Return of the middle-aged MMOer (is that a word?)

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Asation, from http://www.swtor.com/

 

This really is turning into a yearly blog!   Maybe I will try to rectify that.  I was thinking of doing Nanowrimo (again) this year, and my decision not to do so has freed up a huge amount of time that I wouldn’t otherwise have had!   So, time to write about gaming again.

I’m still trying to balance gaming with “real life”.  When I quit SW:TOR about three years ago, I realised that spending hours in front of a computer screen was not good for my health, my fitness, or my figure.   I got fit, I lost weight, and I cut down my gaming time dramatically.    I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, that has to be a conscious decision.   If I didn’t make that decision, I’d quite happily sit for hours, playing games, while no doubt drinking wine and ordering takeaways (no time for cooking and washing up!)  I have to accept that it’s kind of addictive for me.

However, it works the other way too: the less I play, the less I’m drawn to playing, oddly enough.   I’d still rather do it than housework, of course, but it’s not like it was a few years ago, when I could happily have spent the whole day staring at the screen, given the chance.

And the less I play, the less social gaming is.  I don’t have the time and experience to do “dungeons” in ESO or SW:TOR, so they have become solo games.   PVP didn’t appeal terribly much in either of those for different reasons (I wasn’t wild about it in SW:TOR and in ESO, Cyrodill was so huge and I kept dying and having to run back and get killed on the way … rather frustrating and boring).   I did have a stint in WoW recently and that was much more social as there was so much group content that didn’t require a long time to organise and do: dungeons, old raids and achievements, world bosses, etc.   I enjoyed grouping up with other guild members.  Even raiding was quite accessible.   I know many people hate that WoW has become so casual-friendly, but I have to say, that if you are casual, then … it’s friendly.   It’s easy to gear up and you don’t feel excluded from the good stuff.

As for the hugely anticipated (by me), ESO: what happened there?  (So long since I last posted!).   Well, I loved it at the beginning, had fun doing the starter dungeons, but being a slow leveler I once again went through the experience of being stuck in what seemed like a single player game: levelling through quiet areas and lonely delves, not feeling I had the skill for veteran dungeons, and not managing to find a group for them at a suitable time (I did try to organise one, but the timing seemed to be wrong for everyone else).    It was SW:TOR all over again!

I still pop in now and then as it’s now buy to play, and called Tamriel Unlimited.  But oddly enough, I’m back in SW:TOR.   Some of my guild have returned to it and as it’s now free to play I thought I’d give it another try, and finish off the main class storyline for my inquisitor at least.  The story is actually turning out to be a little disappointing, but never mind: my misgivings about the game still apply, but I’d forgotten how pretty and atmospheric it was.

What I really want is to play Witcher 3 and Dragon Age:Inquisition, but my computer says no.  Maybe in a year or so, when they’re in a sale, I’ll buy them and put them on my son’s computer.    Meanwhile SW:TOR is providing a nice combination of single player story and MMO.

Return of the middle-aged MMOer (is that a word?)

Getting excited about Elder Scrolls Online!

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Time for my weekly yearly update!

I’ve been trying to remember the last time I got really excited about a game coming out.  I don’t tend to buy single player games on release because it’s so much more satisfying to buy them cheaper a year later.   Skyrim was an exception, because I wanted to play it alongside my son (him on Xbox360, me on PC).  If it’s a good game, it will still be good a year later, won’t it?  To be honest, I regret pre-ordering two copies of Skyrim.   We could happily have played Oblivion for another year or so, then bought Skyrim with the DLC at a fraction of the price.

MMOs are different though, because if I want to play and level alongside my guild, I have to buy the game on release.  (For “alongside”, read “several levels behind”).   This means forking out the maximum cash at the beginning.   And while I’m committing so much money already, it would be foolishness not to pay a few quid extra for the Imperial edition.

What worries me about getting so excited, though, is that I know my excitement levels are going to fall at some point and I hope it’s not too soon.    Morrowind and Oblivion were games that I bought cheaply, after release, and spent many happy hours with.   Skyrim, I enjoyed, but I have an awful feeling that I enjoyed the anticipation more.  After all, my son was really excited, and we used to talk about Skyrim together.  A sort of folie a deux, if you will (he became bored with Skyrim much more quickly than with Oblivion).   With the Elder Scrolls Online, my guild are talking about it, which just encourages me!   But when is my excitement going to wear off?  I hope it’s a year, or even six months down the line, and not, well, at launch! 

