Being Saleh: He Who Spiritwalk behind The Maw (Shadowlands Early review)

I see dead people... everywhere, because I broke my promise and return to WOW

As the living and undead denizen pondering how many times they will be dying again in order to stop the Jailer from whatever deadly crusade he's planning in, I once again realize that undead death knights in WOW probably the most confused since they have two headstart death among them heroes.

Welcome to Shadowlands, Wow's artsy afterlife

The Story (and visual)

After acquiring heart of Azeroth and infusing millions of azerite shard in there just to down the last of the Old Gods plaguing azeroth we are forced to stow it away in our banks, because Sylvanas gone head to head with Bolvar a.k.a the Lich King, broke his helmet, shattered the veil between the world of the living and the afterlife, and unleash undead plague v 2.0 in Azeroth (fun pre patch, I killed much more people in this event compared to battlegrounds) and now we again venture into the unknown, saving souls, and killing zombie dogs

 

At least we can use that overgrown amulet for this

 

The first trip brought us to the Maw, a hellish landscape filled with killable iron skeleton knights, apparently all dead people soul are now sucked to this debuffing plane, after escaping it (by mysterious means) and dubbed the name Maw Walker we arrived in Oribos and learned that deadites soul should be divided into other four planes (Bastion, Maldraxxus, Ardenweald, and Rivendreth) apparently this engine of the dead is somewhat broken and so we ventured to the remaining planes to learn of the cause and to fix it.

The visual of the planes are somewhat awesome, the bluish elysian design of Bastion, sickly greenish skeletal wasteland  of Maldraxxus, eternal purple night of Ardenweald, and the sanguinic bloody red hue of Rivendreth are the proof that the art team of WOW is finally found their mojo again since Mists of Pandaria, the visual upgrade (I played in ultra) is the most refreshing, and now there are more cutscenes than ever, as WOW tried to dub FFXIV's 'visual storylines'. They made the initial scenario a lenghty ones, designed to introduce you to Maw, Oribos, and the four planes plus the way of life in each zone. As you venture to the planes you're introduced to denizens and their leaders, sometimes you get a little cutscenes, some plot twist, some action sequence, and some big happening. But most often you're just treated to voiced dialogue of NPCs forming a 'skippable sequence' where you can sit around and listening to them or just move on to the next exclamation mark, and oh yeah it's LONG!!

Sing it!!!

The lengthy storyline's probably a shock to most of WOW players who expected some sequential kill ten rats quest in the area then move on, but most of the campaign storyline required you to sit and listen to NPCs, watch cutscenes, fetch little things, play some mini games, or participate in a series of action culminated on fighting a single or group of enemies, the kill ten rats quests are now relegated to the 'side quests' designed to add some xp to your belt and/or give you some equipment upgrades, but it's not like the main storyline free from these quests, I was rather perplexed that Maldraxxus storyline quests including these thing although Maldraxxus is where the big lore things are dumped to you (oh sorry, minor spoiler)

 

At the end of the campaign (well, to be continued more like) you are forced eligible to join a covenant, the Kyrian of Bastion, Necrolord of Maldraxxus, Night Faes of Ardenweald, and Venthyr of Rivendreth, each gave you uniques set of armor, class abilities, global abilities, and soulbinds which is an unique way to make your usual class abilities become more useful, visually appealed or just plain weird/complex (I don't see why do I want to teleport to a group of enemies as a warlock just to fear them, although there are several soulbind options that I haven't tried before), there are three NPC you can soulbind with although in the time I was writing this there's only two available and just two or three path unlocked (each NPCs have several) so yeah maybe some day I can meet my one true useful soulmate bind

Be my soulbind, coming valentine 2021

 

Because of the lengthy-ness of the storyline campaign Blizzard made a second alt-friendly leveling system called Threads of Fate where you can just jump into the action (after you completed the Maw scenario) and complete world and side quests to level up, it's fairly straightforward and gave you more freedom, is it faster? Depends, I complete the storyline campaign (up to choosing a covenant) in seven days on my Demon hunter, just 4 days on my warlock's threads of fate but it was me being lazy and just played for like one hour a day? Falling asleep while campaigning are just one of the factor, but it's not because the story of Shadowlands is boring, It's just a tiring month, well honestly it's been like that every month since Covid-19.

The System (bah, too long)

So there are several new currency right now, let me shout it out for you, ANIMA!!! PHANTASMA!!! STYGIA!!! SOUL ASH!!! SINSTONE!! GRATEFUL OFFERING!!! SOULS!! GRATEFUL OFFERINGS!!! did I just said it twice? well it's because i love GRATEFUL OFFERINGS!!!

Give me  an offering of 245.754.888 flies and I'll let you ride me

 

 - Sanctum

Okay, here's the thing, after you pick a covenant you'll start building your Sanctum by collecting Anima, it's used to make your journey more wonderful in your selected planes, also gold rewards, and mounts and stuffs like armor set, and the continuity of the story campaign, later on you can collect GRATEFUL OFFERINGS!!! which can be used to purchase shinier stuffs, there's also mission table here and you're familiar with what mission table does, it have some variation but the basic is the same: Send troops, collect loots. But as anima is used for ALL of these activities you'll want to manage it carefully or you might ran out your primary resources (world quests). You'll also gain renown from weekly quests, renown is used to advance storyline and to open more upgrade options. and soulbinds, don't forget soulbinds.

 

-The Maw/Ve'nari

You'll met Ve'nari, a mysterious cartel member currently residing in the maw, they got some pretty stuff and you'll get rep for them by killing some Maw's rare spawn and daily quests, the maw's currency called Stygia are dropped from everything in the maw and Venari will trade their shiny stuff (and secrets) for it

The maw itself is hell, as you continue to slay it's denizen the jailer's eye will be fixed upon you, at tier 1 he'll just sent his eye to come after you to apply a debuff, at tier 5 however he'll send bullet-sponge assassins, his tower will bombard you with high-damaging projectiles which also chained you for some damage over time effects, and then the maw itself will apply dots to you until you die, and when you die you drop off some your hard-earned stygia, feel free to respawn and collect it a la dark soul style if you have the chance to, oh also ve'nari will stop giving reps to you at jailer's eye tier 5, so when you're masochist enough to get into that tier there'll be no more things to do at the maw except dancing in front of Ve'nari, just get out and come back in 24 hrs and it'll all reset

 

Pictured: The Maw

-Torghast

Ahh... Torghast, the new source of dividing community, some hate it, some love it, others like me is just like 'eh there's no timer? Let's run it' and then come out an hour later after get two shotted by the last boss and get kicked out without receiving any rewards, after that I'll proceed to continue Trails of Cold Steel 2 in easiest difficulty just to blow off some steam

Torghast is the all-new, ever-changing roguelike solo/group dungeon in WOW, it's a tower with six wings, every weeks two wings are open, each wings have 9 layers/difficulties and every layers have six floor with a final boss in the sixth floor, as you traverse the tower you'll find powerups called anima power which sometimes gave you significant stat and ability boost (but only for that particular layer journey), soul to save, followers to collect, and phantasma to collect, you can spend them in brokers at floor 3 and 6 since nothing in the tower will be brought outside (except new followers), feel free to bring friends if you can handle the mob scaling

So what's the purpose to run Torghast anyway, well... legendaries of course, when you clear each layer you'll get Soul Ash for crafting your legendaries and also for adding stats to it, but only and only if you defeat the sixth floor boss on each layer which sometimes overtuned and have annoying difficulties, like healing, and healing  and healing themselves goddamit!! But on the brighter side if you think you're already strong enough to challenge previous layer don't worry the weekly soul ash reward will be brought to the next layer, so if you think you're strong enough to defeat layer 6 of each wings the weekly soul ash rewards from layer 1-5 will be brought to you when you finished layer 6, so yeah, there's still weekly caps, Bolvar also gave 200 ash per week just to clear a layer.

