zaterdag 17 december 2011

That's no ship, that's my home!

After questing on Coruscant for some time i finally reached the stage were i had no more quests left other than that final class quest, the one were i get my ship back (which is stolen from me at the start of the game).

I had tried that quest before but the end boss had been too tough for me to beat, but after finishing the last couple of heroic quests that were left and reaching level 16 i was finally able to beat him.

And it was an awesome sight to see those big doors slide open and get the first sight of my ship.
Screenshot_2011-12-17_03_56_03_421659

See my character walk up to it
Screenshot_2011-12-17_03_56_08_013921

And take one good look at the ship
Screenshot_2011-12-17_03_56_11_996149

And she is a beauty
Screenshot_2011-12-17_03_56_14_231277

Feels good to be back home
Screenshot_2011-12-17_03_57_18_070928

And we are off "to worlds unknown" :)
Screenshot_2011-12-17_03_57_24_793313

I really enjoyed this moment, it was a really nice scene and am glad i managed to get a couple of screenies.

Definatly feels good to be leaving Coruscant, and i have to say they didn't overdo it, it was just long enough, or i should say short enough to not get boring.
Personally i tend to get bored if i am questing in the same area for too long.

Anyways now it is off to Taris and see what that will bring me.
I have allready set foot on Taris and it looks awesome.

vrijdag 16 december 2011

SWTOR: Collectors Edition (pics)

swtorce01

Today i picked up my SWTOR Collectors Edition and i have to say it looks awesome, very well done.

swtorce02

swtorce03

swtorce04

donderdag 15 december 2011

The Galaxy Can Wait

swtor 2011-12-14 17-11-05-30

So far everything has gone really smooth, must say it's one of the smoothest launches i have experienced so far. Of course the "real" launch still has to come, but looking at how things went i am pretty confident there won't be many problems when the game fully launches.

So far i have been taking it easy, as i wanna enjoy the story en enviroment as i go along.
I allready played through the first 10 levels of the smuggler in the weekend beta so there is nothing new for me, but i am still enjoying it.
Levelling seems to be pretty fast, last night i only played about an hour and still got one more level on my character, so she is now level 5.

There will probably be plenty of rushing through content later when i will start levelling alts :)

Still i can't wait to finally get into the content i have not reached during beta, as it is kinda boring to go through content i played through just a little while ago, although that is of course completely my own fault for playing the class that i wanted to play at launch in the beta, i should have listened to my initial thoughts and not touch the smuggler during the beta than it would have all been new to me :)
But it's not that much of a problem, since i'll be at level 10 in no time, heading off to Coruscant and into new content.

swtor 2011-11-26 04-48-16-53

On a side note i really enjoy reading these "story notes" you get while loading into the game, as they kinda tell you what your character has been up to and give a little recap of what you're about to do :)

woensdag 14 december 2011

SWTOR: The Saga Begins

swtor 2011-12-13 22-16-01-47

I had almost given up on getting in on the early game access and was about ready to head off to bed, when i got the email in my inbox that told me "Your Saga Begins".
So needless to say i lost a little bit of sleep :)

My (first) character is a smuggler called Morenn, i am playing on the server "Sanctum of the Exalted" where i joined a guild with the folks of MultiPlaying called Delusions of Grandeur.

I didn't get much time ingame but still managed to get to level 4 on Morenn.

zaterdag 3 december 2011

Great, kid. Don't get cocky.

swtor 2011-11-26 15-03-14-94

Like many others i was also part of the beta test last weekend, along with probably everyone else, as i saw pretty much all of my Raptr friends playing SWTOR.

Eventhough i signed up for beta the day they opened signups i never got into the beta until last weekends test. I always had mixed feelings about it, on the one hand i really wanted to get into the beta (and help testing) but on the other hand i was kind of worried, that if i would get into the beta i might burn out on it, as i am pretty sure i would have been testing all the time.

So when the game launches, pretty much everything is new and fresh for me and all a new experience, although i could not resist rolling a smuggler in last weekends test, the smuggler has been the class that looked most interresting to me and i will definatly be rolling a smuggler on launch.

My first impressions of the game were mixed, initially it took me some time to get used to the (stylised, almost cartoon like) graphics, but once i got used to the graphics i really started enjoying myself.
The storyline for smuggler is definatly a cool story and i can't wait to check out the other classes.

Most of the quests i did were fun to do, although there are a couple of quests that will be very annoying on launch day, think of a few hundred people going for the same chests to loot an item while it takes some time before a chest respawns.
I was allready frustrated by this one quest in beta so i can only imagine what it will be like on launch: chest spawns, surrounded by 3-4 enemies, you go in fight the enemies so you can loot the chest (you can't loot while in combat), but while you are fighting someone else pops up and loots the chest, chest gone...

