Juxtaposed Life

Over this long weekend I had some extra gaming time, which then led to me commenting out loud (to no one) about the games I was playing as well as games I was reading about.  Talking to myself is bad enough, but not recording the conversation so I can listen to myself at a later date is just wasteful.

So, I decided it was time to once again put my thoughts on to virtual paper.

First up: My dead Xbox 360.

It went sort of like this:

• Sit down. Grab Controller. Turn on Xbox. Red flashing lights.  *sigh*
• Turn off.  Unplug. Cross fingers. Plug in. Turn on. Red flashing lights.  *Deep sigh*
• Turn off. Unplug all plugs.  Let sit.  Read support site.  *sigh* Plug back in. Turn on. Still red lights.  *tear for my wallet*
• Call nearby Best Buy. Out of stock of new 250gig model.  Target. Out of Stock.  Walmart. Out of stock.  3rd Gamestop called.  *yay* One left, but we close in 10 minutes.  Drive. Pick up. But no transfer cable. *sad*
• Start calls again. Yay. Best Buy has one. Drive across town. Pick up cable. Drive home.  *happy*
• At home. Unpack and set up new box. Shiny, quiet, lots of drive space.  *Very Happy*
• *wallet still sad*

Yes I could have repaired the old one, but it was going to cost $100+ and I would have still been left with a 1st gen 360 with a puny 20gig HD, and loud DVD drive.   I would have easily been able to wait if not for the upcoming Halo Reach, and Dead Rising 2.    Which leads to …

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MrAnderson EQ2, Final Fantasy, Free2Play, Games, LOTRO, Musings, XBox360 Dead Rising, EQ2, FFXIV, Free2Play, Games, Lotro, Musings, Xbox360

While I was thinking about a quick post about things I was playing, watching, listening to, all the talk about Lord of the Rings Online going F2P helped tipped my hand.   Thus here I am actually sitting down to type out words on the blog.

LOTRO F2P
I have not even started to read everything people have said about this move to F2p, but I see there is a lot of conversation about it.  From a quick glance there is some positive, some negative, some a bit crazy,  and a few of my friends believe its a sign of the future; F2P is the way “all” future MMOs will use.

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MrAnderson Free2Play, Games, LOTRO, Musings, World of Warcraft Free2Play, Games, Lotro, MMO, World of Warcraft

I thought a lot this week about my 2009 games of the year, as I saw gaming sites all over the internet posting their lists in various different formats.   I was going to skip the whole thing, because I did not want to be a “me too” poster.  Then I took a pause today and remembered this site is not for anyone else but me, and I a post about my thoughts on 2009′s game is something I would like to read later.  And thus I bring this post.

How this works is I am going to list games that I have memories of , along with a bit of commentary.  This is not a best of list by any means, just me thinking back on the year.  It’s also not in any particular order.

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MrAnderson Games, Musings Aion, Champions Online, EQ2, Free2Play, Games, Lotro, MMO, Runes of Magic, World of Warcraft

I am in a game funk; well I guess its more like an MMO funk.

The other night I was starring at my computer’s desktop, trying to decide which icon to click and none of the MMO icons appealed to me. My thought process was something like:

WoW? Nope. Other than raid night, I only log into World of Warcraft only long enough to do dailys,and fish a bit.

Lotro? Nope. I hit the burnout wall in Lotro; and when log in I have no desire to spend several hours doing things with no advancement.

CoH? Nope. City of Heroes was nice to visit last week, but my free time is over.  The the mission maps and combat are fairly repetive and dull when soloing, but group play is great and if I did have a regular set of friends playing with me I would have resubbed for a month.

Beta game? Nope. See there is a game I am beta testing; but… ahh never mind.  For full respect for the NDA and the hard working people working on the game, I am not going to say anything other than I don’t feel a strong force pulling me to play.

Then there the game that I believe is causing most of my MMO funk; Champions Online.

Yep a game that is not out yet, is the cause of my lack of MMO motivation.  I love the super hero genre, really enjoyed CoH, played a bit of the Champions PnP game as a kid, and have been interesting in Champions Online from the day it was announced. Since that day I have tried to temper my excitment with the fact that is was not going to be out for a very long time. Well a long time has passed, the release date is set (july 14th) and in the last week there has been a lot of press about the game. All of that has led to my brain shorting out a bit .  I simply find little reason to spend any time before Champions playing an MMO, since I know I will most likely be dropping whatever I was playing to play CO.

My options now are to shift my focus on some single player games, or somehow acquire a champions online beta key.  Since I have little influence on how Cryptic selects their beta players I am gald the latest Fallout 3 DLC was released this week, and that I finally installed Kings Bounty. At least this way if a CO beta key does not appear in my email box, I will at least have something to keep me busy.

MrAnderson Games Champions Online, Lotro, MMO, World of Warcraft

A sad fact; I have not logged into the Lotro in almost 5 days.

I say sad, because when I came back to the game I was so excited I was playing multiple characters at various times. Logging in several times a day, everyday. I knew when I started that it, even if I sometimes played with a group I would be soloing most of the time. And for six weeks things were fun. Then something happened.

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MrAnderson Games Burnout, Lotro, MMO, World of Warcraft

Since I have yet to actively work with scholar’s and jewelers I have had a bit of trouble identitfying which compents are used at which levels in those professions.  This lack of knowledge leads to confusion when trying to clean out my bags, so I did a bit of research today and put together a quick list of components for these to professions.  Posted here to so my friends I am playing with will also get some use from it.

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MrAnderson LOTRO Crafting, Lotro, MMO

My lotro minstrel is into his 30′s I figured it was time to update my list of crafting trophy items. I is posted after the break and updated last on 03/30/09.   Do note that I do know I don’t have them all, and they are not sorted very well, so I am again passing along some lorebook searches; Item level 1-20 and Item level 20-40

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MrAnderson LOTRO Crafting, Lotro, MMO

I am still having trouble focusing on a single thought to bring to my blog, but I want to stay in the habit of writing something.  Thus after putting it off for a couple of days here are some more random thoughts from Me:

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MrAnderson D&D, Design, LOTRO, World of Warcraft Design, GDC, Lotro, MMO, World of Warcraft