The Final Four

The final four

City of Heroes/ Villains
Dark Age of Camelot
Lord of the Rings online
World of Warcraft.

City of Heroes/ Villains – Very good, if repetitive game. I’ve almost always been subscribed to this game at the very least as my ‘B’ game. I have two accounts and every year when my kids are home from school I will reactivate and we duo. The ability to go up OR down in levels makes teaming up very easy.

They have added new character slots so I can finally play some new combinations, as well as the flashback system so I can go back to missed story arcs. Crafting is finally in the game. Plus they added villains epic archetypes.

There still lots to do in the game. I’ve decided to make this my main game. More on that in future articles.

Dark Age of Camelot – Someone has to finish last. I’ve got guild friends in both Lotro, and Wow. But none in Daoc. That’s really the deciding factor. I have to play solo sometimes. But that doesn’t mean I want to be all alone.

Lord of the Rings Online – I’m tempted just to have one main game, but I really like the fantasy setting. I’ve played Lotro before while I was playing EQ2 and it just felt redundant. Love the graphics, great story, innovative instances.

WoW – Amazon finally dropped the price of the Burning Crusade expansion pack to $20. I figure I can get one maybe two months of solo content out of it. I’m just not interested in faction grinding or raiding. That will give me enough time to explore the story which I do really like and get both a horde and alliance character up to the cap.

Well, I guess that decides it. Wow, with a list of nearly 40 games, there are really only about a half dozen that I would pay to play and want to invest my time in.

So the plan is for City of Villains to be my main game.

I’ve rolled up a new character and I will start fresh.

As a backup game I am torn

1) Play WoW:BC as my other game for a couple of months

2) Lotro 3 month package

3) Play some console games.

 

The short list

The short list of games to play:

Horizons, Rubies of Eventide, Tabula Rasa – I’ve taken these of my list. Quite frankly I don’t know if they will even be around in a year. I’ve have a lot of fun in TR but there is just so much FUD, I’m not willing to invest any time in it.

Dungeon runners is off the list. Fun to play once in a while, but if I want to play Diablo, then that’s what I’ll play.

DDO is off the list. There are rumors that it will be going free to play. Again too much FUD.

That narrows it down to six:

Age of Conan

City of Heroes/ Villains

Dark Age of Camelot
Guild Wars

Lord of the Rings online

World of Warcraft.

Age of Conan – I bought the game with a lot of reluctance after most of my guild left EQ2 over the whole Living Leechers promo. It didn’t grab me at all, so I cancelled. I resubscribed when I found out they needed help build the guild city. I love crafting and I was an architect. Only problem is crafting is tied adventure levels.

Mini Review

Highs:
Fast paced combat
Dark gritty world that is very much in the image of the Frank Frazetta’s conan.

Very beautiful game to play

Massive guild city

Guild pvp

Lows:

You will die a lot. The game plays more like a console game then a mmo.

Where are all the button?. I like eq2 type of setup where I have 5 hotbars with lots of situational powers. Not just special attack then 1-2-2-3
Craft level is tied to adventure level

Resources are hard to come by. Each node regenerates over time, but is shared by everyone.

Can’t run very well on my main pc with a nine month old video card
I don’t like open world pvp

Way to many asshats.

Guild Wars – I want to like it. I really do. I love the hirable NPCs. It’s a gorgeous game. Maybe it’s the instancing. Maybe its the open world pvp. But whatever it is, I’m just not excited about playing it.

 

The Golden Age of Gaming.

I’ve put my quest for my next MMO on hold while.

I’ve going to on the Online Gamers Anthology to talk about one of my all-time favorite games, Pool of Radiance.

Pools of Radiance was the first in a series of games made by Strategic Simulations Incorporated. The series is typically referred to as the ‘Gold Box series’ due to the gold borders on every box.  The incorporated the Dungeons & Dragon rules, with a combat system that was based on wargames. Each of the games share the same engine so it was very easy to move from one game to the next without having to learn a whole new ruleset. Pools was the first in the series and is regard as one of the best. Later games would be based in the worlds of DragonLance and even Buck Rogers.

Oh, and gor the record my list of all time greatest computer Role-Playing Games are:

1) Neverwinter Nights (pc game not the online one)
2) Pool of Radiance
3) Baldur’s Gate
4) Ultima 4
5) Knights of the Old Republic

6 - 10 in no particular Order: Wizadry 1, Ultima 2, Bard’s Tale 1, Everquest 2, Freedom Force.

For the record I have never played Fallout and Planescape Torment. Both of which are highly regarded and on my list of game to play… someday.

 

Everquest 2 — Canceled

It’s funny. I haven’t been able to post much because I wanted to wait until I had my EQ2 podcast going. It was taking a while to get my rhythm down, and edit the show to a good enough quality.

Then, to quote Torchwood, “Everything Changes”

First SOE messes up my plans by announcing fan faire so late, and then moving it back to the west coast. Then they started a new promotion where they give former player $30 worth of game-time, $30 worth of software, and some in-game items. What did current subscribers get… jack shit.

After many years of enjoying my time in Everquest 2, I just can’t put up with the asshats that run SOE.

Where to now? That’s a good question….

 

One month later

Has it been a month since my last post?

I really haven’t have anything to post. I spent almost the the entire month of March just tradeskiling. The good news is that I now can make every spell/ combat art in the game.

Sage 80
Jeweler 80
Alchemist 80
Carpenter 51
Provisioner 64

In adventuring news, Isanox finally hit level 80 as a necromancer!

