Here Comes The New Class... : GW2

We had no intention whatsoever of taking part in this weekend's Test Drive A Revenant event. After ANet caved in the face of people-power and bundled in a character slot we decided to pre-purchase Heart of Thorns on each of what I suppose we must now call our "main" accounts but as yet we'd done nothing about it.

I hadn't paid much, or indeed any, attention to this latest iteration of ArenaNet's singularly idiosyncratic take on how to run a beta but when Revenants began popping up like mushrooms on just about every Live map it became kind of hard to ignore.  (Hmm. Where did that image come from? Oh, wait, just look at the class icon).

 It did occur to me right away that we could just go to the web store, grab the digital download and join in, but I really don't like digital downloads all that much. They seem empty, somehow, and I'd been hoping to hold out until there was a box to go on my box shelf with all the other dust-collectors.

The prevalence of Revenants did at least spur me on to investigate the options. Naturally there is no genuine HoT-in-a-Box as yet. We'll probably at least need a release date before we'll see any of those. There is, however, a half-arsed compromise strangely appealing offer from Amazon - a mocked-up DVD case containing nothing but a leaflet with a pre-purchase registration code.

Well, it's a box. All I wanted was a box. We briefly discussed the idea of paying the extra delivery charge to have the codes before the test ended but again neither of us was that interested so we just went for free delivery even though it would take a week. I ordered two copies late on Friday night with an expected delivery window from next Thursday to Saturday and forgot about it.

They arrived an hour ago. Makes you wonder what, exactly, the point of paying the extra for fast delivery might be, doesn't it? Anyway, nice service. Would use again.

So, since the beta was still up I thought I'd at least take a look. Applying the codes was extremely quick and easy (/wave Squenix). Other than a confirmation window on the registration page the only evidence anything had happened was a tiny "Create(Beta)" button on the bottom right of the character select screen.

I clicked it and a Revenant appeared. Only one choice of race: human. Either gender. All the appearance options. Pick a blindfold. Choose a name. Done.

Other than the three blindfolds (none of which anyone other than roleplayers will ever wear again after they ding level three or, more realistically, finish clicking on their stack of Tomes) the beta neatly sidesteps all the story elements that I railed against so pointlessly and petulantly back at the start of the original beta more than three years ago.

I doubt it means ANet have had second thoughts. More likely no-one's written the Revenant Personal Story yet. Or they have and they want to keep it a secret for a while longer. Or forever. As Wooden Potatoes observes, it's going to be a pig to fit it into continuity.

Your new Revenant, sans past, sans future, appears, somewhat unhelpfully, in Lion's Arch. He or she comes with map completion on all waypoints, however, so it's a swift trip to wherever you care to go to test those skills. I went to Diessa Plateau because I like Diessa Plateau.

My exhaustive and extensive testing of the Revenant, her
Demon and Dwarf Legends, her Traits, Skills and all the rest took about five minutes. I killed several wurms, a couple of warthogs and a passing crow.

I used the hammer, which is what my Revenant woke up holding. It seemed satisfyingly bangy. There was a propensity for laying down massive markers on the ground that I was already very used to from the countless revenants at World Bosses and zerg jousts all weekend. I foresee the one that looks like twenty yards of good road being very popular at Claw of Jormag, Tequatl and everywhere else with too much fear.

From listening to map chat and scanning feedback on the forum, reaction ranges from unimpressed to hostile. I thought it seemed okay as a class, bearing in mind it's clearly only about half-finished and that half will be tweaked a lot before launch. Presenting a key element of the expansion in this unfinished state is offering up yet another hostage to fortune, of course, but by and large I'd say they got away with it.

My own main interest was playability. The official hype seems to want to paint the Revenant as some kind of complex, advanced class, which is not what I want out of GW2 at all. On the briefest of acquaintance I'm pleased to say the Revenant feels pretty much the same as the rest. It reminded me, structurally, of the Elementalist, with no weapon swapping and stances where the Ele has attunements. I can do that.