I only made it to level 12 on my character, so i don't know what the game will be like later on, but the story and questing up to that level was a lot of fun.

Apart from one graphical bug with an armor piece and the first server i created a character on going down within 10-15 mins i encountered no bugs or problems and gameplay was pretty smooth for me.
All in all i am pretty sure i will be having a lot of fun in SWTOR.

vrijdag 2 december 2011

Books, gotta get 'em all

For some reason Ever since i started playing Skyrim i developed an obsession with books.

From the start i wanted to collect them all, whenever i see books laying around i need to check whether i can take them or not.
And eventhough i am a member of The thieves guild i still don't like taking stuff from people without a good reason, well unless they are being jerks the moment i meet them, then i won't feel as bad taking their books :)

However there is one thing i rarely do and that's actually reading them, i think i only read a few books from start to end, usually i just flip a few pages and that's it.

So when i found this Blogpost i was somewhat excited.
Here you can download all of the Skyrim books in one Ebook, so you can read it on your iPhone, iPad or whatever device you use while on the go without having to play the game or waste your gaming time reading books :)

dinsdag 22 november 2011

Saints Row The Third

SaintsRowTheThird_DX11 2011-11-21 23-19-17-56

Saints Row 2 has always been one of my favourite games, so i was very excited for Saints Row The Third.
As with the first and second Saints Row it's all about (over the top) gang violence, with lots of humor added to the mix.
And Saints Row The Third delivers, so far i am having a blast, eventhough the game still has some of the same glitches/problems Saints Row 2 has, like npc's/cars dissapearing if you look the other way and i had a few times where the game simply "stopped  working" which is kind of annoying.
Although this time they definatly did a lot more work on the pc version, Saints Row 2 really was a console port and had a lot more problems because of that, plus the DLC that came out on the console never made it into the pc version.

I have always been a fan of (real) open world games and when it comes to that Saints Row is one of the best, as the world is not devided in seperate parts that you have to unlock (like GTA), you can straight away, do anything you like and go anywhere you like without having to stick to the main storyline.

The storyline really has a lot of hilarious story and over the top violence so if you're looking for a good time Saints Row really is a good choice, if you like that kind of stuff of course.

I have spend many hours playing Saints Row 2 (according to Raptr 189 hours) and have no doubt i will be spending many hours in Saints Row The Third.

zondag 20 november 2011

Infinite Rasa is no more.

The community effort to bring Tabula Rasa back is no more.
Apperantly NCSoft, who never cared for Tabula Rasa, cared enough to shut them down with a cease and desist order.

Personally i never really liked NCSoft (their TR team was awesome though) and after they shut down TR i started boycotting their products and stuff like this really pisses me off.

Unless they plan on bringing back Tabula Rasa (maybe as a free to play??) they should just back the F off and let the community have their fun playing the game, i mean what's the use of having a great game like this just laying around on a shelf, besides collecting dust?.
This all just sounds like a (bitter) little kid telling everyone "no you can't play with my toys, they're mine". Anyway, it was fun while it lasted, thanks Infinite Rasa team !

maandag 31 oktober 2011

Yes, i play that too!

It's one of those games that you are not likely to admit playing when talking to friends about what you play, i mean telling them you played Battlefield 3 is ok (they play it too) and nowadays saying you play World of Warcraft is not recieved that badly, at least not as bad as a few years ago.
One of those i do no talk about (much) is the one i have been playing for the last couple of days, The Sims 3..
It's one of those "guilty pleasure" games that i enjoy playing for a while and than forget about for some time.
Just a few days ago i bought the pets expansion and have been having fun with that, so far i have only had a few pets that i picked up out and about (like a rat and a bird) and one cat.
Have to say i really like how they have done the cat, a lot of fun to watch.

However yesterday i felt a little bad, my character is a vampire so she does not age, the cat however did and so the result was that Death visited my house to pick up the cat and shortly after that both the rat and the bird died too.

Screenshot-8
"Death claiming my cat, Zoe"

I have also been trying to advance with the band i formed but for some reason everytime i go to perform a show, one of my band members quits playing and has to leave for whatever reason, before the show is suppose to be over resulting in a failure, so very annoying.

The Sims has been one of those games, that over the years i have always had on my PC to waste those hours away, to me it has always been a very addictive game.

zondag 23 oktober 2011

For the memories!

tabula_rasa 2011-10-22 17-52-15-13

Last night i spend 3 hours just walking around on maps, currently there is nothing else working on this server (it's not even in alpha yet), and it's amazing i still remember were to go ater 3 years and all the memories coming back..
I would come across a spot and suddenly remember battles/fights that i had there or remember what happened the first time i got to or found a certain spot, fun moments or especially frustrating moments :)

I didn't even realise i had spent 3 hours just walking around, although it did feel kind of wierd walking around and not see any dropships dropping off enemy patrols, they always turned up anywhere you'd go :)
It also felt wierd to walk into bases that would always be attacked/defended by enemy forces and not see anyone there fighting for it (or any NPC's at all for that matter) and remember how much fun i had fighting for those bases.

