gaming

Skyrim

2011-12-01T03:51:00.003-05:00

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

2011-09-04T15:48:00.003-04:00

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

2011-04-11T23:28:00.004-04:00

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

2011-02-27T14:58:00.003-05:00

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

2010-11-12T22:23:00.002-05:00

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

2010-08-13T19:38:00.005-04:00

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

2010-07-10T05:23:00.001-04:00

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.

an interview with shigeru miyamoto

2010-07-02T04:01:00.004-04:00

Interview with Shigeru Miyamoto

Do you ever read blogs, forums and comments on gaming sites to see what Nintendo fans want, and then incorporate what you read into your games? In other words, do any of your ideas ever come from fans or are they all original?

well we do occasionally go online, not to see what consumers want but really to see how they're reacting to the games that we've already released. What's really important to us is not how we can develop a game in a way that's going to compete with other games that are out there. really for us the challenge is: what can we do to create experiences that are new and unique? So because of that we're really relying on our own creativity to come up with those ideas.

What is your view on emotion and story in games? Do you feel that story and emotion are connected? Do you feel like one is more important than the other?

more than story, what's really important is the connection between the person creating the game and the person playing the game. and what's very important is that the person playing the game be able to feel naturally accepting of the world that's been created for them to play in. And then what happens is if they have a natural acceptance of the rules and of what's happening in this world that's been created, then that bond between creator and player becomes that much stronger and that much more important. and then what happens is as the player begins to understand the world that they're playing in, then they're going to begin to think about ways that they can play within that world; they use their own creativety and their own imagination to tell the story or to come up with their own parts of the story, and at the same time they come up with new ways to play in this world that has been created for them. as a developer then, we have to try to predict some of the ways that players will try to play in that world, and give them reactions or responses or rewards for using their own creativety for finding new ways to interact within that environment. and that to me is really what is the most important element - the connection between creator and player in that videogame.

have you ever thought of making an add-on for wii that simulates taste? i'd sure love to know what a 1-up mushroom tastes like.

well of course as a creator of entertainment it is my job to surprise and delight people, and so an idea like that is one that i think is very interesting. but i do see some areas where we may have problems trying to create such a device in a way that we can sell it in stores and at a price that's reasonable. so i can see some challenges with that particular idea - but it's very unique!

i honestly believe that the wii would benefit from an online service simmilar to microsoft's xbox live. are there any plans to change nintendo's current online service?

i can't really speak in any detail about what our precise plans might be, but nintendo's ultimate goal is to have every wii connected to the internet. so i think you can look forward to seeing what types of services may evolve of what other functionality we may offer on the system.

you once mentioned that you felt the development for super mario world was rushed and incomplete.. what aspects of the game would you have changed or added if you had been given more time?

well you know actually a lot of the ideas that i would have liked to have implemented in super mario world have come to life in later games since then. but the question gets me thinking about what fun it would be to create a super mario world game on the nintendo 3ds and how we could use the depth and the sense of distance offered by 3d visuals on the world map and on the maps in that game, so that you have bullet bills flying at you from a distance and popping up of the screen.

dragon age: now that it's over

2010-03-27T06:24:00.003-04:00

so i just finished playing the expansion, and... i'm left with nothing to do. and that's kindof my feeling on this game as a whole. it was a fun ride, granted, with neat graphics and cool abilities, decent storyline and interesting cinematics and dialogue, but it's over. far sooner than i wanted it to be. there's just hardly any game there really, just skin and bones, no meat to it really. i mean i literally bought this xpac earlier in the week. now granted its nice for my social life, all those things that get affected by massive game-play time. but i don't want the length of the game to dictate how long i play. call me spoiled from MMO's but they had it right if you ask me to give you more content than you'd ever want. it happens all the time, anytime you stick a "main story" into a game, you create a finish point, after which there's either no reason to play (ex. oblivion, fable 2) or you are hardcoded from ever playing again (dragon age, viking) and neither of these are satisfactory endings to the veteran MMO player. i've done my share, warhammer, guildwars, EQ2, a few WoW stints, and a longterm EQ career. and lets just say these console games hardly measure up. that's right, i'm taking the entire game-platform on. give me something with meat!

now lets perhaps discuss why i even bought one in the first place. my aging laptop, a wheezing fan and broken plastic grill, heavy as fuck and outdated while being hard to upgrade, was just not cutting it for dragon age, the most recent one i'd picked up. not to be one to take that lying down, i immediately decided something had to be done. however... the actual do-ing took a bit longer. months later, i found myself with an xbox. 360 to be exact, i'd had the original years earlier, and it mysteriously ended up at my sister's... anyhow, i pulled it out, got some games, and eagerly played away, having been on a self-imposed game sabbatical for a few months prior. so, game after game was played, beaten, or set aside for lack of interest. and over time i made my way through five games. mosts as it turned out were fantasy themed, most were spell and sword, and all were good fun. although, i did stop to wonder at times, given certain aspects. such as the feeling one has after the game is over, where you feel strangely robbed, of all that time you plunked down into that game, that useless game, one that just leaves you with nothing to show for your efforts but an xbox "achievement". call me crazy but im used to my dwarf paladin, with gear from '07 likely still banked.

when you play an mmo, you're investing alot of time into one character, and the bank, as well as your inventory, reflects that. here and there are relics of adventures had last fall, or earlier. perhaps even an old crap weapon that you picked up way back in '03. mmo's are games for longtime gamers. when you've been around long enough, you're not so much interested in a new game so much as continued adventures and as you build your pack of padre's to adventure through the landscape you then have bonds built and roles established, erecting orders of gamers with leadership and rule, enforcement and outcast, and all the many social cracks to slip through. you can pause, take it all in, or seize the reigns, go full force. but MMO's, most importantly, bring gamers together, make it a group experience, and give you a chance to revel in the achievement of a win won hard with group effort. it means so much more to get an event down when you've worked with twenty to fourty some others, all who've gotten their chars where they need to be, put in the time, effort, and shed blood, pixelated and real. you're teammates, compatriots, and the labor of love you share becomes something you can really put your soul into (heart and soul that is). in the end, you have something much more than just a game. you have a place to honor it.

these new-fangled games, much like those old-fangled games, give you short bursts of goodness, punctuated by long breaks of nothing, nothing because you've done it all, and don't care to do it again. most people don't, not those whom i've come across anyhow. there's a need to keep it fresh, make the pursuit of the day somewhat challenging and stimulating. if you for instance aren't tackling infinite variety then what's the point? there needs to be something to test you and make you able not to see through the code and just find yourself doing the same old thing endlessly. everquest 2 did it wrong when they made everything easy, and world of warcraft more or less had the same mantra. make it challengeless so that the masses can have their fun with about the amount of work that the average non-interested joe would be willing to put forth, and we'll hook 'em that way. games like EQ, whether they meant to be or not, are such creations of dnd shutterboard sessions that there just is this clubbish vibe to it you can't shake. you really are in "their world" now, and there's a challenge to that world, one that you can honestly spent a god awful amount of time in, without being bored. it becomes a habit, a game tradition, something you go out and do with the "guys". you and your group, they'll go and adventure regularly.

and to me, there's something to that, getting folks together, having a shared experience, in a world that likes to seperate us. they say the internet has us all indoors and that as we fatten up our bodies, ruin our eyes and wrists, and lose our ability to communicate, we regress into something lesser, something worse, than what we were. the truth is there's alot of growth to be had from MMO gaming. there's an immediacy to it, a reward that comes usually in life restricted to the few, but the game, the pixel, the great equalizer, makes it all better. for us poorly adjusted social folk, and there's quite a few, at least for parts of lives, these games are an unbarricaded place for us to flex our social selves all the while doing something we enjoy with people who like it just the same. it's a fraternity of gamers, all pointed in the same direction, and sets folks up for friendship, as well as enhanced adventure. throwing in the element of kinship into an adventure-esque game is always a plus, and often the joy shared amongst many is far greater than the instant thrill of the item grab by a solitary gamer. its funny, as looking back it was the social entanglement that forced me away, but the heart of the joy of MMO-gaming is the pack itself, that social tangle that finds its way into every aspect of MMO gaming.

so... what now? do i fire up the PC and install the latest MMO? do i go down to the store and buy another xbox game? i think neither. for now, my journey takes me away from gaming, and straight to the books. financial independence, a degree to put beside by name, a scholarly accomplishment. these are the fixations of the moment in my mind and while gaming is fun its just too much committment for me, a guy with too many committments as is. so while the MMO days were great, the console just a teaser of what once was, i just can't take the challenge on of being apart of a competent and competative gaming organization any longer, and there's some sadness in that. many fond memories were forged in front of the computer screen, but those days are now behind me, and i'll enjoy them for what they were, both a separate and wonderful part of my life as well as an escape from many of the darker sides of my mostly negative circumstances circa subscription. nowadays im better off, girlfriended and apartmented out in a college town with much to do and good weather due for outdoor stuff. another pastime of mine has been sports and having someone to play with is nice, plus the chance to join various campus orgs and the like. life'll be busy, from the looks, and though the values and concepts learned from gaming stay, the sub can't

oblivion, again, this time: main quest first

2010-03-24T18:09:00.003-04:00

so, i bought oblivion for the 360. well, first, i bought a 360. little backstory, bought & played a few games already, in the order of viking (awesome), dragon age (awesome), and fable 2 (decent), and having beaten all of those, i was ready for something new. trekking down to the local gamestop, which by the way, seems to have a way larger xbox section than anything else, and talked to the counter-guy whereupon i decided on an oblivion re-buy, having already had it for PC. now, again, with that, i'd done the side-quests first, and by the time i came 'round to the main story, i was through, and never played more than the first 10% of it, so there was still new content yet to be played through by me on it. with that being said, i've spent the past few days hacking and slashing through oblivion gates and helping out the last of the septim bloodline restore order to cyrodil. interesting stuff. i created a new-custom class, scholar, focused entirely on magic, well as much as possible, with the thought that in order to level, i'd have to do more than just "play the game" as i usually hack n slash with a smattering of healing to boot (the paladin gameplay style, a layover from the EQ days i suppose). but yeah, so having played through, i'm now only level 3, and even that's from sleeping AFTER the main quest was completed, so the majority of the game (main-quest) was played through at level 1 and the tail end at level 2. now that's kinda neat eh? i tried it the other way last time, being 50 something, with my thieves den and all the other trappings and downloads available.

but yeah, so one thing i know im going to miss is the user-made downloads that enhance the game after completion & boredom. i mean, i bought the xbox because... well that's a topic on its own. "Why I bought the Xbox?" i already had a wii, but that more or less defaulted to Anita and i hardly bothered touching it during its lengthy time in my basement. just wasn't for me. but i guess the PC / laptop i'd kept around had me gaming for a while longer, but while the games were fun (most recently Guild Wars) i was suffering badly from tinnitus brought on by the loudness of the laptop fan built in so i set it aside for health sake after much internal struggle about loss of net and the like (you know the story, can't get rid of it because life too entwined) and eventually moved onto paper-journals for blogging (journaling it became). anyhow, eventually i broke down and bought a 360, all the games i was trying and failing to run on my PC were out on it (Dragon Age for instance) and it just seemed like a convenience to have all these discs be pre-tuned to run on this game-box smoother than my overpriced bucket of a laptop. so i broke down, bought the thing, and four games later here i am. i might as well catch you up on those games as well while im at it.

viking, the first one, was short, but very cool. the graphics were nice, and its the fighter-hero-army deal kinda like kindom of fire or whatever the title is. but yeah. the whole mythology aspect was cool, pulling from gods i'd read about and it's all up my alley given the fact that i've got the whole nordic fixation with the iceland tie, i'd been there twice after hearing the well known band sigur ros's work (got me through college, and the rock-bottom years after dropping out) and in my searchings to piece that shattered life back together and essentially "finding myself" i found myself in reykjavik and instantly enamoured in the local tradition of elf-belief and natural formation of the isle: glacier, geysir, lava, black-rock-mountains, fragile green mosses softer than your most expensive luxery rug, horses bred anew in seclusion, puffin, roaring winds, and piercing friendliness of the locals. a great place to put ones life back together, nearly. but it wasn't meant to be, visas, cash, and committments kept me away for anything longer than a week. pictures on the walls of my basement kept me looking upward as i planned my comeback. but this game was sort of a homecoming for me, a return to console games with not a better pick out there for a first game. great experience, entirely due to my background.

second on the list was dragon age origins. so essentially i'd bought this already, and probably still have the box laying around someplace, for the PC, but my heaping hunk of laptop just couldn't cut it, and i was running on minimum graphic settings, or absolute crap framerates. given that, i just never bothered past the intro dwarf story. but beyond that, i went back, chosing the dwarf scoundrel again, a warrior, and played all the way through. i don't remember any of the proper names from the story line, except perhaps the wardens, with whom you ally with. actually i kinda liked how i was conscripted against my will by the grey warden in town while facing a death sentance in the dwarven city. a fitting start to a well written tale. the graphics were great, and i got close to that everquest feel, which honestly has become one of those essential elements for me in a game for it to really take the cake. of course with games such as these there just isn't enough content, and it's funny i've mentioned that as i've just gone out and bought a 40 dollar "expansion" promising at least 12 more hours of play. who'd've thought? (rolls eyes). but yeah, give me dwarf, and i give you thumbs up. such was my dragon age experience. good story, graphics pretty, and all but the last third of the game had me hooked. (unforunately)

fable 2 was next, suggested by the guy who got me EQ back in '00. so i of course had to get it, which turned out to be a big mistake, at first. i played through, and beyond the opening cutscene which certainly was eyecatching, there just wasn't anything victorian about the game besides the top hat on the seller of odd goods in the caravan in that opening sequence. that to me smacks of false advertising. the game itself just felt too crap to be good, although the depth of the world was notable. sitting back and playing through, you could tell the god-fearing death-respecting and slightly depressing vibe of the maker, the quests would have you running through the same field fourty times for various errands, and i just couldn't see myself doing that. he wanted you to call it home, but i just felt it was more of a hardcore's dream-addiction. so it just wasn't for me, 8 years of everquest teaches you a thing or two about that, its less about content, less about grind, more about connection, fun, frenetic moment to moment hysteria, i want a game i can revel in, not one that lulls me into depression. but such ended up being the case with fable 2, as the whole revere your ancestors thing just got a bit too much for me. if i wanted to be this depressed, i'd just watch a horror movie. good effort, but bad outcome.

which brings me to oblivion. so like i said, i've played this already. i've seen this world, i've marveled at alchemy. i had my wizards tower. but this time i wanted to beat the game, so thats what i sought to do. perhaps three days later, goal was achieved, and honestly, i feel somewhat robbed from expectation. it was satisfying, in a rather hollow way, to get these quests done, but its still the same world, and i still have little motivation to bother poking around the expansion. who knows, maybe in months to come i may revisit this game and perhaps poke around the shivering isles, or bother completing the knights of the nine quest. as of right now however, i'm done with cyrodil. i will say this though, the xbox controller from the keyboard layover was a bit of a doozey, but with a little work and a few hours practice, i was soon on my way slashing again at all manner oof beast. i will say that the one thing that really put me off about this game was the level requirement midway through for many of the daedric artifacts, one of which is necessary for the storyline to continue. why bother forching your players to grind out needless levels? OR google alternative sercretive hackish manipulations having you hopping in every dungeon trying to up your acrobatics to get on "the ledge" and kill the level 50 with ease.

warrior / ranger

2010-01-15T01:36:00.003-05:00

so i'm off with anita, she's made a necromancer soon to be mesmer. so that's neat. i'm running a warrior ranger. kinda nice. i can swap to bowing, and let the pet tank whilst i damage from afar and adding in the summoned imp for damage. nice because it gives you a reprieve from tanking but you can still do that if you're into it or you have to. warriors are nice with the innate bonus on armor but they also have less mana regen so you have to be strategic about what abilities you use. as far as im concerned the pet is a good pick for the warrior as its a passive skill that adds dps. so it makes you as a warrior better on the whole. passive dps is always good, and if you can it without a single swing of your weapon then thats a good thing. the pre-cataclysm area is pretty neat, considering the whole map undergoes a change-over after the char overun the city. its kinda cool in that sense. but yeah... last time we barreled through and didn't explore pre cataclysm as much. this time i'm taking my time. level 6 and still exploring the nooks and crannies of whats there. reminds me in a way of zelda 64 with how the zones weren't all that large but you were happy to go and look through them anyway. also of note, EQ2 reactivated but seldom played.

warrior/assassin

2010-01-12T04:22:00.004-05:00

so currently working under that guise. at first when i picked this game up i didn't want a warrior, but they've grown on me slowly. the armor graphics, plus the ability to multi-class with anything you'd typically want all makes it appealing. so i decided to take the plunge. currently about level 10, and assasin as the secondary. it's actually fairly challenging in putting together a usable spell-set as warriors have +2 regen on the mana, and a low total to begin with, as the armor gives bonuses to more armor points instead of regeneration. so the end result is you've got not much to work with. but given that, i've still managed to put together a few powerful attacks, whilst also steadily improving the armor. hammer mastery's my current project, trying to have a decent damage weapon for the "rage" attacks, which's the warriors alt-mana source, generated by swings over time. then there's the assasin dps skills all from on set that i've gotten to 5 skill, which're semi decent damage spells all for the cost of 5 each, with a signet doing further damage for free. throw in a few strength skills, and the free heal / res signets, and my skills're rounded off. interesting set, and it's nice charging off into the pack again like i used to.

ritualist/ranger

2010-01-11T23:07:00.003-05:00

so i tried messing around with a ranger/assasin, and can i say boring? but i swapped back over to the ritualist/ranger today and we'll see how that goes. i've actually got high hopes. the combo's kinda nice, you get the ability to summon minions that're albiet-rooted but do ranged-damage whilst you fight, and they seem to have a long range too. but in addition, the rangers get the ability to charm and level a pet, which gives you a further oppertunity to do stuff, and so with that, there's 2 pets, and then add in the imp you get as bonus, and you're up to 3 pets. so that's a neat setup. then in addition, there's bows, traps, and the like from the rangers, and nukes and such from the ritualist. so it's a decent combo in my opinion. two very interesting classes that're worth playing together. and what's more is they're both completely new to me so it's a bit more exciting to play them. the healer for instance was almost a direct plyover from the healer in every other game i've played. the warrior i avoid as it's also the same gameplay as any other game where you're meant to tank, be it WoW, EQ, EQ2, or now Guildwars. For me, the most varied + imaginative gameplay comes in the non-core classes. they seem most inventive.

'bout to try ritualist

2010-01-09T00:55:00.002-05:00

so that's kinda cool. gonna try the factions expansion w/ anita. we'll play for half an hour and see how far we get. she's taking five minutes to figure out her name. not sure on her class. it'll be a surprise. i've been lookin forward to tryin out the ritualist. ever since i had the chance to grab ritualist mercs i've been intruiged by their ability to manifest spirits. now i'll have the chance to mess with it firsthand. should be neat.

everquest 2 sucks

2010-01-08T23:21:00.002-05:00

so i got on for a bit and wow EQ2 sucks. ive got the troll warden thing going on there on the AB server, and what a fucking bore it is. after playing through alot of guild wars, EQ2 just seems rediculously outclassed. it's just not even in the same ballpark. Guildwars is just way better.

EQ2sday

2010-01-08T17:54:00.003-05:00

i find myself missing EQ2sday so i might try and look it up. we'll see. it's kinda only useful if you're playing EQ while its on. otherwise you just get super nostagic for EQ and don't even have a sub. as it happens ive actually setup my EQ2 account for a month of play. even rolled a new character, a troll warden, named Roquebrune, after the house i was born in, so its kinda nice. i actually tried to make this guy with purpose, in the sense that i tried to imagine what would a welsh troll want to me as a class? the warden one was most about protecting the healing nature of nature so that fit my own interest. and he looks pretty cool too, for me the trolls of EQ2 are easily the coolest looking of them all. the rest are too human to really be anything but a knockoff sims game. but the trolls for me are kindof the real bastion of fantasy. i like the story of the bridge under the troll. i came up with a dude awhile ago called Toll the bridge troll which's kinda neat concept. even want so far as to draw a sketch of his face, and write a song about an encounter with a bridge troll. i was way into the idea back then. maybe i'll get back into it. we'll see. maybe the relationship scuffles sidelined alot of things.

so i re-rolled (guildwars)

2010-01-08T17:49:00.005-05:00

i made an elementalist and i've picked up the necromancer second class. so far i haven't really thought it a good decision. to be honest it's a bit of a waste. given the fact that there's so many spells of the necromancer class i just outright don't care for, it's a bit silly for me to have picked it out, but alas such choices are made in haste so really it isn't something that i blame myself for or really worry about. at twenty it can be changed and worst case scenario i can just play pure ele all the way up. additionally i could train myself pure necro just on a lark to try it out but, we'll see. generally it's nice to be able to do teh AE blasts especially since anita also runs an elementalist. so it's a good combination, high firepowr, and i run the healer hero, she the warrior, and so that's neat as well. and we switch off as our heroes level up to keep everyone about the same level. which's nice as well. it's also interesting trying to keep the heroes all properly equipped. the healer hero dunkoro is configured to what my original main runs on his spellset, the heals are exactly matching daras nan's spellset so it's almost as if i never lost him, which's cool. and i could configure the other hero to be a mesmer clone.

it's definately an interesting game and the quests are somewhat decent. i guess you could say having read a bit on EQ and other mmo's i've kinad come to the understanding that some are more freeform in the sense that they are generally more about personal freedom and the like, whereas others are more about structure and such, where everquest is considered to be the opitomy of. so it's just interesting.

guild wars is good, but is it good enough?

2010-01-05T22:25:00.000-05:00

i was checking out the google hoard of MMO search results, and came across MMORPG.com. a fairly ubiquitous sounding place, with generic features, with the saving grace of it having such things as statistics for what generated the most interest and the like. i'm surprised that the article entailing top 5 games that deserve makeovers didn't list EQ. but on the same token one of the top anticipated games at the moment is guild wars 2. and one of the most popular games of draw for current releases is guild wars. so this's up there. but i can't see it being that amazing considering the limited nature of the game.

more about mesmers

2010-01-05T21:51:00.000-05:00

so as i said i played a mesmer. i haven't quite figured out the class yet. as in, i have no idea how the class works, more or less, yet. i note alot of interupts, which im not very good at timing or anything, as well as some dots, some lifesteals, some energysteals, and neat reverse damage that gets real powerful with the right matchup. for instance my anti spell-casting spell does like 90ish damage a hit, which's massive when you've got 250ish hp on the whole. but, as its a spell oriented thing, i don't think it gets points for melee. none the less, i think its becoming an increasingly moreso merited spell. now, there's the other catch, the 15 energy pricetag, but that can be negated with a quick cast of energy-steal giving you 10 back for a total net spendature of 5. of course you can only do that once every now and then, as the recast on the energy-steal is massive. but still, it's kinda neat. there's also the energy-to-life steal, which acts as a heal/tap, which's nice when the healer's slackin. on top of all this, the heroes, anita, there's also the added bonus of an imp, which's nice. the imp adds some much needed fire dps and just generally kicks ass. basically think fire-spec ele. so its not bad really.

currently on guildwars

2010-01-05T21:24:00.001-05:00

anita's running a... an elementalist, and i've got a mesmer. she's level ten and party dervish. me, i'm level nine and part warrior. i'm not sure the combination works as well, but it's suited me fine thus far. the games been pretty interesting for sure, and we've done a great many things together; having our pc's on the same desk facing one another definately enhances the experience. but beyond that, yeah, it's a decent game. i ran through the first expansion storyline before she ever got into the game, so i had my hands on experience with a level 20 monk before. it wasn't until trying out the second expansion with anita that i've more or less realized in this game that you can generally pick whichever class you want as your first, more or less basing it on the looks, whilst your second class can be for use. now, i will definately nod my head to the major hardcore community out there in that it perhaps isn't the best use of multiclass possibilities to simply ignore the ability crossover and play a pure class, but i'm definately having my share of fun with it. as a monk i had a few instances where i was called out based on the fact that i specced fire mage as my second class, and was told monks make poor mages. on that same token, i took out many many players using my elite combo. they never would've guessed i'd've been so specced ele so i guess that decieved them. but i guess when you come across someone in the pvp you can expect them to be either of their two classes, or even a hybrid mix of the two. which i guess changes things. but for me there's little that trumps the lightshow of the elementalists raw power. but with that all said, despite the fact that the story just dramatically ends and you're left with little more point to play besides pointless elite armor and guild halls will little usefulness but show as well as endless pvp of monotany, playing through each storyline has been rewarding. i've done two so far, this's my third, and first with anita, so it's nice to have company doing it. on the other two i more or less ran the majority of missions with mercenaries, and with the 3rd expansion, heroes. hero customization actually has been one of the parts of the game that's kept me occupied, well after getting the basics of running my own hero down. so it's kinda nice. for sure. not sure how i'd say this stacks up against old-world EQ, in fact i'd say it's a no brainer as they're not in the same class of game quality, but, it's an entertaining experience, and for the money, given there's no subscription fees, its nice. so yeah.

the evercracked episodic series

2009-12-04T18:19:00.000-05:00

i just checked out this thing on the net. its god smed and a few others. presented by a guy i've never heard of. but its still kinda cool. they've spat out four episodes so far. there's actually some stuff i didn't know about the game. and the story of it being made is kinda cool. hearing that the coders were from shareware was cool. also the fact that they stuck with how do we make this game fun. basically it was a cool approach. and since the whole thing was a risk they could afford to do it. they invented their own model of payment. and it held true. it makes me wonder what smed actually is. did he major in business. cause he definately seems to know what he's doing. but also its kinda interesting seeing the different characters at play. the whisical artist. the drone-like coder. brad mcquaid was the designer. one of two. he and his friend who both worked at the same place. coded by night. had their shit noticed by smed. then got called in and hired. but apparently it was smed who had the idea. but the entire game was built up from brad and his dude. its a shame we dont really have that name handy. but brad got all the fanfare. apparently the guys called steve clover. that deserves to be remembered.

