[Aside: WTF is up with WordPress editor these days?   So much typing lag!!]

[Aside2: The "midnight launch" was pretty damn fail.  Made even worse by the fact that Blizzard, makers of the behemoth of MMOs, should know better.  It worked out for me, since I really should have been sleeping anyway.]

I’ve been playing a Witchdoctor (of course!) as it’s the closest thing to a D2 Necromancer or Druid.  Hopefully the first xpack brings a “real” pet class, but whatever.  This will do.  I’m somewhere in Act III as of the time of this post, and about level 25-26.

The scenery/visuals are crazy, crazy good.  Several areas look like the designers were specifically trying to one up (or eight or nine up) stuff from Diablo 2 (or even 1, my memory is bad).  Especially in the sense that, for act 1 and 2 at least, the map structures are similar.  Act I has you going out from town into the wilderness and eventually into a castle & dungeon…  Act II has you in a desert town & sewers… DOES THAT SOUND FAMILIAR?  Obvious design choice, had to be intentional. I honestly don’t know why they would have made this choice.  I mean.  Huh?  But whatever, it’s still fun.

The powers… hit and miss.  Some of them look really good (Gargantuan, for example) and are really useful, while some look like crap and seem to have very limited usage (Hex & Spirit Barrage, for example) – in Normal difficulty at least.  Now, Hex at least would be cool if it lasted more than 12 goddam seconds…. something of at least 30-45 maybe.  But Spirit Barrage?   I dunno, it just looks really feeble graphically and doesn’t hit a single target much harder than my aoe (which costs 0 mana) at this point…. maybe once my weapon damage is cranked up.

The bosses?  Most are fine.  But… the act bosses? Overkill.  At least at this stage, for a Witch Doctor.  I think I could probably beat the act I boss solo, but after a few attempts it just wasn’t worth the time – as they fully heal every time you die :(.  I just wound up joining a team for the act bosses.  The act II boss?  I’m kinda doubting I could beat him solo without some serious over-leveling… I’ll try on my next char; it could just be a WD thing or a failure-to-be-awesome thing on my part.

And now… to my biggest complaint (aside from the obvious ones like the huge middle finger Blizz flipped to the mod community that has supported Diablo 2 for so long by making the game online only which, no matter what they say, seems motivated by a need to secure the RMT auctions for $PROFIT$, but what do I know…): character & gear visuals.  They are pretty, but they kind of suck.

They suck in the sense that they are very WoWish.  This is bad in at least two ways:

2) If you don’t like the WoW style of equipment design (It’s OK for wow, but I’m not particularly liking it for D3).

4) Very clear “tiered” gear set looks.  Like WoW raid tiered stuff, you know?  Very little individual item flavor (beyond the fact that all the items look at least generically “good”) so far, and perhaps at all.  Note, this is only based on what I’ve seen so far & the videos I watched of all the class armor sets.  I hope I’m proven wrong.

Witch Doctor Armor sets (now, with funky posture!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPfa5qHXZ_w

5) Every item looks different based on the class that wears it.  Holy Christ with a Vorpal Shotgun do I hate this.  You know how in Diablo 2 a Tarnhelm was a Tarnhelm??  Well, in Diablo 3 it will look like a headdress on a witchdoctor, or a horned helmet on a barbarian, etc.  While one might thing this promotes diversity, to me it comes out looking like homogeneity.  Maybe unique items will be different and actually have set looks that don’t vary by type?  Man, I hope so, but I doubt it.

Sure, you can mix and match the tiers but… MEH.  I mean, maybe I’m mis-remembering D2, but didn’t Tal-Rasha’s helmet always look like that horned helmet no matter who wore it?  I’m pretty sure it did.  I really miss that.

Another complaint: The entire skill system: NOT A FAN.  It really discourages you from having say, more than one witchdoctor (although there is an achievement for getting 2 to level 60.  Why in the world would you do that??  They are functionally identical, aside from maybe the skill choices you make for your mercs (maybe you can reset their skills, I haven’t found a way yet).

I mean, the runes are fun and all…and I think that the idea is a worthy contribution, especially from a visual angle… but… Meh.  Meh. Meh!

That being said, I *AM* enjoying the game, and I’m sure I’ll at least play through normal with all the classes.  Maybe all the way through hell…

More later, I’m sure.

[Note: Diablofans has all the gear videos linked from this page.]

Well, the game appeared pretty stable for a beta still at least a few months out (you wouldn’t think something 1-3 months from launch would be unstable, but history tells us otherwise…).  Supposedly, the game in its current form is CPU limited more than GPU, and this perhaps bears out in my experiences – which is that I experienced NO machine lag, even in last night’s big stress test, giant harpoon gun feet bird & bunny & pig hunt.  I did lag a couple times in “normal” play, and that most definitely appeared to be server lag.

