he leaves. He miraculously recovers and I'm at my wedding in these very pretty bridal clothes, when suddenly... he pops up... and snags all of the women there? Including my redhead friend, who is apparently a drunkard. Oh, well... we can't all be perfect.

So we get captured, I'm standing in the corner, and Soris comes in and passes me a sword and there's an epic moment where the guards know they're screwed and then I kill them. Then an elven servant knocks out the offensive cook. Then I poison some off-duty guards with rat poison. Then... well, long story short, I cut a long and bloody path to Vaughn and his henchmen. My drunkard friend was apparently raped (from what I can infer), and one of my friends was killed, but we pretty made it off scot-free. And I got a bunch of cool new armor, too!

That is, it's all cool until the guards show up at the alienage. I take all the blame because I'm a good person like that (and also because Duncan was right there and I knew he was gonna do his thing and invoke the Right of Conscription, so why drag my friends into it?).

And then I say goodbye to my sentimental father (by the way, my mother was apparently a badass who taught me all these leet skills), Soris, and my redhead friend, and we're off into the great beyond of awesome.

DAO: Return after a while.

I dropped Dragon Age: Origins for more than a month, maybe more than two months, right after the Landsmeet. Now, I'm right in the thick of the battle against the Darkspawn in Denerim with Alistair, Leliana, and Wynne.

I've decided that if I ever play this through again, I'm playing as a mage spirit healer. UGH. Wynne cannot do the job right. AIs should not be healers, ever. And that sucks, because I wanted to do a different origin story next time around. I'm basically a damage and crowd control mage the way I am now. (Elven mage. Apparently the most hated origin in the game...)

Leliana keeps dying, Alistair keeps dying, I keep dying, Wynne almost never dies... what's with that? She can't heal the rest of us worth anything, but she stays alive? I keep messing with the tactics for Wynne, but nothing helps.

Anyway,  I'm so close to the end. Here's a quick summary of how the game's gone for me so far, so we're all on the same page (spoiler alert!):

• An elven mage, I had the "Magi" origin story
• I won Redcliffe support by healing the Arl (?) after killing his son
• I won elven support by releasing the werewolves from their curse
• I won dwarven support by putting the inheritor on the throne (not the prince)
• I won templar support after (almost) succeeding at saving the mages
• I'm on good terms with Morrigan and Wynne
• I'm on really good terms with Alistair, Leliana, Fenris (my dog), Zevran, and Sten
• I'm in a romantic relationship with Alistair
• I put the existing queen on the Denerim throne at the Landsmeet
• I let Alistair execute that one guy who was going to be a Grey Warden but wasn't.

 And now there are dragons, and one of us was going to die, but Morrigan offered to do that frightening ritual, and I stared at the screen in agony for ten minutes (What do I do? Let Alistair die? No, I like him despite his squishiness! Sacrifice myself?! Awesome, but... I want a good epilogue... Make Alistair sleep with Morrigan? What, now I'm dropping ALL my morals?!) before finally making him sleep with Morrigan through my awesome powers of Persuasion. Having the silver tongue is highly beneficial, I swear.

Well, maybe. Depends how that works out.

Oh, and then I forgot to put Morrigan in my final party, so I don't know if it'll still actually happen. (Insert head-desk.) So I'm going to have to make the final blow, because better I die a hero, everyone celebrating me and billions of people writing my name in all of the history books, than lose Alistair. Because I'm sentimental like that. Poor me.

But at this point, all I really want is the epilogue. I want to know how everything turned out, who died, who lived, who went on with their life and did great things. Especially, I want to know what happens to Alistair and Leliana, and if all goes smoothly, myself (duh on that one).

Oh, and if I die, what about Fenris (again, my dog)? Poor guy. He'll be so heartbroken. And probably die. Don't Mabari hounds do that when their owners die? That's sad.

I keep dying on this battle at the foot of Fort Drakon, which is why I'm here typing. I'd hoped to just finish the game tonight, but that's not looking very optimistic. On the other hand, at least I'm getting somewhere!

So I was going to give City of Heroes a try.

And that's when I realized that I only wanted to create a superhero, not actually play it.

So never mind on that.

In the meantime

Original post from I Think in Black and White.

When I'm not dealing with my grandparents or working, I'm writing, drawing/painting, or playing games. Obviously Rift has been sucking my time, but with that (temporarily?!) out of commission, I need something new. The answer: Project Zomboid.

But no PayPal option means no game for me. As soon as there is one, however, it's Rock Paper Scizzorz for me! Or perhaps Stand On Top of the Other Guy But Be Bigger.

Rift, again: Crafting, questing, lag.

Original post from I Think in Black and White.

Anyway, I've recently figured something out: teenagers aren't supposed to play MMOs, apparently. There was a guild conversation today where age came up. Some kid said he was thirteen, and got laughed at. Apparently, "Healers should be 30, tanks should be 20, dps should be 13." I'm mostly a tank and sometimes a healer, and I'm fourteen.

Lucky me. Am I very mature, or very misplaced?

That aside, Rift has been going well. I might as well make this into a gamer blog with the way I'm going. :B

I leveled up a whopping ton. I got the level 20 achievement and I'm level 27 as I type. Level 30 will be a milestone for me, because in MMOs I usually don't get to level 30, sometimes even level 20. It just goes to show that Rift has my attention for the time being. It probably helps that my summer break just started (well, two weeks ago, but that's about how long I've been playing).

So I'm level 27, and I realize that I need to complete this quest in the Saga of the Endless chain, which involves going into a dungeon that I won't be able to go into after level 31 again until level 50. I get worried, so I go and spend my time farming mining mats and pumping up that skill, then working my armorsmith so it's actually useful before I get to level 50 (assuming I reach 50). It's not really a noticeable kind of armor upgrade from the quest rewards I get, but it's still useful to train the skill while I have the mats in my quest hub area.

I'm an Expert Miner and an Expert Armorsmith now. I wish there was a title there with those so that I could have a different title than "Champion of Freemarch." Oh, well. And I didn't bother to farm rams for my Butchering skill, so that's going to come back and bite me in the ass. Actually, it already did when I had to buy linen cloth rather than make it. But that's another story.

Anyway, I quested all the way through Stonefield, and finally got to go to Scarlet Gorge, the official third zone. (I say official because I accidentally took a brief sojourn into Scarwood, but it doesn't matter.) I'm pretty far in that chain as well, though lately I haven't been doing EVERY SINGLE QUEST like it's so tempting to do. I keep rerealizing, oh, yeah, this quest isn't necessary. Why am I going this far out of my way to accomplish it?! It's totally healthy, ha.

All this was going perfectly well, and I was slaughtering miners, you know, same old, same old, when suddenly the LAG MONSTER APPEARS AND EATS MY FACE and two minutes later my computer/the server/whatever catches up and I am dead, hurray.


But it's really awful. Constant, horrid spikes of latency, making the game basically unplayable. When something that I can't escape aggro'd on me, I'd have to hope that I could beat it with the few shots I could get in, because I certainly couldn't play very well. I was stuck running up and down the main Scarlet Gorge road looking for chromite so that I could go craft instead. That would have been great, except that lagged and I disconnected an endless amount of times and I died an endless amount of times and shops took ages to open and once the soul resurrection technician's speech box wouldn't open so I was trapped in soul walk mode... Then, while crafting chromite bars, one bar took eight minutes and all the while was that highly irritating crafting noise for armorsmith and a bar that appeared to be full.

If this doesn't get better, I'm cancelling my subscription, and I am taking my money somewhere else. This is ridiculous, and I'm not paying for a game I can't play.