Because the internet needs another gaming blog.

A number of years back I started reading the Wheel of Time series of books by Robert Jordan.  I absolutely loved the first book, Eye of the World, and instantly became drawn into the world and the promise of the story to come.

My excitement for the series continued through books two and three, but started to wane a little by the time I reached the fourth book.  The world itself, and the over-arching story was very intriguing, but the books started taking longer and longer to get to their point.  It took an epic battle of endurance to power my way through the fifth book, The Fires of Heaven; a battle which, as it would turn out, paled in comparison to the one it took to get through the sixth book, Lord of Chaos – which many people consider to be one of the good ones.

I ended up taking a break halfway through that sixth book, putting it up on the shelf until returning to it over a year later to finally finish it.  That’s where I am today.  I look over towards my book shelf and I see books seven through eleven (with a twelfth – made up of three separate volumes no less – on the way) staring back at me and I wonder if it’s even worth it to continue.

I’ve been away from the series long enough at this point that while I remember the major plot, many of the details have been lost.  I will never go back and re-read the first six books because, quite frankly, there isn’t enough money that you could possibly pay me to do so.  If I ever return to the series I’ll just find some summaries online in order to get caught up, but it’ll still feel like something is missing.  I’ve bought all the books, and I like the story enough to want to know what happens, but I’m not really sure if I want to continue.  It doesn’t help to see people saying things in forums like, “books seven through ten are the worst in the series and are mind-numbingly boring”, I have to wonder a little if I really want to put myself through that.   Book ten, Crossroads of Twilight, has been described as “an 800 page novel where literally nothing happens”.

A friend of mine described the problem I have with the series perfectly.  He said that Robert Jordan would take twenty pages to describe two characters walking along a gravelly road, detailing every rock they stepped on, but the big huge epic battle at the end would be told in two sentences.  Basically, the series has become an incredible grind to read for little payoff.

That’s where I’m at with EverQuest II.  I’m trying to like it, and I really like the idea of being into it, but it’s been on the shelf for just a little too long, and working my way through the seven levels required to hit the cap is starting to look like one of Robert Jordan’s gravelly roads.

I logged in to EverQuest II again last night in an effort to maximize my fourteen free days to see if it can pull me back in to subscribing.

The main reason I left EQII a year ago was because I found the Rise of Kunark expansion to be a horrible, boring grind.  Quest after quest of “get me fifteen rhino horns”, followed by, “thanks for the rhino horns, but now I need twenty pristine rhino horns”, only to followed once again by “okay, sorry for all that work, but it turns out I really need super rhino horns”.  I couldn’t take it any more.

It probably didn’t help that I was levelling two characters at the time and doing the same content twice over.  My main character was a Berserker, which was just about the least wanted class in the game at the time.  Because of that, I decided to bring up my Mystic as quickly as possible, but by the time I had reached level 70 and started questing in Kylong Plains, most of the server population had moved on to the higher level zones.  I remember not being able to find a group for the life of me, so I soldiered on solo through to 73, and the grind just became too unbearable.

Upon entering the game last night, I found myself in Kunzar Jungle and opened my quest log.  I picked a quest at random and started working on it.  Fortunately there were no rhinos to kill.  It took a little bit for me to remember how to play the Mystic; its icons were even more foreign to me than my Berserkers were, but after a few close calls, I think I’ve got it down pat.

The graphics were still bugging me last night, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to get over it.  The performance also seems to have taken a hit since I last played.  I used to play on the High Quality or Balanced settings, depending on whether I was grouped or not and I have it on High Quality now but it seems a lot more sluggish than I remember it being, and Balanced doesn’t look quite as good as I’d like it to.

I only managed to get an hour and a half of play time last night, but in that short period two things really stood out for me, and not in a good way.  There were no less than 7 server wide announcements of people getting their Mythicals.  Those were in addition to the 5 or 6 I saw the night before in just an hour spent in game.  For some crazy reason I thought these Mythical weapons were supposed to be rare and difficult to get.  What will they introduce in the next expansion, Super Mythicals?  It seems as though raiding guilds are selling raid slots to those with a whole lot of money and dragging them through their updates, which, to me, just seems kind of lame, but I guess it is what it is.