On to the actual gameplay!

RACES

The two races I most wanted to play (Sylvari & little crazy inventor dudes, whatever their name is) were locked out, so I was kind of bummed there, but I wound up somewhat accidentally playing through the 1-10 experience for all the 3 unlocked races (Human, Charr & Norn) and generally enjoying all of them.

Charr

I don’t like the look of them (yet), so I wasn’t planning one on live, but the single player story I experienced (the ghost killing rifle side) was engaging enough that I think I’ll have to play one charr come live.  Their story and environment seems to be well done and interesting enough, although the idea of fighting against an army of always replenishing ghosts strikes me as a) really depressing and b) perfect for an mmo in the stereotypical sense that people need things to kill forever :P.

The char character visuals seem well done, but so far they just aren’t my thing.  My 4 year old LOVED them.  “Daddy play the cat woman, play the cat woman!” Later, after I explained that they were called “Charr”:  “Daddy, play the Charr woman!  I don’t wanna play the big man, play the Charr woman!”  (I deleted my female Charr to try something else, so he was upset about that).

Human

The human area was the “easiest” of the three in that I feel it had the smoothest flow and my engineer just kind of leveled up naturally without too much backtracking.  PLUS, centaurs looking hilarious when you hit them with a knockback power.  Well done arena.net!

I found most of the human male faces look douchey… but that’s typically how I feel about most male faces in MMOs (maybe I just don’t like men? :P).  I made one guy and my wife said he looked like a douche without any prompting from me soo…..  I think maybe they need some more “manly” beardy options and some less youthful faces?

Human females looked alright.  I saw several faces that were eerily reminiscent of actresses (pretty sure I saw a Zowie Deshawhatever and a Claire Danes face in there, at minimum).  There was also, oddly, stuck right in the middle, an uber-gothette face with smeared black-star-cryface eye makeup.  Wtf?  I could see if eye makeup was an option in general, but it wasn’t??

Norn

I felt this area had a little bit too much running back and forth, but the plot was solid enough (for an mmo) and, as much as I complain about running around, it has nothing on SWtoR in that regard, so it’s all good.

I really like the look of my female Norn Guardian, but I’m not sure what I’ll be playing on live. I may stick with the male Norn Necromancer, just because I think the image of a wizard type figure having an intimidating stature is amusing.

Norn character visuals in general were strong.

CLASSES:

Necromancer

Of course necro was the first class I made.  DUH.  I rolled a larger-than-life male Norn necro.  At first I didn’t like him much – not a big fan of the basically-melee-range axe weapon they start you off with, but it grew on me and I wound up taking him to 12.  I’m still not sold on this new, low pet count, GW2 necro though.  It appears that they are stick with GW1′s “disposable pets” model, because I was resummoning like mad (they don’t heal out of combat, and die in like 1-3 hits).  In GW1 at least you could get hordes of pets  and feel a little badass, here I was mostly just resummoning the same crap.  I did not like that at all.  BUT I can’t say I didn’t have fun – that could just be the strength of the game in general, and not the class.

I’d really appreciate it if Arena.net would make the pet-spec Necro more interesting and more pet-tastic.  But, I’ll still be playing one.  Not sure how far I’ll take it though.  Even though  I wasn’t a fan of the axe, the starting weapon skills seemed solid enough.

Elementalist

Wow.  Arena.net outdid themselves here, seriously.  They wanted you to feel like motherfucking Gandalf or something.  You are a $%ING WIZARD and you have $%ING OPTIONS.   Each weapon has 4 different settings – one for each element, and many of your utility skills vary by element as well.  I think everyone playing this game is going to have an Elementalist alt.

Powerwise… it felt about right.  If someone got close to me, I was pretty much destroyed.  But, with some support or a range advantage, I could dish out some nice damage with fire.  Or provide solid support via the water tree.  Earth seems to be a debuffing set from what I saw so far (I got about 80% of the weapon skills unlocked).  Air seemed like a combination of damage/debuff.  Then again, it really depends on the weapon you are wielding.  SOLID.  Just.  Solid.

Engineer

Another pseudo-pettish class in that they drop stationary turrets. So, yeah, had to try one.  I made it up to 10 on my female human (noble).  It felt… pretty solid, but the turrets were kinda meh.  Visuals indicating attacks were weak, attack AI seemed to need work, and they died pretty quickly.  Note that the last isn’t necessarily a complaint, as it appears to be how Arena.net does pets.  I suspect that, later game, it will all come together.  Certainly if you have time to set up your fights you have a solid advantage.

Engineers also get “kits”  – kind of like skills that double as weapons and allow you to switch out your first 5 skills.  These give you crazy options.  I only had time to try out the grenade kit, but wow.  These things are going to rock in groups (and probably PVP as well, I didn’t get to try that).

