Forever Wandering Through Games

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How long has it been since you stuck with a single MMO for at least a year? I remember when Tipa used to put out a challenge to people to stick with a single game for a year, and almost no one could accomplish it even when the choices were much more limited, let alone these days where there are games for every genre you could possibly think of. Sure, we may play one game at a time, or two games, or have some combination of F2P & subscription, but more and more I notice that we are ALL becoming nomadic gamers, bouncing between games when the mood strikes (or when that new shiny pops up on the table).

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just something I’ve noticed over the years. I would love to be one of those people who stick with a single game for any length of time but I simply don’t have that in me any more (for a few reasons). One reason would have to be the price point. Money fluctuates throughout the year and my game choices will change based on that. A good example is EQ2. My subscription expires the 2nd week of July, so I find very little motivation to log in and play right now as I know I won’t be re-subscribing (baby on the way, I simply have to re-allocate my funds for a bit). I’ve never really enjoyed playing games with a sub as a F2P player, not because I think F2P is “bad” but because I’d rather have access to the entire game. Speaking of – why doesn’t Trion offer some sort of bulk subscription plan that offers access to all of their games, much like station access? Rift and ArcheAge would certainly be two games I’d love to check out more of, but I’m not sure how I’d feel about the F2P options (especially in ArcheAge where owning land is tied to having a subscription). Offer a package deal and those subscriptions become a lot more favorable. I blame Belghast and Bhagpuss for my sudden interest in Trion games, both of them have been posting about Rift / ArcheAge on their blogs. I was interested enough that I updated glyph though I haven’t actually logged in (yet).

Speaking of EQ2, a new server opened up yesterday. It’s the Isle of Refuge, and it runs just as all the other servers in the EQ2 line up do, except the majority of items can be sold / traded and don’t have the heirloom tag. There’s a great write up about it over at EQ2wire, and the server reminds me a lot of Firiona Vie, the RP server over on EQ. There are a few other rules to the FV server besides that but it was one that stuck out to me. Why Daybreak has added such a server I have no idea (nor does anyone else it seems if you read through the comments on the article) but it’s nice to see things are not completely stagnant.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Back Into Rift #Rift #Riftgame

2013-06-13_151907Like many others this week, I decided to poke back into Rift when it went free to play. There were a few issues on starting day like loyalty not being there for everyone and some very long queues, but most gamers are used to these sort of issues and they were not too bad. I picked up with my level 50 cleric not knowing what the heck I was doing, or where I should go. I was reluctant to start over with another character because I really wanted to attempt 60 on the cleric, and I’ve worked really hard on her crafting and other skills. Plus I have one of everything, so I just wasn’t keen on starting another of everything.

Thanks to the cookie cutter soul builds it didn’t take that long to understand what I was doing. You hit buttons, stuff happens. I’m in a dps / solo spec right now that gives me enough heals to stay alive and enough dps that I don’t feel like an hour has passed before anything dies. I decided to queue for some instant adventures after picking up a daily (weekly?) quest for it, which were a lot of fun. It just drops you into a random group in a random zone, and off you go. I think for mine we were in Stonefield. It also mentors you down, so I think I was level 25. It wasn’t a whole lot of experience, but it was a fantastic refresher on “what to do” in game.

Afterward I decided to start the Storm Legion content. I know there’s Ember Island, but I had heard that the experience there didn’t quite measure up, and since Storm Legion came out after, a lot of the gear is also just not worth it. I may adventure there at another time, or when I’m looking for some place new.

I was looking forward to getting my skills above 300 as they’ve been raised with the level increase – however, I won’t be able to afford that for quite some time. Looks like they cost 11 plat each to train, plus the cost of recipes, and I have a grand total of 10 plat to my name. It looks like money has gone through a bit of an overhaul though and it’s far easier to get coin these days than ever before. Perhaps with a few more quests under my belt I’ll be able to afford to train up.

I also have a lot of crafting lures on me, but I’m not sure where people go any more to complete those. I’ll have to ask in channel.

All in all, I’m really happy to be back – enough so that I signed up for Patron (a subscription) just to enjoy the perks and earn more loyalty as I play. You can find me on the Faeblight server as Seduisant. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Gone Fishing #Rift

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It’s been a little while since I’ve played Rift, but since I won 30 days free + the storm legion expansion, I decided I should probably take advantage of the 9 days I have left. Although the game IS going free to play in June (starting the 12th) so who knows maybe I’ll still be playing.

Anyhow. The last time I played was well before dimensions came out, and it was before fishing, and survival. My goal today was pretty simple, reacquaint myself with the crafting portion of things (very easily done, my bank is filled with bits and bobs) and take it from there. I managed to complete some weekly and daily crafting quests, and before too long I found myself with a pole in hand, relaxing and catching fish.