I'm also grateful that storyline campaign happened in their own Torghast instance because if Thrall is locked behind layer 6 Torghast with elites that have 10x HP and deal 35x damage with an affix that creates a  damaging puddle on mob's corpse (and revive them) I'll uninstall WOW (again)

 

More time for Giant Robots!!!

 

The World Quests and Misc

The newly revamped world quests are no more like 7 seconds kill mobs and done, instead you'll get some slow and steady  kill ten rats and collect their teeth quests with some follow up requests (kill big rat) and also they mostly reward anima in droplet quantities, which is really in-lore accurate, but still a grindfest. Treasure hunt is fun, some chests appeared on map on weekly basis, some required puzzle solving so get ready to read Wowhead a lot

Early Verdict

The story is an interesting one, the title of Maw Walker is similar to Warrior of Light/Darkness from FFXIV, in earliest moment it was showed that our past old-gods-vanquishing-world-eater-legion slaying effort was nothing compared to this new threat, we're so powerless in the Maw that even to escape it we're sort of winging it, the spotlight of this story is the player, how do we escaped the maw? Why the unnatural interest to us, not just from the jailer but also from another party? The story so far put the mystery on us the player, branded us, giving it a strong early standing because I really don't want to hear everyone cried SYLVANAS again. Yes, put spotlight on us, not those NPCs

The time gating and the amount of currencies of this expansion is also interesting, for the first time after mists I don't feel like WOW is one big experiments, (yes, Legion however great it was, it's still an experiment) the time gate is intentional, it's designed to keep player engaged in limited activity to collect resources and getting stronger, and it's also to keep player subbing because each week something new opens up and we can continue there. When you keep subbing you can feel your journey continues in a way that you progressing in storyline, sanctum, torghast, dungeon, world boss, even if it feels miniscule, but when you stop subbing and came back like 10 months later you will be attacked by a bunch of lore dump and currency catch up that your progress won't be as cohesive anymore.

Here's an example, my daily life on week 1 in shadowlands on Necrolord covenant

Week 1

1. Run sanctum daily callings/world quests, this will fill up some of my anima and chest weekly quests 

2. Run daily Theater of Pain for some anima

3. Run daily random dungeon, it probably a weekly cartel reps dungeon or some satchels, also might be a weapon/equipment upgrades

4. Run Maw dailies, killing rares until tier 5 jailer eyes, if I got lucky I might get a rep boost item

5. Run torghast for the week

6. Any leftover weeklies can be grinded in day 6 or 7

Week 2

1. New renown weeklies means new story progress

2. Rinse and repeat

Sounds Repetitive? Well I can do all that in two hours, three counting Torghast, so it's enough for me (more TOCS 2 YAY!!!). Blizzard will continue to remove gating in new patches, adding new ilvl weapon on WQ and dungeons, making the Maw more accessible, they'll probably remove some of renown gating for some campaign quests plus adding some side quests to your sanctum which formerly tied to a locked upgrades, uneven lore bomb like this can be confusing up to the level where I once thinks: wait, it's that the priest legion dagger? How it ended up on Nathanos? That's what you got after 12 months of hiatus, with such a strong story headstart to whet the appetite Blizz bets itself with content time gating, will they succeeded? Well time will tell, gating is a tricky matter, too long waiting and sub will drop because of boredom, too short and too little new things subs will also dropped due to 'not enough content'

I personally enjoyed Shadowlands to this moment, my casual a.k.a lazy playstyle was just right for this expansion, the beautiful art style, the voice over, the storyline progress, but one question still linger: up to this second I'm convinced Blizz won't answer all the mysteries building up with a casual three sentence, but will the story hold up until the end? Will everything will be wrapped up nicely? Is Torghast carry really necessary? As I said before only time will tell but one thing is sure: I never once glanced to my EXP bar when I first journeyed through Shadowlands, and I would like that feelings repeated on the future expansions.

 

Oh dear god, not again!!!

Dual Wield: 'Corrupted'

Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft worlds and lore can sometimes be interesting enough for me to dissect (since both are easy enough to read and play) Light vs Darkness is no stranger in every story albeit with some variety of degree, good vs evil (not so good), not so good vs evil, good, not so good, neutral, ambiguous, and evil locked in combat of wits and fists/ swords and/or a giant rocket launcher disguised as a suitcase (what?) But in the end it's still light and darkness and their interaction is not always at each other throats.

WARNING: MAJOR/MINOR SPOILER FOR FFXIV AND WARCRAFT LORE

Final Fantasy XIV

The player character in FFXIV is called the Warrior of Light which in the first phase of the game are combating the Darkness representatives: the body-snatching Ascian, however in the second phase of the story it was revealed that the game world itself is split into multiple (13?) parallel world with it's own affinity for Light and Darkness, the last world is revealed to have been swallowed by Darkness and becomes Void, birthing only summonable monsters called Voidsent. The first world however is also in the verge of swallowed up by Light due to their version of Warriors of Light grown so strong that no evil can defeat them, these Warrior of Light becomes so miserable that they seek to bring back darkness into their world by cooperating with the Ascian and becoming the warrior of darkness in the player's world, from here the plot becomes so convoluted that I can't really understand anything and give myself up to the internet's wiki. This whole Light/Darkness balance seemed to be poorly conceived by the writers that it was never revealed in the future chapters, small exclusions in some short storylines though. After that the FFXIV story is returned to the lighter evil empire vs noble rebel stuff.

