Mini rant about EVE events

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So there’s this Guardian’s Gala event (to get some SKINs) and that what’s got me to try a bit of EVE Online (not offline, i.e. just training) again and I’m a little let down.

  • Jump in a Thorax I have sitting around (Gallente Cruiser) and try to find a “Guardian’s Gala Rendezvous Point” (cool)
  • Had to fly around a bit and find one of those, visited like 7 systems (cool)
  • Finally found one, yay! Engage!
  • Now I know I am probably the worst EVE player in existence, but as I was just returning and didn’t know what to expect (Don’t fly what you can’t afford to lose)… I maybe chose a badly fitted or badly played ship. There’s 5 Angel Cartel frigates and after killing 3 my drones are gone, I am apparently not cap stable and have to warp off. No clue how expensive the drones were, but ship insurance (as I said I was inactive the last months) + repairs = a few mil (still cool)
  • But so now I was curious how much the SKINs actually cost, so I flew my other toon to Jita to check.

TLDR: It’s easier to fly to Jita and spend 50m on ALL the skins for ALL the Gallente ships I can fly or pay 15m in insurance for a Brutix that MAY enable me to do a few of those events and get a handful of skins. Easy choice. Spent 50m, happy with my SKINs, event failed.
Not a real critique of CCP – I am totally happy that they do these events, but if I compare them to WoW (can login on *any* max level toon, do stuff to a) see the event and b) reap some rewards)… it’s not even worth trying it. It’s PvE content, I am shooting some NPC ships and maybe? get 1 SKIN per successful gate. Whereas my participation already costs a sizable amount of what I would get. I have to say that it might be quite different if I had managed to do one in my Thorax (probably easy) or if I had an insured Brutix or Ishtar ready (also easy for most people). Still not sure how Omega toons would do this. EPIC SKILL?

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Marvel Heroes – After the “biggest update ever”

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Oh, quite some time has passed since I last wrote about Marvel Heroes. I did log in for the rewards most days before firing up some other game but wasn’t really motivated. That has changed a bit since “THE BIGGEST UPDATE EVER” has launched.
So far I’m a bit underwhelmed by the changes. Most annoying is not only coming back after half a year, but also having to respec and reread about (now) 45 characters. I also don’t see a big benefit of the Infinity System – before you had Cookie Cutter builds and now you have them.
I do like that you can just take your skills and use them. I find it a bit weird that you can level 1-60 in like 1h (or was that my XP boosts?) or 3h with only Chapter 1-3 of story mode. Midtown Monday is still nice to level or prestige, ICP only heroic means I’m out while levelling, it worked ok at 60.
That all means I’m not against most changes I guess, but I’m also not thrilled. I’m happy I still like the game (~20h since I started playing again like a week ago, that’s not bad) but it’s definitely a -different game- now. Let’s see when marvelheroes.info will have all the builds for all the heroes I care for and if I can still manage some Cosmic Trials. (I hate figuring out builds on my own these days. I guess I last did this in WoW’s TBC expansion…)
Summary of changes in the roster:

  • Doom to 60 and prestiged to Green
  • Ultron to 60
  • Luke Cage to 60
  • Black Cat to 60
  • Venom to 60
  • Angela to 60
  • Iron Man prestiged to Blue (2x)
  • 2 new Team-Ups to 60 (Captain America, Ms Marvel) or halfway there (Winter Soldier, Spider-Man) and one at 1 (Miles Morales)
  • 4884 Achievement Pointsmh_20170131

Tentative to do list for the next weeks:

  • clean out all those Artifacts
  • I have 982 Eternity Splinters, that could be 2 new heroes…
  • Cosmic Midtown
  • do a few Danger Room runs
  • wrap up a few achievements, like 50 Taskmaster kills on Taskmaster
  • try to figure out a few “mains”
  • do some of my “would be nice” prestiges, or at least advance towards:
    • Iron Man to Red
    • Spider-Man to Blue
    • Gambit to Purple
    • Rogue to Green
    • Green Goblin to Green
    • Cyclops to Blue

PS: I still love their business model of giving you so much nice loot that digital hoarders like me have to buy bank space for money.