The other thing that stood out for me is that the Kithicor server chat hasn’t changed at all.  I saw the same people being complete ass-hats that I saw in there a year ago.  For all the crap that World of Warcraft takes for its “immature population”, I have to say, the WoW server I play on isn’t half as bad as the immaturity and e-peen waving of Kithicor.  I pity any new player who chooses this server.

I hope to continue my observations over the remainder of my free period, but so far, I’m definitely not feeling a pull back to the game.  Release EverQuest III though and I’d probably be on board day one.

I’ve been thinking about EverQuest II a lot lately, especially as my interest in World of Warcraft continues to hover around the “rock bottom” range.  I’ve found myself eyeing the box for The Shadow Odyssey more and more in the local game store lately, but each time I talk myself out of picking it up.  I like the idea of playing EQII again, I just don’t think it’d go over so well in reality.  The fact of the matter is that I’ve sort of been drifting away from MMOs altogether.

Some of my greatest times in gaming have occurred in the three years that I played EverQuest II.  WoW may hold my subscription at the moment, but it’s never held that magic, nostalgic feeling for me that EQII did.  Imagine my reaction then, when I received an email the other day from Sony Online Entertainment inviting me to try EQII again for 14 days free.  The email was apparently sent to any dormant accounts with an Iksar character.  The only Iksar character I had was created just to check out the PvP server way back when it was introduced.  I abandoned him at level 20.

I immediately dug out my Rise of Kunark discs and re-installed the game and started patching… for about 15 hours.  Yikes.  The next day I launched the game and the nostalgia flooded back as soon as I heard the opening music.  I couldn’t suppress the smile creeping across my face, and I soon found myself back home on the Kithicor server’s version of Norrath.

It’s been over a year, maybe slightly less, that I last logged in to the game, and obviously much has changed.  I logged in as my level 73 Berserker first and I was fairly lost.  I saw a bunch of messages flash on my screen informing me of new combat arts, a new introductory summary screen (very cool), a new map system (extremely cool), and some black circle with crossed swords icon which I still haven’t a clue about.  I took a few minutes to familiarize myself with all of my long forgotten combat art icons, mounted up on my horse, and headed out to explore.

I hate to say it, but my first reaction was that the graphics looked amazingly dull.  I used to be one of the staunchest defenders of EQIIs look, but after a year and a bit of WoW’s in your face assault of colours, I couldn’t help but feel that EQII just looked so very bland.  It’s amazing how attached to WoW’s look I’ve become; it definitely comes as a surprise to me, because I hated it before i played it.

Everything seemed mostly the same yet very different as well.  East Freeport was completely empty; I guess everyone uses the broker somewhere else these days.  I’d really like to check out the Shadow Odyssey but unforunately, it’s not available as part of the 14 free days.  While in Freeport, I decided to check out Stargrace’s Norrathian Museum, which is just stunning in its awesomeness.  It’s a showcase of imagination that reminds me of some the things that set EQII apart from other games.  Well done Stargrace.

I ended up spending about an hour or two just running around, checking things out.  At this point, I think EQII is going to remain a nostalgic trip for me; I can’t see myself re-subscribing.  It’s mostly because I’m getting burned out on MMOs in general, but also that I think I’ve been away from it for too long.  The fun I had in EQII is too far removed now, and perhaps, best left a memory.  Never say never though.

The following post contains a spoiler for the ending of Fable 2.  You have been warned, and will be warned once more before the spoiler begins.

I finished the main story of Fable 2 last night, and I found the ending to be quite satisfying.  I was a little uncertain about the game when I first started playing it, but as the story progressed and my character grew stronger, it definitely pulled me in.  I played through the game as a goody two-shoes and I’m strongly considering going back through the game as evil incarnate.  I have to really like a game to play it a second time, so there’s obviously something there.

