Being Saleh: Dungeoneering, Part 2

Dungeons never got into my nerve, never, even Heroic on full blown WOW Cataclysm before nerf never once got me into the heat, this was before Explorable Mode Dungeon Guild Wars 2 came.

Sorrow's Embrace

I never ever lose my temper during the death on dungeon, even at a full wipe on a bad PUG groups, but Sorrow's Embrace Explorable mode is a death trap, an impossibly fast button mashing that can turn your fingers into jelly and irritate your eyes (at last that what happens to me when I ran it).

I first taste the explorable mode with guildies on a beautiful saturday afternoon, It was eventful but not too bad of an experience, so we're coming back with a different path on last night (Explorable Mode Dungeon has at least three different path to follow) and boy, what a surprise

The first path is bugged, but even without the bug the mobs are impossibly hardened that it caused us to run back and forth (means dead and teleported thorugh the waypoint for like thirty five times), the trash mobs are like tanks, and they hit with unblockable AOE attacks, it takes us like ten minutes just to clear one heap of them (which only five mobs, yep FIVE little runts), after one hour: exhausted and finally recognized the bugs we took another path, the one I'm slightly familiar with it

Surprise: They've been buffed, sure the trash mobs are still like butters but the bosses are extremely aggresive now since the last time. Their attacks are somewhat the same but they're more often now, and combined the fact that they have tons of HP wasn't really any help.

I lost my temper, really, I literally swear repeatedly on Raidcall, I can spend two hours with 35 gold repair bill on WoW Un-nerfed Cata Heroics (even Troll Heroics, yep Jin'do the PUGbreaker) but I still wonder why I quickly lost interest on Guild Wars 2 Explorable modes (even with my own guildies) and it didn't help my interest to make a complete set of a dungeon set, what do you mean people ran this over and over again? Are they borderline masochist? I WAS a borderline masochist for staying through a two hours failed PUG run on one of the hardest dungeon ever created on WoW and I feel fine but this... this... explorable mode thing is... almost a mental devastation for me and it's extremely exhausting, unenjoyable experience.

Maybe I'm not really there yet, maybe I'm just lack of madz skillz, still have to go through the 'learn ur class noobz', maybe I'm still just an ordinary b*tching casual who didn't deserve my Sorrow Embrace Pauldrons, but here's the thing: Guild Wars 2 have every element I love, even the PVP, and crafting, but I personally like dungeons from my past MMOs, and it's just a huge turn off to see that the dungeons are every single bit an.... utter disappointment

Yes, I'm basically saying Explorable Mode Dungeons (especially Sorrow's Embrace) are too hard, nerf it Anet or maybe you can modified it in some sort that it can be at least slightly enjoyable

PS: I do want to try another dungeon paths to see if it is the same, but as the rumor I heard that Sorrow's Embrace is the easiest of them all, I'm not really optimistic about the other

Being Saleh: Dungeoneering, Part 1

I've sharpened my swords, readying my scepter, polishing my staff, but to be honest I think nothing can prepare you on the first run on Guild Wars 2 dungeons, below I put on some words of my (cursing) time with them :D

The Hell and Heaven Runs on Story Mode

Welcome to Ascalonian Catacombs, where every Ascalonian dead elite fighters are still thinking that they're alive and everything that walks in two legs are charrs, AC is the lvl 30 dungeon located in Plain of Ashford, Charr's starting area, this is my first dungeon, tried the story mode a week after Guild Wars 2 release (still a cute lvl 27 at that time) but it's apparently bugged so we tried again on the next week.

The mobs are all ghosts, and they're nasty, when you have a party on minimal level prepare to die a lot, but as I told you before: dying is a requirement for Guild Wars 2. So we have nasty mesmers that confuses us, elementalists that rain down destruction from above, and some nasty archers that trapped and one shotted us. After several hours tried to clear the story mode we realized something else: our repair bills exhausted our pocket, we cleared it though.

A week later we tried the level 40 dungeons, the Caudecus Manor, located in Queensdale, humans are the denizens on this dungeon, regular bandits and regular difficulty, I was kinda surprised how CM is completed in only 20 mins rather than AC (which took us two whole hours), I've heard they fixed the diificulty (buffed it through the roof) on the latest patch, I haven't tried it again.

