Healer at Heart A healer's thoughts on MMO's.

22Feb/100

A long break & technical difficulties.

Where have the days months gone?  I didn’t mean to ditch the blog for so long and when I get back into writing things, WHAM, technical difficulties.

So let’s see … what’s new?

Aion: My Cleric has almost hit 41 as well as a couple alts reaching 26 and 31.  Steel Rake runs here I come!  A couple weeks ago I was invited to a group for a quest inside Kishar Village.  I. Hate. That. Place.  When I was first invited to the group there was a high level Gladiator helping out a fellow legion mate which at first seemed ideal.  Between the invisible mobs and most of them being higher level than the rest of the group I should have known it would be disaster.  After a few pulls and wipes the two legion mates just bounced out of the group.  We were eventually able to fill the two vacant spots and proceed ... sort of.  I’m not sure how the mechanics of the game work but I know that the damage of an ability hits before the whole animation goes off.  The only problem with this is healing through that.  I couldn’t keep people alive no matter what I did.  My heals would go off but apparently the mob had already completed an ability and my heals wouldn’t land.  Even the instant heal!  I have never had so many deaths on my hands as that day.  I disliked that place so much I abandoned the couple quests I had left after finishing the one I grouped for originally.

Mass Effect 2: The boyfriend surprised me with this last month and I’ve already played 27 hours of it!  It took awhile to get back into the grove of playing an xBox shooter and I’m still pretty terrible at aiming with the thumbsticks (joysticks?).  This was the sole reason I chose to play as the Adept class in ME 1.  Thinking back on it though, I don’t think I really ever used my Adept powers to their full potential so I switched to the Soldier class.  I’ve been diving in to it guns a blazin’!  I'm completely in love with this game.

Dragon Age: I decided I’d try to give this another shot.  Previously I stopped playing because neither I nor my team could ever stay alive.  I switched from the Warrior to a Mage so I could at least heal people and hopefully have a better shot at surviving.  That helped a ton!  Now that I’ve played quite a bit of it (and enjoying it) I think I’ll test out a melee class again.

Fallen Earth: Last month I signed up for a 10-day free trial to see if I liked it any better than the last time.  That’s a big fat no.  I’m not sure if it’s the graphics I don’t like (yes I'm spoiled by Aion) or the combat style or how I feel lost the moment I have to do something.  Everything just felt clunky.  No more of that for me.

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box: Having fun and solving puzzles.  ‘Nuff said!

Allods Online: Been playing around with this game and so far enjoying myself.  I’m hoping all this cash shop/patch hullabaloo gets resolved but until then I’m still going to enjoy my time playing.

Global Agenda: I picked this up last month but haven’t put much time into it.  I like the fact that I don’t have to pay the monthly subscription if I don’t want to.  Of course, that means I won’t be able to participate in AvA (at least when the free time runs out) but I’m not too bent out of shape about that.  It is nice to be able to jump into it for a few matches of PvE and then jump right back out again if I don't have hours to spend playing.  Definite plus.  Also, I can heal!  This makes the aiming issue non-existent.

Kindle: I received a Kindle for Christmas and I love it! All the classics are free and if you can find them, some nice free first in a series books as well.  Don’t get me wrong, I love reading from an actual book but this way I can spend less on an author/book I’m not 100% sure I’d like.  It’s also so much less strain on the eyes.

Well, before this post gets any longer (and I assure you it could) I’d like to leave you with something I found in Aion that made my day:

Found: Elijah Wood

23Dec/090

Happy holidays!

Just a quick post before the Christmas mayhem begins in full force.

My Cleric just hit level 38 (with no new gear to show for it) as well as a couple of my alts reaching new levels.

As much as I love my Ranger I think I've found the class I love almost as much as my Cleric, if not more: the Chanter.  The skills, the buffs, the graphics, and the healing!  What could be better?  And yes, this character is an Asmodian ...

Pandaemonium (Asmodian home city) in all it's holiday glory:

4Dec/090

What I’ve been playing.

Aion: My Cleric hit level 37!  Yay new skills.  I can't wait to try out my newest resurrection skill.

Aion0353 (Resize)

Assassins Creed II: I've been watching this game be played and we just reached the end.  There are still a couple things to collect in order to 100% complete it.  This is an amazing game.  Another Must Play!

Dragon Age: Ever since my last post about this game I haven't wanted to play.  I'm not exactly sure why though I might have to try another character/class to see if that's my issue.

Super Mario Brothers Wii: I got to play a little of this over the Thanksgiving holiday and I can't wait to own it.  Anything over two players though becomes a challenge.  There are certain levels where you're just bumping your teammates into the lava and killing them off.  Looks like an excellent game.

Torchlight: Haven't been playing.  I really need to pick that back up.  I think I'm pretty close to the end.

Guild Wars: A guild mate of mine and I were playing Aion one night but were completely bored.  We jumped into Guild Wars (I love the non-subscription model) and he showed me a couple of builds for my Necromancer.  It was fun going back and just messing around.

That's what I've been playing and now I want to share with you a couple of neat things I've ran across.

Thanks to Aion's Eye on Community I found this very helpful crafting tool.

Guild Wars 2 has posted up a new video.  Found here.

24Nov/090

A brighter future.

I haven't been updating regularly but don't worry!  Leveling is slow-going but still climbing towards 50.  My Cleric hit level 36 and I can now move from Fire Temple to the next instance or outside grinding area.

But!  I just wanted to share this video from NCSoft:

This trailer looks amazing and I can't wait for more information!

Enjoy!

11Nov/090

Busy Bee.

Sorry for the serious lack of posts.  I've just been playing all sorts of games lately.

Still chugging away in Aion.  My Cleric has reached level 34 and I've realized that I need to redo my action bars.  What I found out about action bars really made me happy.  Normally when you arrow down to get to another clean action bar it's just that one that changes.  Any extra bars you have on your screen stay the same.  Not so in Aion!  When I switched bars the other day to see how I would organize them, all the extra bars on my screen went blank.  Which means I get a clean slate.  So I've decided I need to spend time in setting up a healing layout and a grinding/DPS layout.  That'll be time intensive but definitely worth it.  I've taken over 320 screenshots!  You can find some of them here.

I've given up on Champions Online again.  I didn't get much further than last time either.  I did make a character I was loving and finally chose a powerset I was happy with but the controls and abilities just felt sluggish.  It seems I don't enjoy the fighting style.  This is just not a game for me.

Still playing Torchlight though not as much as last week.  I'm currently playing the Vanquisher on Easy mode (I think) since I've never really played a game like this.  I'm actually excited to go back through on another character and try a harder mode.  I think I'll try the Destroyer next.

I picked up Dragon Age: Origins as well.  I haven't gotten very far but I think the story is amazing.  Though this game does seem to be cut-scene heavy.  At least so far.  Not that that's terribly bad or anything.  As in Mass Effect, during cut-scenes you get to choose how you want to answer/ask questions.  I found this to be "meh" at best.  Your character doesn't talk or ask those questions.  The NPCs just respond as if you had.  Having played Mass Effect myself I find that a little disappointing.  I'm still trying to get the hang of combat since it seems I can't keep my teammates alive.  Though I love how I can give them roles to play that helps me out.

Uncharted 2 is finished!  Wow.  Just amazing.  That game is awesome!  If you don't have it yet ... what are you waiting for?!