Skyrim

so i've been playing the shit out this game since it came out; got it day one when it came out and we've got four people in my house taking shifts on the bastard. pretty neat. so the game's pretty cool, right now i'm working on maxing out my smithing and unlocking dragon armor. beyond that... yeah. also working on trying to get all the shout-quests done. and i'm considering messing with the companion-line quests, which have something to do with the skyforge, which is where i can apparently get my final skill points of smithing trained before dragon armor. the smithing needs to get to 100, so im not sure if ill make it. im playing a nord, tallest you can get of that race, so the largest possible character. im playing it sortof like a paladin, with heals, 1handers and shields [that's an everquest reference]. the dragon shouts are really fucking neat, a second timer essentially with no tie to the mana or health etc [or stamina]. i haven't touched the thief quests, im playing a good character. and interestingly enough i sided with the rebels at game start so i have the option to join the rebellion, which i havent yet done, but intend to likely do in the future. [this game is fun].

what if video games had real - life consequnces in line with their plots

imagine if you will playing a video game but having the plot of that game end up unfolding in your real life. grabbing an NFL game wouldnt sound so appealing wuld it? playing with a bunch of NFL stars? sure yeah sounds neat until you realize theyre going to CREAM your ass. Grand Theft Auto, essentially a game saying, "lets get in a car, run some people over, shoot some people, buy some hookers and take on the entire police force of the city." That's a recipe for one epic cops video, and those NEVER end well for the bad guy. Oblivion would be, "lets stick some cold-steel medieval armor on and lug a massive blacksmithed sword around in the countryside and attempt to kill wildlife with it." What games would YOU actually play if their premises were actually real - life scenarios.

dragon age 2

so, i just beat this game. and i'll say... it's awesome. i liked it MORE than any of the Fable series, hell any of the Mass Effect series (I was majorly disappointed by them) & even Oblivion. This is probably THE BEST game I've played since I've returned to gaming. And I'll even call out the original Dragon Age, and it's "expansion". Neither of those really compare to this. And you look at it on paper and you have to ask yourself why? At first glance, this game looked like a loser. Small game world, no access to races previously playable in the game. You spend your entire game in one city, with about 10 different areas, INCLUDING tiny player housing lots which make simply for chat-up spots. Yes, it's nice you own your own house, but of course there's nothing near the scope of customizability in terms of player housing of the likes you might find in a game such as Everquest 2. But... in the end, maybe that's the point. this seems like a game that cuts the fat, makes it more about the story, which there's alot of, and less about "exploring the world." Sure, there is a world to explore, and venturing out of the predictable areas can be rewarding, but this is a conversation driven game. And I like that.

You start off with the option of three classes. Warrior, mage and rogue. I picked the warrior out of habit, but quickly found it SUCKED. Lets just say they've turned warriors into tanks, even in NON MMO games. It's the same reason I stopped playing my EQ paladin. The boredom factor of having no purpose beyond attracting attention and taking a beating. Instead, I re-rolled, and created a rogue. This of course was rediculously awesome. Huge dps and flips galore (ala' EQ-dwarf roll) which instantly had me at a happy place. The gear was a bit weird. You can only upgrade yourself, your party members clothing is defaulted to them. You CAN however give them weapons... There's an augmentation system in the form of Runes, which had a retarded "scavenger hunt" style setup where you would have to click on the obviously sparkly harvestable plant / ore deposit etc. and you'd unlock that ingredient in your home, and at any other rune crafting stations around the game world. There is NO crafting system in this game. Most of the gimmicky little tricks that you find in MMOs are NOT in dragon age 2. They cut the fat, and wanted a simple game, based mostly on the story-driven play they've created. If you're expecting alot, you'll walk away disappointed. If you approach with an open mind, you just might fall in love.

picking out some new crap

so here's some games that're coming out.

dragon age 2 comes out march 8th. which's nice because anita's currently working through that game now and it's definately whetting my appetite for the game. i'll probably pick that up when it comes out.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/dragon-age-ii

dungeon siege 3 comes out... may 31st... so that's a long way off. but this is a game ive followed for years and never had the chance to buy into, so this'd definately be one that i'd be into getting into and messing with. it's one of those diablo esque style games, but it should be alright, and it's also supposed to be 2-player which anita will like, since its a fantasy and we havent really had a chance to do one of those together; both of us are more rpg fans than fps's which we tind to find more 2player games in.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/dungeon-siege-iii

divinity 2 comes out... april 12th. its a game i've not messed with whatsoever, but it seems the right time to get involved, there's alot of content thats accrued and they're releasing it all together in one package. so that should be interesting to see how they end up doing that. i watched the trailer and it looked prety neat, so we'll see how it goes, and it comes out around my birthday so tha tmight be something nice to pick up around that time in celebration.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/divinity-ii-the-dragon-knight-saga

gears of war 3 comes out... september 20th 2011... and uh... yeah. lets see what's going on... basically that's going to be fall quarter this year. it's the third installation of the game series and yeah... it'd be pretty interesting to see how that'll end up working out. we've both been following the game series so far and it was pretty awesome. and while it is bloody it also makes for a great 2player experience.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/gears-of-war-3

