Back in February, I injured my hand, and I had to take a bit of time off from gaming. I’m better now, but I’ve fallen out of the habit a little, and I’ve also got a lot on my plate lately in terms of Real Life stuff, so that also has led to me gaming less.

However, I remain a sucker for pretty outfits, so the addition of the outfit system to Elder Scrolls Online has me poking around it again.

Styling and/or profiling:

The addition of an outfit system to ESO is very long overdue, but the good news is it’s a pretty good system. It’s based on crafting motifs, and it’s account-wide, so even your low level alts can get in on the fun.

There’s pretty much no limitations on it, either. You can use light, medium, or heavy armour appearances in your outfit regardless of what you’ve got equipped, and there aren’t any level restrictions on appearances.

Also, weapon dyes! My Barbaric greatsword looks so much better bone white.

I have heard a lot of complaints about the gold cost of creating an outfit, and it is definitely on the higher end, but once your outfit is set-up, it’s permanent. You don’t need to pay again every time you get new gear like you do in WoW. Given that, I don’t think the gold costs are a crippling flaw.

Slightly more problematic is the high cost in real money of additional outfit slots given that they are character-specific and not account-wide, but additional slots are very much a nice to have and not a need to have (even for as rabid a virtual fashionista as I), so even that’s not the end of the world.

My main has gone back to more or less the outfit she had while leveling, with only slight modifications. It’s mostly Argonian pieces, all of which are medium aside from the legs. It gives her a very wild and savage look that fits her Bosmer roots excellently. And I love how well it shows off her tattoos.

Meanwhile, my templar alt has gone full Blood Knight, if it is the wrong universe for that. It’s all red, gold, and black. Mostly she’s using Ra Gada and Imperial pieces, though the Abah’s Watch shield is also a core piece of the look.

I’m very happy with these outfits. Turns out your characters actually can look pretty good in ESO when you’re not forced to use whatever gear happens to drop.

Altoholism once more:

Of course, no point designing the perfect outfit if you don’t actually play the game. I’ve been poking around on my main a little, but the majority of my attention has actually gone to playing my templar.

So far it’s been fun. Even at this low level, she has a pretty solid and enjoyable build/rotation (being overpowered from all those champion points probably helps), and the Dark Elf zones are interesting. Unlike the rest of ESO so far, it’s a pretty unique environment and not quite like anything I’ve seen before. Morrowind definitely has its own unique character.

I also mustered my courage and finally completed a dungeon for the first time. I was tanking, too, which provided me with a quick queue, but also an extra layer of pressure for my first dungeon run in the game.

The DPS were of course channeling their inner Leeroy, but aside from that, it went pretty well. We only had one death, and I don’t think that was my fault. No one complained about my tanking.

Tanking in ESO is an interesting experience. There are single-target taunts, but no other threat modifiers, so it’s actually expected that you won’t be able to keep aggro on everything all the time. Aside from the actual bosses, dungeon mobs don’t seem much stronger than those in the open world, so they’re not going to instantly pound the healers or DPS into the dirt.

It’s a good system. It adds a little chaos to combat, but not too much.

As for the dungeon itself (Banished Cells), it matches the rest of ESO by being competent if unremarkable. The environment is a little bland. The rest of my group was in too much of a rush for me to properly appreciate the story, but there didn’t seem to be much to it anyway.

On the upside, it was very well-paced. Not too many bosses nor too much trash, and the whole thing only took about half an hour.

I’m not sure I’m going to make dungeons my new focus in ESO or anything, but it’s nice to have the option. At least I get fast queues.

Lately I’ve embarked on another rewatch of Stargate: Universe (one of the few TV shows I like enough to have the full series on DVD). I’m once again struck by how fiercely I love this series, and while I’ve already talked about it on this blog some, I felt compelled to gush some more.

Rather than try to make the objective argument that Universe is a great show, however, I thought I might look at why it appeals so strongly to my own personal artistic sensibilities.

Not that I don’t think it’s an objectively good show, and not that I would be unwilling to make that argument, but I think it may be more interesting to examine my personal relationship with the show, and why it’s so perfect for me.

A journey into the unknown:

One of my favourite scenes in all of fiction comes near the end of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Q Who,” where Q hints at what awaits Starfleet in deep space:

It’s not safe out here. It’s wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross… but it’s not for the timid.

This, to me, cuts to the very heart of what speculative fiction is all about: The wonder and the terror of the unknown. Sci-fi, fantasy, and horror are about expanding your mind. They’re about making you think it new ways, about new things. They’re meant to expose you to ideas and concepts you never would have considered otherwise.

But that’s just one scene. It’s a brilliant scene, from a brilliant episode, but the rest of Star Trek has lived up to that promise only sporadically at best.

Alas, poor Nicholas, I was him…

Stargate: Universe, however, is that one line of Q’s adapted into an entire series.

Space — as depicted on Universe — is a scary place, filled with deadly hardships ranging from the mundane to the incomprehensible. It’s full of threats to snuff your life in an instant, and terrors to chill the soul.

But it’s also a place of beauty. Audience insert character Eli Wallace is always a wonderful reminder of just how lovely and wondrous so much of what Destiny discovers is, just how cool it all is.

Universe gives us both, the terrible and the wondrous, the bitter and the sweet. There’s battles with ruthless alien monsters, and there’s the thrill of aero-breaking through the atmosphere of a gas giant. There’s the brutal deaths of beloved crewmembers, and there’s the beauty of garden worlds never before glimpsed by human eyes.

And at the heart of it all are questions about the very fundamental nature of life, the universe, and reality itself. It makes you think. It makes you wonder what could be out there. It makes you ask yourself how much of the universe we still don’t understand, and what the answers to our questions might reveal.

That is what speculative fiction should be at its best. That’s what Universe was all about.

Dark done right:

I’m a fan of dark, grim stories. Anyone who’s read anything I’ve written can confirm that. It’s not like Leha’s life was all sunshine and lollipops.

I remember back in the TrekUnited days I was always butting heads with people about this. I wanted Star Trek to be darker. I wanted Stargate to be darker. I wanted everything to be darker. I was fed-up with stories where there were no consequences, where characters were always shiny and perfect.

Nowadays the pendulum has swung the other way. Dark stories seem to be the order of the day now. Perhaps due to Game of Thrones, it almost feels like TV shows are now in an arms race to determine who can have the most gore, the most tragedy, the most warped and twisted characters.

You might think I’d be happy about this, but I’m not. I think the current trend toward cynical fiction misses the point of what makes grim stories compelling in the first place.

I don’t want stories that wallow in awfulness, that revel in the worst aspects of humanity. The point of a dark story is to make the light, the optimism, the goodness shine all the brighter.

That’s what so much of current television — so much of current fiction generally — doesn’t get. But it’s something that SG:U understood very well.

One of the iconic lines of the series is when Colonel Young declares, “These are the wrong people, in the wrong place.” That sums up the character of Universe very well.

The people aboard the Destiny find themselves in an impossible situation, trapped on a decaying alien ship they have no control over at the far end of the universe. To make matters worse, none of them are quite the right people for the job. They’re all battling their personal demons, and things only get worse as the stress of their situation begins to press down on them all.

But they don’t give up. They keep fighting — to get home, to survive, and to be better people. For all their many and sundry flaws, deep down they are largely good people. And that’s what makes it such a powerful show. Watching them triumph despite their demons.

I don’t like stories that are too shiny and happy because they feel cheap. They feel dishonest. When the characters succeed, it doesn’t feel earned.

