Tastes Gamey

This blog is about stuff. Sometimes that stuff has to do with MMORPGs.

Author: neschria

I need to get my act together and go to 'work' soon. I promised my husband I'd clean up the shop this morning, as soon as I got our 2-year-old up and dressed. She's eating some cereal now, so I have a moment to post something. I do need to get down there and sweep, etc, before he gets back from the bank and... those other places he said he was going when I wasn't really listening.

Today is son #2's birthday. He turns 17 today. I'll have to call him after school today. (He moved in with his father 6 months ago.) I miss him a lot, but maybe it is for the best that he's there. His grades have improved and his older brother (son #1, 18, to be 19 in April) is here now, and the two of them have a somewhat unhealthy rivalry going on between them. (You know, the sort of rivalry that involves a lot of backstabbing and stealing each other's girlfriends. It's not good.)

Son #1 took a telemarketing job last week, but he didn't go yesterday. We've all given him a hard time about not even calling. He wants to quit. Well, fine, but considering that a friend went out on a limb and got him the job, the least he can do is have the decency to go in and quit, rather than just not showing up anymore.

I've been contemplating my life a lot lately, as my kids are all inching toward adulthood. (Except the 2 year old. She's inching toward elementary school.) I gave up a lot of what I wanted in life when I decided to get married (twice) and have kids (and then more kids) instead. As I get down to fewer kids hanging on my apron strings, I am starting to think I might actually get a second shot at some of those old dreams. The things I am most passionate about haven't really changed much in all these years.

|| Pause -- My husband posted the entry as above because I'd left it stewing on my desktop while I came down here to the shop.

>Play (EDIT: Coming back to finish what I started)

Where was I? Oh, yes, I think it might be time for me to climb out of my rut and follow my passions. I've spent quite a few years doing the day-to-day grind, sometimes working, sometimes staying home with kids. Mostly, I've been supporting the dreams of other people. My husband finally has the business he always wanted. The kids are all doing pretty well, even if the older ones sometimes seem to need a good kick in the head* every once in a while. I don't think it would be entirely too selfish for me to want a little something that's for and about me at this point. Mothers are people too, after all, with thoughts, feelings, and dreams.

MMORPGs have been my substitute for television for a number of years. After dinner, while other people are settling in to watch American Idol**, I am logging in to see what people are up to and what I might get in on. It's something to do with my husband at the end of the day that's cheap, semi-social, and doesn't require a babysitter. I had other hobbies and interests before I started playing MMORPGs "for real" in 2000. (I had accounts in games before that, but I hardly played at all. I didn't think the games were all that fun or interesting. How that changed is a matter for another entry. Let's sum it up as, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.")

I am thinking about giving up games altogether now. It's not a matter of not having enough time or being addicted. It's more a matter of wanting to do other things that I think are fun with my spare time (even if other people are mystified at how I could enjoy something so "boring") .  Time might be an issue if I manage to get into work and school (full-time all around!), but that's not the main thing. Even if I could find the time, I just can't muster up the enthusiasm to bother.

On top of all that, I have become a fat chick over the years, and I just can't go on like this. I disgust myself, and it is having negative effects on my health. I can't say, "Oh, I've always been fat. I was a fat kid too." That's not true. I wasn't even a fat adult until the last few years. I am NOT blaming MMORPGs for me getting fat. Depression, compulsive overeating, bad food choices, and lack of outdoor activities are all contributing factors. (When I stopped hiking and camping, I really stopped doing much of anything. My husband hates that outdoorsy stuff, and it feels weird to leave him home alone while I am out doing that stuff. Also, when the kids were younger, taking them all out by myself was daunting, to say the least.) I can take responsibility for my own stupidity in this matter. Video games didn't make me sit on my butt eating chips. That was all me. And I can fix it. Losing weight is one of my top priorities now.