Fishing is pretty easy. You hotkey the fishing rod. Click it and move a little circle icon over the water, it will change colours based on difficulty level. Wait for the splash, and then left or right click the water. You may not actually “catch” the fish that round, and you may have a second or third splash to listen to. Eventually you end up with a random fish, a piece of crap to sell, or a collection piece. Before I knew it an hour had gone by and I had finished a handful of quests along with some survival quests, which are basically cooking quests.

I wanted to purchase a new dimension, but I’m out of money so that is on hold until I can earn some more. Quests seem to reward a lot these days, and although general chat was VERY quiet there was some conversation about how 9,000 plat at level 51 was the ‘norm’ these days. Oh my. I have 3.

I’ve been trying to find a game I can play while my usual group is busy with real life. So far nothing has really stuck or kept my interest beyond an hour a week. So I’ll keep looking. I’m hoping to get into the Wildstar beta one day, but for now I haven’t had any luck.

Are you going to give Rift another try when it goes free to play? Or do you feel that Trion has just put the last nail in the coffin so to speak? Let me know in comments and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Keeping Up With The Gamers #MMORPG

If you’re one of those gamers who likes to taste a little bit of every game, this has probably been an expensive year for you. Whether you’re only interested in MMOs or if that extends to single player, it doesn’t much matter. There’s a lot of games out there and the costs can add up.

Right now I’m reading everyone’s excited squeals for Neverwinter, the ‘early’ release starts today – for people who decided to buy the $200 package. Needless to say, I simply can’t afford to spend that much on a game that I may or may not enjoy well into the future. At this moment I have been contemplating the $60 package, but I’m still not sure if it’s a game that I truly enjoy more than anything else I already have on my plate (that comes at a lower cost). So what is on my plate?

I did get my $60 out of Guild Wars 2, and even though I’m not actively playing that right this second I know it’s not going anywhere. I’ve dedicated more than $60 worth of hours to the game, and I’ve had a lot of fun. It will still be there when my interest leans that way again.

Wurm Online is $50 a year (until the price goes up in May). You rarely ever get MMOs for that price, and I’ve certainly got a lot of played time on my characters. I think my main is over 100 days played now. Plus you can play Wurm with in-game currency, which I do for my 2nd account. I just purchased a year of game time, wanting to get that settled before the price goes from $5 EU a month to $8 EU.

My EQ account is compensated, as are all of my SOE accounts. This makes them an easy go-to choice for many genres. I’m having a lot of fun in EQ, and I still dip into EQ2 and Vanguard. Me and SOE (the company, not the people) may have had some rocky times, but they’re a solid game choice for me and have been for many, many years.

Rift is active for 30 days. I haven’t poked in yet and I’m not really sure why. I just haven’t felt the urge, even after claiming the latest expansion and a handful of other goodies.

There are loads of other games on my desktop that I could technically pick up and play at any time, and haven’t felt an inkling to do so yet. There’s Wizard 101, Pirate 101, The Secret World, Star Trek Online (I have a life time subscription to that one), and of course EVE which I still have some unused PLEX for. These are just the MMO games. There’s a whole steam library of single player games that I haven’t beaten yet, and a few that have no ‘end’ like The Sims 3.

With such a selection it’s hard for me to justify spending even more money on a game that I know didn’t exactly call to me in the beta – but – so hard to resist because pretty much all of my friends are going to be playing it. I never want to be the one left out of all the fun. So for those who ARE going to be playing today – I look forward to living vicariously through your adventures!

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Raptr and Rift, Sitting in a Tree #Riftgame

2012-10-19_143027A really great way to get me back into a game that I haven’t played in a while is to offer up some sort of free item for me to claim. I’m a sucker for those things, I admit it. So when I saw that Raptr was offering up the game for free, the expansion (storm legion) along with it, AND 30 days of game time – if you qualified – of course I went to check it out. Low and behold thanks to my previous time in Rift I did qualify. You need to be from a participating country, and already be ranked as experienced in the game. Even people who have not purchased the game could thus qualify as the first 20 levels are free to play.

The free stuff didn’t stop there though. I was also able to claim a Raptr pet, which is for elite ranked players, some shoulders, and a helm. That may have been a bit of over kill, but again who am I to say no to free things.

So now I have 30 days tacked on to my account, and I’ll want to log in and check out the player housing. Whether or not I stay after that initial 30 days is undecided. There are always so many games on my plate that unless that specific game happens to be THE ONE that I want to play 75% of the time, I tend to move on. I think that Raptr and Rift teaming up is a very neat project, and I’m sure it motivates at least a few sales. Plus it gets word about the game around again when players have perhaps not heard too much going on (although Defiance did just launch, and I’m sure Trion has been busy with that).

Have you claimed any Raptr rewards since they started regularly adding them? What do you think of them so far? Let me know in comments!

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself