Random Randomness

Posted by Stropp on June 7, 2009

Just got back from dinner and a movie with a friend. Indian cuisine and Terminator: Salvation. Excellent food at this little place called Tandoori Temptations at the Salisbury shopping center.

I enjoyed the movie too. Like Star Trek XI there were plot holes and scientific blunder you could drive a Northern Territory road train through, but they were both very watchable. A solid action flick. And the cameo by the Guvernator was special too.

Since it’s getting late now, I thought that, instead of doing a big topic post, I might borrow from Tipa and do a sort of random musings type thing.

Syp of Bio Break has posed the question, would you subscribe to a multi-game subscription service like Sonys Station Access (so pop over and comment) if a bunch of companies put their MMORPG collection under a similar service.

For most of them, yes I would, a Station Access like service is a great idea for keeping the costs down for a number of games. The only two in Syps list that I would be hesitant are NCSoft and Funcom.

Funcom because there’s only one real game in that lineup I’d play and that’s the Secret World. Age of Conan has improved, but I’m not sure I really want to go back.

NCSoft because I’m not particularly impressed with their reliability. Shutting down Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault after only a year doesn’t show commitment to their games or their subscribers. Would a multi-game platform improve that? Maybe, maybe not.

Stargrace has stolen my plaintive refrain: So Many Games, So Little Time. She is not only subscribed to the EQ twins and LotRO (amongst others) she’s just started playing The Sims 3. All of which fall into the category of major time sink. While The Sims series has never appealed to me, or for that matter Sim Ant, Sim Rollercoaster, Sim Simulators, I did for a while enjoy playing Sim City. Hmmm, maybe when Skynet takes over I can hide away in my hole with a laptop and play games all day.

Hey Boss. You’re terminated.

The Greedy Goblin, by a fellow named Gevlon, is always an interesting read. I don’t always agree with what he says, and his philosophy isn’t really for me, but he does have an interesting perspective on life, and with the application of that perspective to making gold in WoW. His latest post Casuals and "casuals" is worth reading for the insights therein.

Keen and Graev post about the Preorder Beta for Mortal Online. The beta begins on the 29th of June, with a target launch sometime in the fourth quarter this year.

I haven’t followed this one much, but from what I understand it’s much in the same vein as Darkfall; a full PvP, full loot game. There is a lot of hate directed at this one from the Darkfall forums. Maybe Mortal Online is on the right track!

Caliga at MMO Gamers posts about his return to Age of Conan. He played for a while when it was released and the canceled his subscription. After finding other games lacking he has come back to AoC and has found a vastly different game.

And me, what have I been doing?

Well, like Stargrace, of late I haven’t been getting much time at all during the week for gaming of any sort. I’ve just been keeping my nose to the grindstone and getting on with things. During the weekends I’ve been finding a little time here and there for gaming.

And there I’ve found myself back in the land of Norrath, both post and pre sundered forms. I experimented a bit last weekend on EQ 2 with the summoner archetype, creating both a DE Necromancer and a Froglok Conjurer. Now that was an interesting comparison, at least in the early levels the Necro wins hands down for ease of play. While the good-aligned conjurer has some tough pets, he only has direct damage spells. The necromancer has DOTs that simply burn down the mobs nice and fast.

In keeping with the summoning theme, I visited old Norrath and created a Gnome Magician. You might remember I took a trip down memory lane this past Christmas and spent quite a lot of time in EQ:OA trying out different classes including the Necromancer. Here, it seems the roles are reversed. The Mage appears to be a better soloer than the Necro. I spent a good few hours today (before going out) getting my Mage up to level 10, and just departed the Gloomingdeep Mines tutorial area.

I haven’t forgotten LotRO either, even though I haven’t spent much time there the last couple of weeks. I’ve left my hunter sitting in Evendim, but I need to take her back to the North Downs to finish off Book 3. This weekend is a long weekend here in Oz (the Queens Birthday weekend) so I should be able to find some time to do that.

That’s unless I get stuck in either EQ.

Sigh. So many games, so little time.

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