NBI/GW2: The Everyday Boringness of Things

The trouble I have with blogging these days is that I find just blogging about prosaic day to day things boring, and yet, so much of our MMO life is prosaic day to day things.

I did a daily. I did another daily. I leveled from numeral X to numeral Y. I crafted Z item.

I incremented this achievement, and completed that achievement. I added onto this collection or that wardrobe.

I made an Eternal Sands focus the other day. Just to get the component out of my bank. Except now it’s taking up an inventory bag slot on my character. Doh. Might not have quite thought this through.

In a sense, I’m not sure what difference it makes, in the greater scheme of things.

Why should you or I care about what I did? What I incremented? What I achieved?

Why, oh, why, is my life so boring and routine, with nothing new to say?

How can I find a story in the everyday boringness of things?

In my blog posts, I want to tell you a story. I like stories.

I like unique stories.

Unique narratives that can only be told by me, in my voice, doing the stuff that only I can do… stuff that hopefully you haven’t done in exactly identical fashion so that you’re still interested…

… and yet, weirdly, conversely, stuff that you should at least be vaguely familiar with so that I’m not over here talking in a foreign language you don’t understand and have zero interest in either.

Perhaps the problem is that -I- am seeing what I do as the same old boring routine.

Another day, another dragon…

But that’s not it. Not quite. Because if it really was that awful, I’d change up the routine.

I’m a big proponent of variety to prevent burnout, and I have a whole list of other things I could be doing, in this game or in the 500+ others on my Steam games list, if I got tired of what I’m doing.

And yet, every night, I look at the clock and make sure my butt is in the chair by 8.10pm so that I can kill the Triple Trouble Wurm with the oceanic arm of TTS.

If I have time, I might join in by 6.30pm for Karka Queen, or try my best to squeeze my way into Tequatl by 7.00pm.

It is a safe, comfortable routine.

If I really can’t make it, I forgo it (some days you just gotta be an adult and not play computer games,) but when I can, I’m usually there for Wurm because I -want- to be there. Why?

Perhaps the problem is the way I am telling it.

These last couple of days, since the beta portal invite event for the Silverwastes, Oceanic Wurm has been cancelled.

I catch an NA Wurm kill instead, on the weekends, in the mornings, to sate my bloodlust.

Naturally, I pop the second piece of regurgitated armor that I wanted.

I’ve killed OCE Wurm for months now with no armor drop.

Guess there’s something to be said for change and variety.

One more armor piece to go.

Perhaps we have to look deeper than the prosaic facts to the affairs of the heart, and seek the hidden conflicts.

In the night, the whole Oceanic gang is merrily farming the Silverwastes, which is also utterly perfect for my needs.

In the first two days, I wanted a beta portal, of course, like everybody else.

I play normally on Day 1. Or as normal as my experimental sinister necro build can be. I defend the red fort, and help escort nearby pack bulls for a ways before orbiting the red fort once more.

We do the breach events, the Vinewrath, then go champion farming during the recovery time to maximize our portal drop chances (mob drop + event chest drop).

Nothing. No portal.

But I get to stress test the sinister necro build to my satisfaction and I’m getting better at playing it.

The second build is a vast improvement in survivability over the first, the trickle heals from life siphoning seem miniscule but they do have a noticeable effect I can feel in gameplay.

On Day 2, I still play normally, but I branch out a little more and start actively tagging more events. I drift over to the purple fort to tag the Magister Wiggs defend event, while ostensibly guarding Gritblade’s red fort. Purple and yellow bulls are a must-tag. Red bull, when I can.

Nada.

I’m getting a pattern down with the necro though, saving wells for the set Mordrem spawns around each bull escort, using my condi scepter/dagger on husks, and using power (axe/horn, deathshroud, lichform) for everything else.

Late in the night of Day 2, when there isn’t an ongoing TTS Silverwastes map, I decide to just pop in and use the LFG SW 30-40% breach hopping method to get a few more Silverwastes maps in.

I use the guardian.

(Somehow, I have no trust in a general PUG map. Using my sinister necro feels wrong.

I might get downed accidentally, because I am still warming up to and making mistakes with the necro, and no one might rez me.

It seems like taking on too much for a bunch of strangers to throw condis on husks AND power damage other Mordrem, at the expense of getting downed and having to waypoint if I screw up, because everyone else has run off and left me to it.

On a PUG map, I stay on the ledge at the copper husk during the Breach. Why should I be the only idiot jumping into the pit and getting attacked by a million offshoots?

