Michael Linn Whitt's Blog

I admit it, I am a Cityville Junkie.

2012-02-24T08:30:00.000-06:00

I admit it, I am a Cityville junkie. Long before Facebook came along and Zynga started Cityville I played Simcity way back in 1989. I remember many hours spent after school playing Simcity. Who hasn't given thought to what it would be like to design and develop a city the way you want one to be? Of course back with Simcity I would build a metropolis only to turn around and unleash natural disasters on it and then have fun putting the city back together.

I have a few other City building programs these days like Cities XL 2012 and Anno 2070 but there is still something about Cityville that I really enjoy. Maybe because it is a casual and social game. I can spend a few odd minutes here and there like before work, at lunch and such and still feel like I had fun in just a few brief minutes of tweaking my city named Ententia (City of Understanding).

But even more than the casual aspect I enjoy the social aspect. Family and friends alike enjoy playing Cityville. Two of my co-workers are Cityville neighbors with me and it is fun visiting their cities and sending gifts back and forth between each other. While these co-workers would care little for Role Playing Games and First Person Shooter games that I play, Cityville is something that anyone can enjoy.

I am going to be writing up something soon on the general game play of Cityville for those that might have thought about playing but haven't yet, and maybe even share a few tips for those people that already play. While I am by no means an expert at the game I have found a lot of tips by trial and error that I would like to share.

One other note in regards to Cityville that I enjoy is that it is an ever evolving world so to speak. I can not tell you how many times over again the layout of my City has changed as I have tried one layout or another. Of course what you want out of the city is up to you. Some friends of mine have very nice laid out cities that are very well designed and look like someplace I wouldn't mind living, others like mine are crowded cities that aren't realistic or pretty but laid out to maximize the amount of supplies and coin they can make. That is the beauty of the game. And as mentioned it is fun to have friends and family to share your cities with. Unlike Simcity where it was pretty much just you that got to enjoy your creation in Cityville it can be a very social affair.

Movie Quote of the Day

2012-02-24T08:00:00.000-06:00

Indiana: Do we need the monkey?
Marion: I'm surprised at you. Talking that way about our baby. He's got your looks, too.
Indiana: And your brains.
- Indiana Jones & The Raiders of the Lost Ark

Finally quest text that gets to the point. Wildstar's new take on quest text.

2012-02-23T08:00:00.001-06:00

One of the MMORPGs that I have been following of late is one coming from Carbine Studios and will be published by NCSoft called WildStar.   The other day Carbine Studios posted a small article about how WildStar will be taking a new approach to Quest Text.   We all know there are two types of MMO gamers, those who actually take the time to read small walls of text and those of us like myself that think most text quest are TLDR (Too Long Didn't Read) and only charge for the down and dirt of what is required to complete the quest. Most of the people I know fit into the later crowd.

In a way Carbine Studio's approach is the anti-thesis of Bioware's flaunted fourth pillar of game play in which they actually went to the other extreme and overloaded you with TMS (Too Much Story). That was the problem that many people, self included, ended up having with SWTOR. You ended up skipping though a good bit of dialog because it just slowed the action down too much.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good yarn and I read at least a book or two a week so it is not that I don't like reading. It is just when I am playing video games I want to be doing something. I want to know what is expected from me and let me get to it. For me the fun is in the doing, not the reading.   If I want lore I will read IP related books, or background information on the games website. I want to experience the lore instead of just read it.

I have already read an article or two that don't like the ideal. I can understand that some gamers are going to be turned off by "tweet" sized quest text. But for everyone turned off by the aspect there are going to be a bunch more that like the idea.   Call me spoon fed but I like the idea of my quest text directly telling me what is expected and even like my map to point me in the right direction.   I am not against exploring, but I want to do it when I want to, not because of some vague quest text.

I do support the idea of a mixture of being able to toggle between deep quest text or tweet sized quest text.   I support the idea of being able to toggle off or on quest pointers on maps.   I see both sides of the issue. But to me, myself I have limited amounts of time to play and when I do play I don't want to spend half my time trying to figure out some riddle of quest text, I want to be doing something, else I might as well just pop in a movie or pick up a good novel.

So in closing I for one fully and happily support Carbine for taking quest text towards this direction. I understand that it isn't for everyone but ADHD MMO players such as myself will cheer when a quest giver just says "Yo, see pointer on map, follow it and kill the big ugly monsters when you get there".

Movie Quote of the Day

2012-02-23T08:00:00.000-06:00

Sarah Connor: [narrating] Dyson listened while the Terminator laid it all down: Skynet, Judgment Day, the history of things to come. It's not everyday you find out that you're responsible for 3 billion deaths. He took it pretty well.
Miles Dyson: I feel like I'm gonna throw up.
- Terminator 2

Guild Wars 2 - A unique approach to server queues.

2012-02-22T08:30:00.000-06:00

Guild Wars 2 continues to bring forth unique innovations. The latest announced by ArenaNet is that GW2 players should not have to wait in queues in order to have fun. Their solution is called Overflow servers. So if you get home and want to jump into the game yet your server is full you have the option to temporarily play on a secondary server, and once a spot on your primary server opens up you will be asked if you want to go back to it, and along with it any progression/items you have earned while on the Overflow server will follow you back to your home server.

I LOVE this idea. I can't tell you how many hours I have spent waiting in World of Warcraft, AION queues and of late Star Wars: The Old Republic queues. Often I would give up waiting and just go to a new server and roll an alt that most likely I would never play again. But with GW2 it sounds like ArenaNet has came up with a perfect solution to not being able to process with your main character while you either wait in queue or instead roll an alt character.

Guild Wars 2 is looking more and more like the MMO that so many of us have been waiting for. While I want this game ASAP I am willing to wait for ArenaNet to polish all they wait because Guild Wars 2 keeps looking to prove the old adage "good things come to those that wait".

Movie Quote of the Day

2012-02-22T08:00:00.000-06:00

Jed Eckert: How did you get shot down, Colonel?
Col. Andy Tanner: It was five to one. I got four.
- Red Dawn

Guild Wars 2, OMG I want it now but it is worth the wait.

2012-02-21T08:00:00.001-06:00

Like hundreds of thousands, if not millions of other gamers I am looking forward to Guild Wars 2.   I still enjoy Guild Wars 1 from time to time but more and more it looks like Guild Wars 2 is the type of MMO that I have been waiting for all these years.   With the first real beta feedback coming out Monday in way of articles from those allowed in this past weekends Press Beta events it seems that ArenaNet is actually set to deliver the experience that we have kept hearing about.

I hate to be one of those people that cry WoW Killer, but if there is to be such a thing Guild Wars 2 might finally be the one to fit the bill. No it isn't going to pull away everyone from World of Warcraft, but it might very well replace it as the number 1 MMORPG that people play.   It is quite evident with the subscription decline of World of Warcraft over the past year, that people are wanting something new and innovative. While Star Wars: The Old Republic manged to pull a good number of people in, it has failed to hold onto a large number of those that played at launch (self included). Largely because once you get over the "dialog" innovation of SWTOR you are just playing WoW in space.   Dialog, voice overs were just not enough to help those of us that have WoW Burnout as it was just too much of a WoW clone to feel different.

No game is perfect, and I have no doubt Guild Wars 2 will have a lot of hurdles to jump if it is to replace World of Warcraft as the most played MMORPG on the market.   But it has a lot going for it. It has a loyal fan base, a rich set of lore, and most of all it is Buy to Play which was one of the reasons the first Guild Wars was so successful. You can invest $50-60 in the game, play for a few months and take a break for a month or two and come back to see what has changed without spending $15 on a subscription fee. That alone is going to boost the number of players as it makes it a game that casuals can enjoy without spending $15 a month and maybe not even playing during that subscription time.

Either way I am looking forward to Guild Wars 2.   I have waited years for it and I am willing to wait a while longer because this is one game that I want to see have a great launch and not rushed out the door because if it fails then for me and I bet a good number of other MMO burnouts we may well see the MMORPG genre face a major decline.

Movie Quote of the Day

2012-02-21T08:00:00.000-06:00

[Emmett Fitz-Hume and Austin Millbarge are surrounded by Ninja warriors]
Austin Millbarge: Show some balls, man!
Emmett Fitz-Hume: I think it's too late to try and impress them.
- Spies Like Us

Witcher 2 Digital Deluxe version on sale for $15 on Amazon this week.

2012-02-20T08:00:00.001-06:00

Amazon Digital Downloads has one of 2011's hottest games for sale for the PC for under $15. The Witcher 2 Deluxe package. It is a great game and was worth the full price but for $15 it is a steal.

Movie Quote of the Day

2012-02-20T08:00:00.000-06:00

Pratt: Is it true that you went twelve-for-twelve with the Maxim Girls last year?
Tony Stark: That is an excellent question. Yes and no. March and I had a scheduling conflict but fortunately the Christmas cover was twins.
- Iron Man

How many hours of gameplay makes or breaks a game?

2012-02-18T08:30:00.000-06:00

According to this article on Destructoid, one game says he clocked in just over 70 hours of game play before running out of content in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. 70 hours of solid game play for a single player game to me seems like a good deal for the money. I am happy if I enjoy a game enough to lower the cost per hour ratio of the game to under $1 an hour when it comes to a single player game.   Sure there are plenty of games that have a high replay value. There are other games like Skyrim that can off countless hours just walking around the world and not even questing.

In regards to KoA:R one of the problems is that the developers are on the record saying that there are over 200 hours of game play in the game.   But how do you judge those hours of gameplay?   Everyone's gameplay is different. Some people will not say they have finished a game until they have explored every nook and cranny, looted ever chest, done every quest and sit patiently through every minute of dialog. Then there are other players that will race through the main quest, skip the dialog, run to the quest area, do the deed, and then run back and start all over again, skipping exploration and side quest.   Then there are those like me that are somewhere in between.

I can say that there are $60 games that I have bought and only gotten a dozen or less hours out of, while there are indie/budget games that I have bought for under $25 like Minecraft that have given me dozens and dozens of hours of fun.    Honestly to me though it isn't so much about a games overall play time, or even repeatability as it is, was it a fun ride?

Due to being sick this week I haven't played much KoA:R. Matter of fact I have only put into the game about 10 hours of solid game play so far.   I enjoy it a ton, but I can't play it for long periods of time due to the horrible FOV (Field of View) issue with your character taking up a quarter of the screen. Once that gets fixed I figure I will put plenty of time further into the game. At 10 hours in I have barely scratched the surface of the game I feel and have dozens of quest to do for the starting area alone, much less exploring and crafting.   So I personally feel that I will be getting well over 100 hours of game play from Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and that isn't counting on DLC (Downloadable Content) that comes out later on.

Skyrim is a good example. I have spent under 145 hours playing it and I haven't even really started working on the main quest lines and only have done parts of the Mage guild and Brotherhood quests. Not to mention that I only have completed 12 out of 50 Steam achievements so far.   So I figure I could clock in nearly 300 hours without any DLC all for the price of $60.   If I do get to the 300 hour mark that is less than .25 cents per hour of entertainment from the game. I would call that a value.

At any rate for as much as I love KoA:R I would personally say the FOV issue is by far to me a bigger issue than if I will only get 70 hours out of the game.

To TERA or not to TERA

2012-02-18T08:00:00.000-06:00

With the next TERA closed beta a week away and having been unable to download the rather large client in time for last weekends closed beta I have had to be content reading other people's comments on the first CB. I have heard some good, and some bad and a lot of in between. I read an article over on Keen and Graev's Gaming Blog that gave me some concern. As most of you know I follow Keen and Graev's site closely and often buy products on their word alone.

My first thought was to cancel my Digital Deluxe Preorder from EnMasse. But then after reading some other reviews I decided to at least try out one closed beta before I make up my mind for sure one way or another so I have preordered this time from Amazon.

As I mentioned a few times lately I am rather over the current genre of MMOs like World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, Lord of the Rings Online, RIFT and Star Wars: The Old Republic. I just can't seem to stomach them anymore. However in their place I have been playing games like Vindictus and Dragon's Nest which are more action/twitch based. Thus bringing me back to TERA as I keep hearing it compared to both Vindictus and Dragon Nest which to me is a good thing.

So I will give CB#2 a go and see how it feels but in the back of my head I am keeping in mind that Guild Wars 2 is slowly but surely on it's way and I have Vindictus and Dragon's Nest to keep me happy in between if TERA doesn't blow me away.

Normally I don't take a lot of stock in closed beta talk but TERA is a little different beast than normal. First off kTera, the Korean version of TERA has been out for a year now so there is a year worth of source material on the game already. Of course the Western version differs in a number of ways, but I am sure the core game play is still pretty much the same.    Also while technically Enmasse is calling the current beta test as closed beta test, they are not all that closed. A huge number of people are in the betas since everyone that preorders can get in.    And to top it off there is NOT a NDA.    To me note having an NDA in place, and allowing thousands of people to participate isn't what one normally would consider being a closed beta.

So with that in mind from the first CB there has already been a lot of comments pro and con towards the game.   So far I haven't really been convinced one way or another. I do have the MMO itch but at the same time I want something new not the same old WoW jazz. For a bit it looked like The Secret World might be that new thing but considering that the rumored April launch is getting close and Funcom seems to be mum on the topic I just don't know.

Oh well if nothing else I hope that Guild Wars 2 doesn't let me down.

Had the flu, a sinus infection and an ear infection.

2012-02-17T11:13:00.001-06:00

Been under the weather since Tuesday so I haven't had the chance to make any postings. Hopefully this weekend I will partake in the TERA beta and will say how it is. Hopefully will be over my flu and whatnot by the end of the weekend.

Movie Quote of the Day

2012-02-17T08:00:00.000-06:00

Nick Parker: Unreasonable men make life so difficult.
- Blind Fury

Movie Quote of the Day

2012-02-16T08:00:00.000-06:00

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: [RE: What they found on Miranda] This record here's about twelve years old. Parliament buried it and it stayed buried until River here dug it up. This is what they were afraid she knew. And they were right to fear. There's a universe of folk who're gonna know it, too. Someone *has to* speak for these people.
[pause]
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave.
- Serenity

Movie Quote of the Day

2012-02-15T08:00:00.000-06:00

Hoban 'Wash' Washburn: This landing is gonna get pretty interesting.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: Define "interesting".
Hoban 'Wash' Washburn: [deadpan] Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die?
- Serenity

TERA (The Exaulted Realms of Arborea)

2012-02-14T08:00:00.001-06:00

I finally got around to preordering TERA Saturday night. I had been holding off for Amazon to list the Deluxe Digital Download but decided to go ahead and pick it up direct for Enmasse instead. As it was Saturday night and the downloader took about 27 hours to complete I wasn't able to get into the first Closed Beta test that was held over the weekend. Luckily there are still four closed betas to come over the next month or so, and then there will be an Open Beta and then an Early Launch at the end of April.

TERA is one of only two MMORPGs that I am really interested in this year. TERA has been out for some time in Korea and finally is heading this way. Unlike traditional MMORPGs TERA is more action based and plays similar to games like Vindictus and Dragon's Nest. Much like Guild Wars 2 is promising TERA is trying to break away from the old MMO playstyle of tab targetting, and just pressing keys until the mobs die. Instead TERA features action dodging, twitch based combat and a place where pure skill makes a large difference.

Hopefully I have everything ready and set now to start playing during the next closed beta test which goes from Feb. 24th through Feb. 26th.

Movie Quote of the Day

2012-02-14T08:00:00.000-06:00

Tucker: Oh hidy ho officer, we've had a doozy of a day. There we were minding our own business, just doing chores around the house, when kids started killing themselves all over my property.
- Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil

Nintendo 3DS

2012-02-13T08:00:00.001-06:00

My daughter has been wanting a Nintendo 3DS for a while now but I have held off. She already had a DS so I did really see the need to go ahead and update her to a 3DS. Back a few weeks ago we saw a display for the 3DS in Best Buy and I was impressed by the quality so I promised Danielle that I would try to get her one soon.

So I got her one last week and gave it to her on Saturday. We got her Super Mario World 3D and the 3DS version of Skylanders. She is loving both. Also she loves taking 3D photos and also the Augmented Reality stuff is very cool.

All in all the 3DS is a very nice update to the regular DS and I highly recommend it.

Movie Quote of the Day

2012-02-13T08:00:00.000-06:00

Jason Pear: I can't believe it, Dad. You stole Adolf Hitler's Mercedes-Benz.
Randy Pear: Well, Hitler had it comin'. What goes around comes around.
Kimberly Pear: Dad, they're gonna be pissed.
Randy Pear: Eh, they're always pissed, Honey. They're Nazis. It's like it's their job.
- Rat Race

KoA:R vs. Skyrim

2012-02-10T08:00:00.002-06:00

I wanted to make a quick article in regards to the top single player role playing games out at the moment. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (rel. 11/11/11) and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (rel. 2/7/11).

Both of these games I had on preorder for a long, long time and were day one purchases. I do not regret the money spent on either game as they are both games that I plan on getting hundreds of hours of playtime out of. According to Steam I have about 110 hours play so far in Skyrim and feel that I have barely touched the surface of the game.   And I haven't even tried any of the many mods for the game released already, and considering that the official mod utility was just release this week I am sure there will be countless more mods worth trying over the upcoming months.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning wasn't released until this past Tuesday. So far I have maybe six hours of solid game time invested in the game.   I had been having a lot of issues with CTD (crashes to desktop). I updated my ATI HD5800 video card drivers to the latest driver set. I have all the latest windows patches and tried any number of things my KoA:R kept wanting to crash on me when I would go to switch what quest I wanted to set as active.   Finally I turned off VSync and started playing without Xfire running. Not sure yet which fixed the issue but one of them seemed to work as I got over an hour of game play last night finally without a crash.    But I refuse to down rate a game just a few days launched based on that and feel confidant that 38 Studios and Big Games will resolve the issue fairly soon.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and Skyrim are being compared a lot at the moment because they are both the latest top selling role playing games available across PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. While both feature action based gameplay, both are role playing, both can be hundreds of hours worth of gameplay and both are fantasy games there is an equal amount to separate the two.