Ranger

I only had time to get my ranger to 3 or 4, but damage and feel was interesting.  I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure you get the option to swap out pets later, as I wasn’t totally feeling any of the starting ones.

Guardian

The paladin-ish buff/melee class. I only made it to 5, but it was entertaining enough.  The fact that the two-handed sword was the “ranged” weapon felt really, really weird though.  I think I only did mace/shield/focus & two handed sword – pretty sure there was another weapon or two I didn’t get to.

Mesmer

I tried it briefly up to level 4 or so and then deleted it because I thought the female Charr mesmer looked ridiculous (just not my thing, some people might like it…).  The gameplay was… interesting?  Kind of like a  melee mage/debuff hybrid doohickey.  It’s definitely going to be an interesting class, not sure if it will be a “me” class or not.  Although I do love the idea of having a bunch of clones running around blowing shit up.  It feels like a class with a steep learning curve but a very rewarding top-end.

General Class thoughts

All the classes look pretty interesting at this point.  You only get 5 slots to start (I’m sure they’ll sell more via micro, but I’m going to try and limit myself just to see what happens).

I’ll definitely be playing an elementalist, necro and engineer…but I’m really torn about the last 2 slots.  Certainly one seems like it should be a ranger (so I have all the pet classes covered)… so then Warrior/Thief/Guardian or Mesmer?  Hot damn.  I don’t know.  Warriors certainly look cool.  I remember seeing some solid thief videos… and guardians…  WELL PLAYED Arena.net.  Well played.

General:

I hope there is a way to add more skills to your weapons later in the game, because I’m going to get very, very bored with my skills if, say, my necro has the same 5 staff skills for 8 levels.  You get “utility skills” that you acquire as you level and can change relatively on the fly and you have a second set of weapons you can hot swap too (mid combat!!!  Some awesome combos in there), but I still felt really, really limited weapon skill wise.  Ideally they’ll add 2-4 unlockable skills per weapon as well so you can mix it up a bit.

I dig the event system.  Although all the random “emails” from the people you help are jarring.  STILL, convenience beats theme sometimes.  I’d rather get the messages emailed to me (in game) than have to go check a stupid post office box somewhere (I’m looking at you, WoW & SWtoR & many others).

Visuals in general were really solid.  I didn’t get to see much in armor variety, but I’m thinking that’s just early game for ya.

Some of the skills could use some sprucing up, visually.  I’m looking at you engineer weapon & turret skills!

Some, on the other hand, were just awesome looking (Hello, most of the elementalist skills!).

Control scheme & options felt solid.  Keymapping worked correctly right off the bat in and out of DVORAK.  Thank you whoever handled the input localization!!  Seriously.  Many games botch this and I have to fucking remap everything, drives me nuts.  OK, pretty much every MMO I have played so far botches this (just because my a-w-s-d keys are remapped to something else does NOT mean they shouldn’t be my movement keys!).  So I was totally amazed when it worked.  *HUGS*

I hope in the final game chicken bosses do not have harpoon toes.  That will suck ;).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6T-ZdMZu5k

(Sorry it’s a shoddy live version, all I could find.)

Also: Yes, I know I hardly ever post.  Just think of it as fallow…someday green will grow again!

(Plus, I think next month is Unofficial Month of Blogging, so I’ll probably try and do that again, if only just to get my brain flowing.)

Warning: This is going to be disjointed as hell because a) I’m writing it over the span of several days in various states of kid-managemen and b) No one is paying me to do this, so what do I care? :)

SO.  I got my assassin to 50 a couple days ago, and finished both the plot lines last night.  Unfortunately, the story did not improve since my other post on the subject.  The game play stayed about the same.

I. Story

Ia. Class story: Inquisitor

The Sith Inquisitor story is, in my opinion, crap.  Poorly written (although the dialogue itself was OK, given the constraints of a lame story).

The Inquisitor storyline is shared by the Sorcerers and the Assassins – the two force “heavyweight” classes lore-wise (one can make themselves entirely invisible for hours at a time, while the other can toss storms of lightning around, compared to the Sith Warriors who seem to kind of be the bruisers to me, less concerned with the esoteric aspects and more about the ass-kicking).  I mention the force heavyweight bit because that’s kind of the angle I was coming from – hoping my story would involve me becoming powerful and learning some Cool Force Shit.

