Completionism

Sometimes being a completionist is fun. Chasing achievements, collecting virtual things, killing all bosses. This week Marvel Heroes had the Mystic Mayhem event (which should close down tonight) where you could do a quest to queue up for a 5man instance (a run takes ~10 minutes and the queue is hardly more than 2-5 minutes) and are rewarded with 3 Power Points (like skill points in other games) and a bit of permanent health (+63, and a typical Level 60 Hero has ~10k).
So yeah, I managed to finish this quest on all my 25 Level 60 Heroes (even on the first try each) and am a bit exhausted now. Probably gonna be happy tomorrow as it’s sometimes a nice little boost (and for some Heroes quite useless).
Still, TOO MANY CHARACTERS for this kind of stuff…

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Marvel Heroes Update… finally

After the downer with RO I got into playing Marvel Heroes again (last post was June 30th, so basically I didn’t play for nearly 4 months).
mh_20151101
Now what do we see here?
Rogue, Star-Lord, and Black Panther went from “just started” to 60 (that’s 25 Level 60 Heroes of 27 I own) and there’s 2 new Team-Ups, Wolverine and Shield Agent, for a total of 5.
Spent 2×175 splinters on random Heroes. No luck this time, but there’s a free token waiting for me in ~18 days of login. (Which will be my 300 day anniversary. As I think I started playing around Christmas 2014, that seems to tell me I only didn’t login ~14 days this year. But many of those were literal 1 minute visits for the login bonus.)
I also bought some costumes (first time iirc). “Armored Panther” for Black Panther, “Avengers Movie” for Hawkeye and “House of M” for Scarlet Witch (they were all on a 50% sale and then between 300 and 400G each) and a Hero Tab for Star-Lord.
Also still playing Lost Lands once per day and Fallout Shelter on my phone. But after hitting 110 Vault Dwellers I’m only keen on the Nuka Cola Bottler and then probably leave it.

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That escalated quickly

So as big as I was on Ragnarok Online, I haven’t logged in since the 22nd of October.
They posted this announcement, which I am quoting in full:

Dear Adventurers,
As we have been aware that bots are polluting our server more and more every day, we’ve decided to act and make botting less attractive than it has been so far.
From now on, the XP and Drop rates will change for both our Free and Premium users.
Indeed, below you will find the comparison between previous and new rates:
842307rates
As you can see, we also increased the Premium rates as a thank you to our loyal players and we hope that these changes will make our server a better place to live and play on, for everyone.
Enjoy your time on Ragnarök Online!
Gravity Europe Team

And this is my definition of “slap in your face”. Who doesn’t care about lowered experience rates for free accounts at all? Correct. Bots. Who cares? Users.
But I’m not angry, I’ve been playing around a month for free and had planned to give them some money in the future, but after this I just stopped playing. Might come back (although unlikely), then would have to pay apparently.

That escalated quickly Read More »

Quick Update: Ragnarok

Three weeks flew past and I didn’t really do much than work too much and then play some games at night.
It’s still mostly Ragnarok. Hunter is 86/50, Blacksmith is 68/27 and actually fun to level these days. The Acolyte is a Priest now (sitting at 54/1), the Dancer is 58/13 and my Holy Cross Crusader is already 66/27. And then there’s 2 3x/3x Thieves who will be Assassin and Rogue. Altoholism to the next level. The Gunslinger is stalled at 45 though.
I’ve also started playing Lost Lands on Steam which is F2P and in a genre I didn’t even know I liked. You have a picture and have to search for certain objects in a short timespan in this picture. But graphically it reminds me of Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and overall it has some RPG feeling to it with quests and stuff. It’s nice and you can play without paying for anything in the cash shop 2-3 times for 10 minutes each per day.
And I’m also playing Fallout Shelter, another “let’s spend 1-5min several times per day” game.

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What’s wrong with… me?

Despite my astonishment in my last post that I’m playing it at all… I’m still playing Ragnarok. True, with Renewal the XP curve got nerfed horribly (just compare these 2 charts, Level 98->99 is 30m, which used to be like Level 80->81), but I’m still happy I’m already in the 80s.
ro_hunter_84_47
I also got my Merchant to Blacksmith, but didn’t play more – and also leeched my Pure Support Acolyte with another Archer. Exactly the kind of otherwise boring grind I like while listening to podcasts these times.
Other than that, I’m logging in daily to GW2 and Marvel Heroes to cash in on login bonus stuff, but not actively playing.
And oh, the WildStar F2P launch was a complete disaster for me. I mean, I’m not complaining, but I haven’t been able to log in one of my existing characters on Jabbit (PvE-EU) even once (incl the 2 Level 50s /sob) – but I could create a new character on Luminai (PvP-EU) but I didn’t want to level.
Maybe I’ll try again tonight and over the weekend, but if at 100% of the progress bar it always puts me back to charselect, I just might write a ticket after 4-5 days then…

What’s wrong with… me? Read More »

There and back again

It’s kind of hard to believe (especially for myself), but I’ve started to play a bit of Ragnarok Online again. As usual I can’t decide on a “main” and so I first started a Gunslinger (now 42), then I’m levelling a Thief (31ish now) and mostly playing a Hunter (Archer actually, but I just managed to hit Job 50 and change to Hunter. Here’s the proof:
ro_archer
ro_hunter
I mostly leeched a Merchant on a second account on this Archer/Hunter, so actually I could’ve been nearly twice as fast, but I had to catch up on a few podcasts and needed some mindless grinding to think about some things – Ragnarok is just perfect for that.

