Token Female Gamer

I’m finally feeling better, which means I’m semi productive in the real world instead of only being a computer game lump. Funny how most of my illnesses end up getting cured by playing lots of computer games, and maybe a little bit of sleep.

Since I missed it, happy belated May 4th (be with you), May 5th (Cinco de Mayo), and May Sith (revenge of). There, all caught up. =D

Game productivity, on the other hand, was high!

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For its 13th anniversary, celebrated this past March, EverQuest finally went free to play. How it managed to maintain a large enough player base to support its continued existence for thirteen years is beyond me. Whatever the case, it is now free to play, which of course meant I had to go back and check out my characters.

But since its been so darn long, finding passwords and email accounts and user names turned out to be a bit more challenging then expected. After a bit of back and forth with costumer service, I now have access to both my old accounts.

My characters are all still there and I have no clue how to play them. I can’t even remember what spells did what! My hopes of having it all come flooding back were quickly extinguished by the realization that EverQuest has changed a lot in the past seven years.

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Real life has been busy of late, which of course means I dont write as much. Well not online anyway.

Lots of writing on paper, that ancient style of keeping records, which is quite appropriate since I have vaulted myself in the nebulous world of Game Mistressing. I am quite privileged to have my first GM experience include introducing six young ladies to this fabulous past time. Its a huge responsibility, but I am taking the fact that non of them wanted to stop playing after two and half hours as a sign that I did something right.

When the husband and I first conceived of this idea, we debated which system to use. We finally settled on Pathfinder (aka Dungeons and Dragons 3.75 and not WoTC). Having now played it, also for the first time (lots of firsts today), I have to say that its a really great system that keeps the core of what made D&D 3.5 great, but enhances is just enough to heighten playability. Its really well done.

Since we were all so new to the system, we took advantage of their beginners set. But I wasn’t going to stop there, when in doubt, buy more books. Did I mention I’ve been reading a lot of late? The Patherfinder Players Book is quite impressively hefty.

The great thing about the beginners box is that it made creating my own little story quite easy. Everything I needed to know in one small book.

For anyone wanting to get into pen and paper RPGs, I highly recommend the Pathfinder system. Its satisfyingly meaty, while still maintaining ease of play.

Mist of Pandaria (MoP) is the latest expansion to the ever popular World of Warcraft Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. With a brand new continent, new playable race and class, new talents for all classes, Pokemon and Farmville, the ever expanding world of Azeroth has gotten just a bit more crowded.

Following a rather extensive WoW break, I dived into Pandaria with tempered enthusiasm. Between the disappointing Cataclysm end game and Pandas becoming the new playable race (Blizzard swore that would NEVER ever happen), I found my expectations understandably depressed.

But now, with a little over four hundred hours under my belt, it’s quite clear that I liked the game better then expected and that a review is far past due.

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Amongst other things (~cough~ Puzzle and Dragons ~cough~), I’ve been spending quite a lot of time playing the very fabulous Ni No Kuni. Like most JRPGs it is fairly travel heavy and in my experience, there is only one thing that makes running across the wide expanse of world (aka nothing) fun, and that is jumping. Thankfully Ni No Kuni delivered, and right on time as I was starting to wonder if I had lost the jump button.

Best Merit Badge!!

I was lucky enough to play on two different servers with two very different, yet awesome guilds. Inner Loop (last post’s pictures) ended up being my raiding guild, while Fourth Wall was my role playing guild. (Yup, I am that nerdy!)

While my bard in the Fourth Wall guild never made max level, she had a ton of really silly fun. Some of the best stories came out of spending time with these crazy people. =P

Images after the jump…

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With the recent new computer purchase I spent a bunch of time going through my old picture files. Turns out that I had a hidden stash of old EverQuest pictures. As per request I am downloading the best here to share. Funny enough, most of my pictures turned out to be me casting illusions on everyone. Lot more trolls and dwarves running around then usual. =D

I will note here that though I played on two different servers, these are all from the Inner Loop Guild that played on the Rodcet Nife server. Can do Fourth Wall next if there is demand. =P

Images are after the jump since there are quite a few of them.
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Oblivion was quite effective at smothering any desire I might have had to play other Elder Scrolls game. Being the victim of poor character choices and frequently lost in the vast empty abyss that was the world of Oblivion (aptly named) made quitting quite easy and overlooking Skyrim easier still.

But then I finished Mass Effect 3 and found myself pining for something similar, something new. Skyrim seemed like the obvious candidate; though thinking about it now, Dragon Age probably would have been a closer match.

Whatever the case, Skyrim was recommended to me and, thanks to my fabulous friends, loaned to me, since I still couldn’t bring myself to purchase a copy. Seemed like the perfect solution as I expected to dislike the game and return it a week later.

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This must have been an incredibly difficult game to make. What a challenge to create a sequel to Diablo and Diablo 2, two of the most influential Action RPGs of our time. I do not envy them this task; especially considering the original development team was let go. It seems a rather unfair burden to place on an entirely new team.

No wonder the game was so long in development. Between the team changes and the restarts this caused, they probably could have released three games. But then this is Blizzard, which is notoriously slow; two is probably a better estimate. All things considered, I think the team did an incredible job. They released a fairly polished product after all; I just don’t think they made a Diablo Game.

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~sigh~

Clearly, I’m in a full fledged writing slump. Not that I’m very surprised by my apparent apathy. The end of thirty days of posting seems to have this effect on me. Pair that with holiday hangover and I can barely manage to drag myself out of bed, much less scrape together the brain power to write something worth reading. (I’m seriously trying here!)

But its time to get back in gear, lest what little skill I do have atrophy, so I’m going the least brain power required route with the Kickstarter update!

Yup, Kickstarter sucked me back in and roped me into supporting two new computer games. I still can’t decide if I’m just being overly optimistic or totally wasting money, I mean computer games are notorious for running late and over budget. Frankly I’m still baffled by how little money all these developers are asking for. Yeah, sure, its millions of dollars, but lets just remember that SWToR cost over $250 million to make. This perspective makes me wonder if these games will ever even see the light of day. Okay, totally rambling. Onward!

Godus is a new God Game from Peter Molyneux at 22cans. The description makes the game sound like a reinvention of Populous with the ability to shape terrain and influence your followers. The main point being that you get to be a god and lead your followers to glory. This wasn’t really an instant sell for me. Curiosity is what finally convinced me to sign up; Peter Molyneux has been making various version of god games for a long time, which speaks to his experience with the genre, but it also makes me wonder what he is trying to achieve. Maybe this version will be the One.

I am actually far more excited about War of the Overworld, which is to be a reinvention of Dungeon Keeper (ironically also a Peter Molyneux game). I was a huge fan of Dungeon Keeper back in the day, so anything even remotely related sounds interesting to me. My only (small) concern is that the developer is a new studio. I really hope this not only gets released, but that they do justice to the fun that was Dungeon Keeper.

Though both of these projects have already been funded, they are offering lots of post-kickstarter ways to still help contribute financially.

Lastly, another one of the projects I funded, Education Abroad: a Korean Drama, has completed and is now airing their shows on the youtubes. =D