All these things are more or less why I am not posting here much anymore. What could I possibly have to say on MMORPG.com when I play one free MMORPG very casually,  maybe one or two nights a week, and I am not even thinking about looking for a new game to play? I can't think of any circumstances that would bring me back into the fold. This black sheep has wandered off.

*(Didn't we all, when we were young? But I don't really expect them to believe anything I tell them about how life works any more than I believed my parents when I was young. I still feel obligated to say those things. It's my job. )

**(I've never seen American Idol. I just assume people are watching it since it seems to come up a lot in popular culture. It's a singing contest, right? I'll pass.)

Ok, this may be one for children of the 80's, but... Remember when you were getting ready to go to a dance/the mall/cruising and you put so much hairspray/styling gell/mousse in your hair that it could have stopped an axe?

Soon after I took this screenshot, I un-checked the "show helmet" box.

Why does the elf have a normal head while my head looks like a pumpkin? It makes me sad.

Ok, I see the ranger... Now where is that pesky Waldo?

I have so many things I could say about this next screenshot. Somehow, a pic of one of my characters shoveling seems so appropriate for this blog. But, that aside, I don't know if I want to declare that "digging is the new fishing!" or if I want to point out that this shot suggests that I am a complete failure at it.

I got a few screenshots of Shadow of Legend this week too, but they are on my laptop. I may post one or more of those later.... Oh, and this is an odd tangent, but "Shadow of Legend" is a title with 2 nouns in it, and it seems to me that one of them ought to be a plural. It just sounds odd.

My 18 year old son moved in with us and brought his passion for good old fashioned, face-to-face, pen & paper & popcorn & caffeine RPGs. At this very moment, he's working on creating his own homemade zombie-themed game, drawing on The Zombie Survival Guide and various modern/urban RPGs he's played or read about.

He rolled up a D&D character for me (without first determining whether or not I wanted to play D&D). It sounds like it would be a fun little (goblin) character to play, if I actually decided to play after all these years. I never did get to any of the gaming sessions he hosted last summer.

I wasn't that enamored of the P&P experience the last time I played, which was a very long time ago. While other people may say that computer games are just games and the real adventure gaming is in the pen & paper world, my personal experience was the opposite. I love exploring online worlds, if they are visually interesting and full of interesting or surprising details, but my memories of  D&D are strictly about numbers and dice and the annoying high-pitched laughter of the dorks I was playing with.

The only real fun for me, at that time, was rolling up the characters. And then sketching what they'd look like. And writing stories on the side about them, unrelated to the game at hand. In fact... I really don't remember the gaming part at all, aside from the musty basement and the annoying laughter. (On the other hand, I clearly remember seeing the figures carved into the walls of the East Karana gorge for the first time. I was stunned, even at that resolution, to see such thing!)

Maybe I should give it another try. Maybe the dorks I was played with in high school just sucked, and it wasn't the game that was so freakin' boring after all.

I think I'll go borrow a Player's Handbook and work up a character on my own. My son is always introducing me to his other D&D nerds... er... friends. He's constantly trying to talk me into playing.  How bad could it be?

(I have a confession to make before I get into the topic du jour: I have been guilty of doing the very thing that I am about to comment on. But I am all better now. )

People seem to be unable to walk away from online games without making some sort of commotion about leaving. These players-turned-haters seem to come in two varieties: those evangelizing for real life, and those preaching against the game. 

The first are people who discover that they've been missing a lot of real life by playing their game, and feel the need to come back and preach the good word to all the misguided people who are still playing. Real life is so much more REAL, they say. You're wasting your life, they say.

Yes. We know. Real life is great. Not every player is a hopeless addict unable to manage their time in game vs. their time in the rest of their lives. And most of us realize that what we do in game doesn't really matter in the long run. It's just entertainment. It's only a waste of our time if we aren't having fun. And, let's face it, what some of us would be doing in real life if we weren't playing games wouldn't be a whole lot more constructive. Demolition derbies are a lot more real, but not really a lot more meaningful in the long run, if you think about it.

