May Days

Recently I've delved into some older titles in the MMO world. I checked out Archeage again, there is a new leveling path so I wanted to see how much had changed. I also heard that Lineage 2 is still popular, both the classic and live servers, I hopped in to see what has changed there. Then I popped back into Secret World Legends just because I really felt in the mood for the horror setting and I'm trying to finish up one more character in WoW before the expansion hits.

I'll start off with some thoughts on Archeage. The new leveling path is a bit faster, it seems to navigate you to catch up with more of the population and really blows through most of the zones. If you're not careful you can miss important quests and grabbing things like the boat, gliding and mounts, I wish they had incorporated them into the leveling patch but I managed to grab them all with a little bit of backtracking. I still don't like the PvP aspect of the game, I had a bad time with my packs being taken in my previous experiences but this time I had zero issues with anyone bothering me. I did play on the regular servers, not on the unchained. I saw a lot of people, but it seemed a lot less populated than my first go around, I assume a lot of people have moved to AA Unchained, but I wasn't in the mood to subscribe to just get a feel for things. I created a spell caster which had a nice flow to it. The game hasn't aged too well graphically and I ended up turning the settings all the way down because I dislike the glowing aspect when they are turned up. Overall I had a nice time and will consider playing it more if I'm able to find some land eventually. The game still has a nice draw to it, decent combat, interesting crafting and side activities. 

Lineage two is a title I have not touched in years, the last time I played it was probably around 2007 and it was only subscription based. Things were slow, I didn't get very far and didn't really stick around long. Now it is free to play with a choice for subbing. The live servers are so populated that you can only create characters about once a month within a 24 hour window after maintenance. There seems to be an issue with botting and that is the measure taken to try to combat this. I had to wait a few days to create a character but the classic servers have no holds on character creation so I tried that too. Both versions are very populated. With the new live tutorial in about an hour of playtime I hit level 85. I blew through everything, leaving me to grind some levels out and not a huge idea of where anything was but it wasn't terribly complicated. Overall I loved the combat and classes. I picked a summoning class and enjoyed the mechanics and combat style. The classic server was a bit slower but with doing the daily quest you gain scrolls that give you a timed boost to speed up mana regen and damage, thus getting me to level 15 with a class choice picked out in no time. Classes change every few levels and you move towards the path of your choosing. I liked classic a lot but once I was sent out in the world to an area to quest at 15, everything was dead or died as soon as it spawned, so many people. There is auto afk combat and I think many were doing this, since it was late when I played. Overall both are free to try, same client and totally worth checking out if you're looking for something with a classic feel or just wanted to try out Lineage 2 and never got around to it. I didn't have any issues with PvP either.

On a whim I decided to play some Secret World Legends, it took a little bit to figure out where I was, what I was doing and what was going on with my build but it was easy to get a feel for things and jump back in after I messed around for a few minutes. I love the story, the setting, the ambiance. It has such a unique feeling to it, unlike any other MMO I play. It is almost realistic but not in the cheesey generic superhero MMO setting, more like jumping into a great movie, book or TV show. The music is stellar. The zones have so much detail and feeling, I just love it. However I do not like the gear system, it is so slow and takes so many items to build each up by feeding it items then combining two of the same level and rarity. You can bypass this with cash shop items, no clue how expensive that would be. That has probably been my biggest gripe with the game, it just feels a bit slow and tedious. Aside from the slow gear grind I do enjoy the missions and exploring the world, very refreshing and different than your run of the mill theme-park. 

I'm working on a Death Knight on Argent Dawn in Warcraft, I'd like to have a max level Alliance character there. I hit 90 with my DK this week and with the xp buff and flagging PvP on for an XP boost, it is going very quickly. I'm excited for the new expansion, even the class changes, some promising stuff I look forward to seeing for some more class flavor. Hopefully I'll get to 120 before then! Sharing some pics on the way out :) Safe adventures!