Project Gorgon: Under the Knife

Things have been a bit dicey so far in the level 70 range. But let me get right to the point. Like this guy . . .

After getting my bee pet I started thinking about all the differences there are in the pets in this game.

One of my new pets has a special trick that makes an enemy vulnerable to poison damage and strictly does poison based attacks. 

Basically Buzzter likes to poison things

I did a quick search of my options for taking advantage of this and I came upon the Knife Fighting skill. Actually, my choices seemed to really be Spider, Druid, and Knife Fighting.  

As cool as being a spider is (seriously, you can hatch spider babies inside your enemies), I don't know if I want to go through the whole animal experience just yet, and as amazing as all the things that come bundled with the druid are, hmmm I can be a duck, meh . . . just not feeling it.  Fighting with knives on the other hand is sexy!  Am I right? It's my fight-like-a-Stingite, sting-like-a-bee style!

So, just like that, I'm now working up my Knife Fighting skills. It's a big grind back up to 70-80, fighting all the stuff you already fought once before. Great re-tread on the part of the Developer, but ultimately a touch boring for the player since there are only a limited amount of alternate leveling location options in the game.  

So far, my thoughts are that using knife fighting exclusively for its poison skills seems to severely limit you, but hey, I'm still figuring it all out.

Many Worgs are gonna die to poison damage today

As far as I can tell, combat plays out a bit like this:

Open with Animal Handling skills that really get the taunt and damage for poison going. Then apply Poisoner's Cut, followed by Backstab (if the mob is taunted correctly by my bee), followed by Venomstike, followed by Poison Blade (which is an Alchemy Combat Skill) or other knife attacks.

The three main skills from Knife Fighting (and Alchemy) are these: 

• Poisoner's Cut -- A distracting motion whose main aim is to give you time to add poison to your blade for your next maneuver. On your next attack, gain a poison Damage over Time bonus.
• Venomstrike -- This is Damage over Time Poison attack that is classed as "a Nice Attack."
• Poison Blade -- Jab a Poisoned Knife into your target, dealing instant Poison damage.

I'm not a huge fan of Poison Blade, however, since it's a constant drip for Alchemy supplies. Every time you use it, it subtracts one vial of poison from your inventory. Personally, I'd rather see Poison Blade be modified to be a short duration buff that's slightly less punishing to maintain.

The other huge constant drip from Knife Fighting is that if you want to use throwing knives (Knife Fighting has a really really good ranged snare ability with a massive 90% speed debuff), you also need to take the Blacksmithing skill to make your throwing knives.  Finding metal isn't necessarily easy, which would require me looking more and more into the Surveying and Mining skills. Or alternately using Ice Magic to make Ice Knives, which only works in non-hot environments.

That's how Project Gorgon rolls . . . one skill leads to two more skills, which leads to two more skills, which leads to not really wanting to pursue those skills, to then leveling ten other skills.

The other downside here to my knife fighting build is that there is a good number of poison-resistant enemies in the game, but I always will have the option of breaking out my fire magic. Right?

So, I'll be spending a lot of time hanging out with my new knife training buddy Rick Snapley in the great cave city of Gazluk known as "New Prestonbule."

Yeah, it's basically six people living in an ice cave.

But hey! Farming wolves here for skins is great money and a great way to practice my new Knife Fighting at the same time.

Happy Dueling

Project Gorgon: Civil Service Event Starts Today

I logged on this morning to an interesting wall of text.

1/3rd of the deets on The Civil Service quest

This new event appears to basically be a dungeon clearing event that will take you through all the dungeons in the game that are tied to a town in one way or another, starting with a quest that takes you to the depths of the Serbule Crypt. As the wall of text details at the bottom, you'll need to hit up the following dungeons from easiest to hardest:

• The Serbule Crypt
• Borghild
• Eltibule Keep Goblin Dungeon
• Kur Tower
• Illmari Labyrinth
• Gazluk Keep

You'll want to bring friends to do most of these, the full extents of all those dungeons are no joke with many bosses that can permanently curse your character if you die to them.

I decided this morning to run over to the Serbule Crypt and see how it was looking with the limited play time I had.

 Ahh Serbule Crypt . . . it's been a little bit since I delved your depths. 

It's a great dungeon tucked away in the corner of Serbule just a few 100 feet behind one of the giant hands.

Hello blue glow of lowbie-death

Once inside, it was pretty quiet for day one of an event at 5:30am Central, but sure enough there were people inside doing the same thing I was doing. I imagine at peak times for the first few days you'll be able to run through here pretty easily as people come and go.

