Happy Halo-ween!

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!  Get it?  Halo………. ween…….. um…. Halloween….. Halo 3….

I just… uh….  It’s a play on words, dammit!!!  So, it wasn’t that funny.  STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!!!!!

*cough*

I’m all better now.

Oddly enough, I’ve never been much of a Halloween person myself.  I know that saying something like that is almost sacriledge in geek circles, but it is the sad truth.  When I was a kid, I only got to go Trick or Treating twice I think.  The rest of the time, I was either sick or in trouble and grounded so I just never really developed the love of the day.

So, my plans for the evening don’t involve anything Halloweenie.  There are only 1 or 2 kids in the entire apartment complex where I live, so I doubt I’ll get any knocks on the door tonight.  I figure I’ll log on and have myself an EQ2 evening tonight since I only logged on long enough to check auctions last night.  I do have to admit though that tonight of all nights, I am tempted to dig up my old CD’s of Grim Fandango and play that a bit.

Nothing else to talk about today really.  I haven’t been playing much and I haven’t been doing much of anything else.  I had a protracted discussion with my fellow gaming co-worker yesterday about the pros and cons of whether or not the Bioware/LucasArts collaboration is actually another Star Wars MMO, but I think I have hit on most of those points previously.

Of course, now that I have made mention of Grim Fandango, my mind has roamed to the other end of the spectrum to the Monkey Island series and I now have the music from Monkey Island caught in my head.

Not that that is a bad thing, but you know…

Great article

I had to just pop up another entry giving a shout out to Julie Whitefeather over at Virgin Worlds for this great article.  Ordinarily, I won’t read anything that even makes a passing mention to Blizzard or World of Warcraft, but Julie makes some fantastic points in this article… some points that I wish more people would pay attention to.

The reason that I usually won’t pay any mind at all to anything World of Warcraft has nothing to do with the game.  Despite the fact that I don’t like the game, I do have a lot of respect for what Blizzard has done and how they have done it.  In most cases, the reasons why I have such animosity for the game is the community and the pervasive attitude of, “OMG u don’t play WoW?!?  lol.  U suXXorz!”  Granted, I am doing a gross injustice to the community by lumping them all into a bad egg that I am sure is just a small part of the whole.  As a matter of fact, the guy who sits right next to me at work is a dedicated Warcraft player and is easily one of the most intelligent and well-spoken people I have ever met in my life.  When I explain to him why I dislike that game so violently, he just rolls his eyes and says, “Yeah.  That part is frustrating for sure.”

I am way off base here from my original point though… which is go read that article.  People get too wrapped up in “X game is going to topple WoW” or “You are crazy.  Nothing will EVER topple WoW” that they fail to see the larger picture… and that is that no one should even be trying.  Make a quality game because there is market enough to go around.  If your game is quality, it will do well on its own without attempting to mimic another game or trying to become the next 9 million player-base game.

The needs of the many outweigh yada yada yada

Mr. Spock’s vulcan diatribe has been resounding in my head the last couple of weeks as I continue to debate my current position in EQ2.  When I first returned to the game, I created a wizard.  When I tracked down my old EQ1 buddy and joined his guild, I quickly learned that they desperately needed some new dirge blood in the guild, so I created my dirge to see if I enjoyed the class.

Two problems arose.  The first was that I did enjoy the dirge.  The second was that the guild caught wind of my dirge alt and got damn excited… showering me with offers to PL and gear him up (all of which I turned down).  But, nearly any time I log on, the first thing that happens is that several people ask me if I need help with anything or if I want to finally take them up on a PL offer.

I have accepted some help with my HQ’s along the way, but mostly from my old EQ1 friend.  I didn’t want to get roped in to where I felt tied to the dirge if I ended up not enjoying him.

The problem is that lately, I haven’t been enjoying him.  Some days are better than others, but for the most part, I have to actually talk myself into logging him on instead of being anxious to log him on.

I addressed my concerns to a couple of guild members last week telling them that I was thinking of taking a break from the dirge and either working on the wizard again or starting some other alt.  The response was universal… “But, we NEED you to play the dirge.”

Don’t get me wrong… my guild mates are some of the best people I have met in any game.  They are all very mature and most are around my age.  I understand that they see a need within the guild and really want to fill it… and I created my dirge with the thought of filling that need because I like to be needed and I like to be helpful.

I am hoping that my current mood towards the class will soon be alleviated.  Right now, I just feel frustrated because I just don’t feel like I’m having fun when I’m on, but I feel obligated to keep playing this class and to keep plodding along every day.  That feeling of obligation is contributing to the lessening of the fun-factor and contributing to the feeling of EQ2 almost being a second job.

Last night, I logged on and got the normal immediate replies.  “Hey Rao.  You 70 yet?”  Normally, I just laugh and joke and respond with, “Almost.  Only 23 levels to go.”  Last night, I just immediately camped out and turned the computer off without even responding.

I want to help the guild out and I want to fill a need that they have, but at this rate, I’m starting to worry that I’m going to quit the game long before I even hit level 70.  I think it is time to dive into an alt for a while and see if the “urge to dirge” returns.

It’s WHAT time?!?!?!?

 Ahhh, what a morning!  As I lay in bed with consciousness and awareness slowly rising within my head and body, the main thought permeating my mind was, “The alarm hasn’t even gone off yet.  I can sleep a little bit longer.”

