Here we go again

And so another month comes to an end.  It seems strange to me to be posting so infrequently.  I think I am still averaging more posts than a lot of people out there, but after nearly 3 years of at least 1 post per day, this seems odd to me.  At the same time, how many times can I re-tell a “what I did last night” story and keep it interesting… if I ever did manage to keep things interesting in the first place?
 
If you have been around this site for any amount of time, you have heard me say several times before that this is my favorite time of the year.  I can’t really put into words the ‘why.’  It just is.  During a day and age where Christmas has become a “bad” word and where people battle growing stress and depression, I guess I am still a little boy.  I remember that when I was a child, the days and weeks leading up to Christmas were almost unbearable.  Pretty much from the moment the tree went up in our living room and the first Christmas ad hit the television, I was one massive raw nerve on the edge of my seat.  As the pile of colorfully wrapped gifts grew under the tree, I would reach a frenzy that I almost couldn’t stand… and my mother probably couldn’t.  I would sit for hours staring at the packages and wondering feverishly what was inside.  Occasionally, when I thought no one was looking, I would slink quietly closer, pick up a gift with my name on it to judge the weight, and gently shake it in the hopes of having some magical moment of insight.  These little detective exercises were usually disrupted by a screech from the gate keeper (aka my mother) catching me in the act and shooing me back outside.
 
I’m an adult now.  My family is spread out all over the place and most of them don’t like the rest of them.  We rarely speak and even more rarely get together.  My family was one of the many victims of present-day society where the pressures and expectations simply grew too great and we splinted like shattered glass and got as far away from each other as possible.  My 5-person immediate family (2 parents and 2 older sisters) now live in 5 different cities and holidays are not a family gathering opportunity.
 
Still, in spite of all of that, I love Christmas.  I love the memories of innocence that this time of the year awakens within me and I love the sounds, smells, and sights of the season. 
 
And somehow, through it all, I have created some all new Christmas traditions of my own.  There may not be a big tree, lots of decorations, piles of gifts, and holiday food, but that is alright with me.  No matter where my current attitude lies with regard to whatever game I am currently playing, Christmas time seems to always bring about a new resurgence of interest and enjoyment.  After all, it was Christmas season when I took my first steps into MMO’s so it stands to reason that the overall atmosphere of the season would invoke some old feelings.
 
With talk of Frostfell looming just around the corner, I feel like that little boy again… anxiously awaiting my favorite time of the year.  Instead of hopes of whatever holy grail of a Christmas gift I hope to see that year under the tree, I wonder instead about the Frostfell events and what will unfold in that snowy winterland this time around the calendar. 
 
Here in about 30 minutes, I’ll step outside to head off to lunch.  The temperature hasn’t really turned yet and the clear sky and soft breeze outside are keeping the temperatures in the 60’s, but nature is aware of the time of year regardless.  The trees, which browned weeks ago and started shedding their leaves, are really casting off their summer cargo now.  Brown leaves crunch under foot with every step and blow in the wind.  Houses and shops are lined with festive lighting and Christmas jingles play on the radio.
 
Before I know it, it will be over again and I’ll be packing the Frostfell goodies back into my house vault for another year, but for the next 31 days, I plan to enjoy that feeling of being a child again.

Claymore… or less

I’m probably completely and totally out of touch, but I honestly didn’t know anything about the world event going on right now until I logged on and heard guildies talking about it Wednesday evening. 
 
I know that live events, questing, and storylines are not everyone’s cup of tea, but I have done my best to participate in every event since I started playing.  There have been times where I felt the event fell flat (all of the void events leading up to the release of TSO for instance) and realized that I couldn’t care less early on in the event.  I think I only did one or two quests for the void events and only did those on 1 toon.  I simply couldn’t stand those and was happy when they were over.
 
For the most part though, I enjoy the world events and typically completely them on all of my toons.
 
This particular event is, in my personal opinion, the best one I have participated in.  I like the story, I like the quests, and I love the rewards.  The mini-Claymore is freaking awesome as is the painting and the banner.  The only thing about the event that isn’t cool is the random world kicks when you zone, but that bug hit me a lot less frequently than it did other people.  In all, I’ve taken 5 of my guys through the events and quests so far.  I’ll definitely take a 6th through, but I’ll probably pass on the 7th.  The 7th is a healer and is barely equipped at all.  I don’t imagine he would be much fun to take through.
 
I’ve been debating deleting him and creating a class that I actually want to play in the character slot.  The only thing that has kept me from it is that he’s a level 80 provisioner.  I love having my own provisioner, but of all the tradeskills I have done, that was my least favorite… by a fairly significant margin.  I hated the provo grind passionately.  I really don’t want to have to do it again.
 
