Fifteen Days To Fly

That's me up there, riding my griffin. Griffon. Gryphon. One of those.

He's called Jepus. Perhaps we'd better stick with that. Although it's a terrible name. Would you call your griffin Jepus? I wouldn't. I didn't. He was called Jepus when I got him.

Jepus is the final reward in what I'm assuming is just the first in an ongoing series of log-in incentives. The way they work feels heavily biased towards slackers, something I find curious. 

The current round lasts two weeks but you only need to record eight non-consecutive log-ins to get everything. For those of us like myself who have absolutely no self-control are hoplessly addicted enjoy an entirely healthy but very enthusistic relationship with the game, it means there's nothing to look forward to for most of the second week. 

Well, except the game itself, of course. Never forget there's a game attached to all these freebies. Anyway, I haven't gotten to Day Nine yet. Maybe something else will happen tomorrow.

Now I come to think about it, there's another way to interpret all this. Jebus is great and all - a cool, flying mount that crackles with lightning - what's not to love? I'm very happy with him. Only there's one thing I forgot to mention: I don't get to keep him.

Jebus is a two-week rental. Don't you just hate those? Of all the money-making gimmicks Free To Play games rely on, rented items have to be the worst. 

It makes a lot of sense commercially, I get that. It also explains why they'd be so quick to hand out what feels like it ought to be a perk from much later in the game. Give me a couple of weeks flying around on this thing and I'm not likely to want to go back to bouncing along the ground on a sheep, am I? I might be ready to spend some money to avoid doing just that.

But maybe I won't have to. In Noah's Heart I have a ton of temporary stat-bonus titles but they might as well be permanent. I receive the same awards repeatedly for doing the same content in each season. Since the rewards are cumulative and I get the new ones well before the old ones expire, the rental period never runs out. 

Looked at that way, if the current set of log-in rewards for Dragon Nest 2: Evolution never change, then so long as I keep logging in every day, I'll always get a new Jepus before the old one goes away. It seems a funny way to run a business but it could happen.

I hope it does because Jepus is great. He's fast and he flies pretty high. If the camera in DN2:E actually worked properly, I'd have some amazing screen shots.

Unfortunately, it's about as much use as the 1980s model Minolta AF-DL my ninety-three year-old aunt left me in her will. I mean, it works... that's about the best you can say for it.

In fact, given how bloody awful the camera controls are in the game, I'm pretty darned pleased with the shots I did manage to get. If I ever get around to doing that post comparing the in-game photographic options of various MMORPGs, DN2:E is not going to come out of it well. 

Then again, at least it has options, which puts it well ahead of just about every Western-made game I've ever played. Why the feature hasn't been cloned wholesale beats me. I consider it essential, now.

As well as having a camera that acts like it's being hand-cranked up a pole sticking out of my backpack, the photo-function's default setting insists on using extreme close-up focus, so everything but my character looks like the work of a pavement chalk artist on a rainy day. You can correct that by adding a filter but if you do, you lose the normal color settings, which is why any screenshot you see that looks sharp is either awash with pink or washed out.

Still, it gives me something to do. Imagine how dull life would get if everything worked properly, eh? 

In other Dragon Nest 2: Eolution news, I'm Level 20 at time of writing. I made more than two levels in about as many minutes this morning just by doing the Scholar's Hall activity, where you have to answer ten questions about the game. I got all ten right, half of them with educated guesses. 

Quizzing to level up sure beats fighting monsters. More games should do it. I have been fighting monsters as well, though. I mean, you have to if you want the plot to keep moving. I'm pleased to report my button-mashing technique is still working and there's no sign as yet of the rumored forced grouping. 

Until that changes, I guess I'm playing Dragon Nest 2. At least until the Palia open beta begins...

*** Obviously, this is one I prepared earlier. My griffin is about to go back to wherever loan mounts go when the contract expires and I haven't played DN2 since Dawnlands arrived. I haven't played Palia since then, either. Predicting the future is a mug's game. ***