World of Warcraft

While FFXIV decided to adapt more grounded basic storylines of good vs evil after Warriors of Darkness event, WOW seemed to do the opposite, after establishing the light as the pinnacle of 'good' power in Wrath of The Lich King expansion, they decided to tone down the light vs dark tone by choosing the more neutral villain in the Cataclysm, they upped the conflict of dark vs light in Pandaria where player must battle the embodiment of negative emotion, and tone it down again in Warlord of Draenor expansion where players travelled to the parallel world to once again combat the invasive Draenor version 2' orcs.
After that WOW released the picture book Chronicle vol 1 as setup for their newest expansion with some new/retconned storyline: The Burning Legion a.k.a Greatest threat of the WOW universe apparently was created by their leader: The Fallen Titan Sargeras as a countermeasure for battle with another bigger threat: The ever-hungry-devourer-of-all void gods with Azeroth's old gods as one of their regiment, Sargeras think that only fel magics and enough chaos to fuel it can be enough to counter them, while the Naaru as the embodiment of Light and order also tried to counter both The Burning Legion and The Void, in this storyline both The Light and The Fel used extreme measure to convert sentient beings to become their warriors, including instill zealotry and forced obedience on their army, WOW seemed wanting to place these two powers in the same danger zone by especially placing the order of light as bad as the chaotic fel, culminating in the destruction of the Naaru leader as it tried to convert the hardcore demon hunter and fel magic user Illidan Stormrage into the light while he believe that fire must be fight with fire (fel with fel) in the end by combining powers of every kind Sargeras is beaten and sealed.
Apparently WOW is not finished yet with this new light thing, after it was used to resurrect the freshly dead Talia Menethil (Arthas Menethil's sister) making her the first 'light-undead' in WOW (and open up possibilities for undead paladins), in the new Mag'har Orc storyline which required player to travel once again to parallel world Draenor to recruit Mag'har Orcs (uncorrupted version of orcs) it was revealed that after Sargeras is sealed and his army diminished and scattered in the (space) wind, the Draenor version 2' Draenei as the innate follower of light begin to enforce their way of light to the more shamanic neutral orcs (another excuse for orc paladins) sparking new war, in short: Draenei become the light nazi.

while the storyline is cut short it was clear that WOW tried to establish that every power can be corrupt: including the initial good powers like Nature and Light, or Neutral as in Arcane and the Elements. They also want to establish that the all devouring powerhouse of chaos like the Fel and Void can be wield by beings to fight the more... evil... dark, version of them.. darker... darkest, darkesest (yeah I know it's confusing, my head is already gone, it exploded two paragraph earlier)

So yeah I'm gonna stop here and wait until I can make an evil undead paladin, hey I already have a paradoxal undead monk, chi is not fussy about manifesting in a rotting, jawless body apparently

Being Saleh: Longer and Harder

Oh, hi!!

So it's been a long time since my last post, being a dad is one of the cause but I'm kinda jumping between games this past year, most of them are JRPGs, several FFXIV, WOW, and ESO sessions and on some month: not playing anything at all.

But enough all that, today I want to talk about WOW, you know, yes it's still exists :D

As Legion expansion entered it's final chapter as of the release of patch 7.3.5, and the end of the third invasion of the burning crusade: I finally leveled up my paladin, my sixth level 110 toon

The most controversiaI thing in this patch and subject to most debate on online forums is probably the world zone scaling, it basically a guild wars 2 type of character syncing only this time it's the world that leveled up with you instead of you leveled down to match the zone's recommended level. Blizz initially did this for the Legion expansion area but now it's live for all WOW area: So what's this thing did for the players?

Basically it gives freedom for new characters to choose where they want to go to level up, the wow vanilla zone (Eastern Kingdom and Kalimdor) is designed for player level 1-60, the Outland and Northrend is now a level 60-80 zones, Cataclysm and Pandaland is 80-90 zones, while the dreaded Draenor is still a level 90-100 zone. The scaling also means the level 1-100 dungeons are now also scaled to player's level, making them more challenging a.k.a as my lazy self said (without any body part references): longer and harder, making players leveling is now a return to the classic way: questing.

As I read the patch notes I realized this is the thing that I can get behind to, but I still wonder... so I decided to tackle them out, I started a mage, the class that I avoid like a plague, decked him with full heirloom gears, I rolled a goblin which can't leave their initial area until the storyline is completed (btw this is my third goblin) my goal is of course: max level -- with this much handicap

I (finally and blisfully) left lost isle when my mage reached level 20, then I browsed the war board on ogrimmar, the usual route for goblins on this level is aszhara but since I have the quest achievement I decided to go to stonetalon instead, skipping ashenvale (which I completed on my warlock many many years ago). From Stonetalon i continued to Desolace, completed them both, then I hightailed to Feralas, Felwood, and a bit of Winterspring, after I dinged 60 with some help from dungeon quests (they gave decent exp but the dungeon itself is not) I decided to quit... at least for now

So what did I get to level the worst class (for me at least) on the worst looking race from 1 to 60? The leveling process itself is a mixed bag, but remember that those area is from cataclysm era so the story felt a little outdated, I mean I still love them and find the forgotten little bit of the story, like uniting the centaur on desolace is great, but still... it's somewhat off... I can't really put my finger on what's wrong, it just feel... odd, could be because I'm playing a mage though.

But nevertheless i dinged 60 so let's mix things a bit, I have a level 60 pally from... I can't remember actually, on this level I can choose outland or northrend content, and because outland kinda sucks i decided to go to northrend, so Howling Fjord is next and the next thing happened I blew my way to level 75 completing it and lo!! it feels great, but then I made a mistake by choosing Icecrown as my next leveling field, it was exhausting since the quests required you to fly back and forth across those walls, although it feels epic but it was tiring, i dinged 80 without completing it and decided to go to Pandaria instead of Cata zones.

I have all the loremaster title for the xpacs started from cataclysm, so I'm completely familiar with them, my 80 to 90 is spent most in Jade Forest and some Valley of Four Winds, my 90 to 100 is spent on the dreaded Frostfire Ridge and a little bit of Gorgrond, garrison helped out a bit. From this experience I saw that 80 to 100 is faster than my other leveling process, and it's not too bad after all, all the nostalgia is strong within this process.

I also decided that my not-to-feel-good leveling process from 1-60 is because I'm not good with ranged casters :D

So what's the overall conclusion from all this all-new-butsomewhatold leveling process thingie? I honestly don't have one, but I'd like to try again on my all new fresh void elf/zandalari troll toon when Battle for Azeroth rolls in, that might be a proof that this patch is good enough for me.

And yes I dinged max level on my pally, I already told you on the first lines of this post :P

Being Saleh: Alt Invaders

As my friends are knee-deep in mythic progression and my online time become less and less dedicated. I found myself veered once more into my altholicism, at first I max leveled my troll warlock, as I realized many people specced destruction I quickly swapped my artifact to affliction but then blizz changed how unstable affliction works, which doesn't bode well to long time warlocks, but as I only played affliction like two days I can adapt to that, got into heroics in several days then I moved on.

And have a sweet scythe as a souvenir

For me Mists of Pandaria will always be the most memorable expansion ever (proved by my Wakener title) and monk still become my greatest failure of class (due to their drastic rehaul on Warlords of Draenor) but I have a sudden urge to tried out the class once more, and so armed with my renewed determination (but still zero skill-playing, and zero f*** about me as an abysmally bad tank) my Mistweaver becomes a Brewmaster

The keg comes for free

Cruising through Draenor (and Garrison) once again for leveling 90 through 100 is  not a welcomed throwback thursday (or in my case: monday) but somehow I did it in mere 10 hour-ish, by spamming dungeons, questing, mining, and (beyond my belief): pet battling.

