GW2 guild fun and browser games

I've caused a minor shitstorm on my employer's website when I wrote an article about how much the dungeons in Guild Wars 2 suck. I stand by my opinion, I think they're a chaotic, unpredictable mess and I much prefer dungeons the way I know them from WoW. I know there's a whole legion of drooling morons telling me that WoW is super easy and for complete idiots and I only hate instances on GW2, because I suck at them. Most of said drooling morons haven't actually completed any pre-MoP hard modes without massively overgearing and overleveling. And most of them ignore the fact that I have a rather nice collection of dungeon exotics to show that I'm completing stuff on GW2 just fine on any difficulty.

Some of them were rather friendly in their ignorance, telling me how to spec, what weapons to use and how they believe I should play my character. I think that's a pretty 'German' thing, actually. "I think you're doing it wrong, so now I'm telling you how you should do it and you'd better be fucking grateful. I don't care if you want my help, you're getting it now!" Ah well. I get it. In the 14 years you've spent on this earth, you have learned everything there is to know about gaming and now I get to eat your wisdom, because clearly, you're much better players than I ever will be. And while you're writing novels about how much I suck and how exactly you want me to play my class, even though you've never actually seen me play and you don't actually fucking know me, I happen to play dungeons just fine.

Fenris, my fun-sized guild on Far Shiverpeaks, has tackled the first four instances this weekend, three of which I have recorded and put on youtube. We've had some epic moments there, from our engineer, clad in green and yellow crap, soloing one of the bosses in Twilight Arbor without much trouble to smooth, wipe-free runs. Some deaths here and there, sure, but with everyone pulling their own weight, it has been a rather enjoyable experience.
I've joined some dungeons on my ranger and one as my guardian, which didn't really help with my identity crisis. He didn't die. My guardian hasn't died a single time on our guild run. His health pool is 60% lower than the ranger's, the healing abilities on his spec are hardly worth mentioning and his armor is actually slightly lower than the ranger's, due to his more offensive spec. So why the fuck didn't I die? Luck? Got revived by the guild mates on time whenever I got knocked down? Regeneration, aegis and self-removing debuffs saving my ass in situations where my ranger would have died? Sigh... my brain hurts.

We do believe they've re-tuned some of the dungeons, though. One of the guild mates brought his level 39 guardian (aka no epic gear, no mega skills and traits) and took on King Adelbern in melee and he survived the entire fight. I remember the first time I went there with my guardian and that boss pretty much killed me in a single hit. Several times. No such problems this time around. Did they start nerfing stuff? Are we getting better? It's probably both.
Either way - our little group is coming along nicely. Everybody is being helpful and supportive, we're a great team and for as much as I dislike GW2's dungeons, the right bunch of people can make them enjoyable enough.

In other news, I'm addicted to Herokon Online - a fucking browser game of all things! It's based on a German pen & paper role-playing system, which is a bit of a German take on Dungeons & Dragons. I don't wanna compare them, as they're both unique in their own way, tell different tales and use different settings, but 'Das Schwarze Auge' (aka The Dark Eye to all you non-German folks) has always been somewhat special to me. There was a whole trilogy of computer games based upon the P&P system, back when I had my first ever PC and playing the 'Northland Trilogy' lead to playing the P&P version, which ultimately lead to me writing my own stories and adventures. My addiction to writing lead to my blog, which lead to my job, blah de blah, you can see where I'm going with this. And now there's a browser game using the same rules, set in the same universe. I'm hooked!

I don't usually like browser games, because they're too heavy on the cash shop and usually limit the amount of play time you get without paying. Shakes & Fidget, Jagged Alliance Online, no matter what you play - you get to do X amount of quests or missions per day and then you gotta wait 24 hours or pay cold, hard cash in order to continue. Herokon lets me play all the way I want. They still charge you for a bigger inventory, experience potions and all the usual suspects, but I don't feel like I'm getting punished for not paying anything if I don't want to. And I just love the writing. When a lovely old lady kindly asks you to kill a bear, because "that bastard snores like ten pissed lumberjacks every night", it simply makes things a lot more enjoyable. To me, anyway.

Hm. GW2 and Herokon. Too bad I still have lots of games to review and bills to pay to help us get through this month. Eh, who am I kidding? Life is fucking awesome right now!

-Cat