AQW Rants: The Essence of Farming

All good things must come to an end, they say. Fortunately, this also happens to bad things (and games), too. I was dangerously near to a well-deserved quit rage, but after watching a couple of videos and tweaking my clearly under-leveled party, I managed to defeat the final boss in Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 (watch my previous blog entry if you're curious to know what I think about the whole game). After a rather unfortunate tentative to play the classic dungeon crawler Shining In The Darkness I had to abandon that because of... technical issues.

And that leads to the topic of this journal rant: the magnificent, seemingly unending and incredibly entertaining  (*sarcasm*) quest for the Blinding Light of Destiny in Adventure Quest Worlds. Now, this particular quest involves gathering a massive amount (we're talking about thousands) of specific drops known as Undead Essences and Undead Energies in order to forge a super-cool weapon that gives the name to the quest itself. The craziest thing it's that I'm not actually interested in the weapon itself (which I'll keep anyway, of course) but the achievement and satisfaction that will hopefully come when I'll finish all that insane farming.

                                              "Spirit Orbs x5" ? Better luck next time....

                                         

The quest will take entire days of slaughtering the very same undead enemies in the very same area (that's was farming in every MMORPG means, after all). I'm pretty sure that I won't complete the whole thing in the near future, but at least I'll use this few weeks to give it a good run. My true objective will be trying to collect all those drops and getting to the level cap (which is currently 60) as late as possible. Why, you ask ? Because the idea of not having a level progression as you defeat your enemies anymore is very detrimental to me in enjoying a game like this. For this reason, I will avoid using those X2 Experience Boosts bonuses that those nice guys from Artix Entertainment keep throwing at me every now and then.

After all, one must put some of those Youtube "Epic Music" Playlists at use... right ? ;)

Gaming Recap: Q4 2013

Here I am with another episode of my recaps, this time around focusing only of my gaming experience in the last three months. Without further ado, here I go.

Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll

Can an ending ruin a game with an engaging gameplay, and a couple of clever ideas ? After playing this game from Tecmo Koei, my answer can only be "Yes, it can". Trinity it's a very brilliant mix of beat'em up a la Devil May Cry and a dungeon crawler. The gameplay is consistent and funny at the same time, and while the RPG aspect isn't exactly mind-blowing, it manages to get the player keep searching for another chest to open or completing another side-quest to obtain a new, shiny item.

Unfortunately, I happened to casually (not joking here, really) learn about the ending as I was halfway through, and my expectations and excitement went down in a single, devastating blow. I don't want to spoil anything to the player, but I feel the necessity to give a warning: this game's ending manages to deny the player its well-deserved glory and satisfaction in a most unexpected way. The final resolution wouldn't have been so bad if we were talking about a half an hour long horror indie game, but after 30 or more hours of monster bashing, exploration and level grinding, it really looks like a joke where nobody is supposed to laugh. I guess that for many others who played it all and went through it like I did, the conclusion was tragic and emotional in some measure. To me, it was a complete disappointment.

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 1&2

What can be worse than a big disappointment ? A consecutive, even bigger disappointment. I had great expectations from these games, as they are considered a "must play" for PS2 in the JRPG department. I admit that the fault is partially mine: I had no idea about what I was getting into. And let me assure you, I can't help but consider DDS nothing but a glorious mess, a beautiful disaster that every casual (and even not so casual, in my humble opinion) player should stay away as far as possible.

DDS is not just a very difficult game, it's frustration in its purest form - and it's really a shame. Because these games (which is actually one game "conveniently" divided in two parts) have great characters, a compelling story-line and an outstanding cell-shading presentation. Unfortunately, they both take together all the things I learned to hate about JRPGs and mix them together to form a deadly cocktail that sapped my will to play them bit by bit.  

As I write, I am stuck inside the final dungeon grinding to get the level and the skill needed to beat the final bosses. The only reason that kept me play the second one so far (I quit the first one halfway through, and I don't regret that every single bit) it's a mix of "gamer's pride" (which I had to swallow in a good measure, considering that I have been using a walkthrough almost step by step for the sake of my mental sanity) and pure, unadulterated masochism.

Artix games

Fortunately, Adventure Quest and Adventure Quest Worlds never disappoint. Both of these games required a decent amount of time and patience, but they've been always worth it. December was a bit lacking with events in both games (you know, game developers get some holidays too), but this gave me the chance to try out some new free to play browser games, which I'm going to list in the section below.