That’s what makes darker stories more interesting. If the characters are allowed to fail sometimes, it makes it all the sweeter when they do succeed. It does feel earned.

That’s what Universe gets so right that so many other shows don’t. It’s grim enough to feel real, and uplifting enough to inspire. It’s the perfect balance of joy and sorrow, darkness and light.

That’s what I crave in fiction. That’s what makes a story stick with me, and that’s why Universe will always be a favourite.

At this point, I think it’s well known that I don’t think that much of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The movies I’ve seen were all mediocre at best. But Black Panther did look to have some interesting visuals, and my friends kept pestering me about it, and I figured paying for a movie with this many black people was a good way to irritate racists, so…

Since I’m pretty much the last person in the Western Hemisphere to see Black Panther, it’s probably not worth bothering to summarize the story. I figure you already know.

I will say this much: Black Panther is easily the best MCU movie I’ve seen yet.

The thing I really like about it is it’s not really an origin story the way these usually are. T’Challa is already pretty comfortable with his powers and feels pretty well-established as a character. Maybe they already covered his origin in one of the many Marvel movies I skipped. I don’t know. Don’t care.

The important thing is that this allows us to skip the tedious origin story tropes Marvel always seems to cling to, and go straight to the real story. It’s a fairly long movie at nearly two and a half hours, but none of it feels wasted. It’s got a really good balance of character development, world-building, and action.

It’s a visual treat, too. While it’s not stated in so many words, the conceit seems to be that Wakanda’s isolation has allowed technology to develop in entirely different directions from the rest of the world, leading to some very unique and interesting gadgetry, such as vibranium-infused cloaks that can conjure force fields at will.

It doesn’t really affect the plot, but it does lead to some very creative art design.

It leaves me wistful for all the cultures and mythologies, all the stories and artistry, that have been strangled by colonialism. Western culture is full of beauty, too, but its aggressive dominance has cost the world so much…

Anyway.

Black Panther is also helped along by a very strong supporting cast — with the notable exception of T’Challa’s insufferable kid sister. My personal favourite was Danai Gurira as the badass, honour-bound General Okoye. Any chance she can get a solo movie?

I also quite liked Lupita Nyong’o’s character, though it’s a bit of a shame she was relegated to be little more than a generic love interest.

That’s not so say I loved everything about Black Panther. It leans less heavily on Marvel’s bad habits than I would have expected, but they’re still there. The humour is cheesy and often feels forced. The ending is a little too quick, too neat and tidy. And the cyber rhinos were a bit much.

The themes of the movie are pretty muddled, too. It seems to want to provide an aspirational tale for people of African descent — a most noble goal — but this is somewhat undercut by the fact that Wakanda is, at its heart, a pretty terrible country, being rife with xenophobia and controlled by archaic and oppressive forms of governance.

Perhaps the idea was to offer nuance — to make Wakanda not entirely good or entirely bad — but when it’s presented as an enlightened paradise half the time and corrupt and brutal the other half the time, the end result is only confusion.

Mind you, I’m not exactly the target audience for Black Panther’s messages, and it does seem to have been very inspirational to a lot of people, which I respect.

Either way, I didn’t go to a MCU movie for intelligent social commentary, and I will at least give it credit for tackling racial politics and the dark legacy of colonialism in a very blunt and brave way. That’s more than I expected.

So I wouldn’t say Black Panther is a masterpiece or anything, but it’s the first MCU film I don’t feel any regret over watching.

Overall rating: 7.7/10

My journey through SWTOR’s class stories is now complete, and one of the things that really made that experience memorable was meeting such a large and colourful cast of companions.

In that time, I also came up with an equally colourful roster of nicknames for my companions, and I thought it might be amusing to share them with the world.

…I’m so out of post ideas, guys.

Imperial agent:

• The one that’s going to smother you in your sleep
• Bug Boy
• Space Jekyll
• Ensign Sexy Accent
• The other one that’s going to smother you in your sleep

Jedi consular:

• Gorn Michaels
• Tharan and the Real Girl
• Arcturus Mengsk
• Actually okay
• “Senpai noticed me!”

Sith inquisitor:

• Hungry Hungry Horror
• Steve Blum
• “I hate you but I’ll do whatever you say for some reason.”
• Sir Crumpets McBritish IV Esq.
• Who?

Sith warrior:

• Life is better where it’s Vette-r
• [Choke him]
• Two! Two companions for the price of one!
• “Goon.” “Who?” “Hired Goon.”
• Murder Bear

Trooper:

• Grumpy Cat
• The only good thing about the trooper story
• Murica Bot 4000
• Sergeant Sleazewad
• Marty McFly

Smuggler:

• Charles Tucker III
• Totally not Chewbacca
• Princess Playa
• Mandasnorian
• “You never even finished Jedi school.”

Jedi knight:

• Microwave Mary Sue
• Tough Girl
• Dr. Nick Riviera
• Sergeant Killbot
• Sith Happens

Bounty hunter:

• Five
• Miguel Sanchez
• Drywall: The Person
• SQUIRREL
• Tychus Findlay

Greetings, dear readers.

I regret to inform you all that I’m going to be slowing down with my posting here on Superior Realities. I have a lot going in my life right now, and I just don’t have the time or energy for a new post every third day.

I also have to admit that after nearly seven years of doing roughly 10 posts per month, I’m running out of ideas. Trying to come up with new blog topics every week is starting to feel like more of a chore than I’m comfortable with.

This isn’t goodbye. I’m still going to be posting. It’s just going to be less often. I already have April’s song of the month picked out, and I have a couple of reviews I want to do in the near future.

I will also still be reading and commenting on others’ blogs, which should be great news for the two or three people whose blogs I actually comment on.

Right now, I’m not sure if this is going to be a temporary measure or a permanent one. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get back to normal before too long, but I don’t want to make any promises on that front.

Ande-thoras-ethil, friends.

We have now entered my least favourite time of the year: Spring. A seeming eternity of gloom, rain, mud, and slush.

This puts me in mind of one of my favourite “rainy day” songs, When I’m Small by American trip hop duo Phantogram. Tell me you don’t think of rainy, dark days as you’re listening to this.

I’m not the biggest Phantogram fan, but this is a really lovely song. Dat bass.

I am, in almost every way, the stereotypical nerd. My favourite books, movies, and TV shows are all sci-fi or fantasy. I love video games. I do well in intellectual pursuits, terribly in physical pursuits. I have reams of action figures and replica starships cluttering my apartment. I don’t consider this a negative; I’m comfortable with this identity.

However, there is one major area of nerdom that has been a blindspot for me, one area in which my nerd cred was never proven: tabletop role-playing.

I’ve had a vague fascination with the idea, off and on, over the years. When I was much younger I bought all the core rulebooks for Dungeons and Dragons, but mostly I just enjoyed reading the lore and looking at the art. I never got around to playing a proper game.

I was somewhat put off by my experience with CRPGs, which are the video game world’s attempts to replicate the tabletop formula. I’ve never liked those sorts of games very much; I find them slow, stilted, and lifeless, feeling more a matter of numbers and stats than an immersive game.

Now, finally, a few of my friends have set up a Dungeons and Dragons group, and I’ve gotten to try it for real. I’m only two sessions in at the time of this writing, but on the whole, it’s been a lot more fun than I expected.

