RIHAHN.COM

Month: July 2015

  • FFXIV…

    After hearing a lot of the more game-centric crowd at work discussing the merits of “Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn”, I’ve decided to give it another go-round.

    Earlier in the year I played the demo for it, and while it is nothing truly inventive and is, in fact, highly derivative of games like World of Warcraft, it did have some high points. What ultimately led to my avoidance of the title was simply the fact I had about 30 other irons in the fire and I’m not a big enough anime nerd to get a lot of the cultural nuances.

    That and I’ve never been all that interested in the franchise, so a lot of the things that cause squees of delight from fans are pretty much lost on me.

    With that said though, I purchased the game yesterday and jumped into the world last evening with the intent to give it a fair shake – and to see what has the folks at work so enamored.

    To begin with, if you’ve ever played World of Warcraft (and chances are good you have – virtually everyone at this point has) you’ll be right at home in FFXIV. Everything from the UI and general controls to the basic mechanisms of the game like questing and combat are virtually identical. In fact, the most noticeable difference is the GCD (global cool-down timer); in WoW it is 1 second, in FFXIV it is 2.5 seconds – this makes things feel a bit less button mash and more tactical… Not much mind you, but a little.

    The biggest difference between the two has to be character class; FFXIV has a lot of them, and all of them can be accessed on the same character. So altaholics might be disappointed in the title as you only get one character.

    On that note, the character creation scheme is pretty nice. So while the basic character is a selection of anime staples such as magical girls, oddly effeminate guys, cat people, and the pre-requisite tiny child-like race, the chances of seeing another character that looks identical to you is slim.

    And also in typical anime fashion there is some story here, but it is really obscure and uses a lot of cultural references I just don’t have – so I’ll be damned if I can figure it out… Something about a talking crystal that messes with my character during these random blackout sessions and some girly-guy in a mask who is trying to be all ‘hard’, but really comes across as walking with a lisp.

    Granted, I’m only ten levels into it – meaning I’ve only had three blackout sessions and encountered masked-guy once, but so far I am assuming my character did way too much LSD in the 60’s and is having some wicked hallucinations.

    The game is very pretty though – very pretty. When it rains everything actually looks wet – which is actually shocking the first time you see it. The monsters so far are the typical MMO cannon fodder – giant versions of things you see every day like bugs and such… With maybe the exception of the giant talking mushrooms.

    Yeah – way, way too much LSD in the 60’s…

  • Gaming Update…

    With work and all, my gaming pastimes have been fairly limited these days.

    In Second Life my divestiture is complete and I am down to three regions from the twenty three I had at peak last year. Currently I have two rental homesteads I run for a friend and “Diablo Canyon”, a post-apocalyptic setting I built for a role-play group.

    Diablo Canyon is probably my most detailed build to date…

    Unfortunately I do not really play there. I tried, but the setting is far too first person shooter and RP is a byproduct of RNG-based firefights. It is neat to watch though – I just wish there was more story to it all as I have a devil of a time figuring out why people are shooting at each other… The old RP regions generated reams and reams of character story for me to read. This one generates transaction receipts, statistical changes to rule systems, and equipment updates on character sheets.

    It is very popular though, so there is that. 😉

    Videogame-wise I have been poking around at “Skyforge” as time permits. Skyforge is very interesting as it is, well, strange… It is a sci-fi / fantasy setting similar to Marvel’s interpretation of Asgard, where the gods are gods because they are, for the most part, immortal – but their god-like powers are manifest through their super-advanced technology.

    In Skyforge you play the role of a newly discovered immortal – a by-product of a battle amongst the mortals that led to your death and subsequent waking up in the capital city of the gods.

    The game is, essentially, your hero’s journey – your evolution from a nobody to a full-fledged god of this universe. You do this by way of the completion of Herculean ‘labors’ in defense of the mortal realms, gaining believers in your divinity, and facilitating the building of temples and such in your name. The more ‘true believers’ you acquire, the more powerful you become.

    So it is at once an MMO, where you are out in the world fending off alien invasions and defeating the mysterious efforts of various groups of other immortals bent on being contrary. But it is also a management simulator at the divine level, where you are attempting to build a religion in your name…

    And all of this is to fuel your ascension to true godhood, along what is possibly the most convoluted and detailed character progression system I have ever seen…

    Like I said, strange, but anything that can have an MMO veteran like myself head-scratching and unsure of what they are supposed to do next is a good thing, as it is certainly not formulaic. 🙂

    Ultimately though, the reason for playing Skyforge is that it is a lobby-based game, meaning the world is highly instanced. This sort of design allows for a very rapid login to gameplay mechanic, and the ‘adventure’ happens in compartmentalized bits and pieces… Meaning I can log in, instantly get into some sort of adventure that has relevance, and in fifteen minutes to an hour accomplish something that feels like I am progressing.

    This is contrary to the common MMO where it may take longer than the above total play session just to get to where the fun is.

    The down-side to Skyforge is it can be kind of repetitive – as heavily instanced games tend to be. But given my limited daily play-time, I am okay with doing the same ‘zone’ again every few days as I’ve not been in the game for fifteen hours straight at any one time.

    So there’s the state of the game, as it were. 😉