brad apparently had drug problems. and there was a bit of a scandal with one of his other games. also it kinda surprises me how threadbare they were to start. everyone was just makin do with very little. and they didn't expect the 10,000 player base. but they definately made a very great world. in my opinion my favorite of all that i've played. maybe it was because you could really interact with the game. maybe its because they took the depth of muds and applied it on a 3d model. maybe its because they just poured thousands of unique models into the game. but it definately was a labor of love. and it makes me want to make my own labor of love. like just sit down and make a great album. that to me would be a good thing. maybe i could do that with music. do what they did with gaming. although i think i would like to make a film sometime. but i guess its like coming up with new aspects to a piece of work. you cold walk away with something pretty awesome. and in that i think there's potential. it kindof excites me thinking about how i could apply it in the studio. but at the end of the day it was a good game. it got played through. perhaps they didn't expect how hardcore people would play it. but they made a model someone could really sink their teeth into. and in that there was success. an industry changing revolution.

ive been playing a game called Guild Wars

2009-11-24T17:16:00.001-05:00

so Guild Wars isn't that bad. in fact its downright fun. i played it awhile before. when they released it they had a free weekend. ive got a couple characters going. the furthest along is the japanese theme. its called a monk slash elementalist. pretty cool class. can heal everyone. can nuke bad guys. so thats pretty versatile. lots of abilities without being overwhelming. apparently if you hit control and space you can tell people what to hit. the graphics are still pretty good. definately better than everquest. and youve gotta love the free to play aspect. nearly everything is instances. the towns are basically shared. the bulk of the world is instanced. which means youre not gonna run into people much. which i think is kinda nice. you can choose to have people around if you want. but there's no constant spam channels when you're in different zones. you can control multiple people at the same time. my level twelve i think monk elementalist has a group of mercenaries. theyve been available since low level. theyre kinda nice. dont have to get people. just click on people and start a mission. good stuff really. anita's been watching me play it. she's been into it as well.

at this point i really don't have any gripes. all i could say is maybe level 20 is the cap. if thats the case im nearly halfway there. well im over that now im 12 already. i wouldn't have expected to have gotten the levels so fast. but its cool. items drop on the ground instead of having to be looted off creatures. combats fast paced but still challenging. i often find my hands full as a healer. but at the same time there is a sense of ease. the third person view is a bit awkward. and basically you get around by clicking on things. there doesn't seem to be any autorun. thats definately a minus. also with the radar system its pretty easy to attack stuff. once youve got the target nearest mob key located life gets easy. you basically smack that and it faces you towards whatever's nearest. then by hitting the space bar your guy charges right to it. catch is that can make him run a long distance. mob homing beacons kinda takes away the challenge. at least the breakneck challenge thats in everquest. but perhaps thats more of a tedium that people came to enjoy. i guess you could say everquest was difficult in ever way, and like Dellmon says, "and we liked it!" it really is true. you won't find any Everquest if you're looking for Guild Wars. but if you aren't hopped up on some hardcore MMO you can enjoy this.

i did notice that they have guilds in guild wars. how surprising is that. they've got an arena system. groups take on each other. at my level you can observe the fights. im kinda concerned at how fast im leveling. if it keeps up like this im gonna be at the cap too soon. and we all know what happens then. some form of aa's. and everybody knows aa's basically suck the lifeblood of a player. and that's no good. but for now the games good. how much entertainment it'll provide remains to be seen. but for now im happy. ive got something to look forward to with that game. a pleasant experience that is gonna be able to be replicated. so i guess thats the best position a game could really hold. that which doesnt annoy you all to hell. one which promises to be fun in the future. i can't say everquest still has that claim. guild wars is undiscovered content for me. i can't believe EQ guild leaders used to force you to keep playing it. trying to keep people in line with loyalty and shit. what utter brainwashing. everyone should stay clear of everquest guilds. and they should stay far away from everquest raiding. in fact once they hit the level cap they should stop playing altogether. there's just not any point to continue. but that's that really. Guild Wars is my current game of choice.

the everquest facebook group

2009-11-20T13:40:00.000-05:00

i found myself looking through the facebook group today. it seems pretty active. people post every couple days. and its got a large membership. it just reminds me how good the community is. and i definately miss it. but i have been cut out of it. getting removed from your guild for inactivety kills it. i had a word with the guild leader. the guy even went so far as to say i wasnt meant for the guild. that just tells me alot. a guy takes a break and gets told nonsense. i have some opinions about staying in the guild and get told im a renegade. maybe the guy feels like he's way more important than anybody else. i dunno i think i contributed. i definately did my characters worth. and definately helped figure out a couple events. i made my fair share of friends. and definately did my fair share of helping people out. i pulled more weight than some of the less serious people. but then to be told that i was not of the calibre was hurtful. ive lead guilds in the past. i lived that game. for anyone to try and tell me i wasnt the right stuff was heartbreaking. mainly because i thought that these people were cool. but they exposed themselves for the types of people they were. youre just a number in a guild like that.

its kindof funny because that guild was known for being a family guild. but i guess it just shows when you get the treatment yourself. i just kinda shows that you can't trust online connections. i just don't think that i could ever make that decision. makes me wonder if the leader was a fool like the people at the convention. that woulda been a shitty situation. after all the people i did meet were kinda weird. wouldn't be surprised if the whole guild was kinda like that. i mean i did meet some cool people. but the game aged really badly. and you'd try to make connections but you'd get backstabbed alot. my class wasn't really needed either. its a gaming organization after all. how seriously can they take it. you can't play the game constantly forever. perhaps thats the kindof commitment some of these things expect. but if thats the case thats unrealistic. we need to have lives of course. i played that game for 9 years straight. if thats not a commitment i dont know what is. and i definately dont appreciate being told i havent played enough. it was a pain in the ass to near nonsense like that. i put in my time and got the boot. i'd even heard of players keep the tag. but apparently i didn't fit the credentials. it was all very shady. and then when i spoke up about it i just got shouted down.

basically facing possible public humiliation i was asked to back down. the guy in tells told me an earfull. bottom line is i was asking for a grandfather tag. it wasnt the biggest request in the world. i wanted a retired-friend tag. and they wanted me to do all sorts of bullshit to get it. get someone else to call me a box. i just wanted to maintain my ties with the community. but i felt like i was trying to fight for something illicit. and thats kinda what made it weird. i think players dont really appreciate the community. especially those in high places. to those guys we're all numbers. but what about the friends you make along the way. are those flukes? do those not factor into the grand scheme? it was all kinda heartbreaking to have that happen. but that was that. the last few friends i had on the server in that guild. and me considered to be not worth being inside. maybe it had to do partly with the fact that my class sucked. maybe it was because my opinions were so strong. but when someone invests nearly a decade into something what do you expect. constantly denied leadership oppertunities. booted outa guilds for inactivety. its just not the kinda shit im used to. wasnt getting the respect i deserved. in my time as a leader i never woulda done stuff like this. but times change.

i respect the people who continued to play. most of them have deeper networks of friends in the guild. and i respect the leaders for being able to keep the guild going this long. but at the same time i dont like how they turn their cold shoulder to me. kinda made me feel like shit. i guess you could say ties to the people were strong. and getting denied the strongest connection to them sucked. these're people who got me thruogh some tough times. while i was locked away in my parents house. trying to get over the death of my friend. trying to build communication with my parents. trying to orient myself in the world. those weremy formulative years. and the character i played was one that stuck with me since 2000. i guess you could say i got tired of waving friends goodbye. but thats the nature of everquest. if youve played a decade youve seen alot of people come and go. you cant really come to rest on those relationships. youre left playing with strangers. whichs tough when you still see old players still around. youre left scratching your head. but these are real bonds you make with real people. and just like it sucks to lose those in the real life it sucks to lose those in the game. i guess you could say there's alot of loss i experienced in everquest. and it was tough. it really was.

when you play with people for years you build bonds. taking your guild through tough content builds character. its just rough to lose that network. after getting to know everyone through teamspeak. discussing guild stuff on the boards. working as a team on raids. shooting the breeze on the offtime. its a lifestyle. and these were the people you spent your time with. to lose that network can be painful. but its something ive gone through a couple of times. it has alot to do with how i played the game. i'd quit because i felt like i was getting to into it. and that had alot to do with the shunning i got from the parents. its like gaming was kindof not cosher. but there was also the whole getting over the trauma thing. a friend had died. and my life had been off track for awhile. from the first day of college i had cut my hair. and basically the shunning began. before that there were alot of restrictions placed on me. religious freedom was stripped. and before that the place i loved was taken from me. i guess you could say i had so many things taken from me that i stopped wanting things. and all that frustration got turned inside and it became destructive. that was the only way to deal with any of it. my parents didnt talk. despite their psychiatry degrees. it was rediculous.

but online i was a paladin. i'd get on my dwarf and kick ass. and i built a network of friends who were all good at their class. together we'd do amazing things in the game. eventually it grew into guilds. and the joy of success was infinately greater. its through alot of this that basically alot of my character was built. it was a lifechanging experience. being in charge of real people taught me alot. at first it was intimidating. but eventually it became second nature. i became a carrier of the torch. i knew the game inside and out. and i knew enough to coordinate things. that became my strength. i became known for being able to organize raids. pickup raids that were able to take on tough content. that was pretty cool. something i had done since i was a kid. although i got alot better at it over the years. i guess that was the thing with it all. it was a constant in my life. even losing countries and friends. and it brought me to alot of great places. it taught me alot of great things. and built me into the person i am today. it built me into a better person. and i guess you could say im thankful for that. but today its just not what it used to be. i know too much i guess you could say. i can see right through it. maybe my world is music today. maybe thats where i need to put my efforts.

there was a time that i loved raids. id make up maps and discuss tactics. i hated the cheat sites. to me it was great to make up the tactics ourselves. that was what it was really about in my opinion. thats how someone plays the game the way it was designed. i loved getting 60 people together to try and figure out the tactics. and part of me definately wants to try it again. knowing everything i know now it should be easier. but then of course there's the fact that my character sucks. the warriors take the boss mobs. the shadowknights do the kiting. there's little left for paladins but straight up tanking trash. the shadowknights having distinctly more powerful aggro spells hurt. that meant that they could take aggro if they wanted. aggro spells are weak enough to be chained. its viable as far as manas concerned for a shadowknight to tank everything. and that was kindof a low blow for paladins. if they have the aggro they have the mob. and what was too powerful for them to tank the warriors could. in a way that kindof removed the need for paladins to tank on raids. only the particularly plucky ones could take aggro. and that'd of course perhaps involve the taunt button. either that or lazy shadowknights. but if you were in a competative setting you'd lose aggro. and that was kindof disheartening.

see i was the competative kindof player. the game really mattered to me. and being involved mattered to. i didnt wanna be one of the guys on the sidelines during raids. i wanted to be involved in the fun of it. a place where i could really just try out my abilities. paladin stuns are largely unused on raids. not to mention that the stun component doesnt work. youre just left as poor dps and poor heals. to me thats kindof shitty. our tanking is there. but its only useful if shadowknights or warriors are absent. and any self respecting guild has warriors and shadowknights. so as long as a guild recruiters doing their job youre useless. i guess the point is i moved too far away from roleplay in that game. i moved too far into strategy. and i realized all too well how useless i was. i might as well've been a warrior. but even then i might've not been happy. shadowknights are probably the ideal class. with greater aggro than a paladin they get the trash. without the stuns their group time is challenging. and with feign death they can actually solo tough stuff. paladins on the other hand dont get dps. while we do get slay its nerfed. only certain mobs in certain places. shadowknights would have broad use abilities. plus the fact that they get a pet. paladins have haste but click haste is widely available

so at the end of the day we were just useless. our heals would get trumped by clerics. not to mention the reserve healers. druids and shamans would back up the clerics. both capable of keeping a group up. paladins of course couldnt do that. the heals were penalized. and then we couldn't tank 'cause the shadowknights would trump our aggro. and our dps was too useless to be useful. call in the zerkers. the monks. the rangers. the wizards. the rogues. our dps just didnt compare. not able to dual weild. lower skill caps. less offensive aa's. bottom line was everything we cuold do someone else could do better. although one thing was we could effect alot of areas of the raid. in one event. we could tank a mob. we could heal a man. we could help kill something. we could kite something. and perhaps in that sense you can see the fun of the class. they gave us alot of things to do. and when things are stretched thin you get a chance to do them all. but if you have ten of every good class. there's just no need to have a paladin. and when you already have three paladins why recruit a fourth. having those three in the first place is questionable. a fourth'd just be a loot hog. a raid space taker. someone depriving the raid of one more berserker. and i think thats the thing with paladins. we just arent needed.

i guess thats the thing thats hard to swallow. after 9 years with a paladin, i found myself useless. i just wanted really needed anymore. my dps was trumped. my aggro was trumped. my tanking was trumped. my rooting was trumped. my healing was trumped. the only crumb they tossed us was the fast heal. but it just locks your abilities. its penalized all to hell. there was no advantage to being a paladin anymore. the slay undead just never came up. the majority of events werent undead. so for the majority of events we just were useless. to me thats just a waste of class. but not only that. a snub to anyone who played it. people who had ties to the class were fucked. and those who just wanted to play a paladin were forced to choose to quit or continue un-fun. i quit more than once. i'd always get drawn back. the raid dynamic is just too fun. the combination of abilities is great. but when you have better we're useless. i guess you could say paladins have the most fun in underdog guilds. the type of guilds that you may not necessarily win with. those're the ones that you'll have the most work. i guess you have to pick the right guild as a paladin. because otherwise you're just setting yourself up for heartbreak. for sitting on the sidelines and being bored all day. i actually want to play the game not watch it.

so here i sit just not sure what to do. do i start a new character? do i just put away my 9 year investment? do i just throw all that away? ive tried a couple times and im not sure i can. the furthest i came was my cleric. but theyre definately one dimensional. same with wizards really. in fact i dont think any class has as many facets as the paladins. except maybe the shadowknight. which im still not necessarily interested in playing. i like the good character. its a shame they just made it not fun to play. at least not in super competative guilds. if you ever become a super competative player you have to change class. but otherwise you might find fun in the class. you have to find a shitty guild that needs you. understaffed but willing to try. short on healing and perhaps short on tanks. perhaps short on dps too. thats where you could make a difference in every event. the guilds where it comes down to the wire. i guess you could say if i play i need to be with storm spirits. its funny isnt it how it comes full circle. but storm spirits is a box guild. many old timers but too few men. always space in raids. and theyve even got a new loot system to try out. if i want to be a tank the warrior would be best. trash tank would be the shadowknight. dps the wizard. healing the cleric.

but paladins do it all. and i guess you could say the variety makes it spicey. there's alot of things you can get up to with a paladin. its kindof like the bard of the tank world. not bad. ive rooted shitloads of mobs. ive pulled for raids. ive tanked boss mobs. ive healed events to help make them possible. i have the ability to add various things to various aspects of the raid. in that way paladins are awesome. we're involved with pretty much every part of the raid. which kindof is why paladins make great raid leaders. they're familiar with the clerics. they know how to kite. then there's the adds. and even pulling. plus the boss mob. they know all about tanking. so paladins really know it all. and i guess you could say its hard to move away from that. you just have a very organic knowledge of raids. i guess it helps to think of paladins that way. you have variable things to various aspects of the raid. youre kindof the swiss army knife. your only drawback is your lack of ability to add anything substantion to any one part of the raid. but you can at least participate in every part of it. and in that sense you get to have fun. you basically enjoy many parts of the puzzle. youre healing with the clerics druids and shamans. youre tanking with the shadowknights and warriors. and you dps with the monks wizards rogues berserkers and mages. plus youre kiting with the rangers bards and shadowknights.

i tried logging in again

2009-11-19T01:24:00.000-05:00

i tried logging in again but i couldn't do it. i made it to the plane of knowledge but literally after saying hi to one person i was on my way out. there's just something about that game that really just makes me want to get the fuck off my computer. when i did a /played i came up with 400 days. most of those days weren't done by me. dind has been a box for a couple years now and before that i used to use him as a bazaar drone but that still is a large number. i did play the fuck out of that game. you could kindof say i uncovered every secret. i really did love that game but of course thats exactly how you can destroy something for yourself especially when the coders are putting in continually less effort and content for the players to mess with. honestly its a shame because the people who run the game now have turned it into something that i just can't even stomache any more. there used to be a time that i felt that everquest was pretty much the best thing out there. but at this point i'd rather play a wii and the catch is i never play wii. honestly its a shame because when they had that game right it was done very well but over years they've managed to remove most of what was good.

when i went to the fan faire i guess you could say alot of my drive to play went down the tube. it was there i realized what kinds of people were spending their lives playing this game. i mean some seriously dense people that were just outright embaressing to be around. these were the butts of nerd jokes the ones that you just can't help but take notice of when you're around and apparently these guys were the ones that really wanted to come to the convention. it was then that i realized what everquest had become basically home for the fanboys and fangirls but an unhospitable place for anyone else who was either genuinely interested in the game not for the inane collecting or the tedious tradeskilling but mainly for the breakneck speed fun. it was those sorts of players that seemed to be dying off. and instead of that most of the people in the room were just honest to god roleplayers. that just shocked the shit out of me as i never anticipated such a fluffy set of players on this game. but such was the case and i just had no idea that so many people on the boards and online were like this. it just kinda made me not want to play everquest anymore like some sort of terrible secret that just sortof consumes you when you become aware of it. the fantasy was shattered and the reality was horrifying.

the one thing that i did notice was how cool the devs jobs really were. i mean these guys got to make things for a living. they were world builders coders paid to color things and write storylines and create a fantasy world for players to play in. its gotta be a very rewarding job as your creations are actively messed with and then feedback is given to you. in another way it could be a thankless job and those sorts of players that started to populate the convetion could likely be the cause of many headaches. i mean these were literally idiotic people those who werent very smart at all and all felt they knew alot about the game which really is not a good sign especially given how little they really knew. i mean it has to be probably one of the most frustrating jobs out there. these guys were reduced to tech support even though they did such an amazing job building worlds as well. the same people who took the brush to the canvas would have to field answers to complaints and i can't help but think that that sort of treatment would have dire effects on their will to be creative and pour their best work into this game. the developers of this game have a high turnover rate some going to new games others staying within the company but i can see how people couldn't last long at that job.

i will say this though there was a time where everquest had the right type of player and during that time there was a sincere interest in just plainly playing the game and enjoying it for what it was. over time though those players naturally lost interest and those that were left were some obsessive bastards that felt everything in the game could be changed given enough whining. the attitude of these kinds of players is just disgusting. having lead raids and guilds i wasn't used to any sort of toleration of nuisance and nonsense in-game but when it comes to devs they don't seem to have any such method or reasoning to shield themselves from the idiots. in fact they perhaps feel like its the job that they're being paid to do. i guess thats probably one of the most depressing aspects of the job of an everquest developer. just watching the demographic change and have something that was once good be drained until it was white. it reminds me of how in england in certain cities large muslim populations displace the locals and it causes lots of stress as patrons move out of town and then family businesses shut down and that transition process is just painful to see. but a wise person can recognize that its just the next batch of peoples turn as those originals have had their day and should find greener pastures.

everquest: why i hope i never play a paladin

2009-11-14T22:37:00.001-05:00

well anita broke my laptop. she knocked a bunch of water on it and it's dead. so im on my old laptop now. aka hers. i forgot that this was my main laptop before. the one i'd been using for awhile was my box pc. so i got on EQ and was amazed by the graphics. i loaded my character and did a few /whos to see who was on. there were familiar faces but after a hello i got off. i dont know what it is but i just can't play that game. and it's a shame because it looks beautiful. spahz's been playing with dind for a bit. i hit the played on dind before i got off and its over 400 days. you can thank bazaar time and box use for that. dind was started in 2000. and its interesting to get on and see him still around. i guess its probably would ben would find if he got on his character. he's the owner of the shaman i used to group with. i took control of him after he left. storm spirits is still continuing and thats cool. in my own way i played my own role in that continuation. daer still is visibly tagged on vg's site. that was always an interesting turn of events. spahz is trying to get me to get the expansion. im just not sure. i think im just sick of the game. i mean i played the shit out of it.

the last time they had a guk revamp for instance. i farmed the fuck out of those fbss's. that set me up real nice in the bank. but i never needed to use the cash. in a way that was kinda like the final aa. see everquest is fun in raiding. but just standing around its hell. and my class is just a bore. get aggro of stuff and then just spam stuns. i probably like pierce more. the cleric heals are more clutch. but then with the mudflation that becomes easy too. so the only enduring challenge is dps. and the only challenging dps is caster. and the reason why is their abilities are active. rogues monks and the like have passive dps. which means the player can't influence it much. but with a caster you have to have a strategy to your ability use. and to me thats a bit more appealing. thoughtful gaming over thoughtless gaming. i dont know what it is but i can't play that character. maybe its the game maybe its just the character. i have yet to figure it out. but i did enjoy my cleric. over on fv. and anita did enjoy her wizard. in my opinion those are some of the more fun classes in the game. i dont understand why they would code in boring classes. aggro is not really hard enough to gain to be a challenge. at a certain point any additional ability is futile.

i guess the point is it should always be useful to do something. i can understand that the knights are tailored to be a certain kind of unit. but everquest doesnt do that very well for the paladins. penalized for being a heavy. also penalized for being a healer. and the healing is penalized against the heavy. and the heavy is penalized against the healing. paladins have alot of penalizations. they may have an array of abilities but its painful to access them. and if it isnt painful to access them they may be ineffective. this is all derived from the context of the game. firstly from the peers. other classes can more or less seamlessly do their job. you don't see the pains they have to go through that equate ours. and secondly the pains of ours become the pains of the raid. and because of that raids choose not to have us. its almost in the raids interest to go with the seamless class. the warrior tank. they basically make most content possible. without them events suddenly become impossible. the monopoly on tank roles by warriors has always irked knights. this is where their hybrid abilities penalize their tanking. i have always thought the penalization should come through dps. tanking ability should be a level playing field. but with the current setup tanks are encouraged to be warriors.

if a tank isnt a warrior they face much difficulty especially in raid tanking roles. the penalizations directly effect their ability to tank which directly effects the scenario the clerics have to remedy. without enough ability the wrong tank can put the healers in an untenable situation where success is impossible as mana leaves too fast or heals don't hit their mark and the tank dies killing the raid. from a leader standpoint this has always been a pain. more or less if youre a knight and youre participating in a raid your armor will never see much use on the boss mob. the only action youll see is on the trash mobs that basically fill the gap between you and your goal which don't individually hold any importance and generally make knights feel unimportant. i suppose you could blame the coders on this. trash mobs should not be worthless and if they had importance knights would have more importance. if the trash wasnt just a means to keep you from the event but also perhaps part of the event then those knights become useful. but ive always thought the strengths of knights never undid the penalization of tanking which in theory they are supposed to do. warriors always outdo knights. and this is a flaw because knights are tanks beyond all else. hybrid healing is a toy and not a dependable ability.

the penalizations on hybrid healing make it hard to rely on. your mana will drain fast, your target will be healed for very little, your cast time will be very long, and you wont be able to sustain a player during an event if they are taking sustained damage beyond your penalized heal capacity. these abilities are not balanced around use but more cut back due to overlapping abilities of the class. because of this i dont think coders often think about how usable many of our abilities really are in the game world on challenging content which arguably is the most entertaining content as challenging content remains challenging for longer especially if its cutting edge. as a raid leader i was always frustrated by the uselessness of my own class and the usefullness of my own boxed cleric. its really humiliating when a character you have built up fleshed out with aa's camped all the augs for, recieved many favors for, and put many hundreds of hours into ends up being less effective than a character whom you have only played a day or so of played time with easily attainable gear and novice level skill on the widely accepted current content of immense challenge at that given time. this is one of the main reasons i lost interest in investing time in a poorly designed class.