The second variety are people who become angry about the direction their game has taken, or who are disillusioned when they realize that the game isn't what they thought it would be. Sometimes this rage is justified; I do feel for the SWG vets who had the game they were enjoying ripped out from under them. But sometimes this anger turns into a lot of bile spilled all over forums where people who still enjoy the game in question are trying to commune with one another. Other times it seems to be a personal vendetta-- one person decides that GameX is too buggy, stupid, and boring for anyone to ever play, and they have to save other people from trying GameX. (I suspect some of those people just like to feel that they are more sophisticated and have a better understanding of gaming than the poor sheep who won't leave GameX.)

Yes. We're very sorry the game sucks. There are a lot of other games, you know. You don't have to continue to obsess on this one that has broken your heart. (Good grief! I think I got that very same advice from my mother when I got dumped in high school!) Start a blog about why you hate the game. Form a support group. Post your review once on a prominent forum. That fulfills your obligation to keep other people from wasting their $50 (or $20, or $15, or the hour they would have spend downloading.) You don't really need to save people who are still enjoying the game. Just write them off as a lost cause. Everyone will be happier that way.

There's a hybrid category, too, I suppose. There are those who go on their crusade when they become disillusioned with the game and then resent all the time they wasted playing when they could have been snowboarding or learning to play the bassoon. (This was my personal sin, back when I couldn't just walk away quietly.)  Undoubtedly there are others who have to return to the forums to rant for three months after they take up snowboarding and the bassoon and then have an epiphany about how crappy their old game was anyway.

I am not saying that people shouldn't say goodbye, or that people don't have a right to express how they feel. And sometimes people who have a gripe have legitimate issues to put on the table. I don't dispute that. What I am saying is that there's a limit to how many times you can scream, rant, or whine before you become a bore and/or a boor.

Pick your venues. Pick your battles. And remember that other people have a right to disagree with you.

Oh, yeah... One other thing...

Can I have your stuff?

(You HAD to see that coming.)

....

Spore will be coming to Mac and PC... at the same time!  I suppose that's good news for Mac people. I thought that I might joke at this point that this might make Mac an acceptable option when I get around to replacing this ancient PC that I'm currently using... But that's not even funny. Sorry, Mac people. I know you love your Macs SOOOO much. I just feel the very same way about my PC.

....

Nexon has a game coming to an English language closed beta at the end of the month (for North American players only). It's called Mabinogi (link to game site; it has autoplaying music/video). I can't quite tell if it is just more of the same or not. I ended up looking at the Wikipedia article on it, and I think I might check it out if I get a chance.

As you've probably noted, if you've read this blog before, I'll try anything.

The only game that Nexon has that I really recognized was MapleStory, which I've never played. I guess I've seen Kartrider ads here too. I haven't ever played a Nexon game before.

...

I laugh sometimes when people complain about time they wasted downloading something. I know some people still have dial-up and slower computers, but do they actually sit there and watch their downloads? How bad could it be? It's not like they had to go down the road, shovel all the bits into a wheelbarrow, and bring them back.

But I shouldn't be so mean. I can imagine telling my grandkids someday that I once had a 2400bps modem (upgrade from the 300!) and back in those days, we had to download one bit at a time, uphill both ways, in the snow. And we liked it!

My son pointed out Asda Story (for its cuteness factor) to his girlfriend, who had never played any kind of MMO before. She likes it. A lot. So my son is playing too, to play with her. And now my husband and I are playing with them. We're having some fun, playing together. We think we're going to start a clan when one of us hits level 24 (which should be today).

I could describe the gameplay and character development in some detail, as far as I have experienced it, but there's nothing that really stands out. It's got a lot of "go there, kill that" questing, some instanced dungeons, and all the cute you can stand. (Maybe even more cute than you can stand! I have a high tolerance for cute.) The soulmate thing is supposed to be their original feature, and it does have some useful parts as you level it up (the ability to heal, summon, and rez your soulmate, for instance), but you could very well ignore that part and it wouldn't really change your game experience that much.

