Updated History

Cheating a little here:

My current repertoire includes EverQuest II and The Secret World.

My main game right now is The Secret World. My lovely bride, Scooter, and I loved sunny Egypt after months in soggy Maine, but we're now traipsing through the snowy mountains of Transylvania. It's the smartest story and skill/ability system on the market, in my humble opinion. The recent updates "The Last Train to Cairo" and "A Dream to Kill" feature the most enthralling storylines I have followed in an MMO. I currently have a toon in Egypt's Scorched Desert, and two in Transylvania's Carpathian Fangs.

Between Christmas and New Years Eve, we decided to try something a little different, after looking into a couple F2p titles, we started playing EverQuest II. Our first two characters were OK, but we chose poorly on our starting area and tired quickly of the polar tundra around New Halas. Picking up again with a Ratonga Conjurer (me) and a Half-Elf Warden (Scooter) we restarted in Greater Feydark and are currently in the second zone of the continent, Butcherblock Mountains.

Guild Wars 2 is on the back burner. I had a blast in my recent stint as a Norn Mesmer—Greatsword Mage, FTW. GW2 is a ton of fun (the most important thing in a game), easy to jump into and play for a few minutes or a few hours. The game has a good skill/progression system, great graphics, plenty of lore, and just a touch of whimsy—without going overboard. I have a human Engineer at the max level of 80, and several other characters at lower levels.

I love Rift, playing regularly from the beta tests in January of 2011 through October of the same year, partnering in-game with my beloved Scooter. I cannot say enough great things about this game, or the developer, Trion Worlds. It's not perfect, but the polish and responsiveness of the game and company are things other devs should aspire to. For reasons not really clear even to me or Scooter, when our toons hit 50 (max level) the wind went out of our sails, and we really had no desire to continue playing the game. We recently got involved again, with House Stalwart, but discovered that something about the game causes us both eye strain.

I played Star Trek Online from just after its release in February of 2010 until May of 2011. I dipped in a toe again in June of 2012, checking out the Duty Officer system and other developments to the game. With the recent Legacy of Romulus expansion, I started up a new Romulan Captain and got my Main up to max level. Amongst all my MMO characters, I am still most attached to my STO crews in many ways.

I had a lot of fun with Star Wars: The Old Republic, from mid-December of 2011 into August of 2012 after pushing to achieve 50 (max level) and finish up the story on my Imperial Agent. I was initially very excited about the story-centric gameplay. The game has a lot going for it; but in the end, the way BioWare and EA have managed the game and community has left a bad taste in my mouth.

I played World of Warcraft from June of 2006, when a friend got me hooked, until October of 2011. I have two level-80+ characters, plus many more lower-level ones. I tried the Pandaren starting area in the Mists of Pandaria expansion (in October, 2012), but got a "been there, done that" feeling from the experience.

Neverwinter is a fun third person shooter/D&D hybrid, and I love my half-Orc Great Weapon Fighter. I didn't get very far, but it was a nice diversion.

I have tried Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, and Defiance, but found them not to my taste.

Please see also my character pages. Links above.

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The State of My Game. Or, Catching Up with Fellow Bloggers

Man! This week has been busy, and not in a good way. Well, I suppose it is good. I have a job, right? But the busy means I haven't been able to get as much done with the games I play. And tonight is another Webcast of Beyond the Veil with my friends from Holosuite Media. Xander, Antida, Feii, and Galactrix are a blast to hang out with on Thursday evenings and chat about The Secret World.

Fellow Mercy Gamers MMOGC and Syp have coordinated top five lists of the scariest and creepiest places in TSW. I wouldn't have minded hitching a ride on that blog train, but I need good screenshots that I just don't have on my office computer.

Belghast is having a blast with his cadre of Elite dungeoneers in TSW,  as well. After a months-long hiatus, they've been gearing up a friend for the Gatekeeper encounter and readying themselves for nightmares.

UPDATE 7Jun'13: After I posted this, I read Psychochild's post about the diminishing population of (MMO) bloggers. Happily, I was doing one of the things he suggested: cross linking to fellow bloggers.

