Exactly how I like them, dead simple (go find/make this thing by this time), and the writing is short and to the point and tells me everything I need to know about the world and any mission I might undertake. And for me it’s the EverQuest to the WoW in the writing respect, no pages of bone dry boring lore you just ignore before hitting accept, just relevant information and instructions you need to complete steps.
To put this in context of my preferences, Wolfenstein: The New Order was hot garbage comprised of scripted cutscenes, story, and mouthy friendly NPCs shoehorned in where it didn’t belong, while the stand alone expansion Wolfenstein: Old Blood was exactly what the series should be, stripped down with just enough info to give you purpose.
And I really appreciate the design choice of making the player just another random dude in the world instead of forced to complete some world-saving quest and being handheld all along the way.
I am so effing sick of being The Chosen One . There is a lot of appeal to the idea of “you’re just another dude in an interesting world – go see what you can make of it.”
I picked it up, but I have not dug in yet. I am torn by whether to look for some starting tips videos or to learn the hard way.
I found it much more rewarding to learn the hard way, because in the end it’s not that bad. Even in the rare event you end up having to “start from scratch,” getting back to where you were is a fun part of the adventure, at least for me, because I’m much better at crafting and hunting the stuff I need.
That’s just my opinion though, some folks get upset at what they might consider an occasional nasty setback.
I’m in the same boat, @kerzain- playing it every chance I get. I still haven’t visited the swamps, though.
I decided to do the desert kingdom plot and the writing actually got worse. I mean, it was no great shakes before, but this is something else. Ah, well.
The really annoying thing at this point is the housing situation. As in, there is none. So I’ve pitched a permanent tent (and campfire, heh) in the King’s hall, and I also bought another pack and dropped it next to my tent so I have somewhere to store stuff. It’s easy to get stuff out of, but if I want to put anything in, I have to do a dance of moving it to my pockets then living up the pack, transferring it all, changing back to my normal pack, etc. Totally annoying. I know they want you to make hard choices about what to keep, but this is just stupid.
I finally made it to the swamps last night- that place is tough! But I bought the perks that let me use Discipline, so I can hold a floating Chakra in my off hand and throw it at people with the Power of My Mind.
Seriously, this game has at least 3, maybe 4 separate magic systems going on. The biggest problem is getting money to train in them. Shit is expensive. When I finish this run, I want to do another play just to focus on magic- hopefully by then, I’ll have some fast-cash-generating exploits.
Thanks, I was looking for the coralhorn for a crafting recipe but I can wait. Right now I need to get to Berg but I don’t see a road on the map that leads there. Do you have to take the marsh road to get there?
I am really hooked on this game now. Once you get used to it, it’s so much fun. I ended up going back to the Conflux mountain to increase my mana up to 100 (+5). I got the +15 health/mana/stamina skill so it mostly made up for the loss of health and stamina. It turns out that the more mana you take, the more damage your spells do. So having just a point or two wasn’t cutting it.
I ran though Ghost Pass to get to the Shaman trainer and bought all his skills except for a couple that I couldn’t afford yet. When I say I ran though Ghost Pass that’s exactly what I did. I ended up sprinting past them frantically looking for switches to flip. I finally made it through. I used the spirit varnish found in there to give my weapon a ghost killing boost but it wore off after only a few fights and without it I couldn’t make much of a dent in their health. Especially the red ones. They’re tough.
I really wish I could find a good way to make some meaningful cash. Everything is so expensive that I’m constantly broke from buying skills. I want to buy the runes in Berg next but I need more silver first. I guess I’ll go back to the prison fort next and see if I can clean the rest of that out. I just killed the Montcalm boss and his crew and made a few hundred from the loot there. Fun stuff.
Berg is in the forest. There’s an exit to there from the starting zone, in the SE of the map.
I’m getting better at making money, and I’m really starting to power up. I just bought the perk that regens (a very small amount of) mana constantly, so I’ll be able to use the chakra more. I also got an achievement for building a Horror Axe- apparently an end-game weapon, I’m guessing? It’s a 1-handed weapon that hits hard and poisons. Between my Elkhorn Bow and Axe/Chakra combo, I just go farm a bit wherever I am, take everything from the corpses and sell it back in town.
I did almost the same run through Ghost Pass a while back, before I had good equipment. It was somewhat harrowing.
The lack of housing is terrible- I even lost my first house, due to plot stuff (not the original debt). Trying to plow through the Levant story to get my house.
I made it to Berg at last and things are really picking up in my game. I’m making a lot more cash now since the equipment drops seem to be better.
I used the last of my 3 skill school specialization points to buy the Rune magic skills there and went with the upgraded Lexicon skill. Wow, what a big difference the runes make. I can now cast the magic mine spell a few times and kill anything. Heading back out of Berg I ran into a pack of 3 bandits that surprised me coming over a hill in the dark. I dropped a mine and all 3 died instantly when they tripped it. Very gratifying.
After messing around in the forest zone and getting used to the rune combos, I headed back to the starting zone. I saw a shipwreck on the way back and remembered the guy on the beach telling me about a stash in a chest there and sure enough, some really nice loot after solving the puzzle. There was a dungeon next to it that had a really nice upgrade to my lexicon in it and some other good loot as well.
I did a bunch of loot gathering for silver and then headed back the the wind shaman to pick up conjure, which I couldn’t afford before.
I have to say I love the synergy of wind magic and rune magic. I can use wind magic to restore my mana after a fight and rune magic to restore my health. Rune magic comes with a light spell that is far superior to the game’s lanterns and can be used in a lightning ball ranged attack combo as well. I can also use wind magic to raise spectres from the bodies of the bandits I kill and use them as a tank shield for 5 minutes (or they get killed). The 3rd specialization I picked was spellsword because I couldn’t pass up the extra 15 health/mana/stamina. I guess I’ll pick up the other skills for that tree when I can afford it.
After getting all those skills, I went back to the prison fort and killed the 3 warlords there without even breaking a sweat. I just kept my spectres tanking while I blasted the bandits and bosses there. Great fun.
Next I guess I will finish the second quest in the main quest line (to talk to the 2 people in the starting town that are leaving) and pick a faction at last. I wanted to wait until I got a lot stronger to start doing the main quests because I heard some of those are timed.
Picked this up on my Xbox one X based on a few recommendations here and elsewhere.
First thoughts are:
My god it’s ugly. Graphics aren’t a dealbreaker for me in games but eugh, this game wouldn’t look out of place on the Original Xbox, let alone the 360. Textures are poor, no anti-aliasing from what I can tell and the framerate is a bit ropey. And load times are poor.
I hope I manage to overlook all this if the rest of the game is as good as I hope.
And I noticed it got a patch the other day, too. Lots of bug fixes, and higher-res textures on Xbox. I’ve been busy this week, so I haven’t had a chance to fire it up to see, though.
My buddy and I fired this up tonight on the Epic store because it was 6 bucks and gave us some serious Asheron’s Call vibes. It sure doesn’t hold your hand at all! I don’t think we’re gonna make the deadline to save the house…
