synaesthetic

Y'know, SWTOR has actually had this kinda thing for... well, since launch. And I don't think it's opposite-sex restricted anymore, either.

Should I find myself in Elder Scrolls Online, I would die of brown poisoning.

Such a game would simply be tuned so that you take considerably less damage from enemies. I've played many tabletop and computer RPGs where healing takes too long to be used during combat, so you're stuck with the HP you have while fighting. It's not really any different, you just get hit for far less. If they took healing during combat away with the current enemy DPS, it would not work out. It's all relative. If you're not noticing your HP dropping, either you're only playing easy content or you've got some really good healers.

I posted on the Limsa directory. Please poke me for arpees. I do not get enough, especially since most of my friends are so caught up in their own plots that it's tough to squeeze in.

[align=justify]Personal Profile Character Name: Aeriyn Ashley Sex: Female [/align] [align=justify]Gender: Feminine, though sometimes fairly gender-apathetic Race: Miqo'te / Keeper of the Moon Domestic Profile Civil Status: Resident Place of Residence: Limsa Lominsa proper Occupation: Maelstrom / Irregular unit Free Company: N/A (Unity in A Realm Reborn is an OOC PvE Free Company, so it does not apply here) Social Profile Originally hailing from Ul'dah, Aeriyn Ashley relocated to Limsa Lominsa after the death of Ariene Ashley, her adoptive sister and sponsor in the Ashley family of Thanalan. With her social and economic standing essentially revoked and the Syndicate having placed a bounty on her head, believing her to have knowledge of the conspiracy that resulted in Ariene's death, she took a permanent commission with the Maelstrom with a letter of recommendation from the Thaumaturge's Guild.[/align] Currently Aeriyn both takes contracts from Mealvaan's Gate, operating as both a mercenary and magical counsel for the foreseers, and she also works as an irregular in the Maelstrom, a special agent the Grand Company calls upon when strange magical occurrences are afoot. After a recent mission to the abandoned temple of Oschon, Aeriyn has attracted the ire of the Garlean Empire's agents in Eorzea. She is known as a scholar of magic, a scientist whose life work is the unification of aetheric theories and disciplines under one set of natural laws, the "unified theory of arcana." Aeriyn has a very strong grasp of thaumaturgy and black magic, but also dabbles in conjury and has explored various traditions of arcanima, including those of ancient Nym and Allag. She was only officially trained as a thaumaturge; all her other knowledge is self-taught as a result of her research into the essential nature of magic. Aeriyn's personality is somewhat odd; she moves quickly between seemingly-unrelated topics and tends to think on multiple levels simultaneously. Subtlety and social graces often escape her, but she readily sees patterns in the chaos. Her coloration and physical appearance have been drastically altered by the mysterious event that caused her "second birth" on the plains of Cartenau. Superficially, she appears to be very young, far younger than her collective knowledge and experience would suggest. Physically she's quite weak and unimposing, petite and delicate, lacking the muscled frame, scars and calluses of the seasoned adventurer. In terms of martial skills, Aeriyn is utterly hopeless--the best she can manage is the traditional Keeper shortbow and even then her skill is best described as "mediocre." Her senses, however, are extremely sharp, especially her sense of smell. Aeriyn often uses smells for mental association rather than names; you know that Aeriyn cares deeply about you if she remembers you by name. Her gender expression is generally moderately feminine; Aeriyn is fond of pretty dresses and fine fabrics, but she is very practical and typically dresses in functional garb, especially when she's working in the field. In terms of sexuality, Aeriyn is attracted to women of any race and tends to prefer those with more feminine gender expression, though she is somewhat wary of highlander hyur and roegadyn due to the difference in size and Aeri's delicate physical condition. She can be quite flirty, but one shouldn't be too surprised to have her change the subject abruptly and ruin the mood. [align=justify] Meta Profile[/align]

I've been playing Guild Wars 2 a bit again recently and with the April update coming and all the changes that have been made so far it feels a lot more solid and entertaining than it did back when I bought it. It's so different from other themepark MMOs that I find it a nice second game to play here and there. The two main MMOs I'm looking forward to are ArcheAge and WildStar. ArcheAge is gorgeous. It looks just as pretty as GW2, if not more so, and it's a sandbox (!) game, so it has a totally different paradigm to it than games like XIV. Trion Worlds is handling the localization, so that should mean a quality product. Wildstar's just great. I don't get the hate on the art style. It's like playing a Don Bluth animated film, it's just fantastic. And the dark, violent humor is delicious, but what I'm most excited about is the link between player housing and PvP, the so-called "War Plots." I think that these days it's not possible to get everything from one MMO. Really it never was, these games have always been quite different in a lot of ways, and to really experience what they have to offer it's better to not get too tied to one game. That's kind of hard because MMOs are such massive timesinks, not to mention the subscription fee for those that aren't F2P, but I think that people should really consider trying to target each games' strengths and play them based on that. I like XIV for what it is, but the PvP is balls and I'm definitely looking at Wildstar to scratch my murderous itches (even though I'll likely not touch raiding due to the focus on 40-player endgame dungeons). I like GW2 for wandering around in a huge and vibrant open world. ArcheAge may end up filling both the PvP and open-world itches due to the sandbox nature and the presence of naval combat (!!!), but that remains to be seen.