 

Getting excited about Elder Scrolls Online!

The Cat Lady

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My MMO time has been limited recently, and probably will be for some time to come.   There are a number of reasons for this, but foremost is my cat’s habit of sitting in front of the screen and pressing buttons on the keyboard.   It doesn’t mesh well with games that don’t have a save/load buttons.  I still pop into GW2, but have been using some of my limited gaming time to explore some cat-owner-friendly single player games. 

I stumbled across The Cat Lady, played the demo, and was intrigued enough to buy the full game.    It seemed appropriate, given that my own cat was altering my gaming style!   A big draw for me was the main character, so different from most protaganists in video games.   You play a 40 year old reclusive, depressed woman called Susan Ashworth, known to neighbours as “The Cat Lady”, because you feed the local stray cats.   It was interesting to play such a non-typical character, and I hope we see more of this in games. 

I expected it to be a scary game.  I’ve talked here before about being scared in games, particularly in the first Thief game, and I expected to have to play this one during the day time, with all the lights on.   The sound should have been scary.  As you’re exploring rooms, you’re constantly aware of sounds around you, creaks and taps, possibly made by people who want to kill you.   There are some disturbing, Silence-of-the-Lambs-esque characters, and the game is fairly graphic in its depiction of their horrific crimes.    There are also several “jump” moments.   However, I wasn’t scared!  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps it was the simple, scrolling 3rd person view, and the knowledge that Susan was immortal.  What was the worst that could happen?  At first I thought that being immortal still allowed for pain and maiming, but in fact, each “death” was a fresh start, with a healthy Susan.   Sometimes “dying” was a useful strategy. 

Instead of feeling fear, I became drawn into feeling for the character.   Near the beginning of the game, there is a conversation with a psychiatrist which gives you the chance to make decisions about Susan’s background and motivation.   I don’t know how these decisions affect the game, but they do have the effect of bringing you closer to Susan.   It’s only as the game progresses that you understand why Susan is the way she is.  In fact, for me, the game became more like an interactive story about this character.   Some moments were truly moving.

Susan’s voice acting was great.  Initially, it sounded flat and unexpressive, but those very features helped to convey her depression.   Unfortunately, some of the other voice acting wasn’t so good, and I felt the actors were reading from a script while doing a funny voice.  There was good use of music in the game.

I enjoyed the game play.  It was like a point and click adventure game, but all keyboard controlled (you have a hand free all the time!) and no pixel-hunting.   Things that you can interact with are clearly shown as you walk past them.  This made the game pretty easy to play, and you won’t need to be searching for walkthroughs.   It might be too easy for some, but I didn’t mind as I was caught up in the story and didn’t want to get stuck with the puzzles.

I bought this game while it was on sale at Desura, but I think it’s worth the full price.    It’s on the Steam Greenlight list. 

Now, I would just love to play a female protaganist who is even older than 40!  

The Cat Lady

Guild Wars 2: I don’t want your freedom, I don’t want to play around … well, I do, but …

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I keep forgetting to take screenshots in GW2, which is a shame, as one of my favourite things about the game is how pretty it is.   My very favourite thing about the game is that it’s free to play, of course.   There are no difficult decisions to be made about subscriptions.   I can log in, check my mail, do a bit of crafting and a bit of exploration, safe in the knowledge that I haven’t paid to do so.

One thing that’s nice about that, is that I don’t feel a duty to play, just to justify my sub.  I’d particularly started to feel that with SW:TOR before I left.  On the other hand, I’m finding I have a more leisurely approach to the game, just because I’m not paying a sub.    It doesn’t matter if I don’t log in today or tomorrow, because I can log in any day I like. 

Unfortunately, that has a downside.  Because I’m not in game day to day, it feels as if I lose track of what I’m doing.  I’ll log in, usually to find myself next to a crafting station.   I might have a look at my map for unfilled “hearts”, particularly trying to pick those which involve killing humanoid mobs, because I’m a tailor and need the cloth.  I might then notice that the travel costs are a bit steep and try to work out whether I’ve got the time and the bag space to make the most out of the journey.  Sometimes, I’ll log in and find myself out in the world, and from there I might travel on to the next hub, or go back and do some crafting.

