Getting ready for Nanowrimo, some new MMOs, and a sad day for Swordhaven
It's been a while since I've had an update on this journal, but today is as good a day as any.
First off, Nanowrimo is coming up this Friday. True to form for my Nanoing lately, I don't know what the hell I'm going to write about. My old machine's hard drive, which I took out and put in an enclosure, is pretty much fucked because of too many goddamned errors, meaning I'm going to have to zero-fill and format the damned thing, which pisses me off big-time because pretty much all of my fucking Nano work was on it, in addition to a good portion of my other shit. The hard drive from my other machine, the one that ran Windows XP, might be salvageable, but I'll need to determine what kind of drive it is so I can find a suitable enclosure for it.
I've been getting into some new games lately, the chiefest of which is a little game called Scarlet Blade. For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's a pretty damned fanservice-heavy sci-fi MMORPG which is set in a post-apocalyptic future where humanity is struggling to rebuild after a disastrous war with an alien race known as the Narak very nearly resulted in their extinction. Humanity's last best hope of survival is a group of sexy-as-hell female clones with heavily armed mechs and incredible abilities known as Arkana. You play as a human commander in control of an Arkana, as the two of you battle for one of the two major factions of the game against the other and try to make life better for the human survivors. This game is...interesting. Just looking at the design, it's pretty clear that it was made for the young male adult demographic, and as I mentioned before, fanservice is one of the main draws of the game. I like fanservice as much as the next guy, but do understand the male and female gamers for whom this kind of thing is a major turn-off. The fact that this is a fanservice-heavy game with an all-female playable cast means that I don't mind as much about the revealing armor as I would with other games -- and when it comes to outfitting my female characters, I generally prefer protection and badassness over fanservice; one needs only take a look at my character page for Etheara, my main character in AdventureQuest Worlds. True to my general MMO habits, I have built up a stable of Arkana, with my main being a Punisher (energy rifle-wielding Arkana who rocks the DPS) who has thrown in with the Free Knights faction, which believes in Arkana having free will and seeks to free them from their servitude once the Narak are defeated.
Speaking of AdventureQuest Worlds, I have just finished what has turned out to be the saddest damned part of the Chaos saga in the entire game. We've battled Chaos all across Lore, from Mobius to Dwarfhold, from the Yokai Isle to Darkovia, from the Mythsong Canyon to Arcangrove, from the Sandsea to the Bloodtusk Ravine, from the Chrono Span to the Thunderforge Mountains. But now, Chaos has come home.
The eleventh chapter of the Chaos saga took place in the very heart of Swordhaven itself. It began with Etheara heading to the Royal Archives on orders from King Alteon, whose Chaorruption has worsened over time, and having to deal with a Chaos infestation in Swordhaven's sewer system, then escalated as Chaos launched an all-out assault on the castle and Etheara had to get her commander on and lead the defense of her city against Drakath's forces. Meanwhile Princess Brittany, King Alteon's eldest daughter, has fallen in love with Lord Brentan, who we helped win the Tournament of Heroes and become Swordhaven's War General, and the two make plans to get married, only for the King to finally succumb to his Chaorruption. Uh oh...
Thus began the Swordhaven Wedding event, which had us defending Brittany, Brentan, and the others in attendance from the Chaos invaders. We battled furiously through waves of Chaos bad guys and doing everything in our power to ensure Brittany and Brentan could get married without things going horribly wrong, including having to take down the Chaorrupted Justicar presiding over the ceremony. But unfortunately, everything was about to take a turn for the worse -- for King Alteon, Etheara's liege and greatest ally, would fall to Chaos and become the 12th Lord of Chaos. As the King moved to awaken the 12th Chaos Beast, we escorted Brittany and Brentan through aisle after aisle of Chaos monsters in a furious bid to reach him before it was too late and ultimately had to fight Princess Tera again, who was under the control of a new and more powerful Chaos Dragon ring. As Brittany tried to stop her father, King Alteon, in a fit of Chaos-induced madness, struck down his eldest daughter with a powerful Chaos blast. Horrified at what he had done to his daughter, Alteon sought to flee the city and prevent worse things from happening to his people. But while Brittany's death would have been tragic enough already, the worst was yet to come.
The King's tragic act turned out to be the key to unleashing the 12th Chaos Beast, the powerful three-headed Chaos Dragon, whose first act was to completely devastate Swordhaven, leaving the city in flames and the castle in shambles. On the roof of the castle, we fought our most furious battle yet to take down the dragon and prevent even more devastation from befalling the rest of Lore. Once the dragon fell, we were tasked with pursuing Etheara's former liege through the flaming ruins of Swordhaven, killing every last Chaos monster in our way until we came face to face with the King himself at the Portal. Though Etheara was loath to fight and kill her liege, she knew she had no choice but to take him down to prevent the Chaos within him from destroying Lore, and though she tried one last time to spare him, she was ultimately forced to end his life. With the city of Swordhaven destroyed, one half of the Alliance is now in shambles, with many people dead, the Royal Family divided and a succession war in the making which will continue to devastate the kingdom for many years to come.
For Etheara, the Swordhaven saga has shattered everything she's known and loved. As the saga was nearing its end, I felt horrible for her, having to watch everything she's spent four long years serving and defending burn down all around her and having to kill the man who for all intents and purposes was like a second father to her. Her days as a warrior and paladin of Swordhaven have come to an end -- and her days as a Chaos hunter and avenger of Good have just begun. While Etheara may have respected Drakath as an adversary before, she will never forgive what he's done to her liege, her city, her friends and her people. As far as she's concerned, Drakath has gone too far. Not since Doomwood when her mistress Lady Nareya was killed by Vordred has Etheara ever been so utterly furious at an enemy or determined to make them pay for what they've done.
