Back from the Trollshaws
Well, I just got back from an extended vacation out in the wilds of Northern California. There is really nothing quite like crapping in a bucket and dodging feral pigs out in the wilderness to really bring you back to down to earth.
I also once again personally proved the effectiveness of FPS games as firearm trainers, despite barely ever firing a handgun I was pleasingly accurate. With more real-life practice I could be a fair shot. Thanks, Counter Strike.
The funniest thing was the terrain - I could have sworn up and down I was in the Trollshaws of Eriador. Minus the beech trees and adding madrone, among others of course. The cattle country on the way in also reminded me precisely of the Barrow Downs - if I were going to film a theatrical scene in the Barrow Downs, it would make a really good location.
So for the past few weeks, I have been living without the Internet but with electricity thanks to Honda and their handy generators. So I spent at least some of my off-time playing through Torchlight on my trusty laptop. And I'm still playing it now that I am back. I was never a huge Diablo/Rogue fan, but something in Torchlight really caught me.
Yesterday I logged back in to LOTRO, after roughly a two-month break. I think with the fresh perspective I understand the major drawback that game has for me - quests. WoW-style quests, I mean. I can handle "kill ten rats" to a certain degree, but elaborate quest chains and travel quests friggin' kill me.
On the same topic this is ultimately why I'm not playing Fallen Earth and why I have no plans to do so in the near future. I played through the first 10 levels or so and had my fill of the exact same style of advancement I was (subconsciously) fleeing in basically every other MMORPG I have played. Dealing with quest logs full of largely unrelated quests is enough to turn me off completely to a game these days - regardless whether I can solo them or not.
So for now I am satisfying my MMORPG cravings with DDO, which does not suffer from quite the same problems as the traditional model descended from DikuMUD. I may resubscribe to LOTRO simply out of love for Tolkien and to hang with my Landroval kinship Tirn en Taur. Money is only getting tighter in the coming months, though, so we'll see - fortunately $10/month is doable.
One thing I am still not doing is buying/playing Dragon Age. Which is strange considering that I've been waiting forever for it to come out. Basically it comes down to an EA issue for me. I don't want to be nickel-and-dimed and I especially do not want to be forced into marketing channels like Games For Windows Live. So I am going to wait and see and do more research before I start laying out nearly $100 for a semi-static single-player game I may never even have the time to really play. Oh well.
Champions Online Free Weekend Clusterfudge
I've been wanting to play Champions Online so I can relive some of my more glorious pre-teen fantasies fighting evil as a costumed hero. But while the game looks pretty and all, all the complaints have largely kept me away.
I don't really follow the game, so it came as a pleasant surprise the past Thor's day when I noticed CO on my Steam games list with the note: Free Weekend. Hot damn, I thought to myself, but considering it is Halloween and I have family obligations and a thousand other distractions I decided to wait and see if I could scratch up a few extra hours on Sunday.
Well, coming back now to see how things are going looks like I dodged a massive frustration bullet - apparently few people are able to actually download the patch to experience the trial.
So what is the deal with Cryptic? It seems like a ball got dropped somewhere in the relatively short life of CO and nobody is willing to deal with it. I have no idea, but if I had to guess I would say it looks like they are throwing CO under the bus to focus on Star Trek Online. Of course, if CO is how they run a game why in the world would I bother with STO?
Torchlight Commence
Well, I went and did it. I pre-ordered Torchlight on Steam.
While I'm sure it's going to be a great game, I'm a little concerned the Diablo-style ARPG gameplay won't hold my attention. Then again, at only $18, it's not that big a deal.
I'm playing DDO more lately, though two weeks ago I was uninstalling it and cursing Turbine. What can I say? So their customer service sucks, the game is pretty good. I just wish I didn't feel like such a sheep, but then again what happens if you have an argument with your DM? Drop out of the group for good or kiss, makeup and keep the adventure alive?
At the moment I am playing with a Drow skill-heavy adaptation of the Exploiter Ranger (18 Ranger / 1 Rogue / 1 Monk). Skill heavy in the sense I plan on investing the extra skill points in Lock-picking and Disable Traps and as a Drow also I will be focusing on rapiers and/or short swords rather than khopesh.
So far I am enjoying this build. I started as a Rogue and will take four levels or so of Ranger before taking the level in Monk. I think after I have my way with this build I am going to start a Divine Archer (Elven/Drow Favored Soul-Ranger).
I am still logging into and playing Fallen Earth a bit, but I am thinking more strongly about canceling. I don't know if it is just me or I am being influenced by other people's opinions, but it seems like FE does have more of a themepark feel the farther you advance. Maybe it is a side-effect from the heavy design reliance on questing. Maybe I have not advanced enough. (After all I am still only level 10.) Still, this game has real potential, so even if I do cancel now I can see myself picking it back up down the road.
I am still experiencing angst over LOTRO. I don't have the time to play it, even if I was so inclined, but geez I miss Middle Earth - even a crude video game rendering of it. I should have become a lifer last year when I had the opportunity, it's just $200 all at once seems so exhorbitant a price. But I have spent at least that much on my sub even at $10/month since then, so looks like I missed out.
I am really jonesing for some Tropico 3 action, but I just can't justify it as an expenditure. I'll wait until its on sale.
I haven't talked much at all about Cities XL. That's because I don't think I'll be buying that one at all - from what I've been reading the single-player seems milque-toast and the multi-player not worth the money. That could all be wrong, but I have more than enough to hold my attention with the various historic city builders I've been into lately. Maybe someday down the road I'll give it a shot. Or maybe someday my not-so-favorite Republican Will Wright will finally make Sim City 5 and make it non-sucky. And seriously, how does one have the insight and intelligence to create Sim City and the Sims yet be duped by the mouth-breathers that would make an utter lackwit like Sarah Palin Vice President? How does that happen?
Anyway, now I'm getting all political so I will end this here. Except to mention that I have delved deep into the world of Regular Expression for my work on project WOTAN, and I have been chilled to the bone by the horror of it all. Oh well, it is my destiny to either become a regex ninja or die trying.
I am hellbent on mastering regex because aside from the fact that it is extremely useful to know in general (technical) situations, I am writing my own form of BBCode to supplement my wiki markdown so I can start adding html elements (mainly forms) directly into the wiki pages. Currently I have things like the character stats and inventory displaying directly through echo in their respective class methods, which works great and all - I am actually debating a bit with myself whether I should leave it as-is because it is more secure but unfortunately far more unwieldy and pasta-like.