This is where the lack of formal quests isn’t working so well for me.  With no clear sense of direction and purpose when I log in, I tend to focus on crafting and gathering, and every day feels much the same.   There is the personal story, of course, but I’ve left that on hold because I can’t decide which faction to join and so can’t progress the story. 

I’ve ended up being a very slow leveler.  Even more slow than usual.  I still only qualify for the first dungeon, and there hasn’t been a guild run there since I got to that level.  I’m hoping to get into PVP in GW2 instead (can you level through PVP?  I haven’t checked), as it’s possibly more easy to dip in and out of it, but I imagine gear is going to be a problem.   At the moment, I feel the levels stretching ahead of me, and I feel I haven’t done enough “homework” on my class to be effective in dungeons or PVP.   One thing that I would have loved for GW2 was a low level dungeon so that we could all get stuck in, in the first week or so, and perhaps some short dungeons.  I think that’s particularly important because it’s free to play and “casual”.  As it is, I’ve now been playing the game for several weeks, but am still pretty clueless. 

Guild Wars 2: I don’t want your freedom, I don’t want to play around … well, I do, but …

Quests, a sense of purpose, grinding and replay value in GW2

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It has been interesting in Guild Wars 2 to only have one quest in my quest “log”.  Rather than collecting yellow exclamation marks, you are approached by NPCs in the areas you pass through, asking for help, and are informed when an “event” is happening near you.  It’s a pleasant change in that it feels more organic and free.

I haven’t been a big fan of World of Warcraft’s revamped questing in Cataclysm.  There is so little choice, little chance to find group quests (almost everything is solo now), and you’re forced down a certain route.  My son and I found this when we levelled characters together. I’d been keen to show him some of my favourite zones, and flew him to Feralas, only to find that we were unable to pick up quests because we were below the level for the zone.   The only way to level through questing in WoW now is to do easy quests, solo.

Although I haven’t grouped officially since beta in GW2 (the guild still seems bugged, and I can’t join it, so have been solo-ing while waiting), the “quests” seem ideal for groups of two or more.   Just turn up and join in.  If my son’s laptop was up to it, this might have been quite a nice game to play together.  I believe that levels are adjusted when you enter different zones, so a high level player can group with a low level player.
World of Warcraft’s system works very well now in the sense of telling a story.  Because you’re led down a defined path, you have no choice but to follow the story of the area.  I wondered if GW2s quests would lack story and a sense of purpose?  But so far, I think there’s a sense of purpose with the  quests.  A village is in danger, for instance, and you’re trying to protect it by fighting off invaders.  Or you’re trying to escort somebody (I do sometimes miss the point of the escort quests, often joining in late).  There is the opportunity to feel that you’ve achieved something.   The personal story involves more, well, story.

However …. there’s something not quite right about the system at the moment.  The actual meat of the quests is usually pretty banal, consisting of killing things, talking to things and picking things up and either using them or handing them in.  To be fair, that’s probably not much different from most MMOs.  The main problem was that I seemed to run out of “hearts” long before I’d outleveled the starter zone.  I realise that you’re not supposed to run from quest to quest, completing them, as you might do while leveling in other games.  But I was spending quite a bit of time on exploration, gathering and crafting, and some of my leveling had come through those activities.   Not wanting to have to grind, I went to the human starter area.  I picked up the heart quests, went for some vistas and skill points, got a couple of levels and returned to the asura area.

Two problems with that.

One, I’d been planning on making umpteen alts.  GW2 may be free to play, but I’d always allowed for buying extra character slots, as I did in GW1.   I was going to have at least one character of each race.  But now I don’t feel quite so inspired to create a human as I’ve already played through the starter area.

Two, it started to dawn on me that visiting the other areas is mandatory.  I’m going to need those skill points for every character.  Some of the heart NPCs sell cooking ingredients that I need, so presumably I’ll have to go to all the starter areas if I want to “unlock” all the ingredients.  Maybe I’ve missed something and I’m wrong on these points (perhaps there are so many skill points that you don’t need to go looking for them, and perhaps what unlocks at the heart vendors adjusts to your character to make sure you get everything you need in your area – I don’t know).   But at the moment, it looks as if every character is going to have to “do” every zone, even picking up skill points and unlocking particular heart vendors.

Quests, a sense of purpose, grinding and replay value in GW2

Guild Wars 2 launches … with a few hiccups.