Other F2P games

Out of curiosity (and to take a break from the horrors of DDS) I've tried several games to select a few to get back later. Hero Town, Blade of Eternity, Tynon, Doomforge, and Outwar are games that I went into but decided to drop (some for an indefinite time, some others forever). Those who caught my interest are Tanoth Online, Moonstone RPG and Glory of Gods - all games which just require a daily login and don't need an excessive commitment to be enjoyed.

What could be next

Shining in the Darkness

Way of the Samurai

Geek Rants: A Summer Re-cap

Summer 2013 came to an end, and since the purpose of this blog is basically to have a personal diary everyone can read (but nobody does), it's a good time for a nice, useless recap of the " geek activities" and achievements made so far.

Gaming

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 I really had a blast with this game... well, quite so. Unlocking all the characters (well, almost), a decent number of stages and MS Licenses had been quite fun. I must admit that the story-line didn't compelled me very much to go on, and I still have to get the "true" ending. With Warriors Orochi 3 always looming in the back, DW:G3 provided a good diversion, but not much more than that.

Scarlet Blade The embodiment of eye-candy and fanservice in one single MMORPG, this game also was just a temporary experience. It was also good for testing my PC performance with a current generation MMORPG. Unfortunately, the servers constantly disconnecting me and the need to input all the log-in info again every time has been a significant deterrent. Maybe I'll get back to it one day - or maybe I'll just uninstall it when I'll find a more interesting client-based MMORPG to play.

Warriors Orochi 3 When it comes down to button-mashing, nothing beats the ultimate crossover game from Tecmo Koei. The nicest part of this summer playthrough, it's that I finally got the Trophy for gathering 100 crystals - which means that I'll be finally able to spam those Triple Musou Attacks at my heart's content instead of waiting to have as much generals as possible on the screen.

Adventure Quest My favorite on-line game of all time has been my primary source of gaming entertainment. There hasn't been many events going on that interested me, but those few have been quite satisfying. Moreover, I had time to do some serious grinding (as I wrote in the previous posts) to finally get Atreides above level 100. Now that summer is over, I'll  go back to the game only when interesting events will appear.

Anime

Jojo: Bizarre Adventures I enjoyed this anime so much, that I couldn't help to write down a review about it. JJBA is one of my favorite manga, and both Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency truly deserved such an awesome adaptation.

Detroit Metal City I read about this anime last summer on Japanator, and since then I've been curious to watch it. Finally, I decided myself to do that and I didn't regret it any bit. DMC it's funny, vulgar and uncompromising - something I would recommend to anyone who doesn't mind watching something... different.

Attack On Titan When a certain anime, movie or video-game is literally everywhere, you eventually give it a try out of curiosity, right ? I absolutely wanted to see why everyone was talking about AoT, and I got the answer after watching the first episode. Attack On Titan is a cruel, desperate tale of survival. If you can "handle" its crudeness and tone, you will experience one of the deepest, engaging anime of all time.

Web

Twitter Last Summer has been very intense for me on the Twitterverse: it was something relatively new for me. This time around I have been a little less active, but I managed to meet new interesting people and RPers anyway.

Google+ No matter what people say, Google+ has been a pleasant surprise for me. It gave me the chance to spread my nonsense in a different social forum, and helped me to get new people to interact with. I purposely decided to focus on the Otaku community because it's very active and welcoming.

Memes Discovering imgflip.com and how it was easy to make a meme has been a revelation for me: for a couple of days, it's been like a drug. Eventually I exhausted all the ideas I could came up with, so I think that now humanity is safe from my "peculiar sense of humor" for a bit.

Fanfic Eventually, I fell too to the lure of writing a fanfic of my own. The result is "Pink To The Future", a story which features K-On characters in a crazy, alternate future. You might think it's funny, but it's not.

What will come next...

Gaming
Adventure Quest/Adventure Quest Worlds (PC)
Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll (PS3)
Digital Devil Saga (PS2)
Shining In The Darkness 

Anime
Serial Experiment Lain
Welcome to the N.H.K.
Fairy Tail (possibly)

Gaming Rants: Adventure Quest

Fighting back the heat

Ah, summer !! The perfect time for relaxing on a beach as you enjoy the weather and survive the heat, going to swim now and then. That's how most people (quite possibly the wisest ones) love to spend this time of the year, but to me the warm days of summer always meant a very different thing: massive grinding.

