Being Saleh: A Space For The Undaunted Future and Things To Come and Why oh Why I don't Blog Often? (A Space For The Unbound review)

There seemed to be a lot riding on A Space For The unbound (ASFTU), a narrative driven game seven years in the making from Indonesian Studio Mojiken, the wave started about three/two years ago when they're announcing "a game with a Indonesian 90s setting" (or more precise: A game with Indonesian 90s high school scenes, which means no greatest sin of mankind a.k.a cellphone yet) they had a demo on Steam so I played it, one year later after two days of playing the full game I sat and write this post because I deemed that game is worth enough reviving this blog (and changed the font).

Dun dun dun dun

I'm not familiar with Indonesian indie games scene, as a matter of fact the announced ASFTU is the one thing intriguing me enough to search around about them (growing in 90s and stuffs) and bumped me with Coffee Talk (another slice of life retro graphic game set on a fantasy futuristic town) published by Toge Productions who has been around since some eleven years ago which means I've been under the rock enough for not noticing them... Anyway so after playing Coffee Talk enough to see the 'weird' creativity of this game I put ASTFU on my wishlist because being an Indonesian but spent so much time playing MMORPGs with people of the world make me a little... homesick, mind you I retired from the local's MMORPGs scene because of it's notorious toxicity (No I'm not talking about Genshin Impact, I'm talking way way further back when I grind those 1909145732896543 Ketra orc's heads), Coffee talk: a little game that only span 6 hours or so is weirdly powerful on writing and narrating, it's basically a compilation of short stories, a GOOD compilation of short stories.

Anyway back to ASFTU this game is a visual novel at heart but with some side scrolling adventure game type and some mild puzzle-solving, there's also elements of Quick Time Event (QTE), For me these elements can be a hindrace sometimes, I know they're trying to spice things up (and testing some engine) and most of the puzzle are easily solved but trying to get a door combination in later game with little hints and lots of numbers can be a little frustrating because sometimes it broke the immersion of the narrative, if there's a paid DLC button to skip all the puzzles I'll gladly bought it. The game design was breathtakingly nostalgic, with some of the house and generic 90s school visual design, soothing music followed by familiar environmental sound, and the NPCs are just as bizzare and quirky as I expected too, in short the whole visual and sound design is a warm welcome for my soul, almost like a sweet, smooth therapy session (uh no, I'm not talking about weeds)

The story: Atma and Raya is a childhood sweetheart couple, fall in love in high school, unsure of their future, planned to ran away together, creating a list of what to do before they finish high school and so and so but plot twist: they both have superpowers, Atma can dive into other people's heart (dubbed spacedive, later crossdive) while Raya can manipulate reality to some extent (and require some price), in their last days of high school there's a crisis looming in the horizon and they both are in the center of it. WARNING: If you could read the fine print at the game description you might realized that the story dealt with mostly negative emotion, Raya and Atma's power are tied to their psyche and the story unfolded as their powers and hearts grow, you'll mostly control Atma so the story was presented in his point of view to reserve some of the clever twist of it, not to spoil anything: This is a sad game, and some scene can make you a tad bit uncomfortable, some of the expected seriousness is one of the fine point of why I bought the game, it's brave and Mojiken presenting such a story without gerrymandering it is an achievement to itself. Psych disorder is not something to be taking lightly of, and sometimes it requires professional help. I Also  played the game with Bahasa as language and I can see some of the English statements, jokes, curses and proverb are somewhat translated as is which is a bit... weird? Indonesian don't told others to go hide on their mother's skirt, they told them to shut up and die while swinging things (HALAH BACOT), they got better at the end where the narrative is heavy and pack some great impact.

Although The pace of the game is uneven (sometimes it's like a speeding truck crashing every wall and in some chapters slowed down to a crawl) but Mojiken also did well blending it to the game design, the visual novel take make a really compelling case of secrets and hidden objects hide and seek minigame, it's fun and well placed, there's a side quests where you must collect bubble gum wrappers with the letters which ultimately form the words "YOMAN" which is a reference to a 90s local bubble gum promotion where my brothers and I hunted the word S of YOSAN bubble gum (we never found it, and we suspect it was never even made hahaha) plot twist: THEY'RE STILL EXISTED!!! anyway as promised the world of ASFTU is jam-packed with 80s and 90s nostalgia, furthermore: even some of Mojiken's previous game character is act as a secret puzzle. Pet all the cats, the dogs, the... other animals... just go wild with those interaction bubbles. The game also loaded with references to other pop culture such as the "Cobra Kai"show and "Kung-Fu Boy a.k.a Tekken Chinmi" comic book which is a huge hit here in their 90s day, and you want to know the price of one bowl of noodle in the 90s? yes, it's also (slightly) accurate, on story side: you can see the influence of other 'existential' video game, movies, and anime in ASFTU, from "Nier Automata" to "Neon Genesis Evangelion" it's not just the show, the music of ASFTU also show slight references to it, I also think this entire game's music deserved a separate recognition of their own (the penultimate song was A++). I'm not a musician but I know a good tune when I heard it, especially one of these weeks FFXIV and Tales Of Arise music's was the only thing I heard every day.

yes atma, Woah indeed

 

Also it's probably one of the free-bug game i was ever played, if there's any it was never triggered or occured, anyway technical thing aside: Mojiken Studio as developers and Toge Production as publisher is probably a big time winner in a little corner of this country's emerging (or stagnating? Or even declining? Told you I'm not familiar with this scene) game storytelling and marketing scene and deserved every praise because of it, ASFTU ticks all the right thing, brought a full course meal to a small community while still hold a bigger and finer standard, although the theme was dark and dealing with delicate social issues this game succesfully navigating those issue with care and gentle handling, (down to their New year Poster which score a high points from me). But I'm not a point guy, I'm just an old player, I had my share of suspicious glance, self-destructing, and a bunch of unanswered phone, text, and emails. I enjoyed ASFTU wholly, even with their frustrating door combination puzzle (Thank God there's no mandatory jumping puzzle or I might throw out this game immediately) I believe this game can be something more, but it was also up to their devs (and publisher), and other devs and publisher, and also other people involved in this industry, when you finished this game and tried to contemplating the relatable elements of it you'll met with the fact that this one game took seven years to make, that alone can be a consideration for anyone involved (or anyone who wants to be involved), I'm expecting great things from this scene but for some illogical... reason even great things can be a mere dust in the wind when it failed to capture hearts, but I also believe great things also come from little things. Anyway as Atma's said (as cheesy as he can be) the perfect world is the imperfect one (which is obvious) I really don't dig him but I like it.