Since I was at max level now (I didn't even pay attention when I leveled up) so I've been running some more dungeon, Twilight Arbor is a nasty place with a lot of poisonous mobs, Sorrow Embrace is an exhausting place since it's a big dwarf city, Citadel of Flames are... well... fiery, and at Honor of The Waves the difficulty are plunging down again, in fact SE and COF final bosses doesn't require you to have some madz skillz, it's more like “stay away from the fire” kind of fight combined with using environments so the boss will somewhat hurt themselves (or taking a heavy damage from a tool) while we laugh in a safe distance, pretty easy, but the journey to that easiness is effectively hellish.

And yes, this is on story mode only, means you run it not for the rewards but simply an optional story, no loot table on bosses but they do awards you with some nice hat according to your class first time you complete it, which in my case: go straightforwad into the mystic forge just because I don't like the shape of it on my head when I wear it (most of the full-cap light armors hide charr horns, making me look like a superdeformed dolphin with fangs)

After The Runs

I sometimes think that the devs are experimenting with dungeons, there's a couple of interesting fight in there with mobs that have special abilities, but it's usually hard, and lots of dodging are required, on the other hand we have some boring standing generic bosses which are easier. The Dynamic Events (yes there are events in dungeon) are somewhat catchy but it requires awareness that you don't drag mobs from the events into another pack, the “pull it apart” strategy are common, it's more like crowd controlling but in a shorter time, one regular dungeon monster is enough to wipe you and they mostly did it.

There are lots of... 'unbalanced'.... difficulty on bosses, for example the first boss on COF is the most sadistic of all from my experience, try fighting a hard hitting whirlwind-ing boss while face a sentient invulnerable weapon of his (which also creates a whirlwind of fire), while the last boss of COF can even be faced naked, yes, naked, with no penalty since everything is coming down to you hitting him with a boulder he rolled at you and burn everything on him when he's stunned, after that it's just rinse, and repeat, also: you can't die on him since there's an invulnerability bubble erected from an NPC, so one of your party member can chill out while everyone tried to hit the boss's face, and the waypoint is right outside the room, so when you died and return you can still continue where you left off because one of your friends is bubbling and the boss will never reset while he's still there

I can't even suggest the devs to add/fix something from the dungeon, because it have so much extreme ups and downs on difficulties, but overall until this day I still think along the lines of “dungeons 'r hard”. For me Guild Wars 2 dungeons seems of a sort of punishment for me because of my usual facerolling on WOW Twilight Dungeons

I liked story dungeons, I do, but I probably won't repeat it unless I'm helping someone runs it, the story mode is not even the true dungeon, the real one is the Explorable mode when you face harder enemies and acquiring phat lootz. If the easy mode is not... well easy (for me and some guildmates of course) I think I need more time to try the Explorable Modes (like next month). I do want the Twilight Arbor's Greatsword =))

UPDATE: I finally managed ran two Sorrow's Embrace explorable mode on the last three days, next post is just up there

Being Saleh: Twenty Four Days in Tyria

I'm on vacation and typed this on my buddy's Ipad, i'm not going to complain that after i used the thing it makes my smartphone screens looks small and insignificant, damn you Apple!!! =))

Trying to grasp the immensiveness (that a word?) of Tyria can't be achieved by zooming your way to 80, it can be achieved by slowly exploring all nooks and cranny in a zone or just wandering yourself in every random Dynamic Event encounter that might happen in a zone and what the... i just leveled up!!!

If there's something i want to add in Tyria it's the stop experience button, i know, i know the scaling make sure no mob get one shotted on levels below me, but i just can't help feeling something off when i saw my 60ish level wandering around in the 40ish zone, i guess it's the residual habitual experience from my past MMOs. i'm an explorer so I tend to open up all the maps just like what i did on WOW (stop experience ftw!!!)

In Guild Wars 2 you leveled up fast (for a casual) but if you're the person that blinked to your experience bar every three seconds you might thought it's a little slow (btw WWW is your answer). every time i logged in I simply picked a map that several level belows me and run through it, completing dynamic events and heart quests also uncovered some vistas and point of interests, and when i completed that map i just simply run around following people and helped them out in DE or meta events, or just gathering stuffs and by two or three hours I probably leveled up once or two.

For crafting disciplines i picked up artificer and tailoring, leveling a discipline is much easier now since the trading post is up and running. I forgot to add that one of my reason to roam around low level area is to gather tier 2 crafting materials, leveling disciplines are somewhat a bittersweet thing, the problem with the materials is that it's just too much of it and sometimes the drop rate are abysmal, i can grab 15 small claw on a dynamic events but on another DE that features mobs that dropped vial of weak blood i probably only obtained 5 of them, but one thing I like is that loot bag dropped from humanoid mobs can contain random stuff (although they contain mostly butter now), occasionally i just go hunt out there and come back on later day to level up my crafting, still a long way for 400.