These days are simply too hot to start over a new game and enjoy it properly, and this time around I honestly want to get my Adventure Quest character to the highest levels (100+) before summer ends.

In one of my previous AQ rantings I stated that I would never use the untrainer to remove my END points and spend them in other stats - but I never said anything about untraining my DEX, right ? In fact, I did untrain all my 50 points and spent them in LUC, which resulted in a very good move. This idea came after I read many suggestions and conversations between players in Ubear's AQ site chat. 

Since I'm just a regular Adventurer I won't be able to get Plasma Dragons or other better monsters for my grinding needs, so my attention is all for Drakonnan's strongest general: Broilspoil.

  Broilspoil "The Brollinator" is probably going to experience the worst summer of his entire career.

In my humble opinion, the "friendly" red dragon general will be the quickest way to achieve the AQ goals I've set for this summer. So, until a new event unfolds (in all honesty, I have no intention to participate in the Knight Training quests), Atreides will be busy in the Hall of Memories (that's how I justify the Broilspoil grinding in my mindfap storyline), defeating such powerful foe over and over as he gets stronger for the challenges ahead.

Gaming Rants: Adventure Quest 37.8

Against All Odds

We fought against any kind of monstrosities, from ancient dragons revived to rule the world to alien menaces threatening the whole galaxy - but the most punishing blow came from the most powerful being ever conceivable: Artix Entertainment itself.

Some players (read "me") doubted about the true usefulness of the Endurance (END) stat. To clear that doubt from us (read "me" again), the developers decided to make said stat even less useful than before - and that after I claimed defiantly that I would keep going with my 150 END and avoid the "untrain" trick, no matter the cost (read my previous AQ ranting post on this very blog for further details).

So what now ? Quests are simply going to be harder, more frustrating than ever. One might simply observe that all I have to do is to untrain END and distribute those points to different stats instead, but I want to offer a provoking thought: why not making the Endurance stat a useful one instead ?

Blogger Rant: A Hiatus Denied

This was a period of my life where job would take priority over other activities.The late spring/early summer season always led to a call from a certain company for employment, but the crisis hit so hard that even they are in bad business.

Being lucky enough that I don't actually need a job (for the moment) to make a living, I have no better choice than look at the bright side of things. I will at least be able to indulge a little more in my hobbies (you just have to read the side-bars to see what I'm talking about) and, yes, more to time to share, post and do the very same stuff I did until now on the internet.

Random Rants: Of Tweet And Man

In my early steps back on February 2012, I started The Crawler's account (aka @Crawler3333) as a "regular" RP account. Seeing that there were more Nightcrawlers out there (as expected), I decided to made some sort of "alternate" Nightcrawler, taking the funniest aspects of the well-known blue mutant teleporter. Seeing my lack of motivation and skill in making it a "true" RP account (especially when compared with some very serious, committed and amazing writers) I soon gave it the label of OOC ("Out Of Character") in my account bio.

Then something else happened, something called Adventure Quest and Adventure Quest Worlds. Both of them are RPG games, and RPG games are (with some noticeable exceptions) by definition some of the most time-consuming video-games ever.

Unable to drop off entirely The Crawler (thanks to which I was able to meet a considerable number of amazing people), I decided to drop most of the "role-playish" side on @Crawler3333 and turned it in an "RP-RL" account. For those who follow me for a long time, the change will be subtle and almost unnoticeable, but some of my followers (both old and new) might feel somehow "betrayed" by this choice. If you are among them, I guess I will have to beg your pardon and suggest you to search some good "true" Nightcrawler RPer. 

For better or worse, some followers (which I eventually followed back in turn) decided that The Crawler had its own right to be in that awkward reality I call the "Twitterverse" - and these are the ones I feel more obliged to. So yes, you'll have to bear with an alternate Nightcrawler which likes to "play Batman" in Metro City from Final Fight (I never said I would drop RP entirely, after all ;) ),  listens heavy metal, watches anime, plays videogames and all - and when you see tweets in Italian you can easily assume that's the writer talking. Or you could just push the "Unfollow" button.

That's what The Crawler / @Crawler3333 is, after all. Love it, hate it... or just let it be.