Fun times!

dinsdag 18 oktober 2011

It never felt so good to be back!

tabula_rasa 2011-10-18 19-53-41-07

So far it feels great to be able to log back in to Tabula Rasa.
Of course i tried recreating my old character, Cynheiddon Endelienta :)

At the moment it doesn't seem like you can do much (at least i couldn't).
When i logged in i ended up in Divide and all i could do was walk around, which itself is awesome to be able to do.
I only saw one enemy NPC, which i wasn't able to attack nor did it attack me. I had no ammo so couldn't shoot. I didn't find any gates to move to another planet or any other NPC's to interact with, like vendors to buy ammo from.

Really can't wait to see what these guys can do and to see what features will be implemented.

And here's a little video of my first steps back in Tabula Rasa :)


Ah, it feels good!!

It's Tabula Rasa time, i mean Infinite Rasa!

infiniterasa

Just found this today, but it looks like there is some effort in bringing back Tabula Rasa!!
It's called Infinite Rasa and it's is a community driven effort to put a public server up for anyone who wants to play the game.

You can find the site here: http://test.infiniterasa.com/

Right now i am downloading the game (apperantly you need a specific build of TR) and will hopefully be able to tell you what's going on..
According to the site it's really alpha stage and very buggy and a lot of stuff doesn't work (yet).

I am definatly excited, just the idea of maybe playing TR again :)

Anyway i am really hoping this effort will be succesfull, so that people who never played TR have a chance to see how great a game TR was.

Anyway if you really liked Tabula Rasa or always wanted to check it out this might be your change.

vrijdag 7 oktober 2011

Manage this!

fm 2011-10-07 13-46-58-28

I just realised i have been ignoring my blog, a lot..
One of the main reasons is i have been gaming a lot, and not my usual games either.

Years ago one of my main "guilty pleasures" were manager games and i didn't care much what kind of management games, but the main ones i was playing back then were Football and Formula 1.
I can loose myself in these games for days/weeks.

At the moment i have been playing Football Manager 2011 like a madman and the funny thing is, i don't even like football (soccer), but the managing aspect makes up for that.
It's just a lot of fun trying to get a winning team together within the limitations you have. Negotiating with players or staff.
Putting together a team and than see how they do out on the field is really fun, especially if you start winning.

I started with these type of games in the late 90's when i played games like "Grand Prix Manager 2" a Formula 1 management game where you managed an F1 team, damn i don't even remember how much i played this but it must have been a lot, to this day i still think it's one of the best (F1) management games out there and i probably played all of these F1 management games back then.
Although my first experiences with these type of games was even longer ago, i remember going crazy on a Commodore 64 game called "Endzone" which was an American Football manager game published in 1990.

Somehow i always have periods when i find these games again and get the urge to play them.
Eventually i will probably get bored with this game and go back to my "regular" gaming but until than i am having lots of fun playing my "guilty pleasure" :)

zondag 21 augustus 2011

Just for old times' sake

I don't know what brought it on but lately i really wanna play Tabula Rasa again, but of course (or i should say unfortunately)i can't, that's the downside of an MMO that closes down.
I have always wished this game had an offline/singleplayer part to it like Hellgate London so that i could still occasionaly play it, but alas..

Anyway just for old times' sake i am going to post a couple of random screenshots :)










Damn i really miss this game...

zaterdag 13 augustus 2011

Why do we put up with it?

That is a question i asked myself several times.
Today was no exception, after playing Fallout New Vegas for about 10 minutes the game froze/crashed on me and i had to use the windows task manager to shut down the game.

After buying the latest DLC for Fallout NV, Old World Blues, that so far i have not been able to play cause the game doesn't want to coorporate for more than 10 minutes before crashing, i am really asking myself that question again.

To me that crashing is not unfamiliar and to those playing Fallout 3 or Oblivion, probably not that unfamiliar either.
Those games are very "crash happy", the first Bethesda game i ever played and fell in love with was Oblivion, and eventhough i really enjoy playing it, it is not without problems.
Some might say it's because you're using mods or player made addons, but in my experience even without those mods there are plenty of problems with the game.

One of the first (major) problems i encountered in Oblivion was the "famous" corrupted savegame, that basicly forced me to completely start over from scratch, all progress lost, and then i am talking about 20-30 hours worth of gameplay and that was even before i discovered mods.
I had that same problem with Fallout 3.

