Site Review and Fixes

Um, oops.

I let the auto-updater for WordPress itself just run for ages, not realizing that one of my key plugins – Jetpack – had gotten out-of-sync. Caused some wacky issues with displaying pages, as in not at all…

Everything is now current, and apparently displaying correctly. At least ‘relatively painless’ is still a thing with WordPress.

As for why I was taking a quick peek here, its two things: 1) I wanted to check a few things for self-publishing my GW2 fanfic, and 2) I thought I had made a post regarding my removal of all ‘well known’ Social Media sites (in quotes b/c I’ve seen Twitch referenced as such, as well as Youtube sometimes; I disagree). Turns out I was thinking about my use of my RL Name in some places, so at some point I actually *should* create a post about this.

Anyway. I’m liking what I see so far with the current editor, though I would like proper Footnote support. I fully expect that to be a thing in a plugin or setting someplace. So sometime next month the first Story Arc will go up here.

–TSK

[GW2] So What is LHoT Anyway?

I’ve been doing some fan fiction dabbling for the better part of two, perhaps three years now, and its been centering on a Guild Wars 2 alternate timeline I call ‘(Lay) Healers of Tyria’ – LHoT for short.

While I’ve had the general outline of its events in my head, there have been times where I’ve needed to be more concrete in what the overall setup is. This post is the beginning of that.

So, where to begin? In most AH formats, there is a PoD – a Point of Departure – that is the beginning of where things actually changed. Problem here is that, in order to do that in a sane manner (for its Story’s sake) you have to undertake two separate PoDs – and the actual first one is not what you’d normally think of.

Lets begin with the more obvious PoD – the actual ‘Lay Healers’ dropping into this new world. Unfortunately we have to do some worldbuilding on the side, as very few gamers have even heard of the RoleMaster RPG (other than in frustrated cursing perhaps). So I have to first lay down the note that these two characters are, in effect, ‘magical surgeons.’ There’s more to it than that, but since about 99.5% of their spells aren’t carrying over anyway, that’s good enough.

A second issue is with character backstories, but in the cases of Sungak and Arthur (our two ‘drop-ins’), I am letting their personalities and dialogue (internal and external) do that for me.

The third (and hopefully last) issue is with character translation, but again their old character archetypes are well known to me – they’re my old characters after all – and so moving them to appropriate (mostly) character classes in GW2 was relatively straightforward.

So, with PoD 1 outlined, what is PoD 2 exactly? Its the ‘standardization’ of the entire GW2 Storyline.

Let that sink in for a moment – I’m effectively having to re-write the perspective on its entire story so that its changed from a traditional MMO’s ‘you are central, regardless of those around you’ to ‘there is only one set of “Big” heroes, and yet you do play a part in the larger scheme of things.’ So there is only one Pact Commander from the start, which in turn (during the Scarlett ‘campaign’) leads that person to personally pushing for what we know of as the Guild Initiative. But, the Guilds (as I shorten it) have a larger supporting role – some can become more active and more toward ‘hero’ status over time.

This eventually does cause a larger systemic issue with the Pact, post Heart of Thorns – they’re in tatters, and the Commander (now officially the Marshal in my outline) ends up taking the extraordinary step of expanding Pact Command so that never happens again. As Sungak and Arthur arrive sometime in the middle of LW-S2-E9 (Point of No Return), Sungak (who for a time was a Mayor) helps in this planning – at the expense of being tapped for one of these Command positions. Though he only agreed because his role was to be a permanent liaison to the Guilds, and assist in their movement throughout Tyria – basically what he was originally doing anyway.

It is a pretty massive change; when compared to the rather linear fashion of the existing Living World and Expansion content, a lot of it can now run in parallel – which can either shorten or lengthen relevant parts of the timeline, depending on circumstances. Also, a lot of it will not be run by any one person(s) anymore – I’m slowly assigning Command slots to the major parts, but its been a new form of slog that I’m unfamiliar with. Its been a fun challenge anyway, so I keep at it. I’m even finishing a little ‘one shot’ of sorts by adding a glimpse of what the current-day Pact/Guild operations (as well as the central city, known as Lion’s Arch) are looking like these days.

