It’s been quite some time since I’ve written about games other than EQ2 on this site – but that doesn’t mean I’m not playing them. I had been making most of those ‘other’ types of posts over at NomadicGamer since the site needed a few posts and because they fit within the topic a lot better. Hopefully my readers here don’t mind that everything is not EQ2 related this week.

What I’m up to in games

EVE Online: My main account is (at the time of writing this) exactly 5 days, 8 hours, 3 minutes, 1 second away from flying a hulk. WOW. I’m incredibly excited. I’ve dreamed about flying a hulk since I first started playing EVE and now that I’m almost there it is a very surreal feeling. The down side to this is that I’ve failed 6 hulk blueprint inventions. Using this site to figure out the math pretty much explained how hulks have the lowest success rate. I’m hoping to keep plugging away at it and maybe invent one just before I can fly it but I’m not holding my breath. In the mean time I’ve been running missions for CreoDron so that I can work with a L3 agent, I’m .15 standing away which is pretty nice. My second account is having a blast flying her new Dominix, it’s a battlecruiser and I just managed to fit some 350mm compressed coil guns onto it. Yum. Now I’m working towards all of the drone goodies as my ship is mostly a tank while drones do all of the damage work. Yesterday Kasul helped me fit a new imicus that I bought for scouting (probing). I’ve never been all that good at probing, but I’m not going to get any better if I don’t try it more often. I’d like to scan down sites for the hulk to mine. I need 26 hours of training in order to fit the cloaking device, but aside from that it’s the first ship that I’ve actually completely fit, and properly. My 2nd account has four ships that I use. The Dominix (battlecruiser) for my missions, the Vexor (cruiser) for missions that don’t allow battlecruisers (I hate those missions, just saying), the Imicus for scouting, and the Iteron V for hauling. I like the set up so far, and I’m having a lot of fun with it. I really enjoy the Dominix a great deal too, great ship.

World of Warcraft: I’ve been playing this game off and on since release and it’s always amusing to me to hear everyone talk about it. My highest level character just reached level 64 yesterday (woot), my priest. Everyone talks about having multiple level 80 characters, and how easy it is to get there but for me it seems like the slowest thing in the world. I’m having a lot of fun with it, working my way through the Burning Crusade and little bits into Wrath of the Lich King. Neither expansion is something I’m all that familiar with and it’s all brand new. Of course much like I do in every game I play, I’ve been crafting as much as I can. My tailor (the priest) just reached a skill level of 350 yesterday, and chose a specialization in mooncloth. Once I reach level 65 I can obtain the Grand Master rank, and continue on. Even though some people argue that crafting in WoW is simple, I really enjoy it. It’s nice to have the objectives of the crafting mini game change compared to what I’m used to. The actual ACT of crafting is not the mini game in WoW. Obtaining materials and recipes is the mini game, and even then only because I make it so. It doesn’t make it any less interesting to me, and I’m really enjoying myself. I have five characters, the 64 priest (tailor / enchanter), 58 DK (used mostly for farming, mining / herbalism), 43 hunter (farming, skinning / mining), 40 shaman (jewelcrafting / inscription), and a level 8 druid (alchemy / herbalism). I’m excited about inching my way to level 80 because I’ve always wanted to be ‘end game’ even though it was constantly out of my grasp. No guarantee that I’ll make it this time around either, but I’m hopeful.

EQ2: I still log in, check the broker, search for new books, and craft. Decorating is a little slower, but I still have a lot of fun with it. I think I’m just waiting for Halas to come out so I can see if it affects my game at all, and see if I get excited about it again. Breaks are not bad things, and I’m enjoying my time away from EQ2 right now. There’s a reason I term myself a nomadic gamer after all!

There are other games on my radar like Age of Conan (I picked up the game for $7 from EBGames), Dark Ages of Camelot ($10 with all expansions from – you guessed it, EBGames), Fallen Earth, Champions Online, Wizard101, LotRO, and DDO. I also still have my subscription to Darkfall, though I haven’t been playing it lately and I own Guild Wars which I keep meaning to play again and just never seem to get around to it.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself. I hope everyone has a magnificant weekend!

