[Rift] Getting Cozy with Rift

Hrumph, missed the chair.

So now that I have completed the WoW level cap challenge, I can start to look into some other games. I am not planning on playing anything too hard core, but I started playing RIFT the other day. I rolled a Dwarf Shaman/Druid/Warden and I am enjoying exploring Telera a bit. I only played two days during the beta period, and now I have logged in to play in the head start three times. The game seems fun enough, but at the moment I’m not too sure if I can play it at the speed I want and still have fun.

At the moment I am happy to just kind of casually stroll through the zones and participate in a RIFT here and complete some quests there; however, it seems like every time I turn around an invasion is striking or a rift is opening up right where I am and I’m just trying to kill my 10 foozles. The rifts are pretty nuts at the moment too. There are so many people at them, by the time you target one of the rift spawns and attack it, you only get one shot off before it is dead. They also kind of seem pretty unscripted. I imagine this is fine for some people, but I do have fond memories of some of the public quests in WAR that had a bit of a story to them and were almost like WoW dungeons out in the open. The rifts (at least at low level) just seem like successive mass spawns of mobs with a mini boss tossed in at the end.

Anyway, the soul system is neat enough, but I don’t know if it is fleshed out as much as it could be. I have already seen a number of websites with specific builds for different classes and the talents that you get from the trees are quite linear. You can’t really pick and choose what skills you want, but rather have to decide what ones you don’t want to use. I’m sure I have a lot to learn in the game and this is by no means a review of the game. These are just some initial thoughts I have.

-Pid

[WoW] A Feather in Your Level Cap

I’ve caught my tail…now what?

Well…I did it. I finally accomplished level cap in an MMO game. Some may argue the difficulty of performing this in WoW, but for me it was a moral victory. I managed to beat back the gnawing urge to finally reach endgame in one of the games in which I spend so much time. Yay! That last level seemed to go on forever, but I was determined to get it done.

Of the 80-85 Cataclysm content, I played through Vashj’ir, Deepholm, Uldum, and part of the Twilight Highlands. I would highly recommend playing through Uldum if you get the chance as the Harrison Jones quest line is quite entertaining if you have ever watched any of the Indiana Jones movies.  Here is a couple of pics of some of the fare you are in for if you do.

Hrmmmm…big dude fighting Dr. Jones with an airplane nearby…what could possibly happen.

If it weren’t for a premature “print screen” button press, this guy would be smeared all over the screen!

I must say, even though I felt pressured to get to the cap (my need to reach it supplied the pressure), I did enjoy all of the 80-85 content. Some of it was better than others, but all in all I did enjoy my time. It was neat to actually see some people running around in the content. TBC and WotLK content was pretty barren.

So would I do it again? Sure, it was a good time.

Would I dedicate 5 years to this game as some people have done? No, I enjoy the journey, but I am not a completionist or anything like that.

I can finally say I have played WoW to level cap, and it is something that I think every person who plays MMO’s regularly should do. It definitely gives you perspective and lets you understand just what all the hubbub is about.

-Pid

Ack! Digital Overload

No, not the conference Digital Overload, I actually am suffering from a real case of too much to do and too little time to do it.

I am very close to reaching my goal in WoW to level cap my Paladin. I just rolled the odometer past level 83 last night, so I am only a few days away from reaching that goal. The problem is, EQ2: DOV just launched and I want to play that, RIFT is just about ready to launch and I want to play that, and looming on the horizon is Dragon Age 2. To top it all off, PAX is in two weeks and I have to get prepared to go to that too! Ack!

I know what you are thinking, if these were your only concerns in life, how blessed you would be. I just don’t understand the need to release all these things at once. I know the games want to compete with each other, but dang it, I don’t want to have to choose.

The only recourse I can come up with is to quit my job and get divorced, but I don’t think that is a viable option. So I guess I am going to take it one day at a time. I will finish WoW, play RIFT when I can, and when I have time piece in EQ2 and DA2.  Ugh!

-Pid

[WoW] /Ding 82

“You talkin’ to me?”

So I am almost there…three more levels and I will have capped my first toon. I can say that I was frantically trying to get through WotLK content to get to the new Cataclysm content, but now that I am actually here, it is rather enjoyable. The pace is pretty quick as far as leveling goes. I think I have gone from 80 to 82 1/2 in a couple days, but the story is pretty good and the zone is neat. I went to Vashj’ir zone because that is the one I had heard anything about. One note, though the map shows that the zone is for level 78-80 characters, you can only start the quests at level 80. I learned this the hard way at level 79 and wasted a trip from Northrend.

Anyway I am having fun in the game, and I am excited to be on the precipice of actually capping my first toon. I hope to have this completed in time to play RIFT at launch, so here is hoping. I hope that all of you are enjoying yourselves wherever you are gaming these days.