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As some might have noticed, Guild Wars 2 launched yesterday.  I finally had to a decide on a character, any character.  I had tried most of the classes in beta and liked them all, but eventually settled for an Asura necromancer.   I’m actually enjoying this class more than I did in the beta.  The starting area is nice and busy, the main city of Rata Sum is fairly easy to navigate (although I managed to fall off it), I’ve been dabbling in crafting and enjoying that, I like the system with the small toolbar/limited spells that can be changed by switching weapons.   It’s all good.

However, I’m annoyed that we were unable to play for some of the day despite spending a significant amount more for these two days of early access (i.e. the digital edition).   All the other bugs, such as not being able to be in my guild, or using the trading post, are irritating, but not being able to play at all is the worst.   I took advantage of the time the game was down to go to the gym and do some shopping, but it’s not the point.  I’d paid, and I wanted my access!   Funnily enough, I wouldn’t be so bothered after the start, because the game is free to play (after purchase) anyway.  It’s the two days that we bought at £7.50 a day that bother me!

Guild Wars 2 launches … with a few hiccups.

You wait for ages, then three come along at once!

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Goldshire, where you can now catch a bus. Or gryphon.

The three buses games coming along at once being WoW and LOTRO expansions, and Guild Wars 2.

But first, where have I been?  I left you wondering how I would deal with my misgivings about SW:TOR.  Would changing to healer and PVPing save the day?  Unfortunately not.  Shortly after I last posted it was announced that level 50 players would receive a free month.  Just about everybody in my guild (and everybody playing SW:TOR, judging from the empty levelling planets) was level 50, so it felt as if a few of us were being singled out to pay for a month that everybody else was getting free.  I put a last effort into leveling, and sadly, it killed the game for me.  I was logging in and “working” at the game, when I’d rather have been doing other things, or when I had a headache.  At the same time, I was starting to realise that I spent too much time on gaming.  Maybe it took being “forced” to game (to avoid being financially penalised) to drive home that it wasn’t good for me.  I decided to cut down my gaming time, and to get fitter.  This was made easier by my new lack of interest in SW:TOR.

I have a lifetime LOTRO membership, so I decided to spend some of my now limited game time there.  There was so much to catch up on, including the last expansion.  To my surprise (given all the bad things you hear about free to play games), there seemed to be an active role-play community and a great atmosphere.  Seasonal events were buzzing with people, many carefully outfitted in cosmetic gear.   My son started a new character and we did skirmishes together.  I finally got my main (but not max level) character out of dark Mirkwood and into the light in a new, bustling area.  I realise that I am advantaged by being a lifetime member, but I still think that LOTRO is pretty good for a free game.  I will be returning now and then.  There’s the Rohan expansion out in September, with mounted combat.  I’ll probably wait until after release and buy it with turbine points.

For some time, I’d been keeping an eye on Guild Wars 2.   As it’s also free to play (once purchased) I’d pretty much made up my mind to buy it if it looked good.  I was hearing very good things about it, that it was the future of MMOs, and finally, the big draw was that many from my SW:TOR guild were going to be playing, so I paid the rather hefty £50 for the digital version and had a go at the beta.  My verdict, from my limited playtime (and given my lack of gaming knowledge), is that it’s not quite as revolutionary as it seems.   From what I’d read, it seemed as if hundreds of events could happen, but when I played it, it seemed to be the same old events happening over and over.  I worry about how much fun it will be when the leveling areas are quieter.  I loved the public quests in WAR, but they lost their appeal when I had to try to solo them after the first month.  Crafting looks more functional than fun (oh, for Everquest’s furniture making, or even the gadgets in WoW!), but I’ve only given it a cursory look.    I can’t put my finger on why, but I’m not quite as excited about the launch as I thought I’d be.  Maybe I’m just burned out with launches.

Meanwhile, I’ve been returning to my first MMO, World of Warcraft.   It doesn’t seem long since I was writing about the last expansion, Cataclysm, but time goes more quickly as you get older.  No really, it does.  If GW2 is the sequel everybody loves, Mists of Pandaria seems to be the expansion everybody hates.  And yet, I’ve been excited about it for months.  The more I hear about it being geared to casual players, the more I think it’s going to suit me.  Pet battles will take me back to the days of playing Pokemon with my son when he was little.  Fishing and farming are right up my street.  I love the eastern theme.  The new areas are beautiful.   I think it’s going to be exciting to not be able to fly again, and to see the world from the ground first of all.  I hate to say it, but I’m more excited about this than about GW2.  But I’m keeping an open mind.
Ah, World of Warcraft, my first (MMO) love!  It has an open world feel that SW:TOR was definitely lacking, and that I haven’t got from GW2 yet.  I know the graphics are cartoony, but I love that you don’t need a good computer to play.  Recently, instead of going off to do something else during long gryphon flights, I’ve been watching the world go by, and it’s gorgeous.

