Pumping Irony

May certainly flew by! Originally I had set a soft goal for myself of getting my Lore-master in LOTRO to 50 before the 24th, my birthday. Shortly after putting that goal into writing, I checked my May schedule and realized it wasn’t going to happen unless I power-leveled my way there, skipping a lot of content I’d been looking forward to. I did manage to get Arwellyn to 44 at least.

Age of Conan was going to launch on the 20th, so I made an effort at getting to level 20 and out of Tortage prior to launch. I didn’t manage that, either. While Funcom applied a so-called “miracle patch” two days prior to launch (and another last week) which improved performance dramatically, they’ve yet to create any miracles which cause me to want to login. I’ve never read Robert E. Howard’s Conan material so I couldn’t care less that I’m adventuring in the world of Conan. I’m just hoping for a fun game. AoC has a lot of positives, but for me personally, its negatives still outweigh them. Originally, I’d said I’d wait several months to play, perhaps around winter. Give Funcom time to get real feedback from real players rather than just the beta crowd. It’s summer and I’d rather get some sun than pick up yet another new game. I have put time in post-launch since Funcom has kept the Live Test servers up for us, and while I’m finally out of Tortage, the game is still failing to draw me in. Knowing that only players who get into large guilds to participate in raids and city sieges will get the most out of the game is a factor that pushes me away. The end-game degenerating into a WoW-esque hardcore raiding or PvP scenario is yet another. I like raiding, but I don’t like having to be a raider. There’s a profound difference, and I’m just not willing to become a raider again. That’s where, for me, LOTRO shines: group content, dungeons, and raids, but players are never funneled into a specific end-game path.

The highlight for the month was my birthday trip to the Florida Keys. The original plan was to stay at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas but I seem to have misplaced my passport and would not have received a replacement in time. We chose a new resort we’d never been to on Marathon Key. Had a total blast, and my girlfriend literally had to drag me out of the sun, but I managed to not become a complete crispy lobster critter. My shoulders and forehead were burned and quite red, but not overly painful. Everything else is just healthily tanned. The resort, Tranquility Bay, was very nice and it’s name is appropriate, it’s very tranquil. I’d say for the overall resort treatment, I’d still prefer Hawk’s Cay though. Speaking of which, we stopped by a couple nights and Hawk’s Cay has pretty much completed their renovations. It’s really gorgeous and some of the changes, such as completing remodeling the front public pool and moving the bar to a new location were pleasantly surprising. Looking forward to going back.

Back into the MMO/gaming/blogging community highlights, without a doubt the highlight of the month was Darren making good on his threat to have me on Shut Up. We’re Talking. That was a lot of fun, some good jokes and flubs were cut, but it was a great experience. I’d only chatted with Karen in tells and guild chat a handful of times so it was nice to actually speak to my (former) guild leader, and give her a couple of cheap ribbings. I also learned that, while it’s nice to prepare and take notes so things are fresh and in my head, it’s a Bad Idea to actually have those notes in my face while speaking. They ended up being a distraction and were the cause of my more spaztastic bits where I lost focus. Having the notes there and trying (and failing) to hit each bullet point left a sensation to the listener (in my opinion) that I was focused more on making my point and less involved with being conversational. If there’s a next time, I’ll prepare and take notes, but once Skype goes on, the notes go off.

At the risk of appearing self-congratulatory, I’ll also mention that two of my posts ended up over at Massively.com as well. My post on MMO patching [Massively link] was first, early in the month, followed by my APB post [Massively link] a few days ago. I’ll be honest: I don’t always know what to make of Massively.com. The writers are on an articles-per-week schedule which means they have to churn out material. As a result, that material isn’t always what I’d consider “quality” content on a commercial, professional site. I don’t mean to come off as being ungrateful but “Pumping Irony gets philosophical on patchers?” The title and content made it seem like I was really going overboard evaluating all possible, practical and theoretical aspect of patching, while I thought I had been clear in the actual post that the whole thing was just an early morning observation on the two most commonly used methods. Anyway, I appreciated the attention from a commercial site, but not the attempt at what I viewed at blatant sensationalism. The author of the APB article which linked here had some actual commentary of his own, was well-written, and just used my article to further his point.

I don’t have concrete plans for June. Obviously I’m enjoying Guild Wars again so I’ll certainly spend time there. I’ve been missing DDO. There was some guild drama, in which the guild was originally going to be disbanded. Turns out that never happened, we’re still there just the leader promoted someone else to take his place. I like the family feel of the guild, but it’s also a small guild with rarely more than three of us online. So I’m conflicted: do I leave and take the time to find another larger guild with a more active population? If so, am I being selfish, seeking an active guild so there are always people around when I want them around even though I’m a very casual DDO player? Or do I stick it out and rely on PUGs as usual? Also, ever since I started playing, I always see the Sublime Permadeath guild running around. I’ve been curious since the beginning. Over at DDOcast, Lessah has taken over the role-playing segment after Merlask was hired by Turbine. For the past several episodes, Lessah has also been heavily into the various permadeath guilds in DDO, and highly recommends Sublime. I have a character created specifically for Sublime, but just haven’t worked up the nerve to apply yet. Because I play so casually, and I would do perma-death even more casually, I don’t want to just take up a slot that rarely gets used. But I’m extremely curious about the whole thing, and I’d love to see how they actually play. One of the complaints in DDO is that the veteran players have the quests memorized and tend to rush through to the end for experience or favor, skipping alternate objectives. There is no rushing in permadeath; each encounter must be carefully executed. With the release of Module 7 in a few days, introducing the Monk class, a completely revamped Three-Barrel Cove wilderness area, a completely revamped tutorial zone, and one or two new raids plus a new outdoor raid zone, I can see myself delving back into DDO in June.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 31st, 2008 at 11:39 pm and is filed under MMO Gaming.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.