There and back again Read More »

Blaugust, but not for me

This is kind of about Blaugust. I’d already read a lot of stuff during last year’s month-long blogging event and I think it’s a cool idea, so check it out if you read this but haven’t heard of it, which I find unlikely anyway.
Sadly it is not for me, for several reasons. I already wrote that I put gaming (and some other things) on the backburner at the moment for lack of enjoyment and an urge to spend more time outside in the sun. Also I usually am doing my biggest holiday trip of the year in August, also this year. Incidentally I am mostly writing this post because I am sitting in a lobby, drinking coffee and waiting for something in preparation of said trip. Then I am really bad at forcing myself to blog. I’ve been blogging on and off for around 15 years I think, so I’d say I know what works and what doesn’t. And finally, I plan to write about my trip extensively, but not here. Unlike a lot of people who either blog under their real name or add personal stuff, I put that elsewhere and that’s why most posts here are just summaries of what I did. But don’t worry, you’re not missing out on my “exciting” life 😛

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I blame the summer

Not much has happened in the last month since I posted.

Thief at 80
Thief at 80

Draconic Armor
Draconic Armor

Mostly because I didn’t play that much. A tiny bit of Marvel Heroes (but not even a single new hero at 60) and some GW2.
My Thief reached Level 80 (and I only spent less than 10 Tomes of Knowledge for the last levels, everything else is pure manual labor :P).
I even got to 400 Leatherworker for some Exotic Gear.
My Asura Necro is 33, but it’s going slooow and I have a Charr Engineer at ~15.
The new pic shows my Warrior in his shiny Exotic Draconic Gear I handcrafted (Armorsmith at 500).
In August I’m offline (gaming-wise) for two weeks, this will only be the second time since I started playing both MH and GW2 that I’ll miss my daily login bonus.

I blame the summer Read More »

Twice as strong, and handsome as ever!

Yes, I played some more Marvel Heroes again after a little break. It’s probably a bad idea to not be in the mood during the awesome anniversary and with all the buffs, but I logged in daily and on Sunday and Monday I achieved quite a bit. MH_20150629 First I got Squirrel Girl to 60 on the weekend and with the help of Midtown Madness and a few XP boosts Thing from 1 to 60 in one evening without much effort (lacking all the skill points from story mode though) and what can I say… I really enjoyed Squirrel Girl but I loved Thing even more. This was exactly how Hulk should’ve played back when I played him. I definitely need to grab some gear and maybe even prestige him. I heard or read that the Story Mode revamp could be going live in July, so I think I can live without those skill points for now.
Since my last update there actually were a few more things happening. Nova seemed fun at first but was a bit painful and squishy to level, he’s 60 nonetheless. The new heroes in the roster are obviously the above two (bought Thing during BOGO, lucked out on Squirrel Girl token), took Spider-Man as my free anniversay hero (last one of the 600 Splinter ones I was missing) and Rogue… if only I had written this down sooner – but I’m pretty sure I used 175 Splinters just before buying Spider-Man. So lucky there as well, as I was pondering which of the 2 to take.
Also, one new Team-Up, Iron Man Mk II from the anniversary event.
So this brings me to 22 Level 60 Heroes now, 7 non-cosmic prestige runs, 3 Team-Ups, around 5-6 pets I think and more than 25 days /played. Oh well, apparently they do deserve what money I throw in their direction. Oh, and those 1350G I mentioned in May are mostly gone.

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Preordering Heart of Thorns and other purchases

A while ago (I’m pretty sure it was in March) there was a sale on Guild Wars 2, it always sounded kind of nice, WildStar was just not cutting it at the time – and so I bought GW2 for around 10-12 EUR. I’ve since levelled one character to 80, reached 500 in one crafting skill, levelled some alts to 30, 20, and 10 and in general had quite some fun and unlike in other games I not once felt pushed to buy something on the Gem store (aka with real money). Then a while later I learned about the upcoming expansion: Heart of Thorns. I didn’t (and still don’t) exactly know what it was going to bring (expansions in WoW have been a mixed bag, and so far I’ve been there for all of them…), but I was pretty sure I’d get it.
So recently the preorder page went up and there were the 3 options: Standard, Deluxe and Ultimate. I thought about it for a little while, then decided the Standard one was a bit plain. The Deluxe looked about right from the contents (but seemed a bit pricy) but in the end I opted for the Ultimate – I’ll get some of the Gem currency I haven’t *needed* so far, but I was looking forward to a few nice things.
Most of Reddit will probably disagree and tell me how horrible I am, taking up what Arenanet puts up as an offer. But still, I don’t see this more as thanking them for my past enjoyment of the game in the last 3 months (for a laughable price of less than a month’s subscription in other games) and trusting them to not fuck this up in the near future and not so much blindly accepting what they give us. I know this can send mixed signals and maybe just buying some currency for the store would’ve sent less mixed signals – but the opportunity was at the right time, for the right price.
 
In other news, I recently bought a few things off GoG and Steam, namely Borderlands 2 (which is pretty good, and I like it a lot better than Borderlands) with all the DLC for 10 EUR, The Witcher 1+2 (was cheap and I’m interested – but I don’t have high enough hopes to stick longer than a few hours, that’s why Witcher 3 was out), Mass Effect 1+2 (read so many good things, can’t wait) for ~7 EUR and Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag for 8 EUR – because the start of Brotherhood wasn’t especially good (after the phenomal AC 2) and when I get back, I might as well play the part that’s widely said to be the best part.
Totally unrelated, but apparently I hate having games on Steam that I had already owned before. It shows “Played: 0 hours” when in fact I spent days, weeks or even months playing them. But it doesn’t annoy me half as much as WoW not retroactively having given me basically all WSG, AB and AV achievements when they were introduced. One does not simply reach rank 11 without a five base win or 2000:1990 or whatever it was. Back then I was very much tempted to open tickets and link to screenshots of my past exploits.

Preordering Heart of Thorns and other purchases Read More »