Fallout New Vegas, when i first launched it, it crashed after just 15 mins of playing, again without mods, what a (familiar) welcome to the game..

Why do i even put up with these problems?
Well because despite these problems, the games are freaking awesome. They are absolutely the top games when it comes to open world RPG's.
The customization of these games really extend the lifetime of these games, just look at what´s still going on for Oblivion.

For me Bethesda has been an absolute favourite when it came to RPG's/games, but also my major bane.
The times i have cursed them for making such unstable games are countless, yet i am willing to put up with it is because the games are so much fun.

However now with Skyrim coming i have my hopes up, that for once they go on a new road and bring us a stable, working game.
For me Skyrim is going to be the treshold, it will decide my future decisions on wether to buy Bethesda games, cause frankly i am fed up with problems with the games i love so much.
Why can´t they make a game that works and keeps working, so that i can enjoy these games without forcing myself to save every 5 minutes, without the constant worry of the game crashing (cause i know that´s going to happen sooner or later).

So far i have put up with it, because i love Oblivion, because i love Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, but enough is enough.

I have allready pre-purchased Skyrim on steam and i can´t wait to play it, but if they are using the same engine as they have been using for Oblivion/Fallout than i fear the worst and it will start all over again.

But i have made my decision, Skyrim or bust. If Skyrim is just as "crash happy" as Oblivion and Fallout it will be my last purchase of an Bethesda game, no matter how much i love them. I am just sick of the constant crashing and the constant fear of losing my game progress.

I mean it's not impossible, look at other great games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, i have yet to encounter a single problem, so it is quite possible to make stable games.

So Bethesda: Skyrim or bust!
This game is going to decide whether or not you will be getting any of my money in the future, because i am done playing games that should not have left the beta stage like that, because they are not finished when they are glitchy or crash/lock up without a clear reason.

zondag 7 augustus 2011

SWTOR: Well it's not a lightsaber but....


Most SWTOR fans probably allready heard/read about this, but i still wanted to make a post about this awesome Razer SWTOR gear.

Razer is releasing a keyboard, mouse, mousemat and headset all awesome looking IMHO.
I regret i recently got myself a new (Razer) keyboard and headphones, cause i definitely want this gear, the keyboard looks absolutely stunning, just check out this video of the keyboard:



I really like the idea of changing the "theme" of the gear depending on which side you are playing at the moment, this is really gonna help the immersion into the game.

I have yet to see it available, but i will be buying some of that gear.

zaterdag 6 augustus 2011

Thanks EA, for not making it complicated...

After recently activating my SWTOR CE code on my SWTOR account i actually found out i have several EA accounts, my SWTOR didn't show up on my games list on Origin along with my other games, SWTOR actually creates an EA account for the same login/password you use for SWTOR.
So i ended up with 2 accounts a SWTOR/EA account and my EA/BioWare/Origin "master" account, i linked all my BioWare stuff (Mass Effect,Dragon Age) up to my main EA account sometime ago, good thing i did or i would have had another EA account to keep track of.

However by going through some of my other EA games that didn't show up in Origin either i found that i actually have a third account used for a few other games (Sims, Spore). Great three different accounts/logins, to make it more complicated.

Initially i figured to just change emails on all those accounts to match, but unfortianetly that didn't work, everytime when i try to put in my main EA account email it just says email adress allready in use and won't allow me to change it. Not to mention that by going through the options to change email or find out more about my account i ended up on several different account (login) pages for the same account and that's without going to Origin.

Then i contacted SWTOR support to see if they could help me out in merging at least my SWTOR account together with my main EA account, but they send me on to EA customer service and said they couldn't really help me as my SWTOR account was linked to an EA account.

So next i contacted EA and all i got was a message that they undestood it was inconvenient to keep up with several different accounts but that due to technical reasons it was not possible to merge accounts together.
That's just great..

All i would need is for them to allow me to link the accounts to one and the same email adress on all the different logins, doesn't sound to difficult to me, but apperantly "technical reasons" prevent me from doing so.
I mean why even prevent people from using an "existing" email to an account, i really don't understand the reason behind it, i mean it should be my choice only wether or not i want to change my email adress to an existing one, all they need to send me is a confirmation link email asking if i am sure i want to change that email adress.

I had some hope that with the upcoming changes to accounts because of their new Origin accounts it was possible to merge them, so i could keep all my games together in the same Origin client/login, but it looks like EA likes to keep it simple and i am going to have to use different logins to keep track of my stuff. Thanks for the "effort" EA... thanks for keeping things easy.