On a TTS map, following the example of our crazy asura leader, we hurtle into the pit and kite the offshoots around, and the husk melts a lot faster.)

So I play the guardian, on an indistinguishable Silverwastes map filled with hostile toxic mapchat, I run around shamelessly tagging all the events between red and purple forts (all three bulls included) and let someone else worry about whether the forts are overrun. Worse case scenario, we can retake the fort for another event.

One event or another finishes, a fort defence of some kind, or a bull escort, and I realize that I have new mail and a purple beta portal in my inventory.

Well, that’s good. The anxiety is over.

Now I can focus properly on the farming and the making of gold and champion bags while everyone is still excited about the Silverwastes.

In between organized map hours on Day 2 to Day 3, I stop by a LFG chest farm on my necro to use up the many shovels and bandit crests I’ve accumulated.

Almost absent-mindedly, I tag a Veteran Mordrem event to get it out of the way of my unlocking of a bandit chest. I hit the AoE loot button when it dies.

A new mail pops up in my inbox.

No way… Really?

Really.

It’s amazing how quickly I can clutter up a character’s inventory when I’m actively playing them. As a WvW alt, his bags were much cleaner before.

The necro has an accompanying purple portal to the one sitting on my guardian. What a weekend.

On Day 3, I’m back in the TTS Silverwastes map instances on my necro, cheerfully going through multiple rounds of the Vinewrath.

I haven’t stopped. I don’t plan to, until mass interest has died off.

It is fun. It is profitable.

It is routine farming.

I love it anyway.

Why?

Why do I look out for and make it a point to attend the same, safe routines?

Maybe it’s because it’s with the same, safe people.

People with a certain level of competence that I can trust.

People whose names I am familiar with.

In-jokes and laughter comprehensible to only those who were there.

The revelation makes me wonder about my reaction to dungeoning. 

I hate it. I have massive trust issues with dungeons.

Which is curious because I’ve stopped using LFG for the most part. There, you can never get the same people twice, which doesn’t do much for building trust for people like me, slow to trust.

I wait for a trusted friend to yell at me and pull me into a dungeon, and if I’m free, I go through it and it’s not so bad, but I still don’t like it.

Maybe because I still don’t get regular, scheduled practice to build trust with the same group of people.

Or maybe because I don’t trust myself in the dungeon.

As much as I farm Silverwastes, twice now, I have dropped out of the map without completing the Vinewrath stage.

The modem or my ISP has been acting weird lately, disconnecting for half a minute or so before reconnecting again.

It’s long enough to drop me right out of the right map instance and make it a pain to taxi back.

Sometimes I do, if I’m lucky and the map isn’t full.

Sometimes the map is full, or I just don’t want to bother someone with the chore of taxing me back in.

So I just shrug and stop playing for a couple hours while my internet is on the fritz and go do something else, like eat, read, watch TV.

Voluntarily missing the rewards for that particular hour doesn’t really bother me, whereas I would have been a stressed out emotional wreck for the tens of minutes I wasn’t connected to the game while four other players were waiting for me in a dungeon.

The whole open, drop-in, drop-out nature of the Silverwastes makes it a more convenient design for me.

I can stand by a cliff for a couple of minutes in the Silverwastes and go get myself a drink or have a bathroom break without anyone noticing or caring or being bothered by it.

(If you don’t move for hours, that’s a different story, of course.)

Try that in a dungeon.

Even if you’re surrounded by the most loving and understanding friends ever, with plenty of free time on their hands to wait for you, the fact of the matter is that they still have to wait for you.

I hate that sense of obligation.

I wish I knew why.

Figuring out that part of my brain is a subject for another post though.

—

I took my own advice in my last post and freewrote for ideas.

The above is an elaboration of some of the threads that were in the mess of freewriting.

The trick is mostly to pick up on a thread topic that was a little intriguing to you and do another round of writing concerning that, hoping that richer stuff pops out.

I think the above post has a ton in there that anyone can spin off. I’ll just pick a topic that occurs to me.

NBI Writing Prompt #1: How can we design our MMOs to foster more trust between strangers?

• (Is forcing them together the only way, or are there other more innovative means to do so?
• A matchmaking system that tries to prioritize putting the same people playing at a certain hour together?
• A voting/reputation system to increase the chances you’ll interact more with the people you friend/like/think more highly of?
• Clever megaserver systems that prioritize the same?
• Something even newer and more innovative?
• Something old that has been done before but not picked up by our modern MMOs?)

GW2: Ascended Cooking Recipes Data-Mined!