Torchlight

2009-11-03T23:26:00.001-05:00

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/11/diablo-for-loners-the-story-behind-indie-hit-torchlight.ars

and there's like this new game thats like diablo, did you ever play diablo? you said your brother set you up with it or something. its a computer game. so you know what it is. exactly so you said that you played it. anyway, there's this new game that came out that's like diablo. and it's like basically a fighting game. and it's supposed to be pretty good. like really good, there's alot of buzz on it. they're even trying to turn it into an MMO which's pretty unique. usually they dont turn a game into an MMO a week after they made it. but basically it was designed to be an MMO, they just made it first person. It looks pretty cool. like the graphics look pretty cool. But I think it'll probably be a boring game. Because when I played Diablo it wasn't even all that good. Like it was famous and it sold really well, but I mean it's just like not that fun of a game. All you do is click on shit continually. And it just gets kinda boring. Diablo is like a medieval game. It's like fantasy and you find a cave, and it leads to hell. Like deeper and deeper and deeper into the ground there are demons and other monsters. And it's actually pretty cool. Really bloody of course. And then they made a sequel. Where basically you had to go through different lands and stuff. It was actually a pretty fun game. Like people would get really into it. One of the main reasons was definately the way they made the graphics look. Because like... it was just really well done. Like if you just hear the story of the game it sounds really kinda stupid. But once you play it it's like not really about the story. It's more about fighting through different bad guys getting better armor and stuff. And you kill bigger and bigger bosses that're all really difficult. And then they use ancient names for the devil and his helpers and stuff. Like I guess you could say it's really biblically influenced. Which's kinda like being influenced on folklore and stuff. So of course there's always like a blacksmith. 'Cause in fantasy games there's always a blacksmith in your medieval town. They'd fix your gear. And then of course there was a merchant who you could sell stuff too. All pretty basic stuff. All stuff that'd been done before and has been repeated. But the reason why it was so cool was for alot of us, it was the first time we'd seen it. Like... it was, i guess you could say, a window into dungeons and dragons. Like that game has influenced so much of my life without ever playing it. Like with Everquest that game is based on Dungeons and Dragons and Lord of the Rings and Beowulf. And what's really cool is fantasy literature is really a young genre. Like when Tolkien when he put out The Hobbit started it. And then in the 70's, about 30 years later, they started Dungeons and Dragons. And then of course in the 80s they started making computer games. 'Cause thats when the computers were first powerful enough for them. And basically like, there was just this explosion of game making. They explored like every type of subject and game. And eventually the computer became complex enough for them to do dungeons and dragons stuff on the computer. And then thats when games like neverwinter nights and stuff like that started coming out. Nintendo of course had Zelda. And in 1999, right on the edge of the 2000s, Everquest came out. Basically in the years before that, the past 10 to 20 years, there was this genre of game called MUDs that was popular. And basically what they did was take the MUDs style, and give it graphics, because it was text based. And the thing is, they borrowed from two major things. The MUD. But also the Dungeons and Dragons setup for how you play games.

But anyway, we've got Dungeons and Dragons, which's like the 1970s. And then we've got MUDs in the 1980s. And finally, we get MMOs in the 90s. And this is the LATE 90s. Everquest. 1999. And when it first came out it changed the entire industry by creating an entirely new kind of game. See they weren't the first to do it and they weren't the last to do it. But they did it the best. And that's why even today Everquest is still popular even though the graphics are from 1999. Now World of Warcraft used the same model that Everquest invented. In fact there are so many things from Everquest that you really feel like you're playing an updated version of Everquest. But World of Warcraft did was, they took that early success from Diablo, and their Warcraft games. Those were at first single player and then multiplayer but only through the internet to about ten people. And so those were really popular games and actually another game from that company Starcraft is still popular today. Over in like Korea and stuff. So anyway they've got this massive group of fans from this old genre of game. And Everquest meanwhile is pioneering MMOs noone else is really doing it. And so, what Blizzard does, they're the company that owns Warcraft, is they decide to take their game and put it in this new genre that Everquest is doing really well in. It's like the equivolent of like, Lord of the Rings on film. You know how that was just rediculously popular. People already liked the story from the books. So film was invented and its a cool thing to do. And they took something that was popular before, and they put it into this. And they made a shitload of money. That's exactly what Blizzard did with Warcraft. While Everquest is good, the story behind it is weak. But Blizzard had a good story for Warcraft. Basically when put into the same arena as Everquest, Warcraft won. But here's the thing. There was about five years where Everquest dominated MMOs. They had the most subscribers, they made the most money every month. And that was because up until that point, they destroyed their competition. And there was this game called Age of Conan, which was way better graphics than everquest, and it completely failed. It was popular for a few months and then it died. And its interesting because MMOs only work if you have thousands of people playing it. The less people that play, the shittier the game becomes for everyone that plays it. So in that sense you could make the sweetest MMO ever, but if you can't hold your players, you're done. Your game will suck if not enough people play. So the question is how do you make sure you always have thousands of people on your game. Well as a general rule these games try to give you shitloads of things to do. Alot of people will talk about how playing an MMO is cheaper than going to a bar. And that's very true. Because all you're paying is 10 to 20 dollars a month. That's basically like one day at a bar. Or, if you play an MMO, you get 30 days, nonstop, of a game, where you actually come across more people, than if you were at that bar. So thats one of the reasons why that game was really popular. But there's alot of aspects to this whole thing. If people play games too much they can damage their eyes with the screens. If they play games too much they can destroy their work or social life. And more than one person has killed themself because their life was so shitty because of an MMO. So this is like one of the controversies of the genre today. It's really kindof a weird thing because people get married through these games. Some of these people move in with people they play games with. Some of these people only have friends through their game. In alot of ways, regular Dungeons and Dragons with pen and paper is alot healthier. Because you're not like straining the fuck out of your eyes. And you're not like talking to a computer instead of a person. So that keeps people in reality. But its very true that these games can definately suck people in. After all thats what the game makers want. If they dont have a couple thousand people always in the game, the whole thing becomes boring to everybody.

So it's kindof an interesting thing all of this. I played one of the MMOs for 8 years. So i know all about MMOs and all that stuff. To me its like a sub-culture. It's not even a regular gamer anymore. It's its own class of gamer because you're completely different. And it's probably pretty addicting to alot of people. It's probably like a drug. It's kindof like alcohol. It's not good for you but people like to drink it. Drink too much and it can destroy your liver. And with gaming, game too much and you destroy your eyes. Not to mention the effects on the rest of your body. Because you're not movnig when you're playing a game. So not only are your eyes being strained, but you're like losing muscle mass. You might be building clots in your arteries. There's lots of things that can happen to a body that isn't used in the ways its supposed to. That's where like, things like LARPing come in. Live action RPG. Or Renaissance festivals. There are people who make their money completely from renaissance festivals. Either juggling or sword fighting, horse riding. Some people make swords. Or armor. Some people make clothes, and jewelry. All of the medieval crafts are things that people can do to make money at a Renaissance fair. And there are people who actually buy these things on a regular basis too. All of this is part of the fantasy fan-base. There's entire jobs and communities of people who live with fantasy. And so for someone thats maybe played computer games that're fantasy based, maybe they weren't necessarily cut out for computer gaming, but they love the content of fantasy. That's how you get into stuff like folklore. The band Sigur Ros wouldn't have written a single song if they weren't into fantasy. The band Led Zeppelin wouldn't have written their best record if it wasn't for fantasy. And Peter Jackson would never have made that film trilogy if it wasn't for Tolkien. And of course after the movie came out then an MMO came out too. In a way computer games give people who have day jobs the chance to lead a double life. But they're not the best way to experience fantasy. Deviant Art is full of people who make pictures and things based on fantasy. Elfwood, is a website like Deviant Art that is dedicated entirely to fantasy. And these have thousands of new things every day, every day of the year. The communities are huge. Fantasy has even brought about new religions. The Neo-Pagans, definately have become more popular because of things like Lord of the Rings. And Neo-Pagans are just a broad category, of people of various different faiths, who are trying to ressurect dead religions. there's the Bardic religion, which in everquest they have a class called a bard and that's based on that religion. The religion came first and the class was made after. Also, druids, in Everquest, there are Neo-druids today, the people who used to live in England, before Christianity came. Nature-loving religions. Religions that have to do with many gods. That have to do with respecting the earth. These people lived in harmony with the planet for many thousands of years. It's only this Industrial Revolution which's been endorsed by Christianity which's destroyed so much. And it's interesting because Tolkien wrote about the industrial revolution. His whole point was: Industry can be bad as well as good. All of the modern conveniences we have today come from factories. Factories are ugly looking things that spit out polution. He didn't like that. And his views, that were put into his book, have had massive effect on the world today. It took a World War for him to realize how bad technology can be. It's just really cool that we have that whole movement of people today. You should check out this documentary called Darkon. It's all about the LARPing thing I was telling you about. It was pretty cool too.

EQ2sday

2009-10-26T13:03:00.000-04:00

So EQ2sday's on. I miss this show hah. It's a great one. I met the guy who runs it, he's a good guy. Just general all around good samaritan in the community. And their show is always pretty interesting to listen through. Generally the guys joke about stuff in a generally positive way, and it's really engaging and stuff.

And then lately there's this thing I've got going where I like to go in reverse order. So whilst there's many shows I haveyet to listen to, as I've been busy with one thing or another, I'm starting with the most recent podcast this time, to go from the latest back. And it's great. What more do you need to convince you this things great, than the fact that I listen to a Game podcast without playing the game at hand? In fact listening to this podcast literally makes me want to game.

Plus, Dellmon is an old EQ player, so there's this general shared knowledge deal that I completely get, and keeps the show interesting to me as a non-EQ2 player. Now like I said, I've played EQ2, but it's never stuck. I've tried it alone, and I've tried it with Anita. But even with PVP research, as well as regular server playing, I just haven't been hooked on the game like I ever was on EQ1.

Another thing Dellmon likes to talk about is Allakhazam.com. That's a website that I have used for years, with my guilds in EQ1 I would get myself involved with raids and there is much information on those on the site. Plus when I was working on my Epic with my Paladin, Allakhazam.com was again a great resource for information regarding that quest. Allakhazam.com is generally my favorite website with everquest information, and it is probably the best EQ1 website out there.

But the thing is, quite honestly, there are few things as great as curling up and setting up to listen to an episode of EQ2sday. This is generally some serious entertainment for me. So I am very pleased right now.

talking about EQ

2009-10-23T06:09:00.000-04:00

EQ needs better levels. And less boring Classes. Paladins are too boring to play. Like, their only point is heals. Which gets old. Very old.

maybe part of it is how i kinda used to play it to kkinda ignore alot of the problems in my life at the time, which in a way made me grow to hate the game.

and then there's the whole catch-up deal you've got to put up with when you play. like if you're got for a long time, you have to churn out some levels, some aa's, and other crap.

the fact that this new expansion is like, to do with my character's background and all that is kinda cool. like it makes me want to check it out and shit. and the screenshots make it look like they've made better looking levels again which is kinda cool.

then there's the whole matter of guilds. every time you come back there's the issue of whether or not you should join one, then there's the whole like... issue with basically how much time you spend and then all of a sudden it turns into a job again. i guess thats the thing, being able to tell a mile away whether or not its something fun, or hard work that just kinda has not one iota of fun.

and then there's always the latest class of the current xpac, whoever's benefitted most from their abilities. currently seems to be wizards, who im hearing double rogues and zerkers hah.

2009-09-08T07:15:00.000-04:00

so im online again. 51 50 server, reykholt the drakkin necromancer, level 51. yep, since creation he's gained nary a level. but... at the same time i've still enjoyed my time on him. in a way it makes sense to play a character that has a lot of areas in which to advance. given the fact that o di like the social aspect of the game, there will come time that friends will want to adventure, and i'd better be a class that can join in, instead of standing back and moaning for lack of aa's or interest for that matter. so whilst the 51 50 population is kinda small, its nice to have a class that i haven't done much with to use, rather than the same old paladin. part of it is hte habit of loading the old paladin, something i kept up for nearly a decade. thats a long time, and like i said, old habits die hard. but the other part is the persona that character's developed. he's known for certain things, he's known amongst various circles of the game. any other character, anonymous without resorting to admitting defeat and namechecking the old main

so im off to the guild lobby, figure i might check out the guilds on the board. maybe they've got a newb low req guild i can fit into. i guess i must like guilds, huh? immediately my eyes fall to a guild named inasnity... best avoid that one eh? im looking for a cool name... Council of Marr... that sounds kinda neat. Lost Souls... cool. The Malazan Empire... hah ambitious.

im considering just making the warrior. might as well right? since i took the time to come up with the name. and it's the newest addition to the hoard of alts i've got eh? heh. alright. well the names taken and im pretty sure i took it on the other account. so instead of logging out deleting and logging back in... i think ill try out one of the guys pre-made on this account on 51 50. there's in addition to the necromancer a beastlord, cleric, and magician. i picked Helsenhorn, a drakkin cleric of the black drake. level 51, haven't messed with him much yet. the idea is, while he is low, that most folks can typically use healer aid, so if i can ingratiate myself to a higher level melee whose LFG, maybe i can score some xp. otherwise... its off to go solo, which i hate to do.

well i went to gorukar mesa, alone, and began the drakkin quests there. kill wolves, snakes bears, etc. xp wasnt bad, but the kill rate was slow. clerics arent really equipped to solo. theyve got one spell, cast it over and over. its a bit dull. the general chat of course began its chirping, the immature kids online ranting about cocain and shit. they got reported, alot. then it died down. i managed to toss a guy a tip about power sources when asked. otherwise, its dead quiet. i was inches away from disconnecting from the chat, but kept myself from it. its after all the social aspects that make EQ more fun than say a single player.

it seems like the beastlord will be more in-depth than the cleric as far as solo play goes. however ive never successfully played a beastlord for more than a couple of minutes, so we'll see. it might be that the melee-centric nature of the beastlord just keeps me from enjoying it, given my time put in on the paladin in the past. it's an ogre, Glaubenberg the massive ogre beastlord with bear pet in tow.

everquest journal

2009-09-07T17:45:00.001-04:00

i think im going to try a warrior. im reactivating for one month, the usual i do if i decide to pick the game back up typically.

its having my confirm my credit card. look at all the expired ones from years past hah.

now you might be wondering why warrior. well, the thinking goes, i played a tank for so long, and honestly, thats the role i know best, and am most comfortable with. my impulses are tank-aligned with EQ. then you might say, "then why not use the paladin?" and my answer is... well, i just don't enjoy the class any longer. I've spent a good long while with it, and don't get me wrong, i've had fun with it, but paladins just aren't what I expected the day i rolled one back in the summer of 2000. theyve evolved, changed, grown, and while theyve come a long way, i just dont like the point theyve arrived at. so then the question is, "what else is there?" a hell of alot really.

but if youre not interested in rolling a healer, which rules out many, or a caster, which gets rid of alot more, then youre staring the same tank role in the eye again, and the best of those is the warrior, hands down. when you play one, you feel like youre playing the game the way its meant to be done. paladins... unfortunately... are just a throw-in that just aren't really meant to be used in the EQ of today. not for casual use anyway, and never truely accepted in the parameters of the game, be it group or raid, or even solo.

ive got the updater running, its at 1:05. always some new patch heh. just like old times. I've decided to go with my old main account, i've got about 3 to choose from, 4 if i factor in the all-but-unusuable communal account of the shaman. 0:46. how slow it can seem. and lovely, its stuck on that time.

1Bruckenauer + sounds pretty strong +
looks weird
Frutigen + i just see fruit
Gmund + might be an idiot knight
Golling -
2Wandelbaer + reminds me of grendel +
looks like wonderbear
3Thuringer + sounds like thunder +
looks like "the ringer"
4Vacha + reminds me of sigur ros +
Vogar -
Barglistock -
5Helsenhorn + seems cool -
Rotstock -
Kasten + reminds me of casper the ghost
Ratikon + sounds like a transformer
Glarus + sounds roman
Gurk -
6Stoss + pretty strong +

so i went with stoss. barbarian warrior, agnostic, crescent reach, in the tutorial. long brown hair, mutton chops.

what starting area do i want to go to... picked up a warrior merc for the extra dps. wont need the healer until say level ten. well i think ill go to rivervale with the hobbits, aka halflings.

well it might be hobbits but the graphics suck. i think i might hobble off to the drakkin hometown and work up some tradeskills for free.

well i got to level four, but decided, to hell with it, and im going to remake Stoss the warrior on the new 51 50 server, where i'll start a few levels ahead heh.

well... i decided to activate the 2nd account, where all my 51 50 chars are stored. i know... why activate two accounts right? but i was an idiot and activated the wrong one hah. i was thinking i'd take advantage of The Nameless's main char bank account for some twinking... but i underestimated how much i didn't want to level up again. hah. well... there i go i suppose, eh? ;p. i cancelled it to make sure it only runs one month. in this case, i know exactly which character i'll run. the necromancer. cancelled dinds one as well. i cant believe i activated what ended up being the wrong account. ah well. old habits die hard, i flock to that account every time i decide to reactivate. it'll take awhile i guess to get through my thick skull that it's pierce's account i'm messing with nowadays.

to be continued...

considering reactivating

2009-09-06T16:24:00.000-04:00

well, i've finally got some real downtime, and i'm considering reactivating an account, either of everquest one, or everquest two. of the two, i haven't yet decided which will be the one i attempt. however the thought of trying to do a necromancer in perhaps something like the firiona vie server, seems like it could be cool. the ability to buy all sorts of junk and all being the draw. necromancer for the soloist ability, that and the distance from melee fighting. having read the necro class is the only one that's really been repeatedly tuned for solo play, it seems the best choice. especially given the light population of the servers today. of course... i could just say to hell with it, and try something else. perhaps a little more oblivion. who knows. perhaps there's something better out there. whilst anita does play alot of the wii, i do have my oppertunities to get some playtime in. perhaps i'd try out zelda. but otherwise... yeah. there just isnt much out there for pc gamers. warhammer was OK, but it got old. AoC was just all but unplayable. WoW is just horribly easy, and ive already played through it a number of times. that inevitably is EQ's problem too, ive just done too much of it.

perhaps i'll go in the direction of an Oblivion round. however, the thing with that is i don't really like it all that much... heh. i did the side quests first and then attempted the main, found it exceedingly difficult, which ended up cranking up the fun. only that character was deleted by mistake, and the replacement ran through teh story much earlier, and found it to be significantly easier. rediculously so, and honestly just not nearly as fun. i just dont know of any remotely fun games on the PC. to me, its about people, moreso than the games themselves, because those long drawn out single player games, well, im more or less burned out on those. in fact, im not sure why i bought so many single player games for the wii, except perhaps just sheer habit of buying the things i'd been using to buying as a child. i had a sega after all in probably the year 1990. and yeah, perhaps i should know better, but perhaps this is me learning a lesson, and eventually i'll look back and realize it's the multiplayer games im after, so when it comes to MMOs its about the player base and when it comes to console games its about the multiplayer option. otherwise... its just another thing to sit in front of for long hours, boring, time wasting, and just generally dull.

the thing is, given the fact that i do have some spare time, usually i'd be all about trying to get the EQ account active, but i've got a couple decent reasons not to bother. firstly, the class of the main i used to run the most often has just declined into something no longer fun to play. a marriage of playing it too long, and just general stagnation and eroding of certain aspects of fun within the class have left it boring and berefit of any spark. second, the player organization with which i most recently was affiliated has booted my digital self, and it doesnt seem like i'd be able to get the tag back with any reasonable ease. While there are many familiar faces still on the server, it just doesnt seem like a functional place to enjoy some time off. I'd probably be best served just getting drunk, or writing a song, or watching some television, or at worst, some console, but not any PC im afraid. there's just not any new games to pull me away from the old stagnating ones that used to rock but no longer do. its like these coders like to pull the rug out from under you and leave you hanging. but that seems to be the current trend. either way, i still might find myself onto EQ2 within the next few hours or so, we shall see. or even EQ1. all depends.

the wii

2009-09-05T13:35:00.001-04:00

so we picked up a wii. there's a few games too, mario kart, mario galaxy, mario smash, zelda, it came with sports, and we recently picked up chocobo's dungeon, a final fantasy-esque game. now ive played little of the wii myself, but my girlfriend has done the lion's share of the gaming. she loves it. she's pretty huge about making mii's, she had me make one, then she had us do the fitness thing on wii sports. apparently it rates your would-be age given your performance in a few given tasks. it seems interesting. i rated 77, and then 80. she did about the same heh. an interesting thing about it is you can only run the wii fitness thing like once a day. the mii thing is semi interesting too. you can give it a name, and can configure its face and the like. not the most customizable character creation ever but its interesting. at the screen where you can watch over all the mii's, you can watch them roaming around and perhaps interacting with each other. that bit of it is neat. my favorite games are smash brothers and mario kart respectively. they were of course my favorites when i was younger, and these versions are basically more or less the same engines, no major overhauls, and same gameplay too.

in some ways im disappointed, because of the fact so little about the wii really is new. now the controller is neat, i havent yet gotten used to it truth be told, but i mean... the games. mario for instance, the mario galaxy game... it seems just like super mario for the n64. i mean yeah it looks cool, just like that 64 mario looked great too... but i never really played that game more than a few minutes. it just wasnt fun. and neither does this seem it either. mario karts great, but its entirely about the multiplayer experience. and with two controllers, and a girlfriend who hates to be against you, or die really, then its a matter of some hardcore team action against an incompetant npc team. so that kills some of the fun there. but beyond that, zelda seems nice. i mean of the games ive seen so far, zelda seems nice... only it seems like the graphics were aged, and when i looked it up i noticed it had the year 2006 stamped on it. i mean... come on now, how advanced is this wii really. i have yet to see something that shocks me in how good it looks. the xbox for instance with halo and the like kinda had me more glued to my seat than what im seeing from this wii. but then im starting to read things like the wii just isnt the best graphic system out there as a known fact. so that might move me to buy an xbox.

but thus far, we have many games, most of which havent been played with much. and i guess thats a good thing, in that basically we're not addicted, we're not glued. i used to play games as a kid, over in england, before and after we moved, so as early as '90 and '91. so, the year being '09, it's been awhile. not only that, i've spent alot of time away from consoles altogether, sticking almost entirely with PC's, and a singular PC game, everquest. sure, i picked up oblivion, only it never stuck, and honestly i'd still be playing everquest if the coders weren't mucking it up. slashing the support crew, slackening the pace of expansions, destroying what greatness the game originally held. its a shame to see something so great as EQ go down the tube, but the coders who made this game great i fear i never had the chance to know, and those that run it now, well, they do a decent job on some visible things, but on others... its just appalling. for instance, zone design. at some point, EQ fell hard. Kunark style zones were exchanged for veritable boxes, zones with raised edges and no notable features save a wall perhaps a hundred feet in front of you. depressing. that and the scaling back of diversity of implimented mobs. the models are recycled in a very obvious way. there just is no focus on looks.

another folly of EQ is that the men behind the scenes tend to shuffle people out of EQ and into EQ2, either that or newer games that are yet to be released. EQ gets such a low priority that it gets the fresh blood, those who have little to no clue, and unfortunately the game suffers because of it. keeping none of the flag bearers on in EQ, those who coined the arena that EQ was during its heyday, noone to enforce the old ways, those that have taken over have changed it, morphed it, into something worse, not quite great, and unfortunately, shit. its something we see often, good things don't always last, and usually they're just a chance happening where things seem to work out, either because nobody plays it, or because its just got all the right people in the top management, with all the right support, a shared vision, and all that, but time has a bad way of weathering these things down. people move on, others are brought in, and inevitably the vision slips and the game becomes a vehicle for the next guys own ambitions. and meanwhile we're left with increasingly worse content. its just a shame because over the years the game has built a following but those who epxect the old way are just left in the dark, meanwhile those who dont mind the new way are shown the way to their tables. bitterly swallowed

but the thing is, EQ was so good, that i dont think there was another game out there quite as good as it. I've tried WoW, and other things, and honestly, they just don't measure up. I'm just not really impressed with what i find there. and honestly, i dont think i will see another game that takes all the things that EQ did right and stick them in a game for a long while. there's too few games being made, its a big effort to make a game, and even if you set out in the beginning to make a game like that, in the end it may not get executed that way. so many things stand in the way, its a battle from start to finish, and each of the people involved influence things deeply. there has to be a deep understand of whats being tried to be accomplished. otherwise without that airtight knowledge of the goals, then things can go to shit. and thats whast happened with EQ. they brought in replacements, didn't bother checking if they really got it, and then left the reigns, and left the building. unsupervised, things got real bad, real quick. entire armies of people who had made legions of friends during their time online just began to leave, because the place just didn't serve their kind any more. its a shame but games have a way of abandoning fans and families. but thats the bitter cycle of things of this nature.

many of these articles i write tend to devolve into a recollection of the former greatness of everquest and its current demise, but honestly its something im still trying to properly master, how exactly did it happen, and where do we go from here. the truth is there is nowhere for us to go, except into the sunset, soldiering on. we can never expect another thing like EQ, because it was a chance happening, and whilst it may happen again, the odds are against it. the original men behind it are scattered, one of them suffering from drug addiction for instance and major unreliability problems. if they had an allstar team that was able to assemble themselves and put something amazing together agani it could work, but then the makers of EQ weren't known for a sustaniably good product, but more a brief blip of goodness. kindof like a one hit wonder band, such as Kings of Leon, they had a great album, then devolved into a clone of another band. they lost their infectiously good sound, and instead put together a contrived version of someone elses, and it just didnt sound half as good. things like this can and do happen, all the time. the key is to enjoy the good bits for what they were, brief flashes of genius, and just shielding yourself from the badness that is the rest of the work from that crew.

but back to thw ii, i would've expected better stuff than basically rehashes of games i played when i was half my age today. but alas thats what it seems to be. i mean this is worse than the sequel epedemic in the film industry today. at least they have comics to mine. games dont even have that. the thing is there is no equivolent for games. the industry and the medium is so new that there just isnt ay prior masterpiece that designers and writers can draw from. and if they do its generally so overplayed that its beaten dead. like say warcraft, starcraft, diablo, EQ, all these games were great, so great that they really couldn't exist reasonably outside their game of origin. the truth is that hardcore players will play those games to death. and then when the developers haul out a new iteration, many of those hardcore folk have gotten their jollies already and dont really want to do it all over again. its like sequels, or serials. let the fucking soaps be on tv alone. gaming doesnt need them. we need highly original, new, and markedly different and unique experiences in each play to make it all worthwhile. otherwise... why bother. why play the same game five times for five prices. its just not worth it. and that kindof gaming has a shelf life.

watching my girlfriend play zelda on the wii

2009-08-26T17:54:00.000-04:00

i can't help but immediately draw comparisons to EQ, and how much better of a game EQ is than Zelda. Take for instance the starting zones in Zelda, where you run from person to person, and graphics indicate if you can speak to these people, and you're lead through dialogue rather than actively engaging in it yourself. Whereas in EQ, you more or less have to type your way through each and every conversation. Granted, most EQ conversations require little more than a "hail" and then following the [brackets] but there is still room for some creativety and fun, in that you could put those bracketed words in any arrangement and still get the desired response. freedom is something you'll find much of in EQ, however i would say lately that freedom has been infringed upon, by way of poor zone design, the zone walls all to apparent, whereas in the Kunark era zones we had much more elaborately designed zones for us to roam in. The most current expansions have really disappointed me in the way they seem little more than boxes with hill and tree graphics within. many zones are just flat, featureless, and boring, populated with cloned versions of similar looking mobs. Just plain boring really, nothing to feast your eyes on, and little to interact with. Unfortunately, present day EQ seems to be going the way of Zelda on the wii. But there was a time EQ understood what real gaming was about. and thankfully that content is still playable. Only once you've made your way through it all, and are high level, you are forced through the bottleneck of having to go through the new and poorly designed content.