Brewmastering in legion is radically different from other tanks, while warriors and paladins rely on damage mitigation, druids on dodging and reflecting damages, Death Knights and Demon Hunters on repleneshing lost HP, Monks are all about managing the stagger stack and a little bit of everything else, every damage dealt on the Brewmaster was mitigated by 40% but with a catch that the mitigated damage will be dealt slowly over time, more damage received means more will be transferred to the stagger stack, there are several skill built on the brewmaster to manage this stack, from delaying the damage for some seconds, or even cut it up to 50% of the damage still on the stagger stack, all these skills are brew-based making a brewmaster the real drunken fist class, Monk also deploying dodge as their mastery increasing their haste for the cooldown of those brew-based skills, or (depending on your talent) relying on their mastery gift ot the ox to a chance of self heal. In my case I choose to rely on brew skills, relying on the ox brew talent to instantly refilling any brew and my energy, which means my HP is goes slowly and steadily down when I'm tanking a dungeon, making some healer probably struggling to keep my HP full, you can't do that I'm sorry, I'm not speccing that talent :D

In like a week my brewmaster already entered the heroic dungeons, while learning my class I found the fact above and somewhat giggling, most people made monk to become a windwalker which is one of the highest damaging melee dps class at this moment, playing a windwalker somewhat reminding me of rogues (without daggers) and it's also one of the fun melee dps class (with their shoryukens and hadokens if you specced those), mistweaving is also fun but requiring more concentration than before (MOP xpac) as I lost most of my hugging AOE healing (healing spinning crane kick is no longer available), also my new area healing requires me to consume more MP with random targets but at least they also apply heal over time

Legion expansion still draws me in but as I one class away from my quintessential quintet achievement I decided to take a short break and return to (again to my surprise) Guild Wars 2, why? Because of my friends (again). So I'm looking forward to bash them (and the game) in my next blog post :P

Also: I'm in hell, plants hell

Being Saleh: Proceeding into Legion, You are (not) prepared

So at the end of patch 7.0, what have I found out about legion?

"Gating" Content
Apparently this was a big deal, as I mention before in order to unlock world quests you need to be friendly with all five major faction in Broken Isle, but it's just rep grind by questing, every faction story quest can give you up until at least honored, but since world quest is considered major content Blizz changed it so you will just have to go to Dad Khadgar and talk to unlock it.

Suramar world quest is still "gated" behind the story campaign, but the (optional) mythic only dungeons (Arcway and Court of Stars) are now account wide, if you have attuned to them in the past it will now accessible to all your characters, the Good Suramaritan achievements needed to unlock the Broken Isle flying (part 1) is still "gated" behind reputation, you'll need a little before exalted to unlock the final quest. 

But rep grind is good, I still like to take things slow and I don't think it was a gated content at all, I guess grinding 9.898.983.245-ish Ketra Orc in Lineage 2 really build your character :P




Social Life
Okay here's the thing, I mostly stayed far away from writing about social interaction in WOW, because my social interaction with random people ranged from "git gud, go kill yourself" to "LOL LOL LOL". I joined a guild in the end of WOLTK, a small one with only five active (extremely casual) members (and a very drunk guy), I never came back after we take a very long Christmas break, after that when I started a warrior I'm basically guildless on my playtime through the three expansion.

Actually not, I did joined a guild at the end of MOP, it's started with a conversation with a friend in a different server about how he might came back and need a raid partner, so I leveled a horde monk as a healer, but he never came back so I decided to join a local (almost casual) guild, stayed for like a month, take another long break (6 months), login, and found out the guild has been moved to another server in order to raid mythic (looks like PVP server had their own disadvantages)

HAHAHAHAHA!!!

In legion I asked my friend to let me join his guild, a decent raiders guild although it has many members, my motivation to join a guild is to expand my WOW social experience, a project that I have been cultivating from the end of MOP (since I want to see how the community has changed since Blizz made everything more accessible and guild an incentive) and  then it goes down with my former guild, but Warlords of Draenor is not exactly a good expansion so.. that's that, and I started from scratch again.

Being a person with erratic online time (and unpredictable logout time) My guild raid experience is consisted only in three Emerald nightmare boss kill, but it was a good run, I also noticed that normal group experience is somewhat a rarity among talks in guild, aside from my friends abandoned the normal runs and being a strict "only above heroic" content-- usually it was mythic (with at least +1 mythic keystone), I was once asked I have a mythic keystone which is somewhat hilarious since I never entered any mythic dungeon (unless you count my experience checking in the arcway entrance, the one with the blobs) but in his experience it's probably me who is  an old creep odd since I never tried out mythic while so many talks in guild revolving on that and the content was out months ago (although mostly looking for tank and healer and I'm neither both) but I guess it was better than say... being called "lol where have you been that you didn't even touched months worth of content" (which is also hilarous since i don't need to be somewhere to "not doing this old content" but I probably playing Candy Crush Soda at those time), also I got kicked from my FFXIV guild by being offline for four months (was playing Tales of Zestiria, good game, don't watch the anime)

I still want my room back....

Anyway, back to running months ago content: PUG-ing always an option though, with those premade group options (and now: quick join) it becomes clear why people burn through content quickly, but to me being in a guild now is a part of my continuous experience in WOW and to complement the LFG and LFR system, so I won't premade with random stranger unless I'm playing an alt. I'm also glad that ele shaman is one of the worst neglected class in WOW which --combined with my lazy-ass playstyle-- contradict everything people expected of me. But I won't expect anything from MMO people, my days of two hours alone in Jin'do the PUGbreaker taught me that people in MMOs are impatient dicks drogbars, and it's fine because hey, after two hours I finally downed that guy (with the 10th-ish PUG group) and live to see another day of one hour queueing plus two hours waiting, that's something worth writing and talked about rather than "oh we downed this boss, move along" -kind-of-social-relationships, if people can be comitted to such things as 15 hours raiding a week (which is IMO an equivalent of a part time job) I can commit to being an arrogant toerag waiting for guild people to fill my "obsolete content" groups

And also gaze at the greatest Hydaelyn crystal impersonator

Ok, let's continue this oddly satisfying rant on the next patch

Being Saleh: Legion!!!

So at the end of Warlords of Draenor, the alternate reality Gul'dan escaped to the main timeline and begin the third (fourth??) invasion of the burning legion demons, and to be honest he started off pretty nicely, summoning every demon WOW player have vanquished during this 15 years, destroying both the Horde and Alliance head squads and seemed to have endless supply of energy and portals to finally summon the big ol' Sargeras himself,

So as I started questing my first demon hunter on the new Broken isles zone something bugged me, why didn't he, you know, just did it? There's literally nothing in his way now as The Alliance and Horde are both retreating

The answer is this:

BREAK YOURSELVES UPON MY.... oh nevermind

That's my troll warlock holding his artifact weapon: Scepter of Sargeras, in this new expansion every class and spec got their one and only weapon, which can be obtained via a story quest, it will level up as you do and as the expansion progress. All 36 spec has their own story, for example: demon hunters sent to retrieve their mighty warblades/warglaives from traitorous ones, while warlock (destruction specifically) was sent to coax Gul'dan and stole the scepter which apparently is the key to summoning more demons, so yeah the reason why Gul'dan didn't do what he's supposed to do is because I stole his boomstick, ruin the summoning rituals and use the scepter to summon multiple chaotic unstable portals which destroy some of his army, I was hoping there's a scene where Sargeras scold him for his failure, it'll be priceless.