EDIT: If you have the same issue of different accounts, let's flood EA CS with requests to merge accounts, let's get them to work on this as i am sure i am not the only one with this problem.

donderdag 4 augustus 2011

Mists of Pandaria... Really??

For some reason i can not see this as the next expansion.
A title for a patch or some added content maybe, but not for a full expansion.

To me it just doesn't fit, i mean look at the expansions so far (and imagine Chris Metzen with his Thrall voice mentioning them):
Burning Crusade
Wrath of the Lich King
Cataclysm


It just fits Warcraft but when i hear Mists of Pandoria i only hear a very small wispering voice mentioning it, it just doesn't sound "Warcraft'ish" to me, maybe for a patch but definatly not for a full expansion.
Heck maybe a new (panda) game but not Warcraft.

Maybe it's just me but i just can't see a new expansion with this title, it's probably some other project they are working on, or just something to through people off so their announcement at Blizzcon has more impact (if there is an announcement).

Have to say i am curious, but i think it's just Blizzard throwing out a smokescreen.

maandag 1 augustus 2011

If you can't beat 'em, Join 'em.



The latest news on Diablo 3's Real Money-Powered auction house is probably gonna raise some rage in people (i only just read about it, not checked the blogs yet).
Personally i think, why should it be so bad, people are buying/selling stuff anyway.
Look at WoW and how much spam and phising is going on, we all know how big the gold selling market is.
Whether you buy gold or not, a lot of people do, otherwise there would be so much gold spam going on, admit it the market is huge.

To me it only makes sense, if you can't beat 'em, join them!
This way Blizzard will have control over the market, sure gold sellers might be selling cheaper, but when Blizzard is giving you the option to buy from them instead of some shady gold seller, many people are going to buy from Blizzard, simply because is is more trustworthy, Blizzard is likely not going to steal your CC info.

Sure they are probably going to make a lot of money from this, but hey, personally i would rather see the creators of the game making money off of their own game than some chinese gold company.

Personally i think it was only a matter of time, the gold selling business is huge and despite efforts being made so far, no company has succeeded in banning it completely and probably never will.
I think they would be stupid not to try get the monopoly in their own game's gold/item selling market.
People who have the money and want to buy gold/items will buy them anyway, no matter if it's legal or not.

Whether you like it or not i do believe this is the furture of gaming, this is were we are heading, and be honest, who would you rather see making money off of the ingame market: the creators of the game themself or some shady gold selling company.

zondag 31 juli 2011

Failure is not an option

Why are so many people/bloggers claiming certain games will fail?
Why are there people who wish games to fail?

When Tabula Rasa shut down, there were people (bloggers) almost celebrating, claiming they knew it al along and the "i told you so's" where everywhere.
Personally i was heartbroken, as for me this was the game i loved playing.
Yet, all along it's (short) lifespan Tabula Rasa had many people who were yelling for failure.

What people don't seem to understand is that every game has people playing it and loving it, i am sure Auto Assault had it's dedicated players, The Matrix Online did and i am sure Star Wars Galaxies has it's share of dedicated players (i used to be one of them, yet i am sad to see it close).
Yet many people seem almost happy to see the games close down.

Is it because they are being childish, and they don't want other people to have fun with toys they don't like/enjoy?
To me it feels that way, i mean why would you care if GameX closes down or not.., you don't like it? Fine move on to the next game and let those who enjoy it play it.
And to me this goes for any/every game out there, even if i don't play it or like it, why would i wanna see it fail, see it close down? I don't play it, i don't care about it, so why should i wish for it to fail?

Recently i have seen some bloggers posting how they feel about WAR and wanting it to see closed down.
It just doesn't make sense to me, let other people have fun with what they enjoy.

I can't stop thinking that in some way even the blogging comunity might be partly to blame for this, i mean if there are a whole bunch of "top" bloggers writing about how much a game sucks and how big a of a failure a game is, readers are going to pick up on it, often people not even playing the game and that's gonna spread like wildfire, i mean look at the SOE/SWG witchhunt not too long ago, many people claiming SOE/SWG sucked had not even touched an SOE game, they just followed on the hype that was started.

I mean when you haven't played a game yourself yet and all you read on blogs/twitter/forums about it is stuff from people who are being negative, you might start to think a game sucks and not even try it, but the game could just be awesome and just what you were always looking for, but if you don't try it because, well one of those "famous" bloggers told you it sucked, you will never know.

In my opinion, even if a game has only a few thousand players, it's still worth having around, simply for the fact that people love/enjoy playing it.
There is no need to call for it's closure or failure, you don't like it, fine move on and let those that enjoy it play their game.
What can you possibly gain from a game shutting down? The pleasure of people not being able to play their game?, the pleasure of devs losing their jobs??

zaterdag 30 juli 2011

Commander Shepard Needs Our Help!