Spoiler: This is what you got after petting all the cats in the game!!

Being Saleh: FFXIV Shadowbringer review

WARNING: Contains story spoiler for past expansions of Final Fantasy XIV, minor spoiler for Shadowbringers

 
So, who thinks that the light can be used to hurt? Well, I'm a fantasy gamer so I'm pretty much have wield every aspect of elements and unleash them to my enemies, light included, and as the name of the latest expansion from FFXIV suggests, yes this time the light is the enemy.

FFXIV brings our Warrior of Light to the First, a doppleganger world created in the image of the original planet (called The Source), as I mention in the past post there are several, each with an affinity to an arcane element (light, dark, fire, etc, etc), in here a flood of light almost wiped the entire world, making it unhabitable, save one continent called Norvrandt, apparently somenoe stopped the flood, and another someone wants to restore the first to it's former state and that's why they need us and oh, and the Scion of the Seventh Dawn are all here too.

Alisaie could use a haircut though

New Gameplay

 
The gameplay of Shadowbringers are much simpler now, thanks to ability prunes my Dark Knight (which is now a mainstream job) no longer have two set of combos for enmity and self healing, they got merged, my darkness (which I used between combo steps and before unleashing high powered attack) is now merged to a new attack both for single and multi target, it took me a while for cleaning up my shortcuts and macro not to mention trying new combos but it worked, and it's still fun, paladin however have mana-based new attack and defense skills which I never figured it out when or where I should use it, I'll get to it somehow, or SE can get to it, that's it, I'm gonna call it, fix paladin, it's not fun, yes it's easy to stay alive, but it's not fun

everything can be better with MORE FIRE!!

F.A.T.E (ah crap, will just call it FATE now) have two benefits now, for leveling and you can get a nice jewels in the end for stuff trading in every area, there are also FATE levels now indicating how an area is 'safer' now after you cull those kobolds, the more you level your FATE, the more stuff you can trade for those jewels, every area is different so yes more useless junk to collect, if you level them all enough, you'll get access to a vendor in the main city hub

The new classes are gunbladerbreaker and dancer, gunbreaker wield gunblades and  have a long combo depending how many ammos you can store and your third skill cooldown, so yeah, it have several combos and utilities which can be fun for tanking (yes, it's a tank) since you're shooting for shielding now :D. Dancer as the third physical ranged DPS is not that different at all from the Machinist, but now you can 'store' combos and it's awesome, because not everytime a skill triggered the next skill, so it's a bit of gambling but you can also dance to buff you and a party member (dubbed: dance partner) for a significant increase in attack, so imagine you store those finisher and unleash them when your dance buff still up, it's glorifyngly satifying, there are also a def buff, a skill buff, which you can mix and match in a boss fight or trials.

New Story

 
Well, after I kicked Zenos' butt and got kicked myself in the in-between-xpac storyline, the story hinted that we will be brought to Garlean, the seat of the empire itself, but well... things happen and now we're in a whole another planet ourself, the new character is the Crystal Exarch, the dude that brought you in, Norvrandt is besieged by a horde of pale monsters called the sin-eaters which can infect living creatures to become monsters as they are, and of course there are zombies, pale zombies, but anyway we're also introduced to an Ascian called Emet-Selch which is more... sightful than the usual Ascian like evil-laugh Lahabrea and his friends, he is as cryptic as Elidibus though and his actions are sometimes questionable, but's he's breathtakingly fresh when compared to Zenos and since the story of Shadowbringers are long and intertwining you might questioning if he is really the big bad here.

Well, this pixie hater is definitely the big bad

Even if the story is a bit convoluted at first it's slowly unravel as it's progressing forward, but what I like is that the main story never strays from The First, there're no back and forth jogs between the two worlds, the allies and enemies are all from the first (except your Scion friends), and you'll meet new friends along the main story which come and go in a satisfying way (and some who wasn't probably was saved for the in-between-xpac stories, or a side quest). Everything is from the First and for The First, The First is a different world, with different culture, but same looking races although the names are different, elezen becomes elves, Hrothgar is Ronso (sounds familiar?), Lalafell are dwarves and they put on white-bearded-yellow-eyes-and-horned helmets like a generic FF dwarves, ho ho ho. uh wait, that's not right, Lali-Ho!!

There's something like a 'main side story' (What..?) it is a continuation from a post-main Heavensward expac and a new form of job quest, mainly focused in the members of the First' Warriors of Light (Adbert and friends), even if it's a side quest it is needed to complete the main story so you can get some picture about these ex-Source' Warriors of Darkness life before and after they moved on (or by), there are four of them each focused on a member and divided by jobs: Tank, Ranged/melee Physical DPS, magical DPS, and Healer, I played Dark Knight and the Tank Job quest focused on the other tank in the band, the Roegadyn Paladin and yes the story is as sad as ever. It was so good that I decided to level one from each jobs, which included leveling my Monk that i have sweared would never touch again, see now, a good story can even make you broke your promise right? (update: I did that and surprisingly there is another side story quest opened up, just call that that a closure, or epilogue, it's good)

It always ended with a GF, always

Features

 
Ability Prune aside, the ability of Dark knight to clone myself and lots of visual upgrade is appealing, oh yeah there are trust system now in which you run dungeons with your fellow Scions as bots so yeah no more long queue if you leveled as DPS, although Roulette still exists on max level to farm the tomestones, companion has level too and achievements attached to them so I'm still trying to max them out by playing as several jobs and combining them with the role jobs it is an AWESOME way to level grinding since trust dungeons grants you a HUGE chunk of XP, combine them with FATE jewel grinding and you'll level FASTER than your main, moreso the bosses drop loots for you and you only so yeah, FREE LOOT, they are just leveling gears though no tomestones are granted in Trust dungeon.

The Crafting and gathering Jobs are also revamped, started with the so-called restoration of Ishgard the crafting jobs were given a new instanced area which grows along with player's contribution, the gathering profession also will be given a new feature in the next patch in a form of a beast tribe reputation, and to be honest this is another thing I swore off not to touch again because crafting and gathering up to Heavensward were so exhausting and unfun I stopped leveling them on Stormblood, and when Stormblood gave us the Eureka Island rather to a revamped gather-craft things instead I just flipped and never bothered with them again. But to be honest with these addition I probably will just have to broke my promise again (update: I did, and they add new beast tribe dailies for gathering)

Verdict:

 
Well the for the story itself I gave FFXIV a solid nine, it's long, clocking me at three weeks of gameplay (4-5 hours a day), but it's so great, if heavensward main story gives a 'journey to the west' vibe, and Stormblood is about 'tactical war (part 1) and tragic redemption/consolidation (part 2), Shadowbringer is mostly about limitation of self and how to deal with it since the main villain is continuously engaged with our warrior of light/darkness beyond taunt and threats. The side quests are weirdly more about you knowing more about the world rather than just simply for leveling up or gained money, some can be tiresome and there are lot of them but in the end you'll realize that you learned just a little bit more.