Welcome to Legion, the newest expansion of World of Warcraft, and guess what: I'm not lagging behind :D

As I mention on my previous post that I will return to WOW only for friends, they're just recently started playing so i joined them, but this expansion was so refreshing and liberating that my mostly solo experience was so good, in this xpac I decided to retire my Warrior (since I don't like the look of their artifact weapons) and have a hard time choosing between my warlock, create my long time dream shaman, or starting a demon hunter. In the end I did them all mostly because the pre-expansion event -- the demon invasion was a good way to level up, I ended up leveling my shaman to 100 solely with demon invasion, that's 90 level straight in a week, so at the beginning of the expansion I have three level 100.

Stories!!

 
The new legion questing zones are Aszuna, Highmountain, Val'sarah, and Stormheim, they scaled with your level (100-110) so you can choose which zone you want to pursue first, the last zone: Suramar was solely for level 110, the story begins with the pre expansion broken shore scenario where Alliance and Horde fleet tried to prevent Gul'dan from summoning his army, they failed, like really failed, and in that mess people died, important people (not Thrall though: spoiler) even with this Game Of Thrones-que events I was still shocked about how ugly their death is, it's like watching Sean Bean died, twice, or three times and then watch a Fel Reaver teabagging his corpse. After choosing your artifact weapon and obtain it you'll gain access to your order hall based on your class, this is where everyone with the same class as you hang out, Shaman got the maelstorm from Cataclysm as their home base. In this not-garrison place you can research your weapon, powered it up, unlock new traits, and send champions to do some mission which will yield artifact powers, xp, and quest items.

Although saving Go'el feels a bit of a chore now (spoiler: he's retired)

So back to the zones, don't worry about class halls, they can be managed through the new android/ios application so you can run around helping people, logout and manage them in your bed before sleep (like I did), the premise of the Legion story is simple: Find pillars of Azeroth (artifact forged by Titans) to thwart Gul'dan once and for all, but then as you quest throghout the zones you'll realize that it wasn't so simple to the point when you gather some of them you'll realize what you have lost and the legion was still going strong and maybe just maybe this is the expansion where the hero will screwed up because all the bad guys seems like doing their job so goddamn well (even after you stole Sargeras' boomstick). To make matter worse you'll realize that every step you take is only opened up more questions.

Suramar is a home of the nightborne, a faction of night elves recently allied themselves with the Burning Legion, in order to help some of the exiled resistances (called the Nightfallen) you have to infiltrate it, walking in disguises, avoiding demons patrol, killing some of their leaders discreetly and so on, it's assassin's creed style gameplay (combined with the instinct to quickly find a getaway route before the guards overwhelm you) the nightfallen themselves are mana addicted so each day you'll have to gave their mana fix (gathered around Suramar), it's heartbreaking and infuriating at the same time, and as Suramar is connected with all the previous zones there are denizens around it that will need your help too, from a tauren shaman tried to calm the raging elements around Suramar to the lone druid fighting a hundred years war against army of arachnids, their story are also well written to the point I want to do more for them even when the questline is ended.

World, Class, and Profession Quests!!

 
World Quests is the new daily, after got friendly with all the faction on Broken Isles it will open up and will be shown on your map, it's a dynamic event tied to factions, you got into the area you'll get the quest, finish it and you'll get repuatation for one or several factions, they also yield you equipments, order hall resources for missions, and/or artifact powers. Every day you'll get an emissary quest, finish five specific faction world quests and you got additional reward and reputations

Professions are getting better, every material is harvestable on any level, plus you'll get profession quests from your trainer, some item you found during gathering process will nab you another quests. On crafting process you'll get legion recipes from your trainer's quests, the things you can create also upgradable, cutting the materials needed to make it, this way you will never go back to low level area just to gather materials to level up your professions so you can create something or depending on your garrison to level it up but the quests sometimes take you to old zones for a bit of nostalgia (if you're a veteran player)

Umm.. no, he's not in this expansion, get back to your own obsolete content!!!

Endgame and Verdict (for now)

 
There's only one raid right now: The Emerald Nightmare, unfortunately no LFR wings has opened yet, but in two days I have finished all the heroics on my shammy, they're not that hard anyway, I haven't tried mythic dungeons yet since my friends are currently swept away by normal/heroic/mythic raid (and by wives) :P, but I love how encounter was designed, Maw of Souls is my favorite since it's taken place in a ghost ship with some familiar Lich King characters, dungeons also can be tied to world quests and have some rare monsters among the mobs which will yield you additional loots, relics, and artifact powers. I just recently finished my shaman order hall campaign quests (which made me travel to old cataclysm zones, another welcomed nostalgia).

For short it was a blast, a real blast, I never found myself so invested and never look at the XP bar since the age I stopped my xp gained to experience the whole burning crusade quests, and I definitely never found plot twists so good since the day Putress bombed both the Horde and Alliance in WOLTK, Warlords of Draenor was so bad in everything (except garrison) some of them are have to be tied in nicely in Legion, but yeah I guess we can just leave alternate reality Draenor to rot.

Although I love this toy

Foreclosure: Getting Married (and my summarized opinion)

A little flashback.....

My gaming activity in 2015 are mostly divided between lagging behind expansion where I finally played and reviewed newest feature/ expansion of a certain game for one or two months before jumping to another game, and JRPGs, especially the final fantasy franchises and tales of zestiria (my last rpg before I broke my arm in a traffic accident)

oh yeah nevermind the title, this post is all bout my summarized opinion about MMORPGs nowadays :D

2015 was also my best solo experience, I was kinda surprised there how easy it is now, although some solo rewards are becoming more and more aesthetically abysmal (WOW's LFR) or in a whole different case you can solo the whole thing (SWTOR's KOTFE), FFXIV gave me a whole soloing project for my relic weapon while ESO gave me a whole time downloading their (already downloaded but undetectable) client......
 