This weekend I decided to organize my gaming area a bit – I’m now sporting dual monitors (which I absolutely LOVE) and I also crossfired two ATI Radeon 4870s which is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I have to admit, the i7 quad core was an amazing purchase, even though I’ve had it for going on two years now. I run it with 8 gigs of ram, and have had very few issues. I’ve also not regretted switching from Nividia to ATI, I burned through so many Nvidia cards, ATI has yet to let me down.

On a semi related note, I picked up Age of Conan for $7 at Best Buy (the box, I realize digital versions of the game have been pretty cheap lately too), and I also picked up Dark Ages of Camelot for $10 (including all expansions). I’ve never played DAoC before, despite the fact that it’s been around forever, and LOTS of people have talked about the game. I’m excited about giving it a try for a month and writing about it over on NomadicGamer.com – I haven’t been very Nomadic lately, which has been nice, but I’m getting restless (as I always do).

I hope everyone else is having an amazing weekend, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.

I’m torn on the subject of daily quests. On one hand, sure who doesn’t want a reason to log in every day. The daily missions in EQ2 that reward shards for armor were one such example of this along with the hot zone (meaning the zone has an increased chance to drop loot). On the other hand working towards a goal via daily quests like faction really makes me annoyed, because I don’t want to have to wait day by day in order to purchase a faction item, I want it RIGHT NOW. Or at least 10 hours from now once I’ve grinded the faction out the ‘regular‘ way.

Examples of this are the new daily crafter quests available in Sentinel’s Fate. In order to purchase any of the armor recipes (I’m speaking from a tailor perspective specifically) you need 40,000 faction with the kerra isle folks AND faction with the crafter division of that same island. If you’re an adventurer you’ll be able to gain one of the factions quite easily by completing the chain of adventure quests, but you’re still left with a whole lot of craft faction to work on at the end. The daily quests only give you 2,500 faction a day and you’ll be around 12,000 or so after the chain of crafter quests. That’s a fair amount of dailies to complete before you’re able to purchase the recipes you may want.

It seems that these days every game wants to add a ‘come log in’ factor for players – WoW has had daily quests for quite some time, and now even Aion is jumping into it with their new 1.9 patch that is in the works. It’s certainly not the first time we’ve seen it in EQ2 either, the Isle of Mara craft division has been giving daily (and weekly) craft quests for some time.

I’m a little burned out on EQ2 lately, I’ve been playing quite a bit since the release of Sentinel’s Fate and so my attention has wandered over to other games (like EVE, and Darkfall). If you’re looking to read some of my posts about those games please visit Nomadic Gamer, which is a 2nd web site I started up – and keep in mind that I’m also always looking for volunteer writers for that site. If you’re looking for a place to post your opinion (about games, mind you. They don’t have to be MMO specific) just let me know and I can get you set up. Anyhow, I’ve been logging in to EQ2 to complete my daily quests but other then that I’m taking a small break, I don’t want to burn out completely after all. This is where playing so many games actually comes in handy, they all seem to remind me why I love my ‘main’ games.

What do you think about daily quests? Are they a good thing? A bad thing? Would you like to see more creative ways to entice players to log in every day? Let me know in comments!

Safe travels, and happy gaming!

Wow. 1500 posts already. For me this is a HUGE milestone. I’ve been writing on MmoQuests.com for five years this year. FIVE years? That’s a life time in the online world. Hitting such a mark made me think about milestones, not just in real life but in our gaming atmospheres. Above is a screen shot from March 2006, it’s my very first guild (that I personally created), Fire and Ice on the … I can’t even remember which server. It’s either Najena or Lucan D’Lere. Satia was my character (a dark elf warden who I now play as Seduisant, having renamed when I moved servers multiple times). Our guild had just reached level 17, and it was such a proud moment. It was before we were even aware of the fire and ice quest that would take you to defeat Darathar and obtain your prismatic 1.0

Reaching these milestones in any capacity is an incredible feeling. Whether you’ve nailed a project at work, or reached a new level in a game. Whether you and your friends have done something incredible together, or you’ve finally made that big purchase you’ve always dreamed of. Reaching milestones makes us feel good about our situations (typically) and carrying this over into a video game is just one more aspect of allowing us to feel GOOD about things. Who wants to play a game where all you do is feel shoddy all of the time. We play them because we feel good, it’s entertaining.

