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.