Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Another shortened version, I hope. It really makes things easier for the both of us.

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MMO News:

Let's start with WAR:

It's now out, and has been for a while now. I'm actually not too sure when it came out. Anyways, I've been interested as of late how exactly it works, and how it plays. Not really enough to want to actually purchase the game to see, but curious.

I watched a Q&A video today that was far too long, but informative nonetheless. It answered some of my questions on how exactly some of their designs work. But ultimately, my real questions are "does the game look good?" and "is it fun to play? RvR/PvE or otherwise?".

I doubt I can figure out those questions without seeing the game first hand. I'm hoping Kofi's friend Exizon buys the game so I can ask him what he thinks.

EVE:


I've slowed down in my playtimes with EVE again, but that seems to be the natural cycle I have with the game. I'm currently training my skills in Pulse Lasers so I can use the fancy Tech 2 guns and laser crystals. Also, it helps my DPS and optimal range immensely. BUT ... it takes a hell of a long time. Like 60+ days of RL time.

Thus, I have a long time to wait, and I still haven't got my standings high enough to get access to the Amarr level 4 agent. So I can't even get to the major ISK making stuffs to get my wallet back up into the 200+ million mark where I'd like it.

Exploration also hasn't hooked me that much, but I've been busy with other games and stuffs recently.

I'm sure I'll get back into the swing of EVE soon enough. Just a small respite right now.

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In TV:

Surprisingly, the new season of Smallville is pretty good. I really enjoyed the first two episodes and am looking forward to next episode.

Terminator has been great as usual. Though I don't really like the lead singer from Garbage as a character. She seems rather boring, even though I'm sure that's the way her character should act.

BSG hasn't started yet, so no idea how that will go.

Heroes is just a huge ball plot twists this season. It's like the writers decided to throw everything but the kitchen sink into this season. Too many things going on, too many characters. My friend Blake said it will probably go the same way as Lost. Gets too complicated and tangential eventually, ratings slip, and they finally wise up and clean up their act, too late of course. Hiro is obviously the only interesting character now. I think he's /everyone's/ favourite character.

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Inferno is finally back from his trip so I think we might try and finish Gears of War tonight. We're pretty close to the end, and he's starving for some PC gaming after his trip, so hopefully we can wrap it up. I think I might suggest some Sins of a Solar Empire after this. Or switch back to our NWN2 game in progress.

World in Conflict:
Kofi keeps pushing to play this if there's /any/ time we are both free. I am pretty much done with the game. It's fun, but we always end up with retarded teammates or one sided battles. Neither are fun. And there's only so much of the same thing /over and over/ that I can stand. At least games like FEAR or Call of Duty 4 give me the adrenaline rush to wash over the repetitive nature of the game. WiC is pretty much the same each time we play it.

FEAR: Perseus Mandate has got a bit more attention from me, but I've got to the same point as the original, where you fight more horror enemies than soldiers, and that bores the hell outta me. The soldier fights are the fun part. The horror stuff is supposed to be there to scare you, not be a combat element. That's boring. Almost done it I think. But I'm pretty sure it will end without explaining much of the story to me at all.

Dawn of War, Guild Wars and the others haven't seen the light of day in a long time. I should really get to playing the SP parts of WiC and DoW though. They actually have some fun parts in them. And a bit of plot to keep me interested.

But the major reason I haven't played much of the usuals lately is cause I bought The Force Unleashed the other day. I wanted a bit of Sci-Fi and a got a huge helping. TFU got my inner Star Wars nerd all fired up again. Even though a lot of the combat is repetitive and sometimes very annoying, the story parts kept me hooked. They were the primary reason I played the game. It took me a bit longer than expected to beat the game, mostly cause of a few tedious fights. The Star Destroyer, one fight in the Death Star, the Emperor, Darth Vader, etc. After figuring out the way to beat them, a couple were so easy it was stupid. I beat the one Vader fight in almost a minute.

Overall, it was cool, the GFX were nice and the combat was hectic. Just like I wanted.

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Spore:
I laugh at the restrictive DRM (Digital Rights Management) that EA chose to put on Spore. Not only has it made Spore get a overall review of 1 star on Amazon.com, but it's made the game #1 on the torrent sites. WTF were you thinking EA? It just makes people DL it when you're gonna fuck legitimate users over to stop a few pirates.

And what's worse, the game is supposedly really easy, and the pre-space age part takes like 2-4 hrs. It's all tutorial stuff for the space game. WTH didn't they market it as a space game then? All they talked about was creature creation, yet it encompasses the first 2 stages of the game that are over in the matter of an hour? Ghey ....

It's really disappointed Inferno though. He was sooooo looking forward to Spore, I think too much. He's much more of a strategy/tactical gamer, but Spore is far more a casual gamers game. And Inferno can spend waaaaay too much time playing in one go. He's far worse than me. I'm perpetually on my PC, but that's surfing, chatting, blogging ;), gaming or watching TV/movies. All he does on his is play games. It's kinda sad.

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Tabletop:
We've taken to playing an old Gary Gygax module from AD&D the one guy has started. We're using DnD 3.5 so I'm not sure if things are scaled properly, especially since we fought an Ogre at level 1, and just recently 20+ hobgoblins in one encounter.

It's been okay, moreso for the fact that we're all playing non-traditional characters/classes. Both me and the one guy are playing non-standard classes, the fighter type is now a Barbarian/Fighter/Rogue, and we don't technically have a primary healer type. My character kind of fills that role, but he can also dish out the pain. It's sweet.

Inferno hasn't got a chance to play as he's been away, but I don't think he's all that interested. The sessions so far have been pretty ridiculous, IC and OOC, so it's definitely not a kind of game Inferno, Blake and I would usually enjoy. But it's stupid fun nonetheless, and a night when the guys can get out and do their own thing (almost all of them are married/in a relationship).

I thought about a Star Wars d20 game, made for beginning Jedi at Luke's Academy set in the era after Return of the Jedi, but I'm not sure. Blake said he'd rather play a traditional Star Wars game, a la the Rebels, than Jedi. I figured it would be better to keep that kind of game with my Space GURPS game. It's set up as a rebellion, so I really would rather not run two games in the same vein.

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Done for now! Laters all.
The Rev.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Okay ... I'm going to try and condense my thoughts a little this time. Typing up an epic just doesn't sound fun right now.

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MMO News:

LotRO -> Still haven't touched. Probably never will again.

CoX -> Haven't even thought about it since I last quit. Even after seeing the Dark Knight. Imagine that.

EVE -> Somehow I'm hooked again. Kofi is still training, and playing the odd time, but mostly doesn't touch it. I got another co-worker hooked /somehow/. He going to sub after his trial. I guess the screenies I uploaded to Facebook and the odd talk about it at work got him interested. That, and he's got a pretty bad case of WoW burnout. Even Wrath of the Lich King doesn't get him all excited.

I'm mostly hooked cause I have people to chat with and team up with. It's nice. Solo MMOing just isn't my thing as much now.

WAR -> It comes out this month, and I really have zero interest in playing it. I love the Warhammer universe (mostly the 40k stuff), but this looks like WoW 2.0, with shittier PvE and GFX that don't even compare to LotRO. Nevermind comparing it to the GFX in EVE. I saw some screenshots and they looked so bland. Boo-urns for making a game that can run on /anyone's/ PC. Give me some eye-candy, yo!

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TV:

What TV? It's summer!

Though the new seasons of BSG and Terminator are getting me excited. Hope they are good.
*crosses fingers*

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Videogames:

Gears of War -> Inferno and I have co-op'd this almost to the end. It's been loads of fun. I doubt I would say that if I was playing it on a 360. I hate controllers for FPS games.

Guild Wars -> Haven't touched this since last time. The story is weak, and without henchmen I die too much. Quests are simple "kill X" and "fetch Y". Lame. Maybe if Inferno and I played together. But I'd rather play NWN2 for that. Better plot.

World in Conflict -> Managed a couple more missions in the SP. Played mostly MP with Kofi. He bought a copy for his brother and his buddy (who I also know, semi-well), so the four of us can play together. We got schooled last night, but that was cause the other team was stacked and we had some epic n00bs on our team.

Dawn of War -> Sadly, Kofi and I haven't played this at all since I got World in Conflict. I still like it, but in a different way than WiC. Base building is a bit more tedious, but then we aren't relying on other people on our team. WiC can be a huge frustration if our team is epic fail. I also haven't done more than 1 mission in the SP. Probably should give it another shot.

NWN2 -> Inferno and I haven't got far, but our schedules haven't worked out the last while, and he's been spending time with the girlfriend. I won't give him a hard time for that.

FEAR Perseus Mandate -> Since I really felt in the mood for a FPS game, I reinstalled this to give it another shot. I cranked it to Hard, so it's actually a challenge. But only cause the enemies do more DMG. They are still kinda stupid. After playing the best players out there in the original FEAR, AI just doesn't compare. I really miss playing FEAR, but sadly, no one plays it anymore. I was thinking Call of Duty 4 could possibly fill this niche, but I'd have to get a legitimate copy to play online.

All the other games like Freelancer, Sins of a Solar Empire, STALKER and Crysis still sit there. I can't be arsed to finish STALKER or Crysis. They both lost me for different reasons. Freelancer got boring the minute I earned a huge armoured transport that could 1 shot small pirate ships. And they couldn't even dent my shields. Sins I never really got into. Maybe if I played it MP with Inferno like we did with Master of Orion 2. That would be kinda cool, I think. Perhaps after we wrap up Gears.