What the game does have a-plenty is BUGS. (OMG, the bugs! THE BUGS! MAKE IT STOP!) From graphical glitches to group bugs to suddenly having a stranger in your soulmate box, there's a bug for every taste. And some of them can be pretty funny, if you have a sense of humor about such things... Others, not so much. (Sadly, I've actually played games even buggier at release than this one is in open beta. Those games know who they are, don't they, Anarchy Online? Don't you sit there in the corner looking innocent, Dark and Light!)

So, yeah. In a crowded field of MMOs, I think my final judgement on Asda Story is: "Yep, it's yet another MMO, all right."

But despite all that, I'm playing it and having fun because I am playing with people I know. We can laugh while we're playing. We can chat about RL and tease each other in ways that you really can't do with strangers. Despite the fact that it is a silly little F2P game where I've spent a ridiculous amount of time killing wrench-toting ducks, it's been worth playing for the good company.

 I found my original Asheron's Call disk in a box yesterday. I was looking for something else. It's funny what you can still have hiding in boxes. The long and the short of my Asheron's Call experience was that I liked it and my husband couldn't wait to get back to EQ the whole time we played. I played for a few months without him, if I recall, but I was a lot more shy online then than I am now, so I didn't really make any friends or anything. And back to EQ I went.

Another "back to EQ" experience was my time in Anarchy Online. I know some people will say that it was playable at launch, but I'm afraid I have a limited tolerance for crashes and slideshow performance, which is exactly what I had. I did stick with it for a while, though, because I liked what I saw in the moments between the problems. And it did get turned around... after I went back to EQ. I've been in and out a couple of times over the years-- once on a resubscribe (to an account I don't remember the details for) and on a trial basis.

I'm never going back to EQ, so I don't have that game that's always waiting for my return anymore. In a way, that's liberating. Now I can play other games and not worry about how far behind I'm getting in EverQuest while I am not there. I don't care anymore. 

I just downloaded and installed AO again yesterday. I'm a froob. In this short amount of time, I made a couple of characters on Rimor (Rubi-Ka 2): Maclasha, the nanomage metaphysicist (previously one of my favorite classes), and Minahmat, the opifex martial artist.

"Maclasha" came from the name suggestion button. I am not sure if that's "Ma-Clasha" or "MacLasha"... but I should be taken out behind the woodshed for that name. Not just for accepting it, but for giggling every time I see it. So far, that's the character I've played with the most. Not that I played her for long. She's just got a half hour over the other.

I haven't had a lot of time for gaming in the last week or so. My Xfire profile says I've played Fable for 44 hours in the last 7 days, but that also counts two of my kids being home sick and playing for hours and hours on end, on top of all the playing they did over the weekend. I didn't actually play at all today-- I wasn't even home most of the day-- but Fable was running the whole day.  I am almost through playing as a good guy. I'll likely go through and play a bad guy. Or I'll play through doing strange, random things. That's always fun.

Is it mean to leave my husband at home alone with sick kids? Ah, well. I had a lot to do, and I certainly didn't want to drag sick kids all over town. I did drag my oldest and his girlfriend around for the first half of the day, since I was going in the direction of places my son wanted to apply for jobs. They weren't entirely thrilled with going either, but they are both adults and presumably more rational about such things.

My son and his girlfriend have just taken to playing Asda Story, so I dropped back into that game tonight. I gave the girlfriend's character a drive-by heal, not knowing that it was her. It just goes to show that you can walk right by your next door neighbor in a game world and never know.

((EDIT: I called to ask about what character names I should be looking for. When she told me her character name, I told her I had healed her, and she said she knew someone had healed her but she didn't even see who it was. If I ever design a level/class-based RPG, I am going to include the NinjaHealer class.))