My biggest worry going in was that it would be a very slow and plodding affair, but it’s actually been relatively fast-paced. The story is moving along at a decent clip, and there’s never too long a wait between fights. The pace of leveling is a little slower than I’d like (we’re all still level two), but given the game’s complexity, I see the reason for it.

I do credit our dungeon master for doing a good job so far. He’s been hitting a good balance of imposing order while still allowing us some creativity.

As someone who’s always found class choices in video games too restrictive, I also appreciate the greater flexibility Dungeons and Dragons offers.

For example, my character is a paladin (Elven, of course), and I’m playing with the intention of being the group’s main healer/support. However, rather than the traditional tanky sword and board paladin, I have low health and am using a longbow as my main weapon. I’ve actually been able to dish out a fair bit of punishment. I think I got fully half our party’s kills in the first session.

Longer term, I intend to double down on my archery and expand beyond the stereotypical holy magic. Our DM is open to letting me incorporate elements of the arcane archer sub-class, and I intend to take the Oath of the Ancients specialization, which has a nature/druidic bent.

The end result is going to be a long way from what you probably picture when you hear “paladin,” while still capturing much of what makes the class appealing to me.

She’ll still be a crusader for good, but rather than smiting with sword or hammer, she’ll be a deft ranged fighter, slaying evil from range with blessed arrows. She’ll still be a bastion of healing and support, but she’ll do so by channeling the raw vitality of nature and the purity of her own heart, rather than seeking the favour of a specific god.

I haven’t felt the frustration I do when playing CRPGs. Ultimately, I feel it’s a bit apples and oranges. Tabletop role-playing has a social, collaborative component and offers more freedom than a video game ever could. Video games are better suited to providing an immersive, seamless experience that lets you live in the moment. CRPGs try to combine the two, but only capture the worst of both worlds.

That said, I’m not without complaints. I had always found the sheer complexity of D&D intimidating, and while it’s not quite as bad as I expected, there’s still a lot to keep track of. I need a clipboard of papers and a rather hefty file on my tablet just to keep track of everything about my character and her spells. Oftentimes the challenge is not so much choosing the right action, but simply remembering what all the many and sundry options are. How a dungeon master manages everything I’ll never know.

Managing clashing character concepts can also be a bit hairy. I’m still not really sure how we’re going to have a party with a lawful good knight, a neutral good paladin, and a deranged necromancer building an unholy flesh golem without someone eventually getting murderized.

Still, none of this been enough to hamper my enjoyment of the process too much so far. Nothing’s perfect, after all.

Again, it has only been two sessions, but so far my first foray into Dungeons and Dragons has been a positive experience, and I look forward to more.

It’s been a long time since the first book of Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory’s Dragon Prophecy trilogy was released. So long, in fact, that I had started to think the series had been cancelled for some reason. Imagine my surprise and delight, then, to find book two staring in me in the face as I perused the shelves at Indigo.

It wasn’t entirely easy to get back into the story. After so long, I had forgotten a lot, and between the bloated cast, a relative lack of physical description, and the infamously over-complicated names given to Elves in this universe, it was hard to remember who was who.

That said, there is improvement in many of the key areas where book one faltered. While the issue of unwieldy names hasn’t entirely gone away, concessions have been made. For instance, much of the book focuses on a character named Runacarendalur Caerthalien, but mercifully, this is abbreviated to the nickname “Runacar” for most of the book. As well, a number of non-Elven characters are introduced, and they all have names that are far more manageable.

The pacing’s a bit better this time, as well. It’s still a bit of a slow burn, but not unpleasantly so, and it builds to a breathtaking climax.

Picking up in the immediate aftermath of book one, Blade of Empire sees Vieliessar struggling to plan her next move after attaining the High King’s crown at the cost of destroying Elven civilization as she knew it. Meanwhile, her embittered rival Runacar forges an unlikely alliance with the so-called “Beastlings,” the other races of the Light who have long been hunted by the Elves.

And in the depths of Obsidian Mountain, the Endarkened marshal their forces, for the time of the Red Harvest has come at last.

In case it wasn’t already clear, I enjoyed Blade of Empire a lot more than Crown of Vengeance.

Partly I think it’s a matter of timing. Lately I’ve grown a bit frustrated with the direction of the fantasy genre. Maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places, but these days it seems like the focus is more and more on low fantasy stories focused on backstabbing and political intrigue more than magic and wonder.

Blade of Empire isn’t like that. This is the high fantasy of all high fantasy. Not only are there no humans at all in this story, but a good chunk of the cast isn’t even humanoid. It’s a story that overflows with colour and imagination, unashamed of its wildly fantastical nature.

This is what I read fantasy for.

But also, it’s just a quality story. Not without flaws, as we’ve already discussed, but with great strengths to balance them out.

Something that the Dragon Prophecy series has been very good at even from the outset is presenting the mythic feeling that fantasy books often shoot for, but rarely achieve. This is a no-holds-barred story of the death of one world and the birth of something new — not unlike Genesis of Shannara — and it’s an incredibly powerful experience.

There is a common school of thought that holds that prequels are an inherently flawed form of story-telling, but I think this series is a great example of a story that would not have nearly so much power if the reader didn’t know what was coming.

There’s a sense of creeping horror running through these books as you watch the armies of the Light tear each other apart, leaving themselves all but defenseless, even as the Endarkened are preparing for the war to end creation. You want to scream at the characters to stop, to unite in preparation for the true threat, but you can only watch on helplessly as they race toward oblivion.

In the end, you’re left reflecting on just how futile, how senseless, war truly is.

Overall rating: 8/10 Book one took a lot of patience, but I think I can now safely say this series is worth it.

Despite its many well-documented flaws, I have long maintained a soft spot for the MMO shooter Defiance. I really enjoy the setting, and it has some very memorable NPCs. I can forgive a lot if a game has personality, which is one thing Defiance has never lacked.

That said, I still haven’t played in a long time, and I considered my time with the game effectively done. That held true until the announcement of Defiance 2050, a reboot designed to improve the game and make it run on more modern consoles.

Immediately, there is an obvious resemblance between 2050 and The Secret World’s reboot as Legends, something I’ve been harshly critical of. And it does seem to be a pretty similar situation: It’s being branded as a new game, but by all reports it’s pretty much the same game with a tweaked progression system.

However, there are a couple of factors that leave me feeling a bit more open-minded this time.

For one thing, I haven’t invested nearly as much time in Defiance as I did in TSW. I only played through the story once, and that was some years ago now. The prospect of having to start over from scratch isn’t nearly as galling.

While there’s definitely still room to criticize the treatment of Defiance veterans, I do think Trion is handling this a little better than Funcom did. They’re not shutting down the old Defiance, they are transferring character slots to the new game, and as far as I know they never lied about adding new content to Defiance only to pull the rug out from under loyal players.

Also, TSW’s progression system was a huge part of the game’s appeal to me. Throwing it all out made for a less interesting game.

On the other hand, Defiance’s progression has always been one of the game’s greatest flaws. Leveling in Defiance is excessively grindy, convoluted, and unrewarding, managing to be both over-complicated and incredibly shallow all at once.

Normally replacing a classless leveling system with traditional classes would get the stink eye from me, but in this case, I think it might add some actual depth to the game. It sounds like Defiance 2050 will have a greater emphasis on active abilities — Mass Effect style — instead of just being a pure shooter. That would be most welcome.

My greatest hope is that 2050 will not entail such a massive grind. Defiance’s base story was easy enough to play through casually, but the post-launch content quickly became utterly punitive to anyone who hadn’t sunk a massive amount of time into grinding. That was ultimately what drove me from the game, and if that could be fixed, I would be very pleased.