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New Games:

Spore came out today, and I was thinking about getting it. But I got bored with the creature creator after like 4 hours, so how much is the game going to appeal to me? It looks like it's pretty simple, and once you get to the galactic stage, it makes it look like the game is more of a sandbox than anything. Screw around, do fun stuff for a bit, then stop playing.

I already mentioned Warhammer Online.

The only other game that looks cool is the Force Unleashed, and that still looks a bit arcadey to me. The stormtroopers are firing like mad, but your guy never gets hit? And he can toss shit everywhere, destroying stuff in it's path? Is this like a god-mode game or something? :S

Fallout 3 might be okay, but it looks like Oblivion in a post apocalyptic setting. They even had the same NPC face on some guy in the trailers. WTF? Lazy much, Bethesda? On the fence with this one.

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Tabletop:

Nothing since the last entry, mostly cause field season is still going, so my friends are all out of town. We're trying to set up a schedule for the Fall/Winter to get things done, so hopefully that helps. Missing people will be run by other players and so forth. Blake and I are both getting a little tired of all the half-finished shit we've got going.

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Personal:

I got heat exhaustion a while back, so it wasn't fun. It took me about a week to get back to 100% again. Mostly my appetite. I don't know why. It was one of the worst experiences in my life. I don't recommend it.

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And that's it. Hope it was brief enough! o/

The Rev.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

It's been just over a month, so let's get with the regularly scheduled update™!

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MMO News:

Inferno and I have cancelled our LotRO accounts and both haven't touched the game in a while. We weren't really playing it, so it wasn't a big loss.

CoX actually kept me interested for a while this time. I almost played the entire 45 days of my reactivation. The double XP weekend really helped me get past the mid-late teen blues, when the game really gets grindy. I even got interested in my character, and wrote up a big bio and stuff. But ultimately, it all came down to fellow players again.

My old SG mates never chat in the OOC channel, or at least don't when I'm around. I never see the people I used to chat with the most, and I didn't get to RP at all. Even the fairly busy SG I thought about joining (I snuck into their OOC channel), ended up being kind of quiet in the end. They also had some rules I wasn't too sure of. Things like uniforms, with specific colours. Plus, the more structured, military feel of the SG didn't really feel like my character. It could be cool, I dunno. If I end up bored again, and try out CoX, I might give them a serious try.

As for EVE, I wanted to try the 14 day "come back special" promotion, but the fine print forgot to mention how long your account has to be expired. So I couldn't take advantage of it. But I ended up re-subbing anyways, as I was in a Sci-Fi mood (see further down).

I started doing some more of the Exploration content in EVE, just for something different. It's a lot more chance based, and the payoffs are variable (a little too much, IMO), but it's a lot easier for me to do, time-wise. If I have some time to kill I can go search for a hidden site, and while I'm searching (ie. waiting for the probes to analyze) I can chat, go grab a snack, etc. There's a lot more freedom than the level 4 missions. If I had something like Angels Extravaganza as a mission, it takes somewhere near 3 hours to kill the NPCs, and loot/salvage the wrecks. It's quite epic.

It gives you a pretty regular payout (bounties and agent rewards wise), so it's a lot more dependable for making credits. It also gives you standing bonuses, which help open more agents up and lower taxes for refining, but the time sink is pretty big.

I also moved from my regular missioning system, which I've been at for a long while now, as I noticed that it was getting a lot more crowded recently. All I seem to see undocking/docking and flying to gates are multiples of the uber mission running ship, the Caldari Navy Raven. Another noticeable effect of the higher population is the lag has actually become a bit of a problem.

But the real kicker was that ninja-salvagers have moved into the system. For those who don't know, ninja-salvager is a profession in EVE where players use scan probes to find other players doing missions (killing NPCs). They then warp into these mission pockets and begin "stealing" the salvage from the NPC shipwrecks. Now, they aren't technically stealing, as salvage has been declared "free for all" by the developers, but a lot of the mission runners feel it is.

Personally, I think it's a valid tactic. But that doesn't mean I want to have them in my mission pocket stealing my salvage. Some of the missions drop salvage that's more valuable then the bounties and agent rewards combined.

So, I decided to do what I had been contemplating for a very long time .... move to the far side of the EVE galaxy. I'm now in a backwater system in the lowest populated region of space. And it is glorious! There's maybe 5 people in most systems, some have 10 or more, and still others have NONE! There's absolutely no lag whatsoever, and the system I am going to make my home (eventually), has a sweet level 4 agent in it with the highest possible quality (it effects payouts, etc.).

Now all I have to do is grind a little and get myself high enough standings to use that agent. It seemed like I had a hard road ahead of me at first. But after a few missions, I don't think it will actually take that long.

Another benefit of the area I am in, is that there's seemingly no one looking for Exploration sites. The Caldari area was normally wiped clean pretty quick, so now I will have a much easier time finding sites to do when I just want to take it easy.

Kofi, my co-worker, has actually expressed interest in getting a mining barge now. He and I are thinking of teaming up, so that if I find any hidden asteroids, he can mine them out, and I can haul the ore for him. The hidden stuff is pretty sweet, and would help a lot for making ammo and whatever else we might need.

And the biggest bonus to EVE is that a long time acquaintance of mine, from my NPC corp, invited me to "her" private chat channel, where a lot of our former corp mates hang out. Many have moved on to their own little corps, big corps, or even 0.0 space ones. But we've all got the Science and Trade Institute as our starter corp in common. It was nice as the people aren't complete n00bs, so they won't barrage me with idiotic questions, and the chat is generally mature. Sometimes the NPC corp chat is like Barrens chat in WoW. And if you don't know what that is, count yourself lucky.

So EVE is actually keeping me a little entertained for once. Perhaps I'll actually stick around for more than a month or two.

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TV:

I DLed the 4 seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise as I was a big fan of the first two seasons, and I wanted to see the episodes I missed. I've been watching a lot of them, as it's been crazy hot here lately, so it's hard to do much else.

I really don't mind the opening song, and I was actually starting to like it. But for some stupid reason they altered it for the 3rd and 4th season and it's sounds retarded.

Aside from that, it's been really cool to watch, and it has got me into a MAJOR sci-fi mood lately. Hence the EVE, and other stuff I'll mention later. I haven't finished the series yet, but I'm about 1/2 way through the 4th season. The 3rd season really wasn't the best, and I can see why it started to lose viewers. They took it away from the "tried and true" Star Trek system of one-shot episodes with a little bit of continuing storylines. And they went a little too overboard with the time-travel and "temporal cold war" shit.

The 4th season seems like it's back to the basics again, and I'm enjoying it much more. Don't really want it to end, but c'est la vie.

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Videogames:

Okay, I went stupid a little, and got a few games a while ago, and now it's biting me in the ass. I have no time to play them all, especially with the Enterprise watching and bits of EVE playing.

First, I purchased Dawn of War and the two expansions, Winter Assault and Dark Crusade. I got it cause Kofi bought it, and it was dirt cheap on Steam. It's a Warhammer 40k RTS but with slightly different systems. There are squads of units instead of single ones, and you can reinforce the squad while they are out doing stuff. You also don't have traditional resource gathering like other RTSes, instead you have to control and upgrade Control Points and Relics. They give you requisition that you use to get more units and upgrade them. You still build a traditional base and all, it's just you don't have the standard resource collection units.

I really like the game, and love the 40k style. The chainsaw-swords of the Marines, the war cry of the Orcs, etc. They are all priceless. And the animations for kills are bloody as hell. I love the bodies littering the battlefields. Kofi and I just play vs the AI, as he's a much better RTS player than me, and we want to remain friends. :P We've got pretty good at beating the AI, and actually managed a 2 vs. 2 on Hard. Some of the armies are just overpowered though, so we tend to not use them, and keep the AI from using them. Overall, it's been hella fun, and we are eagerly anticipating the sequel, Dawn of War 2.

Second I got Guild Wars and it's one expansion, Factions, in a boxed set for cheap. I really kind of wish I hadn't now, as I don't think I'll really keep playing it. It seems like I /need/ a group to play, at least with the character I have. And for some reason I can't seem to find the NPC henchmen to accompany me. The graphics are good, but not stellar like I seemed to remember them. And the missions aren't all that interesting.

It's not a huge concern anyways. It was cheap, and it costs me nothing monthly, so it can sit there all it wants.

The third game I got was World In Conflict. This has taken over Dawn of War's spot as the MP game that Kofi and I play. It's also an RTS, but not traditional either. You don't build bases at all, and have points for units that get airdropped in. And when the units die, you slowly get back the points they are worth. If the units manage to survive a while and rack up kills, they actually get better. It's pretty cool.

The best part though is the Tactical Aids. You get TA points for capturing/fortifying strategic points and for kills as well. The TA points can be used for anything from Aerial Recon, to Air dropped units, to artillery strikes, napalm strikes, and even up to tactical nukes. Yes ... NUKES!

It's really fucking sweet, actually. The Tactical Aids blow the shit outta the landscape and make the game that much more enjoyable. The graphics are amazing, and the sounds are great too. Being able to hide infantry in the forest and buildings, and being able to zoom down to see them shooting out of the windows and stuff is awesome. And this is just the MP part.

I've played a bit of the SP part of the game, and it's epic. The mission briefing cutscenes are voiced by Alec Baldwin, and the storyline is actually really cool. It's based on the same premise as the movie "Red Dawn", and written by a guy who co-wrote some novels with Tom Clancy. I'm really enjoying it, but sadly, it seems I have little time to devote to playing the SP. I've only done a mission here and there. Never more than one at a time.

It will eventually get done though. And I'm sure it will rock. The intro gives me goosebumps too. Just like Battlefield 2142 used to do. Love it.