The gameplay is wow, I must say: I can never find myself running around town figuring out what to do next, there is always something to do, even leveling can be combined to other activities like farming jewels and hunting marks (just like the old days, but more varied, also there is a gigantic coeurl with great horns, but she rarely spawned, I tried to take her down solo only to be be quickly floored)

Eden is the new raid (featuring alternate version of past primals fight) and Yorha (collaboration with an android dating sim game called Nier: Automata...wait, what?) is the new Alliance Raid, both are complex and featuring longer fights that drains your brain cell since one encounter can have 10-20 movesets and you are compelled to memorize them all or you (like me) can just lie facedown for two- third of the fight :D

 

I just got rejected, didn't I?

It's fun that crafting and gathering jobs got some love although they mainly just upped the xp from quests and levequests below level 70 until you zoomed through them, fishing got new fishing boat instances where you and other people can engange in ocean fishing together, you can catches special fish that can buff everyone in the ship, the level 60-70 daily crafting beast tribe quests from stormblood is still relevant in term of XP and reputation grinding, new beast tribe quests featuring the Qiqirn version of The First called the Qitari is a welcomed feature.

A bunch of lore story dump, plot twists, and a lot of can be/could be situation is the meat of this expansion, it's well-written to the details, although sometimes suffered from 'too much explanation' but seeing the Scions are now more battle ready and more involved on the fighting are refreshing takes, we're still the hero and they are the companions and in the end we still win big (although not a complete one).

Yes, the traveling merchant is now on credits, we win BIG

Persona 5: The 100th hour review

CONTAINS MINOR SPOILER FOR PERSONA 3, 4, and 5!!!

My palms are sweaty, it's been hours since I first started running around the furthermost floor on Tartarus, reached the penultimate level and back again, grinding every enemy into dust while collecting their items through stealing and/or by the grace of RNG dropping them, since the fatigue system was removed I can do some infinite powerleveling and farming in here without wasting my SP, I don't know about my personas, will they be enough for tomorrow? I know tomorrow in-game I will be facing some serious battle, probably a phase-chained one without the chance of saving and/or recovering between them, I don't know, I'm just stockpiling things and leveling everyone before I got sleepy in real world, one thing I know that tomorrow is the last boss time

In persona 3, the first entry in the franchise who utilizes the social-life-simulation (or by japanese standard: dating simulation a.k.a dating sim) you are a highschooler with double life as a demon hunter at night, aided by personas a.k.a your 'real selves' you punch through days splitting your time between studies, hanging out with friends, dating, polishing your social skill and destroying forces of evil (or take them to aid you in the process), tied with the story every month there are foreshadowing about your next big baddie, giving you 'deadlines' to be considered in your time juggling between romancing a girl or collecting drop money for that fine battle axe.

Neat,

The formula proved success, persona 4 and 5 followed that roadmap while polishing it to be more rewarding and satisfying in every other way. The latest entry, persona 5 make it so it was more rewarding on every activity you choose to 'build' your character, your hierarchical social links now have traits that can help you in battle and/or activities although your friend characters wasn't go as explored deep in persona 3 and 4 (except Morgana) but they just quirky enough to add to your emotions. The battle tailored with the same strategy used in persona games which revolved around enemy weaknesses and how much you can exploit it, the boss battle in persona 5 however is not another turn based hack and slash but utilizes some special moves and strategy, like sending one of your teammates to weaken a boss or a minion. Unfortunately it wasn't fully explored in later bosses because whether you're too overleveled for them or the strategy was just another waiting games, and then you just beat the boss to death before it did the same to you anyway, harder difficulty is easily circumvented by cultivating your teammates and cheesing and grinding your way through encounters

Persona series as a spin off from Megaten series is essentially always a dungeon crawler so the battle have to be interesting enough to keep you looking forward to it, all the activities you do beside dungeon deep diving is solely purposed to help you in that area (beating enemy to pulp or extorting money/items from them) persona 5 took one thing right by keep SP restoring items a rarity and available as crafted goods so even when you're cheesing your way through a dungeon (or a palace in their terms) you're still in danger of running out SP and limiting your moves, guns now have bullets which only replenished when you exit the said palaces and since you can't survive with physical attacks alone the feeling of dread is always with you, until a certain point on the story anyway, similar to the lifting of fatigue system on the later days of persona 3, fortunately the tracks still composed by Shoji Meguro which is provide great tunes during dungeon exploring and battles. Story in persona series are always revolving around the player character, about their close friends, enemies, rivals, local government and business, and just ordinary folks trying to live their way from day to day basis (pictured in day to day activities on the game), the main story was complemented by side stories about the player's companions adding depth to emotional scenes and reveal some unexpected twist (usually dark) that made you want to think, perhaps the real enemy is not a shady-ass government/global business venture/questionable research megacorp, but the way ordinary people treat other ordinary people, daily, weekly, until it break down others and culminating in conflict and submission, or make an unexpected twist towards scarred adaptability and partial acceptance. The push'n pull of human emotion which can not be solved just by dungeon delving and defeating monsters.

We're dealing with societal issues while accompanied by anthromorphic cats, awesome!

 

Speaking of dread feelings, Persona 5 probably good enough to feed your fear of too much dungeon delving, however, they failed to infuse that fear to you for the endgame story, you see in persona 3 a month from the endgame the story revealed itself and cast you that dreaded feelings over the next in-game month while you still schooling and shooting arcades, at the night before the D-day (and every other night if you prefer it) you will be out there in the dungeons recruting personas, fusing, stealing items, look for rare monsters, amassing wealth and stockpiling recovery item, and leveling things up, all for the sake because you know, tomorrow (probably) will not last. I apparently made mistake by playing persona 4 golden rather than the original version which cast similar feeling to persona 3 towards endgame (persona 4 original however is not, based on what I read). In persona 5 the dreaded feelings is lost towards endgame because the story forced you, unexpectedly, thrust your ass to the last dungeon because of some  (bleh) 'circumstances' in the real world, suddenly you have no closure at all for your all activities and social links because you lost sense of time due to simultaneous cutscenes that push you towards this circumstances, worst of all these cutscenes sometimes took all your free day leaving you without nothing to do at night (except sleep and advances your day). I have several loose ends in my soc link before the 'dreaded cutscene marathons' (haha) leaving several my buddy's persona unevolved and one memento request (which will be a breeze in my current level). When I suddenly thrusted in the 'final' dungeon I got so angry because I don't know which save I can load to make up for this day to day fiasco, then I just powered through it for a whole real world day, just grinding and fusing, and collecting things, back to entrance, refresh, repeat and as a result I bagged the final boss battle in two tries (one didn't go through because I misclick during a crucial moment, talk about sweaty hand), however epic the boss fight is and the tear-jerking end, the game add salt to my wounds by adding personal cutscenes after the boss fight, it's like a kinda 'haha you failed to raise this guy persona so he didn't appear on this scene' I ONLY NEED ONE MORE STAR AND ONE MORE DAY YOU JERK )(&(^%^%%!^&#$!*^!!!!!!!

