EverQuest

Guy just keeps popping up everywhere, don’t he? I am playing Runes of Magic now because, hey, WoW is coming out with a new expansion that I probably won’t play, so why not reminisce about good times in WoW by playing some other game? Runes of Magic only allowed me to pick from two races, Elf and Human. I thought they had some short folk in the character concept art, but I guess those were just meant to be children. It’d be kind of cool, by the way, to start of as a child in an MMO (optionally, anyway), and play children’s games of crafting, socialization, war and magic while slowly aging and learning more of the wider world and your place in it. ...

I was cleaning out my closet and found a few old floppy disks, REALLY old. Someone had scrawled “Daily Blogroll: Sep ‘01” on them. I honestly don’t remember writing any blogs way back then. I had no idea what was on them. They were two 8" disks, so between the two of them, there could be as many as four or five pages of documents sitting there, unread, for eight years. ...

Was there ever a mob that you really, REALLY hated as a low level, that you just HAD to go back later on and just kill, kill, kill? Well, old Dorn in North Ro was that mob for a lot of us EQ players. Seeing him CRINGE before me now in EQ2…. Worth the ride! One of the things that made EQ so memorable was that there was really nothing like it at the time. They could pretty much try anything, because, what else was there? Not like these days, where there’s so MUCH choice, so MANY good games, that it’s hard to stick with just one, and so game devs do whatever they feel they must to grab and keep players. ...

That’s like Galaxy Express 999, NOT the Futurama ship. That’s Planet Express. Ever, like, DIE in a game, and your pet begins dancing around your decaying corpse, singing about what a great day it is? Thanks, Hello Kitty Online! Leveling has slowed quite a lot in that game. My pet is having a super time, though. If you spend several hundred hours in your game of choice, the LAST thing you really want is someone coming up and telling you that you’re wasting your time, because Game B is SO much better than your Game A – insert any two games in those slots. Super Mario World vs Legend of Zelda. Cribbage vs Bridge. WoW vs…. well, any other game that is not WoW. ...

I’ve been thinking of swapping my sidekick in Legends of Zork from the Gent (who made me essentially immune to traps) to the Accountant (who earns interest on your stash) for awhile. It kinda disappointed me that they nerfed her – it used to be that having her in your base would soon make you rich as Croesus. Not so much anymore, but as each upgrade now costs well over a million zorkmids, I need all the help I can get. And I can switch back to the Gent later on, once I’ve reached my goals and seeded the clan bank with some good upgrades for others. ...

(Shhh! Hello Kitty Online’s closed beta started yesterday! Expect a HKO First Look once I’ve found my way around). Massively reports that EVE Online’s next expansion, Dominion, has just been announced. Dominion brings a new focus on planets, undoubtedly setting the scene for EVE’s planetbound companion FPS MMO, Dust 514. EVE is also adding social media functionality to the game, and I have no idea what that means. Tweet every mission? No clue. Lastly, the walking around in stations expansion is given a name, Incarna, so I guess we’re stuck in our pods for at least another few months. ...

Wow, can’t believe it’s almost autumn. Summer came so late to New England; cool and rainy through most of it, a couple of hot and humid days, and now the cooler days are back. It’s like living in Seattle. Played a bit of Champions Online over the weekend. I take a character to level 10, start them in on the Hero Games cage matches, see how well they do and take what I learned to the next character. My most recent character was the Green Reaper, a character with all of Green Lantern’s abilities without the power ring. Custom framework of supernatural + telekinesis, allows for a ranged power builder, ability to make ego weaponry from thought alone, and the ability to toss heavy objects at people – with her mind! Travel power is green fire flight. ...

I never watched Stargate: SG-1 while it was on (is it still on?), so when everyone was getting all excited about the prospect of Cheyenne Mountain’s Stargate Worlds MMO, it meant nothing to me. Now, thanks to Hulu, I’m catching up. A couple of episodes in to the second season and it’s clear the show is already chafing against its episodic “planet of the week” formula. Could Stargate Worlds make it work for them? Will it work for Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic, or will people yearn for a less story-based, more personal play experience? ...

Blizzard announced today that all the rumors about their forthcoming expansion were true. Players will be able to play werewolves, and they’re going to need all the werewolves they can get to meet the demand. Werewolf Bob can’t let this opportunity pass him by. It’s the people you leave behind that hurt the most.

I THINK this screen shot came while we were raiding the City of Mist for Jalanea’s shaman epic. Remember when guilds used to raid the City of Mist? Something I really liked about EverQuest was the mix of raid targets in leveling zones. Now it’s all instances and keeping people away from each other as much as possible. Sad. ...