PAX_Ian_Travis_Barnard1
If you are a big fan of Mass Effect you probably heard of, or seen Holly Conrad around, she is the (awesome artist) female Shepard showing up on cons and, well anywhere on the web.
Check out some of her (and Crabcat's) awesome work here.

Normally i wouldn't post stuff like this but i really felt like making a post.

I follow her on twitter (@HollyConrad) and recently she tweeted the following:
twitterHolly01

And a couple of hours after that:
twitterHolly02

Yes Shepard needs your help, you can go to her page here and if you can spare some money donate and help her get back up and running (i did).
Even if you can't spare some money, you can still help by spreading the word!

Afterall we need Shepard (FemShep) to save us from the Reapers.

Screenshots of a lifetime

Like many gamers i am one of those that always tries to document my gaming adventures by taking lots of screenshots.
Today i had a look at my screenshots folder only to see that it has grown pretty large.
screenshots

Over 10 gigs worth of screenshots.
17504 screenshots in 123 folders (games), that's a lot of gaming..

This is the oldest screenshot i could find, dating back to 2005, before that i never kept screenshots for long.

Cantina Dantooine 03

Every now and then i like to go through my screenies folder and try to remember the moments i took them, always fun :)

vrijdag 29 juli 2011

Do Gamers Still Care About Raptr?

Ever since Raptr launched their new website, i have changed from loving Raptr to no longer interrested.
I used to love Raptr because of the great profile i could show off that basicly showed all of my gaming across all platforms, achievements, new games, whatever, it was there.
Now they have changed to a Facebook wannabe and are also starting to implement stuff they take from Twitter, it also reminds me a lot of Digg and who is using that nowadays?.

Ever since my beloved profile dissapeared i hardly look at my profile/Raptr anymore, and i use to visit my profile at least a couple of times a day, not only to check my own achievements/progress but also check my friends achievements/progress.

I definatly don't need another (gaming) Facebook.

I still keep the client running for one reason, logging my gaming hours.
Way back i imported my gaming hours from Xfire into Raptr and stopped using Xfire, so if i wanna keep tracking my hours i am gonna have to use Raptr for it since there is no way to import my hours back into Xfire.

I do wonder however, how many of the original people are still on Raptr, that have been there from the start, those that probably joined Raptr, just like me because of that awesome gaming profile.
How many of those people are still on there and actually like Raptr for what it has become, or how many are dissapointed like me in what Raptr is turning out to be.

Personally i really hope they are gonna dump that shit they are working on and give use back our old profiles. I know it's still posible to link to your old profile, but how long are they gonna keep that around??

Hot on Raptr, they say.. Well not much.

Patience My Young Goblin.

WoW 2011-07-29 03-48-43-99

My character has been pretty much parked at the same (camping) spot for almost a month now, trying to get the Time-Lost Proto Drake, but so far he is pretty illusive and i have not seen him (dead or alive).
Since i had mail in my mailbox that was about to expire i had to take a quick trip to K9 for a mailbox and while flying there i spotted a dragon flying over K9, unfortianatly it was not the TLPD but Vyragosa again, but decided to kill it anyway :)

After picking up my mail i decided to do a quick flyby over a few of the other spawns for rares, and guess what, within 8 minutes i spotted Skoll and tamed him.
Another cool looking spirit beast added to my stables.

Still hoping for some more luck and get that TLPD...

No really, it's the rain.

No really, it's the rain
I am not crying, i am Shepard dammit!!

Earlier this month i finished the Arrival DLC for Mass Effect 2, i had put it off because i didn't wanna finish the game, but not playing doesn't make sense either, does it?
It felt pretty short but a really cool story to link ME2 to ME3.

Still sad i finished the game, but also looking forward to ME3.

In other Mass Effect news, i have been reading the Mass Effect books, so far i have finished both Revalation and Ascension and they are really cool stories, Revelation is the prequel to ME1 and Ascension takes place between ME1 and ME2.
Next Mass Effect book on my list is Retribution, which i think, is taking place just before Mass Effect 3.

If you love Mass Effect (and it's lore) these books are definatly a must read.
I really hope BioWare will be continuing with the books long after ME3 comes out, as i am really enjoying the lore of Mass Effect.

It's also my wish for Mass Effect to be an open world RPG (like Oblivion), but yeah, not much chance of that happening is there?.. Unless.... yeah let's do it, make a Mass Effect MMO. There i said it!

woensdag 27 juli 2011

SWTOR CE pre-order kit (pics).

