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Monday, March 31, 2014

Return to Hyboria

On the hunt again for something interesting to play, Scooter and I have poked our heads into Age of Conan (the second time around for me). It's amusing to play this "sexy" game with my bride. Over the course of a couple nights, we have progressed through the initial phase of the Tortage tutorial more or less intact. I had forgotten many details of the story, but some of it came back to me. Also, the personal story is slightly different for Scooter's Dark Templar, Anfrea, than it is for my Bear Shaman, Bjornek. Much like TSW, Funcom chose to tell different facets of the story through different classes, which makes it interesting to see both.
She refused to do a topless selfie.
Scooter is a much bigger fan of the Schwarzenegger movies than I (I still haven't seen any of them, to be honest), and so she gets a kick out of the world of Hyboria. But I have read some of the original stories, and the game is more a reference to them than the '80s sword-and-sorcery flicks. It's definitely more fun doing them as a pair than when I was all by myself three-ish years ago.

I think Scooter likes the Dark Templar playstyle, and I like the organic healing of the Bear Shaman, though I wish there were more choice of weapons. Basically, I am limited to large hammers (two-handed blunt, lol insert 420 joke here) for melee (and all my special moves), though I have access to all the ranged weapons (for pulls?).
Bjornek gets a little goofy around the hot Aquilonian.
Unfortunately, I did something to my computer on Sunday that caused all the USB ports and sound card to become unresponsive, impairing my ability to play much of anything. These pics are from Friday. We'll see if I'll have much to blog about in the coming days and months.
~~~
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

QOTD: So Much For Playing Together

This is one of the few confusing points, in that characters can live in multiple guilds… but functionally you can only group with your own faction.
~Belghast, The Dragon Knight Comes
What a complete waste. Long-time readers will know that I am against factionalism and other things that prevent players from playing the kinds of characters they want with the people they choose. Fragmenting the playerbase is so last decade. So when games like GW2 are managing to have guilds span across servers, Zenimax can't even figure out how to get players of different factions playing together, unless it's against each other, even while paying lip service to cross-faction guilds.

This may not affect those who preordered. They can choose any playable race to be in any faction. But those who come along later will be shut out of that option. I'll stick with TSW; where, in contrast, player characters intermingle freely everywhere but faction HQs, and cabals are just about the last bastion of faction exclusivity.
~~~
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

One Night in Beta

So Landmark alpha is over and closed beta has begun. David Georgeson, in the new intro video, said that closed beta will last quite some time, much longer than alpha. There are also plans to introduce many more features, like dangerous creatures, fall damage (I need that grappling hook), PvP elements, and more. Right now, mostly what has changed is the crafting system, which is now more complex. And seems to require even more resources.

Scooter and I were so busy gathering the resources we needed to create our claims and then stake them, then get enough copper to pay the upkeep for a few days, that I completely forgot to get any screenshots. Which is why the wall of text.

I was a bit miffed at the cost of upkeep (300 copper per day), but it's really only a few minutes of digging. What is somewhat more irksome is the five-day limit. So I can't ever be away from the game more than five days? For who knows how many months? I really hope that changes, and soon. I realize the other side of that argument is that they don't want to have zombie claims just sitting there, but I may just as soon return to my pocket dimension in Rift, if that is going to be how this world plays out. It seems to me that as long as I pump "upkeep" into the claim, I should not be limited if I need to be away from the game for an extended period of time.

The controls are a little wonky again (or still). They just don't seem as responsive, making it hard to move quite the way I'd like. And there is no keymap, so I can't reassign stuff to fit my habitual keystrokes.

