Beat Factions last night

Yay, so last night I recruited some guild mates to assist me in beating Guild Wars: Factions. The last stage occurred in the Imperial Sanctum where we had to defeat the resurrected assassin Shiro, and let me tell you, this guy was no joke to beat! If the fight goes on long enough, he starts sucking up some major health from all the players. You'll see his health below 50% -yours at full-and think "Yay, just a tad more to go!". Then suddenly he uses a move called:

Battle Scars: This is a stance that enables Shiro to regain health by stealing life as he attacks. The life he steals is based on the highest damage he takes while under this stance, which means the higher the damage he takes, the more life he steals. So it's quite frustrating to see your health dip to 1/4 and his return to full within mere seconds.

Other skills he uses:

Echoing Banishment: This skill will replace targeted player with a bound foe of the same profession, and banish the player to a nearby island. The player can here choose to run the long way to the teleportation orb and rejoin the rest of the team. Or wait in safety for the team to destroy the bound foe which will cause the banished player to return again.

Impossible Odds: Shiro starts using this skill once he drops in health to about 30%. It can be curse as it gives him an incredible attack speed and allows him on inflict tremendous amount of damage in a very short time. He also transfers any conditions he might have to the players he attacks. It can also be a way to get him down fast since it will trigger any skills that involve attacks such as Empathy or Spiteful Spirit.

Meditation of the Reaper: This skill gets more and more dangerous the longer it's allowed to continue. While in this meditation he will absorb the next 700 damage done to him and can only be ended by dealing that damage to him. When he comes out of this meditation he will steal 20 health from each player for each second it was active. If it stays active for its full 30 seconds he will steal 600 health from each player, which will result in a complete party wipe.

Riposting Shadows: This skill is nasty in combination with Impossible Odds. It will allow him to shadow step to any player and attack and in combination with Impossible Odds it will cause him to jump around from player to player dealing significant damage without any warning.

Some guild mates said somewhere down the line of updates Shiro was nerfed and made made more difficult to defeat since they don't recall having as much trouble when they did it. Regardless, he almost wiped out our party of 8 quite a few times before we got him to go down. Anyway, his eventual defeat marks the last chapter in Guild Wars I needed to finish. I can now say I have beaten Guild Wars. This includes the chapters Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall as well as the expansion GW:EN (Guild Wars: Eye of the North). I will most likely keep the account open and play some Hard Mode waiting for GW2 to release in the future. No reason not too since it's a free to play online game. For now, I'm taking a small break and went back to playing F.E.A.R. again....up to Interval 8 in that one already but that's for the next blog. ^_^

My little Guild Wars Obsession

Well, since February 2007, I've been playing Guild Wars. It's my first ever MMORPG and I chose it specifically because I'm just stubborn enough to refuse to pay to play every month a game I already bought in the store. Yes, I wanted the cake and to eat it too...This may change as my temptation and curiousity to try other MMOs grow.Well, I got the cake and I've been eating it since February and surprise, surprise...I still like it! LOL! I bought all three game versions-Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall. They can be played as stand-alone games but if you buy all three you increase your land-masses, weapons and armor and playable char classes. This past August, GW:EN or Guild Wars; Eye of the North came out. I bought this expansion as well and I've been playing it a lot. More than a lot...like ALL the time now. I've already reached level 8 of the dwarf title which is the most you can get until they introduce Hard Mode. OK, for those who have no idea what that means, it's just game talk for..."OOH, that's really special and hard to do and takes years off your life to accomplish!"

One thing that really helps to maintain that interest is joining a guild, kinda like a "club". Afterall, it isn't called Guild Wars for nothing. Seriously, joining a guild makes the difference between a boring experience and an excitingly fun interactive one. I joined the guild Veritas Invictus, also known as TRUE, back in February when I started playing. I am now an officer in the Guild. Our Official Guild Wiki Guild Page-(I'm listed as Lucien Thorn who is a Warrior char of mine)is at:

Veritas Invictus Guild Wiki Page: wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild:Veritas_Invictus

I'm having tons of fun teaming up with guild mates to go dungeon crawling or completing quests and missions. It's one of those games where dying is fun and killing is satisfying. You and your party are always resurrected at a shrine or sent back to the outpost if a mission fails so you don't have to worry about your character being permanently affected. But with every resurrection, you suffer a death penalty which affects your damage/resistance ratio until you go back to a town or outpost.

You can have more than one character to play with, in fact I have ten total chars on my account. But between three versions of the game along with a fourth expansion, that is a LOT of game to cover. So most people tend to stick to raising one char to play the most with. Moreover, unless you specifically wish to grind, you will not find much required grinding in Guild Wars. The max level for any char is 20. While this may seem low in comparison to other games, it is instead the combination and use of skills that will be used to further develop a character and in essence make the char "stronger". It takes cunning and strategy to pick a combination of 8 skills out of literally hundreds to choose from in order to beat groups of monsters somtimes 10 levels higher. As you near the end of each game chapter, the quests and missions get more difficult. Teaming up in PUGs (pick up groups) or going with guild mates makes things easier to complete. For those who prefer to work alone, the game has introduced henchmen and heroes the chars pick up in the storyline who will lend their aid for battles.