Unfortunately I’ve found it very hard to find any concrete info on Defiance 2050. Trion is running developer livestreams, but ain’t nobody got time for dat, and the media doesn’t seem to be covering the game that much. So I see a lot of potential for 2050 to improve on the original game and maybe even usher in a bit of a renaissance for the IP, but there’s really no way to know if that potential will be realized.

Word of mouth coming out of the beta is pretty negative, but there’s really no way to know if that actually means anything or if it’s just the usual Internet rabble-rousing.

Seriously, the gaming community has officially become the boy who cried wolf at this point. If you say every game is a broken cash-grab, there’s no way of knowing which games are actually broken cash-grabs.

The logical part of me recognizes that I probably shouldn’t let myself get excited about Defiance 2050. There’s a lot of cause for concern here. But still, I find the temptation to grab a Founder’s Pack is surprisingly strong…

After the disappointment of the last patch, I went into The Nathema Conspiracy with pretty low expectations. Thankfully, that allowed me to come away actually feeling pretty pleased, even though the story has its flaws.

The main problem is that the two big plot reveals/changes to come out of this are really easy to see coming (especially since one is spoiled by the rewards in the quest log) and feel like cop-outs.

But I will grant the writers’ choices aren’t entirely without merit. I went into the flashpoint full of fire and fury, but this turned out to be one of the only times in my entire history with the game I’ve genuinely regretted a dark side choice. I think that shows that the story had some real emotional weight to it.

As for the other Big News, it definitely feels, again, like a cop-out, but I can’t say I have a better idea for how to progress the story. They had kind of painted themselves into a corner. It reminds me of the ending to Dragon Soul, actually. Not an amazing ending, but perhaps the best they could have managed.

And those issues aside, Nathema Conspiracy felt like a much stronger patch than A Traitor Among the Chiss or Crisis on Umbara. It’s still a bit shallower than I’d like, but there’s definitely more and better story content here than in the earlier patches. Despite some rather thin development leading up to now, it did feel like a very epic and intense conclusion to this particular arc.

I was especially impressed by how much the graphical fidelity of this game continues to improve. There’s some beautiful lighting effects in the new environments.

I did enjoy the twist around Zildrog’s true identity, as well. That was one thing I didn’t see coming, but in retrospect, it makes perfect sense.

In terms of mechanics, it’s a standard SWTOR flashpoint. It’s too long, there’s way too much trash, and the bosses are HP sponges. But at least it’s not half as bad as Copero was.

In the end I think my favourite part of the patch may have been the quiet character moments with Lana at the end. I was definitely not expecting this to be a major patch as far as romance content goes, but I’m not complaining.

Honestly, at this point, I think Lana is the main thing that’s keeping me playing SWTOR. I don’t love the setting, and I’ve never much liked the gameplay, but as long as Lana’s there, I will be too. I’ve really come to enjoy her character.

I am having pangs of regret now that Vector’s back, though. I’m not sure I’ll ever have the courage to do his Alliance Alert. I don’t think I have it in me to break his heart like that.

Poor, poor Vector.

Man, there’s so much good music coming out lately I can’t even keep up. Between new releases from both Chvrches and Sc Mira, not to mention some promising entries from new artists, I’ve almost got more songs to listen to than time to listen to them.

There is therefore no shortage of good candidates for Song of the Month, but one option edges out the rest: the latest release from Chvrches’ upcoming Love Is Dead album, titled “Miracle.”

This feels different from most Chvrches songs. It’s heavier and more intense, and it feels like they’re channeling Imagine Dragons a bit. But it’s a change I wholeheartedly embrace. It’s an amazing, powerful song.

I think I found my theme song for book four of Soulcleaver…

At long last, the journey is done. My nearly two year mission to complete every class story in World of Warcraft has reached its conclusion, with the last three now in the rear view.

Man. What am I doing with my life.

Rise of the mountain queen:

The trouble with the warrior campaign is it’s one of those stories that just doesn’t go anywhere. You spend all this time marshaling the armies of the Titanforged, and then… that’s it. You don’t actually do anything with your amazing immortal army. I like the subject matter, but there isn’t really a story here.

The only significant lore revelation to be found is learning what happens to the Kvaldir after Helya’s defeat, but while that’s nice to know, it’s honestly not a question I’d even thought to ask.

They do have a very pretty class hall, at least, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed playing arms spec. Going in, it sounded totally unappealing; I thought not having an active rage generator would make the spec incredibly slow. But it’s not like that at all. It’s quite quick, and it flows well. I wound up enjoying it better than fury, which I never would have expected.

This is why I try to test out so many different classes and builds. You never really know what you’ll like until you try it.

Ru shanna Shal’dorei:

We had a bit of a last minute line-up change here. I had leveled up my Pandaren hunter, but that race never seemed to fit the class very well, so I decided to use my “free” 110 boost as a cheap alternative to a race-change. I spent really a disturbing amount of time agonizing over whether I wanted to be a Void Elf or a Nightborne, but while Void Elves are unquestionably the coolest looking race in the game right now, the vastly superior backstory of the Nightborne won out.

As for the campaign itself…

I’ve said before that Legion’s class campaigns don’t have enough content to work as standalones. The best campaigns are those that build upon existing lore and continue the stories of well-known characters.

The hunter campaign is entirely standalone, and as a result it’s possibly the dullest of all.

It’s undoubtedly a challenge to come up with a cohesive story for a class that has no real singular identity or established factions in-lore. I’m not sure I have a better idea for how to handle things. But the fact is that the Unseen Path, while potentially an interesting concept, is way too out of the blue and way too underdeveloped to be at all compelling.

What’s equally sabotaging to the story but harder to explain is the fact the hunter campaign focuses almost entirely on unfamiliar characters the player isn’t going to have any investment in. There are more than a few memorable and interesting hunter characters in the lore, but for some reason they’re largely ignored by the campaign.

The hunter story isn’t quite as destructively dumb as the shaman campaign, but for sheer boredom, it takes the crown.

Also, I skipped recruiting a couple of followers because they required you to do Nesingwary’s quests in Highmountain. A long time ago, when I was a lowbie leveling through Stranglethorn, I swore to myself I would never do any more quests for that benighted, grind-loving Dwarf again, and I will not break that promise for anything.

The one piece of good news is that I did enjoy playing the class quite a bit. Marksmanship takes some getting used to, but once you get into the rhythm, it’s pretty satisfying. It does feel like playing a patient, master sniper. Beast mastery was also pretty fun, surprisingly. I wouldn’t play it solo, but in a group context, it’s not bad. More active than I expected.

Survival didn’t quite do it for me. It’s got some cool ideas and unusual mechanics, but it’s just not tuned well. You wind up so focus-starved.

The wilds call out:

The druid story was a good note to end on. It’s not the best class campaign, but it is better than most. In stark contrast to the hunter campaign, it draws almost entirely on well established characters and plots. Maybe it’s still a pretty basic story on paper, but as a long-time Warcraft fan, I can’t deny the thrill of once again adventuring alongside the likes of Broll Bearmantle, Hamuul Runetotem, and Celestine of the Harvest.

Also, you get to relive the War of the Ancients in all its mad glory. Hells to the yes.

Man, I am scarred for life by Thisalee Crow’s new voice, though. It’s like they got the actresses for her and Valeera completely backwards.

