End of Summer Edition 2015

Another summer in MMO Slayers and not so great for the old MMO in general. Echo of Soul was another let down as you only had access to one class with a pre-set toon and it was created by a company making Facebook games.

Wildstar goes F2P in the fall and with that comes the ever bailing list of dev’s who helped build the game. The latest is one jumping to Blizzard Entertainment for a safer and more secure future with a big name company. Remember they have Overwatch coming out soon, and a host of successful games and content.

I am staying subbed to Wildstar until F2P I hopes of cashing in on special incentives, however this is not a big deal as I did the same with ESO to not play one day after it went F2P. I just have no interest in the F2P world all together. I expect to pay for quality and feel safe behind a paid game. To date the main paid games are World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy Online, both not expected to ever go F2P.

Speaking of Final Fantasy I have as well re-subbed after the expansion to see what is new. The overall is that nothing is new unless you have BOTH reached level 50 and completed the LONG story line. The story line is a go here, go there, hand in quest that never ends until late into 50^th level. The quest also has you all over the map from country to country, which features non-discovered locations behind high level zones you have to navigate through and expensive gold cost warp points.

I am currently level 42/50 and going for the 50^th just to say I got there. Oh and if you wanted to try the new dragon class, you start at level one. Not to say this game isn’t the best looking MMO on the market, because it is, however like Wildstar, you get sold on the screen shots, log in and then remember why you didn’t have FUN playing the game. 

GW2 has reached a new high of greatness. Not only has this game stood the test of MMO time with hundreds of players ALWAYS in game, but its constant new content after new content over the two years it’s been out has it as a favourite. Now the expansion pulls us further in with new classes, zones, things to do and endless outfits, colors, weapon skins and more. An MMO labeled as pure FUN, it never gets old. I myself have two level 80’s and am working on my third who is currently level 43/80. 

TERA as featured above has a new class of over the top insanity called the Gunner. This class uses an oversized gun the size of a bathtub to lug about and shoot down enemies with, expelling shells the size of small dogs on the ground. TERA also had a cataclysm of their own, eliminating old zones and making new zones, now with a game we have little info on, wants us to learn how the new zone navigate together.

World of Warcraft itself sent out a message that they will NOT be allowing flying in their new expansion as the game was designed for exploring on foot and all the puzzles expect this type of game play. However after another in a long line of recent community backlashes the games creators caved in and allowed flying to be present in the game after a simple quest. The game like previous has outdone it’s earlier works and have gear drops equivalent of end game available now to anyone who runs a simple dungeon. Expecting to continue for the year Warlords of Draenor is doing great. 

Our minecraft world was on the brink of vanishing and never coming back, but now with renewed vigor the world is returning to its old map with some of our recent creations added to it. A video series has launched showing off events of the final days of this 3-4 year running server. Many of us eagerly await the new world, moving in and recreating famous structures from the past.

Shroud of the Avatar was available for 50% off which circumvents the pledge of 45$ needed for early access and access to some special in game features which are only available to pledgers. Lots of criticism has plagued this game through its alpha development which with either end up surprisingly amazing like Starbound did or completely flop and rush to retail status with nothing done, but player towns and crafting of homes worked on. This game is in a weird limbo between amazing and flawed beyond fixing. While I have the overwhelming desire to play and play, there is only one character to have, which gets wiped every patch. I do get the opportunity to start over with 5000 gold and just go explore, fight and play, which is pretty neat on its own. The big downside for me is the big upside for the others, every town in this game isn’t a town, but a player housing zone. While you may think that these zones are neat, they only have housing features that are usable by the players who own them. There is nothing here but a collection of homes which you need never visit unless you owned one in there, BUT if you do, you have 7 days to log in or your house is GONE. Yes like before the downside of old UO, only seven days before you house is wiped from the game, with all your possessions. This to me is an ancient way to do things and mighty bad in my opinion as housing is the foundation of this game, it’s your base of operations for playing.

For us, Kaldain is finally back on the MC servers, and doing an excellent job running the page, myself I try to keep up with news, screenshots, and the like, and we have Ryan back and actively posting again which is great. We have lost a member but also balanced the group drama as he can post on his blog in happiness and we don’t have rants in the group anymore. All seems to be going well here, we even have people finding us now on google and asking to join as outsiders who are looking for a nice gaming group to join, sadly they haven’t posted besides the admissions form, but maybe soon they will see what we play and will join up with us. 

As the last year has shown there is nothing new on the horizon like there used to be in the glory years and we are making our way into the world of single play which has stepped up its game lately.  However the better these single play are the more we are separated from online MMO group gaming. I still am calling the death of the MMO and it being a thing of the past. The next big thing is ready to come through and it will finally not be a WOW clone.