As I mentioned before, Inferno and I were contemplating playing the campaign of NWN2 together. I actually got him to do it, and we've managed to get some of the first act done. We haven't been able to play it much, but at least we have something else instead of LotRO.

I also DLed the PC version of Gears of War to play co-op with Inferno if he wants. I'm not sure I really like the controls and all, but it's a shooter we can both play. We both enjoy blowing off some steam in FPS games. Should be cool too.

I still have some SP games kicking around as well, but I doubt I'll ever get back to them. They didn't manage to keep me hooked, so I doubt they will bring me back.

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As for Inferno, he's got heavily into Bloodlines, and is almost finished the game. It seems like he's had some rough spots though, as his character is more the social vampire, and mine was simply a thug. The game is far more focused on combat near the end than a normal Vampire the Masquerade tabletop game would be, so I think he's a little gimped. But I'm sure he'll pull through and beat it. Hopefully it doesn't stay unfinished like Kane and Lynch and Jade Empire are for him. He's pretty much given up trying to beat either one of those.

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In tabletop, we've barely had any sessions this summer. Far fewer than the last summer, and when we have got together, it's been for DnD. >:(

I actually mentioned to Inferno that I'd rather not play DnD with our group at all, and wait until our old gaming buddy moves back here to get a good group together. He was just like Inferno, me and our one buddy who normally GMs (which I will now on call "Blake" for clarity sake). The four of us had an awesome Cyberpunk game going a few years back, and we all seem to have the same ideas about gaming. Blake and I have had conversations about Narrativist vs. Gamist styles of RPG games before, and we are on the same page in that we enjoy the Narrativist style more. It's more about the characters, the plot, and RPing to us that it is about mechanics and leveling up or whatnot.

Inferno and I are thinking we should get the two of us, Blake and our other buddy together (when he moves back) and have a GURPS gaming group. And just leave the other 4 people we game with to play DnD on their own. I'm sure Blake wouldn't want to exclude them, and would still play DnD with them, but I really wouldn't care. They aren't the same style of gamers as us, and they /all/ seem to only want to play DnD. Three of the 4 of them are starting up DnD campaigns. The only reason the 4th isn't is it's because that's the girl gamer, and she has no idea how to GM. The one guy's cousin is starting some other DnD game as well that a bunch of them are playing. The lot of them are just retarded for this archaic, meaningless game system. It's fucking stupid and just annoys me to no end.

Mainly because I have great campaigns for GURPS that I seem to get one session starting, and then they get left my the wayside when we go back to DnD. Months down the road we might continue my game for a session, only to leave it for DnD again. I really have lost any interest in GMing when all my games are broken up into single sessions, months apart. I can't get any momentum going to get the players involved, and I lose track of details and ideas I had to continue the game.

About the only game I'd be willing to GM at any point is the Werewolf game I ran for Inferno and Blake. I really like the storyteller rules system for the World of Darkness, and Blake and Inferno are both good at actually "playing" their characters, rather than just using them as a bunch of stats.

I was supposed to GM my GURPS Space game tonight, but I was tired when I woke up this morning, and just thought "fuck it". They're not going to appreciate what I'm trying to do, and we're just going to leave the game for DnD next time anyways. I'm also not looking forward to any of the next sessions as they are ALL going to be DnD.

Here's a breakdown of the DnD games these idiots have going:

Blake:
- two games, based on a party split in two (not bad, but he uses published adventures, so they tend to feel out of place), he has taken over this one from a previous GM that moved away
- one game based on a Maritime setting (pirates, ships, etc.) (might be cool, but is still DnD)

The others:
- one post-apocalyptic game, where the "good races" are the outsiders, and orcs, demons, undead are the powers that be (sounds cool, but the GM makes everything combat related and almost kills the entire party off each time)
- Undermountain (one guy's cousin, using a published adventure. Undermountain is a epic dungeon crawl, so chance of RP is slim to none. Better off playing Diablo.)
- the Underdark (never seen this one in action, fortunately. GM is all over the place as a player, so who knows how he GMs)
- some published adventure (same GM as Underdark, who knows how this will be)

I really think we need to break up our group at this point. Any game that has all of us as players/GM becomes almost impossible to continue as we're relying on /seven/ of us to get together at the same time. We used to have enough trouble with 4 people.

Perhaps if our buddy moves back here we can break the group up into DnD and non-DnD people, and go our separate ways. I'm sure there will be some dismay over it, but they have to face the facts that we simply have become too big of a group to handle. And personally, I don't want to GM a game with 6 players. It becomes stupid to try and keep things balanced and keep everyone involved.

But enough of tabletop, it's melting my brain.

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That seems about it for now. Sorry for the MASSIVE post, but I had a lot to say this time.

Hopefully next time it won't be so verbose. ;)
The Rev.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Here again with his monthly update of news you really couldn't care less about it's the Rev! :P

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Rather than talk about EVE specifically, I'll just start with my MMO news, or "blues" to be more precise.

I haven't touched EVE since last post. I'm training Amarr Battleship to lvl 5, and it's 34+ days or something. Still 12 days left I believe. Though I did get a promo email about re-activating my account for 14 days for free. At least it read as 14 days free. Maybe it's only if I reactivate, then I get 45 days instead of the usual 30.

Pfft. If it's the latter, I think I'll pass. Even though the new expansion "Empryean Age" is out and the Factional Warfare (FW) I longed for is a part of it, I really don't have a desire to play. Maybe cause I saw the way EVE PvP really is when I was in Red vs. Blue (time consuming for a few fleeting moments of fun). Maybe cause the FW PvP doesn't do anything, even though you can "capture" systems for your faction. Or maybe cause I keep reading about how the Gallente faction is using Nanohacs to speed-tank and basically make themselves nigh-invulnerable. Nano ships are the current Flavour of the Month (FOTM) for PvPers who want use near broken game mechanics to ensure they never die, and therefore, never lose their precious ships. It's caused the EVE forums to break out in "Nanos are ghey", "Nerf Nanos" and "Nanos are overpowered" type of posts all over the place.

Perhaps the CCP Devs will finally step in and balance Nanos with everything else. It's been long enough, and has caused enough frustration as did all the previously broken FOTM setups.

In other MMO news, Inferno and I haven't played LotRO at all in a very long time. He's stopped playing his higher level Champion as he's hit all group only quests, and can't even solo them being much higher level.

I haven't played at all since we both logged in, so I cancelled my account the other day. I'm not paying for something I'm never using.

Also, I went and re-subbed to City of Heroes the other week. But this time it was kind of a mistake, as I thought there was a code I could use to get 14 days free, then your account would be billed. I thought it was for old subscribers to be able to come back and see what's new. But it was actually 14 days free on top of your normal monthly sub. So I ended up paying for another month. And what's even more annoying, is that the guy I got the code from got 14 days free added to his account. He was just some guy posting on the MMORPG.com forums. I see he's put up free codes for people to use almost every day. The bastard must have /months/ of free time added to his account, all by not giving people the straight facts.

Aside from that, CoX is fun, but I've hit the spot I always seem to hit when I come back. And that's the fact that I get lonely. Even though I'm in a channel with like 6 people, no one talks. It's ghey to the max. I've tried to start some conversations but they seem to quickly go nowhere. I'm not sure if people are all soloing, and are busy fighting mobs. Or are busy RPing. Either way, they're not talking. No one seems to even mention that they are logging off. I go check sometimes, and 3+ people have left, without a word. It seems like a very weird group, and not at all the same as I remembered it.

I even contemplated taking my alts and trying to find an active RP group so that I had people to talk to. Maybe I could get interested in the game again. Who knows. It would at least make the game more interesting than soloing all the time, seeing the same content I have done time and time again.

I dunno. Whatever way it goes, I cancelled my account to CoX as well. I haven't really played it that much in the last week or so anyways, so I'm not sure if I'll really miss it.

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I haven't watched TV since the finales of Smallville and Battlestar. Both were letdowns, IMO. Smallville moreso than Battlestar.

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I finished GTA IV a while ago, after 60+ hours or something like that. Took me about as long as San Andreas, but I think I liked GTA IV better. The action was more gritty, and the whole environment was more alive. San Andreas is a slightly better sandbox but GTA IV had far better characters, animations, environment, story and gameplay. It sucks that I've finished it, but that was an eventuality anyways.

I've tried the multiplayer, and it was fun, but I just don't see the overall appeal to it. Some of the people are downright ignorant, or just plain retards. The one guy saying it was the white man's duty to report any "niggers" was one asshole that soured the whole experience for me.

Oh well, I've got Live! Gold now, so if I happen to have a cool MP game I want to try with the few people I know on XBox, I can. It's not that expensive, and it's better to have when I need it, than not.

I've thought about getting some new 360 games, but I can't seem to find anything that I'd really enjoy. Gears of War might be interesting to play Co-op with Inferno, but then there's the PC version of it.

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Speaking of Inferno, he's been the odd one lately. Not really playing his PC or anything, and not doing much in particular. I haven't been able to hang out with him as much recently as our schedules are completely opposite for the time being. Perhaps that's it. Though these last couple days he's been seeing this new girl so his mood seems to be picking up.

Maybe it's just the heat this last week. It's been 30C or close to for the last while, and our house is like a sauna. I've been forced to move my PC to the basement just to not get heatstroke, and have something to occupy my time (the basement's pretty empty otherwise).

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And lastly in tabletop news our group has barely managed to get together in a long time. I think we had 2 sessions since last post, and both were very short. We've fallen back to DnD for the time being, as my one friend who was GMing wanted to wrap up the scenarios he had left in mid adventure.