Spent a few hours with the Wildstar beta. Verdict: it's fun as hell. The combat has been tightened up extensively, it's fast-paced and twitchy, but you aren't made of wet tissue paper like in GW2--you can actually take a few hits, even as a DPS class. XIV feels slower than a molasses glacier in comparison. The game is gorgeous. It's like playing a Don Bluth film, only much more hilariously violent and gory. The character models aren't nearly as good as the scenery, but they're not bad either, especially since they seemed to fix the weirdness from earlier betas. The humor and the setting is pretty much great. My only real problems with Wildstar are: 40-player raiding (yuck) and NCsoft (yuck). I will probably play this alongside XIV to get my PvP fix, because XIV's PvP is incredibly lol.

Due to the nature of Aeriyn's personal story, much of her roleplay revolves around Limsa Lominsa. The presence of the Arcanist's Guild plays a big part in this, and she is also an agent of the Maelstrom. Aeri lives in Limsa, even though she was "born" in Ul'dah (her oldest memory is of Thanalan, though she was likely actually born in the Shroud as she is a Keeper of the Moon). She is a researcher of magic, an aetherial scholar who seeks to bridge the gaps between the three basic and widely-practiced methods of aetherial manipulation: thaumaturgy, conjury and arcanima, as well as seeking to understand older traditions and methodologies such as black magic and succor. Her "day job" is that of an agent of the Maelstrom; she does scouting, recon, investigations of unusual magical phenomenon, which have become increasingly common since the Calamity. She has some knowledge of Garlean magitech but the meat of her studies tends to lean toward the devices and technologies of ancient Allag. I'm absolutely wide open for unconnected "day in the life" RP with Aeriyn, as well as anyone who might be interested in involving themselves in Aeriyn's current plotline: The Maelstrom assigned Aeriyn to investigate the abandoned temple of Oschon in La Noscea for reports of Imperial activity. She found them, but also found something else--a Nymian fairy that had been imprisoned within a shard of condensed corrupted aether. Aeriyn released her from the crystal, only to discover that the fairy, Rinah, had been severed from the astral flow and would soon face oblivion without Aeri's help. Her search for a way to save Rinah led Aeri to the Burning Wall, a massive coalescence of corrupted aether in Eastern Thanalan. She took samples and conducted experiments; her research and queries with Mealvaan's Gate led her to believe that it could be possible to reconnect Rinah with the astral flow and that the knowledge she needed was lost somewhere within the fallen kingdom of Amdapor. Aeri has traveled to Gridania in order further her research.

Actually, I don't have any! I should totally throw on my Tartancheck JSK and get a few shots this week... Yeah I live in Oakland, and there's a Baby store in San Francisco's Japantown, so it's pretty convenient. There's also a Harajuku Hearts there, and they sell Angelic Pretty stuff, but it rarely fits me because I'm not a tiny Asian girl. There's some other place in the New People building that sells other loli or dolly key stuff (there was an h. naoto store there but they closed down). I wonder if I should offer to order stuff for people who aren't lucky enough to live close to the stores... p.s. your cat is awesome. stripey cats <3

Unity in A Realm Reborn is always looking for new members to join our big happy family. A bit about Unity: We are a friendly, close-knit group of casual players, raiders, roleplayers, crafting addicts and everything in between. Unity is an LGBTQ "safe space" Free Company, offering a harassment-free haven for LGBTQ and allies who wish to avoid the usual "bro gamer guild" attitude toward sexuality and gender identity. We have rules to ensure that members are referred to by their chosen pronoun (gendered or otherwise) in voice chat and FC chat, as well as other regulations set in place to make Unity a safe and fun place for everyone. Unity is primarily focused on PvE content, but we have a massive number of roleplayers in our membership, including most of the leadership (virtually all of our officers are roleplayers in at least some capacity). We currently run three endgame statics--Astral, Umbral and Aether--all three of which are currently working on Twintania in Turn 5 of The Binding Coil of Bahamut. Outside of Coil, we also run through Extreme Mode primals and, well, pretty much any other content we can complete. If you're interested in joining a diverse, active and friendly group of people, consider checking us out. Take a look at our webby and read through the rules and such; if you decide to apply, fill out an application and I'll take a look at it. I've also begun to start sister guilds to Unity in other games--currently we have Unity in Tyria, Unity's sister guild in Guild Wars 2 on the Tarnished Coast server. Soon we'll also have Unity in Telara, our RIFT guild on Faeblight. When Wildstar launches, we'll likely be setting up a Unity chapter there as well! Unity in A Realm Reborn: unity-arr.enjin.com

I hope they don't neglect smaller raid sizes. Dealing with forty raiders is like herding cats.