KoA:R goes for a more "WoW" like cartoon art direction going for bright colors and a fantasy type world vs. Skyrim's realistic art approach. Personally I love them both and don't have a real preference. That said there are already two camps fighting over with is best. It all depends on the person.   For me they are both very pretty games in their own rights.   KoA:R is bright and imaginary, dream like almost while Skyrim goes the route of realistic looking colors and characters that are rough looking and dirty at times.

Game play other than camera issues that I (along with a number of other people are upset about) I believe KoA:R has a much faster pace and is more fluid.   In regards the camera, the main complaint is that even at high resolutions like I play 1920x1080 often my character seems to be taking up a very large portion of my screen.   It is almost impossible to tell if someone is behind you without panning around the camera, something that a game that is centered around 3rd person point of view should not have.

Story wise I am not fair enough into KoA:R to really compare it to Skyrim. I have faith that R.A.'s story will pan out to be some good stuff though. Hopefully over the weekend I will have a better chance to do a full write up but so far I am very please with KoA:R even if I despise that Origin still has never refunded me for the preorder I canceled weeks and weeks ago, but of course that is EA/Origin's problem not 38 Studios nor Big Games.

Movie Quote of the Day

2012-02-10T08:00:00.001-06:00

Peter MacMannus: Catch, you are the best friend a guy with twenty diagnosed neuroses ever had.
Catcher Block: Oh, we've been friends a long time... I knew you when you only had twelve.
- Down With Love

Brace yourselves, I can make a mistake.

2012-02-09T12:50:00.000-06:00

Over the past couple weeks I have made some comments about how I had preordered a game via EA/Origin and was billed at the time of purchase and when I decided to cancel said preorder and buy the game elsewhere that EA/Origin was telling me that my card had never been charged even though I showed the charge on my bank statement.

Well I owe a HUGE apology to the folks at EA/Origin as I have finally discovered what happened.   On the day that I placed the preorder I had also purchased another game (Battlefield 3) and didn't pay attention to the fact that they were the exact same price.   So after many going back and forth with the Origin reps I kept researching the issue and finally realized that the charge I had thought was for my preorder was in fact my purchase of BF3.    I feel terrible and I wanted to say that once again this goes to prove that no, the customer is not always right.

I want to thank @Origin_EA for their tweets to me and the Origin support staff. I am very sorry for my being upset.   As someone that works in a customer support field I want to say sorry for the misunderstanding and thank you for your patience.

Michael

Movie Quote of the Day

2012-02-09T08:00:00.001-06:00

Receptionist: How do you write women so well?
Melvin Udall: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.
- As Good As It Gets

Skylanders Giants

2012-02-09T08:00:00.000-06:00

Rumors have been flying since Activision registered a number of new domain names including SkylandersGiants.com. On Tuesday Kotaku.com had a brief mention in regards to confirming the rumors. Per the article Skylanders Giants will introduce 16 new figures, 8 of which are Giants which are twice the size of the regular Skylander.

The second wave of Skylanders will also light up when new the Portals of Power and will be tied into the upcoming game. The first set of Skyalnders will work with Skylanders Giants but only the Giants figures will appear larger in the upcoming game.

The age of the Indie game developers.

2012-02-08T08:00:00.000-06:00

I have been PC gaming since the PC first game out. I was there through the age of Shareware and published a few independent video games myself back in late 80s and early 90s. But during the mid to late 90s up until roughly the coming of the iPhone and iPad Indie game development went by the wayside as huge publishers pushed out the little dogs and budgets for video games went up and over the cost of most blockbuster summer films.

But then a couple years back when the iPhone and iPad really caught on, small time developers got back in the picture making low budget but very fun iOS games. And not far on their tails came a slew of new small developers that developed such hit games as Minecraft, Terraria, Dungeon Defenders, Defense Grid, Orcs Must Die and Bastion.

In general these Indie games are in the sub $30 range, most under $15 vs. the average $50-60 price tag of a lot of today's big developers. Games like Torchlight offer high quality and game play for half the price.   Games like Trine and Trine2 have beautiful artwork and fun game play for well under what are usually considered bargain bin prices of average games produced by the likes of Electronic Arts, Activision and UbiSoft.

One thing that often makes Indie games stand out from games by big developers is that a lot of them are based on customer feedback and input.   A lot of what players consider "fun" is often left out from big games after marketing and the various other departments of these major gaming companies get ahold of development.

With the Indie game most likely the entire development and publishing of the game is handled by less than 20 people, sometimes just a couple people whereas major games are often go through dozens and dozens of people if not hundreds.    So the developers of the game have a closer relationship with the gamer.

Don't get me wrong, I am a major Capitalist at heart but that said I realize that larger companies have more and more people that control their products thus often what the players are looking for is left by the wayside to make for quick development times, meet budgets and the like.   The Indie developer has a much closer relationship with the end user than does the major production houses and often their labors of love show very clear in their products.

While they may not have millions or even hundreds of millions to spend to develop and publish their product what money they have goes straight to their product and isn't diluted by dozens of middlemen.   Also Indie developers know that they either will make it or break it based on their fan base. While companies like EA, Activision and Ubisoft can shrug off bad launches and below average games the Indie developer can not, thus usually put a lot more heart and soul into their games before they launch them.

As tablet gaming continues to grow the outlook for the Indie game developer does as well. With Steam, the Apple Store and the Android Market there has never been a better time for small time game developers to get their product out into the wide.

Games like Minecraft and Deathspank most likely wouldn't have ever been able to find their audience ten years ago much less distribution networks to handle payment processing and so forth, whereas today they become more and more common.

Only time will tell if Indie developers are really here to stay but my prediction is that they are as more and more people grow upset over what they perceive to be games developed just for the money and not as labors of love.    Personally Indie developers can have their cake and eat it too. They can make good money off labors of love without breaking the bank, either theirs or yours.

Building my own world, cheaper than you might think.

2012-02-07T08:00:00.000-06:00

I have spent a good amount of time playing Minecraft and Terraira over the past few months with my daughter. Both games are indie smash hits on the PC. Both are low priced, with Terraira at a mere $10 and Minecraft at under $30. Both games have a very retro look graphics wise but these two games are not about graphics they are all about having a sandbox to play with others or by ones self and build virtual worlds.   Minecraft is 3D based while Terraira is 2D based.   Over all though they have a very similar theme you go out into a virtual world, you gather materials and you build whatever you want. And once then you defend your new home against creeps and zombies and other vile creatures.

As mentioned these games focus on gameplay over graphics. In the gaming world today after graphics become the main selling point over gameplay. now don't get me wrong I love killer graphics. But at the same time I enjoy gameplay.   I can look past the retro graphics of Minecraft and Terraira because of the huge worlds they present.

My daughter enjoys both games though she is more used to Minecraft as we just picked Terraira up.   Both are games that I like to see her play because they are not too unlike a puzzle or Lego blocks.   She has to use creativity and various other skills to develop the world that she wants. She has to consider cause and effect as well.   Over all both of these games are for any age group from 5 to 105.   They are complex but you can still have a blast without touching even a 10th of the tools that they have in them.

Another good thing like I said is the value.   I recently started using Xfire again which logs the amount of time per game that you spend in said game. So far just for the last couple of weeks we have spent 72 hours in Minecraft and another 21 hours in Terraria.    So not counting how many ever dozens of hours we played before I started tracking, just since the time I have documented Minecraft has given us gameplay at under 40 cents per hour based on the time spent vs. money paid for the game. Talk about value.   And Terraria so far has given us about 43 centers per hour in value.

And the amount of memories that both games have given me in regards to the fun that my daughter and I have shared during those hours of game play is priceless.

The day of Reckoning is upon us.

2012-02-07T02:00:00.000-06:00

For those of you that follow my blogs, Tweets and Facebook postings will know I have been awaiting for a long time for Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning to come out. KoA:R is an action RPG set in a world created by R.A. Salvatore with artwork by Spawn's Todd McFarlane and in addition to the backing of sports icon and long time gamer Curt Schilling.

If you like action games and/or role playing games then most likely you are already well aware of KoA:R, if not visit the official website for the game. One thing that really started my interest in the game, outside of the big names attached to it, is that KoA:R is being looked at as the single-player introduction to the upcoming MMO game underdevelopment as codename: Copernicus.

Chronicle

2012-02-06T08:00:00.000-06:00

Went on Saturday to see the movie Chronicle. I have to say it was a 10 out of 10 in my book. It is a must see movie in my book.

EA Origin Update 2

2012-02-03T13:00:00.000-06:00

This time per the advise of @Origin_EA I contacted support and requested a call back. I was called back in less than 5 minutes and had a very helpful person. He said that my order should be refunded on the day the game releases on 2/7 and that I should see the money by 2/13 back in my account if not he said to call them back.

In addition I got the following tweet back from @Origin_EA
@mlwhitt No problem. Happy to help. Let us know if you aren't refunded on when the game is released and I will help look into it. Thanks!

So at this point it looks like that the issue will be taken care of. As someone that works in a customer service related field sometimes I just let clarity of response affect me. I do my best to explain to my customers what to expect and I expect them to be able to get someone else and get the same answer I give. It just seemed until I talked to the gentleman by phone as well as talked to the Origin twitter rep that I was getting a whole lot of different answers.

In the end hopefully all will be well with the world next week. Just a side note if you need support from EA you are best off using the call me back service. I felt like that contact was 1000% perfect better than my emails by chat.

Thank you @Origin_EA for your help and as well Adrien who called me direct on the issue.

EA Origin update.

2012-02-03T11:43:00.000-06:00

I am now talking to someone via the @origin_ea twitter account. At least they are replying back to me so maybe I will finally get this resolved. I really would like to get it resolved without having to go to my bank and try to work on it from that end. My other purchases from the store for games like BF3 and Batman AC I had no problems with. I prefer digital downloads but this whole issue has rather upset me. Not so much on the fact that over $60 is in limbo but all of the run around I have been getting from Origin's customer support staff.

Warning if you purchase from EA/Origin store.

2012-02-03T09:33:00.000-06:00

I am having a heck of a time with the EA / Origin store. Back in October of last year I placed a pre-order for a game. At the time I was charged in full for the price+tax of the preorder. Back at the start of last week I decided to cancel the pre-order as I found a better deal on the item. So I contact Origin Customer Support and I am told the order was canceled. I get home and the game still shows on my Origin game list so I decide the next day to call back and at that time I was told that the order never was canceled. Finally I get a confirmation email on the 24th that the order was canceled. A few days later I get back with Origin Customer Support to just make sure it was indeed canceled as it was still showing on my list and I hadn't got a refund yet. They took the game off my list and told me that it could be 7 business days before I would get my refund. So seven days past and I contacted them again only this time I was told, "it was a pre-order and I was never charged" funny because my bank statement clearly shows otherwise. So now I guess I am going to have to visit my bank and see what they can do for me as it clearly appears that Origin is planning on keeping over $60 of my money on an item I canceled prior to release. So word of warning, be aware if you Preorder from EA / Origin store that you could end up losing your money if you cancel your preorder.

Why I have a CCDW.

2012-02-03T08:00:00.000-06:00

Just over six years ago my baby girl was born. On that day my responsibility level went through the roof. No longer did I have to worry just about protect my wife and myself but I had to worry about protect a helpless child. Not long after I decided to get a Carry Concealed Deadly Weapon permit from the State of Kentucky. A permit that I have held for going on three years now. Other than close friends and family I do not speak much on the fact that I am a CCDW holder.   To the best of my knowledge when I have carried in public no one has ever been the wiser.   I am very careful to follow all the rules and regulations that go with being a permit holder. I regularly review the laws for any changes and I make sure when I cross state lines that I am aware of the laws of the state I am in.

While having a CCDW of course doesn't mean I will always be able to protect my family, it does increase the likelihood that if some bad seed(s) attempt to harm, rape or otherwise hurt them that I will be better prepared to at least do everything legally in my power to do so.   I don't want to look back one day and think, if only I had an equalizer this or that wouldn't have happened.

I am a big guy, 5'11" well over 300lbs and I live if a fairly safe area. I do not hang around places that I would expect there ever to be a problem. Our usual haunts are the mall, chain restaurants and park and most of the time we only go to those places on the weekends during the day.

Even so there is always the chance that violence could break out at any of those locations. And just because I am a big guy doesn't mean that I could protect my family against multiple attackers, an attacker with a weapon or some crook hooped up on drugs. I hope with every ounce of my being that I never run into any of those situations, but if I do I want to know that I can at least hopefully equal the odds.

Gun ownership is not for everyone. That goes triple for carrying a gun in public. Even with a lifetime of gun ownership and being raised around gun safety I quickly found out in my CCDW training class that there were dozens of things I had never thought about in regards to carrying a gun in public and using one to protect your family.

If you do not like having a HUGE responsibility then a CCDW permit is not for you.    Every moment that you are carrying you have to be aware of your surroundings because even if you pull your weapon to protect your family if you injure or kill an innocent bystander doing so you could be guilty of manslaughter yourself even though you legally were carrying and you were attempting to protect your family or yourself.   Even if you are not held criminally liable you could still face civil charges.

Also at least with Kentucky State Law it doesn't matter how you perceive a situation it is how the situation actually is. For example you seen someone who appears to be attacking someone else. You pull your gun in defense of the other individual and you see the person that is attacking the other person has a gun so you shoot them in what you clearly think is a legal shooting to protect someone who appears innocent. But lets say that really the person with the firearm was an undercover or off duty law officer and the person that they appeared to be attacking was a dangerous and wanted child molester or some such dead beat? What that means is that you just discharged your firearm you are guilty of shooting or shooting at a law official.   Doesn't matter what you thought was going on, it only matters to the law what actually was going on.

I highly recommend gun ownership and a getting a CCDW permit to law abiding responsible citizens but be sure that you attend a very good class or classes prior to applying for one, even if your state doesn't require such. Also be sure to read up on your state laws before you even consider.   Whatever you do, do it legal and be sure that you know how you are going to react.   Meditate in advance on how you would handle different situations.   And most of all regardless of the situation never pull your gun unless the lives of your loved ones, or you life depends on it and even then do not pull it unless you are fully willing to use it.

Still waiting my EA/Origin refund

2012-02-02T10:13:00.000-06:00

7 days after canceling a preorder and I am still waiting for a refund. Got to love them.

MMOs..... blah

2012-02-02T08:00:00.001-06:00

As I mentioned the other day I think I am finally officially over MMOs as such. I am still leaving room to try out TERA and Guild Wars 2 but if neither of those two end up hitting my fancy I believe that I may official start keeping away from the genre as such.   I will still play the lobby based action games like Vindictus, Rusty Hearts and Dragon Nest but technically those games are not really MMOs no more than the original Guild Wars was.

Every once in a blue moon I reconsider going back to World of Warcraft after my year away but I have held firm to not going back. I didn't even finish my free month in SWTOR before I quit it.   While I occasionally bounce between Lord of the Rings Online, and RIFT I just don't have much stomach left for MMOs anymore.

Over the last couple weeks I tried to pick up where I had left off so long ago on Star Trek Online since it went free to play. Then I tried a number of free to play MMOs like Eden Eternal, Allods and the like but as I mentioned I believe last week I am just sick of tab targetting.   Even thinking about it actually makes me want to puke.

I just hope TERA and/or Guild Wars 2 bring back my love for the genre because if not I am through with MMORPGs.

Two new Skylanders

2012-02-01T08:00:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend my daughter and I picked up Empire of Ice Adventure Pack (including Slam Bam) and Cynder.

Moving away from traditional MMOs.

2012-01-31T08:00:00.000-06:00

More and more I am finding myself once again burnt out on MMORPGs. Honestly I have been for a long time, even before I finally completely left WoW after 5 years of playing it. I spent some time in RIFT, LOTRO and SWTOR over the last few months in addition to other MMOs like Eden Eternal. I just don't feel the love for tab target game play anymore.

I have been playing a lot more action oriented online games like Vindictus and Dragon Nest which honestly are not MMOs but Co-Op RPGs like Guild Wars.    I like the fact that I can jump in and play in short burst and just have fun.   Sure the games can be lonely at times, but honestly I don't mind as I like not fighting over mobs and just zoning out. And if I do want to group up I can always put together a group. The only main real difference to me is that unlike MMOs where you can just happen across someone and end up becoming friends with them from just meeting them in an open world, you instead meet people via lobbies.

And more and more with the trend of MMOs having dungeon and raid finders even full fledged open world MMOs are becoming more and more about queuing up and playing instead of randomly running into a bunch of people hanging outside a dungeon and grouping up with them.

Sure some of the immersion gets removed from the game, but at the end of the day I play to have fun. When I want immersion I will read a book or watch a movie.   But that is just me.     Like many people I am hoping Guild Wars 2 will revive that MMORPG utopia of old.   I am hoping that the game play is unique enough to not feel like another EQ/WOW clone like SWTOR felt some much like as did RIFT. Nothing wrong with any of those games, just I am burnt out on those games type of game play.

I want more action, more twitched based combat.   I so hope that Guild Wars 2 and TERA will provide those elements. If they fail to, I am forgoing MMOs in the future and just stick to single player and Co-Op games.   Sure maybe I am one of those "instant gratification" players that hardcore MMO gamers hate so much these days. But so what? That is the type of game I like and want.   I want to be able to get right to the action. I don't play games to waste large amounts of time. I play games to have fun.

EA Origin or how I am starting to hate buying downloadable games.

2012-01-30T08:00:00.000-06:00

I have been using online services to purchase games for a long time now. I can't count how many hundreds of dollars over the past decade I have spent using services like Direct2Drive and Steam. And over those years I have had very, very few problems to speak of. I have to say though that Electronic Arts Origin system so far hasn't proven itself to me to be anywhere near the same level of customer support as Steam and Direct2Drive (who has been bought out by Gamefly BTW). I have purchased four games via Origin. Three of the four were preorders. Two of the games I had no problems with but on the other two I have ran into customer service issues. Game 1 I preordered and decided to cancel my order and called in two months before release of said game. After a long drawn out customer session I was told that the game had been cancelled. A week month went by and I hadn't been credited back my reservation fee (only $5 for this particular game) nor had the game disappeared from my Origin Game list. So I contacted Origin support again only to be told that the first person never had actually cancelled my order. No biggie I figured as they cancelled the order correctly the second time around.