We've done the one scenario and actually should have all died, but he fudged the rolls (we all know he did) and we finished the last big boss. We thought it was actually just some side enemy, but it turned out it was the true "end boss". We totally didn't see it coming, and it made the whole scenario somewhat anti-climactic.

Oh well, at least that part is over.

We did the first half of the 2nd scenario the other night, and it was kind of fun. Even though there was minimal fighting, and mostly RPed the whole time. I got to play the Lawful Good guardsman who does his duty to help the rest of the party. He's a throwaway NPC for now (ie. a "Redshirt" from Star Trek), but he's been pretty fun to play. I got to harass the PCs and basically call them thugs and scum. It was great and the DM seemed quite amused at it. He's the one who suggested the character to me.

It should be interesting to see how combat goes with this character, as he's basically a Tank, and has huge Armour Class (AC). He can even pump up his AC at the cost of hitting stuff (ie. by dropping his attack bonus). Should make him very hard to hit. Kind of what the party needs when the only other fighter type is Inferno's Ranger who does lots of damage, but can't take a beating at all.

I think my one problem with our buddy DMing is that he tends to use published scenarios. It was great for Cyberpunk cause he tied the whole scenario into our existing storylines and character backgrounds. But the DnD modules have never seemed to be based around us. They always feel like random adventures thrown at us.

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In a personal side note to tabletop, I've started a Werewolf: the Forsaken game for just me, Inferno and our one buddy who DMs the DnD games. The three of us have been gaming together the longest, so I figured a setting where we get to play the Narrativist type of game we all enjoy would be cool. Also, the three of us seem to be the ones that are the most available, so this gives us something to play if the rest of the group isn't around.

As well, after watching the Diablo 3 trailers and looking at the concept art, I've started working on a horror-themed fantasy game, set in my own gameworld I developed a few years ago, using the GURPS ruleset. I figured it would be a cool way to introduce GURPS to the ones in our group who haven't tried it, and I know now that Fantasy is the preferred genre for at least 2 of the other guys.

The horror element is my way of having a slightly different tone than our current DnD games, and I'd also like to get more into non-combat stuff and roleplaying. Investigating strange occurrences in a horror setting should be an easy way to facilitate that. Plus, I'd like to use a lot of undead and the like, so horror just fits better.

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Also in tabletop, our one friend told us that that girl who had joined us and seemed to be looking is now a couple with our one tabletop buddy (who we haven't seen in weeks). He thought it was kind of funny. I'm also amused to think of what it's going to be like when we're all gaming together again. Or if she's going to not come now because they're dating. Or not come now cause she's got what she was looking for, ie. a guy. Or as me and two of the other guys said, her "backup guy". It's kind of what she did with our other DnD buddy, who moved away. Hopefully that's not going to happen again.

Should be an interesting time once everyone is back together though. I'll keep you updated. :P

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That seems to be about it. Hopefully I'll update this earlier than next month. Makes it easier for you to read, and easier for me cause I don't have to type so much.

The Rev.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Almost a month again, time for an update.

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I did eventually break down and reactivate my EVE account. I needed something that I could play on my own, and needed a little Sci-Fi fix. Needless to say, it didn't last long. I gave myself the goal to earn enough ISK (credits) to get an Abaddon battleship, mostly cause it's cool looking, and also because I wanted to try out laser weapons and armour tanking.

Well, my skills are almost maxed for those things, yet they both seem sub-optimal compared to my Raven battleship. It uses cruise missiles and shield tanking, and both seem to work so much better than the Abaddon. The cruise missiles use no energy to fire, so I have all my capacitor to use for shield recharging. The shields recharge on their own, so the booster isn't always needed. Plus, a little waiting between fights allows the shields to fully recharge, as well as my capacitor (energy). Plus, the missiles can be swapped for any of the 4 damage types (EM, Thermal, Explosive and Kinetic), and can fire the maximum range the Raven can target.

The Abaddon, on the other hand, only does EM and Thermal damage from the Laser cannons, the armour doesn't regenerate on it's own, and the range on the cannons is far shorter than the max targeting range. Plus, I have to swap out crystals to modify range and damage while the NPCs are flying towards me. As well, tracking speed is a factor too. So fast moving ships are harder to hit. With the missiles, they hit based on a certain signature radius (ship size), so smaller ships take less damage. But they still take damage. My lasers couldn't even hit the NPCs once they got within 7km. It sucked.

I tried the Abaddon in one mission where the NPCs deal EM and Thermal damage. Those are the two weakest resistances for shields, and the highest for armour. Hence, why I wanted to get the Abaddon. But the NPCs just swarmed me, and I couldn't hit them. At least with my Raven, I could pop them at 90km, long before most could even fire back.

All in all, the Abaddon was a utter letdown. It's probably a hell of a ship for PvP, or as a single role ship (DPS or Tank, not both), but for the NPC missions I run, it's sub-par compared to my Raven.

And since I never really had a goal after the Abaddon (which I managed to get rather quickly), I've got nothing left to do in EVE. So I cancelled my account again. This time it was like 2 weeks, tops. Oh well ...

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Smallville and Battlestar haven't really been too big. The season finale of Smallville wasn't all that exciting, and kind of a weak cliffhanger. I guess I've come to expect that nothing will get resolved in the finale, so it doesn't have the tension that it should.

Battlestar hasn't been on for a couple weeks, I think. Either way, it's not all that interesting either. They'd better ramp it up here soon, or they're going to wind up ending the series with a whimper, not a bang.

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None of my other PC games have got nay attention since I bought GTA IV. It's been sooo much fun, but sadly, the ride is coming to and end soon. I know I'm almost done, and that bums me out, hard.

I have nothing else to play after I finish GTA IV. No PC games I really feel like playing. And no 360 games worth getting. I really don't know what to do. The other day I was so bored I ended up reading my World of Darkness tabletop RPG books for fun. It's not like we'll probably ever play it again, but it was cool to think about.

Hell, today I was so bored I contemplated doing some housecleaning to pass the time. Fucking stupid, ain't it?

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As for LotRO, I think Inferno and I have managed to play together about 5-6 hours in the last month. That's it. It's pretty stupid. I don't know why I still have my account at all, since that's the only time I ever play it. Inferno still plays his higher level Champion though, probably because he's got nothing better to play.

Luckily though, I did eventually get a free month from Inferno signing up, so now my account is paid until July something. Not like I'll play, but at least I'm not paying.

I actually reinstalled Neverwinter Nights 2 (NWN2) the other day just to see if I could get Inferno to make that our co-op game instead of LotRO. It's got a better story, better NPCs, just as good graphics, and we don't have to play with other people. The henchmen NPCs make up your party. It's much better than having to go LFG just to finish a quest. I think we've got to the point where our duoing won't always suffice. And dying for my character is a exceedingly costly setback.

As well, I've lost interest in LotRO, story wise and gameplay wise. We've done too many "Kill X" quests and dropped enough bears, boars, wolves, spiders, brigands and undead to make me sick. Pretty much every enemy we've fought has been one of those. New mobs just don't appear in LotRO. It seems like everything is just a higher level version of the same old thing.

We'll see though. I don't know how much longer Inferno will play his Champion if I'm not around. Plus, I got him to finally start playing Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines the other day. He really liked it before, but his old PC kept locking up when he tried playing it. Now it runs fine, so hopefully he'll get "sucked" into that instead. Pardon the pun. :P

I can probably get him playing Half Life 2 and the Episode for them, as well as some other games I have. He doesn't need a life sucking MMO to play. He's bad enough with the games you can pause and save anytime. :P

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And in tabletop, we've /finally/ moved on from DnD back to GURPS. I think my prodding Inferno and our other longtime RPG buddy has helped the switch, plus the fact that we've had to find other options as the entire DnD group of players hasn't been able to get together for a long time. We've left a few DnD adventures (in different campaigns) in the middle, so we need to wrap them up at some point. But for now, I'm GMing a Sci-Fi game in GURPS.

It's my version of the Rebels from Star Wars. Only this one starts on a frontier planet, and is /really small/. More like insurgents or terrorists than a military force fighting the established government. It seems like the group is really liking the game so far, and they've all come up with some good characters. I had to make an NPC for the girl, as she was leaving for a holiday and not familiar with GURPS, but she likes the NPC anyways, and will probably play her when she comes back.

The only snag is the one guy who doesn't want to play anything but DnD. But it seems the rants Inferno, our longtime RPG buddy, and I wrote in emails to the group has made him realize that this will probably be the only RPing he'll get. Otherwise he'll have to wait until we get some time later on to wrap up the DnD games.

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I also DLed the 4 edition of DnD off the Net, and it's not even out yet. The PDFs I have are from the printers or something. They have the colour gradients on the top and marks where to crop the pages. Pretty silly, actually.

But it seems like Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has gone even further to make DnD like a video game with this version. It seems like everything is streamlined even more, something I thought near impossible with 3.5 DnD. Even though the podcast I listened to of the guys from Penny Arcade and PvP playing it sounded like a normal DnD game, it looks to make things even more simple. And personally, I like more complexity and freedom in my RPG systems. GURPS is exactly that. You have the freedom to make whatever character you want. The only limit is the character points you're given to make them. I love it.

Suffice to say, it sounds like no one in the group is interested in trying 4e DnD. That kind of sucks in a way though. I really would like to play their new version of a Warlock. You can take Thievery skills (lock picking, disabling traps) and have some cool spells/powers. More like the WoW Warlock than the 3.5 DnD one.

Set someone on fire, then drain their life, making you stronger? Yes, please! :D

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That's it for now, I guess.