It's not all negative. Scooter and I ended up with an awesome pair of claims in the northern part of Serenity Valley (how could I not choose that island), on a mountain with old growth vegetation all around. It may be my imagination, bu the claims seem smaller and the buffers larger this time around. With the initial download and subsequent flurry of resource gathering, there wasn't much time to work on our claims themselves, but I look forward to developing the property in the coming months. I'll have maps and pics in the near future, if you want to visit my piece of the world.
~~~
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Flight from Denerim: Impressions of Dragon Age

WARNING: Here there be Dragon Age: Origins spoilers.
We were betrothed, and I can't even remember his name.
I'm stuck with a spell of gaming doldrums. As pointed out by Big Mikey Ocho over at Casual Aggro, The Secret World is in a holding pattern as we await the opening of Tokyo, the first new major zone since the launch of the game almost two years ago. And with their limited resources, our friends at Funcom have decided to focus on said playfield rather than interim holdovers like new scenarios (which I personally think are greatly needed). While I have stuff to do to progress, most of it involves repeating content. My interest the Landmark alpha also waned in the past few weeks leading to the beta reset. After all, any progress I've made has been lost (other than templates I'd saved). Everquest II kind of petered out for me and Scooter, as well. It's too much a step back in terms of game mechanics—though the Lore/History is rich—the same I couldn't get into Pandaria.

Rowan, Ready for Battle
Enter Dragon Age. A couple years ago, I picked up both Origins (Ultimate) and DA2 on sale from Amazon. But I'd never gotten around to starting the games, partly because of my subsequent disenchantment with EA/ BioWare. The game can be played offline, but requires an initial internet login to satisfy DRM requirements.

Speaking of which, while I need to check if they have synced up, I was unable to log in to the Dragon Age social stuff from within the game, despite having just changed it with Origin and being logged in to the site through Chrome. So I am not sure whether the game knows I am entitled to the DLC included in the Ultimate edition. Very aggravating, but at least I could get the game started and play through the opening bit.

Anyway, meet Rowan, a "City Elf" Rogue. As you can see, she's a redhead, much like LoneStarBelle and many other characters I've created. I picked the City Elf story because the initial description involved the disruption of an Elven wedding by arrogant bastard humans attempting to exercise some sort of Droit du Signeur. Naturally, in the end, the young nobleman and his companions were dead in a pool of blood at her feet, satisfying my overdeveloped sense of justice. I'm pretty sure Rowan beheaded him.

Rowan is saved from certain execution for her crimes through conscription by Duncan into the Grey Wardens. Yada, yada, battles and tests. I haven't played further than the fall of King Cailan's army, following the betrayal of Loghain Mac Tir, his trusted general.

So far I really like the story, but I am reminded of reviews at the time DA:O was released that this game is more about story than game mechanics. The combat is pretty basic, though control of an entire party (potentially taking over the various characters individually) is pretty cool. The game enables and requires strategy as much as simple combat prowess; which I like, as well.

The game is also very bloody, which may or may not be a turn-off for some people. As you can see in the picture below, my entire party is covered in spatter on a regular basis. I didn't mind it exactly, I found it more amusing than anything.
Pardon me, is there a shower facility nearby?
Unfortunately, DA:O is very much a single player game as far as I can tell; so no joining forces with Scooter to play together. Therefore, my progress through the content will be rather slow, as I will likely only play when she is unavailable. Meanwhile, trying to combat those doldrums, we have decided to give Age of Conan: Unchained (F2P) a go. Aaand Landmark is entering the beta phase, which we'll want to get in on. More on both later.
~~~
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Beyond the Veil: Beware the Magic Mushrooms!

Trippy
Wow, who would have thought that I would have two BtV posts in a row, almost a week apart. I am pleased share to the latest Remastered Tier of Beyond the Veil. Tier 82 takes us back to our grand tour of The Secret World, as we discuss the wonders of Transylvania, with a Looking for Lore segment on the Romany delivered by Gigabyte, and adventures in the Besieged Farmlands and the Shadowy Forest. We also discussed our activities during the Scenario Weekend. Honestly, I had a really good time recording this episode with my BtV crew mates.

You can wait for me to post about our latest remastered episodes. . .
Or you can subscribe to the show through Holosuite Media's RSS feed, through iTunes (with older episodes here), and through Stitcher. Be sure to catch the live show tomorrow and every Thursday at about 7p.m. EDT (11p.m. UTC) on Holosuite Excess. Beyond the Veil is produced by "Xander Hayes" and Holosuite Media.
~~~
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Beyond the Veil: Scenario Weekend!

Runic Automatons are so needy!
Hopefully mostly back on track, I am pleased to pass along the links to the latest Remastered Tier of Beyond the Veil. In Tier 81 recorded just before The Secret World's first "Scenario Weekend!" the BtV crew chats about pets, fashion, and (of course) our plans to take advantage of Double Stuff Oreos.

You can wait for me to post about our latest remastered episodes. . .
Or you can subscribe to the show through Holosuite Media's RSS feed, through iTunes (with older episodes here), and through Stitcher. Be sure to catch the live show tomorrow and every Thursday at about 7p.m. EDT (11p.m. UTC) on Holosuite Excess. Beyond the Veil is produced by "Xander Hayes" and Holosuite Media.
~~~
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