My crafting stuffs are way below my level although some of the masterwork items are fine looking and can be used as skin. Thing is: in Tyria I tend to chase vanity items like crazier than ever. I stylized my character by previewing every single armor i came whether it's from crafting or dropped items, and since I rolled a charr it's so tricky to stylized him, and of course being a mesmer makes it a double trouble (especially the pants and shoes that made him look like a skinny cat, and the cloth caps that always turn him into a big hooded walking head). Some of the neater stuffs are in the Personal Story which are littering my bank and using the transmutation stone is somewhat becomes a requirement =P

Of course after runnning around, crafting, and stylizing a character there is nothing more fitting than show it to a group of friends.... In dungeon =))

Being Saleh: 40 hours later...

I catch a cold.... Thankfully I'm not on a tight schedule for work, as I said before my limit is 8 hrs per day =))

The early access are somewhat eventful, there's some serious issue about the interface not working on overflow server, the guild system is somewhat unfinished, still playable though.

I found nothing that can be considered gamebreaking (sPvP and WvsWvsW said to have some serious issues though), unless we count mail system and trading posts are down for half a day

I want to thank ArenaNet for giving their all to fix those issues, some of them probably haven't slept for days fixing everything while some of the community whine and nerdraged at them. Dedicated people are great, nuff said.

Time to rest

Being Saleh: Less than 24 hours...

...And I can't sleep (again), Guild Wars 2 will launch in 12 hours and I still agitated, seems like every cell in my body screams to Anet: "Release it now!" Why? I don't know, probably because it's weekend and I find all my usual hobbies become a stalemate before the launch, so I'm just gonna wait and hope that the three-- hours-- ---earlier-- open-- server is a truth.

So I'm gonna write random things, such as: not many people liked GW2, why? because it's chaotic and different, my friend got thrown off when fighting as an elementalist because he didn't realized that he has no mana and can cast while running, and he SHOULD BE running because ten centaur stampeding towards him is no big joke. As a mesmer I still curious about how my health depleted to zero in seconds because the unpredictability of a battle, and as a melee mesmer my curiosity doubled every time I leveled up, will everyone one shot me when in Orr? Will I'll be forced to play ranged in later time? Will I ever get my Gur'thalak? (wrong game). But my sword has some cool design (drifted off by shiny things), Guild Wars 2 just have too much surprise and some people just really like predictability, like rotations... and trinity system....

I also realized the 'addict' factor on Guild Wars 2 is unusually high even for me, even way beyond my WoW and RIFT experience, WoW did put me off on Patch 4.1 where I must grind troll dungeons, they introduced Raid Finder on 4.3 and I quickly sprung back to life, even when my chance of winning items has gone I ran it almost everyday. I logged on RIFT whenever there are invasions on three top level area for like two-three hours per day. Both of this hype never falters, I just simply stopped playing because there's nothing else to do there except one thing I like, one, and if I keep playing I'll burn out in no time with no new contents on horizon. I stopped played RIFT solely because I want to give myself a break before Guild Wars 2 (Real Life factor actually matters much here when I stopped playing, I just have to get out there)

On Guild Wars 2 my hype factor reinforced by two things: one, my old guildmates coming back, two everything is new on Guild Wars 2, the newness factor can hold on for three months but the guild factor can hold fast (we're casual, so we're kinda like having each other numbers and send dirty text messages...yeah no... ) I wonder how many hours I'll be playing on opening time, my best bet is eight before I collapsed in bed and completely skipped playing the day after =))

The continuity of my Lineage 2 journal, Being Saleh will now become my notebook about Tyria, and about how a Charr sing

Dual Wield: (Ir)Rationality

NOTE: Dual wield is solely my opinion, not my guild, not my parents, girlfriend (don't have one, anyway), not anyone, Sometimes I used quotes, sometimes I don't, it was simply the just cause of my trolling =))

I found myself as a non-grasper, wasn't quite able to distinguish something for it's literal meaning and tends to dig in order to find the meaning of that something to it's origin, like trying to determined who owns a dog from just looking at the dog, apparently I also quite bad at doing that since my mind wanders off a lot =))

This writing was begun when I found that from the initial 150-ish local gamer who already pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 are all males, for some reason I can't quite remember seeing 150 people gathered in a space and all of them are males (except in an army display), What happened here? I asked for opinion from them and apparently it was ended in vain (after 300 lines of opinions) since I can only found one valid answer and forced to accept the truth (local female gamer is a myth) :P :P :P

So I changed the question, and asked different circles of my friends "are you a gamer?" of course the answer is no, the strange thing is: When they're asked if they will come in an official game convention (like a local E3 or game convention, they said they would go and play games, they don;t mind being called a gamer in those events)

The Stigma

My local community can accept cat lovers, skateboarders, even face tattoo and piercing as a hobby, apparently when they said game as a hobby, some of them won't admit it.