There's bound to be more to it than we've seen but it put my mind at rest. If I can muddle through 80 levels as an Engineer the Revenant should be well within my limited grasp. As for the traits and the rest of the fine print that can wait. Not much point trying to get to grips with it now when it might be a month before we get a second go. I'll have forgotten it all long before then.

So there we have it. The Revenant. It's a class. It's half-finished.  A lot of people aren't impressed. It'll do for me.

Next!

Down On The Farm: Dragon Nest:Oracle and Villagers and Heroes

It's been a while since I last logged into Dragon Nest: Oracle. I wouldn't have mentioned it only the game welcomed me back with a hug and a back-slap and a "Where have you been?". The fatted calf was looking nervous.

There was even talk of a "Welcome Home" gift but when I logged my only character in it turned out she didn't qualify. I missed the explanation if there was one. It was late and anyway I just wanted to race around shooting cute, bouncing greebles (not an actual monster) with a BFG.

I was ready to let the whole thing slide but the game wouldn't let it drop. I was still getting anxious reminders to claim my non-existent gift before it vanished when I logged out an hour later. If it hadn't been for that, though, Dora wouldn't have been ferreting around in her various inventory tabs and then she might not have found her other present.

Umm...excuse me, Miss, but could you tell me where I am?

In DN:O, like many F2P MMOs from both East and West, you get regular care packages as you level. They tend to come in advance, a kind of gamer-carrot hung out to encourage you to keep making progress. And to keep logging in, of course, although you get a separate reward just for doing that as well.

Oh yes, I remember.

The level-up packs come every eight levels. Why eight? I have no idea. Perhaps the developers are all spiders. Who cares? It's Free Stuff!

What's more, in DN:O it's good free stuff and that really is a motivator. Inside her gift-wrapped Level 24 box Dora found a full set of costume clothing. That was a surprise. I hadn't even noticed we had a costume tab.

There was this log-in message, though, so maybe it's new:

After lot of work, we are pleased to announce the release of 252 fashions sets.

Next week : wings and other accesories.

It must be next week already because there was a set of wings in the box as well. And a ten-slot Inventory expander. And a 10-slot bank vault expander. Oh, DN:O, you know me so well...although 252 fashion sets and I just have one? Don't set the bar too high, now, will you?

I'm not quite sure about this new ensemble. Do these tiny wings go with my ENORMOUS GUN???

Anyway, it was a great start. Dora slipped into her new outfit, fitted her wings and took a look around. Being as how it had been a while she wasn't quite sure where she was. It looked like a much bigger city than she remembered.

Ah yes, it's all starting to come back. Last time out she fixed that airship and flew to Saint Haven. Wherever that is. Which is how last night we ended up growing pear trees and catching fish and making Red Beard Salad and not shooting anything at all.

No, you don't look creepy at all. I'm totally fine with you breaking down my molecular structure and re-assembling me half a mile away. What could possibly go wrong?

It's a long story. I'll try to keep it brief. Dora was lost in the big city so, when she spotted the Transfer Wizard right across the square, she naturally went and had a word with her. The name Old Man Mori came up in association with a Farm, which caught Dora's attention and on a whim she asked the Wizard to send her there and that's how we found out about farming and fishing and cooking, none of which I knew existed in DN:O.

Crafting, that I knew. I'd already found the rather terrifying crafting interface and made a decision to stay well clear of it, at least for now. What Old Man Mori had to teach seemed a lot more user-friendly although, as it turns out, a lot more labor-intensive.

 I have wings, you know. I can turn around if you want to see them. Oh, and stop calling me "Young Man". Although I admit it must be hard to tell in this get up.

Unlike Villagers and Heroes you don't get your own house and garden in DN:O. As far as I know, that is, but then take that with a barrel of salt. I didn't know we had a costume tab, remember? Anyway, whether or not there is personal housing somewhere down the line, Dora doesn't have any. She has to use the Public Plots.