EQ sadly doesn't seem to realize that for a span of years it knew what real gaming was about, in that basiclaly, there were no other competitors doing quite what they did. it's the depth of the gameplay that caught so many of us, the fact that there was so much to do, so many things to get, and so many real advantages to getting those things. EQ has alot of special items you can go and get to make your character even better. Augmentations, items, all sorts of things. click effects, and the like. But for me nowadays the real lure in EQ that remains is that of the caster, those who are given the lions share of those neat and interesting spells. I've plained the melee round ad nauseum, i can't even stomache a warrior and even hybrids at this point that swing a weapon just draw ire. Instead i take refuge in the more thoughtful casting game, which to me is just a hell of alot more fun and refreshing. Constantly having your screen pivot back and forth as you swing is just so annoying for me at this point. Similarly constantly having to hit spells that have little real game impact (stuns) is ewll beyond annoyance for me. Now yes i understand quite well that the stun does mitigate lots of damage, but still... you see nothing... health remains, fight continues to stretch on... and as an effective killing tool... stuns just simply don't rate.

but stuns... they were essentially the paladins main tool. paladins were classified tanks. but the stuns they were given were just... well... lets just say they have their perks. mobs do damage, but stuns can cut lots of that damage out. you could explain it by calling it the rate of damage. basically a stun makes the creature stand still for x amount of time. they are frozen in place whilst time passes by. i mean, yes, this is a semi neat ability. but to me, it just never seemed appropriate for a so called knight class to merely have the ability to freeze things in place. sure, there are other abilities, access to root for instance, heals, which were also nice, but this led us to more or less be a battlepriest more than we were say a holy KNIGHT. there was nothing KNIGHT-ish about paladins in fact. they were about avoiding doing damage, as their ability to deal a deadly blow with a weapon was quite mediocre, and their primary and secondary skills had nothing to do with dealing damage to the creature at hand. that left paladins with little to do but prolonge the fight and hopefully survive the greatly reduced mobs damage whilst slowly whittling away at the mobs hp bar with subpar swinging skill. it just was a very drawn out process.

here's a great reason i dont visit the paladin boards much:

without subscription?

2009-08-10T06:01:00.001-04:00

contemplating pulling out the... everquest OR everquest 2 subscription. neither's active at the moment. i had the foresight to limit both to month only terms, subject to renewal every 30 days. however now without subscription i find myself wondering what to play.

i want this game

2009-07-31T01:41:00.001-04:00

http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/
for the wii/ps3/xbox360.
must buy

oh please

2009-07-09T23:41:00.000-04:00

"Thanks for ruining the game for me. Really."
July 8, 2009 11:28 AM Subscribe
MMORPG Griefing ... for Science! Twixt fought his fellow players in City Of Heroes to win. But he used methods that, despite being legal within the rules of the game, the rest of the community hated. Then the player behind the hero unmasked as Loyola University media professor David Myers, author of "The Sad & Curious Tale of Twixt" (.doc), a sociological study of the unwritten rules in MMORPG's. Not entirely unlike the epic tale of Fansy The Famous Bard.
posted by waraw (194 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite

this recently appeared on internet website metafilter.com

i've gamed with MMOs for years, at least 9 i'd say, and i've played a host of them, starting with EQ, EQ2, WoW, with two or three stings, Warhammer for a bit, LoTR for a bit, i havent fucked with DAoC but i pulled out AoC.

so a guy goes and insta kills some other guys using a tool that teleports folks. this can stick you right next to a guard should you choose, which can kill the opposing player instantly.

so folks are bitching because this guy, a sociologist doing a paper on how folks react to folks doing shit against the norm, and its like, fucking rediculous.

firstly, in my opinion, if its coded into a game its ok. i dont give a shit how much of a fucking pansy you are, if the game allows it, its fair game. thats the whole point of that statement. fair game = fair game.

so this guy is going around, killing folks. i guess he's trying to do some paper or whatever. and i guess like, some folks just stand around, use it as like an online chatroom ro whatever. so if you die right? and youve got like, an npc that killed you, you level slow. like you get half xp and shit sucks or whatever. so people are anal about it and try to avoid it. but like, this dude is like, fuck that, and just goes and kills these folks, incurring the debt on their char. and like some guys were just fucking going on about this. like:

I've played around with CoH. There's definitely combat in the PvP zones, but it tends to be consensual, perhaps because there are PvC missions there, too. So I'll be flying along and get a msg inviting me to single combat or the like. Though I've just up and attacked heroes there, too. But if my opponent sent me a msg saying: "Can we do this some other time?" I'd likely back off, because: a) it's a game, and b) I stopped thinking that ruining someone's day was fun when I turned 12.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 12:06 PM on July 8 [6 favorites]

i mean really... fucking rediculous. trying to say shit like that is just... fucking rediculous. the game is fucking designed to allow that shit. if you dont like the deisgn ,its not a player thats at fault. thats simple shit. if you think its cheap, complain to the makers, the keepers, the creators. there's someone out there who types 0s and 1s to make your graphic entertainment, get them onto this, and have them fix it. you cant fix it by having no consequences. the idea that someone can be allowed to do it by a game but then not allowed to do it by player choice is just fucking weird. if you can do it in the game, then fucking expect it. accept CoH as the game where griefers get hand-made tools to do the job. stop fucking whining when it happens to you.

this whole thing just pisses me off. and its the extent of the feedback that i real about this that pisses me off. remember this is one guy, and there are probably hundreds if not thousands of outraged players who are jumping down this guys throat. he is no coder, is just a player just like any of you. there are abilities in the game, should he use them, is he now anything more than just a player? i think not. for anyone to draw a conclusion beyond that is just generally insane. those that qualify for such a distinction cannot generally be trusted to mention anything worth pondering.

again i come to this idea that you can use force to control a players will. should a guy choose to be an ass, he will. perhaps there are punishments, perhaps not. but its not up to the average person to just fucking wage unholy war on every fucktard they come across. leave it to the judicial system, or in this case, the game managers. go ahead, do your petitions, and when heg ets booted, sure, be happy, but come on, dont waste your time just going over and over how much of a twat you think the guy is. really... how hard is it to realize how fun it is to fuck with people. its fucking fun. hellova lot of fun. and in a game, there's no consequences. you fuck a guy? who cares. maybe your rep goes to hell, but you have fun doing it. and there's no need for these calls to oath ethics and shit. if its doable, it will be done. and its the fool who expects them not to be because of ethics. ethics? are you kidding me? its a fucking game. are we all suddenly conservative republicans now or something? did gaming get infiltrate with some of the most fucking babyish fuckers imaginable? i think so.

How do we cut off this guy's funding? You know, for experimental purposes.

This is how we deal with griefers.
posted by Xoebe at 12:31 PM on July 8 [6 favorites]

fucking rediculous. and to think these guys are literally trying to axe a guys livelihood because he's doing experiments on how people react. this is certainly a fucked up situation. and yes, i don't really accept there's much that can be done. but come fucking on. i mean really this guys only guilty of fucking with some graphics on some pc. and we see reactions to this great an extent. i mean come fucking on people. come fucking on.

Suppose I went to the local arcade back in the 1990s* where there was a big line at one of the video games (say, Street Fighter II) and everyone had their quarters lined up saving their place in line. This is not according to any law of the nation, nor an official rule of the arcade, yet it is a pretty strong, well-understood social rule. Now suppose I ignored this rule, skipping in ahead of the next person in line and sticking my quarter in the game. If the people there were very nice, they might tell me of my faux pas and either pushing me to the back of the line or letting me get away with it once. If I then proceeded to deliberately break this rule, distracting someone who was second in line at just the right moment and skipping in ahead of them, they'd probably get really pissed off very quickly.

Or maybe I use outside-of-the-game tactics like shouting in people's ears or using a flash camera in their faces at critical moments as distraction. I keep winning the game through these tactics, so I keep that coveted spot, and everyone who comes through has to play with me if they want to play the game. They try to use insults and other obnoxious behavior to get rid of me because the management won't do anything about it.

How long do you think this would go on before somebody physically assaults me? And he's surprised that he gets threats online?

example after example about how this guy is apparently SO WRONG. come the fuck on people. what the fuck is he doing thats so fuckign different from anyone else? this guy tries to liken the experience to standing in line at an arcade. its not the same at all. an arcade is more like a google bar or a start desktop. the line and shit, thats just your access port. once youre in, the game itself is the game. fucking with peoples access will definately peeve people off. this guy didnt do that. he accessed his own game, just as they did theirs. he got on, played as he could, like they did too. they chose to sit around and chat like lame fucks, as the game allows, he chose to gank the fuckers and have some fun, as the game allows. wake the fuck up you nerdy ass twats. its like people dont seem to get that these games are not your little social gathering spots. this is a fucking battlefield, not a hand holding competition. why the fuck are we constantly reminded how we need to give a fuck about your social ins and outs. we dont give a fuck. we play the game for amusement. some of you are people, others are computers. it makes it more interesting. period.

jesus folks, wake the fuck up and realize that you can't just fucking sit there and bitch about people playing a game the way it was designed, you have certain things, you have tools, those tools are built into the game, perhaps others are available to you elsewhere. let there be better police, better things that keep folks from participating. if youre bitching about third parties, bitch to your companies. if you want better regulation, have them invest their capital into systems that support that. otherwise, you wont get it, and in the meanwhile dont bitch at the players who are trying to do just the thing you are attempting yourself: have fun. fucking rediculous people. seriously. i wouldn't expect this from like, metafilter. but thats what i'm getting.

but one is harmless dumb fun.

Sure, if you're a sociopath. How is ruining everyone else's fun "harmless"?
posted by Justinian at 10:17 PM on July 8 [8 favorites]

and it goes on... "ruining fun". PLEASE. if people are having their fun ruined, then its not this guys fault. whats in the game is essentially there. you cant just sit and choose which you want to and not want to use. its a fucking onlnie game. you can do that gay asshattery in your own home with some special dnd rules you cookedup alst night because it makes you 'feel better' but this is a fuckign mmo, whats there is there, you deal with it, and play. thinking players can take such ownership of a more or less public game is fucking rediculous. you can't sit there and fucking try and dictate the play of a foreign player and think you'll demand any such legitamacy for it.

manic insanity

2009-07-05T08:07:00.000-04:00

thats the best way i could describe the crowds on the new progression server last night. pretty crazy shit.

preferred server ponderings

2009-07-04T10:57:00.001-04:00

discussing which class for the progression server

so there's the tanks: paladin, warrior, shadowknight.
i've decided if i'm going to do such a crucial role as tanking, i don't want to be a hybrid. it's just plain not fun. so if i'm tanking again, it's going to be as a warrior.

with that said, the race options are varied.

gnomes are short, giving the neat fact given the fact that their stature is short, yet they tank the biggest creatures. the added bonus of tinkering is neat.

barbarians have the benefit of what i consider the coolest plate look, further more few people choose the beard hair combo i do, and throw in a decend swiss name and youve got a very believable and likeable character model, with no special abilities, such as tinker, etc.

dwarves are a race ive played alot over the years, they've been my choice the majority of my time in eq, and i've definately got that deep love for them, both having been used to the model, and the lore behind the race. no special abilities, beyond the graphic-only dwarven roll. that, and best beards in the game on a character model. and kaladim is just a cool starting city, dwarven mining town in the heart of a mountain, what more could you want?

halflings are another interesting plate choice again for their short stature but there's just something about 'em i don't really dig, they're too childlike for me really and it's just not my thing bottom line im thinking.

humans major problem is the helm, certainly one of the worst looking, but if you can get over that youre left with a gaunt but athletic frame which kinda looks neat plus interesting face styles hwoever ive always had a peeve with the hair choices available to humans the poor quality on the hair graphic just lowers the models look alot. one thing to note drakkins were meant as the human replacement upgrade so if you really want to look like a real living person the drakkin may be for you with the best motion movements emotes and in some cases best armor graphics however in others its arguable.

ogres are the classic big guy they have stun immunity innate from level one and not much else. the height can be a nuisance but that can be remedied through potion or item. the evil affliation can be limiting but only if you travel to old world cities and in modern eq it shouldnt be a problem. the armor is a bit kitschy with a big skull and bones stenciled on the belly but perhaps if you can dye that out youre left with something potent. however for me the ogres have always been threadbare in the lore department they were a once great empire struck down by gods and now cursed by idiocy. its not the greatest storyline and yes your character too is struck down by the very same idocy as your ancestors. to me the story is unappealing and there's not much compelling about them so in the end i usually feel like im prostituting myself out to make an ogre just to get those plate graphics.

trolls on the other hand have always had a draw for me. they literally do hail from the swamplands of grobb and its just a cool race. this guy literally looks like something youd encounter in the world as an npc hostile such as a goblin or other such thing. ive always liked the troll under the bridge tale and ive recently read more icelandic literature regarding trolls and their involvement in icelandic folklore with some interesting results. to me its kinda interesting to have these horrible ancient creatures who live in the mountains and under bridges come out and gobble people up from time to time however those were of course very alrge trolls these on the other hand are very small small enough to be compared in height to a human. but the troll in my mind gives you the chance to be something not quite evil not quite good but something else altogether

greetings from the mayong server

2009-07-04T08:23:00.000-04:00

so the new 51/50 server is out and live, available to the masses, and i'm itching to get involved. the initial readings are positive, with peak usage, a double xp weekend, and a plethora of swiss - mountain names to choose from for some solid sounding folks. i made about 6 characters, these i thought were the highlights. im growing to like the drakkin models increasingly, and the paladin armor really kinda made an impression on me. im liking the helm especially, and the name is one i really took awhile to come across and now that i've settled on it i'm tentatively liking this build alot. the beastlord is another that strikes me, over the years ive played with many beastlords, most of them being vah shir, but i did eventually run into an ogre that joined ss for a little while, and the guy made an impression on me. the armor i thought always looked cool on the ogre model, and the model itself is beastly which i like, and somehow the banished-by-the-gods storyline seems to work for the beastlord class, somehow primitive yet still menacingly potent, more the power of the wilds than of civilization. and why the paladin you may be wondering? well it has to do with the fact that ive played a paladin for 9 years and i vowed to my girlfriend i'd get into it with her since we'd been playing around on FV and test lately. i guess you could say im a sucker for special rulesets, how could i not be after 9 years, the regular thing just doesn't cut it for me anymore.

i've been on the road lately, driving to boston, and im blogging from a boston hotel, but im with internet and im taking this weekend as my chance to play it up on EQ using their new server. so look for me on there, ill be on, looking for all of you, and trying to have some good old fashioned eq fun hah. starting at 51 should be fun. its sort of like the testbuff but instead of to 25, its 50, plus with the added benefit of aa's. i took an initial look at my paladins aa window and alot of the key aa's are level limited so like as a tank clearly the choice'd be tanking stuff, but none of that is trainable at 51, so the strat may then be to level up first and open those up, and then afterwards get those aa's trained and work on further aa'ing perhaps, instead of doing the 85 and no aa's deal, i'd rather go 60 with 200+ etc. that's the key i think. the guy anita and i ran into on FV might not have been all bad, i mean jabbering on in a group is never fun but yeah, that style of doing it might not be unfun.

so i leave you with that, and these pictures of my new toons on mayong. hopefully fun will be had, i know anita hasnt seen alot of zones so this'll be a chance to do that, and otherwise, yeah. hope to see you on there if youre a gamer / eq fan. otherwise for those regular server folks, you dont know what youre missing people hah. its the excitement, ease, and all that jazz we've been waiting for.

everquest 2, pvp adventures

2009-06-22T14:28:00.000-04:00

alright, so anita and i rerolled, a few times, on the pvp server nagafen, as well as on the role playing server antonia bayle. the idea is tehse were the two top populated servers, and to me top population sounded like a good thing. so on AB our first characters were repeated iterations of our EQ1 characters, grunhorn the cleric and rikriki the wizard. this got old, fast. then for some reason the pvp server seemed interesting.

and so it's been a few days and we've been playing our pvp characters, sometimes rerolling and going back to AB, but promptly returning to pvp again. for a strange reason, this pvp server seems to have a hold on me. i got onto this game with the intention of playing on AB, the rp server, but its fast becoming evident that the server with most thrill & fun is in fact the pvp server nagafen. and i wonder to myself why. there's a few reasons. first of all the chat denizens of the spam you'll be inundated with should you choose not to block it out. on the pvp server, you get alot more satisfying discussion. meaning hte idiots are shouted down, and sometimes the shouters down appear the idiots. its all too apparent. whereas on the rp servers its all more cliqueish and the channels are controlled by not who has the best thing to say but rather who's the best networked. in a way the pvp servers a bit better because anyone can come along and prove themselves as the next pvp kingpin, whereas those on those rp servers have their gear accumulated, have their recognition and skill just assumed, and they feel comfy.

now pvp isnt new to me, ive played halo, tribes, quake, and before that bond, perfect dark, timesplitters, & others. there's quite a few of 'em and they've all been itneresting, all about aim, trigger speed, and the like. and those were games i gravitated to. these are essentially games that give you thrill, sort of like that which you'd get in a sport or other real life circumstance. a real life thrill-sim if you like. but the fast paced speed was definately awesome.

but to find this sort of a game-play mechanic in a role playing game, let alone everquest, a series i've been involved with for over 9 years now, is a strange thing indeed for me. i've played a paladin, on a blue server, that is, a non-pvp server, for many years. it was challenging, the challenge being the great feats of difficulty one could undertake whilst fighting with the game invironemnt, hence the title player versus environment. but with player versus player, those environmental hazards remain, but there's a more abundant and easier to get to hazard, that of other palyers, who almost immediately at level ten can present a playing hazard to the unsuspecting player. it's a difficulty, a fear, you expect to be killed, spooted and the like. and of course being that its a new character for you the spells and abilities are unfamiliar. so you're finding yourself both trying to figure your abilities out and weather the waves of player groups and pairs making their way out to the evil grounds you call home with the sole purpose of laying waste to you for quest credit. these quests give them points which can thereby be used for purchases of items and other such things, mounts, and other items.

now some of these require guilds, but thats another thing. on the subject of "other things" anita got herself into an apartment purchase. i was given rights to enter, and i dumped all my housing crap in as well. the class i've picked is warlock, race being ratonga. before warhammer ( the real time strategy not the massively multiplayer online role playing game ) i didn't really have a place in my mind for the potential of the rat-men, but warhammer made them cool, by giving me command of generals and troops of rats and i managed to develop an affinity for them. they remained a curiosity, the spark generated by the warhammer experience, and when they presented themselves on the character creation screen, they seems the appropriate choice.

and honestly, i quite like 'em. they may have squeaky voices, and short stature, but warhammer proved even the smaller shriller types can bring about major asskicking and amazement.

couple things that bother me. random chat bitching and fights, constant incessant and annoying, and most likely perpetuated by 12 year olds or the emotional equivolent of-. constant killing by the same people, sometimes farming respawn points nabbing the same players repeatedly. this gets real bad sometimes. the distance between you and the nearest bank, always way too far away. but perhaps on the other end of it high chances for high rewards when killing people in killing fields. the guild childishness that ive seen is amazing. one guild invite, then the breakaway guild, and the drama spouted out by either party. crazy, interesting, and very pvp. pvp seems to be synonymous with immature, not sure why, but just seems to be the case. also, seems to me there's lots of parallels between eq comics and pvp mentality. suprising, interesting, but also makes sense. also, there's pvp rankings, didn't know about that, kinda interesting - only, my ranking is bound to be shit, taking into account the 10 or so deaths i went through before i learned to be paranoid hah. the thing is every zone becomes a halo map, for good or bad. its a new way to play the game. and its a halo map in addition to all the other quests and things involved. just another way to spin the game. also, finally figured out how shinies / collectibles work. right click, examine, bam they're in yoru journal. NEVER knew that, in the 63 levels of my ranger i ran solo before i met anita hah. crazy. also, continues to dawn on me how awesome it is playing a game with another person sitting right there. its just very awesome. guilds dont seem to matter as much, probably as an offshoot of having a fleshnblood person next to ya.

lots of interesting stuff. also read about my class. some say its the worst in pvp. meaning the ratios of win are next to nothing. other sources list it as challenging and good. it just seems like a neat class. it looks like i picked another paladin heh. ah well, the ones that sound good never are it ends up being. paladin? woah holy knight? AWESOME. warlock? woah folklore forest dwelling magic user? AWESOME. and then in execution... no, they suck. such a shame. such bredth for them to explore, such potential depth to develop, yet nah, shortcomings abound. shameful really. and then the types that code, just don't seem they have much in their haed to make decent decisions. more obsessed with adult swim than anything else, let me just say geek culture? sucks. im sick of it. fuck geeks. and fuck nerds too. nerds are the worst. taking something picking it apart making it have greater meaning that it really has, just destroying the fuck out of it, and at the end of the day youre left with something ugly and sick. thats a nerd for you. there's bible nerds and their's LOTR nerds, star trek nerds, and EQ nerds. i just hate 'em. and when you roll out to the convention, you run into shitloads of 'em. fucking rediculous.

these guys deal with gaming addiction

2009-06-20T12:15:00.000-04:00

http://www.wowdetox.com/

so you may be asking yourself what exactly gaming addiction is? some people like to liken MMO's to a drug. to me this approach is wrong. the truth is the abuse of something that is originally designed to be fun, and later can become more sinister. its the way you abuse yourself whilst you play the game. how many hours do you force yourself through before you allow yourself a break. the truth is that nobody should be sitting on a game for hours and hours for consecutive days. there's too many things to do in life to force yourself to do way too much of one thing.

another thing to remember is there's alot of people out there who like to get "nerdy" about things. that means they look for hidden meanings, perhaps they weave it into their identity, so that tey no longer play WoW, but they ARE a WoW player now. they identify as a person as a participant in the persistant online world of Azeroth. some people try to say the quest design is addictive. or the addition of rare items. these are just game mechanics to create an interesting world to play in. the problem is not the game, but the player. players abuse themselves and perhaps dont have enough information out there for the potential for abuse in these games. perhaps too many hours indoors, also perhaps isolating oneself from REAL people whilst playing around in EQ or WoW.

Its about finding a balance. play less hardcore. dont get way into a deep hardcore raiding guild. you should start to look at these so-called hardcore guilds as houses for addiction. also, the group game should be seen as the main draw. the raid game is more the bastion of the addicts. it gets updated alot because addicts move through content fast. but they stay with it for the long haul if they keep getting their new content. so Blizzard, Sony & the rest of the gang churns out material for them to play in. this gives them reason to go to their nightly raid, held-too-long and perhaps with people who aren't quite functional.

my intersection with gaming was a positive and necessary one. i was in a hostile household and a hostile town. my only way to be myself was pc, tv, and music. through the tv i got video games, dvd's, tv shows (dvr'd) and through the pc games, reading material, things to watch & listen to. then through the pc games i got guilds, interaction with other people, strategy, lore storylines loosely based on real life folklore, the challenge of learning an in depth class, something to occupy my mind and keep me sharp whilst i was at home doing nothing, and these sorts. for me, EQ helped me get through my friends death. i felt badly about it and EQ gave me a positive place to be and people to interact with. the task at hand of completing the content of the day and moving along to bigger & better things was a great way to keep my mind working but not in negative ways.

eventually i learned a great deal about people, about leadership, about teamwork, about being humble enough to work with somebody. how ot help people, how to support people, and where to go if you felt down yourself.

i feel like i should toss out there that OCD people probably could have a field day with WoW. lots of fast clicks, ways ot sit there and just satisfy your need for twitch-gaming. the idea is that gaming as a twitch puts pressure on you. that pressure can be addictive & also harmful. this is the core of gaming addiction's potential destructive ability. people get sucked in and basically dont have any chance to stop. everyone needs help sometimes, and as children we need the view of an adult to give us the counterpoint to make the informed decision. children aren't informed and can't make such decisions. an adult world will often overwhelm children. gaming is part of that adult world. it takes an adult mind to play these games the way they were meant to be played.

i sould emphasize the need for many people to scapegoat something as THE CAUSE, that which deserved to be blamed, and perhaps even to be made ashamed. but i view these attempts and activeities as wrong, harmful, abusive, hateful, and destroying the peace. this is a grievance in and of itself and should be policed against, perhaps by oneself. the point is harming the harmer doesnt help the victim and instead makes a victim of the harmer. shock tactics are never desirable, paramount to applying pressure to blanket innocent poulations for merely the satisfaction of a lone mans whim. its tyrannical and destructive and shouldn't be allowed and people shouldn't stand by idly while its dont. we see it all too often, anytime something bad happens to a gamer ( perhaps the worst word for someone who spends some of their living-time playing games ) that those who don't game immediately point to the factors in their life that seem immediately apparent and different: it's the games! witch-hunt tactics trying to point the finger of blame find a target of shame and notoriety, something that deserves to haveits head hang low and be immersed in a pool of blackness for their terrible deeds. thats essentially the point of view of a person whose trying to just admit somethiing to a club of shame. shame itself is a useless thing, but many people dont realize this. it causes pain and doesnt solve problems, so these folks thinking shame is the right thing, well shame is just a veiled eye for an eye, so these people are more or less going to the ancient and bloody way of the world to solve their grievance with this game company or perhaps industry; certainly are not going through the established modern and current means to pursue justice.

everquest 2

2009-06-15T11:09:00.000-04:00

so anita and i activated a month on one account and the other had a few days of juice left in it, hopped onto EQ2 made characters, using our names Grunhorn and Rikriki, over on the AB server where Zanadi of EQ2sday hails from, the most populated non-pvp server, and yeah, we got to leveling.