You wait for ages, then three come along at once!

Bored

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I’ve been trying to avoid saying it for a while now.   I suppose I’ve wanted to avoid admitting it to myself.   The truth is that I’m bored with SW:TOR.  Bored, bored, bored and quadruple bored.  I’m the chairman of the bored.  I’m paying a monthly fee to be bored.

I’m a slow leveller, and I don’t suppose that has helped.  My guild have all reached level cap and are into hard mode operations.  Meanwhile, I haven’t done a flashpoint for weeks.

The problem isn’t so much that I’m desparate to do operations.  Normally, I enjoy levelling.   I should enjoy levelling with SW:TOR, but it’s got to the stage that I often just don’t feel like logging in.  Why?

  • It’s lonely.  The levelling planets are deserted.  There’s no chance of spontaneously grouping up for a heroic, because there’s nobody there.  The NPCs are just standing around staring into space.
  • It’s repetitive and monotonous.  I’m afraid it really is.  The planets look great, but I feel as if I’m doing the same sort of thing over and over again, with a pretty backdrop.
  • The travel. *sigh*  I hate having to spend so long on my stupid vehicle (and what the heck happens to my companion while I’m on it?  I hate the way they disappear then suddenly reappear, having arrived by the power of thoughtwaves, or something).   But what’s worse is travel between planets.  It’s a protracted saga of loading screens, similar looking spaceports, running (on foot!), shuttles, loading bays, etc.   There are several parts to getting from A to B, and none of them allow you to go away and make a cup of tea while waiting to arrive (unless you count the loading screens).  A few weeks ago, my guild held an event which involved visiting several planets, and I felt like I spent most of it looking at loading screens.  Now, I just try to avoid leaving planets.
  • The story hasn’t grabbed me as much as I thought.  The class quest is fun, but the pace is all wrong.  It’s dictated by levels, so there’s no real sense of urgency.  The stories on the planets – they’re OK, but I’ve lost interest.
  • The role-playing aspect hasn’t grabbed me either.  I’ve ended up choosing responses which I think will suit my current companion.  I found that it was impossible to plan what my character was going to be like, because the game tells you what you’re going to be by limiting your responses (and the voice acting is great, but I’m fed up with always being sarcastic).
  • There’s a lack of replayablity .  I’m normally an altoholic.  This time  I don’t think I can face running another character through the same quests.  Not for some time, anyway.
  • There is a lack of “other stuff” to do.  Oh, there’s the odd thing, like getting datacrons, which I thought would keep me occupied.  But that involves travelling, which I try to avoid.   I’ve been dipping into WoW to play with my son, and it’s amazing how many things you can waste your time on in there compared to SW:TOR.  (I’m thinking of things like trying to get rare pets, achievements, etc.)
  • I am anxious about the endgame.  If I’m fed up with levelling, I’m dreading how I’m going to feel at level 50.  What do people do?  I’ll have to get geared up to do operations, which will presumably mean that my guild have to do normals to help me (not much fun for them).  What if I can’t get geared up enough?  What if I get bored with doing the same old operations week after week?  What if I don’t like operations at all?  What if I’m rubbish at it?
  • And it turns out my class is being nerfed.   Apparently it needs to be.  I wouldn’t know, as I’m out on my own questing all the time and can’t see how anybody else is doing.   I don’t mind being nerfed so much as having to redo my talents and my rotation after I’d found something I liked.
  • The damn legacy screen.  I haven’t decided on a name yet.  But it pops up every time I enter a new zone or look at my talents and I have to manually close it.  It’s inevitable that with so many chances for it to happen, eventually my cat is going to type something in that space and I’ll be stuck with the name “l,ytltk,ml”.
  • The companions.  Actually, the companions are a big plus in this game.  I like that I can use my companions in different ways and can choose a tanky, healy or damagey mate for different situations.  I like that they have their own little stories.  But there isn’t enough.  Their stories and their romances aren’t as involving as the ones in the Dragon Age games, for instance.  And yet, because I’m playing this game much longer than one of those single player games I need more from the companions, not less.