There's a whole article waiting to be written about V&H and DN:O's various takes on collective farming, communitarianism and political theory. One day I might even get around to writing it. For now, I was struck by the co-incidence of coming across such superficially similar systems in the two games as well as by how they differ in detail and execution. It's beginning to dawn on me that Estate Management has become an MMO thing almost without anyone noticing.

It's like having an allotment. Only without the shed.

I guess I like it, if only on the same uncommitted, dabbling level I like most things in MMOs. Like almost everything else the genre has to offer I sometimes feel that to take any of it terribly seriously would require far more commitment in time and effort than could possibly be commensurate either with the in-game reward or any objective assessment of sanity. Then again, if you're having fun, your having fun, so why question it too closely?

Best. Achievement. Ever.

Thus far my fun in all the MMOs that allow you to plant seeds and tend crops and raise livestock is limited to the odd drop-in when I'm passing the old homestead. To do more looks like a lot of commitment and responsibility and no-one wants that, obviously. I do tend to like the process, though.

Take planting crops. It has all the attractions of actual gardening without any of the hassle. It doesn't make your back ache, you don't get scratches all up your arms, earwigs don't fall on your head, the neighbors don't come round to remind you of the by-laws on bonfires and best of all you can actually see the plants growing. I can certainly understand the attraction.

Is that thing...throbbing?

It felt weirdly satisfying, watching the plants grow on the public plot in Public Farm Area 2. The Red Beard seeds produce something that look like a large cabbage. Like most things in DN:O it moves a little even when at rest. The pulsing is slightly sinister. As you water it the growth bar moves up while the water bar goes down. If the growth completes before the water runs out there's a POP and the plant has a growth spurt.

If the bars finish their race the other way round your plant dies. I think there's a mini-game here but I haven't worked out how to play it. Yet. Fishing has a mini-game is a lot easier to understand. You just have to use the left mouse button to keep progress in an optimal position to speed things up. It's basic but fun.

It's not often you find yourself trying to stay in the red.

For farming mini-games, so far I like my sheep in V&H best. I used to love the Pet Training mini-game in Free Realms, as I may have mentioned about a thousand times before, and feeding apples to my sheep before playing her a tune on my lute is the nearest thing I've found to it since FR closed up shop. (No-one working on a Free Realms emulator? I guess not.)

I wax and wane on crafting and gathering mini-games. They can be relaxing and entertaining, when that's what you're in the mood for, but they can be an irritating waste of time when all you want to do is get something gathered or crafted for a reason. Ideally I'd like them on a toggle but then Ideally I'd like everything on a toggle and I know that can't happen. If I had to choose I think I'd take the mini-game approach over the WoW or GW2 style of click-to-make.

Oh... ah... diddly diddly diddly diddly diddly diddly diddly diddly...hang on, this isn't a flute..

It's the wealth of options on how to spend your time, all these amusements away from the main rides, that make me believe I could be happy spending a lot more time in either of these games, be they sandparks or themeboxes or whatever the next buzzword happens to be. You think they're going to be little distractions but pretty soon you begin to realize there's depth and breadth you hadn't expected.

Having been rightly taken to task in the comments last time for making unsubstantiated, sweeping generalizations about FFXIV I'm wary of drawing any conclusions from such limited exposure and experience but thus far neither Dragon Nest: Oracle nor Villagers and Heroes has let me down when it comes to either content or execution. Bugs excepted, of course.

More good things around the next corner? I hope so. On we potter. Half the fun is in the discovery. Maybe a lot more than half. And a lack of commitment doesn't mean a lack of interest. No need to panic if I haven't logged in for week or three. I'll keep coming back. You don't have to give me a present every time.

Oh, wait, you didn't, did you?

Golem Rush! : GW2

It's unusual for patch notes to contain information about changes that haven't happened yet. Usually you'd expect to get that kind of news in some form of Press Release or Announcement. Why ANet chose to open the notes for Tuesday's update with a reveal of their latest World vs World special event beats me but that's what they did.

