The Student's Opinion

The Student teaches.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Factions fuck ups. New campaign is very disappointing.

So, according to the new cinematic trailer, ritualists are destined to be killed, and assassins are supposed to be fully awesome super-warrior ninjas.

However, today was the beginning of the Factions Preview Event. And holy shit let me tell you, it's not all it's cracked up to be.
Not even close.

Coming up to the event, I was looking forward to the opportunity of trying out an assassin more fully than the PvP event earlier.
So naturally, as soon as the new build of GW was available, I reloaded and started a new character.
An assassin by the name of Marshall Tasca.
As soon as I got in, I grabbed a group of henchies, loaded up on quests, and left the city. I noticed quite a bit of lag, but I expected that to be honest. Also, the graphics are less than perfect.
So I leave town, all dandy fine and quite impressed with the new Tengu henchman. A bit eerie though, I'm used to attacking every time I hear their squawk, so I had to adjust to not twisting around and striking.

The area's nice, very green, new (incredibly high levelled) monsters etc. I even saw a Giant Turtle, which was cool.
However, after playing the game for over an hour, I realised that the Assassin is a horribly underpowered character. I was only hitting 8's and 9's with my basic attacks, and 20's with my combos.
After getting fed up with the Assassin's lack of health/energy/damage output, I decided to try a Ritualist, by the name of "I R Ritualist".
I found the difference amazing.
While the trailer (and popular discussion on many GW forums) clearly displayed the Ritualists as being weak, and inefficent in combat, in game the contrary is truth.
I was hitting 18's with my basic attacks, and with my Spirits, I could have several buffs on the whole party at once.
Also, the Ritualist emotes I found to be a lot more fun than the Assassins.
The Ritualist eccentricites really roped me in, and so I think when I get my Guild Wars: Factions on April 28th, I'll be proudly beginning my first steps down the path of Communing.


Enough of my woes though. On a happier note, I've discovered another awesome show, tragically cancelled by the satanic producers at FOX, just like Firefly.
Wonderfalls is on here at about 11:30 Tuesday nights. I don't know why I like this show, because in general, I don't appreciate shows like this one. However, it has Jewel Staite, and from there I grew to like the other characters.



Quick notes of the week:
- Downloading V for Vendetta, will report on how it is.
- New Australian Gamer podcast
- Penny-Arcade have started their own podcast. A recording of how they get the ideas for their comics.