I’m looking forward to reaching many more milestones as time goes on, and I hope everyone else reaches their milestones too. I’m still in awe at 1500 posts, haha.

Happy gaming everyone, I’ll see you in Norrath, Tranquility, The Spire, Telon, Middle Earth, Atreia, the American Grand Canyon, Hyboria, Azeroth, Tyria, Eberron, and numerous other places.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Karen and Adam (who you guys may already know from Journeys with Jaye and Epic Slant) caught me off guard and asked if I’d be willing to guest on a podcast of theirs, View from the Top. Having never done a single podcast in my entire life (although I have lots of experience talking to myself, and the cat) I decided to face my fears of public speaking, and give it a shot. After all, what was the WORST that could happen (Princess could take the microphone and reveal all of my secrets). This was no easy task for me, but Karen threatened me sent Sith Lords after me held the cat ransom convinced me that no harm would come from it.

Please head on over to the link above and give it a listen. Also don’t forget to submit a question for their next shows, even though I have no intentions of ever doing another podcast, they do a fantastic job at answering!

Thank you again Karen and Adam for having me on the show, it really was a blast!

While it may not be widely known yet, it’s only a matter of time. Anyone who messes with Tipa and becomes her arch nemesis, even in the blogging world, must incur the wrath of her entire guild.

Syp, consider this your first and last warning!

Those of us at Torrent Knights don’t take kindly to one of our own being picked on. Unlike you, Tipa comes with an arsenal of friends that she doesn’t have to pay for an evening of company.

Bring it on.

What’s more important to you as a player – the classes you can select, or the races of the characters you play? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. In a lot of mainstream MMOs it’s hard to move away from the ‘holy trinity’ of warrior-healer-dps. There’s not a lot offered outside of those realms. For me personally, it’s more important what race is offered, because the majority of the time I already know at least three classes are going to be available, and I’m comfortable with that.

I don’t like to play humans in my video games. I suppose the very basic reason is because I already ‘play’ one in real life and I find them a little boring. I’d much rather place a creature of some type, or some race that may be similar to human but is not. Yes, looks play a giant role in that. I’d love to see more MMOs where you can customize your race with hand selected features and traits and be an ‘unknown’ if that’s what you wish. I realize that for lore purposes this doesn’t exactly work out in all situations (ie: EQ2) but I think it would be a really neat idea. What would happen if you mixed a ratonga with a kerra, and were able to add specific features from both races, perhaps they’ve evolved over time. Or if you could combine your arasai with a troll, choosing racial features and traits from both ‘base’ races.

Ah the possibilities we’d have then!

It’s that time of year again, when Beckett MOG hosts their Readers Choice Awards. I’d really appreciate and love it if everyone went over and cast their vote for the survey, I realize there are a few glitches within the survey at the moment, they’re being ironed out by my Editor Doug (I didn’t have anything to do with creating the survey, but I was asked to promote it). So please head over to the site and complete the survey for your favorite games of 2009! The results will be posted in our next issue of Beckett MOG, which is due to hit shelves mid March.

Click here to head to the survey.

Thanks!

Just a very quick post that I’m post dating to the 9th (even though today is the 15th) because I saw I had a blank spot on the calendar. Sneaky? Sure maybe but it’s my site so that’s what I get to do!

2009 was pretty impressive for me personally, especially in relation to work and games (since my work relates directly to games). Despite the fact that I spent a good 7 months of it sick and bedridden, I still think it was an alright year. I’m hoping that 2010 will be even more impressive. Here are a few things that really stand out in my mind about 2009, and memories that I’ll never forget.

