woensdag 27 januari 2010

LOTRO: Turbine needs to kick codemasters in the ...!!

So, yeah i've been playing LOTRO again, and checking out the official websites and i have to say i am very dissapointed in codemasters.
Compare the EU website to the Turbine (US) website...., i think the EU website hasn't changed since launch (it still looks the same to me) and looking at all the extra features the US website has, i mean the US website actually has news...

I mean the US website actually has (helpfull) content and event stuff, while all the EU website says is "i am LOTRO, i am great. Buy me".

And than of course, in the US, they have the very cool "My LOTRO", which in EU is not comming, as apparently codemasters can't be bothered by actually giving something cool to their subscribers (including decent support).

So when is Turbine finally gonna kick codemasters, take over and give EU players what they deserve, i really feel like EU players are getting the short end of the stick here.

Really wish i could move my EU lifetime sub to the Turbine servers, but last time i checked this was not possible...

In the mean time i keep launching that cool looking LOTROHerald iPhone app and pushing the "myLOTRO" button in the hopes of some day looking at my character instead of only being able to see if the server is online.

vrijdag 22 januari 2010

Support your game by Subscribing or quit whining.

A recent comment made by Shawn on the Massively Speaking podcast (episode 84) about the Age of Conan character deleting thing, made me think. At first i really didn't care (and i actualy still don't) i am a paying subscriber so it doesn't affect me.
So what did Shawn say: "If you care that much about your character, you should probably subscribe again".

I couldn't agree more with that, if you do care that much you should subscribe and support the game.
In the past i have played many MMO's and to be honest i wouldn't care if they delete my characters, as i don't play them anymore and it is very unlickely i will.

I think a great example was Tabula Rasa (Shawn also mentioned this on the massively podcast), how many people didn't whine about it going away, yet never played it or made comments like ooh man i really wanted to play that game, well that game could have used your support and might have actually survived if many of those people subscribed to the game, afterall all these games are there to make money not to please you by keeping your stuff around forever.

So fact, if you like a game, support it by subscribing, otherwise don't whine about it.

< /rant>

donderdag 21 januari 2010

Now, what i do like about Star Trek Online

Star Trek Online 2010-01-17 17-20-15-44

I have always been against forced grouping in MMO's, however i have to say the way Star Trek Online does it, i actually like.
It's no like they force you to group up, but when you enter an instance to do a mission, you're automaticly teamed up with other players doing that same mission, so if no one else is doing that mission you're still flying solo, the same thing applies for the "open encounters" where you're sometimes pulled in, if enemy ships get close to you in sector space or when you innitiate contact.

Missions do seem to get tougher if there are more players in the instance (as in more enemys spawn), but i found it a lot of fun when there are a lot of allies with you, it gives a feeling of a fleet battle and especially if you coordinate the attacks it becomes a lot easier.

And the best thing about this grouping feature is you can turn "auto grouping" off if you want to fly solo.

So i really think they did the right thing, to automaticly group you up with other players, but i f you don't want to you can turn it off.

Finally i wrote something positive about Star Trek Online :)

Now for a bit more negative, i do seem to get a lot of computer lockups (and i do mean complete computer/Windows lockup/freezing) when i set my graphics to "recommended" or high, since i have set the graphics to the one below recommended (can't remember what it said) i have no more lockups, in space it still looks pretty good, but it looks awefull with ground combat.
Personally i think it has to do with a memory leak as i had similair experience with Age of Conan, whatever it is i do hope they're gonna fix it.
Right now i am slowly turning on the graphic setting one by one in the hope of finding the culprit..

woensdag 20 januari 2010

From space to Fallen Earth.

Fallen Earth 2010-01-20 02-26-29-39

So i got home from work all excited to play some Star Trek Online, fired it up started on a quest, finished the first part of a mission chain to shoot down some patrols in different systems, went on to the second system and..... yep booted out of the server, again the server went down without any notice, so i figured screw it and went on to have some fun in Fallen Earth instead.