Shattered Moon is now 59.3 and we finally finished the guild raid progression.

In annoying news, I was planning on going to SOE Fan Faire, but SOE has not finalized the details. There aren’t a many weeks left I can take off at work, so it looks like I will not be able to make it.

 

Node locking is live

A patch went out monday that apparently added node locking for harvest.

If you are harvesting a node, now someone can’t come along and grab the other two pulls off the node.

There were no patch notes on this, and I have to wonder if it was supposed to be in Live Update 43

 

New and notes for 2/25

Quick update. I did another span of 16 hours days so not much is going on.

Craft update 22 levels in 25 days.
Sage 77 -> 80 (+3)
Jeweler 62 -> 72 (+10)
Alchemist 60 -> 66 (+6)
Carpenter 40 -> 43 (+3)
Provisioner 53 -> 53 (no change)

Adventure news. Isanox makes level 79!

Guild news. We switched from xfire to Ventrilo after Saziron purchased it.
After that is was group time. Friday night we hunted in KJ in the City of Mist. It was a very challenging fight with only 3 people against those triple ups.

Saturday we tried Mistmore. Wow, even with a full 6 man of 71+ we wiped a few times. Those are some fast respawns. We then went to the catacombs but I had to log.

Not bad at all. We have about a dozen people on Vent. It certainly makes the grouping easier. We’ve regrouped after all the guild drama and are moving foward agian. Lately we have been working on the higher level dungeons, including Unrest, which I have still have yet to do.

 

The Return of the King

After all the Guild Drama (capitalized for emphasis)  of last week is was quite a surprise to see Shattered Moon’s guild leader return to the game. His return re-enforced the fact that the guild is not going anywhere. A few more people left to join Avic’s raid guild, but we quickly replaced them with new people.

The raiding death march has finally stopped. Five nights a week raiding was to much for me, and was rapidly crossing the line between fun-gaming and interfering with real-life.

The guild is going back to basics, and ran Return of the Light Heritage Quest last night. As you may have read, I love that HQ, and it’s great one for new players. We had two full groups and will probably have to do it again next month.

 We are also looking to do more focused grouping. That is where we pick a dungeon like say Stormhold or Runey Eye, and try to get as many people who need the quests there and just take the place over for a few hours.

We are working on yet another new guild website and this time its with XFire. The officers all were on it last night and were having trouble in Sanctum of the Scaleborn last night. With my help as DPS it quickly became a rout. So much so that after a while we were grabbing 2 or 3 packs at once and just annihilating them.

I was in voice chat even thought I really hate it. It is just to immersion breaking for me. But it was very handy and was great to talk to some long time guildmates for the first time.

A quick update on the Month of Crafting. 17 days in and I’ve made 17 levels.
Sage 77 -> 80 (+3)
Jeweler 62 -> 70 (+
Alchemist 60 -> 64 (+4)
Carpenter 40 -> 42 (+2)
Provisioner 53 -> 53 (no change)

Ugh, remind me not to try this again. Between the raids and crafting I have done almost no adventuring.

Rock Band update. This weekend I finished Easy for drums and vocals, and medium for guitar. I am just about 11 songs in on expert guitar, and 3 songs in on medium vocal. I purchased Punk Pack 2 and Dr. Love by Kiss. I’ve got a band going with my kids, and its quite much to my chagrin, I really need to read all the lyrics to these songs BEFORE I buy them. Otherwise I will agro the wife.

Lastly, I read zero books last month. Zero. Early on in my MMO days I determined that how many books I read is a good indication of how much time I am spending in a MMO. I should be reading four to six months a month, depending on how big they are and how easy a read. If I read to few, I am gaming to much and will burn out. To many books and I should cancel the game, because its just not interesting anymore. I’ve been keeping track of what I have read, primary so I don’t re-buy the same book. Only during one other month this decade have I not finished at least one book. I think it’s a testament to EQ2 and the Ruins of Kunark that after a year of solid playing I still have so much to do in the game. But still, zero is not good. Worse still is the fact that I have yet to open a book this month.

 

Save the drama for your mama

*sigh* I think guild drama is inevitable.  Since Shattered Moon’s guild leader, Krylle took a leave of absence the guild has been runing under a leadership council, of which I am a member of. We have been raiding five nights a week for almost 6 weeks now and it’s starting to take its total on the more casual members of the guild.

One of the concil decided he couldn’t do it anymore and  felt we should elect one member of the council as a full time leader. That caused the council to erupt when Avic wanted to turn the guild into a raid guild. That in turn caused half the council to quit.

I being unaware of all  drama, log in to find that Avic left to form his own raiding guild. A few of the more hardcore raiders lefts with him as well as a few people who didn’t want to  deal with any drama.

What a mess.  Everything is pretty much back in place, except we have lost our raid tank, and about 10% of our more active members.

I should have seen this coming, because it happens enough.

A small group gets together and forms a guild.
They recruit like mad.
As a wave of people level up, they want to try more and more challenging content.
Some of the people don’t have the time to commit to nightly raids/groups.
Now there are not enough people to raid, so the raid folks split off.

It’s almost like a sun forming. When the guild reaches that critical mass, it either morphs into a red dwarf (raid guild) or goes supernova (splinters). Sometimes the remaining people are to few and it just becomes a dead guild like my former guild.

I’m just glad we have a large enough base to weather out the storm.  Now it will be a matter of recruiting a few more poeple including a few raid worthy tanks for our once a week raids.

 

80 Sage!