Mechanically, I find druid a mixed bag. There’s no spec that I actively dislike, but nothing quite clicks, either. Balance and restoration just feel off in a way I can’t fully articulate, and feral still feels like playing a watered down rogue.

Guardian did grow on me a bit, though. If I wasn’t so burnt out now I might have spent some time playing guardian just for the hell of it even after I finished the campaign.

There’s also a certain sense of symmetry to finishing with my druid. He is not the first character I ever created — playable Worgen didn’t even exist back then — but he is reusing the name I gave to my original WoW character, who was a Night Elf priest. In that sense, I’ve ended as I started.

Final thoughts:

What a long, strange journey it’s been.

I admit to having mixed feelings. There’s a lot about this I enjoyed, but honestly, twelve class campaigns is a bit much. I’m glad I pushed myself to do more more than the stories of the classes I normally play, and it did give me a much more holistic view of the story of Legion, but I’m not sure doing every last one was really necessary.

If you’re wondering which are the must-plays, I’d say death knight, paladin, druid, and mage are the ones that feel important as a lore fan. Rogue and warlock were also a lot of fun, but I’m not sure they can be considered required.

Death knight wins as my overall favourite. Shaman was the worst.

This also means that I have now played every class and spec in World of Warcraft. I’d say the most enjoyable specs in each role right now are outlaw rogue for melee DPS, elemental shaman for ranged DPS, resto shaman for healing, and prot paladin for tanking.

Blizzard has done a very good job of improving class design across the board such that while there are more than a few specs I’m not that passionate about, there are very few that are actively unpleasant to play. Just holy paladin and demonology warlock, I’d say. Which is very sad to say, because those are both specs that have in the past been my favourite.

Of course, Battle for Azeroth will be changing everything again soon anyway…

Speaking of which, I think I must address my future relationship with World of Warcraft. I’m still not willing to say that I’m done with the game for good, but honestly? I have no plans to play anymore WoW right now.

The fact is pretty much all the stories I care about have been wrapped up, and the Mustering of Azeroth seems like a good note to end on. Maybe I’ll come back at some point, but for now, as impossible as it is to believe, I think I’m done with this game.

I’m still a Warcraft fan. All the stuff I used to love is stuff that I still love. I’ll always be a Blood Elf nut. I’ll always have fond memories of WoW and the previous games (not to mention the novels, comics, and movie). But at this point I think the franchise has given me all it can. I think it’s time to quit while I’m ahead.

Stay tuned, though, as I still have one or two more posts about all this up my sleeve…

I leave you now with a gallery of all twelve of my max level characters. A fine-looking bunch, if I do say so myself. You should all be impressed that only half of them are Elves.

Shorel’aran, friends.

Lately there’s been an unusual excess of sci-fi and fantasy TV for me to watch. Unfortunately, it hasn’t all turned out to be must-see television, but it has been interesting enough for me to have a few thoughts to share.

(Un)Life in New Seattle:

I went into season four of iZombie with a fair bit of trepidation. While season three impressed out of the gate, over time it began to flag badly. The plot was extremely over-complicated and confusing, and most of the characters ended up going in dark directions that I didn’t care for. I was worried the show was losing its mojo.

However, I am pleased to report that, with only a few episodes left, season four has been kicking all of the ass.

iZombie is now a very different series from when it started. It’s gone from a very simple, lighthearted show with a very small focus to a much more intense drama where the very fate of humanity may hang in the balance.

It’s a big adjustment, but I deeply admire the writers for being courageous enough to shake things up so much, and for the most part, it’s paid off. Season four of iZombie still maintains much of the quirky charm and off the walls humour that made us all fall in love with the series, but it’s now a bigger, more powerful story as well.

I was initially skeptical of the show’s continued reliance on the case of the week formula — it was one of the things that dragged season three down — but they’ve mostly done a good job of making the cases tie into the greater narrative, and they haven’t been afraid to buck the formula when the situation calls for it.

Similarly, I didn’t at first enjoy the idea of bringing Angus back into the story, as it felt like his plot had been pretty conclusively wrapped up, but “Brother Love” has became one of the most spectacularly creepy yet gripping aspects of the series to date.

My one big complaint would be that the season’s attempts at social commentary have largely fallen flat. The conflict between zombies and humans is clearly intended to echo real world prejudices, but real world minorities aren’t an existential threat to the human race, whereas zombies are, so the anti-zombie perspective ends up far more sympathetic than the writers seem to want. Any message of tolerance is lost in translation.

It also feels like a little bit of a missed opportunity not to revisit Liv’s estranged family now that the zombified cat is out of the bag and they (presumably) know why she couldn’t save her brother, but it’s already such a packed season I can understand why they haven’t tried to cram that in on top of everything else.

Aside from that, season four of iZombie has been nearly flawless.

I was pleased to see the show has already been renewed for a final season. Even before the announcement, I was thinking to myself that the story seemed to have about one season left in it, so I think this will work out well.

Hell fallen:

On the other hand, Lucifer’s third season ended up being mostly a disappointment. It started out okay, and it had some good ideas, but a number of missteps dragged it down.

For one, it focused far too much on relationship angst. The conflict between Linda and Maze was utterly unnecessary, and the love triangle at the heart of the season was just terrible.

I hate love triangles at the best of times, and this one was made worse by how uninteresting Chloe continues to be. For a romantic arc to work, the love interest has to be appealing to the viewer, but Chloe just isn’t appealing at all. She’s dull, wooden, and lifeless. I can’t understand why anyone would want to be with her, let alone why two immortals would end up competing over her.

Also, the case of the week formula began to really bog things down. It’s always been the weakest element of Lucifer, but rather than de-emphasizing it as iZombie wisely has, Lucifer clung to it with an incredible fervour.

It became painfully predictable. Each week, a new murder where there’s no relevance to the meta-plot, the true culprit is blindingly obvious, and Lucifer makes it all about him in an incredibly childish manner.

Lucifer’s immature ways were amusing for a time, but by now, I was expecting the character to have evolved. Even a show as silly as Lucifer needs some character development.

He does finally grow a bit by the end of the season, but only after a truly painful expanse of episodes where the series pretty much just chased its tail.

The frustrating thing is that season three had a lot going for it. “The Sinner Man” was a very interesting villain, and his arc had some memorable twists. There was potential there. Charlotte’s storyline this season was nothing short of brilliant, but it got largely ignored in favour of the petty angst that defined so much of season three.

Sadly, Lucifer has now been cancelled, which means season three may well be its last, barring a miracle pick-up by Netflix or some other network. Despite my criticism of season three, I would like to see it continue. As iZombie illustrates, one bad season doesn’t necessarily spell doom for a show, and the ending of season three did look set to move the show in a fresh direction.

Doldrums, Will Robinson:

Going in, I heard a lot of good buzz around Netflix’s Lost in Space reboot from people whom I respect. Therefore I was quite surprised by how boring it turned out to be.

I mean, it’s not terrible. I’ll probably watch the second season (which is already confirmed). But I can’t say I’m impressed.

For one thing, it is, to be blunt, pretty dumb at times. I never fully recovered from the brain-achingly silly pilot.

Seriously, guys, that’s not how ice works. At all. I don’t expect a lot of realism from my sci-fi, but when you’re screwing up something you could have tested in your home refrigerator…

The biggest problem, though, is that none of the characters feel real. Dr. Smith is so cartoonishly evil she seem ends up feeling more ridiculous than sinister. The rest of the cast (with one exception) is little better. They all feel forced and unreal.