- February 2009, I was informed that I would be heading to San Diego for a day to interview the good folks at SOE. I had about two weeks to prepare for the trip, including getting my passport, and it was probably the most hectic thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. It included 1 day flying, 1 day interviewing, and 1 day flying home (I do live on the other side of NA after all). It was also the most amazing thing I’ve ever done (to date). It was a very surreal experience to speak with developers of EQ, EQ2, and Vanguard, and I received an exceptionally warm welcome by the EQ2 community team. As my first ‘on site’ interview, it was not something I will ever forget.

- Sadly I caught the midori virus while I was there *snickers* and it stuck with me for a few months. I went through some pretty painful health issues, and it lasted until October. Not a happy camper, I had great support from my friends, and did my best, continued my work for Beckett although most of that was from my bed.

- Fall 2009 I received an unexpected phone call from Eric Bloom of Blue Oyster Cult. He was playing wizard 101, and wanted some game tips, and I learned about what a huge gamer he is. He talked about all sorts of things from World of Warcraft, EQ2, Wizard 101, and I have to admit one of the funniest comments from him was ‘I don’t have to explain to you who I am, right?’ when he was talking about how some times he lacked time to game, due to other press obligations. It was neat to finally realize that hey, everyone plays video games.

- Year long I continued to grow in terms of work, I went from writing 1-3 articles per issue to writing 6-7 on a steady basis. I also got a promotion, and now handle web news and all of my own PR when it comes to the games I cover. I think I’ve learned a lot, and still have a long way to go. I managed to make a blog post almost every single day on MmoQuests.com which is something I’m really happy about.

I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’ve learned even more about MMOs and even about players. I’ve met a wonderful community that I continue to hold close to me (granted I can’t really hold anyone close on Twitter) and I like that I managed to keep my values and morals in tact when it comes to writing about video games. I’ve kept a (mostly) positive attitude in everything I write, and I hope to continue that through 2010, whether it’s boring or not, it’s who I am.

I’m excited about what 2010 will bring, and I hope everyone else is too!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

I was running out of ideas on what to post this morning (it’s been “one of those” weeks) – and didn’t want to break the three year streak of posting on a daily basis, so thankfully Calthine over on twitter suggested I ‘blog about too many choices in MMOs’. Something I hadn’t really thought of a whole lot.

As much as I love to game (and trust me, I game a lot) there comes a time when I really don’t want to have to think. I don’t want a huge selection of choices on where to go and what to do. Some times I just want to pop into a game and simply play. MMOs are not exactly the type of games that offer this I’ve discovered. If I want that sort of game play (and it doesn’t happen often, but it does happen) I typically pick up a console game. RPGs offer a great selection of ‘follow the story’ where I feel as though I’m progressing, but I don’t have to worry about who I’m playing or what I’m doing.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I want LESS choice in my MMOs, I certainly don’t. I’m just saying that some times, having that much choice simply doesn’t appeal to me. Some times I have no idea who I want to play. What server I want to play on, whether I want to quest, adventure, mentor, craft, collect shinies, or any other huge selection of things in EQ2. Some days even figuring out what game to play is a chore in itself. It’s nice that there are SO many games out there, and so much selection, but in times of confusion, or when all you want is something comforting, it can create a headache.

Am I the only person who gets like this? Do we develop gaming ‘habits’ where we log into our favorite MMO with no indication of what to do and simply sit around and log off a few hours later having done nothing ‘productive’ at all out of habit? If I logged into a PC game or a console game I know with a pretty clear mind what I’m going to be doing in any particular game. Again I’m not saying it’s bad, but it makes me think even more about the different types of gaming out there, and how a lot of us are simply not satisfied with one method.

I have no idea if this is what Calthine had in mind when she offered the suggestion, but at least I got a post out of it today (grins). Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself, and I’ll see you in Norrath.