S(ecre)t. Paddy's Day

The Pain Train
There were just five Knights of Mercy who survived yesterday's green-tinted festivities to show up for our weekly get-together: SypScooterTenten, Mogsy, and me. Monday evening counted as part of TSW's Scenario Weekend, promoting these (somewhat) randomized instances with 150% Aurei of Initiation rewards (commonly known as "Oreos"). Tenten declared that he wanted to run Hotel Group Normal to complete the "Warriors of the Dawn" achievement, and we ended up running all three scenarios (Mansion and Castle are the other two) at that level. I feel the need to briefly explain that the three locales are places encountered in each of the major regions of the game, but modified for the purposes of the scenarios, which are meant to prepare both the players and the characters for the upcoming Tokyo "expansion." The goal is to keep as many "survivors" alive until the end of the scenario, which lasts several hours in-universe. Each successful scenario lasts about 21 minutes in real time. If all the survivor NPCs are killed, the scenario ends immediately in a failure.
Ready to RumbleAnd all I got was this . . .
Meanwhile, I had to scramble to put together something for St. Paddy's de la mode, which led to this rough-and-tumble get-up. It fits the battle axe (hammer) I wielded all evening, bashing the bad holograms. For my efforts, and the efforts of my comrades in arms, we all got the "Warriors of the Dawn" achievement and accompanying T-shirt. In addition, Syp earned enough Oreos to purchase an epic Shotgun weapon.
~~~
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Independence

This Sunday, I had the immense pleasure of touring a bit of downtown Philadelphia with the inimitable BigMikeyOcho, a good friend and fellow blogger from the Knights of Mercy and Beyond the Veil (New York Chapter). In case you've missed him in the past, Ocho is the proprietor of Casual Aggro.

Ocho made the mistake of taking me past Philadelphia's Hard Rock Cafe, which became our first stop. I have enamel pins from every HRC I've visited—from Frankfurt, Germany to Seoul, South Korea—and this was no exception. I also couldn't pass up getting a gift for Grandbaby Scooter, and Ocho was gracious enough to model some so Scooter could help me decide. (We went with a onesie.)
I'm not sure it will fit.
Ocho was intent on making sure I had an authentic Philly cheesesteak, and he knew just where to get one, Reading Terminal Market. I let him order so he could get the details right, and it was delicious! The Market was very crowded, and we fought for a place to sit amongst the many eateries. While we ate, we were entertained by the passing people and the passable lounge singer using karaoke recordings.
Ocho!Rowan's Bowler!
After we finished our cheesesteaks, we grabbed some zeppoli from a bakery in the Market, then headed for the main event: Independence Hall.
Hey, someone took a bite out of this one.
Tickets are required, but available at no cost from the Independence Visitor Center nearby. They come with specific tour times; which is great, because the guides give great perspective on the events that shaped the fledgling United States of America. We had some time to eat our zeppoli before the tour, and then tour the nearby portrait gallery housed in the "Second Bank of the U.S." building. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, Ocho misplaced the tickets. Luckily, the Bowler hat came to the rescue, as the National Park rangers at the gallery radioed to the ones at Independence Hall to be on the lookout for a towering bear with a black Derby, and his sidekick.
See? My hat reaches the second floor windows!
The left-hand picture of the belfry (which used to house the Liberty Bell) was suggested by Ocho ,who said—and I quote—"It would make an excellent screenshot."
Frankly, it is awe-inspiring.Nicolas Cage was up there once.
Al Cavalari is a volunteer tour guide at Independence Hall. And he was absolutely amazing at telling the story of the cradle of the Republic. Both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were debated and voted upon by delegates from each state right there in that room. The chair on the dais is the one George Washington actually sat in throughout that hot summer of 1787 as the Constitutional Convention hammered out the compromises that—while sometimes flawed, looking back—meant the difference between the various States going their separate ways, or forming "a more perfect Union."
This guy. Wow!
For the first time in many visits, Ocho had the chance to go upstairs. (It was my first time, too, though I've been here far less often.) This was a room with many uses. The colonial governor of Pennsylvania (whose office adjoined it) held official dinners here. During the War for American Independence, the occupying British used this room as a POW hospital, where many American soldiers finally lost their individual battles. Later, fugitive slaves were tried here on the spot where I am taking this photograph, directly above the room where Thomas Jefferson had declared "that all men are created equal," but also where a very necessary compromise meant that those slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person. The steps we've taken to live up to Jefferson's lofty ideal have been slow, representing much of our nation's history, and continuing in the present day.
This room runs the length of the second floor.
After that amazing journey, we swung back though the Liberty Bell pavilion. "Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." (Leviticus 25:10) is inscribed on this symbol of freedom. And Ocho and I finally got a picture together. But it wasn't the last, as Ocho discovered the magic of the Bowler.
A wonderful piece of history.I think he should get one of his own.

All aboard the Doom Train!
Finally, we come to the end of the trip (at least before my phone died). I gotta say, the subway station we chose to wait for the train in kinda gave me the heebie-jeebies. Those who've explored the Manhattan Exclusion Zone in TSW will understand why.
Much like TSW, this subway contains an in-universe reference to the blog author.
I did get a chance to meet Ocho's lovely wife and have dinner with the two of them at an excellent establishment known as The Pop Shop
~~~
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

