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

Little post E3... posts

E3 has some interesting games on display, including Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 (yeah long name) in which I hope ranged weapons will do some damage compared to it's predecessor (It's called Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, just FYI)

The moustache itself is a reason for playing

But no, I'm not preordering anything, not even Keanu Reeves can sway me (no, he's not in a vampire game, but a game about robot hands... or legs... or half a head), even if I preordered I still have to wait a year to play it, I only prordered something if (1) my friends are preordering, and (2) .... uh no, I have no reason for number 2.

On second thought... I DO have reason number 2

Also there's a Final Fantasy VII remake, which is a grim reminder for humanity that they're twenty two years older and will finally see Aerith died again in a glorious expensive 3d animation, and when the scene ends there will be another reminder that they don't have to insert disc 2 but they have to WAIT for the disc to be released, and they're (probably) have to buy it.

I'm not going into any character controversy, please add a story DLC about this meteor, it IS IN THE LOGO!!

Options Matters

Minor Spoiler for Detroit Becomes Human demo and Dragon Age Inquisition

For the first time Epic Games is bringing Quantic Dreams Titles (Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Soul, and Detroit Becomes Human) to PC, Originally exclusives to Playstation and they skipped Steam Store, which makes me wonder will other exclusive PS4 like God of War (Sony) or Spider-Man (Insomniac) will make way to PC too. All titles are on sale on Playstation Spring Store right now and I already took out Detroit Becomes Human from my basket (I like having options), I played Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls already, for some 'next generation point and click adventure' their story was great.

Speaking of options the demos will probably come out in near time, I played the Detroit demo on PS4  two days ago and although it was Quantic Dream's fastest selling title because they boast 'CHOICES MATTER' in their card title and constantly reminding me throughout the demo that all my action would shape the story, I found myself perturbed by the appearance of 'probability success' in the demo mission.

If my choices matter why the probability success? It's a hostage situation and I have a choice to investigate the crime scene first or just to confront the perpetrator, I did the first and although my success probability spiked up to 99% I decided to off the guy (after I got close and calmed him down) and then apparently my brain start destabilizing.

If choice matters, IMO there's a good chance there are 'bad endings' and 'good endings', in Dragon Age: Inquisition I did some terrible choice for the sake of a mission and ended up losing a party member (although it happened IN THE DLC) but I can accept that, there's also credit title cards and stuffs about that decision and the aftermath consequence, that makes me feel that my choices did matter.

But probability success? for what? good endings? am I pushed towards good? most game which offered 'choices' often have half-assed situation for 'bad ending' (ex: your character died, your friend died, something blew up, everyone died) and they sometimes have cutscenes... SHORTER cutscenes  compared to the 'good ending' cutscenes, plus they often have action or bonus mission for the good ones (Spec Ops The Line: I'm talking about you), after I finished the Detroit demo there's a flow chart page, which show me my progression, and apparently yes, there are longer cutscenes attributed to the 'good ending'

My choice matters, but apparently my playtime will be shorter if I just turn violent for the sake of a mission =)) =))

Being Saleh: Optional Ending

Major spoiler for Dragon Age, Final Fantasy Tactics,  and Final Fantasy XIV

Dragon Age
Bioware's rpg megahit Dragon Age franchise has compelling storyline and combat system, it also featured ending(s) which shaped by the player's choices during the gameplay, alas it also featured something I called 'optional but essential' ending, namely: the dlc

When the third major title Dragon Age Inquisition came out I was excited that I can import my character's vital decision in Dragon Age 1 and 2 via the website (saving me the hassle to install them again) but I stumbled at the end of the dragon quest origin timeline, frowning upon a choice which I'm pretty sure I was never came upon to (I remembered my decisions) not until I read the explanation that it was supposed to be made in the last DAO's dlc: the witch hunt

I mostly turn blind eye on dlc but unfortunately it was essential in DA universe, fortunately I have DA 2 attached with all the dlc. After contemplating that 'last' DLC will be important to the last Dragon Age Inquisition I decided to wait for the GOTY version, bought it and surprised that it wasn't even optional, it was required because in that DLC i lost two party member and (also optional) dismantling my team, if this decision was going to the next dragon age (if there is one) and I didn't play the dlc I probably wondered what happened to them? Then when I was told that they did this and that and this, I will be like: what? When?  If they're alive they will probably said things that contradict my old game decision, the whole thing can be so confusing without the dlc.

