So I’ve been quiet and have not updated in a while. Mostly I’ve been getting used to working 40 hours a week, every week again. I have to learn how to manage my free time better. Which should be something I can do. I only work eight hours a day now. So it should be pretty simple getting a schedule together for my time not at work.

I’m slowly losing interest in Dark Age of Camelot. I hate to say it. The grind is just become unbearable. All I need is eight bubs of experience. But the energy just isn’t there. I hate to bring up World of Warcraft again. But it just sounds like the grind won’t be as bad. The way it sounds so far is that quests will be a big part of the game. Just go and take a look at the WoW Quest page, and tell me you can’t see the difference in WoW and how other mmorpg’s handle quests. Just look at these screen shots below:

Perhaps downloading the alpha leak was a bad idea. Not because it’s leaked software (and yeah that’s bad too). Just wandering the world these guys have made makes me want the game more than I ever did. For me it seems the perfect game of this genre. The beta test is supposed to start soon, at least the sign up for the beta will start soon. I would give my left nut to get into the beta for World of Warcraft.

I couldn’t help it. I had to do it. I needed to know. I had to know. I grabbed the World of Warcraft leaked alpha via BitTorrent. The almost 2 gigs of data took almost a day and a half. I had to extract it a few times just to get all the files out un corrupted. At one point I had only 30 mb’s left on my 80 gig hard drive.

Of course the question one may ask is why download this alpha leak? You can’t play the game on Blizzard’s servers. So you have a worthless directory that weighs in at 2 gigs. And this would be rue if it wasn’t for some creative people on the internet. And before you get all excited, you can only walk around the world. Thats it, nothing else. But man what a world.

My biggest worry and the main reason I even got this alpha leak was to see if it would run on my current pc. And it does I’m happy to say. Did I mention the beautiful world? I personally really like the look of the world. It’s just so more epic feeling than the other mmorpg’s out there.

But keep in mind this leak does not reflect on the gameplay of the game Blizzard is making. I have faith in them and I am even more convinced this game is the mmorpg for me. But as with all things, only time will tell. Also keep in mind I will not help you get the alpha leak. I won’t tell you where to get the “sandbox” hack. I did it myself and so can you if you try.

It doesn’t happen often. Usually I hate it. But tonight was different. I actually had fun RvRing in Dark Age of Camelot. For those of you who don’t play Camelot or mmorpg’s in general, RvR is realm versus realm. Which is what Camelot calls PvP (player versus player). RvR in general is a chaotic mess in Camelot. It is unorganized and the side with the most numbers wins. It’s called zerging in the game. A term coined from the game Starcraft. There are no tactics involved to the RvR portion of the game.

Below are a few screen shots showing off my kill spams. You have to look in the upper text window to see it. It just says “you killed so and so”, to others it says who did the killing.

In the group were two fellow guildies, Dderapapp and Etnoan. When I do play I enjoy the company of my guildmates. Dderapapp is the leader of the guild and a guy that has been playing as long as me. Except he has the level 50’s to show for the time he’s spent playing the game. Etnoan is funny guy and will probably soon hit 50, way before I do.

One of these days I do plan on getting at least one character to 50. It’s kind of become my goal in life, at least my life in this mmorpg. You could say it’s my New Year’s resolution. One resolution I would like to fulfill. I’ve added my in game experience bar under my character picture on my website (on the right hand side down towards the bottom) to remind myself just how far I have to go.

So I picked up X²-The Threat even though I heard it had clunky controls and buggy gameplay. X² is a sequel to the game X: Beyond the Frontier and both games were made by german developers Egosoft. X² is a game kinda like Elite. Except it has all the modern 3D graphics one would expect from todays games. And it lacks something I just can’t put into words.

I can tell you it is complicated. Trade, Fight, Build, Think are fancy buzzwords the developers are attaching to this title. The learning curve is quite high and the manual does a piss poor job explaining all of the options these buzzwords claim. The one thing I can say that is cool about the game is the fact you can buy capital ships. There is something really cool about flying around space in a slow moving capital ship that can blast the shit out of just about anything you come across.

Firaxis is remaking the classic Sid Meier’s Pirates game. They have a Press Release and a teaser image. Here is the details from the Press Release:

In Pirates! you take the leading role of a Pirate Captain in the 17th century Caribbean amassing fortune and fame in an attempt to seize your rightful place as one of the most revered (and feared!) pirates in history. Test your skills as a sea captain exploring the high seas and exotic ports in a richly detailed 3D world. Overtake the enemy and seize valuable booty. Exchange plank-shattering broadsides in fierce naval battles, and engage in duels with worthy opposing captains.

As your reputation and skills grow, so will the size and quality of your crew, and your ability to take on larger enemy ships, raid and plunder heavily fortified ports, and locate ancient treasure. There’s a whole cast of interesting and dangerous characters to meet, mysteries to solve, exotic island destinations to discover, and powerful alliances to forge!

The new Pirates! carries on with the great gameplay and design simplicity tradition of the award-winning original while adding more challenging and exciting battle options, and deeper and more varied role-playing experience, including multiple paths to a wealthy, happy retirement. This and many other features and additions make this gaming classic one of the most highly anticipated releases of this century!

After watching Pirates Of The Caribbean I’m in the mood for a good pirate game. With any luck this will be a good game.

Well I bought the pc version of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (SW:KOTOR for short) and I admit I was nervous when I first ran the game. System Requirements are close to what I have, but I was worried because sometimes I think the required system requirements are a fairy tale that the developers invent to get one to buy a game. I’m happy to say in the thirty or so minutes I played the pc version of KOTOR I had no problems at all. I got all the graphical options on high and my screen resolution is 1024×768. After I play some more I’ll put up some screens shots.

*Updated with four screen shots (1024×768).

So the new Dark Age of Camelot expansion has been out for a bit. I finally picked it up the other day. Trials of Atlantisadds some new stuff to the two year old game. The biggest question of course is it worth the 30 bucks? The answer to that question all depends on your point of view. Before I get into that, take a look at these eight screen shots (1024×768):

Now first off the name alone should tell you what kind of content has been added. Water my man in case your slow at these kind of things. To some it may seem like a cheap gimmick. Personally I like it.

Last night was the first time I actually got scared playing the game. When I saw that big fish in screens 3&4 I just about jumped out of my seat. I was afraid for my character. I had a similar reaction to seeing my first shark in the game. And you can’t discount that kind of thing. Of course I’ve always been into the whole underwater thing. I watched Sea Hunt religiously when I was a little kid.

Other new features include in no particular order own-able boats, master levels, new zones, pretty new graphics, uber items, and of course sharks. I am a little disappointed that you can’t play pirate. I mean it’s kind of a let down with all this water and boat theme they got going on.

So is it worth buying? Yes and no. I’m not exactly a diehard player of the game. In fact I can get pretty bored with it fast. So this new content gives me a reason to play. To some others it may seem like fluff. But that’s up to you to decide.