My currently most played and furthest advanced char is a Ranger by the name of Lady Brenna Thorn. My guild mates call me "Thorn" in game since many of my chars have the last name "Thorn". Being a ranger has it's advatages and disadvantages just like any profession. I tend to specialize in interrupting spellcasters and causing degenerative conditions such as poison, dazing or burning. It's more of a support role so that tankers and heavy damage dealers can do their things. Of course, this means I try to stay in the back lines to avoid as much melee as possible. My ranger can tank some pain, but not near as much as say a warrior class. I suppose I prefer playing as ranger because it's more of a strategic combination of skills and relies on cunning. Instead of heading straight into a big group of enemies, we will attempt to "pull" or very carefully aggro only a few of them and then bring them away from the group to kill. In this sense, rangers can be indispensible party members where such big groups of enemies have been known to wipe entire parties within mere seconds.

Anyway, enough on that for now. I'll post some screenshots I've collected during my play with Guild Wars.

My ranger, Lady Brenna Thorn:
i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/brenna1.jpg

Brenna and her favorite bow, the Icy Storm Bow:

i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/brenna2.jpg

A cool shot in game of the Ember Light Camp area:
i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/gw009.jpg

Center Lady Brenna Thorn and some Guild Mates partied for mission:

i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/UWgrouprun3_24_07.jpg

My other char, Lady Sienna Thorn, the Elementalist:
i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/gw002.jpg

Dungeon Siege 2

Just wanted to holler out that I've been playing Dungeon Siege 2 on and off in case anyone else has played it or are curious about it.

Alot of the features are similar to the original Dungeon Siege except there seems to be more functionality in this version, thankfully. The movement is the same and I'm still not happy with the preset path the characters have to take...a little too linear for my taste. I guess I'm partial to wanting that free roaming capability offered in some other RPGs. Nevertheless, there seems to be all new creatures and items as well as a pretty decent storyline to follow with a primary quest along with subquests to take on. The game still has the four skill paths...the two magic paths of Combat or Nature magic, the Ranger and the Melee paths. You can choose to be a Dryad, a Half-Giant, a Human, or an Elf for your main character each with their own special characteristics. The inventory is set up the same way. Special item sets can be found again. This time instead of adding members to your party as you go, you have to pay a set fee to up the number of members in your party first. You have the option to raise a "pet" as part of your party and it's skills will grow on level with your own. They've added more merchants such as necromancers whom for a fee can resurrect your fallen party members or transport you somewhere else. There is storage in every town now to stash stuff instead of having packmules. Some items can be enchanted now so you can make your own custom items and the game graphics are so much better. Furthermore, there are more movie clips into the storyline and real voice scripts which add depth to the overall game experience. LAN and multiplayer online is available if wanted.

After finishing through the game once, I added some cool mods made by Guru-a DS2 fan modder. I highly recommend finishing the original game as is before adding mods...the ones Guru offers can be considered cheat mods. With his +EXP mod, my characters got 2X experience for kills (he had a 4X one). Also, he has a mod for magic item drops which causes enemies to drop a magic item upon death. Some of these magic items require high level character requirements in order to be equipped which is why the XP mod comes in handy. In order to hold all that wonderful elite magical items dropped, Guru made a mod which allows pets to carry four pages of inventory.

Why would I want to play with these mods? As I said, I recommend these type of mods only AFTER the game has been completed once through. I use mods like these to see item availability and choices which would never have been able to be seen until very high levels have been reached. I enjoy seeing all the attributes to a game, but realistically, I don't see myself playing a game after it's beaten just to reach level 100 and still maybe never see the uber items that could have been dropped (we're talking very low chances)

Here are some screenies I took:

Amhren: i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/amhren6.jpg

Aranna: i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/aranna3.jpg

Drevin: i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/drevin5.jpg

Gratuitous gore: i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/gore7.jpg

Jailbait: i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/jail10.jpg

Movieshot I like: i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/movie2.jpg

The bad man..otherwise known as Valdis: i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/valdis1.jpg

Valdis...because bad guys seem to look the coolest in games: i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/valdis4.jpg

Yes...again...Valdis: i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/valdis8.jpg

OK, so there you have it...Dungeon Seige 2 is an immensely fun and engrossing game to play. Overall, DS2 is, in my opinion, much, MUCH better than the first DS.

Wizardry 8, the not so well known great!

Wizardry 8 is my favorite PC game of all time...and that says a lot. It's an RPG and yet it has some features of an RTS, such as the option for phased combat OR continuous combat mode. It was created by SirTech of Canada and it just barely made it to development-I believe in 2001-before the company went bust. Not many seem to know of this game. It's actually part of a long running series of Wizardry games with Wiz 8 being the last. It did receive some very high ratings but was drowned out by the competition that year such as Neverwinter Nights, Max Payne, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Final Fantasy X.

 
Wizardry 8 has, thus far that I've seen, the best character development and creation schematics. You get to choose any number in your party up to six, then you also have the option to add up to two more recruitable companions in the game. Each character creation process can be customized by appearance, race, class, skill, personality and even a vast array of voice-overs can be chosen! Moreover, the fight scenes are awesome in that with each hit you deal a foe, you get to actually SEE the damage taking place. A slice here...a blackeye...then soon blood all over the face. Right before death they are a bloody pulp-then when they die they explode! LOL! It's quite satisfying.
I've been playing it on and off for about three years and I was able to finally beat the game not too long ago...it's a milestone for me since I've been playing this game on and off for years. Alas, I have "ascended and become a cosmic lord". Some gratuitous screenshots are in order.

F.E.A.R. the way I play

So, I'm about a third through F.E.A.R. and it's an awesome game! Being a horror fanatic, I love the atmosphere and game story...here I was shooting this guy above me in the rafters when he fell and landed like this:

i27.photobucket.com/albums/c153/cncmomma/ouch.jpg 
turns out it was a glitch in the game but I thought it was hilarious! LMAO!