Oh! Hello! I seem to have vanished in a deluge of holidays and such like, partly giving myself a few weeks off, and partly wallowing in the throes of a fairly savage bout of Seasonal Blues. All very maudlin and the mood takes me from time to time; dark soulsearching hours in which I wonder whether I'm not just a big fat cheat, whether I ought to be playing online games at all, and whether I have any business writing about them on the interwebs.
Holiday gaming was mostly EVE Online and Guild Wars this year, with both Second Life and City of Villains, my other two current titles failing to enthuse me to the point where I can actually be bothered to log in. Partly mopeing, indeed, but some serious thought about continued subscriptions is in order soon, I think. The break also saw me putting more time into single-player offline gaming than I've done in many a year, including Freelancer, Morrowind, and the time-murderer's favourite, Civilisation; IV in this case. I also went nocturnal and feral, as usual...
Round-ups and prediction pieces available at, well, pretty much every sidebar link, right, so I'll not venture opinions on an industry with which I find myself growing increasingly out of touch these days. Instead, I'll go with last year's format; a tally of my own category post-counts over the last twelve months.
World of Warcraft: 3 posts. I'd not actually played this at all this year, having left the game prior to The Burning Crusade. These were just interesting news items I felt I had to be snarky about. Plus typing <google>WORLD OF WARCRAFT</google> a lot anyway helps with Google Hits! I'm such a whore. Still not relapsed.
Everquest 2: 8 posts. These were mostly to do with the 2005 Frostfell stuff, and by mid February, I'd burned out and hung the thing up, despite having found a helpful and likeable enough guild and having seen a great and ongoing improvement to the title since it's release state. Amicable unsubscription.
The EVE Second Genesis CCG: 9 posts. Not even an MMO, CCP's 'meatspace' card game proved to be quite fun, although seemed to bog down with an eventual dependably victorious Minmatar small frigate Kamikaze deck which my opponents had to work hard to beat. The eventual drifting apart of our regular group put an end to this and the cards have been gathering dust since April, the games having become very samey. Loss of interest.
Planetside: 10 posts. Some decent fun in Planetside early in the year, just before the Reserves year-long free-trial came to an end. I, like many people, decided that although a good casual online shooter, it probably wasn't worth $13 a month. Trial expired.
City of Villains: 10 Posts. Still going with this one, off the back of one of my Operation Cheapseats free trial runs, proving that free trials do work! The game is entertaining in concept and execution, but comes with quite an old-school grind on it. I'm still subscribed at present, but not sure for how much longer, being a bit of a lightweight when it comes to repetition these days, and yet not nearly outgoing enough to build and maintain the large social network in-game that is likely needed to take your mind off the xp bar. Still subscribed - under review.
Second Life: 17 Posts. Winner of the 2006 Van Hemlock Game of the Year, this one didn't do nearly as well this year. I did try a bit of virtual tourism, and in some vague attempt to work out what Real Business does in there, visited the Playboy Island, IBM Campus and Swedish Embassy, rounding off with a look at Burning Life 2007. All fascinating in their own ways, but not exactly fun, per se. My own Second Life has largely been one of annoying customer service calls and what suspiciously feels like work, all of which has really soured me to the place and made me dread having to log in to deal with it all. By the time these problems are dealt with, I find myself entirely without motivation to build anything else, and instead would prefer just to blow some stuff up, elsewhere. Still subscribed - under review.
EVE Online: 21 Posts. A game I ought to hate for any number of reasons, but also one I can't stay away from. Two seasons of it, this year, both in the employ of a small but successful player corp, and playing the game as intended. I've seen wars, mining ops, cloaked recon missions, scanning, and all sorts of stuff. The recent session has seen me relocate into Low-Sec, and not run away screaming, largely due to my specialisation in the Covert Ops Frigates, and Cloaking Devices, and attendant Scanning skills. Still quite interested in this one, and am likely to be playing for some time, or at least until the next shiney comes along. Actively playing.
And the winner...
Guild Wars: 49 Posts. A staggering victory for Arenanet's quirky offering, one which many people wouldn't call an MMO at all. The huge number of posts here are mostly down to my adventures with the Tuesday N00b Club, a variable but select group with which I've worked my way through all of Nightfall, all of Factions and most of Eye of the North, on a largely regular weekly basis. This win is as much a testament to the fun of just having a regular group in any game, as it is to the nature of the game itself - a long-running but episodic epic saga, with you the player, at its cut-scene and mission-based heart.
We're still working at EoN, and have two missions to go, but whether GW will still have the same blogging appeal to me once I've 'won' and finished all the story stuff, remains to be seen. There's certainly lots more to do in the game, but these extra activities don't seem quite so interesting to write about, to my mind.
The casual, and yet involved nature of the game, its demands for careful thought and sheer tinkerability with skill builds and combos, and the hectic and tight moment to moment experience of the basic gameplay continue to fascinate however, and of course, having no monthly fee makes this a very hard game to put down. Actively playing.
As for the newly hatched 2008, well...I'm not sure I'm looking forward to anything in particular to be honest. The last few years have seen quite a few massively hyped releases not quite live up to expectations, so I've learnt not to have any anymore. I'm happy enough with EVE Online and Guild Wars, undecided about City of Villains, and distinctly cheesed off with Second Life.
Just have to see what happens when the wind changes next. Until then, I have a score to settle with Cyndr the Mountain Heart, and The Great Destroyer. Look out for some much needed closure soon!