I just cast up molten veins as a fire wizards and just walked my way through as everything died to my thorns damage . . . minus the ranged enemies, but my new pet Bee Wasabee took care of everything else.

We have an understanding

I love my new pet bee btw.  He's the best. Super difficult to get, but some amazing crafter took pity on my soul and fulfilled my work order requests for Bee lover Bouquets.  Thank you!

I digress.

My Molten Veins walk took me all the way down to the southern-most portion of the map where the Rhino Guardian Boss lives.  Thankfully he wasn't up, and I didn't have to risk incurring the "Gored Pockets" debuff which permanently minuses your inventory by five slots if you die to his ugly horn.  Instead I just skipped over to the crystal, touched it, and ran away.

touchy!

Then I ran down to Sir Arif in the safe point of the dungeon and logged out . . . because I have kids and that requires a lot of running around in the mornings.

THEN I LOGGED BACK ON!

Again, I made the Wasabee / Molten Veins run down the hallway to where good ol' Khryulek lives . . .because of course the devs are gonna place that second crystal is in the basement with the toughest boss in the dungeon, right? right.

There was another white shirt guy there waiting to do the same thing as I was.  You have to kill Khyrulek's first form to enter the second level of the Serbule Crypt you see.

I like other white shirt guy's fashion sense!

That was no problem at all and then I was in the second level of the dungeon . . . sure enough, Khyrulek's second and tougher boss form was down, so it was no problem at all running in and claiming the second crystal in the dungeon.

touchy touchy!

After that it was a short trip through a gaggle of super-spiders to get back up to the top of the crypt.

Sting 'em, Wasabee!

And there at the top was waiting my civil service chest, which awarded me with 250 civil service experience points (seriously, that's a good enough gift by itself since it's a really hard skill to level) and my choice of loot.  The consensus from Global chat was that the gem reward was probably the best one to take, so I took that.

Maybe I should have gone with the Random Skill Potion since I'm still kinda new . . . nah.

And just like that, the quest advanced to Borghilde . . . shiver . . . land of the floating skulls of "one shot death" and yellow ghosts of "need to be stunned to be killed."

You're next, Borghilde!

It looks like a fun few days of dungeon delving is in store with the guild! What a cool event!

Happy Dueling!

Diving Deep into the P:G Community, Buzz, and Other Stuff

It's interesting to take a look at the communities behind MMOs and see what's going on there. Ever since being a "community leader" and eventually a "community manager," I can't help but look at what's happening in games and their social networks.

Here's what I've noticed so far:

Company Social Media:

• The Homepage! Yup. It's a good place to start.
• Facebook -- They have around 1,900 followers, but it's not linked to from the home page of Project Gorgon, so I don't know if it's official?
• Twitter 1 -- @ProjectGorgon has around 6.700 followers.
• Twitter 2 -- @GorgonMMO has around 1,200 followers . . . but yet seems more active of an account that the other.
• YouTube -- GorgonMMO has around 500 subscribers.
• Reddit -- Project Gorgon's Reddit page has around 3,100 adventurers to its name.
• Discord - The unofficial player-made Discord channel has around 1,200 members. But, honestly . . . I don't know how many people actually use that Discord channel. 
• Official Forums -- The forums are hosted from their official website and has around 4,650 people registered with probably many more lurkers.
• Official Wiki -- This wiki is also hosted from their official website. You can actually access this wiki in game with the "/wiki" command.
• Steam community -- The Steam page is always a great place when looking for reviews and news.
• Kickstarter Page -- This is the page that started it all!

Looks like Etibule Keep in its early stages

News Site Coverage:

• MassivelyOP -- MassivelyOP seems to be the main MMO news agency to keep your eyes on when it comes to Project Gorgon. Justin Olivetti is keeping us in the know or at least dropping the name of the Gorgon when he can.  
• MMORPG.com -- Suzie Ford has been covering Project Gorgon for MMORPG.com but looks like they've lost track of the MMO as of last April.
• Ten Ton Hammer -- Most of this is old news from the Kickstarter.
• Gamespot -- Just a few pictures I think?
• MMO Pulse -- This appears to mainly just be a general review of the game from around the time of the Kickstarter.
• MMO Huts -- This is also a review of the game from about two years ago.
• MMO.com -- Yet another review of the game from yet another MMO news site.