To be fair, you do learn one thing.  Just one.  You learn how to absorb “force ghosts” (think the dudes from the end of Return of the Jedi) and use their powers for your own.  That’s kind of cool, in an evil sith-y way.  That’s the route to personal power you take.  That’s IT.  Which is, not, in itself terrible.  I wouldn’t mind it so much if that were the only bit of laziness around (nevermind that it makes the player character seem like a loser lightweight – your would-be-nemesis can fucking fly around and nuke shit with force lightning … while you are forced to rely on outside help just to survive his lightning.  *yawn*).  Oh, and they called eating ghosts FORCE WALKING.  Because that makes sense?  I would think “force walking” would be like walking on water or flying or hell, even like astral projector or something.  NOPE.  It’s eating ghosts.  OK. /facepalm

Unfortunately, the weirdness continues.   The light-sight stuff doesn’t make any sense or fit into the overall story unless you mentally force it.  Basically the dialogue options go 1->2or3 then 2/3 both go on to step 4 together, so frequently there was a disconnect between what my character might (rpwise) actually want to do, and what he winds up doing because there is only one path in most quests (disclosure: SOME quests have an actual different light and darkside choice, but none of that seemed to really matter in the long run aside from getting a couple light or darkside points).

I was hoping the finale would redeem all this crap, but it didn’t, much.  The last (2) fights (You fight the same fight twice, the second time the boss has double the hp…good times) were well balanced, and felt tough & semi-epic, but I really didn’t buy the villain, at all.  He wanted to kill you because he had some problems with your mentor and…  you were breaking with Sith tradition or something (this part would have actually made more sense if they had addressed me being an alien – which *is* a rarity, and made him xeno-phobic or something – BUT that wouldn’t work for a generic storyline, playable by all the races, so they didn’t do it.  This goes back to my earlier point about the writing here being *lazy*).   Anyway so you beat him blah blah and then you’re on the Dark Council, woopdy doo.  I think I should be a “Darth” too, but I guess inquisitor titles are still broken, because I’m not.  Oh, and they call you “Darth Imperius” – they don’t even use your name?  WTF.  Just don’t voice act that part… just say “congratulations to our newest Darth!” or something.  LAZY.

There’s more, and more I should say, but it’s hard to think right now with 3 kids making various levels of noise ;).  Maybe more later.

OH.  And you know those awesome intro cinematics?  The ones that cemented my purchase of the game?  Yeah.  That’s it.   You just get a shitty game-engine cutscene for both the endings.  Total bullshit.  They should have at least had a cutscene for the Empire & Republic shared arcs.

Ib. Empire story

Which brings me to the shared Empire arc (doable by all 4 classes).  I guess there was a story here?  Really it was just “Do some Empire shit on each of these planets you happen to be on anyway.”  Foil the Republic, kill some Jedi, etc.  (Note: There are A LOT of Jedi.  Must have taken a lot of work to wipe them all out in time for SW 4).

So, there wasn’t really much of an “Empire story” per se.  Some of the individual planet ones were kind of interesting – I mean, about as interesting as you can make a “Kill X rats” or “Get y pieces of rat feces”.  Which is to say – pretty interesting.  Don’t get me wrong, the baseline is still the same (no real improvements here) but SWtoR & WoW have shown that they can make the trinity of generic questing (I forgot “Bring thing Z to person Q”) interesting enough that you forget the underpinnings.

So no real complaints about the Empire plot arcs.  They were what they were – generic quests made as interesting as the writers could.  HOWEVER.  The finale bit for the last planet was really annoying – they’ve got these supposed crows of people cheering you and it sounds like a fucking office party for a Local Small Business after 2 beers doing a round of golf claps.

A cinematic of the final battle or something would have really helped here…

Ic. Companion stories

I’ve done most of them about halfway through (5-7k/10k) and the Ashara one all the way through – because that was the romance option (so I figured it would be the most put together).  Well.  It was, I dunno…in a vacuum it would make sense, but it didn’t make much against the backdrop of what else was going on.  Especially her calling you “my lord” and bowing in the final scene (and I’m light side, remember), that made me feel icky.  That’s just me, I realize.  Lots of people are going to be going darkside here and then stuff will make sense (although I’ve been told that you can’t turn her to the darkside, so the story is basically the same… and yeah, no sense making).

The set up was all there for tempting her to the dark side, but I guess they just forgot about that?  Or maybe the parent company forced them to out the door the damn thing before everything was fully baked?  (A la Dragon Age 2 and its *wonderful* re-use of the same scenery ad nauseum.)

II. Gameplay

The gameplay was pretty solid, if basic.  Interrupts were nice – when fighting bosses with things to interrupt – the one boss I had real trouble with was an Empire storyline giant robot…died about 7 times before enlisting some help.  He had nothing to interrupt, just a huge hp sack with heavy damage.  Compare this to the inquisitor line bosses who generally have multiple things to interrupt, forcing you to prioritize and strategize… better design on the inquisitor stuff, imho.

I’ve done a fair bit of PVP, and it’s all been pretty fun so far.  But, I don’t generally PVP in other games so I don’t have much to compare it to.

Instances are generally entertaining.  I have yet to try any hard modes yet.