So, there in a (not so small) nutshell is the high level view of LHoT. Part of it will likely be split off to something more generic, as part of a useful worldbuilding exercise; that can potentially save this pain by others later.

[GW2] A Practical View on the New Build Templating System

Well.

First, to sync with the last post (nearly two years past), I did in fact find a new Guild Wars 2 Guild, on par with the Guild of Greeters from Uru. And not only did I discover that multi-game guilds are quite fun to be with, but I even accepted an Officer-level position for the GW2 side. Admittedly I’m as surprised as anyone else would be, but its fun again, which is what matters for now. More on that later.

So yes, I am still playing GW2, albeit after nearly a year of hiatus at this point. Though half of it was still within the guild, just on another game. More on that too at some point, as well.

Anyway. GW2 recently added what is known in most MMOs as Build Templates, though (as their usual MO) in a slightly different way. There are three different parts:

  1. Equipment Templates & Storage. This is probably the handiest of the three types, as inventory slots just got massively freed up if you had a character that liked to run with different Ascended-level armor and weapon sets. It also works with Legendary equipment, allowing different stat selections on them per tab. There are two to start (per character), with another four available for unlock in the Cash Shop (one at a time on each character).
  2. The ‘Actual’ Build Templates. These store all the ephemeral bits of the build – Traits, Skills (and their order), and profession-specific things like Ranger Pet selection. Three to start per character, max of six per character, addable per character as well (one at a time).
  3. Build ‘Storage.’ This is more in line to an actual template in an MMO, which is Account-Wide versions of the character templates (per item 2), and can hold any class builds – including for setups you don’t have access to yet. Three to start, 24 max, buyable in ‘expansion’ sets of three, and a free expansion was given out during the first week this was rolled out. There is no Account-side storage for the Equipment Templates.

My original impression of this was that I was on the fence for it being as practical as ‘off-game’ implementations (which worked with ArenaNet to disable their version of the feature when this went live). Folks using the aforementioned plugin were upset, and rightly so, because there are limited slots (as opposed to near-unlimited ones that ‘end game’ folks used) which are only expandable by the Cash Shop. While the max is still somewhat limited, I’m of the mind that its reasonable to have six max per character.

I was also of the view that the average player never used more than one or two anyway, and this has not changed; for nearly all of my characters (bar one, getting to that), its business as usual. The problem starts at what I would call ‘mid game,’ that hazy point where a semi-casual player sits in most of the time. Usually on one or two characters.

And so, we come to my primary character, the one where I participate in a wide variety of content on, while (up to now) tried to keep on just one build with the occasional trait or weapon tweak. Well, with templates, I figured ‘OK, lets try to compress this a little, move the other character I set aside for a defense setup over to my old character again.’ And that’s where the trouble started.

My initial setup was fine – fill build setups, check. No extra equipment yet, so just merge a few spare weapons into tab #2, check. BUT, that was the core of my problem – my style of play does take into account ad-hoc weapon swaps, and in moving weapons into a position where there is ‘incorrect’ stat mixing, I discovered myself in a situation where I accidentally placed myself in combat with only one viable weapon set to work with, rather than the usual two in a build – the other one was disabled due to Trait picks in the other section. While I was still able to salvage the situation, that’s a very bad thing to be in when undertaking certain higher-level content. I now feel I’ll need to clear that second tab for the moment (and just bear with having extra weapons on inventory); or perhaps buy two more equipment tabs on him, so there are two for an aggressive build and two for a defensive one. Ah well.

So, to summarize: The average, casual player will experience no issues (or major requirements to reach for the Cash Shop). Folks in semi-casual to minor hardcore content will need to expand their favorite characters only, and true hardcore folks will likely restrict their character choices or outlay serious RL money. Or perhaps quit; but from my experience, a game company relying on RL$ transactions should be catering to the lower money outlays (far more of those) rather than ‘Whale’ players.