My character Aeriyn is basically the same person no matter what game I play her in, so yeah. XIV!Aeri, TERA!Aeri, RIFT!Aeri, WS!Aeri and GW2!Aeri are all very similar.

They must also apparently love losing money, too.

I believe Crystal Tower was meant to be available on release of 2.0, wasn't it? For whatever reason it was delayed. But given that notion, I don't think it was intended to be difficult, which it still is if people don't do their roles properly. Even without bikini snowmen, it is possible to wipe on the Bone Dragon three consecutive times. That many randomly grouped people are bound not to communicate well, and they already bitch at each other defensively if someone messes up. Making tougher fights would make it unenjoyable for me personally. CT is currently meant to be a gear bridge between Darklight and Coil, even if CT can't even compare to Coil difficulty. Now, would I enjoy tougher fights? Absolutely, but NOT with 24 random people. If I could make a full alliance of people I'm at least familiar with from my server, that'd be fun. I refer to Dynamis from FFXI because it's all I'm familiar with, and other 18 man fights in that game. The primary reason CT is so filled with derpherpblurp is because it's so easy. Compare Ultima HM, which is a relatively simple encounter but still much more challenging than anything in CT. I queue for Ultima HM in the duty finder quite often simply because I find the fight enjoyable and I have never once gotten a group containing trolls. CT attracts trolls, failures at life and wastes of oxygen because it's so incredibly faceroll. If it were tougher, if the bosses were more on par with the hard mode primals, with Acheron being around the level of Titan HM/Ultima HM, then CT would be a far, far cleaner and more enjoyable place to run. It'd also have a smoother difficulty curve sweeping into Coil.

Wildstar's pretty cool except for Carbine's unfortunate and mind-boggling desire to focus endgame raiding on... 40-player raids... Why. WHY. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS.

Squee's big problem with content is... well... Crystal Tower. Why? Because it's faceroll easy. LotA/CT is so incredibly herpderp loltastic that it basically rendered 2.1 a non-patch. We got a laughably easy dungeon that you have to deal with psychotic trolls just to run, even if you queue with a full group--because apparently Squee's toasters are totally incapable of forming groups larger than 8 players--and even then it takes a grand total of maybe an hour to complete. An hour. To complete the entire dungeon, even if your party is full of trolls, naked idiots with snowman heads and completely brainless fools. So that means that any patch where content is added to Crystal Tower--which means every other patch, by the way--is effectively Not a Thing. The only reason why people are still running CT even now is the loot lockout mechanic--Square knew they had to add that or the dungeon's utilization would drop to basically 0% within a month. CT is a problem. On the surface it's a neat design philosophy, with different stages and challenges to clear before moving onto the next part. But it's way, way, way, way too easy. The difficulty gap between CT and Coil is like the goddamned Grand Canyon--and I'm talking about Turn 1 and 2. The difference between Acheron and Twintania is so hilariously huge that it's like you're playing two totally different games. Hell, the final bosses of Copperbell and Haukke HM are tougher than Acheron! Crystal Tower is wasted effort. If they want to make each content patch more meaningful, LotA and CT need their difficulty massively boosted. These dungeons should be between level 50 4-player dungeons and Coil in difficulty. Right now they're easier than anything but WP, CM and Prae. I'd say the boss difficulty for CT needs to be at least that of the hardmode primals (minus Titan HM's lag-death that causes the fight to be much more difficult than intended) and Ultima HM. If pickup groups can clear Coil, they can handle a tougher (and ultimately more enjoyable) CT. Oh and remove that stupid loot system, too. It's beyond inane. Have each boss drop gear tokens... kill bone dragon, get a glove or belt token, trade it for gloves or a belt at some NPC in Mor Dhona.

