Thursday, December 18, 2008

Christmas EVE, WoW!

Gaming has been mostly World of Warcraft lately. I have been working on my Death Knight, Mildread, for a while. The class is pretty ridiculous by comparison to other classes, but it is pretty fun. Leveling past 70 is a crawl though.

In the midst of leveling Mildread, I also kept leveling my "main" on this PvE server. I have three 70's on my PvP server, but Amy wanted to play on PvE so I've been working on it instead. I have level 60 Shaman on the same server with Amy. He has herbalism and inscription professions which are helping make some gold so it is worth while to level him up. Plus our guild sorely needs healers.

I've been having heaps of technical difficulties with WoW. Basically when I first log in it loads the environment, but all NPC's are listed as "Unknown" and I can't interact with anything or cast spells. Then after exactly 2 minutes I drop. This will happen 2 or 3 times and then the game will work normally. It's very annoying.

Today I got an email from Eve Online offering free 5-day account activations for inactive players. So I'll probably take advantage of that sometime soon. I am quite excited to visit my old space locations... perhaps with the Carrier ship.

I also need to revist Adventures of Doom and get busy writing more of my Cyberpunk novel... So much leisure... so little time.

Merry Christmas all!

Monday, December 8, 2008

What a Gamer wants for Christmas

Hey, it's Christmas time and I was thinking about writing a blog update and presto... Blog idea. Here's what piques my interest this season.

Pathfinder RPG:
I've read about this as a competitor to the new D&D 4e rules. It has been described as the next evolution of the 3.5 rules. While I don't need another fantasy game in my life, I am interested to see was a serious contender is doing with tabletop gaming.

Eve Online Time Cards:
With the falling exchange rate, my USD purchasing power has been cut in half. This makes subscription based games like Eve Online particularly hard to pay for. The fees have essentially doubled. So $30 buys me two months of gaming that would have cost me $60. Go go American Dollar!

World of Warcraft Time Cards:
Same idea, different game. My lovely wife has been playing Wrath of the Lich King with me and maintaining two accounts is doubly hard (that's quadrupal hard with the exchange rate).

Traveller RPG books:
Books in general start at three times more expensive in NZ than in the US. Next add shipping and the exchange... Books are nearly equal to there weight in gold. Traveller is a space opera setting that I've looked at for a while, but could never justify the purchase on my own.

Battlestar Galactica Boardgame:
I love board games. I never get to seriously play them, but I have reconciled myself to a life of collection. At $88 in local currency... this is another item I just could never justify for myself. Amy and I have been working our way through Season 2. If there is a season 3, that would be cool too. I also saw a spin off called "Razor" that would probably be cool too.

Nintendo Wii:*
Just in case Santa ever reads these things. I'd like a Wii with Metroid and Wii Fit. Well over $400 in NZD... This won't be under my tree this year.

Playstation 3:*
Quite the awesome console with an equally "awesome" price tag. Maybe if I have been extraordinarily good this year.

Ghost in the Shell: 2nd Gig (boxed set)**
I love everything in this series. I already own Stand Alone Complex. This isn't a game, but it is gamer cool. Truth be told, I am an Anime fan. I like all of it. But GitS is one of the best in the genre (IMO).

Books by Iain Banks:
I have already read, The Algebraist and Player of Games. Anything else by this author would be grand. Iain is a brilliant sci-fi writer.

Virtually any DVD set:**
We don't have cable of any sort. Any series or recent movie is going to be cool for us!

Here's some stuff I *don't* want... Nothing from D&D 4e. Nothing from the Wizard's of the Coast d20 Modern line. Nothing about Warhammer Online or Games Workshop.

*NOTE: Video games are copyright controlled by "zone". We can not play games from non-asian zones (like the US). The best site to shop for us online at is http://www.mightyape.co.nz/.

**NOTE: DVD's are copyright controlled by "zone". While we are not in the US zone, we do have a US DVD player. We can watch DVD's from any zone on our player. Mighty Ape is a great source for DVD's and Books that will save you International shipping charges :)