Well a week ago I tried to cancel another preorder. This time it was a preorder that I had paid in full on months and months ago. I was once again told that my order was cancelled and went on my way. After a few days my card hadn't been credited nor had the game been removed from my game list so I contacted support again. Once again I was told that it appeared that the first person I spoke with had never actually cancelled my preorder. But I was told that it was cancelled this time for sure. So a few days go by and still no credit to my account and the game still shows in my list. So it looks like once again Origin support is yanking my chain. I am going to give them a couple more days and if no change I am going to call them.

Shaking head at Blizzard....

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000-06:00

Okay while Panda Monks in the upcoming World of Warcraft made me giggle I still thought that Blizzard hadn't completely lost their mind. But with all the latest changes going on with Diablo 3 I am starting to wonder if maybe they have.

I haven't a clue what Blizzard is thinking with all these "last minute" changes to a game that many had thought would have been released last holiday season. If Torchlight 2 hits the stage before D3 comes out then I really think that Blizzard is going to get a bloody nose. From the looks of things on one hand we have Torchlight 2 which is much more Diablo 2 like than Diablo 3 is going to be, and will only cost $20 on the other you have the controversial Diablo 3 that keeps changing things, adding real world money trade auction houses, requiring always on connections, and will be going for $60.

In the end Blizzard has a lot riding on D3. With WoW subs slipping, pressure from SWTOR, a so/so Starcraft 2 expansion pack coming out, and what many people consider a kiddy xpansion pack for WoW Blizzard really needs to hit a home run soon. For many that home run was thought to be Diablo 3, but even diehard fans of D3 are starting to shake their head in wonder.

Along with Blizzcon being cancelled for the first time since 2006 and the total lack of information still on the "Titan Project" is Blizzard losing their edge even faster than some analyst had predicted?

My programming language from 20 years ago, Simcode.

2012-01-26T08:00:00.000-06:00

Every once and a while I will come across a blast from the past, my old programming language called Simcode which I wrote back in the early 90s when I ran bulletin boards. Simcode was a script based language written in Pascal that had over 100 commands to help those without any programming experience write small quick programs. I happened to come across an entry for it on Wikipedia the other day. They even still have the .zip file with the program in it.

Skylander's Short Supply

2012-01-25T08:00:00.000-06:00

For those of you that are Skylanders fans like my daughter and I you may be a bit dismayed by the current shortage of figures. Between spending a lot of money on Amazon for rare Skylanders and some good deals over Christmas we currently have nearly a full collection of the currently released Skylanders but haven't been able to find any new ones since Christmas.

According to Activision VP of marketing John Coyne they're making the toys as fast as they can, but demand keeps growing.

"We are doing our best to keep up with the consumer demand for Skylanders and to keep product on the shelves. Skylanders was one of the most popular gifts this holiday season and demand for toys has continued to rise week after week without any signs of slowing down. We're shipping Skylanders toys out as soon as they come off the production lines and will get them to stores as quickly as we can."

Per the Skylanders Facebook page, there was a new availability FAQ released on Tuesday.

Below are a couple Q/A from the site that are hopeful as we really want Lightning Rod and Warnado. The only blah portion is that Activision is planning on re-releasing the previously 'limited edition' characters like Drill Sergeant, and Whirlwind which a lot of people, myself included spent a good deal of extra money on eBay getting due to their so called 'limited release'.

Q: What about the other unreleased characters?
A: Double Trouble and the Empire of Ice Adventure Pack (including Slam Bam) also debuted in mid-January, and Drill Sergeant was made more widely available. During the Spring, look for Lightning Rod, Zook, Warnado, Camo, Wham-Shell and the Dragons Peak Adventure Pack (including Sunburn).

Q: What about previously released characters?
A: Many previously released characters are being re-stocked each week. However, we can't guarantee all characters will be available in future release waves.

Minecraft

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000-06:00

I have mentioned before on here, on Twitter and Facebook that I sometimes play Minecraft with my daughter. Minecraft is a rather unique game. Graphically it is very retro looking with graphics akin to the 8bit gaming days. The neat thing is that each world is HUGE and like a set of Legos you can make a whole lot of things of of a few different type of blocks.

I myself enjoy turning large caves into castles. Danielle enjoys just putting up walls and getting spooked by Creeps at night. She is still getting the hang of building stuff but she is putting more and more things together.

If you want a safe, creative game for your kids or just a game to unleash your creative side you should give Minecraft a try.

Weekend Gaming Update

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000-06:00

Most of my gaming this past weekend was playing Dragon Nest, Vindictus and Rusty Hearts. Each of the games are nice games that you can jump in and enjoy even when you don't have a ton of time to play. Each of the games are action based. Dragon nest and Vindictus are twitch based, Rusty Hearts is more of a platform/scroller type game.

Enjoying Dragon Nest

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned the other day I have been playing a number of Nexon online games including Dragon Nest. Dragon Nest is a pretty neat little game. It isn't an open world MMO but more of an outpost lobby CORPG not unlike Guild Wars. The controls are a bit hard to get used to, my six year old was starting to get the hang of them after about 30 minutes last night. All in all if you are looking for a fast paced action game that you can play solo or with a small party check the game out, it is worth the download.

Enjoying Free to Play

2012-01-19T08:00:00.000-06:00

I was fairly sick over the weekend and didn't feel up to a lot of gaming. And on Tuesday I had to go to the ER due to my blood sugar so other than some lite gaming last night the past week really hasn't been much of a gaming week for me.

Last night I focused on some of my installed F2P (Free to Play) MMOs. As I had mentioned before right now I have Vindictus, Rusty Hearts, Dragon Nest, DC Universe Online and Star Trek Online installed at the moment, each of which are free to play games these days.

Over all I am having the most fun playing Vindictus and Dragon Nest which are both very action packed MMOs. The beauty of both games are that they are great for quick little bits of play. Travel time is almost non existent as both use instanced dungeons that are between 5-20 minutes in length on average. Rusty Hearts is also similar in this aspect.

There are a few differences between the games though. Vindictus is a bit more bloody in it's action. It isn't really a kids game. Dragon Nest is pretty cartoony and I am actually thinking about letting my daughter play it with me as I haven't seen any things of real concern with it. Rusty Hearts is in between. The real difference with Rusty Hearts is that it is more of a platform scrolling type game. Technically it isn't fully but it feels rather that way. That plus you play it completely without using your mouse which is okay with me but my daughter may find it harder to play.

I have to say right now that Nexon games has me caught up in the line-up. While I haven't spent any money on NX (Nexon's game currency) since right after Vindictus first game out I have been considering spending a bit on Dragon Nest to get more inventory space. Actually I wouldn't have to spend a dime as I have taken a few of the surveys that Nexon offers for free NX and I have enough to get some bag space for my characters.

All in all if you are looking for some fast paced, action games that you can play in short settings and that are free to play I believe that Nexon has you covered with Vindictus and Dragon Nest.

Stopping SOPA and PIPA.

2012-01-18T08:00:00.000-06:00

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is in the news a lot these days and for good reason. House Bill 3261 introduced on 10/26/2011 by Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 co-sponsors, if made law, would expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. It along with the Protect IP Act (PIPA) could have wide reaching consequences for online forums and blogs such as this one. While I am 100% movie, music, book and game piracy I do not feel that SOPA/PIPA will resolve the issue. Instead it would give the government the power to hold companies, such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter liable for user generated content if even one person or company claimed that their intellectual property was being misused. It affects sites like this one by including even a single screenshot in a product review.

Free to Play MMOs that I am playing now.

2012-01-17T08:00:00.000-06:00

I haven't played a lot of MMOs over the past couple of weeks since I left Star Wars: The Old Republic. About the only one that I have played consistently has been Wizard 101 with my daughter. However on Sunday I started messing with four other MMOs: Vindictus, Atlantica Online, Dragon Nest and Rusty Hearts. The first three are MMOs by Nexon and the last is from Perfect World. In addition to those four I plan on getting back into Star Trek Online since tomorrow it goes Free to Play and also maybe playing some DC Universe again.

One thing about each of the MMOs mentioned above, none of them are what you would consider a traditional MMO being. Vindictus, Dragon Nest, Rusty Hearts and DC Universe all play as more action oriented type of games. Star Trek Online plays more as a space ship simulator. All in all I am burnt out on traditional MMOs as my time playing Star Wars: The Old Republic showed me.

Until Guild Wars 2 or Tera comes out I plan on sticking with a few of the above MMOs and will be staying away from so call AAA MMOs like WoW and SWTOR.

What I am currently looking for are MMOs that I can jump into and play for an hour and less and feel like I had a good time. I think each of the MMOs listed above allow me to do that. If you haven't heard of the above mentioned MMOs check them out they are very fun and free to play.

Games currently installed on my gaming rig.

2012-01-16T08:00:00.000-06:00

Above is a screenshot of the current games I have installed on my main PC.

DC Universe
Star Trek Online
Dragon Nest
Vindictus
Atlantica Online
Rusty Hearts
Battlefield 3
Fallout New Vegas
Dues Ex: Human Revolution
Recettear: An Item Shop RPG
Guild Wars
Sid Meier's Civilization IV
Mahjong Titans
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Minecraft
The Sims 3
Wizard 101
Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
Dungeon Defenders
Titan Quest
Titan Quest: Immortal Thorne
Darkspore
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Warlords
Hearts
Warhammer: Wrath of Heroes
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Death Spank
Magicka
Torchlight
Space Siege
Disciples 2: Gallean's Revenge
Disciples 2: Rise of the Elves
Neverwinter Nights 2: Platnum
The Witcher 2
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Beyond the Stars
Steam
Warhammer Battle March
Defense Grid: The Awakening
Batman: Arkham City
Magic: The Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012
Darksiders
Heroes of Might and Magic IV
King's Bounty
King's Bounty Crossworlds
Drakensang
Two World 2
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization
Onlive
Starcraft 2
Age of Empires 3
The Battle for Middle-Earth 2
The Battle for Middle-Earth 2: Rise of the Witch King
Empire Total War
Might & Magic V
Silverfall
Loki
Drakensang 2: River of Time
Vampire: The Masquerade
Anno 2070
Origin
Medieval II: Total War
Medieval II: Total War: The Americas
Medieval II: Total War: Britannia
Medieval II: Total War: The Teutonic Wars
Medieval II: Total War: The Crusades
Age of Wonders
Age of Wonders 2
Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic
Risen
Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga
Sid Meier's Civilization V

2012 Top 10 PC Game Must-haves

2012-01-13T08:00:00.000-06:00

Below are my current Top 10 must have PC games.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Recokoning (RPG)
Mass Effect 3 (RPG)
Guild Wars 2 (MMORPG)
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (FPS)
Diablo 3 (RPG)
Tera (MMORPG)
The Secret World (MMORPG)
King Arthur II: The Role-Playing Wargame (RPG/RTS)
King's Bounty: Warriors of the North (RPG)
Starcraft II: Heart of the SwarmStarcraft II: Heart of the Swarm (RTS)

Time to narrow the playing field.

2012-01-12T08:00:00.000-06:00

Mitt Romney continues to have a strong showing. The only chance at this point we have of getting a real conservative in office is to narrow the field of conservatives running against Mitt. At this point though I don't think it will happen. At least not until after South Carolina at best.

2012-01-11T08:00:00.000-06:00

The great guys over at Keen and Graev have a review up for Skylander's 3DS version.

Gaming update.

2012-01-10T08:00:00.000-06:00

Didn't do a lot of gaming over the weekend other than playing Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure with my daughter. I didn't even touch Star Wars: The Old Republic and canceled my account. Right now I am planning on playing single player games until Guild Wars 2 comes out or maybe Secret World. I have a bunch of games to hold me over until Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning comes out next month.

I still enjoy playing Skylanders with Danielle a lot. We both have fun though we are getting up in the higher levels where some of the puzzles are getting a bit hard. Nothing major but Dani gets a little bored waiting for me to figure them out.

A City of your own.

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000-06:00

I have been playing City Simulators since the very first Simcity. It is fun designing a city and seeing how far you can grow it. Over the past couple of years with the growth of Facebook so call social gaming has been on a rise. One of the largest social games on Facebook is called Cityville. Cityville is by Zynga which is the largest Facebook social gaming company with over a dozen games ranging from Cityville, Castleville, Farmville and so on. Zynga took the addictive game play of Simcity and put it into an addictive social game on Facebook.

In Cityville you start out with a small little village and the options are wide open for you to expand your city to a great metropolis. Doing so requires great patience of the willingness to spend real world money in exchange for what they call City Cash and/or Coin.   In the beginning you are given a fairly small parcel of land on which to build.   You start out building little houses and businesses. Eventually you will find yourself outgrowing your allotted space and it is at this point that you really start relying on friends to share "permits" with you that allow you to expand via new 12x12 zones, or spend money purchasing permits.

The game limits you on how much you can do in a given session by granting you a small pool of energy from which you can use to build new buildings, harvest crops and so on. At level 28 at the time of this writing I have 30 energy.   You generate 1 unit of energy every 5 minutes.   I have only been playing for a few weeks now and very casually and so far I am almost to level 30 and have a fairly large city that has been expanded eight or so times.   Currently my population is happy around the 4230 mark, and I am allowed to get to a 8,620 population with the amount of living spaces I have in my town.

One of the keys to playing the game without spending a dime is to have a group of friends to play with.   I have a number of friends that help me with my city and in return I do the same for them on their cities. That help includes visiting their cities sending tourist, giving them items to help complete construction or just helping them collect rent and so forth.

It is important to note that the game technically has two levels. You have your overall experience level and you have a secondary heart level that is based on the amount of help you provide your fellow players. I am currently as of this writing at level 28 on my overall level and level 11 on my heart level. One of my friends who is my wife's sister-in-law has a level of 56 and heart level of 18. I don't know how long it is taking her for each level at that size. From level 25 and heart level 8 it seems to take me a day or so to gain a new level.    I haven't checked to see what the maximum levels are in the game but I am pretty sure that they are at least 99.

For a long, long time I passed on playing Cityville. But after I finally decided to play I am enjoying it. Keep in mind you have to go into the game realizing that unless you spend real money you are going to be somewhat handicapped in how quickly you can expand your city. Patience is a virtue if you want to play it for free.   One side note though is that you can build roads and move buildings around without using energy so use the time you are waiting on your energy bar to refill is a perfect way to enjoy the game even during the seemingly downtime periods.

One more suggestion for the new player is to try to design your city in a way that keeps like buildings together.   It aides with harvesting your crops, rent and collecting items from your businesses.    I tend to keep all my housing in a given area, have an area set aside for my crops, and areas sit aside for my business district. Also keep in mind many decorations are low cost, can be placed even when you are out of memory and help maximize the return your businesses and houses return. They are well worth the money and usually only take up a single grid so they can be placed in spots to benefit multiple buildings all at the same time.

A galaxy far, far away.

2012-01-06T10:00:00.000-06:00

For the last few weeks I have been talking a lot about Star Wars: The Old Republic. I have made a number of postings in regards to the game. That being said I have decided to go ahead and drop the game for now. All in all it isn't a bad game and it is worth the first month but past that I just don't see myself willing to pay $15 a month for it as it still feels too much of a single player game to myself.

With Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning coming out in February and D3 coming out sometime hopefully by Q2 with Guild Wars 2 hopefully coming out by Q3 I think I have enough to keep me interested in the gaming world without putting a lot of time into SWTOR. I figure for now I will continue to play Skylanders with my daughter and Wizard 101 for my gaming fix until the other mentioned games come out.

Star Wars: The Old Republic Storylines

2012-01-05T08:00:00.004-06:00

For those of you that haven't started some of the Star Wars: The Old Republic classes yet and wondering about the story lines:

Jedi Knight: The Knight storyline involves tracking down Imperials who are mysteriously active on Tychon and following down evidence of Imperial influence.

Jedi Counselor: The Counselor storyline involves a lot of mystery and investigation. It dives deep into Jedi history and lore.

Republic Trooper: My favorite storyline so far. You play a part of the elite Havoc squad only to have most of the squad defect on you and suddenly you are put in charge of learning why they defected and attempting to stop it.

Smuggler: You are trying to track down the thief that stole your beloved ship.

Sith Warrior: I haven't played enough yet to get a feel but from what I have read overall it it considered the weaker of the empire side storylines.

Sith Inquistitor: On the starter planet you come to the Sith as a slave to be trained in the Dark Side. You run into fellow apprentice who is pampered by the instructor and believes you are not fit to be in training. If you like Darth Bane or Darth Scourge you will like this story line.

Bounty Hunter: You are attempting to become sponsered by a Hutt for a contest called "The Great Hunt."

Imperial Agent: You are attempting to trick a Hutt into believing the Republic is behind a rival and gather his support for the Empire.

My picks for ranking the SWTOR class storylines (based off the starting planets to fleet quest are:)

Republic Trooper
Bounty Hunter
Imperial Agent
Jedi Counsilor
Sith Inquisitor
Jedi Knight
Smuggler
Sith Warrior (I haven't played it far enough yet to accurately rank it).

Reviewing the other classes and advanced classes.

2012-01-05T08:00:00.003-06:00

Over the past week I have looked at some of the classes and advanced classes of Star Wars: The Old Republic. This posting I wanted to throw in my thoughts on the classes I haven't touched on. These are classes that while I have played haven't touched my fancy as much as the other classes.

I have talked about the Imperial Agent but haven't talked about it's mirror class the Smuggler nor the Operative Advanced class. I haven't found the Smuggler's story to be as fun as the Imperial Agents so once I hit 10 and picked my Advanced class I have pretty much let the character sit until later on after I have leveled some of my more favorite classes. Also I decided to go with the Gunslinger Advanced Class so I can not speak much as to the Sawbones healing ability. Much like I have mentioned before in regards to the Bounty Hunter, having a Smuggler healing people seems out of place for me. The Operative I can see as a healer but I don't have any experience with the Operative Advanced Class so I have chosen not to go into it until I get around to leveling a second IA.