Pursuant with the release of news of the Rise of the Tengu expansion for Guild Wars 2, I decided that data-mining would be the next intriguing lateral progression activity to try in GW2.

While it’s a lot harder than it looks, I’m pleased to share some of the stuff that appears to be coming with the release of the new Maguuma tropical jungle zones.

Ascended Cooking will be in, letting us craft to 500. Here are two of the high-resolution food icons and recipes I managed to find:

Bowl of Chickpea Curry

Level 90

Duration: 1h

+ 100 Ferocity

+ 70 Power

Output Qty: 1

1 Bowl of Chickpea Soup

1 Jar of Red Curry Paste

1 Unidentified Orange Dye (Rare)

10 Thermocatalytic Reagents

Bowl of Lettuce and Cucumber Salad

Level 90

Duration: 1h

+100% Chance to gain swiftness on kill

+15% Damage while moving

Output Qty: 1

1  Head of Lettuce

1 Cucumber

1 Bottle of Tropical Dressing

1 Bottle of Elonian Wine

—

It’s looking pretty likely that cucumbers will be part of the new expansion and either harvestable from jungle vine nodes, or bought in bulk from karma vendors.

Can’t wait to play a Tengu myself.

Sucks about the special character slot needed though. Time to hoard more gold to convert to gems. Dungeons ahoy!

Guess it’s time to join one of those elitist dungeon guilds and grind out 10 of ’em a day.

GW2: Finding Something Else to Do (Origins of Madness update)

Thanks to the two new bosses added in the latest GW2 update, I no longer loathe raids with extreme prejudice.

I have now reached a state of indifference.

I guess that’s progress.

—

See, one of my most major issues with the concept of raids was exclusivity.

I’m just philosophically opposed to the idea that some players get automatically rejected due to whatever they’re wearing because it’s a convenient shortcut to judge player ability, or the simple capacity of a character that has sufficient stats to meet the challenge.

Nor am I terribly keen on the idea of separating oneself from players that are playing poorly on average because it’s easier and more rewarding to be elitist and isolate oneselves, than to lead, coordinate and teach. (Though I recognize that it is a reality of life, and periodically tempting, especially when you can’t take repeating yourself any longer.)

In the case of Guild Wars 2’s new approach to raid bosses, aka more challenging world bosses that require a significant amount of coordination and organization to succeed, it’s been comparatively more inclusive, mostly because individual groups of people can’t control 100% who shows up in a zone.

One can still attempt more coordination and organization by joining and following along with an organized group, such as various server groups, or megaguilds. TTS, for example, is the primary NA example. I’m aware of AARM doing weekly Tequatls on Tarnished Coast these days. Unsoweiter.

The fact that it is not at all possible to reject players out of hand skews GW2 raid bosses significantly towards a more philosophically palatable direction for me. (As opposed to say, the propensity of some people to get kick happy with their party in certain dungeons.)

My other pet peeve about raid bosses is regarding the clarity of mechanics and gimmicks of whatever it is one is to do.

I ranted about this in City of Heroes, which was rather inconsistent about this in its Incarnate Trials, whereas the few I encountered in RIFT were distinctly clearer to me.

So far, the Guild Wars 2 indicators resemble RIFT a lot more. This I like.

The first champion in the marionette fight also has a rather elegant indicator for facing, which is handy since the goal is to hit it from behind.

What I’m not liking is the speed at which these are appearing and disappearing. Between my slow framerate and latency, there doesn’t seem to be sufficient reaction time sometimes to dodge. Presumably as one learns the encounters more, one might possibly be able to use animation cues to get a few more valuable split seconds but well… it’s been a little hit or miss at times.

Some of my other issues regarding raids are unfortunately still not resolved.

There’s the waiting.

I’m making significantly more progress on my browser games in the other screen, and my audio CD digitization project since there’s a good half hour between each wurm or marionette attempt.

Standing around in a game doing nothing annoys me.

Well, I -could- jump around waypoints catching energy probes, but then that would make commanders trying to physically count people and get organized sad.

Catch-22.

Since I can’t be arsed to even conceive of leading such a cat-herding endeavor, my most meaningful contribution during the waiting phase is to be an obedient charr and stand on the blue dorito.

There’s the suffering involved with matching schedules and timezones.

Living in a not-so-popular geographical area means making compromises with one’s day and mealtimes to match the more populous NA and Oceanic times, during which there’s more people, more organization and thus a higher chance of success.