First off, Nanowrimo is coming up this Friday. True to form for my Nanoing lately, I don't know what the hell I'm going to write about. My old machine's hard drive, which I took out and put in an enclosure, is pretty much fucked because of too many goddamned errors, meaning I'm going to have to zero-fill and format the damned thing, which pisses me off big-time because pretty much all of my fucking Nano work was on it, in addition to a good portion of my other shit. The hard drive from my other machine, the one that ran Windows XP, might be salvageable, but I'll need to determine what kind of drive it is so I can find a suitable enclosure for it.
I've been getting into some new games lately, the chiefest of which is a little game called Scarlet Blade. For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's a pretty damned fanservice-heavy sci-fi MMORPG which is set in a post-apocalyptic future where humanity is struggling to rebuild after a disastrous war with an alien race known as the Narak very nearly resulted in their extinction. Humanity's last best hope of survival is a group of sexy-as-hell female clones with heavily armed mechs and incredible abilities known as Arkana. You play as a human commander in control of an Arkana, as the two of you battle for one of the two major factions of the game against the other and try to make life better for the human survivors. This game is...interesting. Just looking at the design, it's pretty clear that it was made for the young male adult demographic, and as I mentioned before, fanservice is one of the main draws of the game. I like fanservice as much as the next guy, but do understand the male and female gamers for whom this kind of thing is a major turn-off. The fact that this is a fanservice-heavy game with an all-female playable cast means that I don't mind as much about the revealing armor as I would with other games -- and when it comes to outfitting my female characters, I generally prefer protection and badassness over fanservice; one needs only take a look at my character page for Etheara, my main character in AdventureQuest Worlds. True to my general MMO habits, I have built up a stable of Arkana, with my main being a Punisher (energy rifle-wielding Arkana who rocks the DPS) who has thrown in with the Free Knights faction, which believes in Arkana having free will and seeks to free them from their servitude once the Narak are defeated.
Speaking of AdventureQuest Worlds, I have just finished what has turned out to be the saddest damned part of the Chaos saga in the entire game. We've battled Chaos all across Lore, from Mobius to Dwarfhold, from the Yokai Isle to Darkovia, from the Mythsong Canyon to Arcangrove, from the Sandsea to the Bloodtusk Ravine, from the Chrono Span to the Thunderforge Mountains. But now, Chaos has come home.
The eleventh chapter of the Chaos saga took place in the very heart of Swordhaven itself. It began with Etheara heading to the Royal Archives on orders from King Alteon, whose Chaorruption has worsened over time, and having to deal with a Chaos infestation in Swordhaven's sewer system, then escalated as Chaos launched an all-out assault on the castle and Etheara had to get her commander on and lead the defense of her city against Drakath's forces. Meanwhile Princess Brittany, King Alteon's eldest daughter, has fallen in love with Lord Brentan, who we helped win the Tournament of Heroes and become Swordhaven's War General, and the two make plans to get married, only for the King to finally succumb to his Chaorruption. Uh oh...
Thus began the Swordhaven Wedding event, which had us defending Brittany, Brentan, and the others in attendance from the Chaos invaders. We battled furiously through waves of Chaos bad guys and doing everything in our power to ensure Brittany and Brentan could get married without things going horribly wrong, including having to take down the Chaorrupted Justicar presiding over the ceremony. But unfortunately, everything was about to take a turn for the worse -- for King Alteon, Etheara's liege and greatest ally, would fall to Chaos and become the 12th Lord of Chaos. As the King moved to awaken the 12th Chaos Beast, we escorted Brittany and Brentan through aisle after aisle of Chaos monsters in a furious bid to reach him before it was too late and ultimately had to fight Princess Tera again, who was under the control of a new and more powerful Chaos Dragon ring. As Brittany tried to stop her father, King Alteon, in a fit of Chaos-induced madness, struck down his eldest daughter with a powerful Chaos blast. Horrified at what he had done to his daughter, Alteon sought to flee the city and prevent worse things from happening to his people. But while Brittany's death would have been tragic enough already, the worst was yet to come.
The King's tragic act turned out to be the key to unleashing the 12th Chaos Beast, the powerful three-headed Chaos Dragon, whose first act was to completely devastate Swordhaven, leaving the city in flames and the castle in shambles. On the roof of the castle, we fought our most furious battle yet to take down the dragon and prevent even more devastation from befalling the rest of Lore. Once the dragon fell, we were tasked with pursuing Etheara's former liege through the flaming ruins of Swordhaven, killing every last Chaos monster in our way until we came face to face with the King himself at the Portal. Though Etheara was loath to fight and kill her liege, she knew she had no choice but to take him down to prevent the Chaos within him from destroying Lore, and though she tried one last time to spare him, she was ultimately forced to end his life. With the city of Swordhaven destroyed, one half of the Alliance is now in shambles, with many people dead, the Royal Family divided and a succession war in the making which will continue to devastate the kingdom for many years to come.
For Etheara, the Swordhaven saga has shattered everything she's known and loved. As the saga was nearing its end, I felt horrible for her, having to watch everything she's spent four long years serving and defending burn down all around her and having to kill the man who for all intents and purposes was like a second father to her. Her days as a warrior and paladin of Swordhaven have come to an end -- and her days as a Chaos hunter and avenger of Good have just begun. While Etheara may have respected Drakath as an adversary before, she will never forgive what he's done to her liege, her city, her friends and her people. As far as she's concerned, Drakath has gone too far. Not since Doomwood when her mistress Lady Nareya was killed by Vordred has Etheara ever been so utterly furious at an enemy or determined to make them pay for what they've done.