Good morning everyone. I hope you are having a good week so far.
It has been a while since I last got chance to update my blog or FB so I thought I would take this rare opportunity of peace to do just that.
I finally have a definite release date for my book. Darrienia, although completely finished and polished now, will be released on September 1st 2015. It is really exciting to have a date, it is a little later than I was originally intending, initially I was going to aim for an end of March release, however as I am an autumn lover myself it seemed fitting to release it then. Being released at the same time is another book of the non-fiction variety. A few months back now I woke up at about half four after having a dream conversation with one of my characters, Zo, she’d had a brilliant idea, and better yet, a number of years back I had already done the research so all that I needed to do was convert it to a user friendly format. It was something I originally did for myself, but Zo was insistent that I had to get up and find it. It had been so long since I had laid eyes on it, I searched for hours until finally I found it again and I was in a state of awake that was unreal, almost like I had been eating coffee beans or something. So now that is underway and will hopefully be finished before too long as well, there is even a brief mention to it at the end of the book and at some point in the second book too, almost as if she was waiting for the right time to spring the idea on me.
I recently started playing Final Fantasy 14, I have been promising myself I would get around to it, I do love a good MMORPG, I have played WoW, Rift, Wildstar, Guildwars 1 & 2 (inclusive of all the expansions for 1) I did the beta for ESO as I have really enjoyed the Elder Scroll games, Skyrim being my favourite, but I just couldn’t get into it. I have to say that for me FF14 was a big disappointment. it is the only MMORPG I know that forces you to complete the dungeon to progress the main story, now I know that shouldn’t be a problem but there are a number of reasons I don’t like it.
First and most importantly, is the fact that I don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to gaming, I get a few hours in the evening when the little one is in bed, so when I log in and join the compulsory dungeon quest queue and the wait time is over 60 minutes I am straight away put off. Yes I opted to play a dps character, normally I play a healer, sometimes I tank, I loved the blood death knight build in WoW prior to Pandara, though my paladin was awesome too, but my main was a healer. I always end up playing a healer so I thought this time, let’s try something new, I had no idea it would become such a problem and I don’t want to roll another character or switch classes because I am playing exactly what I want to be. So back to point, having very limited time means I don’t want to spend it waiting on a dungeon I may or may no get into and manage to complete before I have to stop playing.
Next on my list was the fact I am being forced into doing it, dungeon wise most MMORPGs do a main story with a an end, for instance, in one area you could be trying to find out who is responsible for some underhanded evil deeds, at the end of the quest line you find out and the story is tied up to a point where you know what has happened, you then pick up a dungeon quest where, if you want to, you then get a little extra story, like facing off against this said person, however, no MMORPG I have played has ever forced you to do a dungeon if you didn’t want to, you have always been able to move onto the next line of story without completing it, the exception of course always being the endgame plot where to really get closure on the story you have to play the dungeon, but end game dungeons do tend to have a lot of players queuing so the wait time is never so bad.
For me dungeons have always been something in the background, something I do as and when I get the time, in the meantime I continue with the story and just head back when I feel like it, by removing this option I am now at a point where I can’t continue anymore, I can’t unlock the retainer, meaning I can’t sell anything on the auction house, which is also a big thing for me as I like farming mats, I don’t want to be forced to other areas to do mini side quests, I am already too high a level for the dungeon having completed all the quests I can at this point and I don’t want to fly around doing other bits hoping for a chance to get into a dungeon so I can finally progress the story.
I know a number of seasoned gamers will say join a guild or FC, but this isn’t for everyone, I also find the LFG requests for low level dungeons have never really yielded results, so yes, the waiting system is a good idea, but they are not the first to use it, and given that it is so important to get past this point in the story I feel that being forced into doing something where the wait time is equal to the time I can actually spend playing is quite short sighted in the development. I really should stop ranting now lol
So that’s it for me and FF14, there have been a number of none dungeon flaws in the game, but until this point I was willing to overlook them. I really wish I hadn’t gone and brought a 60day timecard, it will now just tick down on my account unused and I need to find another MMORPG as I am really in the mood for one now.
Anyway I hope you enjoy the rest of your week.
All the best catch you next time.
K.J's Athenaeum 