I hope everyone had a lovely holiday. Ours was quiet as usual (being across entire oceans from my family and friends) but still nice. Phil got me a Kindle Fire HD, which I love to bits – it’s my preciousssss. We’ve been very lazy, have eaten a metric buttload of holiday food (and isn’t that a lovely image), and had some guilt-free game time. I even had some time to work on the graphic strip that I’ve been thinking about for ages. (More on that later – it’s still not ready for prime time.)
As far as gaming goes, this is actually a great time for MMO gamers. There are a couple of very solid and enjoyable MMOs that have gone pay-to-play (with varying degrees of success) and Rift had a solid expansion. This is what I’ve been playing:
Rift:
I re-subbed for two months and haven’t played a great deal. I saw some of the new areas, but got involved with other games for a couple of reasons. One reason was that although the expansion was up to Trion’s normal high standard, it felt a lot grindier than it used to. Mobs hit a lot harder so questing is slower, and on one day I’d played for almost two hours and went from being 48% through that level to 51%. This was while using the Veteran’s 50% XP potion as well. I don’t like flying through content, but this just felt hopeless so I became less and less enthusiastic about logging in.
SWTOR:
The positive part of the conversion to pay-to-play was that the story (so far) was offered for free, without restriction. The rest of it pretty much sucked: 20-30% XP reduction along with a host of less catastrophic, but no less annoying, restrictions such as not being able to sprint for ages and having to pay to remove your ugly hat. I’m still planning on working my way through a number of storylines, but am currently sidetracked by…
The Secret World:This is my current game of choice. I can’t convince anyone I know to play, so it’s a bit lonely, but I’m still enjoying it. I must say, though, that I hadn’t realised how non-solo-friendly areas of this game are (I’d levelled my first character in tandem with Phil). It can be a harsh game, and you’ll become quite familiar with anima form. Add in the miserable freakin annoying Mayan zombies that are currently plaguing new players right now, and death becomes a regular thing. (They seem to be coded to spawn when you’re at death’s door, or when you’re doing a wave event such as the one in Edgar’s scrapyard where you’re AOEing down lots of mobs.)
Guild Wars 2:
I haven’t played much GW2, as I needed to let my anger at ArenaNet and their community managers cool. This relates to the Great Bot Problem, when they were not addressing bots because they were too busy deleting and locking community threads where players were complaining about said bots. Now, a couple of months later, they’ve finally started doing something about the bot armies and goldspammers, but I still think they’re jerks and don’t want to support their game. Hey, I’m a mature adult, which is all about cutting off your nose to…well, you know. :)
I’ve been thinking about finding a guild, once I decide on a game to settle down in. I don’t think I would ever think about raiding again, but a group that does a bit of everything would be great. A mature group of people who don’t think that everything is “gay.” Non-elitist types. Hmmn, must do some research.
I’m looking forward to 2013, and hoping for a year of positive things. I wish you happiness and health and all good things as well.