Later all.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Since it's been a month or so, I figured an update was due.

I'm not sure if there's really anything really new to tell, more just updates to what's been going on.

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In EVE, I haven't played since whenever it was. A couple months ago? I can't really remember. I have had the urge to play it a little, probably because I'm in a Sci-Fi mood, and I read the EVE-O forums almost daily. A lot of the posts are elitist garbage which really piss me off, but there are a lot of really good posts, and interesting tidbits hidden under all the e-peen waving.

Red versus Blue is /dead/. The Blue killboards haven't been updated in almost a month, and the Blue forums haven't been posted on in almost as long. Red still seems to have a handful of peeps mostly ganking in low-sec. Probably to find someone to fight.

I mostly haven't resubbed to EVE because Inferno and I are still playing Lord of the Rings Online. I don't think I can realistically devote myself to two MMOs at once. One of them invariably falls to the side.

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Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica (BSG) has been pretty good so far. But it seems like they have been losing focus this season. I really can't see what they are trying to portray. The plot seems a little too convoluted. Especially the whole Baltar arc.

I also DLed the entire mini-season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I was expecting it to suck ass when I saw the commercials for it on TV, but I had heard that it was pretty good, so I figured why not. Holy shit ... it's /good/. And the little things they put in for the fans are awesome. Like one episode when they showed the future war and there were Terminators with rubber skin (aka. the "600 series" that Kyle refers to in the original movie). I really liked the whole show, plus Summer Glau (the actress who played River Tam in Firefly/Serenity) plays the role as a Terminator so well it's creepy.

Smallville has let me down a few times this last bit, but it somehow redeems itself every few episodes. I figure the team of writers for the show are mostly idiots, but there are the few who actually can write. It's the episodes that they write that are the ones I love. Plus, the show seems to be moving more towards Metropolis and the whole Lois/Clark relationship and away from the teenager Lana/Clark one. Lana isn't an interesting character at all, IMO. She's way too weak and looks like a high school girl. Lois is much more interesting and far more attractive. Plus, the actress, Erica Durance, is from Alberta. Woot!

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Freelancer hasn't really got any attention in a long while. Mostly since Inferno and I started playing LotRO. I managed to make a huge pile of credits one day by trading stuff between the two star systems. Now my guy has a huge armed transport ship and I can make like 600,000 credits in about 20 minutes of semi-AFK playing. The best missions Inferno can do are like 25,000 credits and take him almost the same amount of time. He's said he can't play with me anymore, cause my ship is way too tough. But he doesn't get that it's not a combat ship. Sure it has like 6 turrets, but they can't hit shit, and the thing handles like a pig. Plus, I can't take it into any of the hazardous areas (wastelands, asteroid fields, debris fields, etc.) as it's too big and will only get fucked by all the things hitting it.

I might play it a little more when I have some free time and Inferno isn't around. If we both have free time, it's pretty much playing LotRO.

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I haven't played STALKER at all in a while. I got my old savegame off the old PC (it's now the extra one running as our Freelancer server), but I couldn't get back into it. It will probably be something I'll play when I run out of better stuff.

Crysis just pisses me off though. It's gone from this cool shooter where you could pick how you wanted to tackle the obstacles (stealth, run-n-gun, avoid altogether, etc.) to a linear run of the mill FPS. The storyline isn't interesting in the slightest, and is pretty easy to figure out. The levels have become boring, and the weapons stupid. It's like the first half of the game was revolutionary, and the second half was ripped from DOOM or Quake. Fucking ghey. :P

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After talking to Inferno about LotRO and our duoing, I've got him to improve a little bit. Especially with the healing me part. We've managed to tackle things quite easily now, and he seems to understand how to better play his class. Plus, we've got high enough that the specialization of the classes is more defined. My Guardian is getting better at Tanking, can take more hits, wear heavier armour, etc. Inferno's Loremaster is getting awesome at the DPS and crowd control. Especially the latter.

I've actually not played my Captain at all since we've got our Elves to Bree (where the Capt was). I've done some gathering of resources, but I haven't done any quests with him at all. He's actually almost the lowest level character I have.

I pretty much only play LotRO when Inferno and I can play. If I'm online when he's not around it's to craft stuff or check the Auction House. We've been good about not playing our Elves unless the both of us are on. He has a Champion that's higher level than all our characters, but he mostly goes around gathering minerals/hides/etc. and doing the generic "Kill X" quests. He can't tackle the group ones at all, and I've told Inferno not to do them. I want the content to be fresh for both of us. At least the story arc stuff. That's by far the best part of the game.

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One thing that sucks though, is that when I cancelled my account, I didn't get the free month for signing up Inferno with the game. It's not a huge deal though. One extra month isn't all that important.

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In tabletop, it seems like the girl we've been gaming with is "looking". It's been pretty obvious a few times that we've been playing. Like her always sitting near me, or moving to sit near me to "let someone else get around the table". It seems she shifted her focus onto our other tabletop buddy for a bit. It even seems to spill over into the game, where she comes across as playing favourites. Worrying about "buffing" the guy over someone else, etc. It's kind of funny actually.
It's also come to light why she's playing with us now, as opposed to when our other buddy was around. And that's cause they had some weird relationship/not-relationship going for quite a while. He pursued her, she rebuffed him, but once he started dating someone else, she'd be all over him, usually ruining his new relationship in the process. Then the whole situation would repeat itself. Kinda fucked up, actually.

I had contemplated asking her out, but that might be too weird, as we game together, and I have no idea if she'd start the same shit with me as she did to our buddy. Plus, she seems a little on the "not-so-clean" side and I'm a neat freak. That's a pretty big sticking point with me, so I'm not sure if I could get around it.

Oh well, c'est la vie.

Aside from the romancing :P , we've left the one game mid battle. We can't seem to get everyone together to finish it, but the first chance we get we'll finish it off. Just to make things easier.

So, in the interim, I'm going to be running my Space game. The PCs are going to be rebel fighters vs. the "evil" corporation that's taken over the planet they live on. So far, the three PCs sound pretty interesting. Especially Inferno's character. The college student who's trying to take down the corporation in secret. Sending out pamphlets, printing an illegal paper, broadcasting a pirate radio show, etc. He even has started to work on making explosives. Inferno took disadvantages like Fanantacism, Overconfidence, etc. All around he seems like a good character with an interesting personality. The other two guys are a black marketeer who fronts as a legitimate importer/exporter, and an almost out of work mechanic who refuses to wear one of them damn "blue jumpsuits".

Overall the guys made some nice characters and I can see how our RL beliefs (ie. anti-corporate leanings) are spilling into the game. It's going to be an interesting game, that's for sure.

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Lastly, I picked up Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) the other day and have been playing it in my spare time. It's pretty fricking sweet, but I doubt I need to tell you all about it. Not quite the 10/10 that some of the game review sites have posted, but still one of the best games I've played in a long time.

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That's it for now. I'm off to finish some chores and get into a little GTA IV action.

Peace,
The Rev.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Okay, an update to all the things I mentioned last time:

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In EVE, RvB seems to be suffering from /major/ inactivity right now. The last couple of weeks the number of kills has dropped significantly. Where one day would see anywhere up to 30 ships killed/lost per side, now there are max 7 per day. Most days it's like 4-5. That's pretty terrible considering that this is in multiple timezones.

Oh well, it was a good idea while it lasted. Farewell RvB. o/

I've also got the urge to play EVE a little more recently, and I don't know why. Possibly because I am severely low on games right now. Could also be linked to my co-worker Satan playing again, and some problems I've had with Lord of the Rings Online.

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I DLed the premiere of Season 4 for Battlestar Galactica and watched it the other day. Man, that show is good. But it pisses me off when they end with a cliffhanger and "To Be Continued ...". Smallville did that all the time and maybe that's why I don't get all excited about watching it anymore.

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Played Freelancer a little with Inferno the other day, but we didn't get that far, and we ended up getting wasted by some INSANE pirate NPCs. Missions that make us take out pirate bases are no good. Period. Even with our new upgraded ships.

I think we have to go back to doing missions around our levels and slowly make money that way. We got cocky and thought we could make the big money fast (money is tied to what level you are in Freelancer), but we were wrong.

Still fun though. I just wish that we could play whenever, like an MMO, so that we could level up when both of us can't necessarily play. Inferno is on graveyards ATM, so we don't have much in the way of mutual free time.

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Played a little of STALKER but I've left it alone for a while, mainly cause I'm annoyed that I lost my savegame. I might try and get it off my old harddrive just so that I can skip all this earlier stuff. Plus, I had some sweet unique weapons that I'd found, and I really miss them.

Crysis also got a little time the other day too. I still had my savegame so it was pretty easy jumping back into it. But I got to the point that my one roomie had mentioned, and the game pissed me off. I really don't have a desire to play it right now. Maybe later I will. Who knows.

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I've played Lord of the Rings Online (LotRO) the most in the last couple weeks. But that's still not saying much. My Captain is still only level 14, and my Guardian is around 12. Inferno and I played a Guardian/Loremaster duo for most of the time I played LotRO in the last while. But I seem to get easily annoyed at Inferno when we play MMOs. He just doesn't seem to grasp the complexities of MMOs, and ends up playing them by hitting the same 3-4 buttons all the time.

It annoys me more with our duo in LotRO cause he is supposed to be "backing me up" with situational healing, mezzes and damage. But he seems only to do the damage, so I get fucked if we aggro more than one mob. I checked what skills Loremasters get for his level and he has /never/ used the healing ability on me, nor can I recall him ever using it on himself. He is a rather poor MMO player, basically.

