I’m trying not to go on and on about Rift; in fact I have decided to hardly mention it at all. It’s one thing if it’s a game few people play, but that’s not Rift’s problem. HOWEVER…. Just wanted to share this screenshot of my Bard/Ranger/Assassin taking down the boss of an earth rift in the Stonefields. Yummy. I love getting all cinematic on stuff. Sorry for the Twitter spam… ...
Busybusybusy mandatory overtime, working at home each night, crunch time blahblahblah but you know what, I have a good job and I like what I do. It cuts into the game playing and into the game writing, though. But I couldn’t pass up today’s excitement! EverQuest today opens its new progression server, Fippy Darkpaw, and Trion sends their MMO, Rift, into Open Beta! I haven’t been playing in any of the recent Rift betas and I have been studiously ignoring any news about the game to preserve at least a little of the sense of wonder of experiencing a new game fresh. ...
Yeah, I’ve been MIA for a couple weeks now. Work time is creeping into home time. It’s so cold when I get home that I find myself cuddling up with blankets and a cat on the couch, watching Netflix (tonight: the Canadian comedy “Slings & Arrows”, season 1). I’m not wild about this “winter” thing in general. I haven’t been able to get on the bicycle for a few weeks now, and it’s really making me antsy. ...
Who owns your MMO character? The game companies say they do, but they didn’t put hundreds of hours into turning the character from an animated paper doll into a person with relationships, memories, friends, victories, stories and history. But it’s precisely because you HAVE taken the time and done all these things that the companies can keep running their game. But as long as game companies control access to your character, you’re paying them so that you can add value to their game. ...
A whole weekend lost in a Rift, but I think what I’ll remember most about this last weekend was this jerk in General chat – named, ironically, Karana – who was going on and on about how the quests and everything else about the game was a copy of WoW. Well, heck, I didn’t know Thomas Edison was resurrected just to offer his genius insights. But some people just can’t see past their own experiences with WoW. Like, the people complaining that every one of the classes will have a 50/16/0 point spec, as if the class-defining abilities of each ‘soul’ only happen once 50 points are spent on it, similar to WoW’s talent trees. ACTUALLY, the class-defining skill is usually given for free, at zero points. Smart players will have a synergistic three soul mix. Anyway, already went on about that, and though I’m loving Rift and have applied to a guild, I’m really tired of reading about it. ...
A Giant in the Stonefields This weekend’s fourth Rift beta event introduced seven new levels, two new zones, two new dungeons, and Warfronts. Warfronts being Rift’s version of instanced battlegrounds. And aside from the new Defiant-side dungeon, I saw all these things. I played a heck of a lot of Warfronts, each time tuning my various specs. With so much choice and so many combinations and so many styles of play, players should plan on making their specs flowing, freely changeable plans. ...
If there could be a greater revolution in online gaming than Microsoft’s upcoming Avatar Kinect, I’m not really sure what it could be. uses its popular new peripheral to track your gestures, mouth movements and even your eyebrows and use this data to create a lifelike puppet of you in an online chat room. The traditional problems of the Kinect remain; your avatar won’t be spending much time walking from place to place, but it is certainly worlds better than having to clean house to have friends over. ...
Soooo…. how about that Massively article? Did it make you mad as hell? Meh. I had a look at my site analytics today, just to see if people were coming here to read about the so-called controversy and you know? More people came to read my view of Velious through frost-covered glasses. That reinforces what I’ve always known about MMO fans. We just want to get online and PLAY GOOD GAMES. ...
If you want to hear about the huge controversy over Jef Reahard’s one hour dismissal of Rift, well, I’ve already said all I’m going to say about it. There’s lots of MMOs, like Kung FOO, Fists of Fu, and Mabinogi that I played for an hour or two and felt no attachment. If someone had come up to me and asked me how I felt about those games after that hour or two playing them, I’d have told them what I thought. ...
We’re way behind on our latest project at work, so I’ spent most of Friday working. I did take a break, though, to log on and participate in the final Beta 3 invasion event this afternoon. I’d spent all night (until 4:30AM) leveling my cleric from 12 to 20, and though I didn’t get a chance to visit the Iron Tombs, I did want to help keep Freemarch free. I’d leveled from 16 to 18 in a raid group at one of Thursday’s invasions. That also earned me nearly enough planar currency to get some nice epic items. I logged on, joined in, and earned enough to get some “purple” leggings. Good stuff. ...