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Diablo 3 – Season 9

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The “20 years of Diablo” anniversary event in Tristram managed to keep my attention for 62 levels (until I had finished that damn achievement to get all the named mobs in the dungeon) and after a quick ride I was Level 70 (with a little help, as usual, but a lot less this time) and now my Witch Doctor sits at Chapter 4 completed after just ~13 hours /played and I am pretty amazed. I’ve been using the Icy Veins guide as I normally do, but still haven’t fully transitioned from minions to dots. Then again right now I’m having just too much fun with my build. Acid Cloud, Haunt, wait, sometimes Soul Harvest and in between a Gargantuan, 4 Zombie Dogs, an Enchantress and up to 15 Fetishes. I blasted through T4 rifts in ~10-12 minutes, managed to do Solo GRift 20 at 7:5x on first try and it’s really awesome. I even killed Malthael (my number nemesis in this game, on all difficulties and classes) on 2nd try in T4.
After the huge letdown with the Barbarian last season this could motivate me to push through Slayer and some more this time (like in Season 6 with my Crusader), we’ll see.
d3_s9_wd

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The 2016 review

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It’s Christmas eve around noon and this year I’m early with preparing my review post instead of playing games. I think that says enough.
Again I didn’t really go out of my way to buy stuff in sales, but it happened. Again I don’t really buy new stuff. Again there’s MMO subscriptions. Again I’m pretty happy with my spending.

  • Played a lot:
    • WoW: Legion (6 toons at 110)
    • EVE (hard to measure)
    • Marvel Heroes
    • Diablo 3 (S6: Crusader/Slayer, S7: Wizard/Chapter 4, S8: Barbarian/Chapter 4)
  • Completed:
  • Played a bit:
    • WoW: WoD (1 month just before Legion launch)
    • Faeria
    • Mass Effect 3
    • Dishonored
    • Guild Wars 2 (quite a bit at the start of the year)
    • Broken Sword
    • The Witcher
    • FarCry3: Blood Dragon
    • AC: Brotherhood (finally abandoned, Black Flag next)
  • Basically only logged in once or twice:
    • WildStar
    • SW:TOR

Gaming expenses in 2016:

  • WoW: 117 EUR – 45 EUR (Legion), 52 EUR (subscription), 20 EUR (character transfer)
  • EVE: 144 EUR – 2x 6month subscription (until April ’17)
  • Marvel Heroes: 80 EUR for the Advance Pack 3
  • Games on Steam: 33 EUR – Broken Sword 1-5 (15 EUR), KotOR2 (3 EUR), Faeria (6 EUR), Dishonored (3 EUR), Pony Island (2 EUR), Out There Somewhere + Dungeon Hearts (1 EUR)
  • Xbox 360: 0 EUR

This means: 374 EUR in 2016, so ~31 EUR per month, slightly up from last year’s 355 EUR, but with a 4 month subscription credit into 2017.

  • Amount of MMO subscription months paid for
    • with money: 12
    • with ingame currency: 1
  • Bought stuff in the shop: Marvel Heroes
  • Logged in to but didn’t spend money: GW2, WildStar, SW:TOR
  • Full price games: 1 (WoW: Legion)

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Completed: Pony Island

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I saw the trailer for Pony Island quite some time ago. It looked quite interesting, but not enough to instantly buy it. Thanks to the Winter Sale it was cheap enough that I got it. (Yes, I do feel a little bad for buying things only on sale, but looking at my games buying history of the last years.. I wouldn’t have bought it, really. So this is kind of the only way the creators get some money. :/)
I just “finished” it after 2.6 hours (12/20 achievements) and I could’ve probably shaved off 5 minutes by sucking less at jumping 😛 I’ll probably continue looking for the missing nooks and crannies, but the game told me I beat it, hence this post 🙂
TLDR: It’s awesome. And quirky. And weird.  Go buy and play it.