I'm playing a kerra cleric and she's running a fay wizard. this's the same combo we did on EQ1, but things're quite different over here. more people, no mercs, and the classes are much more soloable. plus the pace of the game is much faster and easier if you ask me. the whole thing is just a hell of alot more polished, it has more flow and the game just generally plays alot better.

There's already been a few comparisons to WoW, and yeah these two games came out about the same time, and were competative with each other. there's also alot of things that tie it to EQ1, that is of course its original, but its a sequel in many ways. honestly its interesting seeing how these sorts of things have kinda progressed, as the original game has also continued to release new material since the release of teh sequel. EQ's continued to released raiding, group, and quest content but in my opinion the latest few installations to the game have been lackluster and can't hold a flame to that which we'd seen in the past. no longer are the gradiouse and graphic intensive expansions being released for EQ1. its becoming more and more apparent its more the bastion of the more by the numbers by the book coders with little imagination and those more ingenuitive and ingenious get shipped over to EQ2. the talent drain is a shame because those boxes hitting the shelves just aren't worth buying anymore, such is the decline in quality. the game is still enjoyable but the releases are pitiful.

2009-06-14T14:29:00.001-04:00

2009-06-14T14:20:00.001-04:00

EQ2sday

2009-06-14T10:41:00.001-04:00

so i hopped over to the EQ2sday site and downloaded about 8.5 hrs worth of podcasts spanning from about february to present day. this's sort of part two of my EQ2sday listening streak, a day or so ago i went through the already downloaded episodes and caught myself up through about halfway through february. i mean it just reminded me how much i like the show. but also it kind reminded me how i basically would love to do my own show myself or maybe with anita about stuff i find interesting enough to talk about. the thing about EQ2sday is that its a full hour and sometimes even a half thats focused on one thing, everquest. plus Dellmon is good at what he does, the guy can talk about anything. i mean i look at the guy and i think about how i'd love to be able to do the same thing ona topic of my choice, maybe music, maybe gaming as well, there's alot of possibilities. i mean i cuold see mine a bit more spread out, but when you focus on one topic for a full hour and a half there's just alot that you can get into and it gets so in depth that its like getting indepth into an EQ character or the like, the depth is essentially that which makes the game worthwhile, and that depth can then be something that can make other things similarly as cool.

level 20 in oblivion

2009-06-13T16:49:00.000-04:00

so yeah, steaming along in oblivion. i've gotta mention this, there was a guy named obliterater in EQ that i despised. most uncoachable player ive ever had the displaesure of running alongside. didn't want to do anything, unless it was his way. uh... hello... working as a team? apparently didn't ring a bell with the guy. now he disgustingly runs like, 6 or so toons all around the game world, and its like... what a fucking gluttonous dude. all he is is some rich tech geek kid with the pcs and software to pull it off. its not hard, its just costly. and he's got the cash, but what i hate is the undue respect afforded this kid. on the other hand, in the chat channel, he's just a joking laughing idiot, that basically is full of shit. he got info of a cleric i had the info of, refused me it, and immediately i got pissed, closed his access to my toons, and let that be that. but then the nonsense that ensued was hellacious. the kid was basically doing some shady shit, and i wasn't going to support it whatsoever. but beyond that the dude was just fucking outa line. i mean he would just fire his AET and shit in the wrong place & time, and it just fucking was rediculous. i mean ive never seen shit like this really ebfore. its just fucking terrible. and yeah. fucking rediculous shit. the fucking dude was like, playing aruond on his own, getting himself killed, and then in turn getting the raid killed too. if i had total control over that guild i'd've booted him from the start. i have no use for people who have no use for us.

but yeah thats teh name that i keep thinknig when i read OB, i think OB the shit retard warrior of EQ, but now ive got a new OB, OB the sweet ass single player pc-game.

anyhow ive rnu all the way to the guildmaster status of the thief guild if i hand't already said that. i got a dark brotherhood invite because of my killing of the arena champion but ive avoided the quest line so far. right now it seems like a hella bad idea to go thruogh with it, considering the infmany it'll generate, and i still enjoy being a relatively positive-good character beyond the infamy of the thiefs guild. but even the thieves guild had the rob from the rich to feed the poor mentality. the dark brotherhood seems to be all about pure savagery.

ive started the fighters guild and mage guild quest lines. also did some reading on the old wiki, and found out a couple things. how to use poisons for instance, how to enchant your own gear, how to do a few other things too. anyhow just doing a quick post before i hop on. its for sure alot of fun. also found out someplace the max level was around 50 so ive got a shitload of oblivion left to go before im done hah. which is all good with me.

everquest LDoN

2009-06-12T08:32:00.000-04:00

so anita and i made some new chars, textcopied 'em over to test, along with grunhorn and rikriki, and we set off to farm enough plat to run our mercs. what'd happened was as the transfer took place all our financial assets were removed from our copied chars leaving us penniless to pay for the merc costs. this more or less paralyzes us until we manage to farm the cash for the higher levels. just as well as im more or less just interested in the lower ones for this one. the idea is two chars apiece, one on FV and the other on test, giving us the options of droppable gear or double xp. both sound pretty good to me heh. you could say fironia vie has the strongest bazaar in the game, and test has the shortest delay between levels. both very strong selling points.

so we headed over to ldon after doing our /testbuff, earning about 150 plat to cover the mercs initial & supplemental costs, and we headed over to everfrost as i'd remembered it rather good cash our first time through on the lvl 61 chars. unfortunately this go around the payout wasnt naerly so strong but yet there still were some good items & drops to be had. i'd chosen an enchanter for this round, and anita a necromancer, so we'd each had a pet plus the merc we'd hired and the sight was impressive 6 bodies running around stemming from two real players. lessons were fired and we easily rocketed up from 25 to 29. and this was on a normal setting LDoN. if i remember right the xp is even higher from the hard's. then after, we'd headed over to the Overthere, this's the 35 hot zone of the moment. here i pulled out the... steadfast servant and anita did the same, one of the perks of the test server being full veteran aa's. so that immediately kicked us both to about 39 each. sick heh.

but i'll definately say there's limited joy in repeatedly leveling up again & again. it's moreso fun to stick with one and work those to the top, than anything else. found this to be true in oblivion as well. like, i'd had a grunhorn (as well) on oblivion and he was about level 16 or so? then i made a second char... and immediately i was struck by the been there-done that factor. seems like alot of these games are fun to play through once and thats it.

oblivion takes a turn for the better

2009-06-10T12:27:00.000-04:00

so i went through, changed the difficulty, and got that stupid oblivion gate sorted. then i walked around, started finishing up some quests i had lyin around, and man hah, total pace change. with the mobs being trivial, i managed to start to get more used to other parts of the game, and as i did, i got more into it all. things like, blocking, which i never used to do, but now do alot. and then the torch thing which i'd never understood before, but now do, the whole lighting of it, whilst your weapons unequipped it appears, plus the practice of repairing damaged gear whilst inbetween fights. its all pretty cool. and then the player-owned housing i downloaded, many of them cool. and then the mod community. ive been reading through many fo the mods people've put together. all of which seem cool. there's even a mod to rebuild the lost burned city that i just saved yesterday, destroyed by the denizens of the oblivion gate. its all pretty cool.

and so yeah, i cured my vampirism hah, although that's not so much news, at least current. the downloadable vile lair had a cure-bath for it, with salts & the like. kinda nice, no more biting & all that. i contracted the shit again, but went straight to a temple which was cool. also been working up the thieves guild quests and those're kinda neat, got to finally meet the boss face to face, currently on the 3rd or 4th task from the guy, which if i remember right from the wiki is soon before you actually BECOME the guild master yourself. also killed my way through the finish in the arena, which made me the reigning grand champion. i noticed there was a negative text message when i killed the guy. he didn't even resist, upon hearing he was a vampire he just wished for death. his buddy in the training hall though hated the fact, and left the hall. kinda sad turn of events really.

the castle is kinda nice, and i've been reading up on the dwarves in the game. extinct race, with artifacts spread across the land. kinda neat. and then the forge in the hall, pretty cool, plus the dwarven fixture in themages guild. i've been eyeing the mages guild & the fighters guild as well. seems like two major sets of quests that could be cool. the thieves guild though probably can't be beat for cool factor im guessing, they were all about infiltration and the like. i mean i would've liked it more if there was perhaps a war going on and the like and i was perhaps an agent for one side, spying, slaying enemies, laying traps, sabotaging equipment and the like. whilst i was out in ankeney jr high beavercreek ohio usa i did a report on espionage and sabotage. or it may have been mvs beavercreek ohio usa. depends on the year really. in 98 i was in mvs, 97 i was in ankeney.

but yeah, the modding. so apparently there's this modding program that's downloadable, you can open up the existing game in it and edit shit, but i didnt like how it says you ahve to use other programs just to make content to use in the editor which doesnt seem cool. how many programs will there be hah. but its still sounding tempting. there's one that removes borders that someonee lse made, that if i laod in will open say the northern border, which'd give me free reign to build new content in the north or wherever really, which's neat. there's also dungeons people have made to be player usable, and even oblivion-mod tools that manage everything youve got, saving you the trouble of having to code everything yourself, im guessing they set things from false to true and the like. kinda neat.

i continue to feel like this's a game that seems to take after MMOS, that there's a difficulty setting to make it really feel like one, like soloing in a challenging group-oriented MMO. take paladin in EQ, wasn't easy at all to do it, but people still took pride in taking it in stride as a challenge and something to test themselves against. in the same way i feel like hardcore oblivion fans are basically pushing it to the limit and just enjoying the fuck out of it. i mean getting way down in detail in anything can be fun. take music for instance, i've recently spread out a couple different songs and that was neat because it made them more... in depth i guess you could say. and in teh same sense knowing a game inside and out can be rewarding, in fun, and in ability to do similar work in the future. when something is so deep and wide that it gives you the bredth you need to really fully get involved in it hardcore, then people will do so. some might call it addiction, others call it the truely rewarding form of gameplay. gamers know how fun it can be to get real depth into a game. addiction is a danger that looms around every avenue in life. its up to the user to make sure not to abuse themselves to get caught up in addicting cycles of behavior and destructive cycles of play. otherwise without policing onesself its entirely irresponsible and possible to get sucked in. thats gaming though, thats life. responsible gaming is a good idea and should be promoting. keeping an eye on where you stand, and how to keep you out of the red and in the safe area.

but yeah, other than all that, i changed the... resolution to a bigger one, and suprisingly & happily i noticed the computer didnt suffer any undue reaction to the change. i was expecting an explosion, frankly heh. but yeah. getting in depth really allows you to get a good handle on shit. i feel like some of the best comedy is by people who do og real indepth to analyze shit and then to make jokes about things most people normally dont get into. that sortof shit can really set you up for a decent circumstance and self-situation.

i don't know if i want a career in gaming, be it coding, artwork, concept & design, or da' boss, but it continues to be a force in my life thats been appreciated & the like. i've been playing games since before '92, and it's now '09. seventeen years. thats a long time for anything. but as i continue playing around with games it'll continue to be something that enrich's my life. which's definately a good thing. i mean there's nothing like playing a good game, watching a good film, listening to a new good band, putting some new stuff on the walls, and all that. new ideas introduced to a life can be a catalyst for personal growth and other things.

oblivion: critically flawed & terribly addictive

2009-06-09T01:07:00.000-04:00

so im sitting here after having spent the ENTIRE day on oblivion. here's my feedback. so there's alot of things about oblivion that're neat. the whole alchemy thing. the make-your-own-class thing. these are all neat. but then there's the whole fact that its a very small world. add in the about twenty or so crashes, the shitty graphics given the laptop i'm running this on, and it's really fuckin annoyin. but that's not enough to deter me from playin. yet. i'm kinda dedicated when it comes to shit like this. if something fucks up my pc i hop right back on it real soon.

but yeah, i've been developing my char & shit. more or less doing my own thing, floating along - i did the digital download of all the xpacs boxed together, good stuff, deeds & shit. at least, i was doing my own thing, until the damned oblivion gate showed up on my city, where i was meant to do some quest. i was happy fucking with the thieves guild and all that shit, and while like, all those quests and shit, they were fun, i'm sayin this shit just doesn't seem fuckin right. i mean first off, the shits way too fuckin hard. i've got this pet, right? doesn't do shit. then the weapons? hardly fuckin touchin the guys. and my hps? just drop like a rock. im spamming potions, spamming heals, meanwhile the fucking dudes im meant to protect are just running right out into the mobs. fuckin rediculous. i mean the fuckin AI scripting is dumb as fuck. i can stand behind people while sneaking & pull of heists of shit that's right in front of their fuckin eyes. hows that for bad fuckin codin. so that's AI, then more AI, and then that whack ass gate. i went through that, it dawned on me about an HOUR into the damn thing that it was more or less a fuckin city. i mean it was cool i guess, in an ultra-difficult shits-going-to-hell kinda way. but i mean it wasnt the same pace of the rest of the shit. it totally interupted my shit with the thieves guild. let alone the fighers & mages that i had my eye on, as well as those more obscure factions that keep presenting themselves.

the mages tower was nice, and the thieves den was pretty sick. i went on a theft spree to be able to spruce the place up. after a 5k investment, you get 2k a week more or less for the rest of the game. well worth it. pays itself off after the third time with 1k bonus. probably one of the coolest things in the game. the thief guidl thing has been awesome. sneaking around. like more or less 007 style. & i'm digging the whole robin hood vibe that the theives guild has, rob from the rich & feed the poor.

but yeah, that all got interupted by the gate. by my measure it coulda already been there, i just never camea cross it. but when i had a quest just north of the town, it brought me to the scene, and thats where i was immediately prompted with the idea to go in and shut it off. what a long ass tedious process that was. imean first you click in, and then there's the fucking vines that beat your ass when you try to harvest them. and the fucking lava, which of course the dude who i was meant to fucking work WITH falls right into. fuckin rediculous. the weapon kept on breaking apart.

oblivion

2009-06-07T15:48:00.001-04:00

so a day or so ago? i started oblivion. and i've been loving it. so much so, that i'm finding myself download the extra stuff this very minute. so much so, that i've frequented the oblivion wiki more than twice. this all in two days.

the box from the store included the original and two of the downloadable "expansion" plug-ins. these amount to additional quests and storylines within which to engross yourself whilst playing through your character. lets just say that after you're approached suddently to exterminate vampires, whilst already completing various thief guild tasks, participating in arena battles as a gladiator, and udnertaking a growing skill in alchemy, all while exploring the countryside, battling various road bandits, the odd goblin, and more imps than you'd really ever have expected, somehow finding yourself a knight in the charge of a ruler of some faraway town, friends with an orc, and yes, a fully fledged feeding vampire, all whilst playing the class of your own custom design, making sure you experience the diverse aspects of the game as you level up your character, leads to a very rich experience indeed. infact the custom class was one i raced to put together upon noticing such a thing was possible. i managed to treat a decent line between bard, fighter, mage and a few other things... i know, it sounds like a do-it-all, but it's really more of a well rounded full experience, something i sorely lacked in games like diablo & diablo 2.

playing this, i had many thoughts of comparisons to other games, thinking to myself this is what the natural progression must've been from myst. also thinking to myself... looks like this is resident evil style graphics used in a rpg setting, the ultimate expression or perhaps usage of that art form. soon hopefully we'll see new trends in graphics, ones which then render obselete and old these that we've played with for so long. the new is what has kept my game interest alive for so long. and a game like oblivion while not altogether new in its relative seperate parts, packages them together in a way that really gamers have been begging for. in a way it feeds the beast but contributes little new to the industry. for instance, mmo-sized zones, with not to mention the absense of zones. while on the same time a limited map, limited by the bounds of the in this case province, but to me it always seems like a cop out when game designers & developers & coders decide to go the route of map barriers to focus the players on a developing land. if this was meant to be the do-it-all your own way style game, then let us play the way we want to, damn it. if we want to pick a direction & run, always, never turning around, then by god let us do it. the worlds either need randomized elements, or a whole globe sculpted for our gaming pleasure. and im talking something more like the scope of our own planet, not these miniature game worlds that just run out all too quickly. i feel like after merely two days i've already encountered the seams of this digital experience. and to me, that's the deal breaker. that's the killer of fun & fantasy. that's exactly what i hate to find, but so often do. a really quality game doesn't so dullingly reveal it's confines to the player so immediately such as oblivion does, but sorrily i've already hit that brick wall, and it's all down hill from here.

perhaps i'm asking too much, but i was raised on the dream-talk editorials of what-games-could-be back in the 90s. this is what got our hopes up, not simply fanciful thought, but believing the industry heads, and then what did we get, but a complete and utter disregard for "the vision". instead, we get this, time and time again, brick wall barrier after brick wall barrier, and it gets old, oh so old. im tired of hitting the cant-do-that barrier. let us fucking do what we want. if you create some mechanic, let it work that way, ALL the time. i'm also tired of the numbingly easy difficulty that seems to blanket every encounter. we're talking literally one after another that after a couple slashes, a heal or two, and a summoned skeleton, bam, they're dead. there's no strategy, no nothing. instead, it's a slap-dash job on the part of game creaters, and a rediculous addiction to anything pixelated on display by the gaming community at large. its for addictions sake and not for quality's that we play this game. it could be so much better, but instead proves itself not to be. another one of those coulda-woulda-shoulda-games that was good enough to review but not good enough to like.

im going to continue playing, admidst this poor-economy-striken game industry, perhaps in between EQ bouts, and a day or so on my WoW free trial, but mark my words, I will not enjoy this game as much as I could have had it been designed moreso to be enjoyable. this in the end is a game that i believe is poorly designed, and therefore limits the player to an only above average experience, keeping it from being what i would hope to see in a game; the very best. in a fantasy rpg genre that just seems to shuck bucks @ the same old game, this game coulda been the better newer one, but wasnt. we're looking at an industry of cowards folks. do the same thing a million times, make millions. its called jacking off. or otherwise known as rabid-consumerism fueled machines, soulless, and pointless, ritualized, and therefore rendered meaningless...

the WoW post

2009-06-03T00:26:00.000-04:00

so we're downloading WoW. wow eh? heh. so yeah its a game ive played two or maybe even three times before. first go around i played a hunter, dwarf, and that went well. also ran around a bit with a human warrior named thomas who ended up forming a guild, which was kinda neat. then came game time and i just didnt feel like recreating my chars as they'd been made on the beta server, fun as it was it was free and they were wiping our chars so... no thanks heh.

then numerous other times ive made odd characters and just havent lasted. never really could get myself to get higher than say level 10. why? because i'd done it all before and there was nothing new, and no incentive to keep playing. i'd hit a cap at 30 last go arond, soloing, and i didn't really want to put the time in only to get stuck at 36 yet again.

but we'll see, this go around i've got anita to keep me company, and the setup we had with EQ worked wonderfully, definately revitalized my experience with the game and we had alot of fun running around and fucking around with whatever we could come across and that's what these games are for at the end of the day. playing with people you know, in brand new ways. there's only marginal use in going and playing with strangers who won't even play with passion. that's got to be one of the most rediculous detractors. people who won't play the game its meant to be played. its the number one reason a game can get terribly boring. weed smoking break taking fuckers who slack so foten it kills groups and isnt fun whatosever. thats exactly whats happening to everquest more and more people just arent good enough to play their characters not because they arent smart enough but because they just dont try and its just embaressing the way these people play their characters its a continual lesson in why the cleveland cavaliers suck because the people just arent good and wont try and thats why everquest players are shit as well.

but since anitas downloader is going real slwo we're going to play everquest in the meanwhile. go figure.

level 60, and WoW. plus Warhammer

2009-06-02T05:02:00.000-04:00

so warhammer's been awesome. its an rts, but its actually good hah, which's something i thought impossible when i played heroes 5. but lets just say warhammer > heroes 5 in every way imaginable. the thing i liked most as i first got into it was how the units were exactly the same in model design as the MMO models i'd come across in that game.

anita and i've hit 60 in EQ. as we get higher the levels are slower so we're getting to swap around alot more in the zones. whereas earlier on we'd've made about 20 levels in a sitting, now its more lke 1.

i'll admit its definately gotten boring, although i can't fault our mercs for doing a bad job. they were more or less better than the geared equivolent player versions hah. and teh pay isnt bad, we manage to scrouge enough to stay afloat, and i even have money to spare to buy spells, armor, and contribute charity plat to anita ;p.

its also been fun having someone in the room. its a new thing, a novelty, something i honestly ahvent really had before and thats pretty nice to ahve because in the past the best you could hope for was a teamspeak thing and lets be hoenst most of the people who play MMOS and i mean really play them are creeps so youve got a bunch of creeps on an intercom and its not pretty hah. but yeah. thats kinda the deal there, i've got someone i'm playing with and stuff, and it's pretty awesome. i can yell over, and all that junk, im still used to typing to talk, but now im starting to get more used to actually talking things out. and anitas definately getting deep into the controls and gameplay so there's an increasingly less amount of things i need to worry about when i play with her. but yeah when i play im more or less kinda like servicing anita because of course ive played through almost all the zones we're doing. there was a single zone that i'd never done, and the new armor is making for a brand new experience. lets say for sure, as a new class, with a new merc option, and then the defiant armor, and also a new ruleset server, and a new person to play with, plus a new play setup, with all of this its definately fun to play through. EQ is a fun game and is worthwhile to undertake when the stars align in such a way.

then there's WoW. we've got it isntalling now on both pcs, and the trial cd's which cost 2 bucks @ best buy are giving us our keys to be able to play for a couple weeks. should be good, playing through with a person i know in the same room could be cool. but yeah, i played through this game in 03 or 04, back when it was being tested at first, and then later when it came out and both times it got boring. the second time i just couldnt get into it. perhaps nows the right time to play these types of games. but yeah if you dont know anyone then its just you and the game interface, and slaughtering things can become rather boring rather fast, its the fun and interaction that these games are known for, in their facilitation of, and the generation enjoyment you'll get that follows. but yeah. that's that. i'm not sure how i'll give this run of it, it's my third shot at the game, and i'm not really enthusiastic about a long term run with it hah.

firiona vie adventures in the fiftys

2009-05-27T14:34:00.000-04:00

so lately anita and i have been playing eq. its real nice having someone in the room w/ you while you play, honestly i've played it very differently with her. it's more like a console game i'd say, more like something i'd've played on the dreamcast or some such thing, not quite so much the obsessive do-it-all click-forever train-everything and obsess-over-every-ability style i'd been running it. refreshing, fun, and interesting. it's sort of validating all my own EQ experiences over the past 9 or so years in a whole new way. i guess you could say im truely experiencing the casual EQ now. well, i'd say it's more or less necessary to be playing with a friend if you're gonna do it this way.