It's a wonder it took them this long to get round to another WvW event. What with Living Story going on indefinite hiatus and everyone left twiddling their thumbs waiting for Heart of Thorns to get even as far as a firm release date it's a fair bet that a lot of players have, like Ravious, wandered off to find something else to do.

Throwing WvW a quick change-up always looked like an easy way to bring bread and circuses to the people so it's very surprising the tactic hasn't been used more often. It's getting close to a year since the last full Tournament and all we've had since then was the Sneak Attack event just before Christmas.

That simply removed some of the notifications we normally get to warn us that towers and keeps are under attack. It was received fairly well in the end, having been heavily criticized on the forums before it happened. Quite a few people, myself included, seemed to think it was an improvement to the regular ruleset and should have been adopted as a permanent change.

It wasn't, though. It came and went in a single week, never to be mentioned again. That was six months ago. The optimistic tone of the press release at the time, in which it was suggested that "This special event gives us an opportunity to freshen up play by bending the rules of WvW, and we’re excited to try out some new things and offer improved rewards for a limited time" led some players to believe it would be the first of a series of one-off rule changes but nothing more has been heard of a second event.

Until yesterday, when we heard we were getting a Golem Rush. In our house that's a phrase that's often yelled excitedly from one room to another as one of us zones onto a map to find Our Glorious Leader shoulder-deep in half-built Omegas.

We love golem rushes Chez Bhagpuss. Of course we do. We play on Yak's Bend, Home of the Golem Rush, after all. It would be a very poor show if we didn't. It must be said, though, that not everyone is so keen. In some circles and on some servers golems are looked down on as the cheesy last resort of skill-impaired PPT siege-humpers who couldn't win an open field fight with a three-to-one advantage.

The reaction on the forums from those quarters has been predictably hostile. The usual suspects are out making the usual claims that ANet just doesn't get WvW. Some posters even feel an event that makes a feature of one of the more controversial tactics in the game is tantamount to ANet trolling its own players.

Counter to that are plenty of people applauding the potential chaos and looking forward to a week of all-out robot war. I'll put my hand up to being on that team. And even among the naysayers there's a sizeable moderate faction pointing out that it's just for one week and we can all surely manage to put up with it for that long or find something else to do if we can't.

As to why Golems have been singled out for this attention there's plenty of speculation. Perhaps it's some clever gold sink? Maybe we won't be able to deploy golems in the Desert Borderlands (which are themselves getting a stress test right in the middle of the Rush) and this is some kind of last hurrah?

I don't know and I don't much care. I just want to be there when the golem armies march. I always want to be where the golems are, whether I'm piloting one (I have a full license), running alongside with the ground troops, making a suicidal run to get a Disabler down or standing on the walls raining flaming meteors on their steel-domed skulls. Offense or defense, golems mean fun.  Unless you're the poor mesmer who has to do the portals. Talk about performance pressure.

The most Omega Golems I've ever seen deployed at one time is around fifty. They kept moving about so it was hard to count. That charge ended in complete disaster since half the people pressed into driving the mighty metal machines had no idea what they were doing and we had so many people in golems we forgot to bring any ground troops.

I'm sure that's going to happen again. I'm hoping we might even get to see all three sides bring half a hundred each for the mother of all battles over Stonemist Castle although I fear if that were to happen my PC would catch fire.

It'd be worth it just for the screenshots.

Decisions, Decisions: FFXIV, Villagers and Heroes

If there's one thing I really don't like it's making decisions. I don't even much like making choices. In life there's not much you can do about that. As Syl said in a recent, eloquent and moving post, "This is life and it’s happening to everybody!"

MMORPGs, however, are not "life", even though they are places where we can, if we so choose, imagine that we live. For all that we try to deny it they are, ultimately, artificial constructs following arbitrary rules. As such many, although by no means all, of the choices within each game are mandated by their makers. Most require no more from the player than mere compliance.