Developers:

• Eric Heimburg -- I found a Twitter account, but the last he posted on it was back in 2013. He's much more active on the Official Forums as "Citan"
• Sandra Powers -- So, she has a Twitter account that I found, but she doesn't post much. There was one post that concerned me, and that was this:

I have a sister with MS, and it is debilitating for her. I certainly hope she's ok.

• Connor Brace -- I was happy to see that the Composer for the music for Project Gorgon, which is quite good btw, lives here in Austin, Texas. I should reach out and see if he'd let me buy him lunch!

Picture from ConnorBrace.com

A full list of all the developers can be found here: http://wiki.projectgorgon.com/wiki/Developers -- I'd dig deeper, but it all began to feel a bit stalker-y.

Community Leaders / GMs / Volunteer Guides:
Not so much a site per se, but just wanted to point out that there is a GM presence of sorts on the game itself and the main one I see while playing is a fella that goes by the name of "Jackncola" -- pointing out his favorite type of drink perhaps?

I caught a screenshot of him in game one day when we were having a party. He had boosted his character size up to double that of a normal character.

Quite the presence in the game . . . Literally!

Twitch
As for Twitch streamers, it looks like Uncle Retro and Straggiz take the lead spot for a "regular" streamers. Both seem like really nice older guys. I can relate. lol. Both seemed very worth of a follow if you're into that scene and both seemed to upload their streams to YouTube as well.

Watch Halloween Events! from UncleRetro on www.twitch.tv

YouTube
 YouTube is an interesting beast since it's kind of a deluge of different players, but there was a really nice "Let's Play" from a couple of guys named Battle-Ax Theater. They just wrapped up a nine video series with their final thoughts just two days ago. I appreciated that they bleeped out the swear words . . . um . . . at least for the first 12 minutes.

Blogs
I hunted just a few pages deep on Google trying to find a few bloggers that had written a touch on Project Gorgon. Most had only written one or two posts, but I found what I would call an invested few (and familiar names to me) that made at least three posts or more about the game.

• The Ancient Gaming Noob -- Wilhelm seems to have last played the game back in March 2019, but has also mentioned the game in passing.  Good stuff here as always.
• Inventory Full -- I just discovered Bhagpuss's blog from the recent Blaugust. He seems to have really given the entry part of the game a good go and thoughtfully wrote about his experiences. I'd love to see him write more about the game.
• Bio Break -- Syp hasn't written much about the game since March 2018, but what he has written is highly entertaining. He's a true professional.
• Endgame Viable -- UltrViolet has a great handful of posts on Project Gorgon. Again, as with all these bloggers listed, it's a great read. Very well written and thoughtful.
• . . . and me . . . hi.

Podcasts
A little digging has shown that currently there doesn't seem to be a dedicated podcast for the game; although, it was really fun to listen to the folks at Control Alt Record when they discovered Project Gorgon. They were clearly in love with the game and unfortunately the honeymoon didn't last longer than just a couple of episodes:

Episode 18: Project: Gorgon the new (old) MMO
Episode 19: Project: Gorgon New Player Guide and Quiz

It was also pretty cool to hear how excited one of the guys from The Sandbox podcast was about just getting off the demo island.

Episode 114: A Glimpse at the Gorgon

Other:
This isn't a social media site, but since I've got a big encyclopedia of links above, might as well include this: Gorgon Explorer. This tool pulls directly from Project Gorgon's database library and adds new functionality like the ability to plan out your "build."

~~

Most of the podcasters all had the same reaction that I had about the game play. There's just something really satisfying about this game. It's hard to describe unless you play it. They all talked about that horrible Loot Box UI pop up. It's all a blend of rants met with the highest of compliments.

And that's something funny I've watched myself do when I try to tell someone that I'm playing this game. Every time I buffer the conversation with things like "look, the graphics suck, but . . ." or "it's super grindy, but . . ." "There's no mounts or housing system yet, but . . ." or any of the other qualifiers one might put before talking about the game.

I wish I didn't need to do that, but I guess I do. Especially given the amount of games that are out there that you could be playing instead. For me, it's the core game play. It's smooth and addictive. The plethora of skills is the game's strongest point. I certainly am not done with the game yet: too much to do and I'm still having fun.

Speaking of addictive, dang, the loyalty of the small Project Gorgon fan base is HUGE.  All the old Asheron's Call players that flocked here is a thing of beauty.  They loved their game. They miss their game. Project Gorgon is its natural evolution but yet a totally different game.