Pictured: Jerk

I fell asleep during the end credits, fortunately at the day of my dungeon marathon my two year old is sleeping early so I have more time to finish the game

Oh look, now there's a new game+ which carried your initial persona, level, social and traits level, and items so I planned to do just so just to complete my social links loose ends (after I finished FFXIV's final story arc) , but it still a dick move Atlus/Sega, wasting days by adding cutscenes after a cool penultimate job, culminating in shoving everyone to a no exit dungeon, it's not okay, very very not okay.

Blade and Soul: A Latency-based Delayed Action Review

I actually have a weird feeling that NCSOFT only released it's 2012 martial arts MMORPG Blade and Soul in the west to counter Pearl Abyss/Daum's Black Desert, since it's four years past it's prime, and since NC has games with similar gameplay (action based) like Wildstar and Guild Wars 2 their difference becomes aesthetic only, and since Black Desert was restricted to US only players Blade and Soul gave access to worldwide, with one problem of course: latency...

Latency is the weird factor in action based MMORPG, In Guild Wars 2 the problem was diminished by the dynamic combat while in Wildstar and Blade n Soul your survival and dps depends on every button you hit and the exact time you hit it since many skills triggered by enemy's (both PVP and PVE) action. So yeah in blade and soul you'll dash around enemies, countering their interrupts, interrupts their deadly moves, grabbing them and throwing them around, mount them and lock them. So when your internet is so blashpemously late on receiving/sending the interrupt/counter data because of the high latency you might ended up very very dead.

Minor spoiler: They'll also be dead in the next few minutes

Babes and cats

Blade n soul has four races: the normally human (Jin), the half giant barbarians (Gon), the little fox-cat-other cute fluffy furry things-midget-hybrid (Lyn) and the oversexualized nymphs (Yun), and since it's Korean you'll find breast slider on your female characters customization and yes they'll also jiggling when your character moves so make sure to take a lots of screenshots and videos.... anyway, the classes are Blademaster (shiny swordsman!!), The Destroyer is a Gon-only axe wielder with slow but devastating skills, Force Master utilizes ranged attacks with flashy finishers, Kung Fu Master has long unbroken (depends on your latency) combo attacks, Assassins has incredible (again depends on your latency) timing-based skills, Summoners are Lyn only and have cats (which makes them easily the superior race and class), and Blade dancer is a chibi version Lyn only Blademaster. As you can see all the classes are damage dealers so it's another game without the holy trinity

My story
In Blade and Soul --just like any other action games -- your main attack is your left mouse button which is a resource generator while your right is usually a resource spender -- more devastating -- attack, your other alphabet skills ranged from crowd control to combo finisher, for example as a Destroyer I can press E to lift my enemy, press E again to wedge them against my axe to replenish my HP, press X to slam them towards the ground, and finally delivering the final blow with my right button skill, It's weirdly satisfying because the animation is so smooth and oh so so bloody :D. When i was knocked down by an enemy my X skill becomes a counter skill which whirlwind the entire enemy but if for some reason the enemy can follow the knockdown with say: a legbreaker lock (latency matters here) I will sustain a heavy damage or even KO'd, fortunately during the time my HP depleted I can do things like crawling out of the reach of enemies and then meditate until I was revived, unfortunately It only filled half of my HP so consumables like HP potions are vital in combat, also getting hit when you're on a downed state means insta-KO

As a solo player I met almost zero obstacle during my questing (at least until level 20), Unfortunately on higher level my unupgraded axe started to kill me faster than the mobs, so I'll have to go back to lower level dailies. The stat of my character are given by weapons, accessories, and soul wheel (piece of cakewheel), clothes are purely cosmetics so I kinda liked it since I like playing transmog/transmute with armors, You can 'feed' some weapons with another weapon to raise it's stats, most weapons you obtained as drops are sealed and you can unseal them with unsealing charms, but if you feed them to another weapon you won't need to unseal them, later in game you'll be introduced to lockboxes which can be opened with keys, there are two kind of keys: the brilliant and regular, regular will unlock the box but you'll get random weapons, brilliant will always give you your class-specific weapon, which sometimes can be used as a precursor to evolve an epic weapon, one thing though: brilliants are sold in the cash shop, they can be bought by specific in game currency but only if you're a premium member, so you know where I'm going with this, fortunately they're also drops from dailies and dungeons, although it's rare, the reason why I came back to low level area, gambling my lockboxes away to just find the precursor

I also met a lots of Hildibrands along the way

Big Bosses and losing your cash
Group play against world/dungeon bosses added some perks to the already interesting battle as you can execute a joint attack to break big boss' immunities against crowd control skills, Dungeons are usually basic milk run, plow everything until you get to the big boss at the end. Lack of pure healer class remedied by dragon blood system where you basically doubled or tripled your HP bar to withstand devastating attacks, sometimes it's just DPS race but the dungeons after level 20 have bosses that required some kind of tactics like killing adds, stun things, and stop hitting when something becomes immune.

There's a thing that caught my mind in the dungeon runs, the loot auction system that replaces the need and greed system for heroic and superior items, in other MMORPGs you roll numbered dice and hope RNG gets you that epic item, in BnS if you really want that item you place a bid on it, people will outbid you or pass, if you get the item your hard-earned money will be divided among the rest of your group, IMO it's a win-win solution EXCEPT when the untradable heroic weapon precursor drops and someone decided to ransom it by placing high bid right from the start, if you're patient you can get the money and run for another dungeon, if you're impatient... you can outbid them and lost your money.... so...well... you should be patient :P

In picture: Your daily life in dungeons

Verdict:
Overall Blade and Soul is a fun experience, nothing impress me much but somehow I still playing it just because of the story (and also wondering each level up whether I can pull off another crazy combos), Group play opened opportunities for joint eye-catching combo skills so make sure you play with friends because even if the story is rather interesting, the questing is horribly boring and money making are abysmally nonexistent (you'll lose money faster by purchasing brilliant keys). The hunt for precursors are 99% RNG and dealing with ransoms on dungeons is somewhat frustrating, I also heard that endgame dungeons are ridiculously hard, so get this: Bring a friend, you can solo almost everything and world bosses are always crowded but trust me partying for killing 20 mobs is faster and more fun, especially when the mobs are somewhat scarce. If I can get to endgame I might write something about it but now I'll just grind those precursors away, I found the hard way that NOT UPGRADING YOUR WEAPON THROUGH THE RNG SYSTEMS (Wheel of fate, lockboxes, and dungeon drops) will make your character considerably weaker on the next few levels.