Final Fantasy Tactics No, i never finished Final Fantasy Tactics, also I used gameshark and save state to cheese out many of the game's mission. I stopped playing in the early 2000 because I probably just got bored and wonder if human beings are more interesting (they're not), I left and never came back until the latest Return to Ivalice raid in Final Fantasy XIV.

Return to Ivalice, like the previous Crystal Tower raid brought major references from earlier Final Fantasy series to FFXIV, precisely FFIII for CT and FF tactics for RTI raid, not until I beat the last wing of the raid that I realized that it was not just a reference object, it's a conclusion of Final Fantasy Tactics if you connect the dots

With names like Ramza, Delita, and Alma headlining the casts you will probably think the similarities was only in the name, it's not until clearing the second raid wing (if you don't finish Final Fantasy Tactics) you'll realized that something else happened long ago but you can't put your finger to it because FFXIV doesn't offer explanation (because it was explained in FF tactics game) then you go and beat the last wing and something happened, again if you never finished FF tactics like me you'll just staring and trying to understand things as the characters mumbling about something that happened in the past, for half an hour.

Well something did happen in the past, Final Fantasy Tactics happens

Here's the major breakdown, from here on it's the MAJOR spoiler for both game, so here goes nothing

In Final Fantasy Tactics Ramza and his band of mercenary found out that their country was built on lies, that the saint they revered is a demon god called ultima, that a race of demon called Lucavi is pulling strings and manipulate the church to resurrect Ultima by initiating war between countries for sacrifices. Ramza cs stopped the demon but after that their fate remains unknown, while the church (now free from Lucavis) labeled them as heretics (which is an idiot move) because they 'desecrated' the saint's faith. Delita becomes king and because of the distrust spread in his royal court got stabbed and die, frustrated, calling Ramza's name and wonder whether he actually changed anything, Oran Durai (another key character) wrote a book claiming Ramza and companions are heroes and detailing the Lucavis plot, he got arrested, branded heretics, burned at stake, and his book locked in the church's vault for years. The cliffhanger ending shows Arazlam Durai: his descendants promised that he will clear his ancestor's name based on the book.

In Final Fantasy 14 we're introduced to the bas Lexentales (Alma and Ramza) which claimed that Oran Durai is not a heretic, based on the book he wrote years ago, they were searching for their father, Jenomis bas Lexentales which rescued after the player cleared the first raid wing (which contains text and references from Final Fantasy Tactics story) and revealed that his true name is Arazlam Durai, as the story goes they found out that Ultima is still alive and still searching for suitable vessel for his resurrection through a special crystal called auracite, the echo granted the warrior of light a vision that long ago it was Alma, Delita, and Oran Durai that planned that Ramza cs will be branded heretics as per Ramza request, apparently Ramza and his companions are also warriors of light but failed to stop Ultima completely, to avoid major roadblock on Delita's ascension to the throne so he can restore order and prepare the next generation to fight ultima after he got complete support from the church the four friends staged the branding while Oran's book will be kept safely in the church's vault, waiting as evidence for the future, unfortunately as the last scene of the final fantasy tactics told us Delita's failed, Oran burned at stake, but his descendants with Alma lives on. As the time goes by Ivalice and Rabanastre are occupied by Garlean empire.

The story continues: The warrior of light is finally beaten all Lucavis (revealed as major characters from Final Fantasy Tactics) and Ultima as well, in the last cutscene Ramza Beoulve (Ramza from FF tactics) and his companions appeared in spirit form and thanks the warrior of light for finishing the job, Delita also appeared and question him whether he's done enough for their sake (reference from both the FF tactics when he died from the strife and when he agreed to be king to clear his friend's name eventually which he failed miserably)  they both shake hand and return to the light.