It's sad to say, but I actually didn't enjoy duoing with him for a good chunk of our time, and I was hoping that he wouldn't upgrade to a paying account. So far, he hasn't bought the game, and his trial has been over for 3-4 days now. He seemed mostly annoyed that his monster character (creeps, as they are called in LotRO) can't fight 1 vs. 1 with a good guy player (freep). He played more of the PvMP (player vs. monster player) side of things in LotRO than he did the PvE side. Hopefully the imbalance in the PvMP system will keep him from subscribing. I really don't enjoy duoing with him in MMOs. WoW was the same when we played it, too.

We have had lots of fun playing co-op in non-MMO games though. Neverwinter Nights and the expansions, Ghost Recon, Rune, Aliens vs. Predator, Sacred, Dungeon Siege 1 and 2, Freelancer and probably some others I can't remember. Maybe because those ones aren't too complex, or maybe it's just cause he understood them better.

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I've also become somewhat disillusioned with LotRO as of late. I had lots of fun at the beginning but now it seems like it's gone. Perhaps because I played with Inferno, or maybe because I tried playing other classes and found them lacking, as well as repeating the same content with them (ie. boring myself in the process). I don't know.

I think if I go back to my Captain and stick with just him for now, I might actually enjoy my time in LotRO. If not, I already cancelled my subscription so I won't be charged for another month. I think I still have like almost 2 1/2 weeks left, so I should be able to figure out if I want to keep playing by then.

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As for tabletop, our friend has decided to run a DnD game in a maritime setting. Ships, pirates, etc. There's no cannons, and gunpowder, but that's okay as people have fireballs and other spells. Our friend is probably the best GM in our group so it's always a pleasure to game with him. He's already made the game interesting a little, and I'm really getting into my character.

I've decided to go a completely different route this time and play a "face" character. The face is the character who acts as the party's diplomat, leader (sometimes), etc. He is the one who does all the NPC interaction, which lets me get more RPing time. All of my old characters have been quiet, in the back ones. None of them have been face characters. It's been pretty interesting so far. The only downside is that I've taken a level of Rogue to start, as it gives me more skillpoints, better weapon proficiencies, sneak attack damage, and allows me to eventually take a prestige class that looked cool. The Scarlet Corsair, ie. a terrifying pirate! It's a really cool prestige class, and I felt my character would be a really cool pirate. Mostly because after the level of Rogue I'm going all Warlock (which are feared spellcasters in the public eye), and he will have max ranks in Intimidate. It's going to be great.

But ... it seems we're going back to our old campaign for the next while, just so we can finish off our one story arc. I really don't want to, but the other guys all do. I think we'll probably leave that campaign altogether once the arc is done, as we'll probably all be around level 15-16 by then, and that's when everything starts to get ridiculous.

Also, we have a girl in our tabletop group now. This is the first time I've ever gamed with a girl, but she's pretty cool, and doesn't seem to have much difficulty with the system or setting so far. Plus, she is friends with many of our tabletop buddies as they all worked together over the years. I think our one friend's wife, who is also friends with the new girl, didn't approve of us letting her play. We're corrupting her I guess, bringing her over to the "Geek side". :P

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That about covers it all for now.

Take it easy,
The Rev.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Well, there's been some new stuff since last entry, so I'd better fill you in.

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In EVE, I haven't played since the last post, and it seems the Red vs. Blue idea is falling apart. Or at least, having some serious troubles. Blue seems to attract all the third party war declarations and they continuously have troubles with teaming, AFKers, and general lack of drive to fight. It was the same when I was playing, but now it seems worse. Plus, I doubt the Blue pilots really like going to look for fights with Reds, only to get ganked by a blob of third party enemies.

I don't think Kofi is even playing right now, as he hasn't mentioned it at all. And he keeps trying to get me to play Team Fortress 2 with him.

Oh well, maybe I can leave EVE alone for a while. Let CCP have the time to actually fix/add some stuff to the game.

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I finished season 3 of Battlestar Galactica a while ago too. Can't wait until season 4 starts up in April. It's sooo good.

I finally got Inferno to watch the start of season 1 too. He seemed to really enjoy it, but was saying how he doesn't want to watch it now cause "it'll be all bad". I think he's referring to knowing who one of the Cylons are. But it wasn't like he got a spoiler or anything. It was revealed in the episode we watched.

Whatever.

It also got me wanting to play a space game again, so I re-installed Freelancer, again. Lost my ID code so I had to make a new character on Inferno's server, but I managed to get higher than we had got in less time. Helps that I know the best trade route in the starter system.

---

The reason I had to re-install Freelancer is cause I upgraded my computer, /again/. This time I got a quad core CPU, 4GB of RAM, an 8800GT card, a 500GB hard drive and a new motherboard and DVD burner. The whole rig is fucking sweet, and it can run everything I have at max resolution with all the settings maxed. Except for Crysis, of course. But I haven't even re-installed that yet. Don't know if I will either. It wasn't all that great, story-wise. Gameplay was cool, and graphics were top notch. But the story was the same old shit. I just couldn't get through it.

Right now I only have a few games installed. And I'm really only playing a couple. I had to backup all my Steam games (Half-Life 2, TF2, Portal, etc.) as well as STALKER and Sins of a Solar Empire. They are the only games I have installed. And I'm only really playing STALKER, once and a while. It didn't save my game when I backed it up, so I've had to start all over again. And it's kind of pissed me off.

Aside from those, I also have Lord of the Rings Online installed. o.O

---

I'm sure you're wondering what possessed me to do that, but I was curious about the game for a while. Mostly from getting the emails about getting it for cheap every so often. So I DLed the trial, hoping it would give me my needed little fix, and let me go after the 7 days were up. Sadly, it didn't work and I bought the game.

BUT ... it only cost me $9.99, so it's not a bad deal. And I'm sure I'll get more fun out of my first month than I ever would with EVE Online. Having an actual avatar to look at really makes me enjoy an MMO. I can actually get immersed in the world and lose myself a little. I haven't really played it much since I paid for it, but that's okay. I plan on being more casual with it, so that I don't get burned out, and also so I can keep balance in my life. I don't want to slip back into the WoW days when I did nothing else with my free time.

I even gave Inferno a trial key, but I think that's a bad idea. He's got the worst addiction to video games I've ever seen. He did /absolutely nothing/ the other day but play UFO: Aftermath all day. All day.

---

As for the tabletop front, we've moved towards GURPS for the most part now, as our one friend is the minority now. We did play a huge all-day session on Good Friday to wrap up the one DnD campaign, but that was because our GM was back in town for the weekend, and we needed to finish things off. It's not good to leave a game hanging in the middle of an adventure/battle/etc. People forget what's happening and it almost never gets resolved.

Hopefully we can convince the remaining two guys to game more often with the 4 of us left. The one guy is ridiculously busy and the other guy doesn't want to play anything other than DnD for some odd reason. Roleplaying is roleplaying, no matter the game system. Learning a different system is sometimes fun, and a change in setting is always a breath of fresh air. One can only stand so much Fantasy.

---

Well, that seems like about all of it.

Until next time,
The Rev.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

From last entry:

Kofi and I actually got into Blue and have managed to be a part of some PvP fights. Or should I say, We've managed to get blown out of the sky numerous times while doing absolutely nothing significant to the enemy.

I've tried PvPing a little with Kofi in EVE, and it's become pretty frustrating, to say the least. We haven't managed to do /anything/. I've got in a few 1 vs. 1 fights (all consentual, of course) and have won more than I lost. But they were all vs. people more noobish than me. Or at least, more noobish in skillpoints than my alt.

Kofi, our friend and I decided to try getting our main characters into Blue instead. They are an Alliance now, so we could make our own corporation and join the alliance. If we want to leave, the corp just leaves, thus making it quite easy and limiting the corp hopping trail left in one's employment history.

I know some of you might stop there, and think that this all sounds a bit too much like real life. Corps, employment history, etc. And that's cause EVE is like that. You're never the lone hero, or a big name. You're usually just another cog in the machine. Which personally, I don't really like. I play solo 99% of the time, so having to team with others, or take orders from the CEO of a corp is not something I'd enjoy.

But, back to the topic of the Red vs. Blue PvP. The other guys want to get our mains into the fights. Then we'd have the ability to use bigger ships, and have better skills to fight and fit modules. But after seeing the PvP in EVE, I'm not sure I really enjoy it that much. I like more adrenaline in my gaming. And EVE is more tactical, slow paced combat.

There's another major reason I've given up on EVE PvP. Check the next part.

So, my account expires in a week or so, and I'm not going to renew it. I haven't even seen Kofi online for over a week. And now that our one co-worker got a transfer, both Kofi and I have to share the same job. That is, if I'm not working , he is. Our shifts look like they will rarely overlap at all now, thus our online time will probably not overlap either. And our other friend in EVE is always busy with the girlfriend, so I doubt he'll be playing much either. Plus, he's perpetually broke. :P

---

In non-gaming related news, I've started watching the new Battlestar Galactica series (BSG). I DLed the first season off a torrent, watched it, then ran out and bought the first two seasons on DVD. It's that good.

If there was a recovery group for BSG addicts, I should be in it. It's fucking great, I can barely stop watching it.

It's also got me thinking about space dogfights, playing X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter (XvT) back in the day, Star Wars (in general), and sci-fi to the extreme. After watching BSG, remembering how much fun XvT was, I had to let EVE go. There's no comparison.