I have six of this outfit before finding that axe

Review: Star Wars the Force Awakens

Yes this post contains spoilers so stay away from this post if you don't want to get damaged in the process, you have been warned

So here's the thing: I grew up with Star Wars Expanded Universe which means I have close connection with stories before and after the six movies, especially the Jedi Knight series which tells a story about Kyle Katarn, second in command to Luke Skywalker in his Jedi Academy as well as his best friend, as a reformed Dark Jedi and former smuggler Kyle has colorful stories from both light and dark side

Star Wars Episode 7 throws every stories after episode 6 out of the windows, which means i have to put aside every connection to Jedi Knight series, in episode 7 Luke did train young potential Jedis but suddenly disappears due to some treachery of one of his student named Kylo Ren, which now commands remnants of the empire called The First Order, which the ultimate goal is to resurrect the iron-fisted galactic empire, to counter this the New Republic founded remains of the Rebel Alliance, now dubbed The Resistance, commanded by General Leia Organa

I like the way the characters are introduced, Finn is a former stormtrooper which grow conscience after saw the brutality of the first order, Rey is a scavenger stumbled into the BB8 carried a map location of Luke Skywalker, this map is the focus of the story which ping ponged between factions. Han Solo as the 'old guard' guide this new heroes as well as trying to bring Kylo Ren (a.k.a Ben Solo, his son) back to the light

Unfortunately the dark side is in trouble in this movie because of Kylo Ren, he's not a Sith, just an unstable and obsessed brat, the portrayal is perfect on cast but fall weak on the story, because we never knew what his story is to be fallen, his rage and fear reflect anakin's feature on episode 3 (which is the weakest on the prequel trilogy) and yet he keeps pushing until the end without clear explanation of what was he's truly seeking. He's a character meant to be defeated in the end, too easy, yet too clouded to garner interest, perhaps on episode 8 he'll be made more interesting

What a star wars movie without superweapons? as Death Star on episode 4, this one has the Starkiller, an  interplanetary laser turret which capable of annihillating an entire star system, which again fall flat into the Old Republic fans' mind since Sith Lord of this non canonical age is capable of destroying a planet with just utilizing the Force, but hey!! we need a capable adversary for those newly designed Resistance fleet right? Fortunately the space/aerial battles are good enough with a popcorn.

Apparently, even by putting those years of Expanded Universe aside I still ended up comparing this movie to them throughout those two hours, hoping that a slight hint of a character as interesting as Kyle Katarn or rooting for Kylo Ren's to abandon his spoiled-brattyness unfortunately yielded me none of them, even the twist in the final lightsaber battle is..... not too good, if only Finn and Rey can fight together, the Force-summoning scene of Rey also has a weak effect but i was relieved that midichlorians wasn"t mentioned

A Force Awaken is both good and refreshing movie but only as a new continuation story built by the previous movies, or for fans who were disillusioned by the prequel trilogy, or for the 'only movies' fans. For fans who have trouble letting go the non canonical universe it might be a little disappointing, as for me I have mixed feelings about it, as a movie I liked it and look forward for the sequels, as an expanded universe fanboy i'd rather stick to the old republic stuffs at least until they made a movie character as good as Kyle Katarn.

Review: The Labor Age

Let me tell you something about ArcheAge....

It's good and surprisingly enjoyable

Except for one thing: Labor Points, Labor Points is your other resource in Archeage beside your usual MMORPG coins and points, and since EVERY activity like crafting, building, gathering, farming, buliding (did I said that twice? I lost track since economic based things is plenty in this game) and also recover XP when you're dead requires labor points it's quickly becomes a ridiculous gate, for free player it replenish slowly, every 5 minutes the game gave you 5 of it, only if you logged in, if you logged out or disconnected the game gave you nothing, yes nothing, none, nada, ZERO LP baby!!

Wants more LP? Only $15 a month!!! You know other game with time-based-self-replenishing resource like this? No? Let me refresh your mind

This

Also this

I don't remember whether it has it but I'm just gonna leave it here anyway

Please stuff your argument about balancing the economy here, I know Trion needs to make money, but this?

Blow me

Alright now that I let it out from my system, onto the review

Archeage is a sandbox/themepark hybrid MMORPG created by Korean developer XLGAMES two years ago, they localised it on Russia a year later, and then Trion picked it up for North American publishing last year, it's already entered beta phase now, and since it's freemium I treated it as it is, just between hype and anti-hype (or something)

And... I'm quite enjoying it, if I can describe it: Archeage's PVE battle aspect surprisingly played quite like RIFT, I rolled an Occultism mage coupled with Auramancy and Songcraft, and it played surprisingly similar as my Warlock-Pyromancer-Dominator spirit on RIFT (before I got bored and killed everything up close and personal with my Harbinger-Archon-Domi), I have a vivid imagination that two years ago a Trion employee played this game and said to the management, "Hey look, it's looks like our game RIFT, let's bring it to the state", and then magic happened

Spawning a galley in the city is pure magic

I don't know about the main story quest but it kept me intigued and wanting to quickly unfold it, the quests on Archeage is a part of your leveling process where you learn to battle, craft, gather, trade, build, climb, glide, explore, even rowboating (just keep your eye on your Labor Points). It's also quick, in just under 12 hrs I reached level 25, the PVE quests stopped at 30 where the sandbox element begins and you level through those thing you've learned before until you reached the cap (level 55)

Beside those thing I realized that I barely scraped what Archeage has to offer, but I also don't really know how deep it is, it's a good game, and it's free so I can check it out anytime (at least until the community become toxic and PKer started killing newbies, Trion stopped replenishing f2p player's LP, and destroy the population altogether), one of the most memorable thing on Archeage is when I snatched people's crops and raised my larceny level, but hey it was unprotected, and no one's there, and the game allowed me to do that, so I grabbed it (and run), why did I do that? I don't know, I probably just liked potato very much.