Final Note, on Cost: Not bad really. Initial outlay for the transition I’m talking about should fit within the confines of one $15 Gem card, which is still dirt cheap if I’m only spending that every four to six months (as opposed to the old-school monthly sub at that level). Even every three months is fine IMO. So I think they’ve done a good job there.

If you’ve not looked at this new system yet, do so, and determine for yourself what you really want to do with it. From there you can determine costs, and if alternatives exist – after all, if you were already dealing with multiple ‘Alt’ characters for different roles, you’re likely unaffected as well. Barring an interest in having individual characters do more.

Valley and Altruistic Games

One the more interesting games I played recently is called Valley.  While one of the Steam tags is marking it as a Walking Simulator, I consider it closer to Portal in some of its core mechanics (mostly in the amount of running and flying around you do).  And it does include an element of combat, however small it may be.  But the interesting mechanic I’ve been harping about to folks is the very Altruistic style of play the game has.

Its no spoiler to say that one of the notable points of the game is to save the valley you end up in.  The source of the threat is not either, if you’re seen the trailer.  But the idea of moving around the valley’s ‘life’ in order to save it has some interesting implications down the game’s core story.  Regardless of how you interpret its ending, you’ll likely enjoy the game if you’re a fan of Portal.

So where is this leading?  Turns out, there’s a Wikipedia article that explains some of the main drivers I’ve had for being Altruistic.  In short, there are two:  1) doing so out of empathy with the target, and 2) doing so to make the target feel better.  And, as is typical with me and driving Sociologists nuts, I’m triggered by both.  :-)  For Valley in particular, one of these options are not available, which I’ll have to leave vague since its possibly a spoiler.  Still, very well done in that aspect, and can’t say enough about it.

(Note to self, though – do the article on being a Social Producer during my SL and Uru days, really piss off the Sociologists…)

And circling back to the subject I’m pondering recently, I went and did a search regarding other games that are like this.  Not surprising, Guild Wars 2 is still top of that list (which was somewhat recent, so still have relevance).  So, it may still be worth another shot there, but more on my terms.  I’m still hesitant, though, as I’m honestly done with negativity of any form in online discussions – I do this to relax, and would prefer to find a like-minded group who is willing to toss out folks like that immediately.

Strong Transitions, Strong Emotions, Strong Memories, and MMO Content

About two weeks ago, I walked away from a pair of Guild Wars 2 guilds, and very possibly the game itself, over what may feel like some to be a trivial matter.  But after waiting it out over this time, I’ve come to realize its something I actually should have done sooner.

This bears some explanation and background, so I start with the primary method I learn and remember things:  I learn best by doing the task – no amount of guides will help in the long-run – and I remember an experience best (to the point of it being nearly photographic) when it happens around strong emotions.  ANY strong emotions.  And the memories are so strong because the emotion binds it to similar experiences with that feeling – events going all the way back three decades, perhaps even four.  Including things I promised I would never reveal – and still haven’t – from discussions in various group therapies over the years.

And there lies the problem – when I’m allowed to self-learn, or working with a patient and kind instructor/leader, I do well and I advance well.  In fact, I sometimes do best with a group who does not overly care, and I ‘lead’ at work in a very ‘shamanistic’ fashion.  But, if things get heated, and tempers flare, then I start to stumble and make ever increasing mistakes – to the point where it becomes a horrific spiral that puts me into almost a depression.  Sometimes – like on 9/11 – it causes a much worse reaction; I had a lot of repressed hate over the years after that day, and did things that I’m very ashamed of now.  It took nearly a decade with the Uru community to get the last major bits of that out of me.

So how do I normally resolve stuff like this?  Leave – its the healthiest thing to do in that sort of situation, and its why I survived Eve Online with such a decent track record – I saw the events coming and quietly bailed.  In fact, if it was not for what was left of their RP community at the time, I would have probably only been there two years, instead of three.  And with Eve, in theory, I had planned to leave online gaming for good.