The games that I tend to remember long after I’ve finished playing them are the ones that develop some sort of emotional connection with me.  Be it a sense of awe at the world of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the story of the Baldur’s Gate games, or the sense of dread I felt as I headed into the west in Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven.

My emotional connection in Fable 2 came in the form of a dog; my faithful companion.  The whole pet thing in Peter Molyneux’s other game, Black and White, felt very gimmicky to me, and I couldn’t have cared less about it.  But the Fable 2 dog worked well.  It felt very much like an extension of my character.  My character also had a wife and child, but honestly, I couldn’t have cared less about them.  I’m interested to see how the dog looks/reacts on my second play through when I go evil.

Any readers that don’t want to know how certain things play out at the end of Fable 2 should stop reading now.  I’m sorry, but you won’t have a tidy little ending to the post; just suffice it to say that Fable 2 is definitely worth checking out.

Spoilers:

After going through the spire the first time, I actually smiled when my character was reunited with my dog.  I couldn’t help it.  Then at the end, when my dog jumped in front of the bullet meant for my character’s head I actually said out loud to my TV, “you son of a bitch, you just shot my dog!”.  This, after Lucien just revealed to me that he had murdered my wife and child.  For them, I was completely indifferent; I just thought, “whatever”.  But my dog.  That bastard just killed my dog.

At the very end, the tables turned with my gun now pointed at Lucien, I didn’t even let him finish his speech.  I just shot him the face.  “That was for killing my dog.”  Finally, when given the final choice to either save the thousands of lives that Lucien destroyed, or resurrect my family and dog, I went for the latter.  Not because of my virtual wife and child however.  I just wanted my dog back.

At the time of its release, I recall many favourable reviews for Dead Space.  The premise sounded cool, and the visuals were very nice, so I figured I’d check it out.  I downloaded the demo for my Xbox 360 and gave it a few minutes, ultimately leaving unimpressed.  The demo did nothing for me and I really couldn’t understand all the hype the game had been getting.  I never thought of Dead Space again.

A week ago a flyer arrived in the mail for Future Shop, one of my favourite stores.  Flipping through it my eyes widened at a promotion selling a bunch of Xbox 360 games for $9.99.  The promotion included titles such as Mass Effect, Too Human, Lost Odyssey, and Dead Space.  I decided I’d get Mass Effect for sure, and decide on any other games while I was there at the store.  As luck would have it I was home from work the day the sale started so I was at the store just a few minutes after it opened.  I was dismayed to discover that they didn’t have most of the titles they advertised in stock; I managed to pick up Mass Effect, but I wanted more!  They had Too Human, but I heard far too many bad things about that game so I took a pass on it.  Of the games they had, nothing else jumped out at me, so I just paid for Mass Effect and went home.

The more I thought about it though, the more it bothered me that I was missing out on ten dollar gaming, and for whatever reason, I now wanted Dead Space more than anything.  This was a game that I had shrugged my shoulders at and dismissed outright, but now I was driving all over town like a mad man checking the other Future Shop locations to see if they had it.  None of them did.  I checked again the next day and finally talked to an employee about it.  He told me they were expecting a shipment on Wednesday (that was yesterday as I write this post).  I checked the store by my work throughout the day but they didn’t have it.  I checked a different store on my way home and they also didn’t have it.  It was obvious after talking with some employees that there were many, many, other people looking for Dead Space.  Finally, an hour before the store closed last night, I phoned and asked if they had it in stock, which they actually did!  So I sped off to the store and picked myself up a copy of Dead Space for $9.99.

Reflecting on it now, I find it quite absurd that I went so nuts to get a game that’ll just sit on the pile until I get around to playing it.  If there’s any lesson to be learned though, I think it’s quite obvious that all games should be $10, because then I’d buy just about anything.  Except for Too Human I suppose.