Whats everyone been up to? What are you playing? Any MMOs?

EQ2- Working on a tank spec for my swash, found a kick ass shield and tweaking his specs for soloing/ backup tank for zones. He has full raid gear so he should be able to stay up in a group zone (105% Crit mit) Also trying to get the last 40 AA points on my Fury before the expansion next year.

On the console, playing a lot wii with the family. Super Mario (The old skool one), Kirby (The new one is decent), and I CANNOT wait for "Donkey Kong Country Returns" this weekend. It is a good year for the best old Nintendo to be remade w/o changing a whole lot about what we fell in love with when we were kids. The only remake I wasnt too happy with was GoldenEYE (Everyone has played this on N64), the wii version just didnt bring back the magic for me.

Its funny how my Wii collected dust for months and the PS3 got all the action. Since I got the USB loader setup on my Wii, My PS3 has turned into solely a bluray/AVI player and my Wii gets all the action. I know I'm missing out on some good PS3 games (Fallout, RDR: Zombie addon), but 2 busy with other games atm.

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I started playing WOW, and with the changes that came into it since the last time I've played, I'm enjoying the hell out of it. The Queue Dungeons is awesome! I can hop on, Q a dungeon 10-15 minutes... take a break, etc..

Anyway, been jamming out on that. About level 51 now on that.

I'm on the Tanaris Server, so look me up with you want.

It's Dardore and PVE... though really considering hopping to a PVP server.

Been playing games on the PS3 alot. Played trough the Force Unleased 2 in abotu 4 hours and still playing some MAG. Not really playing EQ2 at the moment. There is a certian super hero MMO that is taking up the free time I do have to game...which is not alot at the moment.

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Monthly subscription fee
Class/subclass system (didn't EQ2 start off this way?)
World shards/servers
Factions (Good vs Evil)

Isn't Rift just going to be more of the same?

I'm playing EQ2 for free on the Extended server. Enjoying the restrictions that come with a Silver membership.

The Blizzard developers, with their latest World of Warcraft patch, are making all other designers look like amateurs to be honest. "The Shattering" hit yesterday which changed the old world forever and comes with new zone design, excellent quest revamps and a new 1-60 leveling experience. How much did this cost? Oh yeah, it's free. These guys know how to make a game fun! I couldn't stop playing last night and took a pair of recruit a friend characters from 46 to 54. The dungeon crawl and raid scene is arguably the best around with instant queues and bite sized gameplay combined with larger more epic runs when time permits. You can run the game on ultimate graphics settings in raids (cough EQ2) and they have so much money they can take their time making an amazing product and actually deliver on their promises. They aren't trying to sell you a bunch of game changing items in a cash shop or give you free gold memberships only to yank them after a weekend and ask you to cough up more money. I've been an SOE fan for a long time and attended 6 or more FanFaires but seriosuly - Smokejumper you need to pay attention to this. You are getting outclassed.

I've played my fair share of EQ, EQ2, Vanguard, LOTRO, Age of Conan, Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, Darkfall, Warhammer, Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online, Aion etc... I'm telling you guys, the new post shattering WOW is something you NEED to experience. It's that good. In two weeks Cataclysm hits and it's going to be nuts. My newbies are on Stormrage - Alliance side if anyone wants to stop by and say hello. Have a great thanksgiving!

Laz

As a Silver member the big things I do without are Legendary and Fabled gear, Master spells, and control of the AA slider. So my toon lives on Expert spells, Mastercrafted gear, and a AA slider locked at 50%.

I also have less storage slots. A Silver player only have 4 bag slots on their person, 3 bank slots, and 2 shared bank slots. So managing 'stuff' is a bit of a challenge. Finally, Silver players cannot sell stuff via the broker.

And that all makes it more challenging - and more relaxing to tell you the truth.

Now when I come across a shiny that I can't use I leave it on the ground. Sometimes I'll keep it and see if an alt can use it but usually I just leave it. If I can't broker it why bother. I'm not obsessed with gear so I'm enjoying questing a bit more although its kind of a drag to get a quest reward that you can't equip. I've not had any problem grouping up with other players. There are several guilds who actually only accept players who are Silver members or lower (Bronze.) So there is a nice community that is building up around people who choose to play at those levels.

The really big issue about being a Silver player is race and class locks. I'm not that much of an alt junkie but if one were they could run into issues. If all of a sudden you wanted to roll a froglok Fury you'd have to purchase the Fury class and then purchase the Froglok race. But I'm more than happy with playing the free races since I always play a Half-Elf anyway for the tracking racial trait.

Maybe the restrictions make it a bit more fun because it forces you to focus a bit more. You don't have 24 classes x 10 (or whatever) races to choose from. If you can't equip fabled gear then a lot of that gear grinding is thrown out the window as well.


On the Rift front - I'm just tired of being restricted by classes and levels. Why can't my Ranger learn how to feign death? Or why can't my Carpenter make rings? Why is it that when I level mobs that were aggro to me now suddenly don't care?

I want a fantasy based MMO that every time I swing a sword I get a bit stronger and that strength makes me use a particular weapon more effectively. I don't want to loot a sword and have to wait 10 levels to use it. I want to be able to use any weapon in the game at any time with my attributes determining how effective I am with that item.

My Kinect Review.

Will be writing one for GT5 soon, it is an amazing and beautiful game.

While fun and convenient is this the final death knell of open, seamless, and immersive online worlds? My original draw to MMO's was immersion, largeness, community. MMO's are becoming like xbox 360 matches. While when I need a particular dungeon the ability to queue it would be nice - in the long run the game and community is hurt because of it.