At first i didn't do much, just went out in a random direction and started scavenging for some time, until i came close to a quest objective, so decided to go questing instead and after finishing a few quests around Oilville i reached level 10 on my main, Cynfull.

So in the end a fun evening gaming, although not what i had planned/hoped for, but then again i allready have a lifetime sub for Star Trek Online, so i'll probably be playing it more than enough, but if they don't start getting their stuff together soon i doubt i'll be helping out much in the beta, afterall launch day is approaching fast..

dinsdag 19 januari 2010

Hellgate: London once again

Hellgate_sp_dx9_x86 2008-10-25 07-49-21-48

Personally i always enjoyed Hellgate London (according to my Xfire i played around 95 hours of it, i was even in the beta), but somehow never got a subscription for it, once i wanted to get a sub for it they actually had stopped taking new subscriptions and of course shortly after that they shut it down.
Luckily the single player part of Hellgate London was still playable.

The recent news about Hellgate London returning to the west got my curiosity going, i am definatly going to follow this game to see what's gonna happen, to see what they're gonna do with it a i am really interrested in this game.

I really enjoy the setting in this game and think it's a great franchise, really hope they're gonna do things right this time and not screw it up.

Steam for the win!

I've been using Steam for quite some time now, and have to say i am really beginning to love it more and more.
I do sometimes hate the fact that steam can be quite expensive (i have bought games on steam that i actualy could have got cheaper in a store).

Recently i went on vacation, which usually means no gaming, however this time i brought my laptop with me, with steam installed.
I actually played quite a bit of Torchlight and currently steam offers the "steam cloud" with Torchlight, which basicly means all my game data (saved game) is stored online, so when i got home and fired up Torchlight on my PC, it instantly synched with steam and got the latest saved game, so i could continue where i left the game, without having to move saved game files around.

Another thing i really enjoyed just in the last couple of days, was the fact that i installed Windows 7 on my gaming rig, which meant losing a lot of games that were installed on Windows XP, but first thing i did when i got things running was, installing steam and it showed all the games i owned and i could immediatly start installing them from steam, just f'ing awesome, no messing around with installation discs, no downloading patches, nothing. Done in no time, just wish i had more of my games on steam and i truly wish there was a way to have all your saved game files "in the cloud" as i did loose quite a few saved games..

Damn why is steam so awesome..

maandag 18 januari 2010

Has the Fallen Earth Beta spoiled us?

STO GameClient 2010-01-16 21-10-48-27

I was in the Fallen Earth beta some time ago, and what i remember from it was, the Devs/GM's where always present.
You could see them in chat making announcements, helping people with problems etc.
In short: they were "on it".

I am currently in the Star Trek Online beta and i have to say i am experiencing the complete opposite, not noticing any GM presence at all.
Last night i was playing and suddenly the server went down, no word whatsoever, ok might have been a server crash.
So i went to the forums as i wanted to know what was going on, well the were not "on it" so to speak, it took a long time before a GM actually posted that the server was down, and still the message was hard to find, as everyone was on the forums replying to older posts, so the announcment actually got burried, i eventually found it because i noticed the date at the start of the title of the post.

So yeah, i do think communication with the beta players could be a lot better, afterall they are testing your game.
If the game would be ready for launch, i might understand but from what i am experiencing, the game is far from ready to be launched.

Am i expecting too much, when i say a dev/gm should be on at all time, especially during Beta?

Does this show what kind of support they are going to give when the game goes live? I Hope not.

vrijdag 15 januari 2010

Set a course to worlds unknown and don't forget the phasers

Star Trek Online

I just pre ordered Star Trek Online and of course got immediate access to the beta, and i have to say i am impressed.
So far i am still in the tutorial, but it is a lot of fun.
In fact so much fun that i decided to go ahead and get the lifetime sub for this game, despite having a couple of computer lockups, but that was not STO causing it but somekind of DCOM errors cause by some Nvidia shit, i also get them when i leave my computer on idle for some time.
Been messing around to get that fixed, but yeah, messing around with the registry is no fun...

Well anyways, beam me up!!

GameClient 2010-01-15 15-59-34-62

Want some podcast ideas?

