I live

Yea well I’ve been lazy about posting. Busy with work lately and real life gets in the way and some days I jsut don’t feel like going near my computer when I get home.

I went to Connect ‘08 a couple weeks ago. Birmingham is such an ugly ugly ugly city. But it is the best place to have any kind of convention since it’s in the middle of the country. Here are the 3 pieces that came out of that though.

Jumpgate Evolution

Lord of the Rings Online

Dungeon & Dragons Online
It was a good time and I got to meet people and play games and get paid for it. Oh what a horrible job I have. I have to play games and write about them. Or the horror.

Good-Bye

Yesterday when I got in from work my husband had sad news for me. Gary Gygax has died. I sat down suddenly and began to frown as the impact settled in.

Indirectly Gary Gygax has been responsible for a fair amount of the years of my life since I was 20. Without him and his creation of D&D and RPGs the last 12 years of my life wouldn’t have happened the same and I certainly would not have my wonderful husband. So many friends and so many wonderful times. All because of one creation that spawned so many ideas and millions of imaginations.

I was about 12 when I played my very first D&D 2nd Ed game. I was confused by THAC0 then and I still am today, but regardless I loved it and wanted to play more. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to play more until I was in my 20s. Between that first D&D game and my 20s though was computer games. Wonderful RPGs such as Final Fantasy. Games that I seriously don’t think would have existed had Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson not created the world of D&D and RPGs.

With a single creation imaginations were spurred into action and our whole gaming world has blossomed. Inadvertantly Gary Gygax changed the face of gaming, both computer and pen&paper. That change though has touched so many lives and changed so many people. And so much of it was only for the better.

Gary Gygax you were a hero who loved your fans to the last moment. We will miss you.

Fuck!!

Gary Gygax is dead. No details yet, but fuck fuck fuck fuck!!!

If only….

So, thanks to a special someone I’ve been playing around in Pirates of the Burning Sea on a buddy key. I didn’t realise just how much I’ve been looking forward to playing PotBS until I got that little code. Once I finally managed to find the download page, with unexpected help from the SOE FAQ, I was well on my way to waiting 24 hours to play. I had to download it twice because the first one was corrupted. Not sure why, shit happens. Once I had it installed it took another 12 hours to patch. I wish I was joking about that amount of time but I’m not. I trully astonished me jsut how much patching was needed.

It was eventually ready though and I was ready to get in there and be a pirate. So I did and I was having a bit of fun trying out being a scourge of the sea. All is good and well until I log in one day and the harbour I’m in happens to be over shadowed by a nearby port’s siege. I think nothing of it figuring that high level people won’t bother with me since I’m obviously only level 6 and definately a newbie. Ya know I wish I could say this all has a happy ending, but I can’t. I was attacked of course. No biggie right? I am after all in a PvP zone so I should expect someone of a similiar level to me to have a go at PvP. Definately not the case. For my first PvP experience in this lovely game I get jumped by big boys and not just 1, but 2 of them teamed on me. Yes my dears, it took two level 40+ ships to take out little level 6 me with nothing in my hull but a bit of default ammo. This was not the only incident like this unfortunately. I had several scenarios like this one happen to me and it did not make me happy.

I am not what people term as a carebear. If I willingly go into a PvP zone then it is my own fault if I get attacked. What I object to is having a PvP zone thrust upon me and thus having my choice taken away.

I am more than aware of the nature of this game. I know that PvP is a part of it. The nature of the game doesn’t mean that everyone wants to do it. There are PvE shops out on the open seas that will attack you. There is anything but safety out on the open waters, but to force people in PvP when they don’t want it is a bad choice and it will drive people away.

So as much as I enjoyed playing PotBS, the PvP really makes me not want to play it because I don’t like having that choice taken out of my hands.

Planetside Glance

The Planetside:At a Glance article is up. I’m a little annoyed that it’s jsut today been posted as it was supposed to go up on the 1st, but oh well.

Anyhow it’s late so no long posts tonight. Sleepy time for me.

Deadline

At this very moment I’m doing a write up about Planetside. Not a full review, mind you. Just a basic overview of the game with some first impressions. I still haven’t decided how I feel about this MMOFPS. I’ve been playing FPS games since the beginning of time and online since Quake World. So this isn’t really new territory for me, but it is different.

The article is due tomorrow. And as usual I’m writing it the night before. Although technically it’s due today since it’s after midnight. Still it’s only about half done and it’s 2am. I’ll get it in on time. I always do. Only once have I ever missed a deadline.

I should get back to work. I’ll make sure to post up a link when it’s live on the MMORPG.com website.

Interview?

A part of my job of course involves interviews. Unfortunately a large portion of them aren’t face to face or even in real time via a chat program. No, most are me writing a bunch of leading and hard questions and sending them off to whomever.

Now through a fair amount of practice I’ve learned how to write leading questions. The kind of questions that should provoke more than a single sentance response. The kind of questions that just beg for a detailed response. Sometimes though no matter how I try the interviewee jsut won’t play ball.

A recent interview I did with a CEO of a rather large game company here in the UK was one of those flops. All of his answers were short and flat. Sure he answered my questions, but not with much detail or gusto. It makes you think that either he hates these things or he doesn’t want to tell players anything.

And that right there is the point I’ve been slowly driving towards in the last 170ish words. Why do these CEOs bother agreeing to these interviews if they aren’t going to tell us anything? You’d thing that they’d be happy for the chance to toot their own horn. I’ve done talked with CEOs and Community Managers before, they love to toot their own horn given half a chance.

Bah!

A Piece of History

Not really about gaming, but I stumbled on this today and thought it would be good to share. This was the beginning and without it we wouldn’t be sitting here right now and you wouldn’t be reading this.

Playing a Captain

Recently I was asked by one of my editors to write an guide to playing a Captain in Lord of the Rings Online. My prompt response was that I don’t write guides. He wasn’t ready to let me out of writing something though so instead we agreed on a small op-ed piece about me playing a Captain.

I don’t like to tell people how to play a class in any game. As far as I’m concerned there is no right or wrong way to play something. How I play something will always be different to how the next guy does. In the gaming world this is a long running debate on classes. Wat is best for what and how to play certain ways. Obviously I don’t follow this logic and feel people should jsut play how they enjoy it.

So here is the outcome of that article. I know left things out, but it isn’t a guide, it’s jsut a small way of how I play and what I think is important in playing a Captain. Oh and that screenshot is a picture of my very own character.

January Sales

The holiday season is over and I can get back on track with posting here.  I got a little distracted, sorry.

All of the game shops are having after Christmas sales. Marked down prices and 3 for 2 are exploding out of the woodwork. The only problem is that all of the games on sale are obviously old stock they want to get rid of. Games that no one wants or they already have. I get what they’re trying to do, but it annoys me. The good games are still marked at the normal retail price. So these sales are nearly useless to me for console games.

I did nearly buy a Zelda aluminum case for my DS in the sales. A case I really very much don’t need but it was jsut so kool I really wanted it. The only thing that actually stopped me was the mile long line and my lack of patience.

So what is coming that I really want in the way of games? Street Fighter 4 should be interesting. I’m very interested in the art direction they’ve taken. It’s so very different from the previous games and many current games. It’s a fighting game so I’ll very likely enjoy it and it is Street Fighter, a series that ate days of my life as a teen. But it’s the art that truly has my interest.

We’ll see what the new year holds for games. Hopefully it’ll be more interesting than last year. Every yea of games should be more interesting than the previous one.