Kirby back in the day played with Adam. now i've always had a weird thing about having super close relationships with dudes, it's no surprise then that Kirby down the road came out as gay, but since this was more or less my only go-to-guy for EQ stuff, i more or less kinda did my own thing, as i just didn't like the vibes i got from the guy in general. but yeah... so playing the game with anita is kinda like in a way what i've always really wanted but never really had, someone who genuinely likes the game & likes me and plays it with me whenever i play. in fact outside of one instance where i logged in a bit earlier than her to chani cast some spells to up some skills, she's been there every step of the way. and there's something valuable in that. there was a period where i began to reject the friendships & such i'd picked up over the net, i'd tapped into the sense that some of these were just plain wrong, or perhaps just felt so, desperate people desperately connecting with one another through this very foreign medium, and the resulting everquest social clubs were very strange.

but as ive played with anita, all that strangeness has gone, and in its place is just the love and fun you get whilst playing with someone you're in a relationship with. someone youre close to, whose close to you. there's just this relative disconnect whilst you play solitary, those you come across just dont seem to realy have that potency of friendship & fun that youre looking for. the excitement just isnt there as much as it could be. whilst voice chat was a way for EQ to modernize, and in some senses brought the anonymous closer together, it was a negative thing, just inhaling air into these toxic relationships that would never lead to anything and always leave the desperate seekers desperate.

perhaps you could say that because for me for many years i was home with my folks and i had not much to do, i was here for three years whilst i tried to put my life back together. and it was nice, i made progress, but the process was grueling and i'm still reeling from the damage today healing wounds spurred on from years of abusive and horrible situations, starting with a terribly-planned immigration thrice experienced, followed by years of isolation and failed assimilation in the schools and such of ohio and the like. made to feel an outcast on both ends, both by family and town, asked to do things i didn't want by both, this sense of being forced to fit in, i was neither sikh, fully, nor was i american, completely. but both sides seemed to want to tug on me and pull me in their own direction. i grew tired of being the battle ground for the hard-edged heavy-handed tactics of conversionary fanatics fools and conservatives and eventually walled myself up in my own thought and writing, busied myself with my own pc, and played my own games, made my own music, and essentially lived my own solitary life outside of the pressures of town and family.

eventually i cut my hair, maybe due to pressures in the town, maybe not, im not sure, but i certainly didnt want it long, yet my folks would force me to do so. cutting the hair in my eyes was soemthing i was more or less forbiden to do, and once i did i was so severely punished my family still has not recovered. in some ways perhaps they will never accept a son who will not live in their own way. but in another sense their own way was invented by inventive people who did by what they felt was right and not what their parents did. the first man to imagine the world as a globe. the invention of each of the major religions of present day as well as past. all from the minds of men. men who thought on their feet and did what they believed was right. it is in the vaccuum of freedom that people can move in any direction they wish. and anita has told me my writing makes her feel as if she is too free.

but the thing is ivenever been given a chance to properly express that freedom whichi feel inside. conservative parents, conservative town, both with conflicting root values, had me bombarded on two sides, both by town and family, to be something i wasn't, nor wished to be, and this was an assault on myself. i perhaps could term myself a veteran of constant bombardment, of wars long fought upon myself for myself. these people seemed to think i was a beast to be tamed, a man to be conscripted into the army of either white-christian-conservative values or brown-sikh-conservative values. these people both battling and vying for my own mind and life. both are crazy, terrible and horrible things to inflict upon a child. but such was my life that i felt that painful conservative pinch around my forehead as the putka tied tight reminded me of my freedom locked away by my folks. then upon that the wishing of those around to try and bring me into their own fold. its time people recognized that its wrong to indoctrinize children in religions far beyond their understanding, that its wrong to vie for peoples beliefs, to ask them to let go of their own and accept those of another. my parents are guilty of this coming to me repeatedly asking me to let go of my own beliefs and to accept their own. then the people around, who'd try and convince me of christianity's true good message. these things are all things that should not be done and cannot be helpful.

in ways i feel kinship to the native americans who were taken to schools and shorn of their hair something they held sacred and proud and instead made to wear strange clothes and even beaten for appearing "indian". although in a twist my own parents contniued this bombardment of myself by keeping me from being able to practice my own spiritual and societal beliefs on a daily basis, constantly accosting me and berating me, trying to get me to be like they are. im sorry, but my grey matter is not tied into theirs, and beyond vieled conservative attempts to goad children into feeling they really have no free will whatsoever, lies and controls that are heinious crimes against their own flesh and blood, there was nothing in front of my own eyes making me believe this was the right thing.

but this ties into EQ because this was the setting of my life as i began playing in 2000. at age 14, just a month or so after my birthday of that year, i'd created what would be my 9-year run character within the game. suddenly i had a place where i could interact with people without pressures of religion or other such things that were more or less injuries and battles fought upon my own mind wherever i'd walk - but they took me away from what was bad and gave me a safe place to enjoy myself and enjoy i did, i grew as a person in the way i wanted to, and achieved things in the way i wished, and i was happy. but then the same thing that brought joy also brought pain because it reminded me how little i had compared to those around me, how much they did, friends, family, jobs, activeities, hobbies. i had none, and the longer i played the more the curse ran. getting to know people very well has its downfalls, and this was such a thing. now i realized i was playing with people, people who were likely better off than i, and i just couldnt enjoy the game. no friends, and just trying hard to contact other EQ'ers just for their company & friendship, basically for the love & support all people need, in the way i wanted it, not from family members who'd attack me, not from townfolk who'd attack me, but from folks who held no such grudge or malintent, but unfortunately they were of course just playing the game for entertainments sake, and my attempts to reach out were of course in vain.

but now with anita by my side, its different, there's a real flesh and blood person beside me, who actually believes in & likes what i think, who actually gets how i don't want to be assaulted by all that surrounds me, family, townfolk, these are not good people, and im not one of them, never have been. i've always done what i felt was right, and none of this ever did feel that way. being english probably has something to do with it, also thinking alot about what the founder of our religion actually did. well, i never had to think much, one of the first things we learned about the creation of our own religion was that he sat down looked at hindu & muslim beliefs didn't like either of 'em got rid of all the bullshit and stuck with the shit that mattered. and that kinda left a major impression on me all throughout my childhood and well into my current young-adulthood.

mage journal #4

2009-05-22T14:02:00.000-04:00

im thinking i might stick with the cleric. for one thing the jobs simpler. with the mage youre nuking, getting your pet on crap, summoning crap, and all that, plus worrying about your cleric mana, and your pet heals, etc. with the cleric you have one main job... healing... it that simple. i like the healing job because i picked it up with the paladin over the years... but the heals we got with that class just weren't that great... i'm liking the power of the cleric heals and i like how widely used they are... it's nice knowing i can get a guild wherever whenever rather than with the paladin where every spot was picked over... on the SS raid i noticed how many tanks there are these days... way too many for a raid's needs and they just clog up the raid... far too many tanks just standing around while 2 or 3 play the role and the rest just sit back and watch... it's really unnecessary... big guilds like SR have no need for paladins... and it's a shame because i've got all this experience on the class that i know inside and out but really have no place to apply that knowledge... with the cleric at least i can let the healing knowledge and timing i accrued be something worthwhile to somebody... otherwise it's just a waste of my time to play a paladin these days... i'm planning on just letting the paladin account lapse and run either the cleric or some other core class... i've been a hybrid way too long and it's just not fun for me at all... i want to have the power at a role and be able to play it reliably...

mage journal #3

2009-05-22T11:16:00.001-04:00

so the pet died. heh. well basically the tank was too low dps, and then also the mob totally ran on my ass, getting friends, and totally creaming my pet. me and my merc barely made it out heh. well, time to build another pet and try again. this time air. suspended the pet to save the upkeep. its started charging me. 1 gold per tic. fuck those bandits i think. they seem to run and kinda spoil my fun heh with their antics. fungus mosters it'll be heh. well the air didn't work, too low dps. trying the water heh, meant to be the rogue of the pets. i keep forgetting how expensive invis is to cast. takes like 20m on the mage at 13 heh. the cleric merc also needs to be real close in range in order to be able to cast heals, else it just ignores everything heh. burnout's nice, hastes the pet, and then add in ds heh. the cleric merc handles heals so you just kinda watch for whether or not you need to blast the sucker with DD's or run or not. water seems good, takes hits well and actually does some damage. the only one really that works well here heh. as a solo mage that is. ;p. so it's working pretty well. the cleric heals as expected, the pet does enough damage to knock the mob down and takes hits pretty well, and i can toss in about 5 nukes a fight to keep things rolling at a non-stop pace for about 5 or 6 kills before needing a rest.

mage journal #2

2009-05-22T10:37:00.001-04:00

swapped the tank merc for a cleric merc. immediately it cured the pet. checked hotzones on alla, and the first one doesnt start 'til 20. looks like its back to whatever the fuck that place's called heh. with bandits and fungal shit. i'll know in a bit. back through nexus & shit, and all those older ass zones heh. i swapped to an earth pet so that the hits'd be taken better.

mage journal #1

2009-05-22T10:17:00.001-04:00

currently playing EQ, got a mage with a pet & a hired goon. so it's three versus whatever i'm up against. fairly powerful combo really. the only beef ive got right now is the whole deal w/ the spores you'll find in the super xp zone in luclin for 10 - 20. its like a ... 45 minute duration debuff that causes shit to regen real slow for the entire time its on. real pita. doesnt really fit the zone. esp if youre not a cleric-class, you can be screwed for a good long while without help.

raided with the cleric, and the downtime killed it

2009-05-21T06:08:00.000-04:00

now the fun was definately inherent, healing folks, watching bars, keeping a constant eye on the field of battle to eye possible tanks in need of a patch up. the real boredom came along when the entire raid would sit & wait for mobs, often doing nothing at all. that'd kill the momentum for sure. but then the guild i was raiding with was more of a casual-emphasis, which kinda means you don't play with them for the action. you will sit there and do nothing for large periods of time. it seems the higher end harder-core raid guilds might be my target play circle. a name that keeps coming to mind is club fu, a high end guild of folks i met @ the last fan faire, and who all seemed very interesting and the like. the SR folks i came across seemed gothy & depressed, but the Fu folks seemed more upbeat zany and generally fun. but the whole healing aspect is a welcome change after years of tanking. its helps you see immediately when there's more tanks than really are needed. we're talking 3 that actually tank, and another 5 or 6 that kinda sit there and watch, or may occasionally tank one or two. otherwise nah they don't tank much at all. the other thing facotring in is the general dps need of every guild. essentially, tanks are fun, BUT they don't stack. on the other hand, dps, not as much fun, in that the gear choices aren't as critical, neither is the "action" during the raid, but it does pay off in the sense that the simple design of DPS CAN stack, which means 10, 15, 20 of the same class does not hurt, instead helps. oftentimes you see requests for zerkers on raid guild recruit lists, that or wizards, rogues, and the like. so these things are all swirling around in my head as far as my future in EQ goes.

low levels can actually use the mercenaries

2009-05-20T18:04:00.000-04:00

my level 1 newbie was able to port to pok and grab a merc, but the best part is the cost: totally free. im so far level 10 and the cost has not changed. perhaps it will enver change, until i revisit the mercenary NPC and request a new one. but the basic merc thats available to you from the get go is free. also ive noticed over time the damage of the merc has increased as i've leveled. this's nice because it gives longer life to the free-merc. but yeah, i rolled a mage, thinking it'd be cool to add a warrior merc to it, for full on dps. the result is sick. nearly two pets, with nukes to spare, and im soloing things that i've never soloed before. i guess this was the intention, or rather, the expected outcome, as far as soloing goes, and i was thinking about that chardok faction thing, where someone sticks their pet on guard and just kills anything that roams up, and how the merc could do the same thing, only double it up. nice stuff, this.

the everquest cleric runs so much smoother than the paladin

2009-05-20T14:45:00.000-04:00

for yearsive run around norrath as a paladin. i started up in 2000, at age forteen. i picked out the class that seemed most neat to me, the paladin, essentially the knight. seemed cool at the time. and the dwarf was the race of choice. one i still am fond of, far more than the hobbit heh, that they've got. essentially that's what it is at any rate, they use the name halfling but we all know what sony meant by it heh. this as all these games are inspired by the tolkienesque dnd hybrid that makes up fantasy today. anyhow, so the clerics, they're fairly simple to run, versus the more clunky and painfully setback paladins. its a pain to be given half powerful spells and the like, and most of the roles on a raid do not go to a paladin. for the simple reason that a paladin just isnt good enough at any one thing. jack of all trades classes arent a great hit in eq. its the best, the cores, that get the classic status every raid. its the jack-of-all's that are allotted and slotted to the "random mystery factor" part of an event, be it kiting around adds, or the like. essentially, expendable folks who normally arent good for anything are great for the non conventional aspects of a raid. for everyone else teh focus is the main mob. dps, tanking, heals. the like. then the non main mob stuff, CC, kiting, all that. you can expect more than a couple mobs coming your way during a fight. if the warriors are all tied up in a chain on duty on the main mob, knights step up as a secondary tank for these. but basically, knights and other hybrids depend on if-based situations, and there is no standard normal hybrid role on any given raid. its more or less piecemeal left over from the parent classes. either due to shortage or simple complexity in design. where the knights lack in prowess of tank-ability they shine in self reliance, so you really can leave them to their own selves when having them off tank and the like, their patch heals allow you to throw them with a hybrid healer to give them about the same as one cleric. that's more or less what's up with the knights.

little oppertunity for a paladin in todays eq

2009-05-20T13:20:00.000-04:00

logging in i see no LFG, and on the guild tool, hardly any reputable guilds looking for my class. its like im being barred from the best. its not because of my persona, more my class. you see, im a paladin. tank class, not the best, as warriors out rank us on the raid mobs, then sk's outrank us on the aggro. we're the weak hybrid third choice. the weakest tank. our heals are nice but who needs paladin heals when you have CLERIC or some such other heals. we're just not needed. and to make matters worse the solo situation for paladins is abysmal. we need groups. if we cant get 'em, we're marooned in slow motion fights. a melee / caster can usually solo better. we're in fact one of the most reputed classes worthy of the title "worst solo class". low dps, we just have aa's to bolster tanking and heals, all passive & defensive crap, whichs's all good and well, but if you can't do enough damage to it before it kills you, you're not really in any shape to do much.

trying to figure out which server's best

2009-05-18T10:38:00.000-04:00

server population survey round 1

antoniusbayle.824am.227trader.13buyer.84lobby
bertoxxulous.839am.203trader.7buyer.83lobby
bristlebane.851am.211trader.9buyer.100+lobby
cazicthule.901am.193trader.7buyer.79lobby
drinal.911am.175traders.7buyers.54lobby
druzzilro.936am.208traders.8buyers.73lobby
erollisimarr.949am.204traders.5buyers.87lobby
fenninro.1000am.191traders.8buyers.81lobby
fironavie.1008am.219traders.5buyers.36lobby
luclin.1018am.211traders.3buyers.100+lobby
maelinstarpyre.1028am.152trade.8buyer.8lobby
povar.213pm.179trader.5buyer.100+lobby
prexus.225pm.154traders.3buyers.82lobby
quellious.234pm.169trader.10buyer.79lobby
saryrn.245pm.168trader.5buyer.64lobby
stromm.254pm.166trader.6buyer.100+lobby
thenameless.1256am.194trader.6buyer.60lobby
therathe.107am.205trader.4buyer.66lobby
the7thhammer.119am.178trader.6buyer.59lobby
thetribunal.131am.173trader.5buyer.51lobby
tunare.141am.183traders.5buyers.76lobby
xegony.204am.180traders.12buyers.35lobby
zek.220am.107trader.2buyer.20lobby

round 2

AB.236am.193trader.15buyer.42lobby
bertox.241am.205trader.5buyer.65lobby
bristlebane.246am.246trader.11buyer.90lobby
cazicthule.251am.198trader.9buyer.87lobby
drinal.256am.184trader.10buyer.39lobby
druzzilro.301am.213trader.10buyer.62lobby
erollisimarr.523am.243trader.4buyer.87lobby
fenninro.533am.208trader.9buyer.63lobby
fironavie.538am.234trader.9buyer.31lobby
luclin.547am.235trader.5buyer.71lobby
maelinstarpyre.552am.181trade.8buyer.59lobby
povar.557am.217trader.9buyer.64lobby
prexus.601am.191trader.4buyer.79lobby
quellious.610am.196trader.10buyer.60lobby
saryrn.616am.177trader.5buyer.57lobby
stromm.626am.238trader.7buyer.93lobby
thenameless.636am.220trader.6buyer.60lobby
therathe.1009am.213trader.3buyer.68lobby
the7thhammer.1011am.193trade.8buyer.54loby
thetribunal.1017am.183trader.7buyer.47lobby
tunare.1021am.194trader.7buyer.71lobby
xegony.1026am.180trader.13buyer.35lobby
zek.1030am.110trader.3buyer.13lobby

everquest 2 getting some significant play lately

2009-05-17T04:18:00.000-04:00

hopped on EQ2, got the ranger a new level. the guild seems to have died out, but i had fun playing through some new content with some strangers picked up off lfg. the real problem i have with EQ2 is the lack of people i know in the game, next to none. on the otherhand, my lack of player-wealth and ties to the current major player-related features on the server keeps things interesting.

picked up a few boxes of new games, but as of yet have not opened them. my sister is asking me to pick her up a genesis, so i may do that. i sighted one for about 20 bucks someplace.

hopped onto EQ, fired up the dind account and gave him a month sub, tagged him with rumble of distant thunder, the tag spahz and i cooked up, and then got out of there after touching base with a few old friends, juli, cin, rag, grae, dongin, and others. SR's as it usually is, already beaten the xpac, SS's still going strong, Cin's taken over with Juli having taken a few months away for amove, they're still also running their DKP system whichs cool. AV's in crystallos, working on getting the final encounter done before they move on to the current xpac. Grae runs SS raids with Playit and others helping out. VG still has an active savok, which keeps me miles away, along with marneth and neau, aka daer. euph apparently is still around, and still falling apart. their raid leader xferred and they're hemorraging members again. sounds like the same story from one or two years back. theyve been swallowing up lower tier guilds for years. but they never could hold it together i suppose. shame for them. but, they did steal a great number of players of the years. SR now largely exSS helps SS run MM on the weekends, otherwise they're hitting farm targets and the like. Spahz's already run through all the group content, decking out tef himself and benj. we were talking about running me & pierce through it all if i reactivate him. otherwise, yeah, lots of similar faces and all that. really surprised me in fact how little things have changed over there in EQ.

what pisses me off is the AV detag. ive seen them having ancient founding members return to say hi in guildchat, but i lapse and they detag me. no good really.

EQ & EQ2, plus new games

2009-05-14T07:27:00.000-04:00

anita bought Oblivion, and that was a big surprise and shock to see she actually liked it. it later came out she played dnd in highschool for a couple weeks, had a character and all that, actually got pretty in depth with it, and it was only a couple of years ago, so she's really into that sorta stuff. but yeah...

for some reason ive been moving towards EQ again, perhaps since its now OK to game again in my mind for the moment, and then after Heroes V and all the Wii, PS3 and Xbox360 hunting i came across an everquest 2 box in best buy. that had me running eq through my mind and i kept walking past that box at that store for a couple weeks and finally two nights ago i fired up what eq accounts i had still active. turns out afew lapsed, so i had to reac dind for a month to get him on. AV detagged him, he's still 82, with all the gear i left him with. it kinda leaves me with a number of options, whether to bother going through with the effort and time to reapp with AV, or to perhaps try and take advantage of the free agent status and try out something new. my old guild SS has come under new leadership, with old friends in my old entourage taking the reigns. really its all i'd worked for in that guild to come to pass, and its great to see the torch finally passed to a breed of player that has been slowly molding that guild for years. daer was power hungry, savok a drone, ters just not good for it, neither juli, and now cin's got it and its amazing. i remember recruiting her and its nice seeing her ascend up the power structure to the final apex of GL. i cant help but feel envious, that'd been the spot i'd wanted for years, but the guild just wasn't ready for it, the leaders just weren't, and they had their day. each in succession. i now look at it like different administrations, each leader with their own goals and leadership style, their own crusades and their own shortcomings, but the problem was the position was never elected always inherited. and i never had a taste for the boot licking necessary to get me in close enough to take over. it was after all daer's guild. we did later on keep him from returning which was a great satisfaction to me. but he passed it to sav, who has this godlike respect for the guy, and then there's daer 2.0 but the drama that ensued was beyond bearable. eventually he was out and the reigns then fell to terslagg, tellae aka, after we defiantly raided on the night ss was meant to "close shop". from there things took a crazed turn, and many of the old guard id known for years i pulled close to make a new coven to lead the gang. we'd had phone conferences, discussions of all sorts, but as one thing after another fell in place, things went rather well. there were disgusting parts to the job, the emotions ran the gamut, and those that just didnt have the strength for it, like me, left. those that were left had the abaility and will to do the job right, and for awhile things were kept driving forward. however juli finally and very recently ultimately had a lengthy time away, and the position was passed on to cin, the paladin i recruited years ago, and even more years before that, who i'd first come across in PoP, whilst in SS, admiring the gear and max aa, she was form back then, a monk i'd met shared the same tag, spahz, who i'd also play with alot down the line.

but yeah. lets just say im thinking of returning, and i'm looking around, and ss seems pretty good looking. AV, well, i just dont feel close enough to those guys. SR has the polish that of course has me looking close, VG has savok, a guy i despised and worked for, for a couple months, and Euph is falling apart and full of those completely incompetant types you love to avoid. however AV is definately a solid bunch, stable, older, and skilled. and there are those amongst them that really do seem worthwhile to talk to. but its no ss, there's no feeling like there once was. the feeling youg et when you build something, or help, and see the rewards. thats the thing about ss, there's always a chance to greatly influence the outcome, the people are always greatful, and yeah you can make a huge difference. a cleric for instance, can tilt things in their favor. we'll see though.

used games

2009-05-04T13:33:00.001-04:00

lately ive been visiting used game stores. places where i can buy all sorts of things, sold, and then bought again. these used games are a great litmus of the state of the purchasing public today. whatever goods they may have are truely reflective of the bazaar style everyman's selection. its a nice thing these stores, for they expose me, and anyone else, to whats really out there. indeed you get more of a sense of how many copies of certain games there are floating around, and things like that, plus other things. you'll walk in and see people with their families. more of a shakespearian scene then what you'd find out in the corporate HQ of best buy. i can almost say i'd rather buy entirely second hand here on. just because of the romaticism surrounding it. its kindof like the everquest bazaar where you could buy a great many things for varying prices given a bargain and - yes even a motivation to go out and make a bargain on your own time doing your time with a hard days work to make your money and buy your goods. the gratification of owning something bought with your own hard earned coins is something indescribable.

my WoW review

2009-05-03T00:23:00.000-04:00

so yeah, it's been awhile since i've played. i haven't really done my obligatory review on this game. hardcore rediculous and cartoonish, boorishly boring and forcefully repetative. this game was fun the FIRST time around, but then i stopped, at and around about level twenty or so. i returned years later, as everquest grew more boring and repetative. quite tiresome and really i'd mined into what i'd seen. anyway, here's what i came across when i did pick up my box, the second time around. there was a new expansion, and elves, as well as some sort of heavy moose style deal. anyway, the elves were my pick, they looked the sleekest, and i tried various classes. here's my problem, they were all basically the same. and the method of point and click fighting was absolutely rediculous. boring and mundane. then there's the whole spell deal. they'd do spells and stuff. all more or less cut and paste, either damange the fuck out of something damage it slow over time, or some other such configuration. i was very familiar with all these types from years of everquest, i'd grown tired of the system, having played the game for nearly eight years. so within world of warcraft, these things were agonizing. the problem is the reliance most current MMO's place on everquest's pioneering system of delivery on the abilities and honestly, it's just putrid. i'd expect a little more than what i'd find typically. and i was disappointed. AoC. WoW. LoTR. all terrible. even EQ2. EQ was the game that "had it" for me. the rest, they're just cheap imitators that don't quite take the cheese. and the immense leveling process, to get involved with the end game, which is really where these sorts of games take the cake, is so time consuming that it just isn't worth the effort.

heroes 5: expansions

2009-05-01T23:48:00.000-04:00

so, i've been at this game the last couple nights. picked up the dig download of the first expac, then ran into the second copy at best buy, which priced as the online one, came with the original and first xpac, so i snapped it up quick. been playing around, and i really love this game. turn based is something i'd not really done much with before, and it's certainly got it's perks. unlike MMOrpg's, you're left with endless time should you want it. each and every turn can be taken at your own pace, there's noone rushing you, the computer waits for every move and then makes their own. back to you again, and again you can sit there and come up with your perfect move. it's like chess in that sense. chess... with orcs. not to mention the multiple facets to it. while chess deals with a black and white board, one dimensional, this game deals with city management, as well as troop movement, and then army strength, as well as battle management, which i've chosen to forgo 'til this point. but should you choose, you can control your each and every unit. when i say that, you're dealing with stacks of units instead.

heroes 5

2009-04-29T08:45:00.000-04:00

so checked out this game a cuople days ago. been at it every day since. bought the expansion as well alst night. was glad to see ubisoft has a digital download service like EQ's. you can purchase the xpac online and download it, then use the key given upon payment to unlock the software, and then play it as usual without strings attached. i also like the lack of cd's required to play the game once its installed upon the pc this way.

the game itself is kinda neat. they call it turn-based strategy role playing game. it's not an RTS, or real-time strategy, because it allows you to take your time, make your decisions, and not a single enemy unit will move whilst you're mulling it over. you start with a kingdom, and i'm still working out the strategies, don't quite have the winner yet. but essentially its a game of resources, of military management and city development. the real interest comes when you've managed to conquer a neighbor and then the defending of your ground while you try to further extend your influence over the world.

still mulling the consoles over

2009-04-26T06:58:00.000-04:00

so the 360, wii, and playstation all appear remarkably similar to me, in the store. lately i've been rolling around town withmy girlfriend anita and together she and i've seen quite a fwe used and new wii's xbox's and playstations as well as some of the older systems, such as a 64 and the like.

but yeah. im thinking about how like they're all so similar. well i read lately about the 360. thought i'd get a little more info on the system that basically is version two of the last system i had, teh original xbox, which i definately enjoyed alot and the games were great and all that. now that xbox sits in a box with no cords or controllers and relatively useless really. so i rad through the wikipedia and hardcore there's lots of problems with the system we're talkings cratches of all sorts on the cd's as you put them into the drives as well ashardware failures where reportedly things slip out of palce as the casing expands due to heat and then these are more or less unfixable beyond such a thing as returning the entire box and getting yourself a new one. now some of these are covered by three year warranty but it'll be interesting to see just how expensive these systems are. ive noticed lookinga thte xbox timeline that there've been usually two or three major xbox varieties out there. sometimes there'll be an overlap as the phase one out to be replaced by another, but more or less that's how it is. the prices surprise me, seeing an xbox priced at over five hundred is amazing, but then thinking back to half price i was staring down an xbox priced at 125 which is a great deal i'd think at least.

so that's what i've see so far at any rate, and there's also a neat offer on the website for the xbxo 360 elite where they'll throw in fable 2 and halo 3 for free within the 400 dollar pricetag. but i wonder, i coul dprobably by the 125'er for myself along with 20 dollar versions of both those used games and then i'd have myself that system for more or less half the price. and i've also read the entry elvel system can use hardrives externally, so that'd be an interesting thing. but yeah more or less this's what we're lookin at. a used xbox, entry level, with a couple games, unsure of how many controllers they'll sell the box to me with but there's a few. another interesting thing to note is how they have a 64 right and a sega cd and the sega cd is actually more expensive than the 64 if you can believe it.