So long story short: in Final Fantasy Tactics Ramza and friends failed to permanently ended Ultima, his remaining friend transpired to support Delita's ascend to the throne by making him denounce Ramza's heroism to vouch for the church's vote in hope he will restore order to the kingdom and diminishing the church's role, he was killed by his court before realizing it and the kingdom razed to the ground and assimilated by the Garlean Empire, many years later the Warrior of Light (a.k.a us) finished the job.

Special Ending: in Final Fantasy Tactics Oran Durai  publicly claimed that after fighting ultima Ramza and Alma ride to the sunset, finally free from their disowned noble names as they took up new names, this false claim was brought in the FFXIV story, realizing that proving ultima's existence wasn't going to change anything for their family names due to Garlean occupation (and beside they're already changed it and live as travelling performer)  the Bas Lexentales decided to incorporate this claim for their Zodiac Brave Story theatrical act, adding a happy ending to the story.

You see... with this optional ending I can finally brag to my friends which ONLY played Final Fantasy Tactics =))

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.

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: Lagging Behind Expansion (Warframe)

Warframe and me got in the wrong foot, for years I always thought that Warframe is a team based shooter, not a co op shooter (a.k.a shooting aliens with friends -- and/or other people who might left you alone to die in a mission), a month ago I rectify that mistake by actually playing it. That's why it falls into lagging behind expansion category, warframe as it now is on update 23 and some people said it's a different game than two years ago.

Warframe is actually quite simple, it's an instance based shooter where every mission is take place in a random/scripted (huge) instance, you are called Tenno, a superpowered being clad in a superpowered armor called warframe, you also equipped with superpowered guns and melee weapons, in some case you are accompanied by superpowered pets and can put a superpowered wingsuit that made you fly in the void of space and take down capital ship with a big final fantasy styled superpowered swords. The story of warframe is also simple at best, the entire milky way galaxy is warring on each other and it's up to the Tenno to restore peace (by shooting aliens, mutants, altered humans, magical beings, and other Tennos).

Yeah!!! SUPERPOWER!!

THE GAMEPLAY

There are total of 57 warframes for you to decide how to wreak havoc on them, it's like your class, some warframe uses pure strength to destroy things, while others uses elemental or psychic powers, some can summon allies and mirages, buff friends, going invisible and backstabbing things, also fly and raining destruction from above, for short:it is an equivalent of a space ninja, you can run, shoot, wall running, double jump, slide, glide, performing melee combos, and in some cases stick to the wall, combined with wide variety of guns and melee weapons you'll have a good times choosing your way to kill things IF you can bypass the reality that Warframe is a free to play title and microtransactions is bound coming for you sooner or later.

You'll start with choosing from three initial warframes, the Excalibur is the melee type with decent shield and armor, the Mag uses crowd control and pick enemies off from afar, the Volt is the assault type with it's electrical and shield powers. After you complete the initial story you'll begin jumping planets (from mercury to void beyonds) if you follow the story you'll be decked with initial guns and melee weapons, also an auto turret at the end. Whatever you choose you can obtain the other two on a later time.

Yep, most people picked it first

On every planet there are nodes, on each node: a mission, you'll begin unlocking nodes one by one, each node have a set path and level, when you complete the mission on that node the next one unlocks, there are  branching path sometimes, at the end of planets there are junctions guarded by a shadow warframe, you can only access this junction if you complete the planet's requirements (what level are you, how many enemies killed, how much resource you have, etc) then you can access the junction, kill the guard warframe and open the next planet (with it's own set of nodes and requirements), Story quests are scarce and sometimes it requires you to unlock several planets or areas

Your warframe, weapons, pets, and other combat tools have levels, every mission and almost everything you do on a mission will contribute experience to your arsenal, leveling them up, you can slot mods (cards contained stat modifier) to everything making them stronger, the higher your weapons/warframe/tool level the more mods you can slot them although equipments are capped at level 30, mods also have levels where the higher their level, the more capacity they will take, thus experimenting with mods and arsenal is a fun thing to do between missions.