III. Overall fun and “worth it” factor

The story did keep me playing the game – but mostly because I kept hoping it would get better!

If you enjoy basic wow-style mmo stuff, and like the Star Wars setting, you’ll probably enjoy this game.

If you’re looking for an awesome story set in the SW universe… I certainly cannot recommend playing the Inquisitor path.  I’m not sure if I’m going to play mine ever again, really.  It left that bad of a taste in my mouth.

The Assassin class was enjoyable – I’m guessing it may be one of the trickier classes to play, based on comments I heard others make and how I saw the other classes appear to be performing.  In enjoyed being able to skip 80% of the trash mobs…not looking forward to them!

IV. That Being Said…

I’m canceling my sub just so it doesn’t auto-renew, but I may renew anyway, we’ll see.  I’m going to give Soldier a shot, as I want to try something totally different and I’ve heard the Soldier is one of better storylines.  So far (l13, Commando), it definitely looks to be a different experience.   We’ll see how that carries into the 40s.

Wolverine vs. Captain America : Haven’t we seen this before?  Shouldn’t the archetypal pairing be Cyclops vs. Captain America?  I guess maybe the outcome of that match would be too apparent?  (Cap, unless Cyclops caught him full on with his guard down or something).  So, I guess this is the “main event”.  Even, I guess. Except that Wolverine will keep getting better, but I suppose Cap could get him down for a bit.

Storm vs. Thor :  I love Storm to death, but there’s no way she should win this fight.  It’s almost silly.  They probably should have done Collosonaut vs. Thor – that’s really the closest thing to an even match I can think of for Thor, and he’d probably still win that one.

Spider-Woman vs. Gambit : The match no one cares about!  No?  Well, OK.  This one is even enough then.

Spider-Man vs. Iceman : The money dictates that Spider-Man win (that and he always wins) but, realistically…Iceman could just freeze the whole room.  Done, end of story.

Captain Marvel vs. Rogue : This one at least has some history to not.  Not that I’m convinced any of this crap will make any sense – although Marvel swears it will – but there’s at least a back story here.  Still, unless Carol is an idiot and lets Rogue get close, this isn’t even a fight.  Seriously.

Psylocke vs. Black Widow : With prep time, the Widow would win.  But I can’t see how that would happen in an actual fight.

Luke Cage vs Beast : Sorry Beast, this would last as long as it takes for him to hit you.  I’m guessing there will be a lot of talking in this one.

Magneto vs. Iron Man : Except for the fact that Magneto is generally a villain, this should never be a fight.  (Unless either party gets prep-time, of course).

Hulk vs. White Queen : OK.  This is uh, interesting.  Hulk’s gonna win that fist fight, so this is going to have to move onto the psychic level, where she’s got a chance.  But, if that’s the case… I dunno, this is the only not like vs like match out of the covers.  I’m confused.  Then again, the Avengers have the Hulk + Thor (for this series at least) – what the hell do you do against THAT?  Namor, maybe.  Since he’s an X-person now?  Namor vs. Thing (see below) is another match that would actually make a lot of sense but that they miss.

Cyclops vs. Hawkeye : Should be Cyclops by a mile, but you know, ambushes and all so who knows.
.

Daredevil vs. Archangel : Umm.  What?  Are we out of continuity here?  I don’t even…

Colossus vs. Thing : I think this one has happened before, and the win went to the Thing.  But, you know, with Cytorrak’s powers on top of his own, this should be Colossus by a mile.

That being said, the premise for this series (or rather, for the main AvX series – this book is simply described as fleshing out the battles from that book, so it’s at least not even trying to be anything other than what it looks like) looks somewhat terrible, even with all the “work” they’ve done to make there be an actual reason for the two big cash co-err teams to do battle.  STILL.  There is something to be said for comics targeted at 7-14 year olds. I mean, we haven’t had anything like Marvel vs. DC in a while (Avengers vs. Justice League was the most recent that I can recall and they, of course, teamed up in the end – still, this could end that way : Everyone vs. Phoenix!).  And the books do seemed to have stirred up quite a bit of internet debate (old school!  x vs y!  Who is the strongest!?), that’s probably a good thing for Marvel.

[Note: All images from CBR article here.]

So.  Yeah, this happened.  I was completely planning on skipping this game because… another Star Wars game, who cares, right?  (Don’t answer that!)

However, two of my real life friends were excited about playing and I like playing games with people I actually know IRL, so I went with it.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t get everyone on the same server, but oh well.

So.  The game is basically Mass Effect (or KotOR, but I didn’t play that, so ME is my Bioware comparison point) plus WoW.  I mean, like exactly.  You have got all your standard quest types, having to farm massive cash for mounts that come way too late, etc. from WoW, stacked on top of the companion and plotline system from the Bioware games.