gamewise, let snot get into it there's far too many to choose from and there's way too much exclusivety right now for these games, the games should be available for all brands and the like but as it is rightnow the industry is young enough where the box makers ship the games as well. microsoft is a great example but in a way what they're doing is great because they have the clout and bloated size to be able to more or less manufacture a never before existing industry paving the way for a hungry audience of gamers and room for newcomers on the stage to try and feed the mounths of the hungry with something new and interestnig. one thing i do appreciate is the noticable difference of philosophy among playstation and microsoft, nintendo doesn't really seem to enter into it kinda doing its own thing, more or less trying to stick with those imagined folks and things whilst the xbox and playstation are aimed more at the hardcore gaming crowd. one things for sure between the 360 and the nintendo wii they are both pushing the industry outwards which is good for the future getting kids involved in the industry now and getting more and more newcomers whilst still maintaining the original core of players who had stuck through the 80s and beyond.

wii

2009-04-13T15:55:00.001-04:00

three years ago the nintendo wii came out, promoising a new age of gaming with revolutionary controls and compatible games that made great use of them. and i never bought into it. in fact three years ago i was recording the studio album i never released with my friend vivek mahajan. i recieved word mahajan had passed away early in 06, and with my band in shambles, i retreated to my parents home in ohio. for the rest of 2006 i was in my parents home mourning and reflecting.

but the year is now 2009. i find myself again in my parents home, only this time im with anita, my girlfriend. she and i are together clearing out the basement where i have taken over and turned into a makeshift apartment.

but we've been talking about wii's. anita wanted one. she'd played one before. i'd never touched a thing. the last system i picked up was an xbox. they've since then aged a generation and sell the 360. likewise playstation and nintendo have all moved on. i used to own a dreamcast. before that, a 64. before that, an atari 2600 and before that, a genesis and a megadrive, the uk counterpart. those were my first systems, and i think i remember going to the store to by my first game system. the store was kinda neat, and gaming was much fresher then. something more interesting than it is now. at least i remember being much more excited about going to the store to buy something new. i didnt quite know what it was. then when i had it at home i spend hours playing through sonic and the like. i enjoyed that system alot. and then i moved. i bought the american counterpart. but i think i didn't really play it much. i came across an atari at a garage sale. i walked away with it. i had maybe three games. an older, more primitive system, but something to bide my time while i sat around in dank skokie illinois basements living with my aunts. a boring, strict, time in my life where i was held to all sorts of insanity at the whim of my mother's sisters. my father nowhere to be found, in england, so i was told. disappeared for a year or two before returning. it wasn't pleasant for me. it was in fact very hard. and there are many things regarding those times i have never moved passed.

but enough about sob stories, after chicago, and a return to england, i moved to ohio, where i purchased my first nintendo system. the 64 was it, with bond and a whole slough of other games, promised to be even better than the sega. i mean the sega held my attention fully, and the 64 just as much, only they really did manage to take it to the next level. and then came sega's next system, the dreamcast, which i picked up happily, nostalgic for my old genesis & megadrive, and it didn't disappoint me either, with games like shemnue, the nba series, powerstone, soul calibur, and the like. sega spawned many creative titles in my opinion, and i was among those that felt it a shame when sega did finally stop making consoles altogether.

then came my college years, and an xbox purchase, initially intended for my sister, but given to me. either way, i hadn't intended to buy a system, but ended up with one, and enjoyed it. halo and the like, there were indeed a fair share of games that held my attention, and i definately enjoyed it. but there it ended for me. so i thought. i was getting more into music, and i was also playing copious amounts of everquest, hours every day. the last time i checked my character on that game had over 300 DAYS logged. i know that alot of that was afk - idle time, alot of my time on that game was spent more or less chat rooming. but i did log in a good amount of time into that game. it was such a great game in my opinion. to be able to play in a world that is populated by other real players. the real pitfall of everquest in my eyes was the increasing triviality of the game to veterans, and the way the challenges presented were in no way sufficient to really hold an old player like mine's attention. players like me became consumed with overturning every rock and pebble, and trying to topple game mechanics to force the impossible. certain events were coded for 70, but a few of us were intent on trying them with six. the neat thing was there was always something new to push the envelope on. that to me was the real after party for everquest, the constant new challenges that'll remain for older players as content ages and new challenges open up, the ability to do what was once hard with very few. in a way as an expansion opened up, you would also gain new abilities that would affect the old environments in new ways. or perhaps your combined strength could simply overwhelm the strength of formerly undefeatable foes. this is one of the greatest parts of the game in my eyes.

but even everquest grew old, as the player base fell, quality players dwindled, and the average player wuold eschew more explicatives than arrow movements, and in the end the chatter became so banal and grinding that it was intolerable. i visited one of the fan faires, and honestly, looking into the eyes of those that complained, it shocked me, disenfranchised me, to realize that these were those willing to come and speak, to show their faces on behalf of the game they played. i understand there is no need for real social graces given a text based game, but please, some of the concerns voiced in my presence were not only laughable, but just plain embaressing. after that, i just couldn't look at the game the same way, the designers, the players, all tainted with this horrible feeling of mediocrity and whine. the whining hoards of everquest, somehting i never quite udnerstood until seeing it in person. and exactly what drove me away in the end.

i looked to other things. like darkon, the ... dinner with a joust at medieval times, the renaissance fair in ohio, even the history of DnD, a precursor to the Everquest world, and back to tolkien then, as a precursor to DnD, and the icelandic folklore which i had access to through my familiarity with the Icelandic band Sigur Ros whose songs are largely about Icelandic tales of elves and dwarves and perhaps can even be used to describe that fantastical realm of otherworldliness. numerous Lord of the Rings watchings, Star Wars refreshers, and even The Hobbit an animated 70's feature with some lovely songs sung by a popular folk singer of the time. but of course none of it brought back quite the thrill of everquest, a game that had as much in common with wargaming as it had with folklore and fantasy. in fact at its heart thats what everquest was, a matter of figures and circumstances for you to navigate through. given the graphics i was given enough to suck me into the fantasy of it, enough so that i was persuaded to actually apply myself at it's strategic core, to play the numbers game because the storyline was so compelling, and so then was i given a crash course in roleplaying, strategic gaming, fantasy, as well as networking, people skills, and all the rest. it was amazing, and i rose from the ranks of clueless child to teenage and 20's leader of player organizations. and it was a glorious ascention, especially against the backdrop of my empty and shattered life. exactly what i needed to take me away from my sorrows, to give me a world where i could feel joy again, and the like.

anyhow, the wii, i stopped by at best buy, it seemed alright. fairly fast paced and the like. and i may indeed pick one up. but one things for sure, it won't be an eq.

fucking rediculous

2009-04-08T21:19:00.001-04:00

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/967/967360p1.html

read that.

basically, this chick tries to compare the gamaing industry to film, music, and the like. what the fuck is wrong with you you crazy ass bitch hah. a film and a game are not fucking comparable hah. they are fucking passive activities, whereas a game is more of a sport. compare gaming with soccer and the like, and fucking film with youtube and fucking music with bittorrent. those are apt comparisons.

and then fucking calling game developers immature, is fucking pathetic. thats just a fucking base attack designed only to cause trouble and not make any real contributions at all. simple trying to nibble at the devs to piss them off. thats all really.

its kinda fucking crazy to think this chick got a panel seat at a rant section at a game conference. sure the industry could use some work but criticizing people for not having deep things like emotional vulnerability and shit evident in gaming is fucking rediculous. do you ask for the same on a soccer field or maybe in the baseball pitchers mound. perhaps you should ask for that in the hockey rink, or on the golf course. wait, no, because those are designed to test your skill at a task, and not your emotional capacity and the like. skill tests of your quickness, teamwork, and reaction time, your knowledge and ability to adapt to various changing circumstances.

you cant compare a rpg to a film. you sit in a seat, maybe have your popcorn, have your soda, maybe your girl, sit back, and watch images and hear sounds in your ears. there's sounds coming through the speakers, and there's pictures on the screen. here's a thing, they had fucking stages for a hell of a lot longer than they've had the silver screen. the point is the art you see in film today is more due to the depth and age of the art of theatre than the rapid maturation of the television as a medium. and with music, rock and roll being compared to the game system medium, again is rediculous. you can't really do anything of that sort because rock and roll isnt really necessarily a quantifyable thing, its a sub section of american music, which is a sub section of music, and thats much more of an ancient thing. music has been around for probably as long as man has walked upright. so again, another terrible comparison.

gaming on the medium we have today has only existed as long as the technology has allowed. before that, people could not use "controllers" to manipulate images on the "screen". before this, people had to play with such things as ping pong tables, foozball, air hockey, basketball, baseball, soccer, football, golf, swimming, and the like. various things that applies the man or woman to various circumstances with various additional rules to give the participants a challenge and an objective. they would be challenged by the experience to complete the objective. and then they would compare themselves amongst one another to find the very best of those who competed. those people would be called champions and given much fanfare. sports have lived for a very long time. the thing is the concept of a game is a very new one. whilst dungeons and dragons has existed for awhile, this depended largely on the imagination of the player and was deeply flawed as a complete bleedover to a computer seeing as how the computer is capable of fleshing out much of the details removing the need for the player to rely on their own imagination much like a musician with a metronome removing their need to worry about the beat and they're left with the fun of the controlling of their character in it's environment. or whatever other arrangement the designers have decided to place those images on the screen.

the bottom line is its a new medium and few people have fully figured out how to most make off with whats possible regarding it. another thing is while films are viewed in public halls, and rock was listened to in large arenas, games are played in the home, requiring much investment before they are indeed something someone can partake in. you didnt have to buy a camera to enjoy a film, nor a drumset to enjoy a rock show, but you need to buy a computer to enjoy a game, and this limits games audience. games arent as far reaching as these other mediums and because of it wont get the shot in the ass needed to progress quickly through various permutations and arrive at the end evolved and mature.

gaming, race

2009-02-18T06:01:00.000-05:00

alright, so what do you think about girl gamers?

whats wrong with 'em?

you think something wrong with 'em?

no i'm asking you like why... what do you mean.

well i guess firstly, do you believe there's any real difference between girl gamers and guy gamers.

no.

what about all of the uh stuff that people have all seen with like, online games, that they'll treat women gamers differently.

mmhmm. like other gamers try to treat the women like they're weak. and so they're like easy on them. unless you find like the right kinda crowd. or you just uh, pretend you're not a girl.

well i mean, not all girls really get into the games as much as guys. most times a girl playing is like not nearly as good. and thats because girls usually dont put as much time into games as guys do. girls usually are maybe curious but they usually dont like become masters at a game. and there's way fewer women than men in games.

mmhmm.

i mean do you agree that there's a difference in popultion?

yeah definately, cause when i played i was like the only girl out of - like an entire room full of people. cause there was one thing that we had afterschool, we had this entire room full of computers, and just playing games, like against each other. it was like three different rooms, so like probably a 100 and 150 people playing games and i was the only girl. so yeah there is heh a difference.

wait you played with 150 people?

mmhmm.

yeah but what was this with?

um. i know it was an online game. world of warcraft maybe?

no but you had 150 people that you knew

yeah.

all in like the same building

mmhmm.

how the hell did you know so many gamers.

because it was a gaming club.

was it with a school or was it outside of the school.

with the school. me and these other 2 kids put it together. because we were like hey we should make a gaming club. so we started after school, and it started off as a roleplaying club. and then we were just like computer games are better.

but how did you get from 2 people to 150.

alot of people just got involved. like uh, most of the animators kids and some people from like history class just i mean we spread the news we're like hey this is game club join if you want this is an online battle, and alot of people were like hey that sounds cool.

so i guess you could say its because you went to a school

well the school that i went to was fucking huge, there's over 2500 people in that school. so 150 people wasnt that much for that school at least. but yeah it was alot.

and then, how the hell did you get everyone to play world of warcraft, you need everyone to have accounts.

we would have 'em to go buy out the game. like that was the number one rule, if you wanted to join the club you had to have the game. it took a couple of months just for everyone to get started, but like alot of people - in the beginning it was 1 room, 1 room with 8 computers being used.

you realize you could have charged member fees and done trips and stuff. did you guys ever have like people do the tournaments.

yeah

so how the hell did you play world of warcraft together. because world of warcraft is not really a pvp game. yeah you could kill each other but there was no point to it. now if you were taklin about halo or tribes 2, tribes 2'd probably be best because you could fit all 150 people into one game. and where the hell did you get all the computers.

the school. they had to have so many computers. they had alot of computer classes. there's probably 8 rooms of computers.

and the teachers didn't mind that you were using so many computers?

nope, it was an after school thing. we had to have one teacher there so we picked the animator teacher since he was the coolest teacher there.

and you still havent explained what the hell you did on world of warcraft.

we just fought each other.

but there's no point doing that in that game.

alot of people seemed to have thought so.

they thought it was dumb?

no they liked it. i just thought it was cool that me and 2 other people started a club that got so big. i kinda liked the role playing game more though.

well dude, world of warcraft is not meant to be played with that many people. its way better to like get people together for like another game. so you said you worked up to 150 people. and you said that at first it was 3 people. i guess my next two questions are how long was the club together and how many times did you have 150 people.

the club was together for like the entire school year. cause it started in i think the end of september. and then by the beginning of december we had like, alot of people doing the roleplaying game thing. and then in january we decided to start the - the animation.. er not the animation the computer game. and alot ofpeople seemed to have liked the idea and, by like, i think mid march, we had like anyone who wanted to play, like they all bought the games and played. and like, we would be at school until it was dark out. and uh, most of the poeple would leave early. because they just, i guess had better things to do. and uh, it lasted throughout the summer. cause the teacher was off work. he was weird like that.

so he would just sit and watch?

no he would play too.

weird.

i know. thats why we chose him to be the teacher.

what was the club called.

just game club.

and were you like the president or something. or whatever you would call it.

um, yeah, i guess.

was it you and your two friends.

yeah.

and the whole time even in that summer, the same friends were in charge of it.

i quit it, heh. i left in like, may. right before the end of teh school year. and i just left it to those two. and they continued through the summer. which i guess is cool cause i mean, most of the uh, clubs that go through the summer are like sports clubs. and this was just a game club. now the school has so many fuckin rules, like they cant even - they dont have game club anymore, its gone.

why?

cause its not somethign someone can learn.

so why does that matter?

i dunno, it's .. it's.. it's... school policy or something. they want things that'll improve the intelligence of the students.

in my opinion gaming definately does.

yeah in their opinion it doesn't.

well i think you should stand up to them or someone should do something. either way it sounded like it was cool.

yeah

so back to the questions. so lemme tell you bout this story. resident evil 5. youre a white guy. in africa. killing black zombies. is this racist?

no.

why do you say no.

'cause it's a fucking game.

now, if you were black, would you feel offended.

no, heh.

you don't think that maybe you'd feel like these people were symbolically using blacks in africa as like, things to represent blacks in america.

its a game, its like africa was diseased with something they became zombies, so they're sending over other people from other countries to go and clean out the country. to make it like a safe place i guess to live. i dont find that racist at all.

even though they're all black.

well it is africa. but its not like all people in africa are black.

most are.

yeah most are but not all.

yeah but i mean, how many games out there strives to represent every fucking minority in a game. do you have stormtroopers that're pink? or blue? no. because they're basically they're to represent something, the enemy. they're supposed to all look the same. because they're supposed to not have any intelligence. they're supposed to just be mindless monsters. so do you think thats racist.

no

what would you say to a black friend if they thought that was racist, like that dude on the IM from yseterday.

he doesnt think anything is racist. but like if i had a friend who was just like man thats so racist i would uh tell them theyre full of shit. cause thats just how black people see everything like everything that they think of like if there's something black getting beaten up they think its racist. like if there's an asian beating up a black dude thats racist. but like if there's a black dude beating up a white dude thats not racist, its revenge. its fucking stupid.

so, can you imagine why someone might think its racist. like i know you dont but if you were gonna guess why like invitably someone will think its racist, and i wouldnt say that if i hadnt read that post, and i saw so many people say that they thought it was racist. it seems like the majority of people think that its racist. and that was surprising to me. because i wouldnt have thought it was racist. and i wouldn't have expected the average person to think it was racist either. i mean what do you think about how most people thought it was racist.

i think its more like they make it seem that way. i think its that their parents tell them everything thats been done to them thats been racist. so they tell their kids about their times and their kids basically take it out on people. they find every little reason to make a little comment about how someones racist. and they expect everyone to sympathize about them. i mean they have a black president now so i dont see why they're complaining really. i mean its a good president, i was going to vote for him but i got lazy. but like, i just think racism is fucking rediculous because its just - but then the more you think about it it wasnt too long that there weren't slaves and they didnt have all their rights and they kindof have all their rights now. i dunno, im just gonna shut up.

i think you said alot of good stuff. i think that things arent equal. i just saw this guy on tv who made a documentary. its supposed to be about the crips and bloods. two black gangs in south LA, who've been killing each other for over 50 years, which is longer than world war 2, is the comparison that guy made, which i thought was pretty cool. comparing ww2 to like gang warfare. and like all the stories about beatings, all the stories about firings, about being pulled over, about being seen as a criminal, these sorts of things. that their parents live in poorer areas, and they can go back in history and see that that was because of government decisions, and that there was a time that blacks were not allwoed, and that time wasnt too long ago, and so it could be like their grandfather. my dads in his 60s and he wuold have to be in his 70s to have grown up in the 40s. so that generation is still alive. and if they didnt earn enough money, they couldnt send their kids to school. so people in their 70s probably had kids when they were in their 20s or 30s. and then when those guys were in their 40s and 50s they probably started having grandchildren. and maybe their 70s and 80s they might start having grand children. but, what that means is, there's no black families out there with a rich grandfather. there are a few but they are rare. so alot of these kids are growing up in poor households. their grandparents probably didnt make much money, their parents probably didnt make much more money, because you see they need money to get a degree, and then those kids cant probably afford to go to school. because like within their own family, like you said, they had people who had racist stuff done to them. and thats something that bothers them.

well its their family and friends i guess too.

yeah its like this inescapable reality that they because theyre black, or more accurately because their grand parents and great grand parents were black, that their family was deprived of wealth. and that if youre a conservative dude or chick that kinda does what the family does, you will also not make much money. only now its not because you cant do it, its because you wont do it. but the reason you dont do it is because your grandparents couldnt. and that feeling they had of helplessness got passed down. now like i said not everybody chooses to stick with their family. but for the vast majority of people who stick with their family, they will be affected by unequal rights. what do you think about that.

that pretty much explains everything. so i think that because of their grandparents and maybe even their great grandparents, like those people were slaves of the white people and when family members see that their family was the slave of a white person the nit just sickens them i guess. because if my grandparents were slaves of black people i dunno. i mean thats just - i guess i just cant see that happening because its just - but if i were black and my grnadparents were slaves of white people i would probably just not want to be around many white people. and then just knowing that they got the kkk up in toledo. thats really big, i think thats one of the biggest cities - and that its still around is rediculous. in a black persons eyes knowing organizations against other races that are neary and widespread makes it terrible. i think either skinheads or neonazi are like racist too. like they're all about like, the rebels side, and that's just, it's a redneck thing i guess. i don't know. because i know that in my family on my dads side, everybody on that side cannot stand black people - i bring black people to them all the time and go they're just like you they just have a different skin color. they dont care theyre just so rude to them. i mean my cousin and aunt dont mind them. but everyone else is out in the country and redneck hillbilly blah blah and they're like im white and they're just into the white power thing, and then my moms side which i dont like at all, but my grandfathers grandfather was a leader of the kkk thing. so like when my aunt which is his daughter went in and had a kid with a black guy he disowned her for four years. that kid my cousin was growing up without a grandfather and my aunt had a kid without her dad seeing that kid for four years. because she was disowned. but then he just got his stuff back together and he just kinda came through with the whole situation and now he's not racist at all he hates racism he can't stand it he gets so mad when other people get racist towards other people, seeing that he came from that kinda background and turned it around. my grandfathers grandfather had probably had been bossing around black families grandparents telling them what to do which is just - its kinda sick that im coming from that kindof background, i mean its far away from what i am now. but its still sick.

well i'd say that it's interesting that the KKK leader's kids, and offspring, just a few generations later, would look back and say, that's horrible. i'd say the fact you exist is a sign of progress. when the people who brought destruction fathered children who brought peace. it shows you that everybody thinks for themselves, and its more to do with the climate of the time, than the evilness of the individual, because if somebody believed your relatives were evil, they could tell themselves you have the same evil blood, like people treat the jews, they consider them killers of jesus, only if they even did have relatives that did, they lived over 2000 years ago. your jesus killing great great grandfather i guess, only about a hundred or two hundred years ago. do you know when he was live.

i have no idea.

was it like 100 yrs ago or more

i think it was more, because my great grandmother died when she was 80 something, so im pretty sure it was more.

oh so your great grandmother was the wife of the great grandfather who was teh kkk guy?

no.

she was. she was on my grandmothers side. i never, she was the only great grandmother that i ever met. the rest of them died before i ever got to see them, or at least, to remember them. there was another one that i saw, that was two or three. and she was my grandfathers mother.

but, whats your guess regarding the kkk guy.

like over a hundred years. because he was my great great grandfather, not my great grandfather.

if he was your grandfather's grandfather, he would be your great great grandfathers.

im related to thomas jefferson too. that lightbulb dude?

thomas jefferson is a president. thomas edison is the lightbulb dude. have you ever done like a family tree thing

um, my brother's working on one right now, and my uncles done one. im actually related to one of the presidents. mckinley.

and apparently also a kkk boss. thats kindof interesting. you should write a song about him. i mean he's your relative. his blood is in your veins. doesn't that kinda make it personal.

but i've got light bulb dude blood

yeah you could write about him too. but lets go back to gaming. here's a new one, do you think game designers need to be conscious about race?

um, no. not at all. i think that they should have free reign in what they do, i mean its their fucking game.

do you feel like government should make laws against so called racist games?

no, i think thats so fucking stupid. like why would you... make a law or even support a law that destroys gamers creativety. its so fucking stupid. its rediculous. i mean thats like saying hey you cant paint this picture because it has tits on it, thats stupid too. i mean in a way its kindof the same fucking thing.

and you kinda make it sound a bit puritanical too. do you think storeowners should be able to boycott racist games?

no. i mean. thats their choice. thats taking away more business for them. but i thikn thats stupid to boycott a game. its just a game. i mean if anything it'll just bring down their business. and probably encourage more people not to play so called racist games. it'll encourage mroe people to consider them so called racist games. and i think thats wrong if they want racism to go away. thats not helping. boycotting games that people consider racist. becaues its like saying that uh, these games are not gonna be sold here because they're racist. so it'll make other people believe that those games are racist. and it just shows them that racism is still around and even in video games. it just takes away the thought of the game. if they buy the game they think oh my gosh this game was bought at my favorite store im playing this game i must be racist.

so you dont want people to feel like theyre being guilty

i dont want people to feel like their racist for playing a game.

what do you think the people who feel like the games are racist should do?

i think they should just realize that its just a fucking game and not worry about it so much. i think that if they like the game they should play it and not think of it as a racist game, they should think of it as a battle.

what do you think game developers should do in wake of these allegations of racism?

i wouldnt fucking care. i would just be fuck off im not fucking racist its just a game. fuck the fuck off and play the stupid game. well then i would put a little logo that says this is not a racist game. then i would take it to the media. and i would be like i think its wrong that its being encouraged to boycott these games called racist when its not, its a game its imagination. its like, cats and dogs.

what about the fact that these are just a few haters, who dont like whats going on. is it ever really advisable to listen to the critics, at least when youre the artist. i'd say probably not. maybe that game isnt meant to be consumed but when it was created you put alot of work into it. and i thikn thats the thing. people cant design games and be concerned with societies reaction, otherwise they'll be homogenous and politically correct. and that would be boring. which wouldnt be entertaining. and the gaming industry wouldnt be the fastest growing industry in the world. its because it isnt always politically correct. because it isnt always fitting into expectation. if they dont keep you guessing, if they become predictable, they wont do great. these people want to control the creative direction that games take, and that designers direct towards.

there's quite a few eq2sday podcasts waiting to be listened to

2009-02-12T13:37:00.000-05:00

looks like there's a ton of eq2sday episodes waiting to be listened to. im definately looking forward to sitting down and listening through them all. eq2sday is a great show and i really like what they do. when i went to fan faire this past year i had the good fortune of meeting dellmon himself i even got the chance to pay him a few compliments and get a photograph as evidence! it was very cool, but not only that there was a podcasting panel which he and a few others sat at and they discussed podcasting which to me seemed undeniably cool - i mean i think id love to podcast and all that but i dont know how but ive kinda pieced it together from what ive been told through eq2sday itself or design and conquer and the others. theyre part of the online gaming radio network and used to be hosted by other people. over time those peopple either retired from the podcast or just changed games in which case i could imagine why they'd lose interest in keeping themselves well informed about the game. thats the thing about it though isnt it. anyway peace and perhaps ill see you all soon.

ashen vendetta's facebook group

2009-01-09T12:42:00.000-05:00

havent gamed in awhile but i've kept up with a few av-ers through the facebook group. i was surprised to see there were nearly thirty members of the boards and really it was pretty aamzing. just another sign that connections made through games are often stronger than youd probably expect.

logged into EQ

2008-12-21T20:28:00.000-05:00

logged into EQ, caught spahz on. turns out he's been back doing AAxp in the hotzones, AE pulling and getting masses of xp each pull. I've not raided in awhile, kept busy IRL with relationship and music, but I'm still curious about everyone. I picked up a number offa Rag and Spahz and found out Spahz's out in... wherever teh city is that has all the ... Scandinavians... Minnesota don't recall which city but he's offered to buy me a drink if i drive out there. Rag's out in Colorado, in a college town outside of Denver. I want to drive down there and pick up some Tshirts off the guy. we'll see how it goes.