My ticket to jail

Read more about Archeage and their sandpark features here

Phantasy Star Online 2: First Look

Apparently the space is not always a star ocean.... It's full of PHANTASY!!! (whatever it is)

The English Version of Phantasy Star Online 2 probably will never see the light on western hemisphere, although you can play the Japanese version with a third party english patch but grouping with random player probably can be a hassle, but anyway let me told you about my first few days on PSO 2 English Version (South East Asia only)

Before I played I never read any review, description, or anything about PSO2, not even a beta, so when I first zoomed in to the server I got quite stunned that it has Gameguard.... okay move along, PSO2 has only three basic class: Hunter (melee based), Ranger (ranged based), and Force (healer/magic type), they can 'evolve' on level 30 to become Fighter, Gunner, and Techer, also apparently there's a tech tree which you can mix and match with skill from another class (cross class skill) but I don't know how deep the system is, I'll keep it up in mind for my next post. So anyway PSO2 has three races, Human, Newman (elves), and Cast (androids). each race can be of any class, there's some basic and deep appearance customization for each race, for Cast however you can only change your body tipe and head, there's also several human head options that you can customize but it's kinda put me off because putting it on a robot body... it looks like a disembodied emotionless head being put in a robotic body. so I go with the ordinary robot head, and this is the 'final form'

now all that's left is to find a young boy to pilot me and we can go save the universe!!

Okay, let's go to gameplay, as a Hunter I sported a really big two-handed power sword which kinda encumbered my character, the battle in PSO2 occured in real time, you have two kind of attack, left mouse is your ordinary attack, you can combo it with another timed left mouse, if perfectly timed (indicated by orange aura around your character like Legend of Dragoon) you can stagger or even stun enemies (called perfect strike), enemy performance can't be interrupted with any other way... so here's the thing: looking at a big giant monkey raising and then throwing a big boulder while I spin around creating a cyclone of blade around him --while he is doing that without a single hint on his perturbed face that I caused big numbers by hitting him repeatedly -- is kinda... odd. Anyway my cyclone of death is called photon arts and it's my super attack initaited by right mouse button, it needs resource called PP so it's kinda have to be reserved, oh yeah you can also dash by double tapping your arrow button, and attack while you're jumping (now every new MMO has it!!!) :P

Not Pictured: I stumbled

Beside the big sword I also have a gunslash which literally is my ranged attack weapon, I can also press shift to change it's mode into a fast-attack one hand sword, if the Shift button is used while you're using the big sword you'll defend against an attack, you can also customize weapons to change it's combo and foton arts, a regular and foton arts combo usually initiated by two perfectly timed push of a button, sometimes photon blast occured, an environmental anomaly triggered by defeating enemies perfectly and enhancing your attribute, making you an unstoppable engine of death, not always though, and when you become unstoppable usually the enemy's already down before you know it, this can change on higher level though, probably. One more thing: I can also press 'Z' to change my view into those third party shooter mode like those like Mass Effect.or Gears of Wars

Just shoot it Shepard!!

PSO2 is instance based, meaning like Guild Wars you have one central hub, you can meet anyone in this city hub (or in case in PSO2: Mothership), everytime you entered a mission (quest) instance you'll be assigned a 'room', you can name this room and recruit people for it, the number is varied on each missions, you can also solo it or bring an NPC party member that you'll recruit as the main story progress, don't want to wait? Just find and open room with people on it and join the fray (just like Diablo 3), before the mission begins there's also a 'preparation' room for you to strategize and buy/sell buffs and items, when you're in an instance your HP/PP/MP won't be replenished unless you found a replenishments (contained in destroyable objects) or a healing station (on instance intermissions), consumables like HP potions are a kind of big point in here, (just like Diablo 3/Path Of Exile all over again) so make sure you're prepared to bring a bunch of instant health potion before you go dive into a mission

In the mothership there's a lot you can do, first there's the main story, yes it's kinda just slapped there with a sprinkle of dramatic moments here and there, some fancy magic scenes, some pony summoning... (yes, they exists). Apparently some bug creature called D-arkers are destroying planets and it's up to us to prevent it... and so on.  There are daily quests, and some special missions which provides tutorial, mailbox, crafting, there are furnitures, one thing I like about PSO2 is that like guild wars 2 I'm free to deposit my item wherever, unfortunately my storage is limited on slots, and like all free to play titles I can expand it for a little cash. Playpark is kind enough to give me a bonus of points every time I did consecutive day logging.

Pictured: A representative  from a p2w game

The thing I dislike very much about PSO2 is how BLAND the interface is, all the good thing came in from combat, but that interface, my God, always a white courier font text on blue background, yes I know it's in space, but come on!!

It killed your soul, quickly

 also, when you're disconnected your instance will be reset... noooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Well, despite the tedious combat, PSO2 has something... shiny, apparently for me it's just too boring to go on and the shiny thing died inside, but since it's free to play it's a perfect place to spent times shooting, hacking and slashing with friends, there's probably a better game for that, but hey at least they have ponies...

Wanna be friends?

Amazing Spiderman 2: Reviewed

Since my previous review, life's been good to Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), finishing both high school and armed street thugs, it's probably one of his golden days of youth, beside his on-off relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) there's seemed nothing that can stop his pretty beautiful days.from go on.

Of course there is always a but, while life's been good with both Spidey and Peter, it's not really had it going on with Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx), he's practically invisible, his boss stole his credit for his work, his colleauges doesn't even know about him, he's a nobody and he accepted that while at the same time harboring the growing need to be seen by the world, a really really unhealthy need. so it begins: The Amazing Spiderman 2

Being a sequel sucks, you must make sure you overshadow the first and deliver things that makes the audience said: "it's not a rehash of the first one", being a remake is even more sucks because you also have to make sure it's better in ALL things than the predecessors. So in this remake we've already knew that Spidey is a delinquent that enjoys spouting funny and catchy lines to the bad guys, and in this movie he also liked being in the spotlight and thrilled at every negative stigma of vigilantes labeled at him, Spidey made fun of the world while saving it, and that's cool, this movie is extremely optimistic and melancholic at the same time, Peter and Gwen has their share of optimistic love story, they're young, they're in love, and yes they can do anything....

Meanwhile: Max Dillon got into accident partially caused by the ignorance of his colleagues, while previously he has his issues with his obsession of Spiderman (after he got saved by Peter) when he finally returned as Electro he carried this unhealthy dose of his complex, so if you're bullied by almost everyone you met for God knows how long, what will you first do when you finally obtained a nearly unlimited power? revenge? unfortunately it's just a small prize, he's aiming beyond revenge, he developed a new obsession, obsession for his own power, and for that Spiderman must die since he's the only thing stand between him and his ultimate goal.

