Real Life, Evercrack, LotRO Book 7, and Falling Dark

Posted by Stropp on March 16, 2009

Once again real life takes time away from this precious thing we call gaming, and of course, the blog posting schedule.

This weekend past was another weekend where I didn’t get much chance to get any real gaming done. I diddled around a little on Friday evening, and then Saturday slipped past with my attention caught by other projects. And Sunday was my nephews sixth birthday. Enough said on that! Just watching the tacka’s use all that biochemical energy was enough to sap mine. I think all kids that age must have some sort of built in mana drain spell.

So with work, weekend, and a touch of some hideous disease I didn’t have much to write. 

I’ll attempt to remedy that over the coming week.

However, there are still a couple of things to note.

Today, the 16th of March, is Everquests birthday. Everquest — also known as Evercrack well before Warcrack, and the harbinger of many frenzied media reports of gaming addiction — is turning ten years old. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, that is quite an achievement. It does seem though that the spirit of the original game developers — Everquest, Ultima Online, Asheron’s Call, and other games of that era — seemed to take the viewpoint that these games should have long lives, and not the purely mercenary viewpoint of disposable MMORPGs *cough* NCSoft *cough*.

Happy Tenth birthday EQ!

It looks like some of the dust is settling on the launch of Darkfall. There are some great reports coming from the game. People are enjoying it, when they get in. The downside is that there are some truly monstrous queues. Apparently four hours to get into the game is not uncommon, and I’ve read claims on the forums that some are seeing eight hour queues. That might be exaggeration, don’t believe all the claims on forums. 

I’ll admit to wondering when the post-release shine will wear off Darkfall, and when frustrated players will simply give up. It did take a few weeks for Age of Conan players to reach that state as I recall. I think even Keen is starting to find Darkfall less shiny. I still hope it survives though. We do need games like this. Hmmm. At some point I need to do a roundup of Darkfall reviews and impressions. 

LotRO is also in the news. It’s about to release the next book and there are a few changes in the wind that I’ve heard. I’ve been getting back into it recently. I’m glad I’ve got a lifetime sub. It makes it easy to pop in when I feel the draw without having to consider the cost of resubbing.

And the year is flying past. Mid-March already! That means that the beta’s for Champions Online and Jumpgate are just around the corner. As is the next Blizzard Con. I reckon that’s when they’ll officially announce the next MMORPG and what it’s all about.

I’ve read a few comments that 2009 is shaping up to be the best year for MMORPGs ever. I guess that’s only natural, the genre is gathering steam and from now on will go from strength to strength. But still, it’s pretty cool…

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