-Pid

[WoW] Don’t Anger the Kitty

Strolling through Zul’Drak in WotLK content I stumbled upon a kitty. I say stumbled upon, but really a quest brought me there, but this was one of those Keanu Reeves moments. Ran up the ramp and there was this massive cat with mouth wide open! I actually started a bit scrambling for my attack keys! Anyway I am about to move on to the level 77-80 zones in Wrath for a level or two before I can finally experience the high level Cataclysm content.

-Pid

Screencap of the Day

I really wonder when the last time EQ had to actually post this message. Good luck all you retro gamers…make sure you post your adventures!

-Pid

When to Unsubscribe

I unsubscribed from a blog feed today because I found that the blog just didn’t provide any enjoyment for me. To be honest it never really has, but it is a fairly well respected blog in its own right and I assumed that I should pay attention to it. After all everyone else does.

I found myself just getting irritated at the blog because every post seemed to be focused on pointing out the mistakes every other blogger makes, bloviating about this, and preaching about that. It is a sad day because I want to stay up to date on what the current state of the blogosphere is, and to remove a prominent blog from my reader keeps me from doing it as effectively. I am just tired of being annoyed by it though. So goodbye blog _____; I wish you well.

-Pid

I vaguely remember reading a post like this on someone else’s blog at one point, so feel free to leave a comment if it was you so I can link you.

image source schmoozyfox.com

[EQ] Out of the Blue Email

I received an email from SOE today telling me that one of my EQ accounts has been activated for free for 11 days. Crazy! Here is the bulk of the email:

Are you ready to relive the greatest memories that you’ve ever had in EverQuest? On February 15, 2011 you can roll a new character and jump into the Fippy Darkpaw Progression Server and race through Norrath starting with the legendary first three continents and planes. To get you started, we are thrilled to invite you to come back to play for FREE from 2/10/2011 – 2/21/2011.

That is a pretty neat idea for getting some people back in for the launch of the progression server. I can’t see punishing myself by playing EQ: The 1999 Edition, but for you masochistic folks out there…have at it.

Strangely the account that was activated was my second account and I didn’t receive an email for my primary one. Odd.

-Pid

[WoW] The Home Stretch

I am finally in the home stretch as I see it in WoW. I just dinged 76 today before work and I am in the single digits for how many levels I have left to go to hit cap. I have no idea what I will do once I get there, but I will have finally accomplished something I have never done in an MMO, and that is cap a toon.

[Rift] No Self Restraint

I have been meaning to post about my recent trip into Telera for a while now. Last weekend I decided I had finally had enough reading about this awesome game that everyone was playing and decided to see for myself what was what.

I was trying to avoid playing rift for a couple of reasons, none of which had anything to do with the game. First of all, I preordered Dragon Age II and I figured that would pretty much eat up the second half of March and early into April. I am attending PAX East this year and I assumed that would take up a week of my time with preparation, attendance, and then decompression afterwords.  Finally I was holding out hope that SW:TOR would be coming out sometime in spring, but it does not look as if that is going to happen.

In any event, I preordered Rift because in the end, I have no self restraint. Also, when I get bored, I go through a stage where I buy a bunch of different stuff just to see if that will fix the boredom. It never does and I will never learn.

So what did I note about the beta? This was my first trip so I can’t comment on the changes in the beta, but I can give an overall impression of the early content.

• The game seems pretty noob friendly, even for people who have never played an MMO before.
• The nuts and bolts of the game is WoW. Not to say the game is just WoW with space tentacles ripping through space time, but most of the controls seemed to mimic WoW. Open your inventory with the “b” button. Bring up the soul system with the “n” key. This is probably a good thing because there is a lot of non-WoW concepts of the game that you have to learn.
• The soul system is a neat concept for progression, but it seems a little confusing because of the sheer volume of choices. It seems like you could royally gimp a character, but then again none of the choices are permanent like in DDO or something.
• The art style is very dark. I kept thinking of the Witcher the entire time I was playing. The graphics are pretty good, but the art style might be a little too depressing for me.
• The game seems to have pulled a 2004 WoW in that it has cherry picked a lot of the concepts of other popular games and incorporated them into itself. Public Quests from WAR, collections from EQ2, the UI is very much WoW. It is all put together very well though and kudos for Trion Worlds for the polish in the game.
• The race choices are very limited, and they all look like variations on humans.

The game seemed like a lot of fun with what little I managed to play it. I have no idea about high level content or crafting though. I didn’t get into any dungeons either. The Rifts were fun and the invasions that I saw were an interesting mechanic. The place was so populated with beta testers though I wonder what it will be like after a month or two of live play.

-Pid