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Diablo 3: Season 8 – done

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I just finished the last 2 todo items on my Season 8 checklist. Solo GRift 20 and reforging a socket. I opted to play a Barbarian this time and I hated it most of the time at 70. The Season set favors Whirlwind heavily and being ragefury-starved is one the worst thing for fun. Luckily I was good enough equipped that I managed the GRift 20 on my first try (according to their scale, GRift 19 is equal to Torment IV and I was struggling with Torment 3 in Nephalem Rifts, that’s why I never tried it back when I played for a few days).
Anyway, I’m done and probably not revisiting Barbarians for a while. Let’s see if I’m even up for Season 9 in 2 weeks.
barb_s8

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WoW: Legion, 10 weeks in

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Quick summary of what I did (achieved?) after 10 weeks since the launch of WoW’s 6th (if I counted correctly) expansion.

  • 5 characters at max level (NE DH, Orc Shammy, Troll Warrior, Orc Rogue, Dwarf Paladin)
  • 9 more level 100 chars (every class besides Monk, and Warrior/Rogue twice :P)
  • started to get mostly one of every class towards max level (or even just starting) on Alliance side as well (Priest 72, Hunter 60, Mage 20 – missing Warlock, Druid, DK, Monk)
  • used my Level 100 bost (Pally), still have the Level 90 boost
  • 2 class hall quest lines done, 2 more mostly done, 1 just started
  • iLvl 851 (Shammy), 848 (DH), 841 (Warrior), 834 (Rogue)
  • zero exalted WQ factions, many revered
  • started/grabbed at least one artifact weapon on 3 more chars
  • Finally levelled some pets with the event, sitting at 55 Level 25 ones now
  • Still trying to finish the Naval mission achievements
  • Started Tanaan on one character, very low prio
  • Timewalking is really fun
  • Still haven’t done more than one Mythic – I just don’t like 5mans
  • Transmog is still one of my favorite features

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I’m not a fan of FPS anymore

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Downloaded the free FarCry3: Blood Dragon and gave it a shot. The intro is really nice and the tutorial made me laugh very hard, it’s basically excellent if you love 80s movies (and/or Kung Fury).
Sadly I’m just not in the market for shooters as it seems, I didn’t really enjoy the first level and stopped playing pretty soon after. Which is a shame, it looked tremendously fun at the start. But I am pretty sure it’s because of the shooting stuff, level design and general “ranged mobs are trying to kill me”. I think I only made it through ME1+2 because I could use a Sniper Rifle + cover the whole time. And because I loved the setting, the story and everything. The shooting was… ok.

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Diablo 3 – Season 8

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At first I was a bit hesitant to play Diablo 3 again but after a quick 3.5 hours I was rushed through 3 Torment V rifts and few other things and boom – my Barbarian is Level 70, Paragon ~50 and at 8/10 Chapter 4. So I now just need a weapon to roll a socket on and do solo GRift 20 and Chapter 4 is done – with 4h /played. Too quick? Maybe. 4h of fun? Hell yes.

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This Legion thing is fun!

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So yeah, just barely made it to not post for 2 full months. Too much work, too much summer, too much WoW I guess.
My main is a Female Night Elf Demon Hunter at iLvl 832 that has yet to tank a Heroic, but is doing some OK damage in Heroics and the one Mythic I tried.
I also levelled my Orc Ele/Resto Shaman to 110 (iLvl 820) but so far I’ve been very unimpressed with the damage, maybe I should try Enhancement.
Finally I got some Artifact weapons (Assassination Rogue, Fury Warrior, and Frost Mage) and brought the former two to 101.
During the Legion pre-events there was a lot of pushing. DK 90 to 100, 2nd Warrior 90 to 100, Druid 90 to 100, Warlock 90 to 100, Hunter 90 to 100, Mage 90 to 98, Paladin 90 to 93, Monk 85 to 90, 2nd Paladin 1 to 61. And maybe I even forgot some – but I was so unimpressed with Draenor levelling after the first time Horde and Alliance (still managed to get 5 toons to 100 the proper way, 4 back when WoD launched and one in my month before Legion) that I decided to take every advantage I could get from the easy XP.
All in all I’m really happy with Legion, especially transmog, Artifact Weapons, the Order Halls, the level scaling.
The only downsides for me are Professions (too different, too many dungeons, too many quests, too much focused on your main) and Reputations – I was hoping I could skip like one zone per character to not repeat *everything* but because of the reputation requirements for World Quests you have to do all of them (or at least the first half) and can only decide on the order. That is a very wasted opportunity for replayability for me.

This Legion thing is fun! Read More »