As I began to snuggle down into the covers for a second blitz at sleep, something began to work its way through the fog of my brain.

Something just wasn’t right here.

Each morning, when my alarm goes off, it is still quite impressively dark outside.  In fact, it is generally still completely dark during the drive up to the office since I go in a little bit early.  The sun doesn’t put in an appearance until at least 15 or 20 minutes after I arrive in the office.

So, why was it so damn bright in my bedroom if the alarm hadn’t even gone off yet?

I processed these thoughts slowly over the course of several minutes since sleepiness was still the primary function of my brain.  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I rolled over onto my side so that I was facing my alarm clock.  It would take another minute or two before my eyes responded to my brain demanding that they open.

My first thought on seeing the clock was, “Well, that can’t be right” and then I just shut my eyes again.  Maybe 10 minutes later, the reality finally sunk in and I sat up in a panic.

I jumped up, jumped in the shower, called my boss letting him know that I was on my way, got dressed and raced out the door.  One hour and 45 minutes AFTER I was supposed to arrive at work, I pulled into the parking lot.

Insult to injury?  Today is my 1-year anniversary with the company.

I’m catching buckets of shit from my co-workers and boss today.

A little like Steve Martin

So this weekend, I run off to do the haunted house in Qeynos.  My normal approach to nearly everything is to just charge in and see how it goes.  Then, when I fail, I go back and take things a bit more slowly and think things through.

True to form, I died on my first attempt of the haunted house.  Don’t ask me how.  I’m just gifted that way.

When I go back and and beat it the second time, my first order of business afterwards is to check out my rewards.  I popped on the skeleton head helmet and chuckled a little bit and then popped on the arrow head helmet having no idea what to expect.  When I saw that I was literally sporting an arrow through the head, I just sat and laughed for a good 10 minutes before I could move on.

I didn’t spend a whole lot of time playing this weekend.  Friday night, I was just too tired.  I think I caught a little bug or something and I was in bed by 8 Friday night.  I slept in on Saturday which is something that I never do.  When I rolled out of bed around 11 Saturday morning, I still felt like ass.  I logged on for about an hour, was still spinning my wheels, so I did the Haunted House and logged off.

Saturday night, I got invited to a Halloween Party by one of my co-workers.  I didn’t go, but I kind of wish I did.  He showed me pictures this morning and it looked hilarious.  He dressed up as a female hooker and his wife dressed up as his pimp.  But, I was still feeling pretty terrible, so I stayed home.  I remember popping Fellowship of the Ring into the DVD player and hitting play.  I woke up some 6 hours later with the prompt still up to swap DVD’s to the second disk.

I climbed into bed and ended up sleeping until nearly 1 yesterday afternoon.

I finally got online around 3 yesterday afternoon and actually had a fairly productive and enjoyable day playing.  The first thing that I did was hit the broker.  I had a fair number of collection quests missing only one item, so I thought I would see what they were selling for.  I was both surprised and pleased that I was able to finish off most of them for next to nothing.  I think I spent 10 gold and was able to knock out 17 collection quests.  Turning those in was enough to net me both an AA and finish off my level.

So, at level 47, I sat there trying to think of what to do.  I decided to try my hands at the jboots HQ.

I ran the first few legs without much trouble.  I failed the Nektulous leg the first time because I absolutely suck at negotiating that zone, but I got it on the second try.  Everything else through Zek, I got on the first try.

When I was running the Enchanted Lands leg, I failed the first attempt.  I was at what I thought was the correct location and just couldn’t get an update.  Finally, once the time had expired, I booted up PC#2 and looked it up.  Sure enough, I was in the wrong location.

I gathered myself together for another go.  The EL leg had been interesting because there were still sufficient green aggressive mobs to cause me to lead a rather large train through a joyous and merry chase through the woods.

I reached the leg where I had previously failed and set off in the right direction.  As I was nearing the location, I spotted something from a distance.

Could that….?

Nah.  No way.

ACK!  IT IS!!!

There is nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, to give you an adrenaline juice-up during a timed event like having a 7 story epic named eyeball on your ass nuking the begeezus out of you.

Needless to say, I out-ran him and completed the journey.

The final leg in the Feerrott was interesting as well because every damn mob in that zone likes to lead off their attack by knocking you on your ass.  I spent more time on my back than Amy Fisher did in high school.  Still, I was able to complete with time to spare, so I am now sporting my new set of jboots.

All in all, I am at least starting to look like a dirge.  I upgraded my arms as well yesterday, so now I am clad in all dark colors.  My BP is a charcoal grey, my legs and arms are a dark forest green, my gauntlets are a very dark blue and the jboots are a rust-gold color.  Sure beats the hell out of the “disco-fan-thing-gone-wrong” look that I was sporting.

When I finally logged last night, I was about halfway to 48.  I figure that once I plod my way to 49, DoF will be much more around the right speed.  I did spend a little time there yesterday dodging heroic mobs while trying to kill my skeletons and ghouls, but I didn’t get the quest completed.  I figure that will be my first stop tonight.

On an unrelated note, I got some joy yesterday out of watching part of the San Diego Chargers vs Houston Texans game.  I am neither a Chargers nor a Texans fan, but it was very nice to see that the air looked clear and the sky blue any time the cameras panned to the sky.  Hats off to all the rescue personel who walked through hell for days on end and fought in conditions that I cannot even imagine.