QOTD: The Champagne Room

[Beta is] like the champagne room of your local nightclub, I guess. You're supposed to watch as the special people go in, and envy what you think they're doing and dream about the day you get in there too…. but in the end, it's just a different room with the same people and products, only bigger egos. Huh, that comparison was more accurate than I expected.
~~John "Big Bear Butt" Patricelli, "Looking for Relief"
I have found this is often the case. I even had to /ignore a couple of really annoying people in the TESO beta last night, even though I decided within less than an hour or so of blocking them that I would probably never play the game again, even if it goes F2P. Full disclosure: I did pay $60 for Landmark. But I have yet to see the sort of behavior that would warrant /ignore-ing people when I have been logged in.
~~~
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Beyond the Veil: I'm So Far Behind!

I've been extremely lax this week, having neglected the blog since last Tuesday. Also much to my chagrin, I have come to realize that I have not promoted the remastered episodes of Beyond the Veil in weeks. Tiers 76 through 80 are all now available for download.

In Tier 80 "What He Said!" the crew discusses the most recent Game Director's Letter, the Unfair.co take-over, and other topics.

In the extended Tier 79 "Honorable Man . . ." the crew chats for over two hours with TSW's Lead Designer, Tilty, about the Flappy raid, plus other design decisions. We also talk to Clerisy (aka Cleretic) about his world boss survey.

In Tier 78 "Filth becomes us. . ." the crew discusses Flappy raid bug fixes, as well as the angst regarding the Sentinel of Agartha achievement and accompanying Carapace of the Immaculate Machine Helmet.

Tier 77 "Bird of the Zero Point Pathogen" and Tier 76 "OOPS, did i do that?" are also available.
Heaven knows if you're relying on me for episode updates, you will find yourself sorely disappointed. Happily, you can subscribe to the show through Holosuite Media's RSS feed, through iTunes (with older episodes here), and through Stitcher. Be sure to catch the live show every Thursday at about 7p.m. EDT (11p.m. UTC) on Holosuite Excess. Beyond the Veil is produced by "Xander Hayes" and Holosuite Media.
~~~
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Just Another Manic Monday

Look at those awesome Knights of Mercy. They look ready to take ready to take on Lilith herself. But first, the Nightmare Haugbui Jarl.

Yeah . . . not so much. A few of us need to round out our blue gear and perfect our rotations, methinks.

OK. Let's run Elite Hell Raised. Ahhhh, much better.

Flappy? No Sweat!

