2009

Bristlebane Day – and What is my Name Again?

stargrace April 2, 2009 7Comments

It’s been one of those days weeks so far, you know the sort. Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong? Here’s hoping it can only get better from here. My site has been down off and on over the last two days, but I think my host has it figured out. Sure wish they would keep better contact with me, but at least they reply at all. My new video card should be in today, and that’s a huge plus – my internet has been acting up and off for hours at a time, not so cool. Yesterday was ‘early birthday present’ day, and am now owner of a wii – already have a PS3 but I rarely use it. I like the activity of the wii, and I like the selection of RPG’s and other games. I got a game – Rune Factory Frontier – which I’m actually enjoying. Remember, I haven’t been a gamer all my life. I need to be eased into these things slowly! Basically I wander around (as a boy, but I can look past that) and I move into a little farm house. I flirt with girls (how fun), plant seeds, run around talking to people – and plant more seeds. Then I sell my harvests. Obviously there’s more to the game, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten with it so far. I know there’s a little bit of adventuring and even some crafting. It’s got a cute story, and it’s something I can play when I’m not playing PC games – which DOES happen every once in a blue moon. 

Aside from all of the real life stuff going on – yesterday was April Fool’s day, also known as Bristlebane Day for those in Norrath. I spent most of my time in EQ2 for once, though I did hop over to EQ to check out the new class specifications that were added to all characters. In EQ2 Wpus and I headed to Antonica to help out Blat Berisen out with an issue he was having. It is the same quest from last year, but I’d never completed it on my mystic before, so it was a lot of fun. Plus it was good to be roaming around in EQ2 again. NOT that I dislike EQ! Everyone always seems to read far too much into my words when I mention my game hoping (I am at this exact moment downloading the 7 day trial to AoC, don’t read anything into it!). 

Now, yesterday an announcement was made about new things coming to station access. Because it was the day that it was, the announcement was actually met with a lot of skepticism so take it as you will!

I’m torn over the new items which you can find here. EQ2 has never offered a renaming service before, nor have they ever allowed you to change your characters sex before. I think it’s a good service on some levels. Lets say a friend or a partner of yours decides they no longer want to play. You pay to move those characters over to your account, or you take over their account. Perhaps you don’t want to be known as Fluffy Bunny, the troll who lost all of her hair in a smelting accident. Now you have the opportunity to rename yourself and be someone more ‘in tune’ with your own character selection.

However. This also gives troublemakers a chance to ‘reform’ themselves. Be someone they were not before, giving players a difficult time in tracking them down. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, I can see it ending up bad, some where. 

I’m also wondering if this will lead to more character sales – because you can now purchase a character and then transform them (at least outwards) to something you may actually enjoy playing. 

I’ve no idea of the cost of one of these potions yet, but I’m going to bet they’re quite expensive. Name changes and gender changes (oh great I can imagine the google hits that are going to head my way now) are not something that has (in the past) been easily done. I wonder what sort of stories people will have about this new feature once it goes live (it’s slated to be in game on April 7th at the moment). We’ll just have to see I suppose!

And if none of it’s real, well, at least I’ve helped to spread the fun!

Tonight is my LotRO night, and hopefully I’ll be playing it on the new video card. We’ll just have to see how that goes. I hope everyone has an amazing Wednesday no matter where you find yourself.