Those are some of the things that have led to me being bored.  If I didn’t like my guild and hadn’t just added a two month sub, I’d be thinking about taking a break just now.   What to do?

It’s been suggested that I level through pvp instead of questing.  I don’t like pvp, but it may be that this is the less painful way of finishing off those last few levels.  I may also voluntarily respec to make the forced respec not seem so painful!  I’m going to grind it out through the medium of Huttball and hope that I enjoy being 50 more than I enjoy the 40s.  Wish me luck!

 

(Disclaimer: there are some things I love about the game and some things that I think are very well done.  I appreciate that it’s a new game and may well improve.   I’m not saying it’s a crap game, but that I, personally, am bored with it.  For now.)

Bored

In Real Life

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I watched a great video about a pesonal experience of game addiction over on WoW Insider the other night.

I thought the video was very well done, but afterwards I kept thinking about it.   I’m not an achiever in the way that this guy was, but I still feel the compulsion to log in.   There have been times when, I will admit, I’ve played World of Warcraft when I should have been doing other things (such as housework.  Mainly housework).    I wouldn’t turn down real life engagements just for game commitments the way Sevrin did, but …. I’ve been tempted.   In other words, World of Warcraft hasn’t ruined my life, but I can see how I could have let it.   Maybe I’ve been protected by being older and wiser.  Or have I?  Every so often, I read a story about a mother who is a gaming addict to the extent that she neglects her children (not that a father would be seen as neglecting their children in quite the same way, maybe).   And of course, there’s the wonderful Clara from “The Guild” (the one I always feel I have to choose when the question “Which character out of The Guild is most like you?” comes up).  Mums are not immune.

In fact, mums might be even more vulnerable in some ways.  Part of the reason I got into gaming in the first place was because there wasn’t much opportunity for anything “in real life” with a small child in the house.  Once he was asleep, I was on my own.  One of the fun things about MMOs in particular was having a bit of social contact during the evenings, at a time when I was unable to leave the house.   That combination of being alone and confined to the house could be dangerous in terms of gaming addiction.  It’s not possible to just leave the house and do something else.

But regardless of circumstances, I suppose that Sevrin felt drawn into the game world in the same way that we all are.   I last posted about my urge to “collect” approval and light side points in SW:TOR, so can understand his desire to collect pets and mounts.  I can understand that he felt as if he was “famous” in the game and had a status that he didn’t have outside of it, even though I don’t think I feel the need for in-game fame myself.  I can particularly understand the longing to log in and escape to a different world.   It’s so easy to do, and such a pleasant break from the grind.

Sevrin has since been interviewed and explained more about how his “addiction” came about.  It has been interesting reading for me, as a parent of a son who is planning working towards a particularly demanding career (something which would be incompatible with gaming addiction).   My son is a very casual gamer, but recently we’ve been playing together a lot, and I should really consider whether I am encouraging him to immerse himself too much in that tempting world.

In Real Life

Love me, love my pet

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Why do I love playing pet classes in MMOs?

  • I like being able to play more than one role within one class, and having a pet gives me the pet’s secondary role.
  • Usually, pet classes seem to have good surviveability
  • Probably because of the above two reasons, they’re often good for soloing
  • You can multitask (for instance, have your pet fight a mob while you’re mining a node)
  • The first class I ever loved in an MMO was a pet class (my warlock).

And finally, perhaps the main reason

  • it’s a lonely old world out there, and it’s nice to have a companion

I can become quite attached to my pets.   That’s why my hunter in World of Warcraft keeps bringing out her crag boar that she trained in Dun Morogh all those years ago.   That’s why I was devastated (well, maybe not devastated, but pretty put out) when my warlock’s demons were renamed at the start of Cataclysm (thankfully, they got their old names back).

Maybe SW:TOR is the ultimate game for pet class lovers, because every class has a selection of companion “pets”.   Companions with back stories and personalities, companions that you can talk to and even romance!  No wonder I’m drawn to the game.

There’s one problem, though.  I have to learn to play without a pet whenever I group up!   And real life has got in the way of grouping for the past couple of weeks, so I’m out of practice.

Love me, love my pet