The big score is I finally got my legendary ring on WOW, yay!! My first legendary item on a MMORPG!!! well that wasn't big deal actually since you can do it in two months or less if you're really lucky and don't mind a little grind, and it's soloable from start to finish, and also since you can have a bodyguard it becomes so much easier. The legendary questline's story is not that deep, interesting at the very least, and yes it's foreshadowing about what will come on the next expansion

But 2016 is also where I didn't see anything new about new MMORPGs, there are few localized selection like Blade and Soul, Black Desert Online, and Tree of Saviour but as far as Korean grinder go, they're still... well.. grindy, but at least they have good graphic, I've already covered Blade and Soul, Black Desert Online have one of the best character looks and customization which enables you to create a more distinct character from anyone else while Tree of Savior is a welcomed comeback to old hardcore Ragnarok players (not me, never played it) :)

The other trend I see is how devs marketed their games which contains RPG elements, have online modes, but never said that it's an MMORPG, check out Destiny, this online shooter games lets you customize your character and weapons so they suit your (shooter) playstyle, and it's an MMO, it has raid, it lets you join people to take down big things by shooting it until it falls, also you will have a role, titan is the tank, warlock is the spellcaster, hunters are dpser, but Destiny never marketed as MMORPG, it was more like called... shooter... with friends

Destiny isn't the first shooter with friends, many years ago Trion released Defiance, a crossover action shooter game and TV shows, it doesn't fare well and the TV show got cancelled (although I liked it) and the game wasn't very good since it lack contents and story, it also have weird level up and character customization

But still the trend continues, enter The Division from Ubisoft where you shoot things (with friends) in chaotic virus-ridden New York, the game was hyped to the max, Dark Souls 3 lets you invite people to get help with bosses and mobs fight, GTA V has online modes where you can play with (or kill) other people in the city of Los Santos, Meh, even hack and slash like diablo already did that. MMORPG was stand for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game and yet nowadays games are so much diverse and combined much genres, none of the game I said above are marketed as MMORPG, and yet you play with number of people and have roles (even if it only "shoot everything"), yes it's probably not massive enough but there's no denial that games becomes more about sharing experience why? Because playing game with other people (including friends) (apparently) is (more) fun =))

Soooo I probably won't cover much about MMORPG or gaming in the future, partially because of my outdated rig, and also: I'm getting married, but mostly it's the rig. I probably will post some of my gaming activities as shared experience, if player 2 is willing and we both have the time :D

So here I am, thanks to all of you who is willing to read my rants to this day, especially my guildmates and online friends, and bye for now

/bow

Being Saleh: Lagging Behind Expansions (Warlords of Draenor)

Yes I know, the latest World of Warcraft expansion announced called Legion, but it just proved this article's title here :D

"The Shadow Council Thank You"
In the Warcraft Universe the Shadow Council are the agents of the main antagonist: The Burning Legion, they exist solely to serve their demonic master, so it is the most unusual words came from them, in the World Of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, Garrosh Hellscream got the timeline messed up, resulting an uncorrupted orc horde to pour through the Dark Portal into Azeroth, they called themselves the Iron Horde and invading Azeroth because... umm... well... yeah... things, so as you crush their first wave, enter the dark portal, fight a throng of them alongside Khadgar, Go'El and a forgettable Draenei Vindicator (Maraad), things got exciting, as you encounter the shadow council and planned your retreat things got more interesting

The Story:
But apparently, things stopped being interesting.
After your first introductory questline, I (as an alliance) found myself in Shadowmoon Valley, Khadgar's opened a brief portal and thus begin my garrison's construction, then I met alternate reality Velen which much more battle hardened than his original self, the draenei has mounted a significant defense but still overruned by the orcs. Shadowmoon Valley's story is great and the closing is awesome, but after that I was bummed, the other zone story is not as strong as the previous, yes you met Rexxar, learned the divided origins of Draenor, used by the arrakoa up until you arrived at the max area level: Nagrand the story seems disjointed and disconnected, along the way you thought where's Grommash? Where's Garrosh? Where're the big guys? where is everything I've encountered in the prologue??!!!

Not to mention the most insulting storyline assigned to Orgrim Doomhammer, I'm not gonna spoil it for you go read or play it, After the scene at Nagrand (if that can be called a scene) I'm ready for the 'final assault' then the story catapulted me to Tanaan Jungle, then I construct a base (as I did in every other zone), then it's dailies time. Okay but I still don't know how Tanaan becomes oozie and suddenly there's someone else in charge. Strangely enough some QUEST yellow exclamation mark begins to pop up every now and then both in my garrison and the Tanaan base.

The whole storyline of Warlords of Draenor (save the Shadowmoon Valley storyline) is chock full of holes with things disconnected from other things, how's Gul'dan there? What is he doing? Where's Grom in all of this scene? How the hell did this happened? Remember the yellow exclamation mark that begins to appear? That's scenarios, the bridge that somewhat connected all this, for example: How is an arrakoa ended up under Gul'dan's command? I think I knew that guy, well after I played several days a quest suddenly appeared, it explain why the guy I used to know ended up a big bad elite boss, the rest? Oh they told it on the Legendary Questline story... They've even NAMED THE ACHIEVEMENTS AS CHAPTER!!!

I was baffled, the whole storyline is a mess, the whole heads and tails are nonsensical, and I still missing things, until I watched the introductory cutscene on youtube, patch 4.1 (Fury of The Hellfire) which explains A LOT, why didn't I got this thing on game? I knew it happened on previous patch, but come on they didn't even put it in the game, In mist of pandaria's last patch when my monk opened the Valley of Eternal Blossom I got an opening, pop up quest, and there's a scenario regarding Garrosh corrupting the Vale so it's not really confusing. On WOD, I was forced to open wowpedia to untangle those overlapped stories

So there it is, Warlords of Draenor stories, a disjointed heap of mess just because you played 8 months late.

The Gameplay:
On the other hand, I liked garrison, I know the whole WOW community divided by it, some love here, hate there, the usual stuff. It's basically a Warcraft RTS base, where you can build reource-generating buildings like lumbermill and Herb Gardens, you can upgrade these things too, like Herb gardens tier 3 provided like 20 plants a day and you can randomize or select what they will plant the next day, it's really convenient for a hoarder like me, albeit a bit lonely.   

So with garrison you can assign followers to do things for you, whether to search for resources, reclaiming rare items, equipment tokens, legendary materials, or even another follower (rare), as my real life workload piles up -- so I could only play WOW on night and early days -- garrison was great, it made me feel like that it fits my time, it doesn't feel like all those timed self-replenishing MMO games (yes I'm looking at you Archeage) because all their generated resource can be obtained through other meaning if I have more time, While in the meantime I can set up garrison missions on mornings and check back on the afternoon, assigning them again, and do some raiding/dungeons at night, so yeah, it's fun, albeit as you amass resource more than you can spend it it'll grow tedious.

Blizz implement WOW token some months ago so you can use ingame gold to pay for 30 days of game time, the value hovers between 25-27 thousand gold nowadays and it gave me an idea, so at the end of my first week of returning I tried to gain enough gold for my game time token, so I did what all lazy people did, selling all those obsolete equipment and some common materials, combined with what I make from my dailies I raked enough at 10 days left on my sub, although I gained three thousands from selling an epic BOE item, but yeah... if I play the auction house and do some crafting as I did at Cataclysm I'll probably have enough gold for some months, Blizz has some really cool mounts on Pandaria so I ended up spending all on them =)).