elder scrolls 5 comes out november 11th 2011... this's the sequel to oblivion which's pretty cool, and its also set in the nothern lands which is also a favorite of mine. it's something that both and i played through ALOT, and i certainly made and remade many characters while playing through Oblivion. I even went so far as trying Elder Scrolls three which was a big mistake. And in the end it was just a big hassle and bad idea. But this might be the right thing for us.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim

of games that are currently out, mass effect 2 seems to be a major contender. it's the sequel to the game i picked up for rather cheap at the store and metacritic rates it very highly, at 96 points, which is definately super high for a game. critics loved it, and people enjoyed it, so im not sure what to say except lets give it a try.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/mass-effect-2

for a class

I used to play video games with friends, like on the Nintendo 64 system, at parties, where the four of us (they'd only go up that high in controllers) would get together and play in "deathmatches" which were competative games which'd pit the four of us against one another in a free-for-all. These early days in my video game career were fun, but weren't at all based on teamwork, just my own personal ability and advancement.

But then MMO's came along (massively multiplayer online games) and there were objectives in the game which were too difficult for a sole player to beat, and the game was team-based, with the massive encounters requiring multiple teams to complete. this was point where guilds came in handy, and organization of eople on a massive scale was necessary. everyone who cut their teeth on these first and second generation MMO games learned first hand what the best ways were to tackle such content, and the game developers actually built their games around how the players were acting, rather than vice versa. we were creating a genre through our very actions.

basically, in the old days, you'd just worry about how fast you'd push the button, and how well you'd basically manage to handle the content of the game. but with the advent of the new system, you'd be in addition to those old things try to keep in mind the new factors of keeping people syncronized, on the same page, and organizing leadership structures to keep the various groups on task with their various responsibilities, which of course would differ from team to team, as well as methods to distribute rewards from encounters, which would often only be small in number and only reward two or three of a group of seventy. guild structures were built up to handle the masses of players so people could continue to adventure with teh same group of folks and to guarentee that over the long-run they would be rewarded, through the guild, from the encouters that they would participate in.

over the years we became much more sophisticated in our guilds and loot distribution, tactics, and teams, and leadership, and many people rose to the occasion and showed themselves to be quite accomplished in these new areas. politics in a way started to see its own way into gaming, and being able to handle people in a positive way, managing their abilities and personalities became a skill every leader, or sub leader, would establish as part of their own repetoire.

instead of focusing entirely on yourself, people now focus on the people they play with as well as their own advancement, and a community is formed. its a neat outcome, and the current gaming fad.

so apparently they merged servers again

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=164175

apparently they're merging servers over at EQ1. it's a huge change for anyone playing, as they're having a huge influx of a servers worth of folk to their own space. new people means more of everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly. guilds may change pecking orders, some may fold while others thrive. it's always a drama-filled time, and not necessarily in the worst way. charting guilds through server mergers is always interesting. 'course, i haven't been on that game in ages. the same issues seem to plague it; lack of folk around, and lack of things to do, plus stagnation of the play, as well as lack of inspiration in the classes. to me, classes deserve some change-arounds, new abilities and the like, each reset. a classes role should, be redefined each expansion, but certainly each class should remain equally important to a raid and group. that was a failure on the part of the coders, and visiting Fan Faire it was clear the dev's were swamped with work and understaffed for the workload. that and the depressing sight of some of EQ's dregs speaking out for class problems just scared me the hell away from the game. but, reading news of the mergers, i had to pen some thoughts on the game i spent so much time playing. anita and i still talk about everquest sometimes.

anyhow best of luck to anyone currently playing EQ1. that server-merge'll definately shake things up, hopefully your guilds and friends make it through OK, unharmed, and may you meet many new friends and group/guild mates, as well as make it through with relatively few tards. hopefully the mergers will properly address the thinning out of the player base and the problems that resulted, like a useless LFG window, and basically a retreating of all socializing into the guild chat window. it was a sad thing to see in a game that once was so vibrant, to see it all turn into one large digital ghost town. zones sitting unused, empty, and almost ghostly, as they were once full of many vibrant personalities and pixalated adventurers. games like these deserve to be played, and when a game is just not picked up anymore, sometimes the best thing to do is just pull the plug and start from scratch. while folk have invested amazing amounts of time into Everquest characters over the years no doubt, it doesn't make sense to keep piling on content when the dev team is ever shrinking, the budget grows smaller, and the offerings each year turn more and more into something that isnt enjoyable or really playable. when the spark is gone from the game, then let it end. but, it seems, the gerbil still spins the wheels over at EQ1.

getting new games for the xbox

so according to what im reading the bioware games are the ones worth playing. so i guess that could possibly be a direction i could move in as far as xbox 360 purchases. there's two that're basically sticking out so far, mass effect and knights of the old republic. both scifi and both rpgs. but there's got to be more worth selecting from. there's one that stands out in mind, halo 3. i've already played through the halo series up to that point. so that'd be a reason not to go down that road again. but they were enjoyable games. however i did play the fuc k out of them, so i might be halo-d out.