There are a couple of other little tweaks – like the fact that you can send “companions”/pets/party members off on crafting quests to harvest resources and create items for you while you are doing other things.  This is really cool in theory and in practice, although the durations of the missions just gets STUPID the higher level you are – currently mine are 15-35 minutes.  5-20 seems like it should be the sweet spot for me, but hey, game balance and time gated progress, right?  They have to keep people p(l)aying.

I have a level 40 assassin and 26 sniper, so I’ve definitely been playing.

Null, my (Lightside!) Sith Assassin

The space missions are also great. I mean, they are simple, but they add a ton of fun to the game for me and as you level up new objectives are added to the missions, so even the starter mission continues to be interesting..  I think that’s what really sold me on it – the fact that hey I have a starship but OH hey I can blow shit up with my starship? WIN.  Also, hitting 80 missiles is akin to getting a mount as far as improving your ease of experience goes.

The story IS generally pretty good, or at least mine was up until recently.  I liked the Inquisitor plotline up through level 30/end of chapter 1-ish.  After that, it seems to be just getting stupid/sloppy/lazy (“force walking” = ingesting ghosts?  WHAT THE FUCK?  That doesn’t make any kind of linguistic sense.  Turning ghosts into macguffins = meh.), but the beginning was good.)

They also have the whole light/dark good/evil plot dynamic that I guess KotOR probably had.  You can choose various dialogue options that may get you Light Side or Dark Side points and potentially affect the outcome of a mission or dialogue.  Generally, they seem to have no effect save getting you light/dark points and companion points (no one seems to refer to any of my past light/dark actions, so I guess no one notices that I’m a light level 3 sith lord /shrug), but inside the instances (dungeons) there are generally a choice or two that affects the flow of the dungeon – like venting a crew out of an airlock to expedite something or taking the long way and saving them.

It’s also worth pointing out that some of them are really bizarre.  At one point, another Sith kills my apprentices (whom I never bother to train).  The lightside response is to bribe him to leave??  You have to actually take a darkside point hit in order to fight the bastard.  Other times the “light” choice will be more “evil” on an “average human moral compass” kind of level… I wonder how much of it is intentional and how much is sloppy writing.

This game has a lot of room to grow – filling in companion gaps (agent & inquisitor go 10-15 levels between companion 2 & 3 – and companion 2 doesn’t even really count!), adding a wardrobe system so you aren’t quite as restricted in your looks, adding gear coloring/dying, fleshing out their legacy system (right now you just choose a last name that is account wide and dump xp into that “legacy”, but nothing happens), adding more visual options, instances, free range space missions, etc.   I’m curious to see what their update strategy looks like… I’ll be around for a little while at least.

So.

Avengersland : Looks pretty similar to last year, aside from some changes to the Avengers Academy group:

• Luke Cage : Still doing his thing, running the New Avengers & the Thunderbolts.
• Baby Cage/Jones : Still not hyper-aged to a zombie death machine!
• Shang Chi pops up occasionally in Secret Avengers.
• Blackpantherdevil : Still doesn’t make any sense to me.   It exists – but I think it’s gotten canceled and is wrapping up soon.
• Storm : Is an Avenger now too!  I forgot she filled in for the FF for an arc, so it looks like now she’s been a part of all 3 of Marvel’s major franchise teams.
• Patriot, Wiccan, Hulkling : Young Avengers have been appearing in the super-sporadic Children’s Crusade series.  I think they are pretty much locked down until that is over.
• Avengers Academy continues to look more and more like the actual kids of today.
• A new White Tiger joined the team, bringing the Latino/a count up to a whopping 2.
• Striker recently came out to one of his new teammates, who also happens to be bi (I think it’s Katie Powers – whichever Powers daughter was in the Runaways arc.)
• Hazmat & Mettle are still around.
• Wizkid is in the supporting cast now.
• War Machine has his own book again – 11 or so issues so far.  He’s also in Secret Avengers sometimes.
• The new Goliath is in Wonder Man’s “Revengers” anti-avenger team.
• Centurius (I had to look him up too) is on the Thunderbolts B team.

Hulkland

• Amadeus Cho has been sadly absent for a while now, although he did appear in one of the Fear Itself minis alongside Spidergirl, the new Thunderstrike, X-23 & the new Power Man.