I also thought the plot was undermined by how much of the show’s drama is dependent on the incompetence of the Robinson children (especially Will, who is just terrible on every level). Either they’re superhuman wiz kids who can serve as part of a deep space exploration mission, or they’re just kids who make mistakes, in which case they have no place on a mission like this. You can’t have it both ways, but that’s exactly what Lost in Space tries to do.

The only strong mark in the show’s favour — aside from the admittedly amazing production values — is Penny, who is awesome. Alone among all the cast, she feels like a real person. She acts pretty much exactly how I would expect a teenage girl to act. She’s precocious, but not superhuman, and relatable in a way the other children aren’t.

And her snark is delightful.

As I said, I’ll probably return for season two, but for me Lost in Space is very much in the “I’m watching this because there’s nothing better to do” category.

Time for another round-up of my latest articles published at MMO Bro.

First, I take a look at the six features no MMO should launch without, then go on to examine the other end of the spectrum: design choices that need to be retired outright.

Finally, I run down the ways MMOs can make leveling more appealing, so it doesn’t end up feeling like a chore before the “real” game.

My journey to complete every class story in World of Warcraft has finally ended. Along the way, I also completed all thirty-four of the game’s artifact quests, and now I bring you my thoughts on them all, ranked from worst to best.

Fists of the Windlord (windwalker monk):

Wastes far too much time on the insufferable Li Li Stormstout and features a generic no name villain whose plans and motivations are never explained in the slightest. A sloppy, underwhelming quest all around.

Light’s Wrath (discipline priest):

This is a mage quest.

No, really. It’s an almost exact copy of the Aluneth quest, and it doesn’t make sense for a priest artifact at all.

The Kingslayers (assassination rogue):

Deserves credit for being one of the more elaborate artifact quests and requiring you to make smart use of pretty much the entire rogue toolkit, but I found the stealth mechanics irritating, and the story only makes sense if your rogue isn’t Alliance and hasn’t finished the rogue story yet.

Twinblades of the Deceiver (havoc demon hunter):

Kind of a sloppy quest. I got excited when I saw Illysanna Ravencrest was involved because I thought it’d help explain how she came to be a boss in Black Rook Hold, and I guess it does, but if you blink, you’ll miss it. Wasted potential there.

Plus the ending just doesn’t make any sense.

The Dreadblades (outlaw rogue):

Not a bad quest, but an unremarkable one. I’ve never understood the appeal of pirates in fiction, and the story has basically zero relevance to the greater Warcraft lore.

Warswords of the Valarjar (fury warrior):

Very basic. Feels like any other random side quest.

Fangs of Ashamane (feral druid):

Meh.

Aldrachi Warblades (vengeance demon hunter):

Short and forgettable. Nothing particularly bad about it, but nothing that stands out, either. Tells you nothing about the artifact or its history.

Maw of the Damned (blood death knight):

Nothing wrong with this quest, but nothing to praise, either. It’s very adequate.

Ebonchill, Greatstaff of Alodi (frost mage):

SUPERB CASTING. GET BACK TO THE FOCUS. I’LL KEEP AN EYE OUT.

SUPERB CASTING. GET BACK TO THE FOCUS. I’LL KEEP AN EYE OUT.

SUPERB CASTING. GET BACK TO THE FOCUS. I’LL KEEP AN EYE OUT.

Make… it… stop…

Also the boss fight was too easy.

Strom’kar, the Warbreaker (arms warrior):

Maybe it’s because I did it last, but I found this the least interesting of the quests at the Tomb of Tyr. Seemed very easy, too.

Arms is a lot more fun to play than I expected, though.

Thas’dorah, Legacy of the Windrunners (markmanship hunter):

It started out well, but was too inconclusive. Ultimately little more than a tease for longtime lore fans, bringing us tantalizing close to the answer to a very long-held question but never actually giving it. That wouldn’t come until Argus.

Titanstrike (beast mastery hunter):

Seemed meatier than most artifact quests, which I appreciate. Needs less Mimiron, though.

Skull of the Man’ari (demonology warlock):

Hard to separate how much I dislike the new demonology from the quest, but Mephistroph is a good villain. Seemed unusually challenging, but maybe it’s just because I’m not used to the spec.

Ulthalesh, the Deadwind Harvester (affliction warlock):

Had a nice spooky feel, but was a bit confusing. Didn’t explain the history of the artifact very well.

Talonclaw, Spear of the Wild Gods (survival hunter):

One of the more fun artifact quests in terms of gameplay, but kind of a giant heap of nothing story-wise, especially considering the history of the artifact. There’s a lot more they could have done.

Aluneth, Greatstaff of the Magna (arcane mage):

Interesting revisiting the Ethereum and the Nexus War. Not sure I like the idea of a weapon that talks back so much, though.

Scale of the Earth-Warder (protection warrior):

Not a huge fan of artifact quests that have so little to do with the actual artifact, but the story of the son trying to save his father’s soul was an interesting angle.

Scythe of Elune (balance druid):

This is pretty much the quest for Ulthalesh with slight tweaks. It’s a good quest, but a weapon with such legendary history deserves better.

Apocalypse (unholy death knight):

Another Ulthalesh clone, but better executed. You still don’t learn much about Apocalypse itself, but the story surrounding its acquisition is complete and satisfying.

The Doomhammer (enhancement shaman):

I’d probably rate this quest higher, but I expected more for such an iconic part of Warcraft lore than just bashing Troggs and fighting one demon.

Honestly the best part was probably Stormcaller Mylra, who has always been and will always be awesome. Sassy Dwarf lady FTW.

Sharas’dal, Scepter of the Tides (restoration shaman):

I don’t understand why this is a shaman artifact. I mean, I get the water connection, but it still feels weird for an item associated with one of Azeroth’s most infamous and evil mages to be wielded by a shaman healer.

That said, this quest is pretty good. I always liked Vashj’ir, and the end boss’s fate is… memorable.

Xal’atath, Blade of the Black Empire (shadow priest):

A somewhat short but entirely satisfying quest. Interesting story, nothing to complain about.

T’uure, Beacon of the Naaru (holy priest):

Interesting thing about this one is it features cameos by a couple of characters from other class stories: Vindicator Boros and Jace Darkweaver. Nice bit of continuity there.

And it’s a pretty fun quest all around.

Sheilun, Staff of the Mists (Mistweaver Monk):

Not very story-heavy, but the familiar characters and location still gave it a great jolt of Pandaria nostalgia. Challenging enough to be interesting, but not frustrating.

Felo’melorn (fire mage):

Less Blood Elf lore than I expected/wanted, but was interesting to revisit Icecrown.

Fangs of the Devourer (subtlety rogue):

This quest did a great job of capturing the rogue feel and making use of the class’s mechanics — from stealth to pick-pocketing — and had a surprisingly epic story to boot, sending you face to face with one of the greatest villains in Warcraft lore.

The Silver Hand (holy paladin):

Paladins have excellent luck with artifact quests. This one is very intense, and I hope we see the final boss again. That the best the Silver Hand has to offer were merely able to hold it off, and then only barely…

Blades of the Fallen Prince (frost death knight):

This is clearly meant to be the first artifact quest you do as a DK, and if you don’t, the timeline gets a bit wonky, but otherwise, this is an excellent quest. There’s a surprisingly clever little puzzle, and the final boss fight is a lot of fun.