That should make the whole process more palatable for a choice-denier. You'd think. The hard work has been done by someone else. The decisions have all been made. The only thing left to do is countersign the paperwork. And yet, somehow, it doesn't always feel that way.

Syp announced today, apparently as much to his own surprise as that of his readers, that he's taken out a subscription to FFXIV, a game he only managed to spend half an hour playing on his first attempt and of whose impulsive purchase two years ago the best he could say was "...that’s a $30 I really regret spending."

Unlike Syp I fell into FFXIV like a warm bath on a cold day but by the time the first thirty days were up the water had gone cold and I was more than ready to get out. Yet, If there was one thing I should have enjoyed about the game, it was the complete absence of any requirement whatsoever to make decisions. In that respect it ought to have been perfection. It was very far from being anything of the kind.

There were a number of reasons why I fell out of love with FFXIV but the extreme lack of
personal agency was high among them. When it comes to making choices in FFXIV nothing really matters. That might start out feeling liberating but the walls soon begin to close in.

You only need one character because everyone can be everything. A single character can level up all the classes through the Job system and max out all the gathering and crafting professions on top of that. A simple Fantasia potion available as a veteran reward or through the cash shop even lets you change your race. There's no chance of getting anything wrong, ever.

With no decisions needed on what or who to be rest assured you'll never be in any doubt where to go or what to do either. The entirety of the gameplay sometimes (often) feels like little more than an elaborate framing device for the true content, which is, of course, the Cut Scenes. As cut scenes go they're pretty good but Mercury of Light Falls Gracefully neatly sums up my own reaction: "I can’t say that I wouldn’t have rather watched it in the form of a movie".

The main storyline, which cannot be omitted, skipped or skimped unless you opt out of

character progression entirely, dictates the pace and direction of your journey from character creation until at least as far as where I parted company with the game in the mid-30s. From what I read nothing much changes thereafter.

My strongest objection was to the forced grouping but the entire tenor of the enterprise, MMO by diktat, felt increasingly objectionable. Every MMORPG nowadays seems to take authored narrative as a given but FFXIV really takes it to extremes.

The game is, without any doubt, the most paternalistic MMO I have ever played, filled with an all-pervading miasma of Daddy Knows Best. The imprimatur of its autocratic creator hangs over every sumptuous setting from staterooms to farmsteads. The decision to walk away and return to Tyria felt like being let out of a stifling, stuffy, shuttered room into glorious, open countryside stretching in all directions to a horizon far-distant under a vast, open sky.

So, choices, decisions: it seems they are good for something after all. I'll try and remember that when I next log into Villagers and Heroes. I've been following the core storyline there with interest and admiration.

Rather than the main line that passes through all stations common to most MMO central narratives it's more like a meandering path through a forest. Often it wanders off among the trees, splitting into lesser tracks, some of which eventually wind back around to rejoin the main pathway, others which peter out or come to a dead end leaving you to retrace your steps. It feels so much more organic that way, unpressured, almost anarchic. Enticing and inviting and somehow mine.

Which is why it was such a shock to come at last to a very definite decision point. I'd been so wrapped up in the investigation that I forgot there's always that final scene in a whodunnit, the one where the detective goes through all the suspects and dismisses each in turn before, finally, revealing that it could Only Have Been One Person All Along.

There are four possible candidates for the role of Malicious Miscreant and now I have to decide which of them it is. As I said at the beginning, if there's one thing I really don't like it's making decisions. Turns out the only thing that's worse is having someone else make them for you.

Eeny meeny miny moe....

What Does This Button Do? : EQ2

The other day Syp was pondering why he sometimes finds it hard to move fluidly from one MMO to another. He came up with several good reasons, such as the varying UIs and control systems, the psychological upheaval, the lack of muscle memory and even not being able to remember your log-in details. All of those have weight but I suspect it's mostly inertia that pulls the cursor to the familiar icon every time.