Xland

• Storm is on two X-teams (Uncanny & adjective-less) and an Avenger, so she’s all over the place right now.
• Jubilee (Vampilee?) is still getting lots of panel time, and a current member of the adjectiveless book.  She also had a decent arc in the Wolverine & Jubilee 4-issue mini-series.
• Karma has been mostly sidelined taking care of that faceless dude for a while.  But – she’ll be back in the Astonishing X-Men next year under Marjorie Liu’s pen – so I’m *really* looking forward to that.
• Dani Moonstar is still kicking entirely too much ass for a non-mutant in a mutant book (;) ), and leading the New Mutants now (Sam is off in Wolverine’s X-Men book in semi-limbo).
• Sunspot is still around as well.  I think I even saw him flying once or twice, so that aspect of his powers may still be around.
• Northstar is (mostly) over/on loan to the Alpha Flight mini-series while it runs its course, but it looks like he’ll be in Liu’s X-team as well.
• Warpath was team-less most of the year, but recently moved over to Storm’s team in the adjectiveless book.
• Richtor is re-powered and still with X-Factor.  His relationship with Shatterstar continues to get page & plot time.
• Monet is also still with X-Factor.
• Darwin has been mostly awol, after one weird stand-alone story.
• Armor was in Astonishing for most of the year, I think.  At the moment she is team-less.
• Daken has had a solo book all year, but that is ending in the next couple months.  He’s still an asshole.
• Velocidad is still with the Generation Hope team
• but Idie is not.  She was the pivot point (?) for the major x-event this year (Schism), and then moved over to being a supporting character in the new Wolverine & the X-Men (which is much better than I expected) book.  She’s gotten a few lines in each issue so far.
• Prodigy is still around (and still powerless, yet I think the Cuckoos restored his memory of the abilities he had copied or something) on Utopia and turns up in a panel or two from time to time.
• Anole had an arc in a limited series this year with Rockslide, and turns up from time to time.  He moved over to Wolverine’s book/school.

Elsewhere

• Misty Knight headlined a new Heroes for Hire incarnation that has already gone under, but followed that up with a Villains for Hire mini in progress.  I’m still pissed/bummed about her child with Iron Fist being unwrote.
• Secret Warriors wound down, and only Quake (who I think is white??) is still around.  So there’s a couple of cool minority characters sitting around in limbo now.
• I want to say the Blue Marvel turned up in a one off issue somewhere fighting Hyperion or something…but that may have been last year.  Either way, I hope he winds up somewhere out of limbo in 2012.  Maybe he was in a panel or two of Fear Itself or something – you’d think something like that would be hard to avoid.
• There’s a new (Latina) Miss America in the Teen Brigade, featured in Joe Casey’s Vengeance series this year.
• Angel Salvadore (still powerless) also appeared in the Vengeance series.
• The new Power Man had a limited series with Iron Fist, as well as appearing in a Fear Itself tie-in mini with X-23, Thunderstrike, Amadeus Cho & Spidergirl.

That’s it for now.  I’ll add more as I remember/discover it.

Marvel has been introducing a decent number of new minority characters in its newer titles (Generation Hope, Avengers Academy, Vengeance, Secret Warriors).  Hopefully some of them stick around.  Also, next year needs more Cho.

Not sure how  I stumbled onto them (mention in RS?  Pandora?) but the covers album is worth every $.  The other 3 are fairly straight rock/punk/post/-ish/whatever, pretty solid.  But the covers album really gives Nina’s voice a chance to shine (imho).

Observe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VfN6UmQlfI

Exhibit 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJQf95dRgK4

Anyway, check ‘em out.  Prowl youtube and such.   Back to you regularly scheduled non-updates.

8lbs 4oz, healthy.  Long labor, lots of work for my wife (natural birth :) ).  I just tried to help out and be supportive.  Truly inspiring to be a part of.  Moving, bonding experience.  My wife is awesome.  And of course, there’s the wonderful prize at the end:

But don’t you worry my 3 (1?) loyal reader, there will be more video game/comic rambles.  Eventually.  No self-defenestrations, please.

This got me thinking about why this might be.  I mean, what is it about pet classes that I enjoy so much? I had no answer for that.  So I moved on.  Into the past!  I started thinking back to the first “MMOs” that I played (I use quotes here

• a) because I can
• b) because I like lists and
• c) because that exact term wasn’t yet in use
• d) because lists break up monotonous text)

… which were…. MUDs!  [Note: It's worth following that wiki link and skimming it if you have no idea what I'm talking about.]  And some of them even have pet classes.  Which I played.

Indeed on, the MUD that I really got into – Everdark (no web page, but point your telnets at everdark.org:3000 for

• a) an awesome experience
• b) a blast from the past and
• c) graphics only limited by your imagination)… circa 95-98 maybe, the class I focused on was the Undead.

Classes were (and are – it’s still up!) much simpler than modern MMO classes.  Each class, there called “guilds” has about 10 skills and they all share the same resource system (just ‘spell points’ – no endurance/mana/energy/rage/fury/etc.).  The Undead guild, of course, has a pet!  You can, after killing an enemy, animate the corpse to follow you around like a textual zombie badass  (Unless it was just a squirrel, then it will be textually squashed).  The strength of the pet varies by the strength of what you killed – I think.  It’s been a while.