No new class and new races in WOD but I have one level boost to 90 feature, it will be upgraded to 100 when Legion hits so I'll probably saved it since I have a hard time deciding what class I want to boost, I'm respecced my warrior from Fury to Arms though, just to experience a different playstyle (and because everyone is Fury right now, just like every rogue is Combat).

Ashran!!! Oh Ashran!!! Oh yeah, welcome to WvsWvsW a la World of Warcraft, well actually Ashran is more like Arathi Basin part 2 combined with a little Guild Wars 2 borderland where 25 people frome each faction tried to control more outpost and completing events, but unfortunately I will say that it sucks, yes they provide a nice boost to my honor points, but there's just not enough room and events, in WWW on ONE borderland I can build a little team, caprunning every towers and outposts clockwise, perhaps slay a handful of stragglers, In Ashran I'm just following the zergtrain and go out of the base whenever an event occured, it feel so cramped that I actually screamed because of the repetition, good idea copying WWW, abysmal implementation, and don't play horde after 09.00 PM, they'll always lose.

There are three raids in this expansion, unfortunately I never really liked their armor and weapon design, fortunately I have a dwarven bunker on my garrison which sold awesome Blackrock armor for transmog only, after I complete my horriby designed LFR set I'll transmog everything.

Extras and Final Words:  
Blizz should never make those weekly scenario, whole story shouldn't be divided by randomly appeared quests, yes they're kind of fillers, but still I shouldn't be presented by them randomly, FFXIV has story progress divided by patch but still you have to complete one before you can move on, stories unlock dungeons and trials while the other features unlocked by sidequests, while in WOW: followers, toys, and areas unlocked by random quests which appeared once every week, I kinda confused why Yrel as my dailies NPC suddenly an exarch now? Did I miss something? I finally got that story quest in the third week, yes it's slightly proved that Blizzard don't want player to rush the expansions but still those randoms made me grit my teeth, and since Legendary Ring Quest IS the 'main' quest now I think I can accept that the grind will be a long one but why? Why split them up?

The shiphand mission, a garrison type mission where you assign ship to collect things for you is.... weird, ships are customizable although you need to collect blueprints from rare chests and enemies on the final area: Tanaan Jungle, since you can only select max two ships for each mission, the percentage of successive mission are realtively low, making you gambling on each other components to raise the success percentage, but in the end since components and ships are relatively cheap, they're all expendable since ship's sometimes destroyed when mission failed, you can just buy a new one on your dockyard. I still wondered why such mechanic exist in this game? It was not fun, not profitable (except the legendary missions), overall... it shouldn't even be there.

There's no gating content on WOD except one: Heroic Dungeon, where you must complete a time trial on silver achievement on your role (healer/tank/DPS) in order to enter them, The catch is... you don't have to do heroic dungeons at all!! Since Blizzard implement timewalking dungeon and LFR you can skip them at all, there's only two reason to do heroic dungeons: Some Garrison Resources and Heirloom upgrades for your alts, so yeah, it's really weird

Everything in Warlords of Draenor is weird, a jumbling mess of things, everything feels like an experiment and incomplete ones. I can't say that I hate it, I know how development job works, I don't love it either, gone is the feeling of becoming a true warrior of light guided by spiritual benefactor on Mist of Pandaria, replaced by hollow things as I read all the main quest text (yes I still doing that), my progress as character is... no, there's nothing progressive about my character, yes I got the title as lord commander of a garrison and gain purple-dressed orc warlocks and arrakoa metal construct as my followers but still I don't think I really progressed, maybe because all of my journey and encounters from Shadowmoon Valley onward was forgettable.

Is this an expansion? I don't think so, I think it was just an interlude, a big experimental patch containing features solely purposed for player's convenience but ended up being tedious and created ridiculuous storyline (and ending) at the end.

I'm not satisfied, that is all, hopefully Legion will be better, I was thinking I should return with friends

Being Saleh: Lagging Behind Expansions (prologue)

Expansions are one of my main problems on MMORPGs, that beside laziness which is becomes so bad that I withdrew myself from MMORPG world completely for several months after finishing FFXIV main story, after that the flood of expansions get off, Guild Wars 2 will have Heart of Thorns, their storyline seems to pick up on Living Story Season 2. Warlords of Draenor is already on patch 6.2 which let player had their own ship, or several ships. Heavensward for FFXIV is out (and everyone is a dark knight now). Pay to play (they're not free) Star Wars The Old Republic will have Knights of The Old Republic 3 as their expansion pack, they just renamed it to Knights of The Fallen Empire. Archeage, Defiance, The Secret World, everything else.has new (paid) content

So I'm starting a new series of writing to catch up of being saleh (whenever he is) the first one will be my return to Nexus on Wildstar, I know I have a lot of hate/love about the game (uninstalling/reinstalling for like 9 times) so as they're going free to play they chipped a bargain on the last humblebundle E3 sale, I grabbed it and started over, now I'm officially an Exile, ready to (re)live my dying days as incompetent tank

Coming soon!!

my original blog name

Being Saleh: From Astral To Umbral a.k.a it's getting easier

Since my initial plan to upgrade to Warlords of Draenor is blown to bits by several... circumstances (like my social life and Guild Wars 2) I finally have time to get back to Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, It's not without several planning though, for one: FFXIV has been the most improved MMORPG I've ever played, and since I'm a filthy casual what I meant by "most improved" is "it's getting easier"

Except those pants, which made me hate ninjas

Since it's initial release on September 30th 2010, Final Fantasy has transformed from a total wreck into one of the most polished MMORPG ever created, at least that was all the review you can get from numerous website, I don't really care about it all, I played since A realm reborn beta (pre patch 2.0) and I can tell you from my own experience FFXIV has been most approachable, even than WOW, since I don't really raid and have a real piece of work internet connection from patch 2.0 to patch 2.5 FFXIV has been a great journey in term of casual gameplaying and story

The Story so far.... 

Final Fantasy XIV has numerous story quests, which it's names (like the F.A.T.Es) are homage to almost everything in pop culture, names like "Sudul Eht Nioj" or "Life is a Syrcus" almost get me chuckled every time, the writing (and translation, hello, it's a japanese game) work to this day was incredibly tidy and astonishing, if you're not into reading quests text like me you might skip them into oblivion, but really, slow down and read them all even when there are no voice acting (with sometimes regretfully awful, minor, nvm) I came across a line of dialogue which can or can't be tailored to my selection of race, it could be my imagination and since I'm too stupid to take a screenshot I just continue in hope to find another one, alas I never did.... maybe I'll ask around sometimes.

Please enjoy this Minfillia screenshot to ease your pain

So, in every patch (from 2.0 to the latest 2.5) there are at least five story arc in FFXIV, one is the main story arc where you as the good hero of Eorzea faced and confront threats from every not-so-good fellas, (minor spoiler) the latest patch offered a major plot twist which served as an opening into what we might expect in patch 3.0: Heavensward (yes it's an expansion). 