But as I was leaving, the timing came up whereby I saw some potential in Guild Wars 2.  The Uru community had been constantly praising GW1, and some had been looking forward to this iteration; that is a very strong endorsement to me, so I tried it.  Unfortunately, what I found was a terribly buggy mess that had a lot of quirky mechanics (other than the underwater stuff, which worked a lot like Eve), and had more than once considered dropping it.

Then I ran into LAW, and they saved my interest in the game with the one thing I was truly seeking – a group that was somewhat hardcore, but also didn’t entirely care how you went about doing it:

[Update – Apparently the YT User’s content was pulled; unfortunate but kinda expected these days.]

It was a good run – about 2.5 years, with everyone chatting on voice nearly every day, even if not entirely on the game.  Both the long interregnum before the first expansion, and the slew of competitor MMOs pulled various regulars out and back again for a long time; Eventually the main leadership decamped to Black Desert, after which I never heard from them again.  Looking back now, I realize I may not be able to capture that again – the game has moved on from what it was at launch.

But, I tried anyway, which is how I ended up on the other two guilds.  It worked out at first, but only because I only logged in once or twice a week for nearly two years.  But eventually things started to chafe with me, I was craving for more social interaction with the guild – the forum was mostly bare, even Discord’s actual GW2 section was petering out, and all that was being talked about it seemed was the content I disliked the most – Raids – because it was the final straw that killed LAW.  So I decided to gird up and try them – and the other ‘higher level’ content – anyway, just so I had more voice contact with the guild.

I now realize I should have left instead (and seek a proper Social oriented guild), and consider this to be one of the larger mistakes within Gaming I’ve ever made in my life.  But I trusted some of the officers involved to keep things civil – and as a former Eve player, Trust is something I don’t give lightly.  Which made what happen two weeks ago even more poignant.

—–=====—–

With that out of the way, the Event AAR:

Content:  Tier 3 Fractals

Participants:  Myself, two Officers from the Guild I was repping at the time (and who were singly responsible for coaxing me back to this content after a year off), a third Officer from a sister Guild (the Target of this report), and a person interested in the content but had virtually no protection against it.  I barely had any protection myself, and consider myself pretty decent for a casual player…

What happened:  The Officer in question pulled up the fractal, and despite my protests, convinced us it would be fine.  That is despite the fact that the previous run of this event (just the day before) I complained about being unable to track everything, and one of the two other Officers (who was in Voice at the time) knows my limitations from running often enough to have considered Vetoing the run.

As I’ve seen previously from this Officer (many times), after going in with a lax attitude to the content, he got overly serious and began snapping at people regarding being unable to follow the mechanics.  While I’ve endured this before from him, the final straw was his yelling at the new guy, who happened to be running the same class as he was.  This was despite pulling him in with practically NO protection AT ALL against the core Mechanic of fractals – Agony Resistance.  As I said, I barely had enough myself, but probably could have managed if things were explained more calmly and everyone kept their cool.  But this particular person would have none of that, yet again.

Enough was enough; in order to protect the new guy from any more abuse (and I honestly had enough with all three Officers by that point too), I left the voice chat, Discord, the Guilds, and very possibly the Game itself.  I am certainly taking a vacation from it for awhile, take stock in what I really care about, and probably go look for a true Social guild.  I may even go hook up with one of the Christian guilds that I know exist there.

But, there is no way at all that I could come back to either of the other two guilds with the level of Taint that this has caused me.  I am certainly done with any content like that again – not without someone who can calmly take the lead.  I am even concerned if I can even join a Guild that hosts Raids or Fractals, however small that group may be.  Its that scarring for me now.

—–=====—–

So what’s next for me?  Lots actually.  During the time away so far, I got a lot of fun and useful stuff done at work (probably because I’m actually relaxing instead of stressing, as high end content does to me).  And I have a new idea for a long-term project in Minecraft as well – reviving an old project from my Second Life days.  More on that later.  :-)

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