Drawing From Life

Along the Risen Road

Last time, Rowan and the gang stormed the forsaken temple of Selune to save the druid Halsin, as well as free the region from being terrorized by the Mindflayer-controlled goblins. After sneaking around the temple and quietly dispatching some of the more hidden enemies, the team broke Halsin out of jail and fought their way out of the keep, leaving a mess of blood and bodies behind them. Later that night, Rowan was once again visited by his handsome and mysterious Guardian...

- Teleporting to the Risen Road, I knew the first thing that I wanted to do was to head over to Waukeen's Rest and deal with the curious case of the fire in the afternoon... time. However, when I got there I was pitched straight into a round of very heated combat! This was yet another additional mod battle, with a gang of goblins and drow attempting to pick off the soldiers attempting to enter the burning in. What made it really tricky was that the drow spotted the gang from a fair way off, so I ended up having to spend a round of combat just dashing everyone into attack range, and even then I had a few characters that had to sacrifice two rounds!

- Fortunately, the soldiers that were under attack were more than a match for the horde, and aside from one close call they managed to get through the fight without much intervention from me. I have played the following scene where the door gets kicked down as both a Bard and Barbarian, and it always makes me cackle at how the bard's solution is just to yell from the sidelines!

- Running around the inn and rescuing the trapped elf minister (?) as well as the guy stuck under the beam was pretty easy. What was a bit more of a pain was running around and looting the place without burning everyone to death lol. Nonetheless, I did manage to do it, and on top of that managed to find the ring for the guy stuck under the beam. Despite Astarion's protests, I did decide to give it to the guy, and let him mourn in peace. In a burning building.

- I also had a quick pop around to the mercenaries / traders underneath the inn, to sort out their quest with the missing shipment, which lay conveniently just down the road. I was a bit of a dip and came at the Gnolls from the wrong direction, meaning they were all closer to the mercs than they were to Rowan and the gang; I had a few tense moments where I had to convince them to turn around and attack the team instead, but with a few handy dandy spells and well placed axes they went down easily enough. Again, getting much better at using Rowans' crowd control spells and status ailments to keep enemies vulnerable while the heavy hitters in the team take them down. Also now that I've used the mindflayer parasites to get some additional abilities I did have a fun time charming half the enemies on the battlefield.

- With the 'traders' rescued and the mercenaries pacified, I did take the chance to have a quick look around their hideout and see what they had to offer. There wasn't much to grab or pick up, though the one merchant there certainly had a few useful items for me. I do have a vague memory of there being a passage to the underdark here, behind one of the locked doors, but I can't remember how to get them open without setting off a fight with the mercenaries. I didn't want to get on their bad side in case they show up later, and besides, I already found one entrance to the underdark so I didn't really need to sort out another.

So as per my last post, I recently picked up WARFRAME again after having not played it for several years. I think I first got it pretty early on, my account wasn't linked to steam, and I have a recollection that one of the main reasons I stopped playing was that I was encountering a glitch where I had to constantly uninstall and reinstall the game in order to play it. Added in to the equation is also the fact that I wasn't really that interested in Sci-Fi, having always been more of a fantasy person.

However, I've recently been getting really into Sci-Fi, partly through work and partly through being made to watch all of Star Trek (Deanna Troi is a QUEEN) and so decided to pick the game up again. Now, unfortunately, I don't really remember much of the game, and I know that there was at least one huge overhaul whilst I was playing, and as it's an MMO you can't really start over from scratch very easily, but I could remember enough about the story to jump back in.

I have to admit I'm enjoying it a lot more this time round. I think part of that is down to having more of an appreciation for the aesthetics of the game; As an artist, a game's looks are a really big component of whether or not I'm going to like something. All the gameplay in the world won't make me invested if I find a game's appearance grating. I have to admit, part of it is because I have my eye on a couple of specific frames I want to get my hands on, and like I said in my last WARFRAME post, I'll probably end up grabbing them from the player market as I think most of them are pretty end game items (Wisp in particular is at the top of my list, I love a bit of floaty-ness)

I think another thing that maybe dissuaded me originally was feeling a lack of character creation / individuality. As all the players have preselected warframes rather than an individual character, it felt a bit weird to be running around and seeing half a dozen other players with the exact same character. I do understand it more now, as the frames are supposed to be like mechanical armour for spirits (I think? At least that's the kind of vibe I get), but I think a big part of why I'm now more invested is that I simply made an idea for who my Tenno is, even if it's not something reflected in-game. I also am keeping the idea that the Tenno has a sort of... base body, that the other frames are built around.

Enter Evey. I imagine they have no recollection of who they are, outside of their name. Having been dropped into this world with little to no information, the first few skirmishes with the Grineer, as well as the wild planes of the Earth of the far future, I feel that Evey would be just as lost and confused by the whole thing as I am. However, Evey has an innate desire to help others, and after battling their way off Earth and arriving on Venus, the plight of the Solari would absolutely pull on their heartstrings and give them a much sharper focus on what their purpose is. After aiding the Solari and re-establishing the Vox Solaris, Evey returns to Earth to aid the population there against the Grineer. Evey's eyes also turn to elsewhere in the solar system; after finishing their work on Earth, the next destination will be Mercury.

I'll probably post updates here and there about my progress, but like I said, so far I'm enjoying the game much more than I did the first time round. I still need to get the hang of a lot of the crafting and modding mechanics, but I'm getting there slowly! Anyway, I'm part way through the "Saya's Vigil" quest, after which I apparently have some sort of animal companion to find? I also want to try and get another frame, though I do know that there's going to be a twitch stream on this coming Saturday (my time) that gives players the Dante frame, so I'll keep an eye out for that, even if it means waking up really early!