As far as Sith Warrior and Jedi Knight goes I haven't been too drawn to either. The story lines are okay but I don't really like playing a "evil" or darkside character. My Bounty Hunter and my Sniper are both played to the light side. I have one dark side character in my Sith Assassin. Between the Jedi Knight and the Sith Warrior my first one to 10 and selection of advanced class was my Jedi Knight which I went down the Guardian Advanced class. Once I get around to spending some time on my Sith Warrior I am planning on going down the Marauder Advanced Class.

My future build plans for those classes are: Sith Marauder (DPS), Jedi Guardian (Tank), Gunslinger (Sabotage), and when I get around to making a second Imperial Agent I will go with this Operative (Healing) build.

Spy vs. Jedi, Bond meets Star Wars

2012-01-05T08:00:00.002-06:00

After the Bounty Hunter story line the Imperial Agent has the second best story in my book on the Empire side of Star Wars: The Old Republic. For my IA I went down the Sniper Advanced class. Snipers are a blast to play but just like property it is all about location, location, location.

Just like the IA's mirror class the Smuggler, cover is the primary mechanic of the class. Cover not only is required for a good portion of your abilities but also is vital to increasing your survivability.   The two Advanced Classes for the Imperial Agent are the Imperial Operative (DPS/Heal) and the Imperial Sniper (DPS). I went down the Sniper line for my IA as I wanted to take full advantage of the cover mechanic and I wanted him to be a big number damage dealer.

The Sniper is very fun to play, but can be very frustrating in a fast moving Warzone game.   When you manage to set up at a good spot you can really reach out and touch someone. However in a fast moving game you are rarely going to get the chance for a good setup.   Also despite some players, the Sniper isn't meant to be a ball carrier in Huttball.   If you are a Sniper you shouldn't go for the ball unless you are close to crossing the line and the carrier can throw to you.   The Sniper just doesn't have the tools to use on the run to make them a fleet of foot PVP character.

That being said the Sniper is a fun class that requires patience to play.   It is all about sitting your character in a great spot.   If you are looking for a class to play that moves around a lot, the Sniper isn't for you.

My planned Level 50 Imperial Sniper Build.

The Great Hunt is on.

2012-01-05T08:00:00.001-06:00

The Bounty Hunter in Star Wars: The Old Republic is the mirror class of the Republic Trooper. He/She is a heavy armored rocket launching death machine. However the mechanics are slightly different from that of the Trooper. The Bounty Hunter must watch the amount of heat his skills utilizes whereas the Trooper must watch the amount of Ammo that they have left for skills.

I have enjoyed SWTOR's Bounty Hunter storyline. You start off trying to get into "The Great Hunt" and eventually can work your way into becoming a Mandalorian. As the mirror class of the Trooper the Bounty Hunter has an Advanced Class that can Tank/DPS (Powertech) and an Advanced Class that can Heal/DPS (Mercenary).

For my personal Bounty Hunter I have went down the Powertech line. While I like the DPS options under the Merc AC there is just something about a Bounty Hunter being a healer that bothers me. I have mentioned this in a prior blog posting about SWTOR's use of the MMO Trilogy concept that bugs me. So when I see a healing spec Bounty Hunter running around in a Warzone my eyes roll.

My planned Level 50 Powertech (Tank) Build.

Bringing out my inner Darth Maul.

2012-01-05T08:00:00.000-06:00

While Darth Maul had an overall small part in Star Wars: TPM, he to me was by far the most interesting character.

My planned Level 50 Sith Assassin Build.

Who doesn't love throwing giant bolders?

2012-01-04T08:00:00.000-06:00

I haven't worked much on my Jedi Sage (named after my daughter Dani) on Jekk'Jekk' Tarr until Friday. I had a Jedi Sage during beta and enjoyed her a lot but at launch I wanted a Commando to be my main character. However after I got my Commando level 20 I decided to go ahead and level each class up to at least level 10 and selecting advanced classes for them. As my Sith Inquisitor ended up going down the Assassin advance class line and I loved the Counselor's force attacks during Beta I decided to make my Jedi Counselor a Sage.

As far as healing goes I enjoy healing with my Commando so at least until Bioware decides to release dual-specs within an advanced class I have decided that my Sage will be primarily DPS oriented going down the Telekinetic tree. At level 50 I am going for a spec similar to this build.

Wafku - Open Beta starts Today

2012-01-04T07:30:00.000-06:00

Wakfu is the follow-up MMO based on Dofus. The game features strategy based turn play and has 14 classes to choose from at launch. Some of the highlights of the game include political elections of players, a living ecosystem in which players can either protect or abuse the ecology. The game us an unique cartoon style animation and anime type cuts scenes.

As mentioned it has a fair number of classes at launch including Berserkers, Go-Getting Warriors, Archers, Healers, Sherpa Warriors, Treasure Hunters, Plant Summoners, Masters of Illusion, Protectors, Assassins, Warrior Gamblers, Time Magi, Animal Summoners and the Lunatic Solider.

As also mentioned game play is primarily tactical, turn based combat like Final Fantasy Tactics for example. As this is an RPG there is of course character progression as your character levels.

Going Commando and no I am not talking about not wearing underwear.

2012-01-03T08:00:00.000-06:00

Since first reading about the Republic Trooper and it's Commando advanced class I knew that it was certainly going to be one of the main classes that I would be playing first. At launch my primary character was a Republic Commando on Jekk'Jekk' Tarr named Motivia. So far I have enjoyed him greatly and think the Trooper has one of the best story lines in the game.

Initially I had given thought to selecting Vanguard as my Advanced Class but after finding out that Commandos got the big guns and a unique twist on healing I changed my mind. I enjoy healing with the Commando. Shooting your fellow players to heal them (similar to Global Agenda's medic) or throwing bombs to heal is rather cool. And even as healing spec the Commando does well soloing and is super in PVP.

At level 50 this is my planned Combat Medic Build.

And once Dual-Specs come out if they ever do this will be my DPS Build.

The MMO Trinity and why it ruins Star Wars: The Old Republic

2012-01-02T08:00:00.000-06:00

If you have been a MMO gamer for any length of time you will know that 95% of all MMO games use the concept Tank/Healer/DPS (or better known as the MMO Trinity).   For those of you that are not familiar with the concept it goes something like this:

You and a group of your fellow players decide to tackle a dungeon, instance, flashpoint or some other type of group content. One of your characters usually has to be what is considered a Tank. That is a meat shield, aggro getter. A character that is capable of getting the mobs (enemies) to hit on them instead of the rest of the group.   Along with the Tank you will have a Healer that can keep the Tank and the rest of the group's health points up.   Most characters outside of those set up to be a Tank normally will only be able to take a portion of the hits that a Tank is able to. Therefor without a Tank your group wouldn't stay alive very long. Neither would it without a Healer to keep the Tank alive and heal any AOE damage that everyone else in the group takes.

DPS (Deeps as they are sometimes called) stands of Damage Per Second characters. These are characters that aren't meant to take damage and are not directly responsible for keeping other players alive. It is their job to kill off the bad guys as quickly as possible before the healer runs out of power and is no longer able to keep the Tank alive.

There is actually a fourth category that is a mixture of Tank/DPS, Tank/Heal, Heal/DPS or such. This is the Support class. This class can do a bit of everything but not a whole lot of one thing. They are usually a class that Buffs (enhances) other character, off tanks or off heals in case the normal Tank or Healer get into trouble.

Tanks and Healers have the stigma attached to them that they are slower to level than DPS classes. A lot of players just don't like the added pressure of Tanking or Healing. And when you get right down to it a lot of players just like to see big damage numbers.   Depending on the MMO most groups / parties are made up of 4-6 players. The average usually is in between at 5 players, with games like World of Warcraft.   On a 5 player group you usually have 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 1 Support and 2 DPS or 1 Tank, 1 Healer and 3 DPS.

Unlike Guild Wars 2 that is trying to break away from this mold and allow each player to be responsible for keeping themselves and each other alive SWTOR follows the World of Warcraft ideology. The only problem with this is that even Blizzard over the years came to realize that players want to have fun and not be pigeon holed into a particular role.   A player might want to Tank one night and Damage the next.   So Blizzard implemented Dual Specs years ago to allow a player to switch between two roles at a given time.

If SWTOR should have broken away from the Trinity mold or allowed Dual Specs from the start is open for debate. Personally while I enjoy my main character who is a Healing Spec Commando I don't always want to be a healer.   Now Bioware did help out Tanks and Healers by the assistance provided by Companions, but still the game in my opinion shouldn't have launched using the Trinity design without Dual Specs at least within a given Advanced Class.    That being said I think even one's Advanced Class should be able to be changed for high enough credit cost.

So why would Bioware go the way they did with the game?   For one thing the more they limit your specs the more you are likely to play alt characters thus increasing the time you spend in the game. Okay I can understand that reasoning. But doing away with the Trinity would have been a lot more sense for SWTOR. Bounty Hunters and Smugglers that Heal? Crazy concepts.   I can buy a Jedi healing. I can buy a Commando being a combat medic and healing. But a Smuggler or Bounty Hunter? I can't recall any piece in Star Wars lore where you see a Smuggler or Bounty hunter healing. Heck most of the time both archetypes are for the most part loners not doctors.

If you are going to have those classes be able to heal then each class should be able to. And what about Shadow Jedi and Assassins being able to tank?   That doesn't make a lot of of sense to me either. Over all I believe that Bioware should have dropped the how "1 tank, 1 healer, 2 DPS" mindset or at least from launch allowed dual specs that at least would have kept your characters from being locked into a particular role.

Of course Guild Wars 2 is banking a lot on the fact that people are tired of the Trinity. A lot of GW2's appeal is the fact that technically there will be no tanks or healers. Everyone will be responsible for themselves. If your HP is getting low you will have to layoff the DPS and focus on keeping yourself alive. The ideal of not sitting around spamming general chat channels doing LFH, LFT or other Looking For... request will be nice.

As mentioned lore wise a Bounty Hunter that goes around healing other players doesn't make sense. But if Bioware had taken the Arena.Net idea and just given each class their own self heal abilities then it would have. While a Mandalorian Bounty Hunter playing doctor is crazy, the idea of seeing one wounded and bandaging himself up on the battle field would make sense.

One of my biggest complaints in regards to SWTOR is for a game that is build itself on the lore of the Star Wars universe and story lines Bioware is letting users down by breaking game immersion by falling back to the tired Trinity concepts of the past.

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T02:00:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year

Looking ahead to 2012.

2011-12-30T08:00:00.000-06:00

As 2011 draws to an end and 2012 starts I find myself thinking about new years resolutions that of course most likely will be broken by mid January. Every year I set up a bunch of different resolutions only to keep to them for a few weeks, but hopefully this coming year I will do better.

2010 was a very rough year for me. 2011 was better though I still had a fair share of illness. While my gastrointestinal issues have eased up they haven't completely disappeared. In addition 2011 brought me face to face with Type 2 Diabetes, something that I am still struggling with. But all in all 2011 was better than the year prior and I hope that 2012 is even better.

My brother was down over Christmas and we talked for a bit about stuff. He was on to me about my eating habits, exercising and just over all squandering of my talents. I agree with him. I know that I must get my Diabetes under control. I know I must lose weight. I have done it before. I often mention how much I enjoyed back when I was running 5 and 10ks. I recall how good I felt when I would run a 5k race and then the next day run 8 miles just for the fun of it. Yes I am 6 years older than I was then but still I can do it. I just have to keep reminding myself.

One of the things that I want to do this upcoming year is finally work on some of my works of fictions. I have a number of ideas for short science fiction stories that for years now I have been telling myself that I was going to write. None the less I end up putting off actually doing it. This upcoming year I keep telling myself that I really need to focus on doing so. As my brother said, it doesn't matter if I write to get published or just write to do it for myself. The very act will in of itself help me feel better about myself.

As far as dieting goes. I respect Chad and Cip greatly for how well they have held to their vegan lifestyle over the past two years. I myself have tried once or twice in the past but I just love meat way too much to do so. However I did do well when I was doing a low carb diet. For a while I did what is known as a Paleo-diet, or sometimes called the Cave Man diet. This is a diet high in lean meat, fresh veggies, nuts and berries. Pretty much if it wasn't available when cavemen where around then you don't eat it. It is very high in protein, and cuts out processed foods.

The other thing I would like to do is once again cut out drinking drinks that have Phenylalanine or other artificial sweeteners that have Aspartame in them. I think some of my health problems come from the amount of diet drinks I drink. I have thought that for a long time and the science does back up the fact that they are not good for you. Considering I drink around 2 litters or more of diet drinks a day it certainly couldn't hurt.

I am a voracious reader. At any given time I am usually reading anywhere from four to six separate books. No not at the same time, laugh, but I usually bounce between multiple books. On a regular week I usually read at least two books. I believe that it is a good hobby though I plan on reading more non fiction books this year as the majority of the books I read are fiction. Nothing wrong with that, but it would be nice to further my knowledge by expanding the amount of non fiction I over that of what I already read.

One of the things that I did very little of over the last year was program. Other than a few utilities to help my co-workers and I at work I just didn't do a lot of coding this last year. I started doing some PHP and Ruby earlier in the year but then I just dropped away from doing anything of note. Hopefully in 2012 I will return to my programming hobby and actually do something useful.

I am a Gamer. I used to think that I could change that fact but I can't. It is who I am. Some people like sports, some people like parties, some people like camping, I like to game. I am no longer ashamed of being a Gamer. I used to be to some extent but over the last few years gaming has grown more and more socially acceptable. Gaming is my release. I don't drink or anything like that, so to me gaming is an escape mechanics when I have had a long day and want to just zone out.

That being said I want 2012 to be more focused as far as my gaming is concerned. I have a large number of games purchased in 2011 that I never got close to finishing. At $50-60 a game they add up. 2011 did see me pull away from my World of Warcraft addiction. While I am still an avid MMORPG Gamer I do not want to become addicted to a game to the point where I am staying up far too late at night. The new year will ring in with Star Wars: The Old Republic as my primary game. For the first time in 5 years World of Warcraft isn't even on my gaming agenda.

For 2012 I figure I will play SWTOR at least until Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning comes out. After KoA:R I figure the next big thing will be Guild Wars 2. I have mentioned both of those games in past blogs and as of right now believe that SWTOR, KoA:R and GW2 will be the primary games I focus on. In addition I foresee playing a lot of Skylanders and Wizard 101 with Danielle as those two games bring she and I together and give us daughter/daddy time.

Over the last few years I haven't spent as much time with my parents as I should have. I hope 2012 I can be a better son to them and spend more quality time. I really hope that I can do more with them. I really enjoy when we all go to eat or Dad and I catch the occasional movie.

As far as TV goes, 2011 didn't see me glued to the tube. While I had some shows that I enjoyed I really didn't have any that I really called must see TV. My favorite shows are the ones that Kim and I watch together like Community, Parks & Recreation, The Soap, Tosh.0, The Big Bang Theory, Hell on Wheels and Once Upon a Time. I did spent more time that I should have watching shows like Storage Wars, Auction Hunters, and Pawn Stars. I am burnt out on reality TV and I think I am going to take a breather from the aforementioned type shows.

Overall I am hoping 2012 to be a year of improvement on my part. Physically, mentally and so on. I want to say that I will keep away from politics in the upcoming year as listening to politics drives my blood pressure up. However being that 2012 is a very, very, very important Presidential election I doubt I will be able to do so. 2011 saw me trying to find the right candidate to get behind and is going to close out with me still trying to figure out who to support. That being said I am strongly for whoever the Republican nominee ends up being.

The only exception possibly to that rule is if the Democratic party was to pull a fast one and put someone else on the ticket that was actually a real moderate. Even then I would only consider that person if Romney was the Republican nominee. I am of the mindset that almost anyone would be an improvement over Obama. I really, really hope he ends up being a one term President for the sake of our country and for my daughter's future.

Regardless of what 2012 holds I am sure it is going to be a crazy year. You are going to have all of the 2012 Mayan calendar doomsayers out in groves. The Presidential election is looking like it is going to be close and could turn into another 2000 type election. Iran and other middle eastern countries continue to degrade the stability of the world. North Korea is once again in the lime light and only time will tell how Kim Jung Il's son will act. China continues to extend it's power and America continues to show it's decline.

So where 2011 was over all a rather boring year, I fear that 2012 may be anything but and not in a good way. I personally do not hold any belief in the Mayan calendar. All calendars have to end at some point. The thing that scares me more is people making 2012 into a self-fulfilled prophecy.

I want to end this however on a up note. I hope that everyone has a great 2012 and a Happy New Year. Let's all do our best to improve our lives and the lives of those around us.

Skylanders Galore

2011-12-29T08:00:00.000-06:00

My daughter's current Skylanders collection.

She currently has all Skylanders except Dark Spyro and the Legendary pack.

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Two week review

2011-12-28T08:00:00.000-06:00

It has been two weeks now since Bioware/EA started early access of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Technically it has been a two weeks and a day.   I was able to start playing on the 14th so today is two weeks for me.

I have spent a good deal of time playing the game, both from beta and now since launch.   At this point I only have one character that is about half way to level cap but across all my characters I have played well over 50 hours now.   A fair amount of time for a short review I believe.

Over all the game is a blast if you are into Star Wars lore which I am.   If I wasn't a Star Wars fan, honestly the game really wouldn't have near the draw for me as over all it is just like any other theme park MMO.   Often it is called World of Star Warscraft. I have to agree that Bioware/EA has kept to the formula that Blizzard has honed to a great game.   The closest SWTOR gets to breaking away from WoW is with the class driven stories and voice over quest.

