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.