It isn't really very hard to accustom or re-accustom yourself to the mechanics, after all. That shouldn't really be a barrier. Other than the odd exception like FFXI, whose controls seem to have been designed for a different species, just about every MMORPG I have ever played uses a variant of one of two systems. They're all either roughly like WoW/EQ or roughly like DCUO/TESO.

Each game does have its idiosyncrasies, to be sure, but the similarities vastly outweigh the differences. Assuming you stick to the shallow end, of course. Naturally, if you plan on diving into cutting-edge group or raid content you'll need to be on your game, if only for the sake of your groupmates, let alone your own reputation and self-esteem.

The leveling game, though, and even most solo content at the cap, is usually remarkably forgiving these days. If that's what you're doing then there aren't too many MMORPGs left that would challenge even a somewhat rusty player overmuch.

This kind of content almost seems to have been tuned intentionally for partially-developed, badly-geared characters played by ill-prepared, poorly-skilled players. Perhaps that's why experienced gamers, raising their fifth or sixth alt, frequently complain that "their" game has been dumbed down beyond the point of imbecility, whilst all around them genuine newcomers or returnees still somehow manage to make heavy weather of it.

No, given that most game-hoppers are going to be experiencing gameplay that's very far from the current peak, when we demur from dipping back in to a game we haven't looked at in months, I can't really accept that it's inability to use the controls efficiently that's putting us off.

No, you open it!

In my case it's definitely more likely to be inertia or, if you want to be harsh, laziness. It's just a lot easier to do the same thing today that I did yesterday because if I enjoyed it then why wouldn't I enjoy it now? If staying there made you wish you'd gone somewhere else then it wouldn't be called a comfort zone, would it?

What that means in practice is that I have to make a specific effort not to log into my current favorite MMO. In a way I can almost understand those plaintive cries of boredom in general chat. It's all too easy to end up doing what's all too easy sometimes. You have to make an effort to avoid boredom and who wants to make an effort?

It helps that I have a strong sense of curiosity. It makes for a good motivator when I read about a new MMO or an update to an old one. Reading is just a taster. I like to go and see these things for myself. Being a blogger as well as a player helps. I can always use something fresh to write about. And then there's bribery. That works too.

Didn't you lot used to be...well...scarier?

This week was a holiday weekend albeit not where I live. Some MMO companies have long had a tradition of offering incentives to get players playing and customers spending when they find themselves with an extra day or two of leisure time. Daybreak popped double XP for EQ2 and that's all it took.

There was the small question of who to play. Any kind of xp is wasted on my Berserker sitting at the cap but there's a necromancer in the 90s who'd feel the benefit on the paid account. In the end, though, I plumped for the lowly Channeler, EQ2's newest class and my newest character.

He started the morning at level 16. With the help of full vitality (200% XP bonus) Veteran bonus (another 20% for having a capped character on the account) and one of the myriad of free xp potions sitting in /Claim (110% XP bonus for that one) he made six levels in just over an hour.

And believe it or not it felt quite slow. I don't know how that can be with an average of a full level almost every ten minutes. I suspect it's because I can't fathom the class yet so I never felt in control. Channeler, like Beastlord, is another of these "resource management" classes. I believe the Revenant in GW2 is going to be very similar.

Um, boss...I think your mist stuff is going through the floor.

I don't really like them much. They would seem to be designed for that vocal demographic that complains combat is too simple and they don't have enough to do. These classes always have extra bars or wheels or meters that need to be topped up by tapping or siphoning or channeling or some such malarkey. They also often have pets or spirits or souls or constructs that need to be acquired and trained and equipped and managed.

Frankly, it's a lot of busywork. For it to be fun you have to be fully committed to the character. The payback for the extra time and effort is power. It's notable that there have been loud demands for both Beastlords and Channelers to be excluded from EQ2's upcoming progression server, not because they are inauthentic for the period it seeks to recreate but because their power is seen as overbalancing for it.

