September 2008 Entries
Another launch, another blogosphere debate about such nebulous terms as 'Innovation', 'Evolution', 'Revolution' and all sorts of related 'tions', most of which seem to be synonyms for 'Bored of WoW! Moar Differenty!' Certainly been here before myself, and Tobold seems to have hit the nail on the head (damnit!), with a response to it all, on long the basic lines of 'Different is already here, just none of you really want that.' I'm paraphrasing somewhat, but he casually throws out three or four titles which are indeed different, in a very meaningful sense, rather than in the minutiae. They...
I suspect most of my online gaming life has been a turbulent journey in which I continually attempt to find the right kind of PvP to suit my temperament. My very first ever online game was a series of endlessly repeating Tie Fight deathmatches, in X-Wing Vs Tie-Fighter, and within a month or so of starting on my first ever MMO, I'd moved to a free-for-all PvP server. Despite that, I'd probably call myself a carebear, if asked today. It's generally a bit more complicated than that though, as we attempt to illustrate in our latest hour-long Topic In...
Here I am again, filling in another in a long line of 'I Quit' forms, this time for Age of Conan. Always a difficult thing for me. I spend a lot of time in MMOs, and reaching this point of the Cycle of Interest is always uncomfortable, no matter how many I pass through. Is it me? I feel like I'm letting the game down a bit - something about my psychology can't stay away from these games, and yet never manages to quite play them properly, to see it through, to stick with it, to complete the single...
Yet more ramblings here! I sometimes worry about podfade, that one week we'll sit down in the illustrious Van Hemlock Podcast Studios, look at each other and shrug in silence. I'm not even sure how many shows we'd thought we'd do. Still, the MMOosphere keeps on providing, and here's show 18: The Jon Show (Ep18): In which all manner of games we have No Business Talking About, get talked about, including <google>Warhammer Online!</google>, Vanguard, Runescape, <google>World of Warcraft</google> and sundry others! There's also the What Were Playing Bit, which features no games worth doing the <google>...
Demonstrating my typical sense for all things current, cutting edge and topical, while everyone else is off to <google>Warhammer Online</google>, for me, its back to City of Villains. It's a game I've played a fair bit before, and one of those old flames with whom I parted amicably. It did get a bit grindey, I must admit, but that was some time ago, and they've apparently smooth the mid-game level curve a bit since my last sojourn. I think much of the troubles of last time was me going at it in slightly the wrong frame of mind too....
So perhaps the whole GvG debut wasn't quite the path to glory I was expecting, and all in all, it looks like we'll need an awful lot of practice before stepping up for that kind of beating again. It'll come in time, I'm sure, and at present, the plan seems to be alternate weeks PvP and PvE for the Tuesday N00b Club. Our PvP nights are largely Scrimmage and Alliance Battle based, which is an altogether less harsh and brutal kind of way to while away one's evening. It's still no place for the fragile ego, mind you,...
It's all in the eye of the beholder, as they say, and 'Subjective' is fast becoming one of my favouritest words. Much of last fortnight was occupied with a spectacular U-turn and really quite feeble caving in, where I ended up impulse buying Bioshock from a supermarket one lunchtime. See, well, everywhere else about five months ago for a proper review of that, but I found it to be one of those rare but truly awe-inspiring moments that don't come up nearly as often as they should, in my gaming life.
It also somewhat polarised me in a long running...
Life continues in Everyone's Favourite MMO, and that most rare of things, a Positive Pick Up Group Experience! Like many of my MMOs of late, Age of Conan seems to be turning into a once-a-week thing for me. Quite possibly this is just the result of having far too many on the go at once, but I find a comforting kind of dependability in the weekly routine I seem to have fallen into of late. Mondays is Age of Conan, Tuesdays is, well, the Tuesday Noob Club of course, Wednesdays seems to have suddenly become City of Villains Night...