Friday Roundup

With work and chores this week, and a bighuge meeting next Monday, not to mention the unexpected TQ downtime, I didn't spend a lot of time in EVE this week.  I still popped in every night and checked up on the gang, tended to a few market orders.

But, Guristas killing, there was not.

This weekend will be quieter than last weekend (we had 4 kids under 15 months in the house for the weekend... Uncle Abavus was tired on Sunday afternoon), and I hope to get back for some Angel smashing and Sansha blistering fun.  I also have Part 2 of the Corp Building series about ready to go.

-- GW 2 --

I did want to type a bit about Guild Wars 2.  I've bitten off small bites of the game over the past week and find myself really missing the game.  Which is weird because when I look back, I don't consider GW2 to be a "major" time investment (compared to WoW or EVE).  But hitting some of the zones brought back all sorts of nostalgia, similar to the kind of feeling I get when I get into certain areas of Lonetrek.

The problems I have with GW2 reside squarely in the endgame.  To be fair, I haven't played any of my level-capped characters since sneaking back in, so it could be totally fixed now (though I doubt it, heh).

The best part of the game is the early zones, which are full of players and interesting structures and lots and lots of things going on.  Into the middle zones, you start seeing that a lot of the content is retreaded, reused, and rehashed.  The same bad-guy models.  The same terrain, And a whole lot of the same Dynamic Events and Heart quests.

At the same time, the players are spread out, and the game design is pushing you into more "wild" zones with "more danger" that has fewer cities and towns and such dotting the landscape.  To me, the cities are some of the best parts of GW2; without the backdrop of npcs going about their lives, the game loses some immersion value.  And trudging through dense jungle inch by inch gets tiresome.

Somewhere in there, you hit Orr, which is initially pretty interesting as a zone and has some of the most interconnected Dynamic Events ... and then you realize that people are just farming the content in a big zerg for karma and loot drops.

Between the rehashed content and the less interesting surroundings, the game loses its luster and becomes a grind.

So this is me, griping about a game that I'm currently enjoying the heck out of.  Which is kind of weird.  Maybe it's just me not wanting the magic of the low zones to be over.

But there's a tie-in to EVE.  Many games have an awkward phase where people tend to burn out.  With GW2 it's the level grind if not the early endgame.  There is plenty to do if you have the right group, but the leveling process is usually solo affair, and it's hard to make the social transition.

Sound familiar?  EVE doesn't offer great grouping bonuses for most PVE and typical noob content, so many guys do stuff solo.  EVE encourages multi-account shenanigans for subscription income, which allows you to be even more self sufficient.  Then it's hard to make the transition to life in a group, and you walk away bored.

Anyway, it's time to put some burgers on the grill, so that's it for now.