Like any game at launch SWTOR has had it's fair share of bugs, queues and such. Most of the bugs I have ran into have been graphics related such as clipping issues, characters with disappearing gear, characters that are shrunken down to ant size and characters that appear out of the blue.   My favorite two bugs so far was once on my ship I was having a conversation and suddenly there was a scantly clad woman in the background. I don't know where she came from, or where she went but you would think I would have noticed a woman in her underwear walking around my ship.    Last night I had another funny bug where the leader of the Jedi Order Grand Master Satele Shan during a conversation was the size of an ant.   My character loomed over her. It was too funny. I never realized one of the powers of the Light Side was turning into Ant Woman.

In regards to queues they are what they are. Games at launch are going to have queues. Other than the first couple days where the queues were over an hour long, since then my average wait is 5-25 minutes. Does it cut into my gaming time, yes. Is it enough to make me want to quit the game, no.
I have two separate servers that I bounce between to make things a bit easier. My main server is Jekk'Jekk' Tarr a Pacific Time Zone server, and my backup is Shein which is a Eastern Time Zone server. Technically I am in the Central Time Zone but prefer playing on West Coast servers since I usually don't start playing until 8:30 or 9pm, this puts me on during that server's prime time. I am willing to queue up a bit early knowing that by the time I get in I will be ready to play and have a server full of people to play with.

I haven't had any game breaking bugs so far. I can live with graphical glitches. The only real annoying bugs are the gathering bugs where resources show up on your map, and you can see the resource nodes but can't physically interact with them.   These are few and far in between so I can live with them.

Queues to access PVP Warzones are quick. There is a downside though, you are grouped with players from levels 10 through 50.   Your stats are boosted to bring you roughly to a level to compete against the other players regardless of their level.   It is nice that you have the entire server base to queue up against, so you don't have to wait long for a match to start. But while your health and abilities are boosted up to make you more competitive with level 50s, at lower levels you are going to find it much harder to compete if for no other reason than the fact that higher level players are going to have more abilities than you do.   Overall though I have found PVP to be fun, and an easy way to make experience points and credits.

Another way to make experience and level outside of regular questing is star ship battles. These can be simple survival or escort missions as well as missions like destroying key elements like a space station's turrets or a prototype enemy ship. These are fun and easy ways to make experience points, but are not multiplayer experiences. Star ship battles are more like single player mini games. You do not have free roaming control of your ships. No Eve Online here. During the battle you are on rails and have very little control over which way you are going. That isn't to say that this portion of the game isn't fun.   It is just very limited in the scope of what it could be, and hopefully will become.

Flashpoints (thing dungeons or instances) are fun, though the voice overs get old the second time onward that you go through them. That plus waiting for other players to all start conversations before being able to proceed is rather a drag too.   But outside those points, they are pretty good instances that I have seen.   The over all objectives are unique enough to make each new flashpoint seem original.   Once again though the more you play through a flashpoint, the more you get bored with the dialog.   Word to the wise the first time you do Hammer Station, and you cross a bridge made of light, be sure to move your arse across it as it doesn't stay up for long.   I almost failed to move off it in time.

The Companion system is another one of the ways that SWTOR sets itself apart from WoW and most other MMOs. Once you get between level 7-9 depending on your class you get your first companion. Think of companions as other games have pet classes like Hunters or Warlocks in WoW.   Different Companions offer different things from healing, tanking, melee dps to ranged dps. Also during PVP and Ship battles you can send these companions off to craft so you can multitask while doing other things. Companions allow you to do things like PVP and still keep up your crafting.

Overall I am still enjoying the game but I still not sure if it will be enough to keep me pulled in once Guild Wars 2 comes out. It certainly at this point is fun enough to keep me playing at least however long it takes me to reach the end of each classes personal storyline.   So far the class stories have been interesting. I have enjoyed the Trooper and Bounty Hunter's story lines the most followed up by the Imperial Agents. Side quest are what they are. The more I play the more I am finding myself skipping side quest in lieu of just playing Warzones, Flashpoints and Ship battles.

I am still mainly playing the game as a Single Player game except when I play the occasional Flashpoint or Warzone. For this reason alone I am having a problem justifying a reason to pay $15 a month for the game. With Reckoning coming out in a couple months I have a feeling that I will most likely play SWTOR until KoA: Reckoning comes out and depending on how long Reckoning keeps me happy and when Guild Wars 2 comes out I very well may not return to SWTOR other than for a short time after a new expansion.    Only time will tell.   I may change my mind but honestly while I am enjoying the game, it hasn't completely won me over like World of Warcraft did when I first started playing it.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Character Progression

2011-12-27T10:39:00.000-06:00

So far I have been working on a bunch of characters at the same time. Something originally I wasn't going to do. In beta I just got a Jedi Counselor to level 10.

Since Early Lunch, for me it started on the night of the 14th, I have leveled a Republic Commando to level 20, a Imperial Sniper to level 13, an Imperial Powertech Bounty Hunter to level 12, a Jedi Guardian to level 11, a Sith Assassin to level 11. Under 10 I have a Smuggler at level 8, a Jedi Knight at level 6, and a few others.

In the end I plan on leveling each of the following:
Commando (Healer)
Powertech Bounty Hunter (Tank)
Imperial Sniper (DPS)
Gunslinger (DPS)
Jedi Sage (Healer)
Sith Assassin (DPS)
Jedi Guardian (Tank)
Jedi Sentenial (DPS)
Sith Marauder (DPS)
This will cover me on all the class stories plus give me a Tank, Healer and DPS.

A tale of two codes. (Jedi / Sith)

2011-12-26T08:00:00.000-06:00

From playing Star Wars: The Old Republic as well as reading novels set in the Star Wars Universe both those from The Old Republic and those from the movie time period and after the movies I have been running across the Jedi and the Sith codes so much that I have had them both stuck in my head.

For anyone that has had anything to do with Star Wars or even vaguely familiar with it (which I would say is at least 90% of the world's population by now) you have heard of the Jedi and The Force. The Force is the quasi-metaphysical /spiritual mystery behind the Jedi and all living things. For those of you that have seen the movie you know that there are two sides to The Force, the Light Side and the Dark Side.

The Jedi typically represent the Light Side of The Force. Light Side is usually mentioned along with words like Calm, Peace, Knowledge, Serenity, Harmony, Life, Compassion and so forth. Generally speaking the Light Side of the force is those things that bring out the best in people.

The Sith represent the Dark Side of The Force. The Dark Side can be thought of with words like Passion, Strength, Power, Emotions, Anger, Deception, Death, Selfishness and Greed. Where those

associated with the Light Side of The Force put others before themselves those that follow the Dark Side are selfish and believe that might makes right.

Below are the Jedi and Sith Codes. As you can see both actually have good and bad points. The problem is that neither the Jedi nor the Sith see things in shades of grey. And actually because of this in many ways for as much as they are polar opposites they often are nearly the same thing.

Below I am going to break apart both the Jedi and Sith Codes line by line and examine them. Realize that the codes work top down so the top line feeds to the next line and so on. I will be mentioning such Philosophical Religions such as Buddhism and Taoism for compare and contrast. It is quite clear that Lucas pulled from these and other religions to create the concept behind The Force.

The Jedi Code:

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, There is the Force.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

Here in is one of the first paradoxes of the Jedi. The Jedi code eschews emotion. Emotions they believe lead one to the dark side. Granted emotions such as lust, hatred and envy clearly could be considered emotions that lead down a dark path. So what about emotions like love? The Jedi believe that one of their order can not fall in love, because love is an emotion, and leads to attachment and attachments lead to other emotions such as pride and envy. Pretty much in the first line of the Jedi Code the Jedi are saying that there can be no peace unless you are emotional regardless of what the emotions are that you are feeling.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

My main issue with this is what is there before you gain knowledge? You don't just instantly have knowledge. I understand what it is trying to get at, if you don't know something learn and study until you do. But I have always found that line to be the weakest line of either of the Codes.

There is no passion, there is serenity.

Technically this is a repeat of the first line. Passion by definition is a strong or barley controllable emotion, or an outburst of emotions. Serenity is the state of being calm, and peaceful. So line 3 is pretty much stating line 1 over again.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

Once again we see the line 1 repeated again, in just another form. Chaos is a condition of disorder, discord and/or confusion which are all emotional states. Harmony is another synonym for peace and consistency.

There is no death, there is the Force.

Like Buddhist, the Jedi believe that all things are part of one another. Therefor with this in mind it is easy to understand what is meant by this. In the Jedi mindset nothing really dies, it is just transformed back into the Force to be reborn again.

The Sith Code:

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.

Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.

Through power, I gain victory.

Through victory, my chains are broken.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.

From the Sith's point of view there never can be peace because the weak will always be beholden to the strong. As well the Sith hold that war and fighting is what makes them who they are so if there was peace there could not be Sith. Where the Jedi believe emotions lead to becoming weak and open to the Dark Side, the Sith believe that it is though strong emotions such as a lust for power, and hatred are needed to grow strong within the Force.

Through passion, I again strength.

Much like the Jedi Code repeating it's first concept (line), the Sith Code's second line repeats the fact that they believe that strong emotions such as lust of power and hatred are the keys to growing stronger.

Through strength, I gain power.

To the Sith the ultimate desire is to gain power and control. The way to power is through strength over their enemies. Strength be it physical or mental are both acceptable if they lead to power, but both together even more so.

Through power, I gain victory.

Through gaining power, great capacity and command over those weaker than themselves the Sith believe that they are successful and superior above all other beings. Where the Jedi believe protecting the weak is the greatest sacrifice a being could make, the Sith see the destruction of those beneath them being a required sacrifice.

Though victory, my chains are broken.

Once again the Sith feel they are brought down by those over them and that they can not be free until everyone is beneath them. They see the Force as a means to this victory over others. Regardless of the means to achieve victory it only matters in the end that they are on top and while others are controlled that they alone are free to do as they please.

Michael Whitt's Force Code of Balance.

There are no extremes, there is only balance.

Through balance, I gain knowledge.

Through knowledge, I gain strength.

Through strength, I gain peace.

Through peace, I gain victory.

There are no extremes, there is only balance.

Extremes are what limit both the Jedi and the Sith. They only see things in light or dark. There is no grey. But in truth a balanced path is the most powerful.

Through balance, I gain knowledge.

Balance allows you to gain knowledge from both sides of the force not limiting you to only one course of action. Knowledge or power of only one side of the Force only limits your options.

Through knowledge, I gain strength.

Knowledge is power, and power is strength. The know you more the stronger you become both in regards to what you know of physical and mental arts.

Through strength, I gain peace.

With proper strength you can gain victory be it by negotiation or force. So be it that you use dialog to talk your enemies to taking your side or via your strength over them, in the end you gain peace.

Through peace, I gain victory.

Much like the Jedi and the Sith code, the Balance Code often echos prior lines of the code. Line 5 echos line 4 in as much as saying that through a balanced approach to peace one gains victory. But victory can only be truly be obtained via balance and not extremes.

2011-12-25T02:00:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas to all!

Status Update: The Old Republic

2011-12-23T08:00:00.000-06:00

It has been over a week now since I rolled my first characters during Early Launch and a day past official launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic. So far other than queues on the first day and still few ongoing clipping issues overall the game has had a great launch. Looks like Bioware increased server load capacity as well as my normal queue times of 30-45 minutes has dropped to 1-5 minutes max so far since the 20th. So I am able to work more on my characters on Jekk'Jekk' Tarr instead of having to hit up my backup server Shien.

My Republic Commando, why yes that is a very big gun.

As of Wednesday night I currently have a level 14 Republic Commando, Level 13 Imperial Sniper, Level 11 Imperial Powertech, and an level 10 Republic Guardian along with a host of up level 10 characters. I haven't officially selected my main yet. I am currently really torn between my Commando and my Powertech Bounty Hunter. Towards the end of my World of Warcraft days I started preferring tanking rows over healing rows. I healed so for many years in WoW that I just got burnt out. My original idea was to make a Vanguard instead of a Commando but I really like the idea of carrying around a huge laser cannon.

Wednesday night I ran my first Flashpoint (instance/dungeon) with my Commando and I had a blast healing. Healing is very similar to games like Global Agenda where your main HOT (Heal Over Time) ability is (at least at this level) literally shooting your fellow players with a stream of healing. Not only is it fun, but is a great visual queue to players to let them know you have their arses covered.

My Bounty Hunter Powertech taking a final stroll on the Hutta.

From the Flashpoint I did my normal run of battlefields (er Warzones). In previous Warzones I have played offensive and took a DPS (damage) role.   Last night after having such fun healing in the Flashpoint I decided to do healing.   I would stick to whoever had the ball and keep them healed up and I could tell it made a huge difference in helping my team win Huttball as well as the other Warzones.   The cool thing so far with the Commando is that while I am healing good I don't feel completely gimped on my damage. I feel like I am still able to put out plenty of DPS for solo leveling along with the companion helping me out.

On my Bounty Hunter I have went down the Powertech (tanking) side for my Advanced Class.   I haven't ran any Flashpoints with him yet, and only ran a single Warzone before having to hit the sack but while he was by no means a damage powerhouse I was able to keep the enemy team members focused on me and survive long enough for reinforcements to show up. Something that my Commando could not have done.    So both of course are very different play styles but both offer unique twist to Tanking and Healing.

One side note is that Bounty Hunters that go for tanking and/or DPS have an early advantage once you pick up Mako your first companion as she is a very good healer.   Matter of fact she is better at healing than my other companions have been at tanking and dpsing.    Mako makes equal level quest and mobs easy as pie.    I just have to remember to stop and vent heat from time to time.

Thus brings us to the major difference between the Republic Trooper and the Bounty Hunger.   Republic Trooper's main resource is ammo.   Most abilities that you use as a Trooper require x amount of ammo. Once you run out or low on ammo you are basically limited to the equal of auto attacks (though there are no real auto attacks in the game).   On the flip side instead of wanting to keep your ammo level up the Bounty Hunter has to worry about keeping their resource down. Utilizing most skills with the Bounty Hunter generate heat. Once your heat reaches critical level you have to vent heat or wait for the heat to dissipate before you can continue to use most abilities.

Over all I have found that the Trooper tends to be easier to manage as far as resources than the Bounty Hunter.   But I am sure in the end that it will all balance out.   While I have played most classes up to level 7 or so now, the only classes that I have gotten off the starter worlds on are the Jedi Knight, Republic Trooper, Bounty Hunter, Imperial Sniper and during beta the Jedi Sage. Of those as far as the helpfulness of the first companions hands down the Bounty Hunter's companion Mako is the best.   She is a great healer and support companion.    Story wise I found the Trooper and the Imperial Agent the most interesting while the Bounty Hunter over all had the most fun story line that I look forward to continuing down.

My Jedi Guardian upon getting his first lightsaber.

I have yet to work very hard on getting a Smuggler, Sith Warrior or Sith Inquisitor to level 10 year so I don't know how the first act of their story lines on the starter planets wrap up. Nor have I gotten either of those three to a high enough level to use their companions yet so for them I can't really speak on over all game play or storyline.

All of my characters including my Empire ones are light based. I just can't bring myself to be mean even in game. If I continue leveling up one of my two Sith characters and/or my Smuggler I most likely will play them grey. Of my characters my Commando has been the easiest to play on the light side. I have found that sometimes the choices I had to make on my Jedi Guardian and during beta on my Jedi Sage went a bit against my normal moral compass such as in the quest where you have to break up the couple in love in order to "get light points". I disliked that. I know from the Jedi Code why this is but still I felt that morally I would have been better off to just let them be.

Don't let his looks fool you my Imperial Sniper is very deadly.

I haven't played much more on my Imperial Sniper since I got him to 11 or 12. He is fun to play but honestly the cover mechanic got old to me. This is another reason why I am not really looking forward to working any more on my Smuggler. In the end most likely my Commando and Powertech Bounty Hunter will be my two main characters as I like both of the play styles. And while they are both considered mirror classes of each other both have very unique game play and even more so as I am playing one as a healer and the other as a tank.

Over the weekend I may work some of my Sith Warrior and Sith Inquisitor but for as much as I have enjoyed the Darth Bane novels I just can't quite play as a dark side player with the stories I believe that it will be very hard to play them as light to grey characters.

So to recap a week into the game for me and it continues to grow on me. I have had moments were I find myself thinking, gee why did I get hooked on another MMO. In the end though I have am confident that as long as I don't over play the game that I will continue enjoying it for my MMO fix at least until Guild Wars 2 comes out.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

2011-12-22T08:00:00.000-06:00

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook or even my blogs you know that I have been awaiting Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning very closely for a while now. Ever since I first heard Major League Baseball pitcher and huge MMORPG fan Curt Schilling was creating 38 Studios and going to work with Todd McFarlane of Comic Book fame and R.A. Salvatore, author of many D&D bestselling novels on a new game universe leading up to a new MMORPG I have been a rabid fan.

We are still just a bit over 2 months away from the February 7th release of the game and continue to get more and more great info on the game. While the artistic direction isn't going for the realistic look of Skyrim, it looks every bit as beautiful of a game. It is hard to say if it will be able to pull ahead of Guild Wars 2 as RPG of the year for 2012 but it is going to be a close race for sure.

If you haven't checked out the game yet, be sure to do so if you have any desire for a top of the line open world role playing single player RPG that's world and lore will eventually be made into an MMO.

Skylander rare to find characters.

2011-12-21T13:40:00.000-06:00

I have managed to collect almost every one of the currently released Skylander characters for my daughter for Christmas. I had to order Stealth Elf, Drill Sergeant and Whirlwind via eBay as they are impossible to find. Drill Sergeant was a limited release at Wal-Mart and Whirlwind was a limited release from Target. I think Stealth Elf is just hard to find as there are not a lot of female Skylander characters.

I ended up spending around 100 bucks total to get Stealth Elf, Drill Sergeant and Whirlwind for Danielle. A lot of money but it is something for her to collect and that we both enjoy and I imagine that we can always resell the characters later. I am just happy that I was able to find Stealth Elf and Whirlwind for the price I did. During my search Whirlwind herself was going for upwards of $80 alone.

Star Wars: The Old Republic 5 days in.