Well, maybe, if you know what you're doing. I didn't even remember the Channeler is a healer until halfway through the session. If I'd remembered that I probably wouldn't have gone and hired a bard for a Mercenary. I knew I should have taken the Paladin. Although then I suppose it would have seemed slower still.

Don't ask me what it is. Just kill it!

To go back to what I was saying earlier though, and to re-iterate why I really don't think not being able to remember which button does what is a good reason to avoid picking up a new MMO or revisiting an old one, not knowing what I was doing made no difference whatsoever. Random button-mashing got me through the first half-hour just fine even though I was under the misapprehension that I was supposed to be dealing out the damage rather than keeping everyone alive.

"Everyone" is an odd term when you consider I was soloing but no-one really solos any more, do they? Syp (him again) describes the entourage that accompanies him on his solo jaunts and it's much the same for me. I didn't have my vanity pet out today but there were still three of us in my solo party - a walking pile of rocks, a stereotypical hobbit-analog and my own character.

Of the three, who was the least essential? Don't ask. When I come to think about it, button-mashing was a relatively sophisticated tactic and at least it kept me occupied. If I'd stuck to solo content I wouldn't have need to press any buttons at all. It would be entirely feasible to level up just by running through camps of solo mobs and letting the merc and the construct finish them off. I could play that useful little pet you get in ARPG's, the one that doesn't fight, just hoovers up all the loot and sells it.

Anyone got a lightstone?

That's why I went dungeoneering, first to Blackburrow and then to Stormhold (the dungeon, not the soon-to-be server), where we could fight encounters intended for full parties and I'd have something to do. It's also where I learned that a Channeler gets several AEs that both work in a sphere and penetrate solid surfaces. It's been while since I pulled the second floor of a dungeon from the first. That brought back some memories. We still have XP debt in Norrath in case you were wondering.

Norrath hasn't changed as much as you might imagine. It hardly seems worth having a progression server sometimes. Remember the camps that acted as hidden ring events and spawned names and great clunking chests that doled out buffs if you completed them? Still works. The highwaymen that appeared out of thin air to block the roads and slaughter the unwary? Still doing it. Heroic opportunities? Still firing although I don't suppose for a moment anyone cares.

If you go to Antonica or Commonlands the quests are the largely same as they were in 2005. The NPCs spout the same badly-written, badly-acted voiceovers. Nothing much has changed except I don't ever remember it getting quite this dark at night.

Hang on, just let me get an arrow and I'll have you all healed up good as new.

Oh, all the triple-up-arrow group mobs have gone. There is that. It means the quests that used to take five people a day now take one person and her minions five minutes. I guess that might be one thing that the prog server does differently. Can't say it sounds like much of a draw but maybe it'll be more fun than I remember. It would need to be because I remember it being no fun at all.

When the xp potion ran out I called it a session for the Channeler. I like him as a character - he's a ratonga so that was pretty much a given - but the class is hard work. On top of the resource management thing for some inexplicable reason he has to use a bow and arrow for many of his spells, which means spells effectively need ammunition. That's a new one. Also they seem incredibly slow to cast. Really, really slow. Probably can fix that with gear and AAs and so on but at low levels it's quite tedious.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

So I swapped to my Berserker, knocked out one of the weekly quests and went to try the new Fabled Achadechism, a level 100 version of the dungeon that sits on top of Crushbone. There I found unwanted proof of my theory that it's only at the point when you run up against content that's tuned for current capped players that things like knowing what the icons on your four combat hotbars mean and what your spells and skills actually do begin to matter.

Even then, facing level 105 orange-con mobs in the "Advanced Solo" version of the instance, it was only the bosses that gave me any trouble. Well, boss. Only saw the first one and didn't manage to kill him. It took three attempts before I got close, by which time I was beginning to think seriously about what I was doing and to realize I needed to. That's when muscle-memory, timing and having at least half an idea how to play your character start to look important after all.