BSG has got me wanting to run my space game for our tabletop group as well. But Inferno and I have to sit down with our one friend and come up with a setting we can all agree on. We want to run different campaigns in the same gameworld, allowing us to build upon it and make a cohesive setting the players can feel like they are a part of. Last night before our tabletop game, we got into a big discussion about the space game, and our tabletop gaming in general. I think it surprised our one tabletop buddy, as I think he didn't realize how much we all don't like the DnD d20 system, and how much we've disliked the rotating GM idea.

It's nice to see he's come around a little, as he's now the minority in the group that likes playing DnD. He seemed to have a lot of fun RPing in last night's session too (which I GMed, BTW ;) ), and maybe we can make him more comfortable playing GURPS in general.

---

I've also re-installed Freelancer and DLed a mod that adds like 100+ ships and 50+ planets to the game. There are ships from BSG, Star Wars, Babylon 5 (I think) and a lot of the ones that were NPC only in the normal game. Both Inferno and our roomie installed it as well, so maybe we can have some co-op gaming there as well. Though our roomie seems like he's one of those people who doesn't like playing a game normally. He wants to start at a higher level, instead of working our way up. He's also DLed walkthroughs of most games and beats them that way.

He's basically one of those gamers that cheats his way through just to feel godlike or something. Challenge is not something he seems willing to confront. A good example is our Call of Duty 4 (CoD4) deathmatches.

He formatted his PC a while ago, so he lost his account in CoD4. So we played the other night and he was level 1 again. Inferno and I were lvls 14 and 15, respectively. It goes to level 55. But our roomie got frustrated that we were beating him, and that he didn't have access to all the better weapons. So he logged off, hacked his account, and came back as a lvl 55. He then used a setup of the best weapon with a silencer, double firing rate, and silent movement, so he could fill us with rounds and run all over the place making no sound.

But what was funny is that he still didn't manage to beat either of us. And when he would die, I'd just go pick up his weapon and use it to kill him some more. It was funny, but it made him upset again, and he logged off. He really doesn't take losing well, /at all/. It's kind of ridiculous considering that it was a computer game too.

---

I tried that Sins of a Solar Empire too. It's pretty sweet, though a little slow for my current mood. I tried a couple games, but after 4+ hours I was nowhere near winning, and I had to go to sleep. It looks like a good game Inferno and I could play co-op vs. the AI, like we used to do in Master of Orion 2 and 3.

It also looks exceedingly nice on my new 24" widescreen LCD monitor! :D My old monitor was /really dark/, and so I figured it was time to get a new one. Why not one of the biggest and best while I'm at it? :P

I even have my XBox 360 hooked up to it, so I can play in HD goodness. My 360 games look sooooo much crisper now on it. I really wish I had bought it earlier. Some games, like Assassin's Creed, I can finally read the fucking text. Before I had to pretty much guess what it said. It was that blurry.

---

I might try out Lord of the Rings Online sometime here as well. I got a offer via email that would let me get the game for $9.99. It's pretty hard to say no to that, especially since the game wasn't bad, and my one tabletop friend plays it. Plus, he's moving 785km (490 mi) away, so I'm not going to see him anytime soon. Kind of sucks too, as he was the best GM we've had in a while (minus me, of course :P).

LotRO has voice chat too, so we could even just chat over the Net. I guess we could just use Teamspeak or Ventrilo instead, but this kills two birds with one stone.

---

I think that's it for now. Sorry about the semi-rambling in this one. I'm not fully awake (haven't eaten yet), so I kind of lost focus there.

Hopefully more coherent next time,
The Rev.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

From last entry:

As for MMO-Land, EVE seemed to be okay for a while, and I even trained up an alt for the Red vs. Blue PvP, but I'm really doubting whether I want to actually join them. EVE combat is kind of slow (read: fucking slow), so I can't see how the PvP is going to be better. Sure, there's real loss when you die, but the Red vs. Blue PvP is all in cheap ships as to make it light on the wallet. Thus, it becomes almost trivial to die. So with the loss of a real penalty, and slow combat, there doesn't seem like a lot of reason to do it in the first place. Plus, I can't seem to coordinate any time to play with Kofi, as our schedules have been almost completely opposite lately.
So ...

Kofi and I actually got into Blue and have managed to be a part of some PvP fights. Or should I say, We've managed to get blown out of the sky numerous times while doing absolutely nothing significant to the enemy.

Sigh. :(

We've been completely ineffectual in every encounter, mostly due to numbers/ship types and the fact that our alts have fucking pathetic skills. There was only 1 time when I felt like I actually contributed, when I was warp scrambling a battleship, but I ran out of energy and he got away. Had I fit the proper scrambler, I could have helped take him down.

I've changed my ship setup a little, but it hasn't helped at all. I really can't do much other than warp scram, and as soon as I get targeted I end up dead in seconds. It doesn't matter what I do, I die very, very quickly.

So, I figured I need to train up more skills, and possibly move into a bigger ship. And then I looked at the time it would take me just to train /some/ of the gunnery skills I have on my main character. 69 days or something stupid. And that's with training a bunch of Learning skills to speed things up. It doesn't make me want to continue actually. I'd much prefer to go play something else if it's going to take that long. And it's not like the PvP in EVE is even all that fun. It's /really slow/ and can take /hours/ of waiting, jumping, planning, teamwork, etc., just to get those few kills.

Comparing it to all the other games I've PvPed in, it's far too slow for my tastes. It was fun for a while, but we have no real chance and it shows. Blue is especially full of lower skillpoint chars and complete noobs, so we keep getting our asses handed to us. I checked the killboards and after the skilled Euro players left the other day, Blue didn't score a single kill in over /5 hours/. The North American players are so useless, it hurts.

Kofi and I only have one other option, and that is to bring in our main characters instead. But that opens up a whole other can of worms, especially since we use those chars in PVE to supply money for the PVP alts. If they are in Blue, we can't simply go mission. The only way is to make jump clones (ie. extra bodies you can jump to once every 24 hours), but then we are still in Blue when we are missioning, and are therefore vulnerable to attack by anyone at war with us.

We could just train up our alts, but I'm not going to wait another 6-10 months to get to where I'm at with my main. Plus, like I said, the PvP just doesn't feel like what I'm looking for.

Goodbye /again/, EVE? It's been ... "meh"? :S
---

As for other games, I think I might pick up a copy of Sins of a Solar Empire instead, as it's a melding of RTS and turn based strategy games, and is a space game I can replace EVE with. It has got a lot of good reviews, and Tycho from Penny Arcade can't stop raving about it. It's a lot slower paced than regular RTS games, and it has many of the aspects of turn based strategy games that I like.

If that doesn't work, I might get STALKER or something else. I'm sure there's something out there I can find to pass the time. Inferno and I actually started playing NWN2 co-op, but I think we need to start over. He's kind of fucked up his character and I think I might try a different class instead of Cleric. But he's going on a shirt holiday here soon, so the likelihood of us continuing that game anytime soon is pretty slim.

Oh well ...

---

That's it for now, I guess.
Later all. o/


Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Ugh ....

I'm bored. Soooo bored. :(

It seems my PC gaming has pretty much run dry and the 360 has absolutely nothing either. There are a couple games I've contemplated for both, but none of them get me excited.

I'm sure it's not helping that there's /absolutely nothing/ decent on TV anymore since the writers are still on strike. I really miss Heroes and Smallville. They weren't excellent, but they were at least entertaining.

Right now I've got nothing to do with my spare time. I'll break it down for you.

PC:
- Call of Duty 4 (the roomies and I never seem to have time for this anymore, sadly. And 3 person deathmatches get a little repetitive after a while.)
- Crysis (half through, can't bring myself to play. So mediocre/obvious in story.)
- FEAR: Perseus Mandate (SP is so boring compared to MP. Graphics seem weak too, and story hasn't engaged me at all. Sadly no one plays the original MP anymore.)
- FF vs. TTR (basically shelved this one. No challenge as I can min/max and make unkillable heroes. Weak Nazi era heroes just piss me off)
- Jade Empire (got a copy of this and found it lacking severely. Controls are shit, camera sucks, and story is "meh". GFX aren't shit hot either, and areas are very linear.)
- NWN2: MotB (waiting to see if Inferno and I will play through both NWN2 and this co-op. I've finished the original campaign, but playing co-op might be fun.)
- Rainbow Six: Vegas (also got a copy of this, and found it okay, but not something I really feel like playing right now. Too slow, and I dislike the controls. The cover elements in Mass Effect were better, IMO. Roomies want to play it co-op, but we never have time anymore, so it looks like this won't do it either.)

360:
- Skate (it's been fun, but it's got to the point where it's become too repetitive. Maybe if I could play MP on Live it would be more fun. Also, the insane tricks required for some of the challenges are ridiculous.)
- rest are finished and/or don't have any replayability

As for MMO-Land, EVE seemed to be okay for a while, and I even trained up an alt for the Red vs. Blue PvP, but I'm really doubting whether I want to actually join them. EVE combat is kind of slow (read: fucking slow), so I can't see how the PvP is going to be better. Sure, there's real loss when you die, but the Red vs. Blue PvP is all in cheap ships as to make it light on the wallet. Thus, it becomes almost trivial to die. So with the loss of a real penalty, and slow combat, there doesn't seem like a lot of reason to do it in the first place. Plus, I can't seem to coordinate any time to play with Kofi, as our schedules have been almost completely opposite lately.

---

Speaking of work, looks like I'm going to end up on graveyard shifts for at least a week. I'm hoping that's it, as I really like working days now, and the guys on nights are fucking annoying. A couple of them are okay, but the majority of them are idiots. Plus, it's just them to talk to, and I like dealing with customers, seeing Kofi and my other work friends, chatting with the lovely ladies, etc. About the only two things going for nights are a $2/hr higher wage and the fact that it's more casual. But the tradeoff is I lose any semblance of a fucking life. Sucks ....