Meanwhile, after a quick boost of fun in Neverwinter, I have picked up STO again with the launch of the Legacy of Romulus expansion. Last June, it seemed overwhelming when I jumped back in to try out the duty officer system and see how other things had changed. I guess I just needed another new Captain (or Centurion) to get used to the Space battles and such. In any event, I am having a blast again with Admiral Rowan Starblanket, and my new Rommy Commander, D'Valon tr'Soturi, a.k.a. Valon. It's also great seeing old friends in STO like Harbinger Zero, Scarybooster, and Talyn. I even managed to run a mission with Adventure Historian the other night.

I don't think I've fired up Neverwinter since getting back into STO. But I haven't given up on it yet, which is more than I can say for Defiance. I played for a couple hours a couple Saturdays ago, during Trion's free play weekend through Steam (for which I finally started a Steam account). It wasn't too hard, but the controls are clearly geared more for a console controller than a keyboard and mouse, even with my Nostromo. With TSW, STO, and Neverwinter all on my (theoretically) active game roster—and all with TPS reticle perspectives available—I don't have the energy or interest to adapt to another control system for a game I only find mildly interesting.

Of course, between those games and Real Life Busy-ness, my progress in TSW has slowed tremendously after a strong push through Egypt and the first two zones of Transylvania. And I don't even have a lore piece ready for tonight's webcast.

Winter is Coming. . . NOT! Neverwinter Impressions

On Tuesday, Cryptic's Neverwinter soft launch/open beta started. While I was busy doing other things, I broke down and downloaded the client. It took ffoorreevveerrrrrr, probably because everyone else was doing the same thing. No time to play on Tuesday (not that it matters, apparently the queues were horrendous). And due to webcasting live with the Beyond the Veil crew on a special night, I couldn't get on until about 8 p.m. last night. Sctrz, on the other hand, downloaded the client lickity-split during the maintenance time yesterday and logged in to try it out while I was webcasting. It was amusing to listen to her figuring out how to even move in the game, but she did blaze the trail and provide me pointers when I did finally get into the game.

Waaaaayyy back when I was a little kid, my older brother played AD&D, and DM'ed a couple of sessions for me and my other brother. I initially roled a dwarf (just like WoW, now that I think about it). Back then you rolled on stats before picking a class (unlike NW), and you were stuck with them, if you followed the rules. I think I picked a magic user of some kind, which as it turned out, dwarves couldn't do, so I switched to halfling.

One step of the creation process in NW involves a dice roll to see what your character's attributes will be. These are typical D&D categories: Strength, Constitution, Charisma, etc. If you don't like your rolled stats, you can re-roll. One reason for me to keep my current toon is that, on the first roll, she ended up with very high scores in all the important attributes for the cleric, plus a racial boost to one of them. I don't know whether I'll be able to manipulate those stats later (with additional points?). But I'm afraid if I re-roll when I re-role, I will not be so lucky the next time. [Edit: I found out from several commenters here and on G+ that the parameters are narrower than I thought, so I am leaning more toward re-roling Rowan now.]

Though I stuck with the tried-and-true role/class of Devoted Cleric, I thought I'd be a little different and roll a halfling. Thus, as Athene from the head of Zeus, was Rowan WildMarsh conceived and born. As might be expected from the folks who brought you Star Trek Online and Champions Online, the character creation and customization process is robust and detailed. I've been thinking I should re-role Rowan as a different race. I'm not sure I like her small size, next to the larger humans and half-humans in the game. She's also the only halfling I noticed the whole time I was in Neverwinter (the city) last night. Which could be either good or bad; I haven't decided. I think I made Rowan's boobs too big, though; not something I normally do, to be honest. Sctrz says she looks disproportionate, and I can't say I disagree. If there is a way to alter her appearance and I don't re-role completely, I think I will give her a reduction.

Sctrz re-roled as Zerena, a half-elf Control Wizard to accompany me as Rowan took her baby steps into the world of Neverwinter. Other people have covered the third-person shooter feel of the game controls. I'll just say that it took some getting used to, and I basically adjusted most of the combat keybinds to fit my habits on the Nostromo gaming pad and Logitech M570 mouse. Oh, and "B" is for BAGS!! Thanks to my WoW upbringing. I also wish I could zoom in/out to get better screencaps.

All in all, I had a lot of fun in Neverwinter, and will return with my lovely bride this evening. It was fun to have Sctrz be the knowledgeable one this time, a steely-eyed veteran of an hour and a half leading my wet-behind-the-ears newbie through the tutorial and the first little group instance before it was time for bed. And that . . . is another story.