Archive | April 5, 2012

Progress vs. Gear

Apr5

Now, I’m a very organized person. I like going in order and don’t like skipping ahead (I do not care how hard this quest is–I want every quest in the area done before moving to the next one) and want things done a certain way. That’s just how I am. That doesn’t mean I never cut corners (Space Missions and PVP stuff I obviously put off until the end), but in general, especially with PVE, I liked to do things in order. Planets, quests, flash points…and that includes difficulty levels.

That doesn’t mean it’s been completely followed (For example, I did Kaon Under Siege on Hard Mode before Normal Mode), but that was never my choice to do it. And despite doing False Emperor and Kaon, I still have yet to do Battle of Ilum on either difficulty because I can’t find anyone to go with. And I’d be lying to say it didn’t bug me.

I don’t really care too much about gear. I know it’s important, but when it comes to priority…it’s probably 3rd or 4th on my list. 4th if I count Codex Entries and Lore as a separate thing. But yes, so in order:
1. Completion/Progress
2. Collecting (Codexes included)
3. Gear

I do know better gear will make certain things easier…but only harder versions of raids. The level cap isn’t rising yet. The new quests that are coming in 1.2 are just level 50 dailies. Sure, it still makes things easier, but it shouldn’t be priority at this point.

And that is part of why it bothers me so much that the guild, while thankfully finally doing Karagga (even if they still aren’t listening to me completely), seems to just care about gearing up (and more so than not, the ones who are already geared to some extent. Those in the Green/blue gear? Go have fun.). I do have a good amount of Columni–in fact, all I still need are the offhand and main hand. I do not care too much for the main hand as I like my Pink Crystal, but the offhand would probably be helpful. Regardless, since we have Columni, we should apparently just go for Rakata.

But it bothers me that we’re skipping a normal difficulty mode for that kind of reason. What about learning the fight? What about codexes? What about actual progress? Can you really say you just did everything if you skip normal mode? I don’t think so.

And it could be practice. To get the titles from those, you need to be able to down them on Nightmare mode within 2 hours. While you may be the time to just rush into things on the hardest difficulty, isn’t that kind of rash?

You could learn the fight and then learn the new mechanics. Or you could learn everything new while dying much more. We’ve gotten to the 4th boss on normal. We KNOW what we need to do, but they haven’t tried. Do you really expect me to believe you’re going to want to do it on Hard Mode? Are we even going to get there with such few practices on normal?

Target of Target isn’t needed, despite pleas of saying things. Will it make it easier? Sure. But it is not needed.

And the giant fight against normal (soon to be Story mode) not only takes away from some of the experience and learning, but also from the chances to earn things. Some people DO still need Columni even if Rakata is better. And some people just want the experience or the codexes.

Why should everything constantly be put behind the “priority” of gear? Maybe it’s just me, but I’ll always find that a silly concept–after all, what’s the point of better gear if you’re not trying to complete that story in the first place?

MMORPG Terms

Apr5

If there’s one thing I learned over the time I played this game, I learned there’s a lot of “lingo” to it. And while I think some are stupid, it does help to know what they mean. Most I knew from old IM days, but some were just completely knew for me and a few came from WoW, which just made….no sense to me.

For example, “Squishy” which apparently is used to mean you get killed easily and can not last long. When I hear that term, I think of Jello or maybe a giant plushie, not someone’s character’s gear. The term actually really annoys me, if anything, because it seems stupid to reference such a thing. And Jello can be pretty durable when it wants to be.

The other term that really catches my eye is “Toon” instead of “Character” (Or “Avatar” if you prefer). While I understand Avatar not being used with so many series using the term now, Toon…Why? Whenever I heard that, the game that comes to mind is ToonTown (which also did dancing before WoW for all you people who feel WoW did everything first) which you really do make “Toons”. It seems silly not to call them characters and I can’t really take people seriously when they are referring to their “toon”.

But yes, here are a list of some other terms I learned throughout playing these games (maybe so I can remember them):
Zerg – Rush/Charge
LFG – Looking for group
mt – Mistell/Mistype
LF#M – Looking for however many members to join a group.
omw – On my way
r – Ready
g2g/gtg – Because Got to Go was apparently not good enough for this, it had to also be used to mean Good to go.
Pat – Patrol/Enemy walking/passing by
CC – Stuns.
Kiting – Essentially making the enemy or whatever chase you around. Similar to tag–except them catching you usually leads to death.
Pulls – Enemy Groups/Groups that aren’t bosses
Adds – Additional enemies–usually referred to ones that spawn after you hit the initial group or ones a boss spawns.

I’ll probably add more of them as it continues…let’s just hope there won’t be too many.