When i pre-ordered the collectors edition of Star Wars The Old Republic i got an email stating that i was going to get two shipments, well the first one has arrived.
DSCN0572

As you can see it's just a dvd box and inside you find a card with a pre-order code.
DSCN0573

And below are a few more pics/scans of the box art and pre-order code card.
cepreorder01
cepreorder02cepreorder03

Of course i removed the code, i am not stupid :)

And now begins the long wait for SWTOR to arrive..

zondag 24 juli 2011

SWTOR: Join the fight trailer


I guess you could call this the first (pre-order) launch video and i have to say i like it.
Really looking forward to playing this game.

Personally i still haven't decided what i will be playing although a few people have recommended me playing a smuggler, based on what i love to play in WoW.
So that would mean i will pick the Republic side, which is not a total surprise to me :)
Playing through Knights of the old republic i never went dark side, and i did try once, just to try playing it through on dark side, but in the end i was all light side and the most i got through the course of the game was being grey for a while.

So you will probaly find me on the republic side playing as a smuggler, although i might also play the other classes as well, i loved Tabula Rasa and i had a character in each class and liked playing them all, so who knows SWTOR might do the same for me, it is what i am hoping for, to have a game again that i just love to play no matter what class, and looking at this trailer makes me think all classes look cool, so who knows..

I am still trying not to get too excited or hyped about this game, but it's hard :)
My only fear is that i will become to hyped and expect too much from this game and that will only lead to dissapointment, as i am sure many people will be.
I don't think i have to name any games, most of you know, but those games got hyped soo much that people started to expect too much and they could simply not deliver.

So i am keeping expectations down, or at least try to, and just enjoy the journey of playing a new game.
Looking at these videos all i think is, i hope they're not like movie trailers where they show you the best few minutes from a movie while the rest of the movie sucks and dissapoints.

Anyway can't wait to get my hands on the SWTOR collectors edition and start playing the game...

donderdag 21 juli 2011

Begun the pre-order has

swtorpreorder
Yesterday's rumors floating around appeared to have been true and pre-orders for Star Wars The Old Republic have started.

Personally i am definatly getting the Collectors edition, the box looks really awesome.
I also wanted to get the Origin exclusive Digital Deluxe edition, just to be sure to get into the game ASAP in case the box is for some reason late, but Origns won't have it.
So far i have bought games on Origin without a credit card, but this pre-order requires a credit card, so i won't be getting it.

Funny cause i bought the Mass Effect Digital Deluxe pre-order through Origin with Paypal (or direct debit i am not sure), yet for SWTOR they don't..
Oh well i'll just wait for the box set than, and maybe buy the regular version on Steam (if it releases there).

Anyway the wait is over SWTOR is here, well kinda

dinsdag 19 juli 2011

That's not a bug, that's a feature!

tabula_rasa 2009-02-28 23-14-05-43

There has always been one thing in MMO's that anoy the heck out of me, i would be out exploring or doing some quest, you would come across a named mob or someone askes for your help killing a mob and you kill that mob.
Later you get a quest to kill that excact same (named) mob, i see this happen a lot in WoW, but it's not only WoW, i see it happen in most, if not all MMO's.
Eventhough i am not a hardcore roleplayer, i still feel it is wrong, afterall i allready killed that specific mob so why make me do it again??

There has been one MMO to date (that i played and loved) that got it right: Tabula Rasa!
There were several times where i would join some people in defeating a mob or i would be out exploring and encountered a mob and killed it, than later when i would be out questing again and get a quest to kill a mob i allready killed before, the quest would just auto complete, almost like the quest giver would say "ah i see you allready killed him, good job".

I would say that's one heck of a feature and i would love MMO developers to take note of that and implement it, afterall most MMO's log everything you do in game, in WoW for example the game knows if you kill a boss in a dungeon, it shows up in your armory feed, (heck they even know what you're looting) so to me it would only make sence that if i would recieve a quest later on to kill that same boss in a dungeon or the world the quest would complete, because you allready did "the job".

To me it's not a major thing but it still anoys the heck out of me, having to go back and kill the same mob again and like i said it makes no sence to me, maybe it's just the little roleplayer in me, but it just feels wrong.

zondag 10 juli 2011

Time-Lost Goblin

WoWScrnShot_070311_220522
Funny, how obsessed one can become.
When i started camping for the Time-Lost Proto Drake i had done enough "research" into it to know that it was not gonna be a quick one but now with over 2 weeks of camping a spawn spot for at least 4-5 hours a day (sometimes more) i start to feel like i wanna give up and start playing the game again, cause that's what it is starting to feel like, i am no longer playing the game.
Sure i have had a few spawns, i killed Vyragosa 3 times now, but the illusive TLPD is not showing itself.