Of course, if I did, I would at least have the 50% server bonus this time… something that hadn’t been introduced yet when I originally did the grind on him.
 
I ran my first tradeskill instance in months yesterday.  I’ve been meaning to do them again for a while to get the achievements and to get the final reward once all 4 are complete, but I’ve been dragging my feet.  The events are good and are fun… the first few times.  Once you have done them a few times though, they are more tedious than anything.  I’m sure they wouldn’t be so bad if I did them as they were intended… with a full group.  Unfortunately, most of the people I know either view tradeskilling as a necessary evil or something to not be touched ever-ever-not-even-on-a-bet ever.  I could be wrong, but I think I’m about the only person in my guild who tradeskills out of a genuine enjoyment of it.
 
I’m still finding myself constantly wrestling with the whole “What’s the point” argument.  When I can log on, throw all the concerns and pressures out of my mind, and simply play the game, I have a blast.  As soon as people start talking about raiding and calls for groups start going out and people start in on flagging, backflagging, and mythical updates, all I want to do is cancel my account and walk away.  I’m tired of being told that I’m suddenly not good enough.  Never mind the fact that I was doing X zone months ago before I even had my fabled or a single piece of T1. Suddenly and mysteriously those zones can’t be done by anyone who isn’t at least in full T3 with a mythical.
 
I find it a rather amusing paradox that it is people and friends who make MMO’s fun to play… and it is people and friends who make them miserable experiences.

Don’t ask me

Not sure why the text and formatting for the previous post is so different from every other post, but honestly, I’m too lazy to try to figure it out or fix it. 

Finding Perspective

The last few days have been interesting.  It has been mostly a back-flagging extravaganza to get people’s 3^rd and 4^th alts VP flagged and mythicaled.  Part of that is due to the fact that a lot of our normal core raiders are on vacation and traveling.  Another part is that there is a perception out there that if you have a level 80 toon, you need to get their mytical no matter how far down the alt food chain that character happens to be… which is something I don’t personally understand.  I realize that people want to gear up their toons as best they can, but there has to be some point where guilds draw a line.  You don’t raid through Tomb of the Mad Crusader a hundred times to get your 24 main raiders their gear and then go back and do it a thousand more times so that everyone’s alts can get geared up as well (unless you are incredibly bored and are just looking for things to do) so I don’t get why mythicals are different?  Why, if your 5^th alt doesn’t have raid gear is he/she entitled to a mythical?

 

Maybe it is the fact that EQ2 raids simply don’t provide enough of a challenge and enough of interest to hold a guild over in the lull between expansions.  Maybe it is the hamstringing ridiculously small 24 toon raids.  There are so few toons to gear up that you might as well start doing alts at some point I suppose.  It’s either that or quit the game until the next expansion.

 

I’m growing tired of the whole attitude surrounding EQ2 though.  It took a lot longer for it to sink in with EQ1… maybe for the above-mentioned larger raids and taking longer to gear a raid force up.  All of a sudden though, the arrogance of the players seems to really be coming out.  Maybe it has always been there and I am just now starting to see it, but it is pretty disgusting.  I have people that I used to call friends that I have on ignore now.  I can no longer stand the sound of their voices and I find myself getting angry when I see their inane babble scrolling across guild chat.  You’ll have 1 person who decides that they are the best to ever play a particular class and then every word that spews from their mouth is so full of arrogance and narcissism that you wonder how their neck doesn’t snap under the weight of their head.  And their whole attitude is worsened by a few followers who keep sticking their heads up that persons butt and declaring, “Doesn’t stink up here at all.”

 

I think the worst part of it all is that the worst offenders aren’t children.  They are adults.

 

It’s a game people.  If the biggest accomplishment you have ever achieved in your entire life is solo healing Palace, you really need to get a life away from computer games.

Filed under “What the f- are they thinking?”

I got an e-mail a bit ago from SOE informing me that they are releasing a new all-inclusive box set of Star Wars Galaxies.

Really?  A new box set?  Seriously?  All-inclusive?

It has been 4 years since the last expansion to SWG.  Trials of Obi Wan, the expansion that introduced the NGE, was released in November of 2005.

Since then, there has been at least 1 other box set that was all-inclusive.

And nothing as been released since then… but they feel the need to release a new box set?  And what do you get for buying it?

A new 2-person vehicle.

An old 1-person vehicle that was given out with the last box set.

An instant travel vehicle… which is just a graphical fast zone mechanism… of which several are already available in game for free.

That would be kind of like them releasing a new all-in-one box set for the EQ Mac server Al’Kabor.  “We’re not giving you any new content, any new patches, any new expansions, or any new reasons to play the game, but we reeeeaaaalllllly think you should buy it anyway.”