Your operator level is called rank, it determines what warframe and weapons  you can wield, for example Lex Prime,  a very good pistol requires you to be rank 8, you don't automatically level rank, instead when you raise an equipment level to max you gain something called affinity, you can also farm affinity from missions, when you die on a mission you have a chance to revive 4 times, each cost 10% affinity. When your affinity is high enough there will be a popup message said you can take a test to level up your rank, you can only take this test once a day, upping a rank also gain some benefit, like increased mod cap, reputation gain cap per day, and how many resource extractor you can place at a time.

Enemies on Warframe never dropped a warframe or weapons, instead they dropped resources, mods, and equipment blueprints, missions also reward blueprints and components, you can then craft your own equipment provided you have enough resource and  components, crafting on warframe is both extensive and vital, every warframe requires components and every components required abundant resources, crafting a warframe takes days and each components take half a day, it makes gaining new warframe or weapons a significant achievement...

Or not...

THE MONEY

You see, every warframe and weapons in this game can be instantly purchased by platinum ( the real money currency), so there I dropped the bomb, Your Oberon Prime warframe? gained by months of extensive random mission farming for resource and opened random relics until you have those components blueprints? Your friend can just shell 20 dollars and he's all set (they even gave you bonus mod for each purchase), you can also subscribe to twitch prime and they gave you prime warframes each months, running out of inventory slot for warframes (default is two)? Just purchase them from the plat shop, tired waiting for your Bronco Prime to finish at your foundry (crafting table) just finish them for a little plat.

I'm not going to the pay to win debate here but I'll tell you something for a little taste of warframe: your max leveled Volt warframe is not on par with say: a max leveled Volt Prime warframe, while you can craft the Volt Prime you probably won't survive to see it's blueprint drops, which is from opening high level relics, which can be found from running a high level missions, which can be accessed if you already unlocked the high level planet nodes, which is almost impossible to solo on your initial and story-gained warframes.

I crafted Limbo, Oberon, Nyx and none of them, my weapons, and my collection of mods can survive a level 25-30 mission with ease, I limped through  Planet Neptune but then I failed repeatedly on a main quest because I can't kill fast enough. I returned to earth to farm my Gara warframe components in order to gain an edge on Neptune (it probably won't). It's still have three days to complete as I wrote this, but still... crafting warframes, guns, melee weapons, pets, and combat tools provided on each rank should give you a feeling of becoming more powerful each rank gained, instead it's just changed your playstyle with miniscule power level change. Why solo? Well I am a solo player and since not much group will help on just a random node unlock you pretty much did the story quests solo, unless the nodes have special traits like 20% increased drops or whatever.

Gold can't buy anything, platinum can!!

I love free/freemium/b2p to play titles because I can point exactly what made me stopped playing (work points on Archeage, hard dungeons on Wildstar, my inability to jump on the right time on Destiny 2 and Guild Wars 2), in warframe going from the initial pre-playing feeling of "I want to be a xxxx warframe" to "Yeah I only got a Nyx component at the moment, it's probably cool too" should be enough for me to uninstall this game, going from "what you want to be" to "you can only be this for now" is a major irony of this game, especially when combined with the statement "you can be anything if you pay". But the fact is I'm still playing warframe because the side missions are fun enough and always crowded with people queueing, the void missions are also fun provided you have a relic which in my case -- almost depleted (I'm dying on missions), invasions are always good for farming resource and components, also seeing other people with their colorful warframe and devastating skills/ techniques are always fun (since they did all the work and I just picked up after them) =))

THE VERDICT

In short: if you're not picky of what you want to be in a multiplayer game warframe is a good fast paced stylish third person shooter, although it does have unhelpful tutorial and most knowledge you gain from this game came from asking people on general chat and wiki articles. On the contrary if you do want to be a specific thing in game I recommend you to buy them (warframe, weapon, etc) since the farming can be quite tedious. Also bring a friend or two, I'm not calling them shooting with friends for no reason.

It also made me regret buying this