               . '@(@@@@@@@)@. (@@) `  .   '
     .  @@'((@@@@@@@@@@@)@@@@@)@@@@@@@)@
     @@(@@@@@@@@@@))@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@)@@` .
  @.((@@@@@@@)(@@@@@@@@@@@@@@))@\@@@@@@@@@)@@@  .              1974-2011
 (@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@)@@@@@@@@@@@\\@@)@@@@@@@@)                 In Memory
(@@@@@@@@)@@@@@@@@@@@@@(@@@@@@@@//@@@@@@@@@) `
 .@(@@@@)##&&&&&(@@@@@@@@)::_=(@\\@@@@)@@ .   .'
   @@`(@@)###&&&&&!!;;;;;;::-_=@@\\@)@`@.
   `   @@(@###&&&&!!;;;;;::-=_=@.@\\@@     '                 MudOS v22.1
      `  @.#####&&&!!;;;::=-_= .@  \\                                    
            ####&&&!!;;::=_-        `                     Admin: Skywise
             ###&&!!;;:-_=                          Arches: Phoebe, Zack
              ##&&!;::_=                                   Nameless, Bax
             ##&&!;:=
            ##&&!:-           _____                   _            _
           #&!;:-            | ____|_   _____ _ __ __| | __ _ _ __| | __
          #&!;=              |  _| \ \ / / _ \ '__/ _` |/ _` | '__| |/ /
          #&!-               | |___ \ V /  __/ | | (_| | (_| | |  |   <
           #&=               |_____| \_/ \___|_|  \__,_|\__,_|_|  |_|\_\
   jgs      #&-
            \\#/'
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Rest thy weary feet, and be our 'guest'.
What is your name:

[ascii'd above: The Everdark login screen, partially cut off because my blog is scrawny. ]

[TANGENT

One thing worth noting about MUDs, and definitely Everdark, is that a quest on a mud is completely unlike what you are used to from quests in MMOs these days. I mean... for one there were no online hint sources - many muds would destroy your character and ban you if they caught you doing something like that anyway, but the ones I played just weren't big enough to have fan-based web pages (many had their own pages).  For another thing, the quests were actually hard.  I don't mean hard like you needed a 60 person raid, I mean hard like you had to use your goddam brain.    Many, Everdark in particular, incorporated complex puzzles in addition to the standard monster slaying.  Some quests were simple, some took months to figure out, and some many people never figured out.  There was definitely something to the feeling that you accomplished something that only 10% of the population had.

TANGENT]

As near as I can tell, Everdark must have initiated my love of pet classes.  I tried a few of the other guilds – I definitely remember some time as a Fighter – but they had no pets so I eventually left & returned to Undead (it’s worth mentioning that switching guilds carried a penalty: a death, at minimum – it was harsh enough that you didn’t just go around hopping guilds all day.  BUT, you also didn’t have to make a new character to try a new guild).  Before this I’d played plenty of PC-based RPGs – the SSI gold box D&D games, the Phantasie series, Wizardry, etc.  But I don’t think any of them had any real pet classes (until Diablo 2, I can’t think of an RPG with a solid pet class) – I mean, sure you could call your party your “pets”, but there generally wasn’t a central “you” character.  So, the roots of all this must lie in Everdark.

Everdark pets, general summary:

• Druids & Illusionists get an easily summonable “dumb” pet whose strength varies with the summoners.  The pets have a generic “damage” attack.
• Rangers get a very customizable (name, sex, description) bloodhound pet that can be used to scout out other rooms and chase enemies.  Pets have a generic bite attack.
• Mages get a customizable (name and spell used) apprentice pet.  Two of the spell choices for the pets are not strictly direct damage spells.
• Undead get a variable pet – its strength and abilities are dependent on the power of the foe whose corpse you use.  It can also be commanded to use various kinds of equipment – there were/are a number of hidden “tricks” as to what it can wear and take advantage of.  Undead pets are the only ones who can wear equipment.  Undead pets can have up to three abilities (they are the only pets with multiple abilities, I think).
• Ranger/Mage/Undead pets can all be commanded to stay in one room and wait or to follow their controller, if I remember correctly.

I think some of the appeal is that I get to play with a mini “team” without having to rely on other humans.  Face it humanity: I’m not your biggest fan. I mean, I love people in specific – but people in general… rarely impress me.  So, there’s that.  Pet classes do tend to solo very well.

Is there more to it? I don’t know, maybe this journey down memory lane (this will be a sequence of posts, as time allows) will bring me to some kind of epiphany.  Along the way I’ll also try and look at the progression of pet class construction, gameplay & balance – not to mention the innovations each new game did (or didn’t) bring to the table.

NEXT TIME: Evercrac- err – Everquest!   More undead!