It's not that i am absolutely bored, i mean, i would be if i would spent my time staring at the screen and seeing that same mountain side for hours on end, instead i started using the hours camping to listen to podcasts, reading books, i allready finished Warcraft: Lord of the Clans and Warcraft: The Last Guardian and now started reading The Shattering and i have been reading blogs and wrote some blogpost while camping (like this one) or just browsing the internet.

But on one hand i just wanna give up and go play the game again (or play some other game), but on the other hand i keep saying myself you allready invested so much time in this and giving up now would be stupid, i mean i know it's just a matter of time and some luck to be online when he spawns, i mean for all i know he could have spawned several times while i wasn't logged in. And then there is the fact that he has 4 spawn spots and i am covering one, with a 25% change of him spawning at me and i have a view of one other spawn spot that if no one else is there i could catch him flying around (how i got the third Vyragosa kill)

After spending so much time on this it would really feel like time wasted if i would stop now without getting him, but on the other side i have no idea how long i will still be camping for him, one of my guildies said he camped him for a month (i didn't ask how much time a day he camped,as i didn't wanna know), so i could be camping for another 2 weeks or maybe even longer.

I am pretty sure that once i do get him i will think of this as al worth it afterall he is a very rare spawn, but i am also thinking, i am never going to do this again. I don't want to waste time standing around doing nothing for days/weeks camping a spawn, i know there's a few more that give mounts, but after this one i am done :)

Now i know this is all starting to sound like an obsession, however i would rather say i am tenacious about getting him, i just don't wanna give up now.

Allright i am off camping, hoping for a quick spawn..

vrijdag 8 juli 2011

There is no game, but there is story!

Have to say i am amazed at the amount of entertaining content in the numerous podcasts about SWTOR, especially since there is really no game yet, well not officially.

With no game out to play all there is really to talk about is the info that BioWare gives us or just plain rumors floating out on the internets.

I am currently listening to quite a few SWTOR podcast to fill my SWTOR needs and here's a small list with links (in no particular order):
TOROcast
Darth Hater
Corellian Run Radio
Mos Eisley Radio
TORWars
TOR-Talk

So until the game actually comes out, or you are one of the lucky ones getting into the Beta, this will help ease the wait for SWTOR (or in my case make you even more excited).

maandag 4 juli 2011

Feeding the beast

WoWScrnShot_070411_023631
A lot of the talk about WoW hunters is often about their bond with their pets and i have often thought about that myself.
Way back when i started playing as a Beast Master Hunter, i really felt somekind of bond, as you had to feed your pet to keep it happy, sure as long as your pet was killing stuff he/she was fine and happy, but if you stood around for a while in town, your pet would become unhappy and you'd have to feed him and it felt great to see his mood go up to happy after feeding him.

Every pet had it's own kind of food and feeding him felt a lot like in real life, it always feels nice feeding your pets, especially giving them treats :)
Heck i even gave "treats" to my pet ingame every now and then by giving some extra food if i felt he deserved it, eventhough the extra food did absolutely nothing ingame.

At a certain point Blizzard changed this and with certain glyphs you no longer had to feed your pet, just keep him fighting and he'd be happy, if his happiness dropped for whatever reason you just hit Mend Pet and he'd be happy again.
Now you could still say this kinda gave you a bond with your pet, if you saw the mend pet ability as a "pet on the back" kind of thing. It still required some interaction with your pet.

With all of the changes now, you no longer have to do anything. Your pet will entertain itself and is always happy, even if you stand around doing nothing forever.

Now i don't say this is a problem but it also means there is no real interaction with you pet anymore, besides telling it to attack or to follow.
The pet has basicly become part of the hunter's gear or a spell, sure it still follows you around like a loyal pet, but no more interaction with your pet is required so now more than ever it feels like the pet is just an extension to the hunter's weapon and no longer the hunter's trusty sidekick and companion.
Sure occasionally you might have to hit mend pet when fighting mobs, but that happens very rarely.

Still every now and then i hit mend pet when it's not needed or give him some food, just as a way to say thanks to my pet for doing a good job.
I know it makes no sense, but it makes me feel good :)

zondag 3 juli 2011

Time-Lost Proto Drake, lost in time?

WoWScrnShot_070311_142722

After about 7 days of camping (at leat 5 hours a day) for the Time-Lost Proto Drake, or Time-Sink Proto Drake as most people call him, i finally had another spawn at my camping spot.
Unfortianatly it was not the TLPD but Vyragosa again.
Still scared the shit out of me as i was doing other stuff while keeping one eye on WoW in another window when suddenly a huge dragon popped up in my screen.

There's definatly a lot of time lost camping for him but on a positive note i have plenty of time catching up on my backlog of podcasts.

The count so far:
Vyragosa: 2
TLPD: 0

So the camping still continues..