Wow, so much Square-Enix knob-slobbing going on in here... This system is not innovative. It's primitive, barely a step up from WoW's transmog system. It's not even close to innovative. Look. I can log into RIFT right now, create a character right now, and at level 1 on that character, right now, put something in that character's costuming tab. In fact, even without anything to put in that tab, I can disable any slot I want so it shows up as if I weren't wearing anything at all. I don't have to be level 50. I don't have to do some stupid quest to unlock it. And I don't have to pay some crafter for the right to use it. It's just there, I can use it any time I want. So no, Square-Enix really has no excuse at all. This is pointlessly limited for no good reason other than... no, there really is no good reason for this... unless they intend to sell costume items for real-world money in a cash shop. That is literally the only sensible reason why they would have restricted the system this badly. I am seriously so annoyed by this I am questioning the wisdom of continuing to give Square-Enix money. I'm poor; I play MMOs because they're relatively cheap social interaction--a night out at the club is a hell of a lot more expensive--and they're at least supposed to be fun games. Unfortunately, Squee seems hell-bent on ensuring that they suck as much fun out of everything they add to this game it just makes me wonder why I'm still giving them money. There just comes a point when I wonder at what point is enough enough? I really looked forward to the costuming system... and now that it's coming it's basically useless to me. Nearly everything I planned to do with it is impossible. All it's good for now is just to keep my gear from mismatching when I mix two sets of raid gear.

Never underestimate Square-Enix's stupidity. After all, they considered a game that sold nearly five million copies to be a failure.

Squee hates it when you try to play alts. Alts are for losers, man. *facepalm*

This "the game begins at the level cap" mentality is one of the major problems with the MMO genre today. Content should be meaningful and enjoyable for the entire range of experience. Not just a specific part of it.

Short version is that I can't wear the things I want while doing the things I want. For roleplaying this isn't too bad, because it doesn't matter what job or class I'm on, I can hide my weapon and pretend otherwise (I've done it before in roleplay with Eos out so that there would be a visual cue for the orphaned fairy Rinah). For not-roleplaying this poses a problem: I can't wear ALC or GSM AF without being an ALC or a GSM, respectively. I can't wear Sexy Labcoat and Skirt while fighting Twintania. The other problem is that I can't mix and match sets. I'd really like to mix different parts of different sets to make really neat outfits. I can't do that. By restricting the system this way, the Clone Disease isn't cured at all; it's just a band-aid fix. Instead of every level 50 BLM dressed in Sorcerer's or Allagan, you'll see every level 50 BLM dressed in Sorcerer's, Allagan, GC gear, Battlemage, Coliseum or Acolyte. So instead of everyone being a clone of one look, everyone will be a clone of five looks. It doesn't solve the problem, just lessens it very slightly. We've already got a problem of minimal character customization because we have so few hairstyles and not enough sliders for body types and shapes. This doesn't alleviate that issue. Another problem is that tanks have an unfair advantage. They can wear virtually anything except specifically job/class restricted gear, but they can wear anything with looser restrictions, which means cloth, leather, chain and plate. Casters, on the other hand, can only wear cloth. That's completely unfair and unbalanced. Compare to RIFT, where you can totally put a mage in heavy plate armor, or mix a bunch of sets up. And a minor issue is that there's no way to disable a slot to make it appear as if no armor is actually there with the exception of the head slot. One of the things I do in RIFT is disable my shoulder slot because I don't like the huge 80s shoulderpads. I can't do something like that here and I might want to, I dunno, disable gloves, so I can see my rings, or disable dangly earrings because they look goofy on races who aren't miqo'te. The costuming system Squee chose to use is very, very primitive. This is 2014. There's no need for this. They can do much better, but they actively chose not to, and like many of the primitive/outdated systems Squee chooses to use, it is completely arbitrary.

It doesn't really matter to me because I loathe emote fighting, but... ... seriously? You exclude mages? What the fuck? So if you have a character who is a spellcaster they simply aren't allowed to participate? Care to explain?

Square-Enix: Over-complicating and restricting MMO fluff systems that should be simple, unrestricted and fun since 2002. Let's not even get started on the proposed marriage system... Let's face it. Squee hates fun. *feels the urge to buy something from RIFT's cash shop rising* Edit: If Squee is restricting things in order to make crafting more relevant by giving unrestricted, statless level 1 vanity versions of existing and future armor sets, I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with is that they will probably wait six months to do it. It should be part of this patch, especially since the art assets already exist.

I can't understand the restriction at all. It's completely arbitrary and stupid. :frustrated: I can understand the restriction for the combination pieces; that's probably a technical issue in which if you tried to remodel only one slot of the darklight cowl, the cowl isn't actually two separate poly models so it would simply not work. But the level requirement is silly. I already earned my royal vest. I got it from doing CT on scholar. Why can't I mog my random CNJ outfit to look like it? That's just ridiculous. The equip limitation is even dumber. We're still going to look like clones, just instead of everyone looking exactly alike, there will just be groups of clones.