Six Degrees of May 13, 2016
I’ve been looking forward to these six degrees posts each week. While I wander through my blog roll regularly during any given week, this is a real adventure. It’s kinda like traveling around exploring in a new game each week.
This week I looked at another 6 sites and found them all pretty enjoyable reads…
Six Degrees of May 13, 2016
- Inventory Full
- In An Age
- Blessing of Kings
- Greedy Goblin
- Crossing Zebras
- Herding Cats
Inventory Full – Healing For Fun And Profit. Okay, Forget The Profit : GW2
Bhagpuss takes a look at the healing in Guild Wars 2. In an interesting turn of the game, an actual healer class is in play – the Druid. According to Bhagpuss, the Druid, a specialization of the Ranger class, is a lot of fun – survivable with a sense of contribution.
As the post points out, GW2 has always been about everyone acting as their own healer…there was no holy trinity of healer, tank, dps. But with the Heart of Thorns expansion, they added the Druid with more of a focus on healing, or at least support. I haven’t tried out the Druid, and don’t even have a Ranger at any level near the required 80 that would allow the specialization, but Bhagpuss was able to specialize one of his Asuran characters, and he’s glad he did. The druid plays well in both WvW and dungeon instances, even in soloing Ascalon Catacombs. From the description given by Bhagpuss and my predilection for healing makes me think the Druid would be a prefect class for when I want to go back into GW2.
In An Age – Overwatch’s Mark-Hitting
Azuriel over at In An Age talks about a post he read over at MMOBro about Overwatch. The whole idea is a discussion about the target audience for Overwatch and if Blizzard is missing the mark. I’ve only played Overwatch for about an hour and got in a few games, but I find my self agreeing with Azuriel. Overwatch seems to be a cross between a MOBA and TF2 with lore and story telling outside the game that is pretty interesting, but with gameplay that is fast paced and seems to avoid any relation to that lore. The post mentions the fact that Overwatch is not be easiest game to pick up because some of the champs have a quick time-to-kill averages and veteran players seem to be able to dominate the matches easily. Hopefully, as Azuriel mentions, the match making algorithm will be updated by the time the game goes live or there might be a mass exodus following a large initial rush into the game. While the brawl mechanic borrowed from Hearthstone and the promises of post-launch content give some hope, I’m still not sure Overwatch is for me. But I do agree with Azuriel, the game is fun and because it’s fast paced, you can get in a bunch of games quickly, I just don’t want to be the cause of my team’s disappointing performance all the time and I don’t see the point of lore for story’s sake when it has no impact on the game. With the release of Overwatch coming soon, I’m sure Azuriel and I and everyone else will see if Blizzard can successfully invade another game type and meet expectations. Personally, I’d rather have another MMO.
Blessing of Kings – Legion Dev Update
Rohan over at Blessing of Kings talks about the recent dev liveblog from Watcher. It’s an interesting synopsis highlighting dailies, world quests, and leveling in WoW. And it has me wanting to finish leveling my Druid who is mired at level 91. With the release date of Legion announced a few weeks ago, I really started getting the itch to get my main up to max level…I’ve just been to busy with other things. Perhaps this weekend I’ll give it a shot…I wonder what the standard time frame is to level from 91 to 100? In any case, the dailies for Legion sound like Blizzard is taking queues from it’s other properties – Hearthstone and Diablo. It also sounds like the leveling experience will be updated as Legion moves out of alpha and into beta. Rohan, who’s blog focuses on a Paladin’s perspective, is currently leveling up a Fire Mage, but isn’t seeing the broken leveling curve…perhaps not all classes/specializations share the same ease of leveling.
Greedy Goblin – Get rich in BDO part 1: cooking beer
Gevlon has moved to Black Desert Online…I repeat, Gevlon has moved to Black Desert Online. Wow!!! I am so used to seeing Gevlon ranting and raving about Eve Online and the evils of the Goons that it’s a bit refreshing to see that he’s focusing on something new. And of course as part of this new fixation, he targets the economics of BDO. In this post, Gevlon talks about getting started making beer – a pursuit popular in game and irl. Money is always an important thing in games, particularly in sandbox games like BDO, and a good way to start making that money is to brew beer. Beer is a good commodity to make because it helps workers relax so they can perform more work…it is always needed by you and by anyone who is not making beer. Gevlon goes over the requirements for brewing…a residence, cooking utensils, and of course the ingredients, but then you also need energy points which he covers as well. In all, it’s a great post for the beginning brew-master in BDO and a covers a good skill to develop for making self-sufficient characters in the game.
I know it’s a bit late, but…can I has your stuff in Eve?
Crossing Zebras – The State of Navy Battleships: Minmatar Edition
Apothne over at Crossing Zebras gives a very detailed and extensive breakdown of the Minmatar faction battleships and while it contains a ton of great information, the post can be a bit overwhelming for those not indoctrinated into Eve Online. For my part, I loved it as I have always been a fan of the Minmatar Republic. But then the Rifter was hands down the best frigate in the game when I started plaiying…things are not as they once were. In any case, the post covers the Typhoon fleet issue and the Tempest fleet issue battleships and breaks down their bonuses and slot layouts to give a good idea of how the ships can be best utilized. If you want to fly around in battleships, I definitely suggest you give these posts by Apothne a read since they seem to cover them extremely well – apparently he covers the other race navy battleships in other posts in the series. On a side note, I am pleased to have found out that Crossing Zebras has a blog in addition to their podcast as I’ve been listening to them for years – they do a pretty goo job covering Eve.
Herding Cats – WHY I DON’T WANNA WRITE ABOUT GAMES
Liore over at Herding Cats puts out a sad post talking about why she doesn’t want to write about games anymore. I have to admit I can sympathize, but I think the things she mentions as her reasons have a tendency to wax and wane. First she comments on her boredom and I can certainly see that there isn’t much new in MMOs these days, but that in itself is something to remark upon. The fact that I and a bunch of people I know read her blog regularly indicates that people are not tired of what she has to say. Next she talks about the games she’s not playing which is interesting since she actually talks about playing games, but she’s not playing MMOs as much any more. There’s a lot more to gaming than MMOs – just ask Blizzard – they haven’t made a new MMO in like forever. When she gets to her last two points, though, I can’t really argue with them. The consumerism of the industry has always and will always be there and I feel it will only seem to get worse since so much of everything is funded by advertising. If everything is funded by advertising…F2P games, Google, Facebook, Twitter…everything, you’re gonna see a lot of advertising and a lot of BUY MY STUFF in your face where ever you go. Her final point, though, is rough – yes there are a lot of jerks out there in the gaming world, but then there are a lot of jerks out on the Internet as well. They all get to hide behind the fact that they can be jerks and suffer no repercussions…its been this way since people were playing MUDs or using IRC to play D&D (perhaps Pong was the exception because I could always see my opponent on the couch next to me) . In any case, I’m hoping that this malaise is just a phase for Liore – I enjoy reading what she has to say and hope she gets through this down time, finishes her book and comes back to game blogging.
Roundup
This again was a diverse week. People focusing on old games like Eve and WoW, new games like Black Desert Online and Overwatch, and expansions. I really liked seeing that GW2 now has a healing class even though it’s not available till level 80, but perhaps that’ll motivate me to give it another chance. It’s also nice to see Gevlon starting to post on BDO – I’ll be sure to pay attention as he usually figures out game economics pretty well and that’s definitely a bonus in any game. I guess the cool thing for me this week is that I play or plan to play each of these games. On the other hand, I find Liore’s post sad because I like what she’s said over the years – I certainly hope this is not the end of her blogging.
In any case…have a great week!
Morning Ramble 2.92