Spiderman and Electro are antithesis, it's the other theme of this movie, Spidey reject the statement of "the strong wins" while Electro accepted that, Spidey's aim is to protect while Electro is to rule, it's just like when the goblin said to Raimi's spiderman on the first movie: "they will hate you no matter what you do" Electro is that Spiderman if he accepted the offer to rule, and we can't really blamed him since Max was a broken man for far too long as the result of those who are strong, one more thing: the description of him in this movie never made the audience sympathizes with him, it's a perfect balance to split Max and Electro, when Electro lives Max is no more, while on the other hand just like the first movie we can't really split Spidey with Peter, with or without mask.

I know there are two other villain in this movie, The Goblin/Harry Osborn (Dan DeHaan) and Rhino (Paul Giamatti) but their appearance here is only a prelude for what is coming on the next sequel, and to be honest I'm afraid that it won't deliver, Amazing Spiderman 2 is a decent sequel and deliver a progress of both on Peter and Spiderman's life, it prepared him to face the next level with these baddies (and others) but I really don't think next level can be described in two hours length of movie because it can only focus so much on some character, Avangers did it with six heroes but each of them has their own prequel movie, what about six villain? I know there wll be spin off about them, but it will come after Amazing Spiderman 3, so what will spidey do on the third? Another Venom thing? I really hope it won't become another Venom-Carnage comic relief like in the cartoon series where only one of them is the villain and the other is just stand there to deliver Strascream's-minion-like cheesy monologue.

For this sequel, despite the review I'm gonna give it an eight since it's optimistic and light-hearted

Reviewing Berandal: The Raid 2

Minor Spoiler about the Ending of The Raid 1 below, you can view my past review here

I tried to make this a The Raid 1 spoiler-free review but unfortunately I can't since the story is a continuation, so anyway Gareth Evans is back with a sequel of the highly acclaimed The Raid, it's called Berandal: The Raid 2, here's the story so far: on the last movie we saw Rama (Iko Uwais) left the villain-infested apartment with his found-corrupt-superior, long story short he's been reassigned to capture the bigger fish of the crime network, this time it was a shady businessman Bangun (Tio Pakusadewo) and a passive aggressive mild-mannered bohemian called Bejo (Alex Abbad), to get through them Rama's gone incognito to get close to Bangun's son: Uco (Arifin Putra) which his bratty tantrum landed in jail, and after that things gone haywire, fight breaks, bodies dropped and blood flows

Unfortunately it wasn't enough for me, because...

They Put A Story on an Action Flix

In the Raid 1 there's almost zero long dialogue, the longest dialogue is probably Tama's explaining how the network works at the end of the movie, however in the Raid 2 there is a story, there's characters, there's long dialogues, and they're so... awful, the dialogues seemed sporadic and disconnected one after another and there's a LOT of unnecessary story scenes and talks which makes my adrenaline have a significant down time, I seriously don't give a crap about all that conspiracy stories, it's a FIGHTING MOVIE, I want to see people brutally mutilate one another again and if I want a drama I'll watch Xenosaga (the FMV version) , you know what makes the Raid 1 so good? it because the story doesn't need a long dialogue, instead they replaced it with....

Not you Al, you're dead in #1

Oh S*it moment 

I called this necessary, in the Raid 1 the first Oh S*it moment is when they encounter a kid in the one of apartment's hallway, this kid is a 'screamer', a living alarm that will alert everyone that there's cops abound, so he ran to tell them, and the cops go after him, what will they do? will they shoot the kid? will they captured him? will there will be another conclusion? even his status as an underage child makes every decision feels wrong, there's only bad and worse end here, what will they do? what will they do? Oh S*it. It's the first scene that get me into The Raid, the do or die, the wrong and horribly wrong case that can blows up everything in their face, also who will forgot those Easterners scene?

DAMMIT AL!!

In the Raid 2 there's nothing, no suspense, we already know Rama (or his incognito persona: Yudha) will gone through every scene until he find those bastards, you see... Iko Uwais mostly going solo in this sequel, so there's no scene risking his friend/companion/random passing people that he wants to protect, maybe that's why...

There's almost no creativity in the fight

A lot of people will kill me for saying this but the first fight scene made me questioning: Is this The Raid? it's so... plain... the second one is a mass fight, something new and it's good, but wait... where's the finishers? the movie's first half fighting scene made me yawn because almost all of it is unfinished and too many OFF SCREEN FINISHING!! fortunately the second half is better, there's at least five distinct fighters in this movie. First is Rama which has fast punch and kicks, Prakoso (Yayan Ruhyan) which has powerful hand to hand attacks, Hammer Girl (Julie Estelle) and Baseball Bat Man (Very Tri Yulisman) a couple who use their respected tools in fights, and the last is The Assassin (Cecep Arif Rahman) which has similar style with Rama but also using carok (spiked knuckles).

The fighters deliver better that the fight on the first half seems to be just a filler or appetizer for the movie's second half, it's stylish, it's new, but it's NOT satisfying, when every single Raid 1 fight scene has their own unpredictable finisher (which trigger audience's applause at the end of almost every scene) The Raid 2 seems to forgot all about it, the fights on Raid 2 are fatally choreographed and bloodied to the teeth but none (except one) deliver an unpredictable finishing blow, every fights are powerful and efficient but unfortunately not intense enough, I want the finishers to be more unpredictable than the Raid 1, more fatal, bloodier and destructive enough that we'll sure the dead stay dead, I guess it was my really high expectation talking

Endgame

There's one single moment which express my disappointment and disapproval of the movie, but since it will be a spoiler I can't talk about it.  Until this time I can't still pinpoint the good about The Raid 2 because it seems scattered everywhere in the movie, I like some of the drama scene, the camera works are awesome, I like most of the fighting scene, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE FINAL BATTLE SCENE!! But despite everything I rant about above -- I will recommend it to everyone, it's a good movie, but it was nowhere near my expectation, whether I should lower it a bit or this movie needs a Director's Cut edition for people like me =))

EXTREMELY HARDCORE, HIDEOUSLY FUN, SUPER AWESOME ROLLER COASTER WILDSTAR PREVIEW!!!!

Take a look at this Youtube video:

This is a trailer for Wildstar, it came in 2011, this is a side dish for NC's big launch of Guild Wars 2, Wildstar is not overlooked at that time but they haven't give any promises yet, just a funny trailer.

Three years later, it blow the f*&^% out my mind, with this

and this

also this:

s***, right?