This is, of course, insolvable without migrating, but it does wear down on my personal level of interest for raids, especially over time. I haven’t attended a single Tequatl for weeks, there just seemed to be better things I could be doing with that two hours.

And there’s that old bugaboo of needing to rely on other people to perform well while not being able to help them much at all.

Yes, I understand that is somewhat the point (or a major component) of raids.

That it is somewhat like a sports team where people need to practice together, learn how to work with each other in tandem, trust and rely on each other, etc.

A situation set up so that more complex societal behavior can be exercised, such as leadership, organization, division of roles, teamwork, good sportsmanship, yadda yadda.

(Naturally, where one has the opportunity to demonstrate positive behavior, one ALSO runs very easily into the opposite toxic and negative examples, fueled by immaturity and ingrained habit of certain game cultures. But y’know, tradeoffs, can’t have one without the other.)

Call me a hermit, a misanthrope or a control freak, it’s just not a preference. 80% of the time, I’d much rather be challenging myself or relying on me, period.

I actually find the mechanics of the marionette champions rather interesting and look forward to learning more with each time I enter. Except there’s all the in-between that just feels like time-wasting.

And there’s that omnipresent situation where four platforms manage to finish and the last has unfortunately encountered some kind of problem. It’s a bit of a letdown when you feel you’ve played the best you could, and victory (or even partial success) is taken out of your hands because somebody else screwed up somewhere. Locus of control? None.

Perhaps one could keep repeating the strategies over mapchat and just patiently wait until everyone learns them. Perhaps some really creative leadership and organization could fill a separate overflow with more hardcore players and better communication.

Perhaps an individual might just indulge in blame and name-calling because they can’t do anything else besides spew abuse at others to make themselves feel better. (Protip: Shit-talking to ‘motivate’ only works on a certain subset of the population. Everyone else thinks they’d rather not have a victory confirm your behavioral hypothesis that toxicity results in a win.)

But really, for most people, the only thing left to do within one’s locus of control is shrug, feel disappointed and try again another time.

Which again, personally, is not something I’m playing a game for. Life already throws sufficient repeat disappointments one’s way, y’know?

Of course, the other 20% of the time, I can deal.

I’m quite enjoying the coordination and strategies involved in working out and learning the jungle wurm fight with TTS. (Save for all that time-wasting between attempts, egads!)

I like that different skills and builds have been stressed this time around – such as condition builds for the husks, and good running, jumping, speed-boosting abilities.

It’s just… that I’m somewhat puzzled at myself, that I’m not feeling as compelled as I used to be.

Sometimes, I look at the clock, and think, hmm, in the same hour, I could give the wurm or marionette another go, or I could cook myself a nice meal and have a proper sit-down feast, or I could watch something on the telly…

And I choose the latter options instead. (Hell, I’ve been tempted by the thought of giving Dragon Age Origins another go, or playing Skyrim again.)

It’s like I’m suddenly in no hurry to experience the content.

Was it just the three week break from GW2 that gave me a certain distance?

Is it just because I suspect it’s going to take a few days anyway for the general population to learn the fights, for information to filter down and so on, before the bosses will become more enjoyable like Teq on farm? (I certainly didn’t enjoy the first few days of Teq, super-stressed out trying to squeeze into the main server, wiping repeatedly, AFKing for indeterminate periods of time, etc. World firsts mean absolutely nothing to me.)

Is it just a personal disinterest in raids in general?

Who knows.

I do still harbor a slight worry that I need to catch the marionette fight at the sweet spot intersection between too many people -trying- to do it but not knowing how, and no one interested in doing it ever (like a successful Scarlet invasion – anyone actually manage that recently?) Being tied to the Living Story, it may be a two week thing.

The wurm is less stressful, since TTS is both organized and inclusive. One will get all the boss achievements there in the end.

Well, whatever the case, it’s… something else to do.

When one feels like it.

While it’s new and shiny.

For now.

P.S. Opinions on the story aspect of the update are a little better. Nice instance, more in-game storytelling, even if the bit with Kasmeer and her father sounded like clumsy exposition. I haven’t seen Scarlet’s lair yet, but looking forward to discovering it slowly.

One immediately gets the unsupported hunch that players might just end up with another cutthroat politics vote where it turns out Scarlet has a grand design to defeat the dragons and wanted to be a good guy after all (with Taimi and Braham and whoever else may be on her side) while Rox wants her dead because Rytlock said so.

Or maybe not. As a player, I’d probably let Primordius burn Divinity’s Reach and Lion’s Arch in order to see Scarlet dead. I suspect I’m not the only one.