Haven't done one in a long time, in fact i think i haven't done one at all last year, so time for a fresh one.
You might like it (or not).
Anyway here's a listing of the podcasts that i am currently subscribed to/listen to (Note: there's a couple in there that haven't seen any episodes in a long time, but i keep 'em just in case).

The Podcasts i listen to and recommend:

The Addicted Gamer
AppSlappy
Brent's Other Podcast
Buzz Out Loud
CAGcast
CO-OP
The Craft of War
Current Geek
Diary of a Cartoonist
Diggnation
ExtraLife Radio
Film Sack
Fourcast Podcast
Gadgettes
The Instance
Massively Speaking
The Online Gamer's Anthology
Project Lore
Roz Rows The Pacific
Shut Up. We're Talking
SOE Podcast
Star Wars Galaxies with Yivvits and Mrbubble
Through the Aftermath
Tiki Bar TV
VirginWorlds

This about sums up my current list of podcasts, maybe you'll find something new :)

donderdag 14 januari 2010

LOTRO gives a useless mount.

lotroclient 2009-12-18 14-13-31-14

Got back into a little Lord of the Rings Online today, i remembered i actually bought/pre ordered the new expansion, since i have a lifetime sub i should probably play more..
Anyway, i also remembered they promised a mount with the pre order and sure enough it was there in my inventory: a "Dusky Nimblefoot Goat", so i got all exited, finally a mount to move around on!

Guess again, won't happen, i can learn the skill, but i can not ride it until i acquire the "Riding trait" that you can obtain at level 35, and since my character is currently level 25... Major dissapointment!
Thanks Turbine...

Why do i even bother blogging??

Sometimes i wonder why i even blog and often the thought of just giving up crosses my mind.
Looking at the traffic my blog gets, i see that probably 99.9% of the traffic is of the malicious kind, ranging from simple comment spam to trying to mess with the blogging software/server by trying all kinds of shit.
Luckily i have a lot of stuff installed on this blog that catches almost everything befor they can do harm.

But this kind of shit is exactly why i quit my previous blog several years ago (this is actually my second blog), i just got tired of all those fuckers messing with the blogging software and the spammers, it was just too much...

And by looking at the current traffic on my blog i really do wonder why i still continue doing this, as it just depresses me....

I don't want to let them win, but yeah....

woensdag 13 januari 2010

On my way for take off.

WoW 2010-01-10 01-22-18-71

Another game i have been playing quite a bit of lately is World of Warcraft, really still enjoying it a lot and currently my main, Cynheiddon is level 51, so "only" 9 more levels to go until i finally get my flying mount.

Enjoying the view on the "race to 80".

AgeOfConan 2010-01-11 12-39-05-79

Been playing quite a bit of Age of Conan and racing through levels at the moment.
Right now my main, Morenn a barbarian, is level 60. So far i am still having lots of fun.
Currently i am going through Thunder River, that, as you can see, has some really beautifull scenery.

dinsdag 5 januari 2010

By Crom!, back to Hyboria

AgeOfConan 2010-01-05 03-08-37-43

I've been really getting back into Age of Conan, having a lot of fun.
The game definatly feels improved and runs a lot better than before.
Everytime i get back into AoC, i notice how much i enjoy the combat system and how awesome it looks.

Just to make sure i keep playing it (i hope) i have subbed for an entire year and also pre-ordered the expension..
So far i've been busy doing quests and leveling my main, who is currently lvl 56.

vrijdag 1 januari 2010

From beginning to the end

Tabula Rasa Forever!!

Sometimes i really enjoy going through my screenshots folders, and i really enjoy looking at Tabula Rasa, i still miss this game..
Anyway i decided to share my TR screenshots and upload them all to AFS Soldiers, it may take some time but i will try to put them all up, i am not going to look and select, just upload all of them good or bad.

I added them to an album called "From beginning to the end", basicly the screenshots start in Beta and go all the way through to the server shutdown.

So if you wanna take a look, http://www.afs-soldiers.com/photo/photo/listForContributor?screenName=2o6m8k7q2tnbq.