Why? Because gaming is a nerd hobby and a deep dark hole toward rejection of society

That's not true!! Oh Yeah? try putting MMO on your resume/CV and replace music I know you can't play drums

You won't do it, ah yeah I guess you understand my meaning.

In US, Europe, most gamer said gaming stopped being a stigma years ago when Blizzard propels World of Warcraft into important pop culture

Important Pop Culture there, not here

I say: In here, locally, people follow majority, apparently majority said the most important western pop culture in my country is Lady Gaga

So yeah, I reject society and a nerd, I also have zero social life *bleep* (puts a thick glasses)

The Sad Truth

Even by saying "game as a hobby" you will always still stuck in a second gear here, why? Because the majority doesn't play, and can't appreciate why colored pixel sticks you good in front of your screen. "Painting can appeal more people" said the 'rational' guy

Apparently hobby can't be measured by rationality, but it can be blocked by skepticism which hide behind rationality

The most popular sport on my country is Soccer (or Footbal in EU), I wonder why stay up night for 90 minutes just to see someone scored a goal? I can always read the results tomorrow, this probably will become a chaotic argument where the pro will said about the beauty of every kicks, the adrenaline, the heart pumping saves, and after those the anti will said: "Hey, guess what: it's s the same thing on <insert hobby here>

But when you said "hey that's what I saw in an MMO game" the argument will continue about thousand other things better other pixels on screen until it washed out down the drain a.k.a rationality wins

And FYI I like soccer, I just dont follow it that much, Collina still has to be the next UN secretary general though

Try look up in the local streetshops, is there even a cloth with your favorite game logo in there? No? That's how stigmatized you are

Rationality wins again

Dual Wield : Stay away from my sweatshop

NOTE: Dual wield is solely my opinion, not my guild, not my parents, girlfriend (don't have one, anyway), not anyone, Sometimes I used quotes, sometimes I don't, it was simply the just cause of my trolling =))

My birth country, Indonesia is a haven for gold sellers and all forms of MMO or internet exploitation, the community are total hell since it's dominated by 15 year old kids and adults who exploited them to sell or buy in game currency, or sweatshop runner, ruining the community for profit, the sole reason why I used to never played an international MMO with my fellow countrymen (or women, which is still a myth)

But thanks to the internet, like-minded people have it so much easy to gather, from a thread created by my friend Kurogakure, Guild Wars 2 probably will mark the beginning of a new fresh and clean gamers from my country (even if it's just a fraction of the total hell).

Of course, like-minded is still like-minded and most of the local old-school gamer (which I prefer to call sweatshop employees) can never understand the urgency the community needs to stay clean, playing the game like it should, to pass time, to meet people, to gather for an event, or something without REAL CASH involved (unless they have cash shops). A few weeks ago my friend come into a clash with a hardcore sweatshopper, the sweatshop listed some of the most ridiculuous argument like: "How the hell should I pay for a game, if I can gather gold from it and sell it for REAL CASH PROFIT???"

Me: "Selling currency is illegal"
Sweatshopper: "Other people in other country do it too"

From the two lines of argument most people, even non-gamer can understand it was going nowhere, when people break the accepted law, they probably won't have a problem break anything else

I played MMO as a hobby, one of my hobby actually, something that defined by online dictionary as something that I did in my leisure time, outside of work, My friend also describing something like: "A chef can play online games for a hobby while professional game tester can cook at his spare time"

It was a completely different matter.

Apparently gold seller can't understand that, if a game is not profitable anymore they will quickly packs, sell out, and move into another one, they're not gamers, never was

So a gamer and a  gold seller is not even on the same boat, one wants a community, while the other wants community to buy from them (and they don't even own the game)

Sweatshopper: "Why can't I? The big company's making millions, why can't I make my own dough?"

In my country pedestrian walks on street, because the side pavements is used for personal shops, the analogy fits

All they want to say is: "Stay away from my sweatshop"

So Arenanet, please make your game free of gold seller and exploiter okay?