My end thought is . . . I guess I don't think the majority of these people care about the social aspects of their game.  The Vocal Minority flocks to the Global chat in game, the forums, and the in-game events, and that's enough for them.  Everything else is . . . great . . . but I just don't think these fans are also fans of the fans if that makes sense. They just want to play the game and when they go hunting for information, they want to find it as fast as possible.

The vibe I get is "Less talking, more playing." That isn't necessarily a bad thing.

If you have more sites that you know of, please feel free to share them in the comments. Would love to hear about any and all.

Happy Dueling!

End Game Near: Welcome to the Fae Realm

The past couple of days have been really cool for me in Project Gorgon. Not just because I was able to attend the in-game Halloween party / play, but also because I've hit level 70 in both my Fire Magic and Animal Handling skills.

Mass buffs for all the party go-ers!

The Party was epic, btw. Tons of people. Everyone died. Mummies everywhere. Loot for all. Lag was off the charts. End of story. There's only one more night to catch the magic in an encore performance if you have completed your party quests and can make it to the Casino:

Encore Performances - Sunday, November 3:

• EU primetime - 8pm CET / 2pm US EST / 6am AEDT (Mon 11/4)
• US primetime - 9pm US EST / 1pm AEDT (Mon 11/4) / 3am CET

~~

So, for the past month or so, I've been grinding out levels and money working myself from levels 61-70.  It's not necessarily hard, it's just as you would expect from an MMO . . . you grind. When your exp bar reaches the top, you celebrate!

For me that celebration culminated in my guild leader running me through the Wolf Caves to get to a portal that led out to the world of fairies, living plants, and trolls. Welcome, to the Fae Realm.

Clashing concentrics and blue grass everywhere!

The color hue during the daytime in Fae Realm is full of bright blues and vivid purples, regular animals are florescent green, trainers are pixies and animals, and the Economy is driven by the trading of Royal Jelly.

There aren't regular teleportation pads in the Fae Realm, so come armed with a special mushroom teleportation spell that you get from grinding a couple quests inside a cave in Guzlak where a living mushroom will teach you his ways of transportation. When you arrive, come armed with Parasol Mushrooms and salt to bind yourself (also a good supply of rations) . . . the NPCs don't even have a drop of salt for sale here.

At night time, there is no setting sun. Instead there is an audible thump of a drum and day instantly turns to night on a different cycle than you're used to.

No one knows what that lifestone does, but it's THE PRETTY!

Fractal wisps of red and yellow dance across a pitch black sky and hues of color explode against the night. During Halloween, this is also when skeletons invade the typically undead-free Fae Realm. Not to worry though, this place is as equally deadly during the day as it is at night.

Certain mountaintops hide 58k health nature elementals. Lightning-spitting Droaches crawl another mountain. . . . But the exp from killing Fae Realm Rhinos is ON POINT.

Many rhinos died this day . . .

But still, watch out for those Rhinos, dear readers. They can knock your pet out of bounds where they become unresponsive and you're unable to heal them. It feels like a bug, not a feature, but you never know with Project Gorgon to be honest.

Remember when I complained about having to grind 95,000 councils for access to level 61? How does a cool 360,000 councils for access to level 71 grab ya . . . and that's for EACH skill!

Being an Animal Handler is pretty great here. You'll be able to get upgraded models of your Fae green bears and Fae green panthers you may have picked up back in Etibule. When you tame them, they come in at level 73. Once you hit level 70 in Animal Handling, the trainer there will also offer you a skill to tame bees.

My name is Stingite. I need a stinging bee pet gosh darn it! Of course the component needed to tame the bee is a flower arrangement that can only be made by a level 60 flower arranger . . . yes, flower arranging is a skill in Project Gorgon.  I put in a player work order to see if I could obtain five of them to see if I can withstand the poison and get my own bee pet.

I must say, it feels pretty great to be here as a new player. I've been seriously playing this game for . . . what? . . . a month and a half now? I'm now seeing what the hub-bub was about when I joined the game and the Fae Realm had been released. I'm looking forward to completing the Daily quest chain here with our guild and seeing what more it has to offer.

The big complaint I hear from the old timers is that the Fae Realm lacks a dungeon to play in.  From what I also hear, that dungeon is already in the works with the constant reminder that this game is still in Beta. BRING ON THE DUNGEON! I can't wait to leave my tombstone littered all around its terrifying interior.

I'll keep you posted as I gain more insights into this new realm, but for now I'm just learning my way around and trying not to poke too many 22k health trolls in the process.

Happy Dueling!