Truthguard (protection paladin):

Excellent quest. Lore-rich, good use of Wrath of the Lich King nostalgia, and engaging gameplay that forces you to use your full toolkit as a paladin tank. There’s even a little humour, though not enough to detract from the epic feel of the quest. I loved how your allies bubble-hearth at the end.

G’Hanir, the Mother Tree (restoration druid):

Best of the healer quests. The mechanics make inventive use of the healer toolkit, and the story is exciting and intense.

The Scepter of Sargeras (destruction warlock):

Larger in scale than many other artifact quests — visiting many locations across the face of Azeroth — and captured the feel of the class incredibly well. Betrayal, murder, the quest for ultimate power — everything you could want from a warlock story.

Claws of Ursoc (guardian druid):

Has more effort put into it in terms of unique art and maps than probably any other artifact quest. Also serves to set-up the Emerald Nightmare raid, and revisiting Grizzlemaw for the first time in nearly a decade was warmly nostalgic. Generally pretty awesome.

Not sure this was the time for a random Mylune cameo, though.

The Fist of Ra-den (elemental shaman):

Any opportunity to revisit Pandaria is welcome, and I’m glad they let you do it on at least one non-monk class.

It’s also a very well-rounded quest. Lots of backstory on the artifact, reunions with familiar faces, some of the most inventive boss fights I’ve seen in an artifact quest, a little humour, and a very intense ending.

Plus I finally got to smack Li Li Stormstout. What’s not to love?

Fu Zan, the Wanderer’s Companion (brewmaster monk):

If you were to distill Mists of Pandaria into a single one-hour story arc, it would be Fu Zan’s quest. It was charming and whimsical in places, yet deadly serious when it needed to be. It did an excellent job of showing how widespread the Legion invasion is and how vicious it can be.

It had some subtlety, too. Though the Monkey King’s task seem simple at first, afterward it occurred to me his request for a special brew was really an attempt to save Pandaria’s food supply. Every place I went to for ingredients was some crucial location the Legion was on the brink of destroying.

A very clever, fun quest.

Ashbringer (retribution paladin):

The Ashbringer quest is an absolute tour de force from beginning to end. It features iconic characters from throughout Warcraft lore and actually represents a pretty major moment in the game’s overall story.

Balnazzar puts on one of the best villain monologues I’ve ever heard, echoing Sovereign’s equally chilling speech in the original Mass Effect, only for the player to turn the tables on him in epic fashion.

Unlike many artifact quests, you claim the Ashbringer before the final boss fight, and the fight mechanics are tailored around the sword’s ability, which makes for a very satisfying experience.

As much as I’ve enjoyed artifact quests, I generally wouldn’t say they’re worth making new alts just to experience them, but this is the exception. It’s worth making a paladin just to do the Ashbringer quest. It’s moving, it’s exciting, it plays to nostalgia without leaning on it as a crutch, and it’s just plain fun.

I’ve been having trouble finding anything I’m passionate about to play lately. I’ve tried a lot of different things, but none have stuck. Let’s work our way down the list, shall we?

Soulworker:

I started by continuing my tradition of trying new MMOs whenever I’m bored. First up was Korean import Soulworker, an instanced grinder in the vein of Vindictus.

Of all the games in this post, Soulworker impressed me the most. It’s actually got a lot going for it. The cel-shaded graphics, for instance, are gorgeous. Screenshots absolutely do not do justice to how vibrant the colours are, nor how fluid and full of personality the animations can be.

The combat’s great, too, and I found a character I quite enjoyed: a pale-haired, sword-wielding girl who bore a certain resemblance to my heroine from the Soulcleaver novels.

Most surprisingly, there’s clearly a lot of effort put into the story in Soulworker. The meta-plot is pretty rich and elaborate — if decidedly quirky in the way one would expect from an Eastern game — and the quest NPCs actually have a fair bit of personality. Each playable character also has their own backstory and style of conversation that influences the feel of the game.

However, Soulworker is crippled by two severe flaws.

One is that the people who cared about the story are the ones who wrote it back in Korea, not the ones who translated it into English. The voice-overs haven’t been translated at all, and the subtitles are incredibly awkward. You can still understand what’s going on, but the style of speech is so unnatural it rips you right out of the story.

The other is that it is incredibly grindy. I expected that to be the case going in, but even so, I was shocked by how little time it took for me to reach a point where I couldn’t even progress the story without repeating the same dungeons multiple times in order to level up. It stops being a game and starts becoming a chore very quickly.

It’s a shame. With a few rough edges smoothed out, this could have been a pretty good game.

Closers:

Next up was another action-heavy Eastern grinder, Closers.

Not gonna lie, guys, I managed maybe twenty minutes in this game before I couldn’t take it anymore.

Somehow I completely missed the fact going in that Closers is a side-scroller. Like, what the hell. I know side-scrolling MMOs aren’t unheard of, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.

The controls are spectacularly awkward, too. I managed to rebind everything into something semi-normal, but it never felt quite right.

Add to that more sloppy translations and one of the most unbearably obnoxious interfaces I’ve ever seen in a game, and you get a recipe for endless frustration.

I very rarely say things like this, but stay away from this game. Life is too short.

Getting what I paid for:

A few months ago, Ubisoft gave away a bunch of games — Watch_Dogs, Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, and World in Conflict — and it took me until now to play them all.

I was underwhelmed by them all. Watch_Dogs had something approaching an interesting story, and I enjoyed the music and ship piloting mechanics in Black Flag, but both suffered from an over-reliance on stealth, clunky controls, and a general feeling of dullness.

This was my first time playing an Assassin’s Creed game. I can’t say I was particularly encouraged to play more. Though in fairness I’ve never liked pirates in fiction. I don’t understand what people find so compelling about a bunch of rapey, scurvy-ridden sea-muggers.

As for World in Conflict, it was just kind of dull. There didn’t seem to be a lot need for micro, and there wasn’t much macro, either, and the story didn’t attract me at all. I’d love a good RTS, but I don’t think this is it.

Overwatch PvE:

Finally, Overwatch recently had another free weekend, and it coincided with a repeat of the two events that comprise all of the game’s story content to date: Uprising and Retribution. Naturally, I was eager to try that.

It was fun, but I’m still left a bit baffled as to Blizzard’s thought process here.

The thing is, these are basically two missions extracted from a campaign that doesn’t exist. Without that context, they can’t achieve much in terms of story-telling, but they’re also far too linear to make much sense as repeatable content. They’re not enough to fill the gap of story content, but they don’t work as grindable events, either.

Sometimes I really don’t understand why Overwatch is so successful.

* * *

I’m just glad Vampyr isn’t far off now.

We’re having an election here in Ontario this month. And whenever I’m feeling political, there’s just one band I want to hear: Billy Talent.

Making a comparison like this feels like a disservice to the band, but if you’re not familiar with them, Billy Talent could be viewed as a Canadian version of Rage Against the Machine. They’re loud, they’re angry, and they’re quick to attack the injustices of our society.

Aside from their politics, my favourite thing about Billy Talent is their singer, Ben Kowalewicz. Part of the reason I don’t often listen to louder music like punk or metal is that the singers always seem to me as if they’re simply screaming, but Ben has the fairly unique talent to be very loud and very intense in his singing while still producing a sound that’s melodic and pleasing to the ear.

He’s a pretty good guy, too, based on the interviews I’ve heard with him. While his music may be filled with rage and aggression, off-stage he’s the living stereotype of a Canadian: humble, soft-spoken, polite, and fond of hockey.