EQ2'sday

2008-12-03T20:30:00.000-05:00

took em long enough! but there's new episodes of EQ2sday up for download. i think delmon just uploads em the month after, and if thats the case, there may be one missing!? the most recent one ;p slackery i say! slackery! sheer slackery! but im happy ive got episodes to look forward to listening to. I usually only play eq2 or rather, usually only ENJOY playing eq2 when ive got dellmon on hah. so maybe ill hop on eq2 a bit grind my ranger and listen to dellmon and zanadi ;p. but yeah i lvoe that podcast. i told ya i met dellmon right? at the soe fan faire i even got a photograph =). was cool i haerd him speak at the table on podcasts and he was pretty cool. but the coolest thing by far was when i got a chance to tell em i thought he was really good and i thought maybe he should try stand up comedy or something and that ahnds down his was my favorite podcast around =) .amazing stuff really =). but hell yeah to dellmon and zanadi the creators and hosts of eq2sday because thsi fine show really does make my life all that much better for having experienced their humor and stories and banter =).

neverwinter nights

2008-12-01T00:02:00.001-05:00

so been playing more of nwn2. bard, the guy named aldwulf? dinn i think. yeah kinda borin heh. made an orc paladin just for the hell of it. and a halfling rogue. halflings seem kinda neat in this.

neverwinter nights 2

2008-11-26T12:30:00.000-05:00

so its not often that i start playing a new game, but i have, neverwinter nights 2. picked it up off PB and yeah its great. you get a party limit of four which is no good. you pick your race sex class look stat religion personality from the get go and then get thrown into a tutorial you have the option to skip then the campaign begins. sucks there's only one with the original game but i certainly thought to myself more than a couple times i'd like to try and get a second or third campaign and try it out. i feel like ive got this growing appreciate of the game of dnd, the more i play, the more simplistic and elegent it seems both at the same time, its a good system, and there's things in place there that let the game spread out so vastly just from its simple ruleset. its a nice ruleset, and these games are just products of that simple set of formulas. its pretty cool. right now im trying to figure out +1 armor and things like that heh. my main guy is a bard, looks a bit indian w/ black hair n beard, and is pretty cool. the description of bards in the character creation bit is pretty cool. i managed to sc that, maybe ill upload it heh.
ah cant find it ;p. but its cool. i am a human, i have a dwarf half demon and an elf with me. druid fighter and rogue respectively. I called the guy Aldwulf Dinn, aldwulf is icelandic? i think for old wolf. it comes from that whole nordic style speach. one of those languages. germanic or norweigian. there was another name for dwarf, dvergur which i used for a char in game on eq. definately eq is way better though because of the interactivety. this game is with the premise what if i wanted to play dnd in my own home on my own time? that sort of a thing. for those of us who want to play socially on the internet games like eq or wow or the like all make much better companions.

2008-11-23T04:03:00.001-05:00

well, tried to get on, but man hah, all this music stuff, its way more fun than eq, definately music is the priority right now if you judge by what ive done hah.

robin williams is awesome...

been missin raids

2008-11-21T10:06:00.000-05:00

been missin raids n spahz is back. so the new xpac is having us level to 85 now and ive been puttin it off majorly. so far i havent regretted it, ive come across a few spells that i could've really done well to have had a level or two to've been able to mem 'em but to no avail yet. i spent more time on test than on live playin in illsalin with a mercenary, you could get like, 10 percent a level with 30 mins lesson hah solo, its pretty sick, and there's the /resetaa comand that lets you retrain everything all youve earned ends up being in the points to spend box and you get a unique chance to spend nearly three thousand points at once which is sick.

been missing raids though, raids because of all the open mics im after. its nuts but its the case.

everquest 1 test server

2008-11-16T02:42:00.000-05:00

so i copied dind over to the test server, at first it wasnt letting me cause the account was full so i had to log onto that log it off then log it on again to get it fixed finally hah for the deletion and the xfer request ;p. once on i got intoaguild there called and immediately got recruit info about a guild i guess their main guild on that server. anyhow kinda neat, i got to reset my aa and stuff. all my things were all eh, no drop, even regular stuff, and i started again with no cash which was kinda cool. id go over to FV if theyd let me hah do the same thing.

everquest 2 and everquest

2008-11-11T21:56:00.000-05:00

so in eq2 my ranger brambles has hit 60 finally. just 20 to go til im ready to raid. meanwhile in eq1 im basically only raiding anymore. we're doing breakneck now as we speak which is the first event in meldrath's mansion. that's the secrets of faydwer expansion. i did some pickups in eq2 and knocked out vox which was interestin. def lookin forward to bein able to kick it with dellmon and his raiding alliance hah.

ive been playing everquest 2

2008-11-06T14:54:00.000-05:00

been doing alot of eq 2 and the ranger Brambles is now up to 57 and guildless he is really shooting along and can kill level 60s solo. thats pretty impressive nd if i tried that in eq 1 id never be able to. i like the way theyve made the game more user friendly and even though there are people who strive to make the game as stressfull and number crunchy as possible i think eq 2 might be closer to the original vision than eq 1 and i think that its really good and i certainly like it alot. right now theres tons of things to do many expansions worth of dungeons and this and that all sorts of things and its great. the ability to go through all these dungeons in such a short period of time makes for a very rich game to play. people still do the dungeons too so they are not under populated . it is impossible to do them without a group as the mobs are listed as heroic which means they are otucher and ussually they aere probably worth at least two regular mobs if not more. the dungeons like i said are great and i think they are one of the best parts of eq 2. the dungeon graphics are abisolutely amazing and i dont even have all the graphics turned to the max. this is something that i think is really hardcore. there arent many people who understand this sorta stuff but those that do really feel like the dungeons are very good. in eq 1 the dungeons are going downhill which is sad like the crystallos zone from sof what a joke of a dungeon every mob 1 rounded you and the named all spawned in the same places vast spaces in between and utterly boring crystallos was to me the sign of everything that was wrong with eq at the time. SoF to me while there were fun moments those were mostly spent in the earlier stages of teh expansion and the lter ones were fraught with farms and nothingness. it certainly wasnt something id strive to do again. howeer in eq 2 those mid level dungeons are certainly things id like to od again. one nice feathre they added to eq 2 was the map disablement at least the make your own map and you certainly dont get a sony made map for most of the dungeons. i appreciate this because it preserves the dungeonesque quality of the grind. you feel a lot more immersed when you dont have every nook and cranny saved away on a little sheet you can cheat from i think maps were always a bad idea especially for dungeons. i think that while its alright for there to be maps of popular places maps of dungeons shouldnt be so revealing. and i think maps should not use the dot system where they show the location of your player on the map as he or she moves through the dungeon. i think we should get the chance to use the maps the way we use them in real life, identify the north by the sun and time of day, perhaps looking at the suns position ( with your eyes cupped ) would pull up a rough time of day instead of some kind of digital counter. and using a compass or a map and the north and then any identifying marks like towers or rovers or mountains. these features should only come up when the map is open and when its closed you shouldnt be able to see them. and you shouldnt be able to fight a mob with the map open thats rediculous you cant hold the map glance at it onstantly while tkaing on a tiger. the map would certainly need to be dropped because puting it away would be too long of an action.

day 2 of eq

2008-10-26T16:06:00.000-04:00

well i was on EQ again today, picked up an AA, the new DA, and was ponderin bout another. actually made a post or two on samanna as well heh which i havent done for awhile. got into this grind group which wasnt what i was wanting to get involved with so as soon as i got in no sooner did i begin looking for a way out ;p i ended up getting a replacement and Bolodo managed to make it work. heh, again dongin was floatin around, no news of spahz but i did catch Cinudin on and talked pally with her as well as Kruelcon who'd been busy in the harder zones, seems like the rewards are gobsmackingly good and im certainly amazed by what ive seen. last night was in a group with some av and maanged to hit the guardian picked up the ac aug i never did ages before. was really satisfying to get that aug finally. tomorrow they raid again, yesterday's was cancelled unfortunately, was my second raid back if it had gone on.

Fired up EQ

2008-10-25T14:29:00.000-04:00

so i pulled out EQ and checked out a few things theyve changed the target wnidow and group window i kinda knew about it before but forgot so was surprised and liked messing with it. at first i thought paladins didnt get many cool new aa's but then i realized there were tons of aa's that i hadnt yet seen because you need the levels to be able to train them. i raided as well which was fun. i kinda decided that theyve stopped putting effort into the game world and the main draw of fun in that game is certainly the raids. its a distressing thing for me though to see that the game world which i really enjoyed about eq is being so neglected. but the raid was fun and im still apart of that organization that i spent time trying to get into so i might as well take advantage of it if i still like the raiding there. i figure i might as well theres nothing like it anywhere else and i do enjoy it so yeah i think ill get involved again.

I also checked out some eq2sday episodes they finally upped more so i was happy.

And of course every time i listen to that i go fire up EQ2 as well so its good stuff.

More about the WoW boxer Reaction

2008-10-23T11:07:00.000-04:00

http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=14611&s=2ca9a9e303a095e3dae7dde5156c7604556d97d6

so read that, then get back with me

___

so this is the same article that i posted earlier, this's the actual forum post of teh guy who sent along the images and description from the creator and owner of the box setup. there's alot of things to talk about here. the heckling. the setup itself. what he can probably do in game.

i think for me though the main thing is hte heckling. most of the people that heckle him ARE gamers. its kinda fuckin rediculous if you ask me. people shouldnt be fuckin sayin shit like that. he's a fuckin gamer after all. he's one of the crowd. so he figured out a new way to game. is that a fucking reason to punish him .then all the mentions of cash and stuff. people like to bring in money into all sorts of things like this. its kinda fucking rediculous. get over the fact that you dont have as much money as he does. if you really want alot of money just go get a degree. thats what it comes down to anyway. i mean if you dont fuckin get a degree then how are you gonna get any money. i mean you could start your own fucking company i guess. but that takes alot fucking initiative. bottom line is not everyone can start a company .but most fucking people can get a degree. its nearly time for me to go and take some pictures. might be the best time right now. so im checking the time and its 11 11 again. i think it was 1 11 when i met that girl. forgot what her name was. rita or somethin like that. she said she was sicilian. dont fuckin remember what her name was. but anyhow. back to the gaming deal. its fuckin rediculous that these people are makin a big deal about this guy playing games. why dont you fuckin go bug all the people that go boatin. i mean in a sense it does go against something what we've been told. i mean we're not meant to spend that much money at least so we're told. but i mean people do though. i walked into the mall and i bought a couple clothes right. it cost about 300 dollars for three things. things are pretty expensive when you look at it. i mean you can get by on cheap stuff but alot of stuff is expensive.

i dont fuckin understand how a gamer can make a deal out of it. i mean its fuckin rediculous. i dont understand how they can even call themselves gamers. i wuoldnt fuckin call them a gamer. its pretty fuckin rediculous to be actin like that. i mean how many times have they played games. if they're like fuckin me then they grew up with them. but i mean that's the thing isn't it. these fuckin people just dont have any sense about whats going on with them. its fuckin rediculous. you cant just fuckin walk around makin fun of people like that. the tables could fuckin turn. the thing is you guys look like idiots when you post those kinds of things. but yeah. i was pretty fuckin disappointed to see all that shit. shouldn't be fuckin railin on one another. it's really fuckin pathetic. it's like you've got nother better to do with your time than bother someone else? its absolutely rediculous. and you think of the guy that even had the guts to post the pictures. how sorry do you think he feels for posting them. i dont understand this innate need for some people to cause misery in other people. that kindof streak is just a negative plague on the world. certainly shouldnt be that way. but because its all new there's no regulations. there's no sense of respect and it's not really mainstream. if it weren't such a fringe thing it might be a different situation. but yeah. people've been askin my name. but that's another story.

a guy boxes 36 and draws heckling from other gamers

2008-10-16T10:41:00.000-04:00

http://www.ripten.com/2008/10/10/wow-whore-has-36-accounts-raids-by-himself/

read this

then get back with me

_

so the point is this guy has a 36 char rig, k? not only that he's spending what about 5k a year for accounts. the hardware probably cost much more 5k per pc? but poiuint is people go boating, fuckk, even fuckin multimillionaires do their what... 200,000 dollar TRIP to the arctic in a nuclear submarine. look itup fools, heh, i was trying to get a trip to the arctic to watch the ice melt, and there's osme fucking luxery ass deals out there. not my cup of tea, 2,000 is more in my bracket. but lets back to this. there's people who spend their entire lives running in circles on grasss ( football soccer and other sports ) are they "loisers" what are they losing heh. time? perhaps, but so are you, and instead of having the fun of owning a game youre just sitting there in your house commenting about someone elses slife. .. how fucking droll... anyway ive been a boxer ebore, in other games, EQ, but i never did more than about 4 o5 r. let me say running many characters is just a challenge in crease to a game that seems like it couldnt get ay more difficult. its a way to keep the game challening, and when youve done it all, there's a whole new aspect. plus the fact that its frantic as fun to try and manage six at the same time hah. its one thing to manage one, but to have a outline of six or more? thats pretty sick. the fact is we have played starcraft warcraft etc these were games where you controlled many fucking units so the deal is this guy is doing just that in the confines of a game that doesnt advertise it as possible he's bucking the trend the way th game was designed and playing it the way HE wants thats american ingenuity right there make what you need to do what youre aiming to,... are you going to say einstine was a loser for writing numbers on a wall all day? heh. yeah... and all your fucking computers wouldnt exist without someone working very hard on something. i think there are peopel out tehre who call all people who work hard on anything "losers" why are they losing they are being aptly rewarded by society often times and really their innovations make yourl azy liees possible. this guy is just trying ot have some fun, not everyone has to mee tyour approval, and what makes you think your opeinion of this guy is so important? are you fantasizing about an oppertunity to meet this guy set him on the right path of life? hello.. converting natives... yepp just because omeoni seems different maybe even weird doesnt mean you should take it as your sworn duty to change this person into what a proper person really is. i think if people have problems with a guy running this many accounts they have really exceeded their boundairs. if the guys hurting you in some way, lets not even define it as a bodily harm, any pain whatsoever, that you feel in your life, without having read of him or whatever, then maybe you could jail him and get him retooled for life in society but the fact is he isnt so what do you have really against him nothing he's just on a pc playing a game and what fucking right is it of you to fucking heckle this guy for just having a good time he's got disposable cash lifes been good to him so he's choosing to have some fun so why do you fucking care all these fools who basically attack anything thats different to them for what perosnal happiness youre the ones that deserve to be hoisted onto the platform the people who are out there snickering at the lives of others, quite hilarious is it? well youre only proving how much of an ass you are, and really, id say the asses need more rehabilitating than the thoughtful peple, at least this guy is probably thoughtful enogh to have a concept of manners, of respect, he can grasp these concepts, unfortunately for yoruselves it seems ot be something over your heads. its absolutely rediculous that gamers are making these sorts of comments about gamers, its rediculous, anyone can just divert the mirror and make you look at your own reflection to find a shade of what he's doing. its just the new tech and youre basically pulling the conservative stance of dnd being a devil worshiper game when eally it was just a fantasy thing people arent actually worhsipping devils and if they want to thats their choice people there's many religions in the world and we have the right to choose which religion if any we want to follow im sorry but the right of choiceprevials and if anyone tries to restrict it may be they struck down by jail or societal upheval and change the people who oppress will eventually be overthrown if no die and the second they do they'll revert back to the way people want things to be at large, which is essentially the way that they want things to be, not the way they dont but are forced to follow none the less. youre gamers, you play games on computers, you use computers for fun, people who arent ino computerscould just as easily snicker at you for sitting in front of a machine for fnu, but they'd be just as out of line as well. there's two points, your similarity to this guy, and the idiocy of heckling. its really undeserved. and when you take something too far, when you try and being a bit too aggressive against this guy it turns into a crime. learn about that and realize aggression to other people should only be there reserved for situations where its really deserved and even then use the justice system to get it across aggression itself has no acceptable way out in society. you can yell and whatnot but only if you later apologize because man if you really think you can walk around and just slag off on people for whatever they do in their lives youll find yourself not quite in their good graces. im nots ure about you but this whole sciety thing, it certainly takes more than one person to work, dont let yourself be the one person trying to make your life work, work with people, not assaulting them.

anyway, this guy is doing something challenging, and if they made an official game of this type, you might find you like it. just saying, heh. dont knock it until you try it, then say whatever i dont give a shit but these so called experts who have never boxed a char in their lives are now trying to diagnose this guys health and its a bit much really heh.

warhammer

2008-10-08T18:28:00.000-04:00

story of the months been warhammer. so they were real smart about this game and let yuou make as manyu chars as you want, basically enough slots to make 1 of each type of class plus 1 to spare so no qualms there, and since yer only allowed to make a faction you have to do 2 servers wroth, thats neat too because it sticks you in with more people.

so with my chaos side ive gotten into this guild just by random invite but these guys seem like some freakin hardcore players

but yeah.

its alright, i coudl talk more about it but dont really feel like it.

2008-09-25T20:37:00.000-04:00

so let me tell you a bit moer of my eq 2 adventures. there's tons of dungeons im getting invited to now. apparently 50 was the original level cap so there's alot of end game ocntent for me atm. there's alot of groups too whichs nice.

hah ok here's something, i heard of the assist system for the first time a day or two ago, basically you just target someone and hit attack and it attacks the target theyve got targeted. no need for any type of assist key or anything. its pretty nice. now all you need to do is target the group member and it will automatically give you the target. whats also nice is now you dont ahve the cluinky target circle around the mob so it gives you a bit more immersion too. its really nice.

the dungeons are awesome, real big, but also intricate, and you moev through them real fast. fights dont last half as long as eq 1. yeah its pretty awesome really fast paced.

so my guild seems alright, its nothing special, if i ever want to raid id probably have to leave them eventually but theyre a good bunch for sure. they dont piss me off, thats for sure hah. so thats always a plus ;p. sometimes people just piss me off badly with some of the things they say, but these gyus seem a bit more mature so thats always good hah.

theyre also the only guild so far that didnt rush to invite me, so im sure that also gave me a bit of respect for them.

installin warhammer

2008-09-25T20:25:00.000-04:00

so yeah, installin warhammer as we speak. eq 2's been fun, stickin with my guy brambles, 47 ranger now. pretty fun. in a guild called Talisman. havent been bothering with other games. my server was down, i dont even really want to make alts, and i just began installin warhammer. not sure if this games gonna be great. saw a video, doesnt seem too flash. seems like it might be a bit like aoc, all talk, no substance. aoc was terrible hah, after years of eq then trying aoc, it was a joke. eq 2's great because it builds on the system in alot of ways. its pretty fast paced too. and im pretty sure ive got the best class too so its all good. ranger ftw.

ive been fuckin with a new name, aldwulf, which seems to work with eq and basically anywhere i try it, evne the most populated server in eq2, but thing is i cant be bothered to make another character hah.

i think maybe i went a bit crazy with alts in eq 1, dont think ill do that again anytime soon hah =p. but thats what you do to take up the time with a game that isnt introducing content fast enough.

so online gaming radios been disappointingly unproductive. both the shows i normally like to listen to havent been posting updates in a long time. its kinda sad. there are other ones though that're doin stuff, and theyre kinda cool, but im missin my first two hah. ah well. it was a good source while it lasted.

so im supposed to be doing a programming class for like, gaming, but what a fucking boring class man.

still thinking about consoles, this time though my odler ones, like the 64 and stuff. we'll see though eh hah.

warhammer comes out... in secret

2008-09-24T17:04:00.000-04:00

so been playing eq 2. my rangers now 46.

but in larger news, sounds like warhammers out. i might needa pick up a copy and try this sucker out.

2008-09-01T23:13:00.000-04:00

so it's been awhile. ive been fucking around with some games. ive been posting on the pally baords hah. ive been fucking around on the test server a bit. i like the quad xp and the beta buff to 25. the accounts are all running for another years or so. theyre all going til 09. wow's reactivated and ive been working on a priest and warlock. aoc's cancelled as well as eq2. i found myself actually going for eq 2 though so i might reactivate. right now my gaming experience's become kinda stale. ive been thinking about pulling out diablo 2 with diablo 3 on the way. actually i read someone else was doing that but i thought id rather play diablo 1. the originals usually the best. diablos style was cool. not too chaotic all prety simple. just a single dungeon in the ground in the city. there's something about that simplicity which i dig.

there's supposed to be some ( alot ) of gaming conventions around the country. there's one for the website penny arcade. there's the good old e3. there's new ones popping up al lthe time.

i'd like to try and get involved with this whole pro gamers thing that ive read about. people who play games and make cash doing it, for some people the prize money is enough to live off of.

everquest has really become dull. there's no way around it, the only newness to the game are the classes i havent yet played to death which as shown on a list tends to shrink pretty fast.

when i get to columbus i dont know whats going to happen. i might be done with games. i imight take up eq 2. i might take up wow. there's alot of different ways to go. and if i cut all my online games i still have the one player games like diablo 1. i think i really would like to pull out diablo for a bit of a test run sometime. to see the old game.

so yeah ive been adding a few pictures here and there every now and then, every time i can remember, into the pile of things id like to include in this game. im coming up with drawing of anything thats related to vikings or iceland. some were elaborate others were simple. its a method to get ideas down on paper which can be manipulated and arranged as the thought strikes. its important to have them down so i can manipulate them when the thought does strike.

this mmo would be based on the viking era in iceland. whats intersting is ive found that the beowulf epic is actually written about that time period when the vikings were around. so that means i could draw upon that epic as well. this idea is still in development stages. it could eb my project to work on as showcase for my skills as they develop.

ive been thinking about getting a wii. because there's just limitless games out on the console as in comparison to the pc. pcs have very little. there's not much at all out there for pcs. but consoles have so many games in such large numbers.

recording skype

2008-08-24T07:14:00.001-04:00

roshi done

2008-08-24T07:03:00.001-04:00

pierce cancelled

2008-08-24T07:01:00.001-04:00

benj account

2008-08-24T06:59:00.000-04:00

eq n eq2 cancelled

2008-08-24T06:58:00.001-04:00

aoc cancelled

2008-08-24T06:56:00.001-04:00

so i tried Age of Conan

2008-08-21T21:00:00.000-04:00

there's one of the four characters i made, i think that was the first one, got to around level two. Assasin, Bear Shaman, Demon... tamer? something like that, and then tank just for novelty.

it wasnt that great honestly. you log in and youre washed ashore, your ship apparently went under, and you were enslaved. youre not sure where you came from, but as you level you "discover" your origins, like for my demon tamer? part of my quest lines were about rediscovering my mage powers that i USED to have. that kinda sucks. like i was once powerful ( before the game began ) then something happened, and i suck now, and im relearning. Kinda cool i guess, except that EVERY player in Age of Conan has amnesia... yeah. no thanks heh.

its all kinda dumb like that, the story is alright, kinda interesting how they've added voice for all the early quests, how the town is under control by a pirate, one who is kinda terrorizing the people, how there's a rebellion which you get conscripted into, althoguh it'd've been better if you had a choice in the matter, whether to help the alliance or not, or to rat them out, that'd've been better. and the levels are pretty limiting, you can't play the game in first person, and the rooms / spaces in the zones arent fully explorable. the levels are full of artificial barries, pathways that're designed to lead you to locations. long gone are the well the freedoms eq has of being able to go in any given direction, and while it does give you a sense of perhaps being in a.. well closed space, i have a feeling the ENTIRE GAME is designed this way. I could be wrong. it might just be in the tutorial. I think i'll stick with the game one more night, just to get out of the newbie area, and out into the world, to see what sort of stuff they've got in store. after all, there's some great visual candy floating around on deviant art i'd like to encounter before i pack this thing away completely. then there's the hour long install and hour long patching process, 20 gigs in all. yeah, its not worth the hassle, but having gone through the hassle, i might as well check it out. else that'd've sucked to have gone that far without really checking much else out. there are other things i could be doing. i have yet to try out vanguard... and i may have a box floating around someplace for it. i wasnt terribly impressed with oblivion though. and so far age of conan, while interesting in some respects, already seems to display its limitations. the combat on the other hand is interesting, youve got frontal attack then left and right hand, and then combos, and for the casters you can double tap your spells and such. it seems more like a sum of common industry innovations but absent are many of the defining characteristics that make EQ a great game.

so i guess day two is underway, we'll see what AoC has in store for me.

Age of Conan installed

2008-08-21T03:34:00.000-04:00

so yeah i read about it and decided to check it out, and we get 30 days of free play for the game with the box so im running the updater now. its a large game, it takes many gigabytes to play. i was maybe 20 percent through and already had 4 gigs installed. this is the newest game out right now. the next one thats major and due out soon is warhammer online. a few of my friends are going to play that.

one last thing, the witch hunter class grabbed my attention, ill be playing that in warhmmer... doh... wrong game hah. ok here are the interesting classes as are listed in the booklet that comes with the game:

bear shaman, demonologist, assasin.

the bear shaman sounds like eq's shaman slash a celtic druid mix which sounds interesting

the demonologist illustration just looked cool

and the assasin i didnt have to think much about the thought of being an assasin just sounds cool