Wings of the Goddess -- no spoilers outside of the cut (FFXI)

[thistlechaser]

First off: I know I'm behind in replying to LJ comments. So sorry! I'll catch up tomorrow, promise.

Second: After roughly a kazillion phone calls, I finally got a copy of Wings today! Yay! So many bad bad bad experiences with Gamestop, but the last (and most important) one was good! The manager of one store (not even the one I reserved at) took down my phone number and said she'd call me if they had a copy. UPS arrived, she counted out the reserves, found she had one extra, and called me! Yay!

Hours and hours of stress (well, days actually) totally not worth it. So amazingly, totally, 100% unimpressed with the expansion. I recall when ToAU came out and we stepped off the boat into the new city. The wonder, the amazement, I actually fell in love with a fictional city. The music, everything, it was so complete and wonderful and real. Wings? Nothing like that, nothing at all...

No story spoilers since I haven't seen any, but general reactions, some details of the world, and linked screenshots. Behind a cut because some people still don't have it and don't want to know anything at all.



Went through the Maw for the first time and saw the short CS (okay, everyone knows I hated CoP, but the first CS in that was really long and nice! With Wings it was like 'meh, that's it?'.). Colorful and pretty, but otherwise boring. Not much story, nothing we hadn't already known.

Landed in the past. Said to myself 'Hm, the plants here are different. That's kind of nice.' and that was about my biggest reaction of the whole day. It was kind of sort of semi-interesting seeing things in the past, but for the most part it just made things more annoying.

Annoying things about the past/bad parts of the expansion:
* You have to walk. Everywhere. One end of the zone to another, over and over again, zone after zone, on foot. No birds, no aketon-speed, and I didn't dare go as BRD in case I had to fight. (Which turned out to be ironic, since I later died on DRK because I got aggro.) I literally spent hours just walking.
* Fricking walls and gates everywhere. Okay, people from the past, sure you're in the middle of a wall, but do you really have to build multiple walls one right after the other? Wall, take ten steps, wall, take ten steps, wall... and you need to find the gate in the wall each time.
* Maps do not represent the zone. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over. Was this meant to be the anti-Thistle expansion? I have zero sense of direction, I check my map every couple of steps I take. If the map does not represent the zone, what good is it!
* Aggro to 75s makes Thistle sad. :(

Good things about the past/expansion:
* Those mandies that follow you around are the nicest part of the expansion thus far. (And what's that say about Wings as a whole?)
* I Love Lynxes! For serious! I love coeurls, and they're coeurls with outstanding coloring! I could hug them forever! And the white on their feet makes their feet look fluffy! It's so cool! And their face markings are so nice!
* Smilodons look really, really cool, too. I love the tiger model, and that's a wonderful reskinning of it.

I spent hours in GC (well, okay, fricking hours walking to GC, shorter time in it) doing the quest for a map. It was kind of interesting to see it whole and not blown up. I felt kind of bad for the NPCs, like I wanted to tell them what would be happening in the future. :/

In some ways, this expansion shows how little of a gamer I am. On the rare occasions that I buy a game, I buy the guidebook as well and follow it step by step. I like knowing exactly what to do, and following instructions to the letter to do it. For me, it's amazingly frustrating to be dropped into this whole new world without any guides to follow. (It was a mistake for me to try to stay unspoiled, I should have been reading every message board I could before I got the expansion.)

One of my least favorite things to do in the game is to sneak and invisible through aggro, and that's what I have to do tomorrow. A very long trip to get to Sandy so I can do whatever I have to do to sign up for the Besieged-like Campaign. I'm hoping that once I can do Campaign that I'll start liking things more, but I'm really not holding my breath.



So all in all, I'm totally not surprised that Besieged zones are still full even though Wings is now in most players' hands.

Comments

[reynardstruan.livejournal.com]

I have high hopes for campaign. Perhaps my THF will live to see exp again. Even if it's slower than solo, I won't need to spend as much on shihei and bolts and it'll be less prosaic and have no worries about exp loss from death.

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking you don't have that feeling because...well...we've been here before. I mean, ToAU was a whole new continent! New city! New people! New civilization!! But I mean, wings we have a been there done that general layout. Everyone knows about sandy, everyone knows bastok comes last, and everyone knows about the massive windurst. There isn't anything new for us to sink our teeth into (yet!). So, the story and characters and campaign are really going to have to draw us in or else WotG will end up being a flop.

[naikitty.livejournal.com]

A very long trip to get to Sandy

Can't you just hop through the Maw in East Ronfaure from the present time to get to it in the past time? o.oa Or are the Maws random where they toss you?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I wish. Maws are kind of like portals, you need to use one from the past before you can use it in our time. Your first time through you can only use one in one of the zones around Jeuno (most people use Bat Downs), but you can only use portals on our side once you return through them from the past. :/

So to get to any of the starter cities, you need to make the long run through the usual and extra zones, with innacurate maps, through aggro mobs. :/ There are walls everywhere blocking the usual paths and stuff. It's going to suck.

[quistie.livejournal.com]

I am going to be the devil's advocate and remind Thistle that when ToAU was released, we didn't have chocobos either. Or Alzadaal Undersea for shortcuts for that matter. Even Besieged was horribly broken in the early goings.

[kerai.livejournal.com]

You pretty much summarized everything I think about WotG so far. D: It didn't take that long to get through GC for me, I'm thinking that it would make camping Roc or checking behind gate 3 for AF pretty simple since you don't need people to hold the doors open, so I don't mind it that much... but the new fort place in Meri? I spent an hour in there and ended up back in Meri on the other side of the map. I spent 6 hours on and never even made it to Windurst. *tear*

[ghostandfriends.livejournal.com]

But...they have a dancing Galka in Upper Jeuno! How can you not love that?

[reynardstruan.livejournal.com]

How the hell did you get into Upper Jeuno? The gates are barred.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah... guess we'll see! Today's been better than yesterday, so maybe things will keep improving!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I did my first campaign just now! Got flagged, turned a corner, got jumped by 50 unclaimed mobs. o.O Died, reraised, unflagged. Got 200 XP and 100 note thingies. I like!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Upper Jeuno current time. No one can get into old Jeuno right now, people are guessing with the next update it might open (with more missions).

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

{I don't feel well.}

Shouldn't you be tied to a bed somewhere? Who let you loose and gave you access to the net?!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ah, I haven't been to the fort yet or even close to Windy. :/ Today's been somewhat better than yesterday, but still no where near as good as ToAT to me.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but you didn't have to leave town to see so much of the new stuff! ;)

But you're right about Besieged, that was so broken for so long!