With Batman

Number two is the Hildibrand arc which we embarked in a gag journey (hey, what a hero without it's sense of humours) with Hildibrand Manderville: self-titled agent of inquiry and Inspector Extraordinaire Gentleman, which actually just a private detective with a penchant for disastrous and hyperbolic solution which (surprise) not always right, combined with numerous luck and colorful allies Hildibrand arc probably the most extraordinary (har har) arc Final Fantasy XIV has ever created simply because it get me laughing every single time =))

I'm so sorry for posting this

 Number three is the moogle courier stories, it puts up us as a mail courier for the good (and again, not-so-good) people of Eorzea, to deliver them letters which lead us to know more about their problems and woes, and --of course as a hero -- helps them, it's a short episodic goodness which the NPCs are described as more than just a quest giver, but also have life of their own.

A very GOOD life

Four is the Crystal Tower arc, where you embarked with a group of researchers known as NOAH to unlock the secret(and raiding) of crystal tower, as I said before the bosses are homage to Final Fantasy III
 

Five is another raid story: the Coil of Bahamut story act where we accompanied by Alisaie Leveilleur, the twin sister of Alphinaud Leveilleur which is a major story character, Allisaie takes us into a research facility which studies the impact of Bahamut's prison from the last era, it served as a hardcore raid instance but since the story is so good (I don't know, I don't raid) there are talks about to make it a soloable arc for casual players, I'm looking forward to this.

Even with such numerous story arc apparently Square knows where to stop and overshadowing people with what might be expected on Heavensward, the stories are not yet over, my eternal question is whether they will be continued or not, WOW has so much unfinished story arc and only a few of them has ever continued, things like Koltira's last stand to Sylvanas and Abyssal Maw has been scrapped and considered finished, no it's not finished, I refused to acknowledge that. Hopefully with much overshadowing here and there Square will actually resumed it

The (lazy) gearing and gameplay

Take a look at my post here, here, here, and here oh also here

As you can see from my numerous posts about 'dem gameplay on FFXIV you might see that I'm not too hot about it, I stopped playing in the beginning of patch 2.3 and as I came back gradually I just realized how I might be wrong, on the verge of patch 2.3 my chosen first class is a monk, a punch drunk dps guy, I have a sphairai which is a relic weapon a.k.a the strongest weapon on patch 2.0, with the help of the -then added chimera and hydra encounter on duty finder on patch 2.1(yes in case you forget it's a LFG tool)I zoomed through the steps of it and with my saved mythology tomes which I farmed from my days as paladin I obtained it in days, not weeks, not months, days, boom.

As square has numerous free weekend I mostly farmed the next upgrade of my weapon, atma (obtained by the old fashioned FATE grinding) on those days, sometimes it's going good, sometimes it's friggin frustrating (RNG sucks) I hit the jackpot on September free weekend.

So there's me and my atma weapon, as I renewed my sub I set myself another goal, another upgrade, the animus, which is another grindfest, yes bloodying my atma weapon with blood from numerous creatures is kind of sadistic way to upgrade a weapon but hey I need 9 books to be completed, each has at least 20 challenges ranged from killing X things and running dungeons (don't die on the last boss or it won't be count, blah), I decided that I will solo this thing, using DF and old-fashioned waiting game for fates, I got into 1/3 on the last books so it'll be awhile but the thing is, it's only takes three weeks to get into this phase and I don't even focus on it with numerous story arc to finish,

Animus is a level 100 weapon, you know another way to obtain 100 weapons on FFXIV on patch 2.5? Here's what I do on my Paladin: Run Crystal Tower --> upgrade gear with tomes --> run Syrcus Tower --> buy level 100 weapon with tomes --> run some more syrcus tower --> upgrade them to lvl 110 with tomes and stuffs found inside.

Yes it's easier, yes it's faster, but it just happened that I skipped patch 2.3 and 2.4 entirely!!! which means every good stuff of them is now available on vendors, so if I leveled another class now, on this patch, take it four weeks if you're a slow leveler (which can't be, because duty roulette bonus which will zoom you) add days for relic, run CT, buy weapons and armors, run ST, upgrades, voila, boom you're now decked in ilvl 110 in matter of weeks (probably one) if you skipped the entire leveling process entirely, on this ilvl you can access almost every single content on FFXIV, the first and second coil bahamut, the extreme primals, the odin, the hard and expert dungeons, The Hunt, world of darkness, latest PVP, anything, you see where this going? Yes FFXIV has become more approachable tiered-progress-based MMORPGs and that's VERY VERY GOOD

But what can I do on those content? I'm not fast enough to dodge things, or breaking things with heavy rotation, well just the point I want to make, Square tone down almost EVERYTHING in the latest patch, well not everything, hard still means hard and old dungeon can be irritating (yes I'm looking at you Aurum Vale) but the effort you pulled plus the gear you're wearing helped, the hardmode of Amdapor, Halatali and expert Wanderer's palace has a difficulty setting somewhere between sleeping in dungeon and breaking a keyboard, patch 2.0 Ultima battle was over the top and exceed all my expectation about how fun and engaging a dungeon battle is just because a) it's not too hard and b) it has a good song, the two latest trial and dungeon: The Chrysalis and Lake Keeper tops it, the balance was perfect, the boss battles are fun, last boss battle are somewhere between intimidating and brutally satisfying, there's no perfect way to win this, the one hit kill skillz was so few but if you don't entertain your footwork, you can still wipe, for a melee dps it's fun, for tanks and probably healer it's fun, yeah, that's only it, it's fun :D

Here's another SS to reward you, and no I don't even know what that is

Onward to 3.0

Well, I've written so much, so here's something, by scrapping everything that was on patch 1.0 FFXIV finally got a second chance and they used it well to gain acknowledgement from a solo (casually zerging in raid) player like me, by simplifying means and upping the rewards for activities FFXIV can continue to grow, but here's the thing, as you can see it's only the main game I'm talking about, come the expansion how approachable the state will be? Will the leveling process simplified? Up until now the main story arc requires you to get into dungeons and beat it but to be honest it's extremely worth it since the story is well written and enjoyable, For the story I think new player wants the whole experience too (Blizz cut the Undercity Siege story arc on Cataclysm, /rude), but LFG tool will probably without old players running around it (even if it's synced), so the fact that new players must open it all just to unlock high level dungeon can be.... discouraging, especially for new hardcores which tend to grind everything just to get into max level, and since max level dungeon in FFXIV tied to quests and main story quests and not the level, this can be a problem, at least for the powerleveler

Well there are solution, Blizz now sold instant level 90 on their website, it's also bundled with Warlords of Draenor expansion, but it's because they have 5 expansion pack and cataclysm rendered the old lore continuity useless for the sake of new graphics and eye candy, FFXIV still has a way to go, it's only the second expansion and since the main game bundled with patch 2.0 so it can be counted for a first expansion, it will be interesting if Square will go the same road as Blizzard (a.k.a make everything on the previous expansion obsolete, excluding Pandaria, they still have more content than all WOW combined)

But for now, I'll enjoy a little crystal action