2011-12-20T08:30:00.000-06:00

While I wasn't part of the first wave of early launch players on the 13th, I did make the cut for the second wave on the 14th. I have played the game fairly casually so far. The Guild I was a part of launch with is called The Older Gamers and was placed on the West Coast/Oceanic server of The Jekk'Jekk' Tarr as I have mentioned.    On JJT my main character is a Republic Commando of level 13. I would have had him higher but over the coarse of the past few days JJT has had an average queue time of 45minutes or greater for me.

Because of this I picked a secondary server to play on when JJT has a Queue. That server is an East Coast / RP server called Shien.   On Shien I currently have a level 12 Imperial Sniper and a level 9 Republic Jedi who I plan on picking Guardian as his advanced class.    In addition to these I have one of each class in the game anywhere from the 3 to 7 range.   Leveling isn't too bad, doing all the side quest and Heroic group games for each area it seems to be taking me about 2 to 3 hours to hit level 10 so far. Slow compared to Warcraft for example, but considering WoW currently has 85 levels compared to only 50 in SWTOR at launch I wouldn't expect it to be any faster.    Not to mention that I recall the days of vanilla WoW when it took just as long or longer to reach level 10 if you also were leveling your crafting professions along the way.

So far I have enjoyed the game.   As I can read the dialog quicker than the cut scenes a lot of the time I will space through the voice dialog on side quest, though I try to be patient and watch all of my class quest cut scenes. After you have ran through each starting planet with one class, when you come back for your second quest there really isn't much need to sit through all the voice dialog for side quest since you have already sit through them.

Performance wise I haven't had any problems other than minor graphic clipping and still run into the phantom voice overs while on speeders from time to time. I haven't had any broken quest that I couldn't complete, nor have I gotten stuck or fallen through the ground which is usually one of the most common things early in any MMOs life.   I haven't had any crash-to-desktop (CTDs) so far.

In regards to performance I have a fairly high end Alienware PC that is water cooled and designed from the ground up for the sole purpose of power gaming so I wasn't expecting any issues towards that end. As far as frame rates go I am able to keep the game pretty well pegged at 60fps at all times.   As mentioned I have noticed some small clipping issues but nothing major or game breaking. Also I have noticed that even on West Coast servers that my latency is keeping below 120 and is usually under 90 so I am fairly happy not seeing any lag.

Overall counting the time I spent in beta I have roughly 25-30 hours total time played. My biggest complaint honestly is getting lost as to what to do when I reach the Capital worlds.   But that hasn't really bothered me too much as I am loving PVP and once I reach level 10 and select my advanced class I have pretty much spent all my time playing PVP.   So far across all my characters PVP has seemed very balanced. I am actually enjoying Huttball a lot more than I thought I would as well.

Still undecided is if I will continue to play SWTOR once Guild Wars 2 comes out.   So far I do enjoy the stories and the PVP but past those two items I really haven't seen anything major to hold me to the game one way or another. The community for the most part is okay, but you can tell at least at this point there are a LOT of wow kiddos playing and for the most part the first thing I find myself doing is disabling world chat.

But over all I am fairly pleased. SWTOR is a great game. But as I mentioned before I am not sure that it does anything that Bioware couldn't have done better via a Single Player game, maybe with an online CO Play or PVP element. Thus brings me back to the biggest question, will SWTOR be able to retain all of the players that it is going to have at launch?   I just really don't know.   Either way I can see that it is going to put a major hurt on Blizzard. While SWTOR may not retain anywhere near the 100% of the gamers it pulls from World of Warcraft, I have a feeling that those it doesn't keep may not likely be returning to WoW other than die-hard gamers because while it doesn't change the gameplay drastically, the spoken dialog and story driven game play makes other MMOs like WoW seem completely boring now.

Will 2012 be the year of Guild Wars 2?

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000-06:00

As I have mentioned one of the most anticipated games in my book for "hopefully" the upcoming year is Guild Wars 2.    I have played Guild Wars off and on for many years now.   It is one of those games that fits nicely into the "play for 30 minutes and have fun" type of games.   Guild Wars is unique for a number of different reasons.

First off it is a B2P (Buy to Play) game. You buy the box and it is free to play without a subscription fee.   The catch is that when an expansion comes out you have to buy the expansion in order to play new classes and zones. That being said there are plenty of people that bought the first Guild Wars and never bought either of the 3 expansions and still play it freely today.

While there is an item shop it is limited to cosmetic items, extra character slots and extra storage space. So one can very easily avoid ever once using the item shop. That said the cost of upgrading character slots and storage space is worth a small investment.

Guild Wars is one of those games that blurs genres. Technically per Arena.net (the developers) and NCSoft (the publishers) the game is classified as a Multiplayer Online Cooperative Role Playing Game. Due to the fact that it's zones are heavily instanced they have always been careful not to call it an MMORPG. That being said other than instances for all other intents and purposes it is an MMORPG. Thousands and thousands of players all play at the same time and can join up together to fight in instanced PVP and PVE.   The catch is that the zones are instanced. For those not familiar with the term instances to put it simply when you are out in the game world you will not happen across other players like you would in a game like World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online. This has pros and cons.

First the pros of this to me has always been that I could play the game without worrying about other players killing quest mobs before I get to them. I don't have to worry about people harassing me or otherwise annoying me.   However with player interaction limited to small "outpost" areas often one forgets that they are playing an online game where other players can join them in questing which many consider to be a major con of the game. The other con is that even if you are a solo player in a MMORPG running into random players and the occasional jumping in to save a player that has bit off more than they can chew is part of the fun of playing an online game.

One of the next areas that sets Guild Wars apart is that players can mix two classes together.   A common combination is a Warrior and a Monk. A Warrior of course is able to wear heavy plate armor and stand alone against a group of mobs. By taking the Monk as a secondary class you can the ability to buff and heal yourself to make yourself a one man or woman army.   The original Guild Wars launched with Warriors, Rangers, Monks, Necromancers, Mesmers, and the Elementalist. Then across the two main expansions (Factions) and (Nightfall) came the Assassin, Ritualist, Paragon and Dervish.   As long as you have Factions and Nightfall expansion packs purchased you can mix and match any of the above classes with one class as the Primary and the other as a Secondary, technically opening up double the amount of skills that you have available to your character.

Thus bringing us to the next unique aspect of Guild Wars, the limited skill bar.   Unlike most MMOs where you may have dozens of skills across multiple skill bars in Guild Wars you are limited to a maximum of 8 skills while you are outside an outpost.   So before you venture into the PVE zones or PVP arenas you are required to pick the 8 skills you feel will be most useful for you until you get to the next outpost.   A lot of strategy as you can imagine comes into play as you want to make sure that you pick the best skills for whatever your given opponents may have.    It doesn't do a lot of good to have a lot of spell interrupt skills in place if the majority of the mobs you are destined to face are not spell casters for example.   So you have dozens of skills across two professions but are limited to just eight of those at any given time.   A very nice change up from the average MMO where you have dozens and dozens of spells at any time but get overloaded with what to use due to the shear number of options.

Henchmen and Heroes are the next thing that sets Guild Wars apart. Over the years other games have copied the system such as Dungeons and Dragons Online and of late Everquest 2 in the way of Mercenaries. Henchmen are NPC (Non Player Characters) that you can recruit for your party before you venture out into the wilds of whatever zone you are wanting to tackle. While they are no true replacement for running quest with other PC (player characters) they can do a pretty good job of letting you solo if you just like soloing or don't feel up to finding a group.

Heroes are Henchmen on steroids. Henchmen are characters that you can set up what skills they use, and you equip them with gear of your own selection. Thus they expand on Henchmen and give you even more of an advantage when soloing or just filling an empty party spot.   Keep in mind that both Henchmen and Heroes that you add to your party take away from your parties loot table. So if you go out with three Heroes you are only going to have a chance at every forth loot drop.

Guild Wars has been out since April of 2005. The three expansions Factions (2006), Nightfall (2006) and Eye of the North (2007). The original Guild Wars is now called Guild Wars: Prophecies. Technically each of the expansions were stand alone besides the EotN which required you to have at least one copy of GW: Prophecies, GW: Factions or GW: NightFall.

Guild Wars has been for many years a solid game and continues to have an active following. With the announcement of Guild Wars 2 the last year and a half has seen a revival of the game as GW2 will honor some of your character achievements from Guild Wars via the Hall of Monuments which was added as part of Eye of the North as a segway to link between the original Guild Wars and the upcoming Guild Wars 2.

Where as mentioned the first Guild Wars blurs the line between being a cooperative online role playing game and a true MMORPG, Arena.Net is going full bore with Guild Wars 2 being a truly open world Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. This along with the fact that GW2 will keep the buy to play marketing it is so well known for and a laundry list of innovative changes that has the entire MMO world watching, Guild Wars 2 is slated to be one of the biggest (if not the biggest) MMO launches of "hopefully" 2012.

Guild Wars 2 is going to launch with seven classes/professions including: Guardian, Mesmer, Thief, Elementalist, Engineer, Warrior and the Ranger. Also while Guild Wars only included the human race to play, Guild Wars 2 opens up the racial selections with the mighty Norn (think Norsemen), the diminutive but super smart Asura (think Gnomes/Goblins), the humanoid plants Sylvari (think elves) and my favorite the carnivorous feline-like humanoids known as the Charr (think furry orcs).

Much like the first Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2 limits the player to a set number of skills while out in the world. This time around the the player hot bar will contain up to a total of ten skills. The first five are based on the players weapon type, and the next file are spread out by racial and class skills. Also Guild Wars 2 is working to get away from the so called "Trinity" of MMOs which is made of of a Tank, a Healer and DPS roles.   Arena.net has stated that in GW2 each class is capable of all three roles. There will not be a dedicated tank, healer or DPS as such.   Every profession will be able to heal and do comparative damage. For the most part Arena.net is going to let each player worry about keeping themselves healed.   Something that I really look forward to because the whole concept of Trinity makes getting groups together much harder to do because DPS (Damage dealers) are a dime a dozen while healers and tanks are often in very high demand.

There are many other things that set Guild Wars 2 apart from the traditional theme park MMO like World of Warcraft. Will GW2 be the WoW Killer that people have talked about for years? Maybe. Most likely though along with help from SWTOR Guild Wars 2 will put a huge dent in the number of active subscriptions Blizzard takes in from WoW.   One of the biggest draws for Guild Wars will still be present with Guild Wars 2, that being the Buy to Play option.   Instead of being subscription based you can buy the game box and not pay another dime.   One of the beauties of Guild Wars is that you can take a long break from it and not worry about subscription fees being wasted. In addition it has always made a great second game to play along side of other games.

In the end I suspect that Guild Wars 2 will continue following in the path Arena.net set for it's predecessor. Over the years Arena.net has made a name for itself in making quality gaming experience and keeping it fresh and updated regularly. For myself I can see 2012 being the year of Guild Wars 2. Of course that all depends if Arena.net can deliver on what they are promising and NCSoft doesn't rush to publish the product.

Wizard 101: Great for the family and adults alike. A Review.

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000-06:00

I have mentioned Wizard 101 before. Back a few months ago I was looking for a MMO type game to play with Danielle.   First thing I was looking for of course was something geared for a younger crowd and that had very good parental controls.   Among the games I took a look into were Wizard 101, Free Realms, Marvel Super Hero Squad and Star Wars: Clone Wars Online.

Of the games Danielle seemed to enjoy Wizard 101 the most and was able to catch on to the general game play quickly.   As I was going to be playing with her I wanted to find a game that also would be enjoyable for myself as well to encourage me to want to play with her.    Of all the above mentioned games Wizard 101 as I would quickly find out is a blast for both kids and adults alike.

First off Wizard 101 (or Wiz101) fits the general description of a Massively Mulitplayer Online Roleplaying Game or MMORPG.    You can play with thousands of other players at any given moment. You have a character you can improve via gear stats. You have quest to go on.   As well as player interaction. Wizard 101's world feels alive and busy.

Wizard 101 goes about game play different than most MMOs. Instead of being like World of Warcraft where combat is handled for the most part in a real time fashion, combat in Wizard 101 is turned based given the player more time to think of strategies to use.    Also instead of having skills or spells per say instead the player has a deck of cards. In this deck of cards you have creature spells, direct damage spells, buffing spells, healing spells and the normal type of spells you see in other fantasy games. But the way the game handles them is unique for a few reasons.

As mentioned Wizard 101 is turned based. Each player has a set amount of time to decide if they want to play a card, pass or flee a fight. Without getting deep into the game mechanics the jest of the game is that your character generates pips per turn. Some cards do not require any pips and can be used for free, while other spells require x number of pips to play.   In addition the player must keep a watch on their mana levels to avoid running out during a game.

The game play is similar to Trading Card Games like Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon and so forth. The beauty though is that while it is simple enough for a 5-6 year old to play and excel at, it is open enough that an adult can utilize strategy and really open up their options.

The game like most MMOs offers Player Vs. Environment (PVE) as well as Player Vs. Player (PVP) duels. As far as PVP I have only played against Dani and I will admit that I have to hold back on the strategy or I can pretty much beat her every game if I wanted to.   So I am glad I could set the game where people can't just randomly come up and prompt her for a duel. If I let her duel with other players I am sure that she would lose a good part of the matches and discourage her. So PVP is one place that I feel has for the older crowd. Which is good.

The game also has plenty of other things to do besides questing and duels. Player Housing is a blast and can consume time. Also there are mini games to play to speed up how quickly you regain your health and mana which are simple yet fun time killers.    There is also a bunch of game play around player controlled pets. One of which is a cute pet dancing mini game that is fun regardless of one's age.

So I have to say that Wizard 101 is a game for all ages. While I don't normally play it unless Danielle is playing (don't want to out level her), I wouldn't hesitate to keep playing if she ever decides that she doesn't like it anymore.

The game is free to play, but you will find that you either want to subscribe (they have a great family plan) to access all zones, or purchase zones as you reach their level.   I believe most zones sell for around a buck a zone or so.   Also there are items like pets, and housing decor that you can buy for crowns (which is money converted over to item shop currency).   Some of the items do give your character a decent boost but I haven't seen anything in the cash shop that I would consider as a pay to win type item.    The biggest things you will most likely spend cash on outside zones if you are not a subscriber is mounts, pets and housing items.    XP, Health and Mana potions can be purchased for a small amount as well.   For adults in a hurry to level I could see a good deal of money spent on those potions.   One good thing is the potions that increase health and mana and such do not work in PVP duels so that is another way the game avoids being pay to win.

Overall I give the game 9.5 out of 10 for children and 8.5 out of 10 for adults. Overall it is a great game. Kingsisle Entertainment has good customer service and they also respond back on third party sites like mmorpg.com

Why having super powers would suck. Part 2 - Super Strength

2011-12-15T08:00:00.000-06:00

Continuing my series on why having super powers would suck today I would like to address why having super strength would most likely not be as fun as one might think.

Strength comes from a body's muscles and skeletal system.   So first off if you have super strength via super muscles you had better hope your skeletal system is equally super in supporting the weight. Doesn't do one much good to be able to lift a ton of weight if their body's skeletal system can only support a few hundred pounds for starters.

Let's think about some of the feats of strength we see in super heroes.   We see heroes like the Hulk and Superman easily stopping massive objects heading their way.   There is a problem with this is in order to stop a move an object you must be able to assert a greater amount of mass than the mass of the item you want to move.   In order to move an object you have to apply a greater amount of thrust than the mass you are attempting to move.    Here comes the next problem, unless Superman is a hell of a lot more massive than he looks when he goes to attempt to stop a speeding train it is just going to push him along for the ride.

The affect of mass can not be ignored regardless of the "strength" of the object attempting to exert force against another object. So unless the Hulk and Superman as well as other super strength heroes are actually affecting the mass of the objects they push against they wouldn't be able to move anything that has a larger mass than they do.

The next thing to consider is when lifting an object, how is the weight distributed across the surface area where the object is covering. So imagine this, you have a large object that weighs a 24 tons. This object is resting on solid ground, but the surface area that is supporting the object is lets say 25 feet by 25 feet, or 625 square feet of area that is touching a surface area. The object weighs a total of 48,000 pounds. Lets say that the object is square and the weight is evenly spread out as well.   So that leaves us with 76.8 pounds of weight per square foot or 6.4psi (pounds per square inch).   Now then let's imagine that Superman lifts this object off the ground with the weight evenly spread across the soles of his feet. Let's say he has around 156 square inches of surface area on the soles of his weight to balance the weight out. And then let's put his weight at 300lbs. (going high for the figure) That would place the psi under his feet at 1.92 under normal conditions.    But now he suddenly has his 300 lbs plus 48,000 on top of that spread across the same surface area. So now the surface under his feet is supporting 309.61psi.

Here is where things start to get interesting. a fairly thick concrete slab has a strength of around 3500psi. But then you have to take into account it's tensile strength which brings it down to about 450psi.   So the concrete slab could hold up to this psi. But what if he wasn't on a concrete slab. What if he was standing on a muddy surface or sandy beach which had a much lower psi to compression ratio?   He would suddenly find himself knee deep in dirt.   However you never see this is the comics. He seems to be able to support huge weights on any surface without exceeding the surface area's compression ratio.

Another sample of this is when he lifts an object like a car up by it's bumper. Suddenly you have a lot of pressure on a very small surface area.   In Superman Returns, Superman stops a jumbo jet at the very last second before it hit's the ground.   Not only is he able to support the weight, and do so without sinking somewhat into the ground but he does so without crumbling the nose cone of the plane.   A 747 Jumbo Jet can run between 735,000 to 970,000 pounds (maximum takeoff weight).   So let's just say that the one he stops from crashing weighs in at 800,000 pounds.   Now let's say Superman has around 200 square inches of surface area on each hand, or 400 total square inches.   That means that suddenly you have over 2000psi weight being exerted on the nose cone of the jet.   Wow, that jet is super in itself since it took an incredible amount of pressure on a very small surface area.

It is fun to think about having super strength but unless your strength comes with the ability to control the mass of an object that you are attempting to move, it quickly comes impossible for you to lift or move the object based on your own mass, and even if you could you would spend more time accidentally pressing holes with your hands into objects than actually moving or lifting them.