Never before i saw so much snarky and snazzy trailers on MMOs, so how about gameplay? trailers will go so far as to make you play them, but in-game gameplay is everything right? well fortunately I secured three chances to play in beta weekends, so let me just summarized everything:

The Beta Client Fiasco

Before I used my mind/guns/swords/claws/weaponized defibrillator to destroy everything in my path, first I'll have use my wits, guts, patience, and little chit chat to install the client right? And it turns to the first post I wrote at wildstar forum is that I can't install the client, Wildstar has the WORST beta client ever in my history with MMOs and betas, I tried everything suggested on dev's posts and everything else the player said, NOTHING WORKS WHATSOEVER, that my best efforts is to tried the -retries command which makes my client continuously tried to search for internet connection for downloading the client, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, it's a roulette anyway, still beta, whatever, I hate your client, Carbine.

Yes!!

 After the dust from my rage settles down, the client is finished downloading and I'm ready to play, and... it runs smoothly, surprise, well okay, time to select a class... since I had totally zero knowledge on Wildstar Class (yes i've seen trailers and gameplays but that's not the same) I consulted a friend and ultimately selecting a medic, it looks awesome anyway with those Resonator, Mordesh is my first choice, who didn't like space zombies anyway?

Ah yeah, here's the story: Nexus is a recently found lost planet, it house the ancient civilization of Eldan, the most advanced beings on the universe and it will be a battleground for two faction: The Dominion is an alliance of interstellar creature which claimed Nexus as their birthright since their ancestors handpicked by the Eldan themeselves (before they disappear, why the hell is a ridiculuously advanced life-shaping ancient civilization have to disappear anyway?) to govern the universe. On the other side we have The Exiles: A band of labeled enemies of the Dominion (apparently you can't rule the universe without making a few enemies) so up their go in their respective spaceships, blow away each other in the planet's atmosphere and crash landing their refugees a.k.a us

The Fights and Paths

Did you just tired of auto attacks? well, Wildstar doesn't have that, for most parts Wildstar plays like Guild Wars 2 and some part: The Secret World, you've only got one type of weapon and your action bar has limited slot, it's up to you to mix and match your combo from your learned skills, Wildstar doesn't have global cooldowns and unless you've got CCed you're free to throw everything at the mobs, oh yeah and ALL your skills are AOE, you won't find auto target here, if a mob rolls out of your AOE field (a.k.a telegraphs, funny, some GW2 people are starting to use this word too) before you shoot them then you'll miss, and he/she/it can counter with devastating attacks, and they're smart, see that red area? get the f*** of it immediately!!! You can roll, dodge, blink, or sprint yourself out of it, and watch that you didn't run into another red, think there's only one type of telegraph? think again, think AGAIN!! GET OUT!! GET OUT!!! Combat in Wildstar is so fresh, dynamic and satisfying I have a hard time holding myself back to not engage some big a** elite mob alone

Mob also came in packs and after level 10 the fights can be exhausting, I got to tried engineer and esper too and IMO Espers is so so underpowered on solo PVE, it came close on playing warlocks on WOW cata age that I have to push probably every button available just to survive, I died a hundred times too and since Wildstar is unusual in every way the game TAUNTS me everytime I died with some snarky comments like "Somebody just doesn't know when to stay dead" or something like that, it can be frustrating sometimes, but I understand the path of the game will go the distance to, anyway everyone can ress you, just like Guild Wars 2, just hope that they will put some dead icon on the map since it's so hard to distinguish dead people from dead mobs

Speaking of paths you will be selecting your character Path on the creation screen, there are four: The Settler, Scientist, Explorer, and Soldier. What is path? well since I only tried scientist, soldier and settler I can tell you this: Path is the best thing that happens in MMO today, and I'm not exaggerating, Path enriches your experience (literally and figuratively) in the gaming world, with a soldier path you can start a holdout in some place, holdout means there will be swarms of big mother(&*^^*% trying to eat you alive, all you have to do is kill them all, sometimes the holdout contains NPC that must be defended and/or they contain experimental weapons with neat killing effects that you got to try, free EXp, free loot, free killing spree!!! OK, enough, let's talk about the scientist, they have numerous probe that can scan things to provide effects, buffs, lore, exp, and loots, remember the soldier? ok, there are some scan site near the holdout points, when a soldier started a holdout the scientist can scan the thing and it can provide buff to the holdout, exp, hp regen, might, damage, everything, and everyone can participate on the holdout, again, exp, reputation, lore, loot, and path EXP

The Settler can build everything all over the place, most of them are buff stations on some town and hubs for exp and reputation, hey, remember the scientist and the soldier? well okay, let's imagine a settler, a scientist, and a soldier stumbled upon a big holdout points, which means bigger monsters, there are build site all around it and a scan site, the soldier started the holdout, scientist provide buffs, and the setllers will build a nasty laser cannon to provide support, after that it's FUN TIME, settlers also can repair some ancient Eldan structures littered all over Nexus which the scientist and explorer can activate to provide loots, ancient mining droid is one of them they provide resources for settlers and path EXP for scientists. What is path EXPs? it's a separated exp that leveled up your path, at some point it provide you with special skills, Settler for example: can build a bonfire that will provide HP regen buff for everyone who used it and since battle in Wildstar is exhausted it's nice to relax and gained some buff from it

The Lore and Conclusion

I mostly love Wildstar for their free-spirited attitude and funny (although some of it are dark humour) moments, the Dominion are ruthless psychopats and the Exiles are backstabbing bastards, but some of Exiles early campaigns hit my soft side since it was so bittersweet and makes me want to kill every Dominion in front of me, including a big mecha that vomits laser on me, Dominion campaigns have an interesting side (in a very sychopantic POV) where you escort a noble-celebrities for her quest of glory on nexus, including massacred a whole village of natives. The whole idea of Nexus settlement project is pictured so perfect all over the place and if you made a settler you'll get the gist of it as if you really helped the settlement project

I probably will preorder Wildstar if it's not because of a fatal flaw on my country's internet connection, Wildstar is so dynamic where in a battle you must dodge and sprint that a slight lag will kill you and hinder your role, I'm sure Carbine can fix bad FPS spike, client issues, nametag bugs, disappearing NPCs, and bugged events but when it's on your side (unlike FF ability lag which is a server side issue) I have nothing to say, it's a grat game, it's fun, it's guild wars 2 where you don't lose senses of role since tanking, healing, and DPSing like mad still exists, it could be greater than Guild Wars 2 if not many people getting put off by Wildstar cartoony-superdeformed design,I'll probably  will played some Open Beta to see whether this issue continues to be a hindrance or not