Up next, Tenten with a report on the Darkness War. . .
~~~
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Monday, March 3, 2014

Three Days in Tamriel

Last Wednesday, the Aggronaut put out it out there: pretty much anyone interested could obtain a key to this weekend's beta test of The Elder Scrolls Online. Belghast has been involved in TESO for a long time, so I decided to heed the call. After all, it might induce me to buy, and there are monkeys at stake.

TL;DR
The Elder Scrolls Online is a great looking game with what looks to be a thorough lore and a solid character progression system. However, barring a big change of heart on the part of Scooter, I won't be purchasing TESO or committing to a subscription any time soon.
I loved the way the sunlight spread though the gap in the rocks.
The Great
TESO looks fantastic. All the pictures in this post contain gorgeous scenery and avatars, and I really have no complaints on that front. The graphics engine is also optimized well enough that I had no discernible loss of framerate even in high traffic areas, unlike some other games that have been around for a while. The pics seem a little dark on my current computer, but that may be a consequence of converting the original bitmaps to jpegs and my current monitor. On my gaming laptop, they are fantastic.

The character creation experience was wonderful. There were plenty of ways to get my avatar's appearance just right, and the models themselves fit well into the art design of the game. I also like the character progression system. The skill trees allow for plenty of customization to get my characters away from the rigid classes of some other games. While there are classes and skills trees associated with them, racial trees and the ability to wield all weapon types (with their accompanying skill trees) allow for tremendous variation. You can have a bow tank, or a dual-wielding hatchet healer, or a sword-and-board sorceror. In the end, will those combinations be effective in a group setting? I don't know, but I bet they'd be fun to play.
My Templar and Scooter's Dragon Knight
The Good
The stories I encountered as part of the Daggerfall Covenant and the Aldmeri Dominion were standard MMO fare, though the implementation is quite pleasing. Scooter pointed out that none of the quests we encountered involved any kill-ten-rats goals exactly, though at least one did involve collecting six bits of magic in order to power a staff. I don't know if quests at the higher level devolve into KTR territory, but at least these early ones were entertaining enough. One thing that is worrisome to me is that the accompanying survey add-on seemed very interested in whether I felt heroic when doing or completing the quests, and how immersed in the world I was. For one thing, it is not my desire to be The Hero in an MMO, for another, the survey itself often took me out of any immersion I might have been feeling. I eventually turned it off, since my answers didn't really change from one questionnaire to the next.
A Pair of Nightblades
I felt more involved with the story of the Dominion integrating itself on the island of Khenarthi's Roost than I did with the conspiracy to depose the petty criminal tyrant of Stros M'kai. And Scooter and I were unable to continue to Daggerfall due to a bugged summoning  in "Unearthing the Past." Belghast had mentioned that a more recent build of the game dispensed with the starter islands and dumped the player character directly from the Coldharbour tutorial to the main city, with the option of going to the islands. Hopefully, this would mean that players can easily return to the capital from the islands if they choose to. I'm glad we did encounter that bug, though, since it caused us to create new characters and experience a different starting area.

The Bad
The tutorial made it seem like you can cover all informational dialogue, but the first quest from Captain Kaleen locked in the first option before I could find out about the other two. Someone did come along later to give me the other two, but it was still frustrating to have an expectation from past experience within the game that was contradicted. Later on, the fact that there are irrevocable choices to be made becomes more apparent. It seems that there should be a stronger graphical cue as to when making a dialogue choice will lock out other choices.
Absorbing a Skyshard
Non-instancing of stuff leads to occasional immersion breaking. It breaks my immersion to have some guy tell me that to enter a temple is certain death, and then see other players wandering around the courtyard with no discernible problems. Some quests even bugged out because two or more players were trying to interact with the same object simultaneously. I will say some of the object instancing is "interesting" in groups. On one occasion, a quest objective for me was located in a different part of the cave than the same objective for Scooter, and we couldn't even see each other's corresponding objective. That was pretty cool, if slightly bemusing.

I wanted to get a good feel for the combat, but it was always over too quickly. The only times either of us died in combat was when we started out alt-tabbed or AFK, or there was something wrong with our controls, and our characters were separated geographically.

The Ugly
I really don't like the reticle targeting/navigation; or "action mmo perma-mouselook interface," as Belghast put it. I also dislike having to "escape" to the interface windows, like character and skill windows. I assume it's similar to other Elder Scrolls games (that were buggy as hell, according to many). But for me, it is reminiscent of Neverwinter. It is painfully obvious that the game is designed around a game controller, with the PC version barely an afterthought. Guess what? If I wanted to play console games, I would buy a console. I'm a PC gamer, in part due to my keyboard/mouse controls. Playing effectively required extensive rejiggering of the game keybinds and my Nostromo and M570 mouse. Scooter had an even worse time with her new Logitech G14.

Did I get used to the interface after a day or so of playing? More or less. Did I like it? No.
Rowan and Scooter!
Conclusion
I had honestly hoped to be blown away by TESO. I know a lot of people say you have to play quite a bit of a game before you really can decide whether you'll enjoy it. But in my experience, the games I have been drawn into within the first hour in the world have been the ones I have stuck with for months and even years. I ended up dropping within a short period of time those games that I struggled to become immersed in.

Still, the biggest barrier to me playing TESO is not the UI I really dislike, or even the box price. After all, Scooter and I just dropped $60 each on Landmark. The biggest barrier for me is the monthly subscription. I had a hard enough time trying not to think about the progress I was forgoing in both TSW and Landmark. To add a "wasting money by not playing" component to that is unpleasant in the extreme. I don't like this game well enough to pay $30 (for me and Scooter) every month for it. Not when there are other alternatives not trying to lock me in.
~~~
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.