Amazing Deals!

Trine

This isn’t going to be a long post. I just got the weekly impulse buys newsletter from Stardock and they’ve got Trine for $4.99 US. Seriously, if you have EVER enjoyed a platform game pick this up. For this price? It’s a must. Me and the wife played it together (support up to three people on ONE COMPUTER! We used keyboard and mouse/XBox controller to play). I can’t say enough about this game, go get it.

Rockstar

From Steam we’ve got the Rockstar Pack. That’s:

Bully: Scholarship Edition

Grand Theft Auto 1, 2, 3, Vice City, San Andreas, 4, Episodes from Liberty City

Manhunt

Max Payne 1, 2

Midnight Club 2

Wild Metal

All that for the special price of 42.49! You pay less than the price of a new console game! If I didn’t own all of those except Manhunt and Episodes from Liberty City I’d buy it right now.

Spring Sale from Direct2Drive

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II for 14.95 (I love this game, and the expansion)

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI for 9.95

Saboteur for 14.95

Everquest II: Sentinel’s Fate for 19.95!!! It’s $40 usually! For barely 5 dollars above the monthly sub you can get Everquest II and ALL of it’s expansion packs! Go get this if you have ever wanted to play Everquest II!

There are MANY more deals out there, but these caught my eye as being extremely good.

Game Updates!

I’ve been playing many a game lately. These are a few updates from some of them.

 

I’ve been playing mostly Fallen Earth lately and I’ve finally made my ATV Key. The way mounts work is you craft a key, but when you use that key it spawns the mount in the world. It can NEVER again be mailed, or put back into your bags or the bank. You can only stable/garage it, and you can only have one active and in the world at a time.

I have not used my ATV Key, as it was a requirement to research Motorcycle building. I’ve since researched and learned that, and I’m on my way to making my first Motorcycle key. I’ll keep that one around until I can make a Cargo Motorcycle, since that’ll be the first thing that has more storage than my horse. Not to mention I got a free regular Motorcycle from the Clan I joined, which is really nice.

My character, Connor Toth, is a melee crafter with healing capabilities. I haven’t grouped yet, but at level 14 I’m about the right level to get a group together for Kingman Prison. It’s not an instance in the classical World of Warcraft style from what I understand, but I’m looking forward to getting it done and getting some AP for it.

Darkfall is having a welcome back special, a free 14 day’s for anyone who had an account. I read about it on Hardcore Casual and just as I thought “Maybe I should give it another try” I got an email from them. Now when I played (See not very long) it was back when the game only had an EU server, my internet sucked, and my PC couldn’t really handle it. I switched my EU account for an NA account free of charge and created a character. I’m still not sure what the race is called, but if any game allows me to be a Werewolf, the only thing I would ever choose over that would be a rat person. So naturally I am the games Werewolf-ish race.

Sadly, because of the age of my account, I do not have the newbie protection. Luckily, after eight hours in the game, I haven’t died to a player yet. I HAVE died to several goblins, especially those damn Goblin Shaman. I’ve followed the tutorial video’s that are linked to on Hardcore Casual and it’s been a blessing. I’ve since abandoned following it, and I’m getting most of the low level quests, but I doubt I would have been able to get my bearings without those videos.

I’ve made a lot of progress, having gotten an OK set of armor, a two handed sword from the vendor, a really nice quest bow that has allowed me to start three shotting Goblin Scouts, and a magic staff. Well, many of the staffs, which I keep in the bank.

I’ll make another full post about Darkfall at a later date, but I’m having a blast so far. I’ve run and escaped from several decked out players so far, and the adrenaline rush of just fighting a newbie area goblin is such a strange feeling that I can’t help but log in and keep going. I’m also a simple steedleaf (I think that’s the name) away from getting my first mount, which will be kept in the bank until I can get a few more mounts.

I haven’t mentioned LOTRO much since me and the wife resubbed to WoW, but we’ll be back in Middle Earth this weekend! We’re going to hopefully turn in our tokens to get our Spring Horses and maybe get a couple of levels and enjoy the festivities. The wife is really looking forward to it. She hasn’t had much time to play games lately, so she’s itching for an MMO fix.

That’s it for now, expect more on Darkfall tomorrow. And Fallen Earth.

Slow Down and Smell the Roses. Damn Roses.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Mythic Entertainment lately. This is partly due to the fact that I recently starting playing the trial for Dark Age of Camelot. I got a guild in Fallen Earth, and when I logged into their vent I noticed that they had people in a DAoC channel. I like the guild (Clan in Fallen Earth) so far so I’m messing around in DAoC and chatting with them.

It’s weird going from Warhammer Online to Dark Age of Camelot, a game I never really played back in the day. The first thing I noticed was that the UI was TERRIBLE. Of course it’s because of how old the game is, and I actually like some of the differences, but having to /whisper npc’s with key words to get quest dialog…I haven’t had to do that in an online RPG since I was playing GemStone (a MUD) on America Online.

On the other hand I was immediately sad that I had never picked it up back in the day. The setting is very interesting and I like the little bit of lore that I have been exposed to so far. I am, above and before anything else, a fan of settings, and DAoC’s is great.

I started wondering what the subscription numbers were like and it doesn’t appear there are many. There are reasons that a game like this might not be very successful in today’s world of modern MMO’s, such as it’s archaic UI with no mini map (I love the action bar being on the top left), or the quest log being almost no help at all, or even the fact that it’s mostly a grind to levels.

What I found however was that it had one of “Those” expansions. Trials of Atlantis is considered by many to have killed Dark Age of Camelot. To sum it up quickly it appears that it added a lot of PVE grinding in order to be competitive in RVR. It’s one of the big problems that WAR had when it launched, forcing people to PVE in order to improve in PVE. That is possibly the worst thing you could possibly do to a PVP/RVR game.

What amazed me though is that, amongst all the ranting about the changes Trials of Atlantis brought to the game and how bad they were, people took the time to talk about how pretty the new zones were, about how interesting it was to explore and find new areas that were really well done.

Then I thought back on Warhammer Online and some of it’s amazing areas and zones, and about how beautiful they really were. I also thought about how it was never mentioned amongst all the hate threads and posts. In fact, exploration is never really mentioned in any MMO’s anymore. Most people talk about it based on what quest/grind spot they found, but not what a pretty area it was.

Have MMO’s lost that sense of exploration, are they not worrying about making beautiful areas? Or have we gamers with our ADD lost the ability to slow down and smell the roses. Or at least notice that they are there.