Sorry for the lack of posts, father is in the hospital (not drastically serious, but concerning none the less) so my in game time as well as posting time is greatly reduced while I do the family thing. Happy easter to all out there and happy gaming.
So. Station access is getting bumped up to $29.99 a month American. x 2 for my house. Ouch.
Converted over that’s almost $100 a month to play video games, and only two of those games are played to any extent, Vanguard and EverQuestII. Worth it? I’m beginning to think not. So the new decision I have to make, is which game am I giving up. There are good and bad points for each.
EverQuestII is still a lot of fun for me, I have three level 70 characters, two raid geared, fully mastered, and a bunch of crafters. The issue with that game for me, is lack of players on my server specifically, Lucan D’Lere. If it merged, I wouldn’t have so much of an issue. The down side, well obviously a lot of my friends have left for Vanguard. The game is lacking high end content. If you’ve been there and done it all, why bother any more?
Vanguard is also a lot of fun for me. My highest level character is 20, meaning I have a lot of work left (if I were to stay). The game unfortunately is very buggy. Not that it won’t get fixed over time I am sure, but do I want to be paying full price for a game still in beta? How many people are going to stay around in Vanguard once LoTR and WarHammer and Conan and all those other MMO’s come out? At least in EverQuestII I know there is some sort of a player base. It’s just relatively small. If I were to spend some money and move to a more populated server, would that solve my issues? Najena for example is still thriving. Lucan can barely support one ‘real’ raiding guild.
It’s a shame that they’ve decided to raise the price. I feel even worse for those who had station access due to the free adventure packs, as well as the extra character slots. Why would you pay TWICE as much as one monthly subscription if you only play EQ2. I’d be mighty pissed off if that were the case. They should allow you to keep your $24.99 price if all you’re after is the extra characters and the free adventure packs (splitpaw, the village of shin, etc). I think this was a very unwise business move. Not only will Sigil lose money from those who were only playing Vanguard due to station access and the ability to play both games at a discounted price, but SoE will lose money from those who decide to give up their station access fully and move to Vanguard. It will be interesting to see how (if any) affect this will have on the populations of both games. I know I’m tempted to just throw in the towel and go play WoW again, just to not deal with this any more.
The price change goes into affect April 2nd, so they’ve given one months warning. Unless Vanguard by some miracle fixes the numerous issues that players face every day, I won’t be renewing my subscription. If the situation on EQ2 doesn’t improve with the decline in players (and so many servers that we’re all spread over) then they also will no longer have my monthly business. Does SoE care? Of course not, I’m one small subscriber. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t make the slightest dent. If enough people do it though, they’ll see the change. I already know quite a few bloggers out there are talking about what they’ll be doing, which game they’ll be playing, and what’s next.
For further reading about the ideas and opinions out there, check out the following:
Stargrace’ newest house pet, Bork
I typically don’t keep house pets in Eq2. I find they cause a whole lot of lag, and wander around in the most absurd places. Like the time I came home to find Mittens my cat drowning herself in my vat of eggnog on the dining room table. That was not fun to explain to company. Bork on the other hand, was far too irresistible. He comes from the Rujarkian Blademaster quest, from a semi-rare tablet that drops off of (you guessed it) the rujarkian blademaster himself, located in the cleffs of rujark. I can’t remember how I ended up with one, I must have been smaller or mentored or something. Needless to say the quest was still a pain to do, and he sits proudly watching over my home now.
Computer is up and running! Took a lot of fixing last night and a whole lot of reinstalling. A huge huge thank you to Shadowgeist for getting most of it done for me while I groaned over all of the missing pieces I’d have to install later. Windows reinstalled and we’re crash free (thus far, knock on wood!) and the bad hard drive error went away after it was formatted. If I wanted to play Vanguard I suppose the up side is that I have room for it now. Too bad I’m not interested. I copied over my Eq2 and WoW games, since I dreaded having to reinstall and patch those things. 8 CD’s for WoW and I’m not even sure how many for Eq2, not to mention the last two expansions I downloaded digitally and don’t even have disks for. Just the thought of it makes me shudder.
Played WoW yesterday off and on while my computer was down, the hunter (which is a solo type class that I’ve always adored, mostly for farming. Everything is ten times easier with a pet) managed to grab level 11. Which means she has her pet now, wuwu! I’m excited about that. I’ll probably play her until I get bored and then switch back to the priest. I still haven’t even looked at my 40+ characters yet, having too much fun with the new zones and content.
In Eq2 I harvested. Since the crafting revamps (which are now all but a distant memory that us crafters lament over, missing the old methods of crafting) everyone goes through a whole lot of raws. I miss the old way. I miss sub components. There, you heard me say it! I actually miss making the 4-5 pieces that were required to make the finished product. At least it was a way to grind through the dreary levels. Hopefully my tailor gets to 30 today so I can move on from the dreaded T3 (dreaded because you’re still using level 10 +durability buffs and they’re grey, and combines hurt) and move on to something a little more productive. The sage should hit 60 today as well. Here’s hoping!
As happens with computers it seems, once you buy one new piece, the rest falls apart. So, after buying the new monitor I now sport, my drive has decided to stop working on me. How nice. 3 random reboots and 5 crashes later, a disk scan and a defrag and virus scan and a whole lot of other tests to see what was the issue, Shadowgeist determined that it was indeed the drive while I pouted and stomped my foot.
Granted, the drive was almost 5 years old, and I do use my computer quite heavily every day, but still it’s disheartening. Especially knowing I’ll get to re-install everything that was on it. Including WoW and EQ2 and all their patches and expansions and adventure packs. Ew.
So I’m on the 2nd computer for now. Which of course is not nearly as nice as mine (ok it is just as nice, but I miss my keyboard and my computer chair and my UI on games and all the rest already) to update my blog. I miss the off line blog updater I was using too. Just little inconveniences. No wonder I hate computers.
So if there’s a lack of posts (there shouldn’t be, I imagin it’ll be fixed late tonight or early tomorrow) well, at least know that I’m blogging in mind!
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My computer desk, note the kitty cat desktop!
So, I was looking at the two computer desks in my livingroom. I live on the 11th floor of an apartment building, so there’s really only two choices, put them in the bedroom, or have them in a corner in the livingroom. Taking a look at my desk, well, it’s not the neatest of desks, there’s a bottle of multi-vitamin there, cute teddy bears, some pictures along the top, a candle and pens and pencils in a glass. the ever-present water glass.
Shadowgeist’ desk, just missing the pop cans
Note the WoW desktop (though he plays EQ2 mostly) keys, wallet, cell phone, house phone, boxes of kleenex… nothing as personal or soft as my desk. I have the biggest desk, but he has the brand new monitor (which makes me drool, I’ll admit). So it’s only safe to assume that when it comes to gaming habbits, there are differences. In play style, in attitude, and countless other things. There are times when I tend to be a little more… bloodthirsty, and times when I’m content to sit back and just heal. It’s finding a balance between the gaming styles that makes things work (or not work, as the case may be). Unlike a lot of couples who play MMO’s, we typically don’t play together at all. We’re in the same guild for the first time in five years, I want to craft, quest, and explore, he wants to squish things. I squish too, but at a more.. lady like pace.
Anyhow, I just wanted to point out some differences in play style. A small break from the every day MMO comments I post here. I’m heading out to see if there’s any copies of TBC left in Ottawa, I bet $5 there are none, Best Buy’s online merchandise check thing says they’re sold out, Future Shop claims to have some left, so we’ll see!
stargrace