Why having super powers would suck. Part 1 - Stopping Time.

2011-12-14T08:00:00.000-06:00

Ever thought about having a super power? Maybe the ability of flight, invisiblity or to stop time. Usually we think about junk movie science when we have these daydreams. We fail to think the physics and other complications though.

I wanted to start a series on the downsides to having various super powers if you somehow could have them granted to you.

The first super power that I want to tackle is that of the ability to stop time. Imagine what you could do if you could slow or stop time. The first thing you are most likely thinking is that you could sleep longer, and do all the other things you wanted to do if you coud slow or stop time. But would you really?

What problems would turn into stopping time for the everything in the world around you, except for yourself?   Actually there would be quite a few problems unless you don't count being blind, deaf, asphixation and freezing to death as problems.

Let's think about these things for a second. If the world around you stops besides your physical body what would happen?   You see based on light hitting your retnias so since time has stopped once must assume that the movement of light has stopped with it. Therefor you new light particles would not be hitting your retnias except when you move.

And just like the light waves not hitting your eyes you also would be deaf as sound waves would be stopped as well.   Even moving forward into the sound waves wouldn't really gather you hearing. You couldn't walk fast enough to turn the waves into any viable sound.

Okay so why would you asphixated? Well when you breath out once the carbone dixoide you breated out left your mouth without air movement to replace what you expelled you would just breath back in your last breath again. That is if you are not constantly moving around.
And freezing? Why would you freeze?   Heat is generated by the movement of particles from one body to another. If time was stopped then so would be the movement of particles around you. Talk about absolute zero. On the bright side you could walk right through flames which as the particles would be frozen in time as well.

1) You would have to keep moving with each breath to get air, as the air you exhale would not be replaced by fresh air.

2) You would freeze to death as particles would be frozen in place, thus from your view point it would be absolute zero.

3) You would only see objects as you walk into lightwaves that bounced off them and in your wake you would leave a dark area void of light as the light waves you passed through would have been moved by your presense.

4) You would be able to hear only silence since sound is produced by wave movement. If you were the only entity from your prospective that wasn't frozen in time, there wouldn't be any sound wave movement to generate sound.

5) And if somehow you managed to avoid being frozen, once you decide for time to speed up again you had better hope it slow builds back to normal. Else your body that has been for all intents and purposes in a still world would find yourself going from 0 to 17 miles to per in under a second (the Earth's rotation is around 1070Mph).   So better hope you are outdoors in an open field, else it may be like running into a brick wall at 17 miles per hour.

So things that physics would prevent you from being able to do if you could stop time for everything but yourself would include: Not being able to watch any TV, listen to any songs, even reading a book would be impossible.   Sleeping, since you would sufficate, and so many other fun things.   Pretty much being able to stop time would just get you killed.     Now if you were able to speed up your perception of time to the world around you that might be another way to go.

25 Movies to watch for in 2012

2011-12-13T08:30:00.000-06:00

The Amazing Spider-Man
Battleship
The Black Hole
The Dark Knight Rises
Dark Shadows
Chronicle
Escape From Planet Earth
Ghostbusters 3
G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation
Godzilla
The Hobbit
The Hunger Games
John Carter
Marvel's The Avengers
Men in Black 3
Paradise Lost
Prometheus
Red Dawn
Resident Evil: Damnation
Riddick
Snow White and the Huntsman
Total Recall
Underworld: Awakening
World War Z
Wrath of the Titans

Microtransactions - What are they and how do they affect you?

2011-12-12T08:00:00.000-06:00

I have brought up before the topic of microtransactions or micropayments. The two terms get thrown around a lot these days if you are a gamer, be it a MMO gamer or a casual gamer that plays games like Farmville on Facebook.

Microtransactions originally were considered to be payments usually under $10.   MMO gamers are use to microtransactions from virtual item shops in their games. For example when one spends $10 for a vanity pet or $25 for a vanity mount in a game like World of Warcraft this would be considered a microtransaction. As you notice I said payments usually under $10.   Over the past year or so what constitutes a microtransaction price wise is a varying opinion. It is not uncommon to see in game purchases for over $10 such as the Blizzard's infamous "Celestial Steed" mount that normally sells for $25.

As mentioned microtransactions are not only in MMO games. With the popularity of Facebook we have seen the rise of the casual/social gamer playing games like Farmville and Cityville and other browser games that often are free to play (as long as you only play them for a few minutes a day) after which the player is prompted to buy "crowns", "rubies", "diamonds" or some other virtual item to extend their playtime or play options.    You can usually buy a few of these items for maybe a couple dollars. Then you jump back in game have fun and quickly run out again.   After a while you start getting addicted to the game and you start spending more and more money to buy the virtual items until before you know it you are spending hundreds of dollars over a course of a few months time.

Of the Capitalist in my can see the reason behind the game model. Even more so for virtual items that other than the amount of time and money spent designing said item you are pretty much sell each additional item and making nearly 100% profit off said item.   But as a person has an addictive personality I have to realize how dangerous on the pocket these type of games can be.

Back even ten years ago for the most part if you wanted to play a game, you went out bought the game and that was the end of that.   Now you buy if you buy a game the buying doesn't stop there a lot of the times. Even with none MMOs a very large portion of today's video games be they PC or console often release what is called "DLC" or Downloadable Content.   This is a way for developers of a game to save back on some content and release it over time to make a larger profit.   DLC can go for a few bucks or sometimes for half the price of the original game.   And that is just for one particular DLC. Some games like Fallout for example will release lots of DLC after a games launch extending the amount of money spent on a game. So that $50 single player game ends up turning into possibly $100 before you are all said and done.

MMOs do this as well. Depending on the game some games like World of Warcraft will release a big expansion pack once every year or so that cost nearly as much as the original game price and doesn't count subscription or cash shop purchases.   Blizzard has been pretty stingy in this regards considering that without the occasional holiday sale that it can cost a player $100 or close to it just to bring their game experience up to date.    Other companies like Sony have been a bit easier going with their expansion packs at least until recently. Then you have Free to Play games like Lord of the Rings Online where you can end up buying zones and adventure packs via an online store.

And so far we haven't even talked about services like "name changes", "race changes", "faction changes", and even "sex changes" for your virtual characters. Most MMO games offer services as such, and some such as Blizzard charge good money to transfer your character to another server.   Over the years that I played World of Warcraft I can't even begin to add up how much I spent on server transfers and the like. So while these services are considered "micro" transactions or "micro" payments they quickly add up.

One aforementioned game type is those like Cityville and Farmville and their clones on Facebook. These are considered social or casual games. Much like MMO gamers spend tons of time and money to keep up with their friends and family that play their game of choice, so do casual/social gamers that play games like Farmville.   These games quickly add up when you are buying "crowns" or whatever virtual coinage the game uses to be able to continue to play as most only give you a very small amount of time to play without having to use virtual goods to extend your game time.

As I have mentioned I have spent a good deal of money paying for virtual services and virtual goods such as gold, XP potions and mounts.   I have done so to keep up with the Jones so to speak and also to cut out things in games that bore me (i.e. having to grind for gold).   Some people very much dislike that some players are willing to pay some real life money to get a little edge like experience point boost, or a mount.   They claim it is not fair that some people can pay for these things while others can not.   In my opinion it is completely fair.   If I enjoy a game but don't have hours a day to play it to keep up with other players what is wrong spending a few bucks to make up for time lost? To quote the goblins in World of Warcraft, "Time is Money, Friend."

So the opinion in regards to microtransactions / micropayments vary from person to person. The two issues most brought up are by people who lack the self control to limit their in game spending on said items, or those that lack the money to do so. In addition the third group are the people that may or may not have the money but have the time to waste doing the mundane grind in some games to get what they want.

Regardless of once's stand on the subject of microtransactions in games, they are here to stay.   Games will continue to sell vanity items, XP potions, tokens to continue game play, downloadable content and the likes because people gladly pay for these things and in turn they are big profit for the gaming companies.   To quote Wallstreet, "Greed is Good".   The problem is as a gamer that spends money on virtual goods, can you separate yourself from the games you play and the amount of money you spend.   That is the real catch when dealing with microtransactions and cash shops.

First you spend a few dollars on an XP potion, then you spend a few more on a vanity mount.   The next thing you know you are spending far, far more money then you ever would. It is almost like being a gambler with a very bad gambling habit.   You keep thinking that last purchase will be just that the last purchase. That is until you see a new mount in the cash shop and decide, "Hey it is only $25 for a pretty mount with wings".

2011 Pc Gaming in review.

2011-12-09T08:30:00.000-06:00

Overall 2011 has been a so/so year for PC gamers. Below are the top 20 of the PC games I purchased this year.   I am only going over games that I purchased in this posting so there are other big releases that you may ask why wasn't game so and so not reviewed.   I believe reviewing a game based on other players opinions without having played it myself is dishonest so I only wanted to cover those games that I have first hand knowledge of.

As you will see the majority of my gaming is centered around RPGs both single player and MMOs.
In this top 20 list I do include one game that while it hasn't released yet will be released by the end of the year, and I have played for a good bit of time in the beta, enough that I feel I can cover it. That being Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Batman: Arkham City - 9.5/10 : What can you say when a developer like Rocksteady takes an already great game like Batman: Arkham Asylum and improves on it in so many ways?   Amazing. Just like the other 9.5 rated game in this list the game improves in almost every way on an already great established game.   Batman: AC is one of the very few games based on a comic book hero that really puts you in the role of said hero.   While you get a feel of how powerful Batman is, Batman: AC never cheats the user by making him feel overpowered.   Batman is only human. Sure he is a martial heavyweight but still he can't rely on being faster than a speeding bullet or being nearly indestructible. So while you get a feel of the Dark Knight's weaknesses you also get a feel for all that makes him the most feared protector of Gotham City and one of the greatest heroes of the DC Universe.   The game's visuals are great. I play with an Xbox 360 controller and the controls handled as smooth as silk. The setting and mood fits perfect with what one would imagine Gotham would be like if you sectioned off a large portion to build a prison out of it.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 9.5/10 : 2011 might not have had a lot of ground breaking original games, but what the year lacked in new series it made up for in great sequels.   TES V: Skyrim was one of the most anticipated games of the year and it delivered in almost every way.   The visuals are stunning. The controls are solid. The world is expansive and you can do pretty much anything you desire. The game is a true single player sandbox.   While there is a main story line you can go about it in a manner of your own selection. The game like Batman: AC is all about being an open world.   There are very, very few parts of the game that feel linear or scripted.

Minecraft - 9/10 : Minecraft isn't really a new game. It has been in beta for a couple years now, only officially launching in the last month.   Where games like Batman AC and TES V rely on super story telling, and top notch graphics, Minecraft relies on being a complete and other playground for the mind. From the games retro look to huge play worlds Minecraft is a very unique game.   If you only care about graphics and or a story then you will not like Minecraft. But if you enjoy just getting lost in a virtual world building castles, tunnels, exploring and creating things Minecraft is the game for you.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - 8.5/10 : I never played any of the Deus Ex games prior to Deus Ex: HR. So I really didn't follow pre-launch coverage of the game to any great extent. It just game out at a time when I as looking for a new game and decided to give it a shot.   The game is a great mixture of my two favorite game genres, the Role Playing Game and the First Person Shooter. The game's art design is great and the story is interesting. Graphically the game isn't as impressive as TES V but it still is beautiful in it's own way.

Battlefield 3 - 8.5/10 : I have played the Battlefield series since Battlefield: 1942 came out. I have enjoyed the series even during it's downs (Battlefield: Vietnam for example) so I was prepared for the game to be anywhere from so/so to amazing.    The game delivered on the side of amazing.   The single player story in itself isn't anything that hasn't been done before. But the Battlefield series has never really been able the single player campaign. Multiplayer is where it is at and BF3 delivered a solid game.

RIFT - 8.5/10 : RIFT got high marks from me not so much for innovative game play as for it's release polish. When it comes to MMO launches few have been smoother than RIFTs. Trion went from being an new player in the MMO market to competing with the big dogs like Blizzard and SOE. As stated the game really doesn't innovate much outside the way it offers multiple, multiple talent builds. But what RIFT does well is it takes existing game play ideas such as those from WoW and WAR and combines them.   Public Quest (or RIFTs) are fun and auto grouping works great.   It remains to be seen how SWTOR launch goes, but Bioware will be hard pressed to pull off a launch as smooth as RIFT's.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - 8.5/10 : Technically SWTOR doesn't early launch for another 9 days but having played in the beta for a number of hours I feel that I can go ahead and rate the gameplay based off what I saw in beta.   Bioware much like Trion did with RIFT doesn't go out of the way to break the MMO themepark mold set by games like WoW and EQ2. If you have played pretty much any themepark MMO you will feel right at home in the game.    There however is one aspect of SWTOR that breaks the mold and that is the story telling. But the question remains to be seen will the Story telling in SWTOR end up making the game into what some people are calling a Massively Online Single Player game.

Skylander: Spyro's Adventure - 8/10 : Skylander is a unique game that mixes collectible miniatures with a virtual gaming world. Geared towards kids but still very entertaining for adults as well. So far my daughter loves the game and I rather enjoy it as well.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - 8/10 :
Crysis 2 - 8/10
Dungeon Defenders 8/10
Might & Magic Heroes VI - 8/10
Magicka - 8/10
DC Universe Online - 7/10
Dragon Age II - 7.5/10
DC Universe Online - 7/10
Magic: The Gathering -- Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 7.5/10
Two Worlds II - 7.5/10
Hunted: The Demon's Forge - 7/10
L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition - 7/10
Darkspore - 6.5/10
Dungeon Siege III - 6/10

Taking over The Old Republic

2011-12-08T08:30:00.001-06:00

Bioware has announced that they are moving up early launch by a couple days. While this doesn't mean that you will be guaranteed to be able to login on the 13th, it means that your changes of getting logged in before next weekend are getting better and better.

I have decided to play a Trooper (Commando AC) come launch on the Republic Side. On the Empire side I will be going with a Bounty Hunter (Powertech AC). My main will be the Trooper with my primary alt being the Bounty Hunter.

I joined The Older Gamer guild back last month in anticipation of starting with SWTOR with a established guild from day one. The Older Gamers guild is for older farts like me that do not have the time to play for hours on end every night. I wanted to be sure to join a guild from the start that I didn't have to worry about being left behind. They are a casual group and I believe that I will fit right in. As far as the Empire side I am not sure what guild I will be going with. Considering my wife's nephew Michael is going to be playing Empire from the start I most likely will see about joining whatever server and guild he goes with.

As I mentioned elsewhere SWTOR at least during beta seemed like a Massively Online Single Player game which is okay with me. While I think it may be my main game for the upcoming year I do not plan on getting addicted to it by any means. So I am going to be quite happy if I just log a hour or two every night and maybe a few more on the weekends. I am not going to fret if I don't feel like playing due to health issues or just being worn out. I am going to take a new approach with SWTOR. An approach that I think the game's story focus is fit for. I plan on actually taking my time and savoring the quest and not rush to end game just to start another character to rush to end game.

I plan to limit my gaming expenditures next year. That means that I want to stay away from games with cash shops (Free to Play games) as well as games that only offer short entertainment. If I don't think I will be able to get at least 50+ hours out of a game I will not consider spending the money on it. Right now the only games really on my radar are SWTOR, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and Guild Wars 2. I am sure I will end up picking up Mass Effect 3 along the way to finish off that trilogy as well.

In the end though I want to be able to say this time next year that I was able to enjoy my gaming hobby without feeling like I wasted time that I could have spent with family. I want to be able to say that the time I spend playing games was fun and worth it. I don't want to get into feeling like whatever game I am playing feels like a second job.

If you are reading this and plan on playing SWTOR let me know. I would love to hear what side and server you are going to be playing on.

2011 Movie Review

2011-12-07T08:49:00.000-06:00

Top 2011 Movies in my opinion:
Battle: LA
Rise of The Planet of the Apes
Brides Maids
Horrible Bosses
X-Men: First Class

Below I break down the movies of 2011 that I have seen by Genre and rank on scale of 1 to 10.

SciFi
The Adjustment Bureau (7.5/10)
Attack the Block (7/10)
Battle: Los Angeles (9.5/10)
Captain America: The First Avenger (7/10)
Conan the Barbarian (7/10)

Cowboys & Aliens (7/10)
Drive Angry (6/10)
Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (6/10)
Fright Night (7.5/10)
Green Lantern (6/10)
Limitless (8.5/10)
I am Number Four (7/10)
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (8/10)
Priest (8/10)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (9.5/10)
Source Code (8/10)
Sucker Punch (6/10)

Super 8 (6.5/10)
Thor (7.5/10)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (7/10)
X-Men: First Class (9/10)
2012: Ice Age (So bad it is actually watchable like a wreak) (1/10)

Action
Fast Five (7.5/10)
The Green Hornet (5.5/10)
Hanna (8.5/10)
The Mechanic (8.5/10)
Sanctum (8/10)
Scream 4 (7/10)

Family
Cars 2 ( 5/10)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (8.5/10)
Gnomeo & Juliet (8/10)
Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil (5/10)
Hop (6/10)
Judy Mood and the Not Bummer Summer (8/10)
Mars Needs Moms (7/10)
Rango (8.5/10)
Rio (8/10)

The Smurfs (7.5/10)

Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (8/10)
Toy Story: Hawaiian Vacation (7/10)
Zookeeper (8.5/10)

Comedy
Brides Maids (9/10)
Hall Pass (6/10)
Horrible Bosses (9.5/10)
Your Highness (5/10)

Drama
13 (7.5/10)
Contagion (7/10)
Unknown (8/10)

Movies that haven't released yet or that I haven't seen that I want to.
Alvin and the Chipmonks: Chipwreaked
The Change-Up
Colombiana
The Hangover Part 2
Immortals
In Time
J. Edgar
Killer Elite
Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol
The Muppets
Puss in Boots
Real Steel
Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows
The Thing
Tower Heist

MMORPGs or how I learned to have friends (at least virtually).