---

Le sigh.

I really need a break right now. Holidays or something.
The Rev.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Hmm ...

Seems EVE didn't take me very long to get bored with. I cancelled my account today, but I still have 2 weeks left. Luckily, I re-activated during the promo for old subscribers, so it only cost me $9.99 for the month.

Basically, it's come back to doing the same things over and over again, and where I can go from here. Level 4 missions aren't very challenging, and I can mostly solo them all, so doing them in a duo with Kofi just slows down my ISK/hr. Though the duo salvaging/looting is a lot faster, which is nice. But I think I've done all the level 4 missions now, so there's nothing new there.

As for other things in EVE, I really don't have any goals for ships I want to get. Especially since all they will do is allow me to do more level 4 missions. Kofi keeps talking about level 5's, but he doesn't seem to understand that they are less efficient for ISK/hour, require motherships or larger vessels, and are all in low-sec, so the risk of dying to player pirates is quite high. I also don't care about level 5's as they will simply be bigger versions of level 4 missions. Just increase the NPC ship sizes and possibly throw in a few more. The NPCs don't change, just their ship sizes.

It's not like most other MMOs where you start facing mobs that are totally new after a while. CoX is a great example of that. Hellions and Skulls aren't like the CoT nor the Tsoo, the Tsoo aren't like the Devouring Earth, etc. You feel a real sense of accomplishment and more powerful when you start facing new, tougher mobs. And you can go back and stomp those old, weaker mobs. EVE isn't quite like that, as all the NPCs can be fought throughout the game. You can still be fighting the same frigate NPCs in a level 4 mission as you fought in level 1s. The only difference is that in a level 4, there are bigger ships there as well.

Plus, in EVE, once you get a good tank and know the damage resistances/vulnerabilities of the NPCs, you can school them all the time. It's only when you do something stupid like grab aggro from an entire pocket or fit the wrong tank do you run into trouble.

But the biggest reason for me cancelling was because I watched some Warhammer Online videos on YouTube, and realized how much I miss the avatar portion of an MMO. Being a ship in EVE just doesn't do it for me, unfortunately. At least Earth and Beyond had the ability to zoom down and see your character in the cockpit. It just gave you that sense that if you wanted to see your character, you could. EVE doesn't have that. Plus I find it completely immersion breaking. I cannot see the galaxy of EVE as a world, it's simply a game, and that doesn't interest me in the slightest.

About the only thing that might keep me playing is the Red vs. Blue corp war that some players cooked up. They made two corps, named one "Red." and the other "Blue." and mutually declared war. Now they allow anyone to join, try to keep the sides equal in number and just PVP with each other. Most of the time it's in cheap frigs and cruisers with all cheap gear. But they can have fun PVPing, and not have to worry about the politics and time requirements of 0.0 warfare.

Sounds like it could be fun. I might roll up an alt and join them to see. That way I can test it out, and not worry about not being able to rejoin my noob corp. I like some of the people I know there, and they are generally nice.

---

As for Warhammer Online (WAR), I was impressed with the graphics, but I didn't get to see much of the gameplay, and the bits I did see look very "whack-a-mole". I don't know if I can stand that kind of gameplay anymore. At least I'm not alone in my gaming troubles though. Our roomie downstairs is feeling the same way too. He wishes he had an MMO to play too, as they aren't something you can beat in less than a week. He played Asheron's Call way back when, and WoW around the time I did (2 years ago+). We've both run out of SP games to play, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of new ones coming out for a few months.

I think the only one in the near future I want to play is GTA 4. And that's like March or April. Boo ....

I might just have to try out some trials/demos for games and see if I can find something to pass the time for a while. That, or maybe there's a good NWN2 persistent-world server out there that I can play on. One with RPing and stuff. Could be something new to try.

---

We'll see. But for now, I need to go to sleep. Work tomorrow.

Later folks,
The Rev.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Hey again, figured since I'm bored and need something to do, I'd write up a post.

---

So, I've been kind of bored lately, especially since I've finished all the really good SP games I have. I still have quite a few games I can play right now. Far more than I'd need, but they don't seem to draw me in that much anymore. Even after re-subscribing to EVE I haven't really played it that much, just a mission here or there.

Let me give you a list of the games I have right now, just to put this into perspective:
- Crysis
- NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer
- Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich
- FEAR: Perseus Mandate
- Skate

Those are just the games I have that I haven't finished the SP parts of. I still have EVE for online play with my friend Kofi, Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat for LAN MP with my roomies, and my one roomie still has all those other games I haven't played. Like Timeshift, Kane & Lynch, etc.

But I keep finding myself not playing any of them. Skate is about the only game I seem drawn to, and that's simply because I can just do the Freeskate mode and go skateboarding around the city. I loved skating in junior high, so I'm a sucker for skating games. And it's a lot better than the Tony Hawk series of games IMO, as it requires some finesse not simply button combos/mashing. It has a much steeper learning curve than the TH games, but when you pull off a sweet trick in Skate you get a better feeling of accomplishment. And the replay editor is fucking sweeeeet. I love being able to edit my replays to change camera angles, video filters, speed, etc. It's pretty amazing.

Skate has a fun MP component to it, but the best parts are all XBox Live stuff, of course. On Live you can team up with someone else and just go skate, which I think is the coolest feature. The skate battles are okay, but there's only so much you can do with them. And it doesn't give people the freedom to learn the controls, so everyone you play with pretty much needs to make their own skater and do the tutorials. But enough of Skate.

As for my other games, they are fun, but they just don't get me excited to play. Call of Duty 4 was awesome after a point, and really got me hooked, but it was over in less than 8 hours. Playing over the LAN with my roomies is hella fun, and the unlocks and promotions add that RPG element to it that makes me want to play more. Kind of like Battlefield 2142 and their unlocks. It adds a slight grind to it, like an MMO, but with less tedium. You're going to run around and kill the other players anyway in a Deathmatch, you might as well get rewarded for it. I think that's a better way to make Achievement-based gameplay than the MMO model. It seems people are getting sick of MMOs now, as WoW has saturated the market and exposed MMOs to almost everyone.

Speaking of the MMO market, it looks like it's not going as well as some of the Developers/Publishers hoped. I think they were all banking on the WoW model bringing in billions of dollars, but the sad fact is that most of the new MMOs are failing, or performing far below expectations. Tabula Rasa is a good example, in fact. Richard Garriot, the lead Dev and creator of Ultima Online, and his team spent /millions/ making Tabula Rasa and so far it's subscriptions are below most other MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online, City of Heroes, etc. TR might just bankrupt NCSoft. or at least make a huge dent in their wallets. I know that many shareholders weren't happy with Garriot or his brother (the CEO of NCSoft America), and wanted them fired for wasting so much money on TR.

Fury was another MMO that came out a while back, and it looks to become a free to play (f2p) game with a RL money for items market, or it will simply be shut down. Pirates of the Burning Sea wasn't received too well in it's open beta, and most people don't seem interested. They also have many bugs and features missing, like TR was at launch. Vanguard was supposed to be the next huge hit and it tanked completely due to all the bugs. The developers Sigil don't even exist anymore, and the game continues to survive on life support (ie. SOE's All Access Pass). Auto Assault was cancelled last August, Star Trek Online looks like it will become vapourware as Perpetual Entertainment lost the rights and is being sued by their PR company, and Warhammer Online and Age of Conan keep getting delayed. MMOs don't seem to be growing like the speculators had said, and many people are becoming sick of WoW. I think it's subscriber numbers are actually going down now.

Basically, it looks like the MMO market has hit that critical mass point where there's too many games, many of which are shoddy/unfinished, and people are more hesitant to play them. There was a similar event back in the 80's when there were scores of Atari and Colecovision games, so many that were made like shit that people just stopped buying them, and many companies went bankrupt. One infamous game (which I actually have in a box somewhere) was E.T. for the Atari 2600. It was slightly based off the movie but most of it made no sense, the manual was incoherent and didn't really tell you how the game worked, and it seemed impossible to finish, let alone play. Apparently the guy who made it was rushed and hadn't even seen the whole movie, so he made the game on hearsay and trailers. It was freaking terrible. Let's just hope that it doesn't come to a crash point. I don't want to see and end to MMO gaming, I'd just like to see a shift towards more virtual worlds and finished products.

---

So, if I've been bored, what the hell have I been doing?

Mostly, I've been thinking about Dungeons and Dragons. o.O

I guess it's because we're getting into more RP with our group, my character is actually fun to play (mechanics and RP wise), and we've been able to play every week for a while. Tabletop is so much fun when it's good that I could see doing it more often than we do now. Except that puts a huge strain on the GM, especially for DnD as everything has to be pre-made to account for XP, CRs, gear, etc. Not like my Aliens game for GURPS where I just create new enemies on the fly and dole out character points each session.

I've also found myself getting into DnD more because for some reason I've developed a "powergamer" personality. My gnome ninja is a perfect example, as is my secondary Cleric character. Both are designed with a background story and all, but also built with the rules in mind and how to best use those rules to my advantage. My tabletop group was quite surprised at how powerful my Ninja is, especially since he disabled a Drow Cleric and took her out almost all on his own. My Cleric is the same way, but he's never been used yet, as the secondary characters are basically shelved at this point. Once the Super-Campaign™ is done, we'll probably go back to them as a backup game, or shift over to something else entirely.

---

Hmm ... I'd better stop here. I really don't know what the hell I just wrote. It kind of just all came out at once. Hence the rambling, incoherent nature of it all.

Sorry about that,
The Rev.