So I’ve been listening to these DnD podcasts were the Penny Arcade guys play the new Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. The first episode is here and the rest you can find at the D&D podcast page. There is two series now of these guys playing the 4th Edition and it sounds like they are having a lot of fun. Slowly over the time I’ve listened to them all the desire to play 4E DnD has slowly been building up.

I’ve ended up blowing a hundred bucks or so on the 3 core books the Player’s Handbook, the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and the Monster Manual last saturday. Since then I’ve also picked up a Dungeon Master’s Screen and a Level 1-3 adventure called Keep on the Shadowfell. I have dice from the last time I bought some DnD stuff when the 3rd Edition came out. Of course you can’t do anything with all of this without people to play with.

So I of course started to talk it up to my 8 year old nephew. Who seemed to take a liking to how combat is played using the dice. His sister will play because she like doing stuff with us. I’m using the angle that she can be a Elf Princess or something to hook her in. Then it’s just having to convince the Newb to play. I had seemed to have him in up until the point I explained all the at will powers. The Newb played the old stuff back in high school and some of these new rules are hard for him to accept. I think it makes the game fun. I hope.

Saturday I will unleash it all on them. After getting a few more suckers to volunteer. It all seems fitting for us all to play on saturday since it is the official Worldwide D&D Game Day saturday. It’s celebrating the release of the Player’s Handbook 2. This is going to be my first time running a game so I’m a little nervous. With any luck everyone will have a good time.

Minor edit to add the new poll to the post:

Do you play pen and paper role playing games?

• Yes
• No

View Results

 Loading ...

WoW is cancelled. I’m back to WaR. Gawain sent me many screenshots of his guys and talked just too much about Warhammer Online’s awesome RvR. So I rolled on the stupid gay role playing server G plays on as a Goblin Squig Herder:

It’s my first time playing a ranged type character. But it does have a pet. It is a nice change of pace after being a melee guy for so long.

So while doing some X-Mas shopping I picked up Lich King. I’m weak. I rolled a Death Knight called DarkTurk.

Pretty cool class so far. You start at level 55 and the class has some cool features. It’s a tank and he can get a pet. Which are some of my favorite things in mmo’s.

So I preordered Left 4 Dead so I could get the demo early. The game is a survival horror shooter that plays out like you’re in a zombie movie. The loading screen even shows a movie poster and displays the players name as if they were the movie stars playing the rolls in the movie. After a short cinematic you’re left on the roof of an apartment building and the demo begins.

It’s a hell of a lot a fun when you play with other people. But the bots do hold their own as well. The demo is 2 levels and the full game is out on the 18th.

The end of October has too many games coming out and not enough time to play them all.

First on my list of was Fable 2. It game out on the 21st of this month. Great game. One of the ultimate rpg’s to just fuck around in. It has a great story as well. Coop is kinda shitty. It only lets one character be the hero with the dog. The second player is a generic henchman who can select a save game to funnel all gold and xp into. The camera can not be moved manually with the right stick. It can only be switched around by using the left button on the 360 controller. This is the same no matter if it’s local coop or online coop.

Dead Space came out of now where. It is a survival horror game with a sci-fi setting. I can only describe it as an Alien/The Thing/Event Horizon inspired game that just blew me away in it’s awesomeness. The game is really creepy as fuck that really takes dismemberment to new levels as you fight your way through many nasty necromorph’s. I can’t recommend this one enough. And I don’t generally get into survival horror games.

Now on the 28th of this month Fallout 3 hits. In preparation I bought Fallout and Fallout 2 off of GOG.com and have to quicly run through those again. Thanks to a handy High Resolution Patch for both games I can play those at higher resolutions than when the games first came out. Fallout 3 is developed by the guys that made Oblivion and hopefully it doesn’t end up feeling like an Oblivion mod.

Warhammer Online is the one game I’ve been ignoring. It doesn’t look good for it. With Dead Space, Fable 2 , and Fallout 3 I just don’t have time to play. I may cancel if I get really into the games of October.

So I picked up Warhammer Online even though I thought the game was just WoW and DAoC bastard child. But I got to admit I’m enjoying it. It is a relative of Dark Age of Camelot just because the same developers (Mythic) made it. It does at times remind me of Camelot a bit. The weird thing is I’m really enjoying the hell out of the RvR.

I’ve got two characters on two different servers. Like DAoC you can not have characters of the opposite sides on the same server. My Destruction character is a Chaos Chosen which reminds me of a DAoC Pally in the way it can twist his buffs. Then I have an Order Empire War Priest who also reminds me of the DAoC Friar.

As I’ve said I’m really enjoying the RvR. Which historically for me has always been something I just don’t get into. Which is odd I admit since my first mmorpg was Camelot. Warhammer borrows lots of things from both WoW and DAoC. Most of the RvR I’ve been doing is on a WoW type Battlegrounds. It plays a bit like CTF of King of the Hill in shooters. The servers I’m on are called Core and they only allow RvR in designated areas and of course if you voluntarily flag yourself for RvR.

Participating in RvR rewards you both standard experience and you also get renown. Renown is like DAoC realm ranks and works just about the same. Each renown rank gives you a point with which you can use to buy renown abilities. And when you finish a match it of course shows the statistics so one can brag about how good they did or cry about how much they suck.

On the PvE side of things Warhammer has Public Quests. These quests are tied to a specific area in a zone and it has a set of objectives anyone in that area can help complete. When a Public Quest is finished players roll for the chest of loot that is dropped by the boss. In addition everyone who helped with the objectives earns influence towards the specific chapter of the overall story that the Public Quest ties into.

In addition to the loot dropped by killing the boss of the quest there are three ranks of rewards a player can receive for getting influence in each chapter of the games story. There are three tiers to the rewards. First you can choose from four different potions, then there is two pieces of magic armor/weapons, and finally there are two even better weapons or armor to chose from.

The other mechanic of the Public Quest (and the game in general) is one can run into the area and help fulfill the objectives of the quest and not worry about being in a group. Or if you want a group the game let’s players have their group be open so anyone can join and help out. Admitedly I’ve not played around with groups yet as I am a solo player most of the time. In fact the game will let you know when you go into an area that has open groups.

All in all Warhammer Online feels more like a finished game than say Age of Conan. Which is important for a mmo even more than a single player game. And as I’ve said it is fun. To me the fun factor is the biggest factor in any game I play. So if your looking for a new mmo give Warhammer a try.

So Spore huh.

The above screenshot is just one example why I get in trouble when the newphew hangs out playing games with me. For example. When the Diablo 3 footage was released I reinstalled Diablo 2. I named one of my characters Asshole. Me and the nephew played the game and he sees my character with the rude name. A few weeks later the guy who lives in back of the Newb started playing Diablo 2 again. The nephew was over there and see the guy playing it and asks why his character wasn’t named Asshole. The neighbor of course tells the Newb and the Nephew gets grounded for a week. I’m told no more naughty language around the kid.

Back to Spore. My Spore page can be found here. So far I’m enjoying the game. I’m on the tribal phase. Waiting to get to space and make my own USS Enterprise spaceship.