Next time I'll have a bit of a warm-up first, get the old skills loose and juiced and then we'll see who's lying on the ground at the end. Or I might just do something easier instead.

Once More, With Feeling : GW2

Among the many changes to longstanding systems, processes and practices that came with the recent, massive update to GW2 was a complete revamp of the Skill Point mechanic. It's been a staple of the game since beta but in preparation for the upcoming expansion the entire concept has been given a makeover that rewrites just about everything, from the name itself to the utility of the skills and traits and the appearance of the UI that we use to to interact with them.

Not everyone likes everything about the new look and feel. Someone on the forums even called it "ugly" which exemplifies the old saw about accounting for taste, namely that there is none. There was a certain amount of rather more justifiable grumbling about the automated process that spent a portion of everyone's points without asking permission so we could all have a playable build ready as soon as we logged in after the patch. I thought that was a stroke of genius but I can see why it went down like bitter medicine from Nurse in some quarters.

Despite all that I think it's fair to say that the project has been received about as positively as anything like this is ever likely to be. Overly well-received in certain cases, and for as dubious a reason as if you'd found an ATM that kept spitting out banknotes without bothering to check if you had money in your account.

Some of the more spectacular bugs and oversights led to some fast and panicky patching, not least the spectacularly broken build that allowed Guardians to strut around like superheroes for a while, boasting that a single group of them running the right build could kill New Tequatl, the double-health dragon that was flummoxing entire raids. That got fixed before I ever got to see it in action.

ArenaNet confirmed that until they get all their waterfowl in a row such shenanigans will not attract the ban hammer. Good thinking. The new system is so much clearer and easier to navigate (as well as being prettier to look at, too) and it makes experimentation a lot more attractive even for someone like me, who usually can't be bothered with all the fiddling about. Let everyone try to break it and then fix the damage. Kind of what you have a Test server for, I know, but, hey, it's not like we're paying a subscription here.

It was wholly because of these changes that I happened to notice, while I was out and about in Tyria today, that several of the Challenge NPCs had acquired "I remember you from last time" dialogs. At least, I think they have acquired them. I'm not really sure.

One of my many rangers happened to pass Roj the Rowdy Butcher, one of the distressingly large number of clinically insane charr, who make Diessa Plateau the wonderland it is, and thought to challenge him to a fight. My memory is that, under the old system, you could do that. You can't now. Now he spouts a little speech and sends you on your way.

You can still join in with the fight if someone else has started it but if you turn up alone old Roj is having none of it. Neither is Shaman Purda nor the slightly worrisome thermal spa evangelist Burrison the Blue.

As I think more on it, though, I'm less and less sure that these ever were repeatable. Maybe I just imagined it. It seems hard to credit that, with all the work that's needed for Heart of Thorns right now, someone sat down and drafted new responses just on the off chance someone might try for the best out of three.

It's a pity, though. I can't really see why we shouldn't be able to spar with these folks as and when the whim takes us. Not, obviously, for any kind of credit or reward but just for the fun of it. Whenever I pass a Skill Point Hero Challenge that someone has triggered I always join in. They are fun fights as a rule. I don't see why we should have to wait for someone who hasn't done it to come along before we can have another go.

For that matter, why are Hearts one-time only affairs? A lot of them are pretty dull, to be sure, but there are a few I'd do every time I was passing, if I was allowed. It just seems like an easy route to extra, optional content to leave all of these active permanently. Just detach any and all rewards from characters who've already received them. Although, when you consider that Dynamic Events are all infinitely repeatable with rewards, maybe you don't even need to do that.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's just me. Maybe no-one else would ever want to repeat this stuff. I notice that a lot of people don't do every single stage of the pre-events at Maw or Fire Elemental every single time the way I do, after all. A lot of people, well, they just stand there. Some people just don't know how to have fun.

Anyway, I don't think it would hurt either my Guardian or Shaman Purda for the two of them to go a few rounds every time they meet. Where's the harm?