2011-12-06T08:30:00.000-06:00

I often talk about Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) for short. As most of you that know me and have read any of my prior blogs, tweets or Facebook status postings know I have played them for many years now. Originally I started playing Ultima Online back many a year ago. Then I moved for a short time to Everquest though I never did get addicted to it.

I got into World of Warcraft just after launch. It was the first time I got addicted to a non-FPS Shooter game. As my lovely wife will tell you I was addicted to Counterstrike for a long, long time. WoW quickly replaced my FPS shooter games. Like many people I am sure to tell you there really wasn't any one thing that drew me into World of Warcraft. Like many people I played many hours of Warcraft 1, 2 and 3. So I knew the land of Azeroth and it's lore so it helped drew me in.

I don't have a lot of close friends that I hang out with. Most of my close friends live in Tennessee. Then there is the fact that Kim and I just honestly don't like getting out a lot. We are more of a stay at home type of family. So online gaming was and still is my main avenue to social interaction. I quickly found that in WoW I could become a part of a community of friends. People that I would never meet but that I could group up in a virtual world and have a good time with. So that was a strong pull for me as well.

Then of course I got on the roller coaster that is called MMO grinding. All games involve some type of grind. Grind is basically things you do repetitively almost without thought. MMOs are known for being extra grindy for couple reasons. First is that one of the way most MMO game makers make their money long term is from subscriptions. The longer it takes players go reach the end game (level cap) of the game, the more money they will be paying into said game company. Subscriptions usually run $15 a month.

Very cheap considering that many people spend well over 20 hours a week playing their main MMO. But when you take a company like Blizzard/Activision that has millions of players playing that $15 a month adds up. Of course there is still a ton of overhead so they are not making anywhere near $15 per player but still even if only a dollar of it was profit when you have 8-10 million players world wide that adds up to a nice chunk of change each month.

But tides are changing and more MMO publishers are moving their games to what is known as Free to Play. (F2P). Those games work by offering players to access restricted content for free. So where as with subscription based games a player pays a flat rate a month to access all the content in the game (as long as they bought any related expansions), Free to play games allow the players to play for free but often charge one time fees for content outside the normal free to play content. Also most free to play companies sell items in what are known as Cash Shops. Cash Shops are just virtual stores that sell virtual items.

One of the most common virtual items sold is XP potions. XP (or Experience Points) are what most games use to determine when a player character moves up in level. So free to play games can make lots of money by slowing user progress by making their games grindy (such as requiring one to kill multiple MOBS (monsters) over and over again to get XP. So players will often pay good money for potions to give them bonus XP while they play to speed up the process.

Also another big item is mounts. Mounts in MMOs are both prestige and movement boost items. Most MMOs offer mounts. Back years ago in World of Warcraft you had to reach level 40 before you got your first mount. When mounted it was a 60% speed boost. By the time you reached level 40 it would take a long time just to walk from quest hub to quest hub. So when you hit level 40 it was a big deal because you could get your first mount and speed up travel. The problem was that one had to be very frugal with their in game money to be able to afford a mount. So a lot of people ended up doing a money grind around that level to get enough to buy a mount.

Over time as Blizzard introduced more zones and a higher level cap in the game they started adjusting the level and cost of the mounts lower and lower.   At some point Blizzard realized that like many Free to Play MMOs that people would be willing to fork over real money to get mounts. Today almost every MMO, including those that are subscription based sell virtual items in a Cash Shop for real money.   These items help further boost the game publishers income greatly.   So no longer are you just getting $15 a month for a subscription fee but you are getting $15 a month plus sometimes hundreds of dollars per user extra.

Sadly many people will spend big bucks on online games to speed up the leveling process, for mounts, name changes, server transfers and other virtual goods and services. I know this because over the past six or so years I myself have spent hundreds of dollars buying virtual goods and services in game.   Keep in mind that the average age of an MMO gamer is 25-45 years of age.

A good portion of these people have more disposable income than they do time to play games. Therefore they are willing to pay money to keep up with their virtual friends who may have more time to play than they do. Or just to have extra bling to show off.    It is the virtual equal to upstaging your real life friends by getting a Corvette when they buy a nice car.

But back to my starting point, MMOs are addictive and as most things that are addictive they end up costing lots of money over the long haul. So these days the seemingly cheap $15 a month to play an online came can quickly turn into hundreds of dollars if you aren't careful. Even more so with so called "free to play" games. The games aren't truly free to play unless you don't have a job, or school and can spend countless hours doing large amounts of grind to keep up with those that can pay for XP potions, mounts and other boost.

So one of my reasons for leaving WoW was because I was spending far too much time and money in the game. What started as a $15 month hobby that was cheaper than my former (buy a new game every few weeks) over time turned into a much more expensive habit since I had a wife and child that I wanted to spend time with, and health problems that also kept me from playing as much as I wanted to so I would spend real life money to make up for my lack of time or ability to play so I could keep up with my virtual friends.

But even so after I left World of Warcraft I found myself missing the social interaction that I had while playing. So I ended up playing other MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online and RIFT. Soon the same patterns repeated but this time in games that I wasn't even overly invested in. So I ended up going back to play more single player games. And thus I come to the third reason after 1) Time and 2) Money that makes one want to reconsider playing MMOs..... that reason being heroics.

Many if not most people play video games for the same reason people read novels, watch TV and so forth... escapism. These entertainment outlets allow you to escape reality and put yourself into the shows of a hero. Let's face it most of us live pretty normal lives. We raise our kids, go to work, come home and the process repeats itself. Most of us long for make believe worlds were we are rich, heroes, handsome, famous and/or all of the above. Video games are one of the ways we can do this.

When I play a good single player video game I can imagine myself as the handsome, rich and famous protagonist. I escape my day to day life for one where I am more than just an average Joe. That is what books, tv and video games are good at right? You play a video game to imagine doing things that in the real world you couldn't ever do, or would never do. Usually you play to be a hero.

And thus is the next place that I find that even after years and years of playing MMOs as a major hobby where I find a flaw. In an MMO you can play a heroic part but around you, you see dozens, if not hundreds of other people doing the same things you are doing. You go from being the main character in a story to just one of a cast of thousands. So while the world feels more alive do to the natural randomness that a human controlling a virtual character adds, it removes part of the main reason a video gamer playes video games, to be unique and the hero.

So in the end at least for me the main element of playing MMOs over single player games is the social aspect not the 'virtual reality' or role playing aspect. If you have spent any time at all playing an MMO or other online game you know that it is hard to pretend when there are hundreds of kids and kid like adults that are using general chat for stuff like Chuck Norris jokes.

As by now you may have figured that other than just rambling I am trying to understand why I and so many others play MMOs. They are a huge time sink (which is what most hobbies are). They can be a huge money sink (but most hobbies can be as well). I think the answer is that they are a way for normally anti-social people like myself to have a social release. At least for me that is the way I see it. If I just want escapism I could play a single player video game. But to me it is a way to join up with other people from all parts of the country and the world and automatically have something in common, that being whatever MMO it is that we are playing at that time.

So the next time you laugh at someone spending time playing an Online Video Game realize that for some people it is our equivalent of a person going to a ball game and grabbing a beer with some buddies afterwards.

The Unfortunate Derailment of the Cain Train.

2011-12-05T09:45:00.000-06:00

I managed to step off the Cain Train a few weeks before it's derailment. I really liked Cain's ideas but as more and more women started coming forward about indiscretions I decided that there had to be some truth to it and that it was causing enough public doubt that it was going to bring down his campaign.

Of course the straw that ended up breaking his campaigns back was the woman that he had been supporting for over a decade without his wife's knowledge. No matter why he was giving the woman money the point was it was without his wife's knowledge. I don't care what the explanation on that was. If he held something that secret from his own wife what else may he be hiding from the American people?

I am sure that years ago the last thing he thought he would be doing is running for President and therefore wasn't worried about this type of stuff coming back to haunt him. In some ways it is good knowing that he hadn't spent his life planning on becoming President. For some reason to me people that spend their lives hoping that one day they will become the most powerful man or woman in the world scares me. But while I respect that he wasn't always power hungry I can't respect the fact that he lied to his wife and kept such a huge secret and someone that is willing to do that I feel can't be trusted to be the leader of the free world.

When it comes to experience and intelligence I have no doubt that he wouldn't have been a million times better of President than Obama. So it is with a sad heart to know he did these things in the past that cost him what could have been a very good shot at the White House.

In the end instead of ending up getting into this:

Instead he got into this:

Star Wars: The Old Republic (The next big thing?)

2011-12-03T21:38:00.001-06:00

If you are a gamer, Star Wars fan, or know someone that is then you most likely know that 5 days before Christmas this year a tiny little game called Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to be coming out. Yes the "tiny" part was sarcasm that even Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory could see through. Bioware, EA and LucasArts has put a lot of money on the line hoping that they finally have a true WoW Killer.

I have flip flopped in regards to getting the game more times than a career politician. During the Thanksgiving weekend beta I went from being back and forth so many times on if I should cancel my pre-order or not. While I still play MMOs like Rift, Lord of the Rings Online and Guild Wars I have been pretty casual on the genre since I quit World of Warcraft after a 5 year addiction to that game. But I love Star Wars lore, and MMOs and in the end I am going to keep my pre-order. The main reason being that I feel that I can play the game without getting pulled too much into the grouping aspect of the game. As many have said SWTOR is almost like a Massively Online Single Player RPG. During my time in beta I rarely chatted and for the most part disabled chat. I also never grouped a single time during about 15 hours of game time.

So in the end I feel like I can enjoy the story and other than maybe playing a couple alts after reaching level cap I believe I can set the game down and feel content. Thus brings back the problem with the game though. I think a lot of players are feeling the same way. Actually Bioware's "ground breaking" stories may in the long run keep SWTOR from maintaining it's player base. So while I will play at least the Trooper story line through and maybe the Bounty Hunter I have a feeling that come release of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning or at least by the time Guild Wars 2 come out that I as well as many other players will have moved on.

Will SWTOR kill WoW? No. As many have said only Blizzard can kill WoW. Will SWTOR hurt WoW? Sure for a few months until people reach level cap. The bigger question is will Guild Wars 2 come out just at the right time when the larger population grow tired of SWTOR and before they head back to WoW. I am sure that no one is watching both Guild Wars 2 more than Blizzard/Activision and Bioware/EA.

Skylanders: Spyros Adventure & Redakai TCG

2011-12-03T20:40:00.001-06:00

As everyone that knows me knows I am a die hard gamer. Mostly video games, but also board games, pen & paper RPGs, miniature RPGs and Collectible Trading Card Games. While I don't play barbies with my daughter I have finally gotten her hooked on playing games with me. Be that a good or bad thing depends on who you talk to. But to me it is something that I enjoy and I can enjoy with my daughter and I figure being able to find something that your child and you both enjoy is a good thing.

As most of you also know I am big into MMORPGS (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). Virtual gaming worlds. Most everyone has at least heard of World of Warcraft or Everquest. Those type of games. There are actually a good number of family friendly MMOs out there these days. Games like Wizard 101, Free Realms, and Marvel Super Hero Squad just to name a few. These are games that are designed for younger children and have protections in place such as very limited chat abilities and such. Also while they are designed for kids they are entertaining enough to enjoy with you kids.

Pretty much the first real game that Danielle got hooked on that I could enjoy with her was Wizard 101. We still play it off and on today. It mixes a kid friendly virtual world with a trading card type game. From there we started playing some of the other games mentioned above such as Marvel Super Hero Squad.

Back a few months ago I bought a starter set of Pokemon cards to learn to play with her. I figured that since I have always enjoyed TCGs like Magic: The Gathering and appreciate the strategy that they require of a person that Pokemon would be a good game to play with Dani. The downside is that Pokemon is still a year or two over her head strategy wise. She can play it but I have to hold her hand while doing it.

That being said I have been on the lookout for a game similar to MTG or Pokemon that is complex enough to require her to learn a rule set but yet friendly enjoy that she could do so easily and not get frustrated. I finally found such a game called Redakai. Pretty much you both start with a card representing a character, then take turns drawing cards to buff up yourself or whittle down your opponent. Over all it is very basic gaming (though there are more advance rules that older players can enjoy and one day she can as well). While it isn't Texas Hold'em, Bridge or Magic: The Gathering it still is an entertaining game that will give me quality time with her and lay the groundwork for future card gaming strategy.

The other thing that I bought was a game called Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. The game is based on the classic video game character Spyro. The unique thing about the game is that it mixes collectible miniatures with video games. It is very entertaining and easy for her to play with me. You get a starter package which includes a little USB device called a Portal that you can set the miniatures on. Once you sit them on the device the game places a character based on the miniature in a virtual world where you can run around and do puzzles and collect items and do gaming similar to stuff like Mario or Sonic. Even better is that each miniature has a memory chip in them so they each save whatever they gain direct on the miniature itself.

What is so neat about that you ask? Well the game is available on pretty much every gaming platform from PC, Mac, 3DS, PS3 and Xbox360. You can take your miniature to another friends house and regardless of what gaming system they use your character will work with their portal.

So for Christmas Danielle will be getting packs of Redakai cards and Skylander miniatures in addition to the 3DS that she wants and all the doll stuff. So Daddy can still have something in common with his little girl without playing Barbie. ;)

So what have I been up to?

2011-12-03T08:00:00.000-06:00

As it has been a while since I last really posted to a blog I thought I would update this with a bit on what I have been up to since I last did a real blog.

I still work for a great company that is a major bank data processor. Been with said company for nearing 6 years now. On the side I still help my parents from time to time in their greenhouse business as well as I still do some programming from time to time. Most of my programming is related to small things for work or temperature/climate sensor software for the family business.

Most of my spare time I spend watching TV with my wife of 13 years, Kim and our six year old daughter Danielle. In addition to that I spend a lot of my free time reading (mostly Scifi/Action/Fantasy and movie novelizations as well as a good deal of historic and political books). Also I still spend a good deal of time playing video games, mostly RPGs and MMORPGs. That being said I broke my World of Warcraft addiction early in 2011. I hadn't been playing as much due to health problems and just burn out so I finally moved on.

Since leaving World of Warcraft I have been playing Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars and RIFT mostly as far as MMOs go. I also play Everquest2 off and on. And later this month I will start playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. In addition to those MMOs I play Wizard 101 and Marvel Super Hero Squad with my daughter. Outside of MMOs this past year I played Dragon Age 2, Two Worlds 2, Dragon Saga 2, and TES: Skyrim.

Physically I have had an up and down year but still better than last year. Last year I spent around two months in the hospital due to a rare colon issue and a blood clot in my lungs. 2010 wasn't the best of years for me. At least 2011 has been better as my health has improved. I still have some colon issues but I am learning to live with the pain and at this point not a lot can be done unless I want to rest of my colon removed which I am not willing to do. In addition my blood sugar was hitting over 500 so I am now on insulin which has helped me feel better too. So over all it has been a better year.

Looking towards the next year I find myself wondering what it will hold. I am optimistic about 2012. Of course 2012 will be a crazy year if for no reason but all the end of the world nutjobs that think 2012 is something special. Of course with the way the nations and economies are going these days who knows I guess.

Myself I am just going to try to force myself into getting into better shape and start running again. As far as my main hobby gaming goes I figure that I will spend a lot of time playing SWTOR and then Kingdoms of Anmur: Reckoning when it comes out and then later in the year hopefully Guldwars 2 will come out.    That being said I plan on continuing to cut back on my over all gaming time. I need to spend my free time doing more productive stuff like programming and/or assisting my parent's in the family business when I am not at my day job.

All in all I am very hopeful that 2012 will be a good year. I am anxious about the election. As those of you that know me know I am a diehard conservative. I usually vote Republican but my first devotion is to individual freedom, capitalism and the Constitution. That being said I am sure I will be voting in the Primary and then in the general election.

As far as who I am voting for that remains somewhat to be seen.    Originally I was hoping that Huckabee would be running again but when that didn't happen I was glad to see Michelle Bachmann run. Then later on when Herman Cain came into the race I sided with him. But after all the negative news about his affairs and such I changed my mind. I am rather torn right now between Newt and Ron. I have many friends that love Ron Paul. I agree with the majority of what he stands for but I really don't think he will have a chance to win the Primary. He is looked at as a fringe candidate by the Media and thus doesn't get the coverage he needs.

As far as Newt I think he has the best chance of winning the election at this point. He is great at debating and has an established history. Of course my concerns with Newt is that he is too much a part of the establishment and not enough of the Tea Party conservative that the country needs.   However he is miles ahead of Mitt in my book.    If it comes down to voting between Mitt Romney and Obama I for the first time may not even vote.   Talk about the lessor of two evils.   I don't think either is fit to be President.    Well I say that but honestly Romney would be at least *a tiny bit* better than Obama. But not by much.

The sad thing is that I honestly believe that the next 5-10 years is going to either put our country back on it's feet to it's former glory or take us down a spiral road that leads us to a second rate nation.   I can't stress how important I think it is that we get a good leader in office that is willing to do what is needed. At this point I dare even care if it was a Democrat or Republican as long as they actually cared about the country.   At this point Obama (in my opinion) has done nothing to improve the country only lead us further down a hole.   Four more years under him will ruin the country for sure.   But then again if someone like Romney gets elected I think we will continue down a bad road, just a bit slower.

At this point we must have a leader that is willing to do what it takes for the good of the country, not for the good of his poll numbers and likeability.    We need a leader that doesn't make promises of "hope and change" but actually brings us back to what has made this country so great in the past.

At any rate so much for my rants and raves this posting. It feels good to be back blogging again. ;)

As always you can also catch my tweets at www.twitter.com/mlwhitt or friend me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mlwhitt.

Back to Blogging

2011-12-03T07:30:00.000-06:00

I haven't blogged in a long time. I post "blog" like comments on Facebook and short tweets on Twitter but I have missed the ability to actually post more than just a small blurb. So I am going to go back to the good old tried and true Blogger.com to start blogging again. As always my main webpage is www.michaelwhitt.com but I am going to let Blogger host the blog instead of hosting it on my personal server so when I change servers I don't have to worry about switch things around. At any rate welcome to my new blog.