There’s no shortage of good Billy Talent songs I could have picked for this post, but I went with the absurdly titled “Kingdom of Zod,” which was inspired in part by Toronto’s infamous “crack mayor” Rob Ford, whose equally troglodytic brother is now at serious risk of becoming Ontario’s premier.

Fair warning: This is a loud, intense song with lots of screaming and NSFW language.

If any longtime readers are still unclear as to my political leanings, this song should make things clear.

I’ve been so caught up in all that’s going on in my life I completely forgot about the seventh anniversary of this blog. Usually I like to do a reflection post the day of, but I guess this year it’s going to have to be a few days late.

Since this kind of snuck up on me, I haven’t had the chance to think much about what to say.

I suppose the biggest change to come out of the last year — at least as far as topics relevant to this blog go — is the fact that I’ve returned to writing fiction regularly with the goal of finally finishing the Soulcleaver books.

That has been, perhaps unsurprisingly, a bit of a rocky road. Things have not progressed as quickly as I might have liked. But they are progressing at least.

As of this month, I’ve finally finished my first draft of book three, currently titled The Bloodforged Host. This was probably the most difficult book I’ve ever written, and I’m very glad to finally be moving past it.

Of course now there’s book four to deal with (and eventually book five), but I’m hoping that will be a bit easier. Those later books will have more action. And Dragons.

I do think I might take a short break before starting on book four — I need time to collect my thoughts anyway — but I’m going to try not to waste too much time. I really want to see this series finished.

Another noteworthy change over the past twelve months is that I’ve been spending less time on video games and more on offline gaming, like Dungeons and Dragons.

Unfortunately the campaign I blogged about a few weeks back has fallen through due to our DM being too busy, but one of the players from that campaign has now stepped in as dungeon master for a new campaign.

In the new campaign, I’m playing as a Tiefling monk who is also taking the occasional level in bard. I was inspired by the Brazilian martial art of capoeira, which was created by slaves and disguised as a dance. Being Tieflings are something of an underclass in D&D lore, it made sense to me that they might develop a similar fighting style so they could learn to protect themselves without arousing suspicion.

I’m enjoying the character so far, but I will admit I miss my Elven paladin. That was pretty much my perfect RPG character. Angsty Elf girl with a bow and support magic. All of the yes.

I don’t ever want to reach the point where I give up on video games — I’m loving Vampyr at the moment — but I do think it’s been good to get out more and spend less time staring at screens.

That’s also part of why I’ve spent less time blogging. I want to spend more time out in the world and less in cyberspace.

And that’s about the limit of my sleep-deprived brain can come up with as far as reflections on the past year, I’m afraid. I want to once again thank my readers for their support. May there be many more years of bloggery ahead of us.

Vampyr has been one of my most anticipated games for a while now. I may not be the biggest fan of vampire fiction, but Dontnod has made interesting games before, and this seemed a fresh take on the idea.

In Vampyr, you take on the role of Jonathan Reid, a doctor returning home to a flu-stricken London following a tour of duty in the Great War. After an attack by a mysterious assailant, Jonathan wakes with an uncontrollable thirst for blood. As a doctor, he is sworn to do no harm, but as a vampire, he must feed on the living to survive.

This dichotomy lies at the heart of what makes Vampyr special.

The temptation of blood:

The combat and the main storyline in Vampyr are both firmly in the realm of being okay, but not great. Neither offers one much cause for complaint, but neither really stands out compared to other games, either.

What makes Vampyr memorable is its mechanics around difficulty and progression, and how they tie into the story and game world.

There are no difficulty settings in Vampyr. If you find yourself struggling, the only way to make things easier is to level up more. But this isn’t a game where grinding is a viable strategy. While there are other sources of XP, by far and away the quickest and most efficient way to level is to “embrace” Citizens, killing them by drinking their blood.

But there are no faceless Citizens. Every one of them is a deeply fleshed out character, and they all have their own relationships and social connections with other Citizens. If you kill someone’s family member, friend, or lover, the survivor will mourn… sometimes with consequences for you.

Thus the heart of the game is in the decision of when to take a life, and in the question of who deserves death. And rarely is it an easy decision. Even cases that seem cut and dried can become surprisingly complicated.

Early in my playthrough, I met a character who confessed to being a serial killer, without remorse. Feeding on him was a no-brainer… but what about his elderly mother? She knew about his crimes and kept the secret, allowing his predations to continue, but is that enough to warrant her death? Before you answer, consider also that she’s looking after a local homeless boy who would have no support without her…

The amount of XP you gain from embracing a Citizen is heavily influenced by how well you know them and their current health. The more you learn about them, the more they trust you, the more XP they’re worth. Their XP value is also lowered when they’re sick, so you can find yourself in a situation where you’re offering friendship and medicine to people only so that you can gain more power when you ultimately kill and betray them.

And as noted, killing has consequences. Embracing an important member of the community can have ripple effects, and if you kill too many, an entire district of the city can collapse, killing off all remaining NPCs, cutting off access to their missions, and causing the area to be overrun by powerful enemies.

That never happened in my playthrough — I was able to keep all four districts intact — but it was a very near thing.

There are story consequences for killing, as well. Vampyr has multiple endings, and it’s surprisingly hard to avoid the bad endings. Be very careful about how eager you are to embrace people.

If I have one complaint about this system, it’s that the stories of all the various Citizens are largely frozen in amber, never progressing. I respect that they didn’t go the Bioware route of making the player an omnipotent being who can fix everyone’s problems, but it’s a little disappointing that the lives of NPCs never change or evolve unless you start killing their loved ones.

Even with that minor issue, though, I think the mechanics around Citizens and the need for blood are one of the most clever marriages of story-telling and game design I’ve ever seen, and it’s stuff like this that keeps me following Dontnod games, despite their flaws. Very few developers offer innovative game design like this.

The dead of night:

As implied above, Vampyr does have some issues, though most are minor.

For one thing, it’s a bit unpolished. There are a lot of bugs — though none are close to game-breaking — and more than a few typos in the game’s text.

My one big problem with the game, though, is how much running around it involves. It’s a big game world, and there’s no fast travel, so the only way to get somewhere is by walking.

Which you will do a lot of. Every time you rest (which you need to do to spend XP), more citizens become sick, and if you don’t give them medicine regularly, it risks destabilizing the city. So you’ll spend a great deal of time making your rounds to deliver meds.

Now, I get what they were going for here. Jonathan’s duties as a doctor are central to the story’s themes, and walking around the city by night to deliver medicine helps sell the ambiance of the game. These are good mechanics to have, and adding fast travel would have broken immersion a bit too much in a game so devoted to it.

The tuning is off, though. Too many Citizens get sick too often, and it becomes too big a part of the game.

That aside, though, it’s a pretty consistently good experience.

* * *

At this point I feel like we know what to expect from Dontnod. They make games that are brilliant, deep, powerful, and occasionally flawed.

All of that is true of Vampyr, but I think this the best job Dontnod has yet done of accentuating their strengths while downplaying their weaknesses. I strongly recommend Vampyr to any fans of vampire fiction or intelligent, story-driven games.

Overall rating: 8.8/10

Time for the latest round-up of my new articles published at MMO Bro.

First, I make the case for more player-created content in MMOs, inspired by a fit of Landmark nostalgia. I really do miss that game, and I think not capitalizing on the creativity of players is leaving a huge amount of potential untapped.

Next, I’ve got a pair of listicles on the most influential innovations in MMO design over the years, and in-game thrills that just never get old.