Token Female Gamer

It’s only the beginning of the holiday season and I am already so burned out. This might have to do with the thirty some people that crammed into my very small place for thanksgiving. After that whole ordeal, I find myself in a motivational slump.

Which is terrible timing (learned my lesson, don’t invite 30 over and feed them!) It’s a busy time. Family obligations, various fairs to attend, and massive amounts of game releases make for very little extra downtime.

And then a new WoW patch was released. And Word of Warcraft is so easy; my husband plays, my characters are already established, our guild merged with another small one so more people are playing. It requires so little thinking and motivation from me, I just piggy back onto the husband’s schedule.

Turns out that I now find myself raiding three nights a week and gearing up two characters. (WoW took advantage of me in my moment of weakness!) Bit more then I was aiming for, but then I should know better. WoW has always sucked me in whole; I’m not so good at applying the whole ‘in moderation’ virtue to WoW.

But I have to say that the 4.3 Patch has made the game much more fun. By that I mean progression is possible, without agonizing grinding or learning curves.

Plus the new tier 13 Warlock set bonuses are awesome! This is probably the first time ever that I have actively wanted to complete a set bonus. Doomguard more often? Yes please!! No more Shard fussing? Finally!

~sigh~ World of Warcraft is like a pit of Quick Sand. Seems like I’m stuck here for a while and the more I struggle the worse it will be. Portal 2 will just have to wait a bit longer. Oh well.

This is the prequel to the very popular Deus Ex from ages ago. Set twenty-five years before, it explores the controversial introduction of biomechanical augmentations for humans.

Having never played the original, I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into. I just assumed that it was going to be like Mass Effect 2 and was actually looking forward to playing another first person RPG.

But this game is not what I was expecting at all. Turns out that Deus Ex is essentially a stealth game, and a mean one at that.
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Misfortune came to me as an email suggestion. I do try and accommodate such requests, though it sometimes takes me a while to find the time. I was also suffering under the misconception that this was a social game, which only enhanced my reluctance, but as I said, misconception.

While there are options to share your progress with the world, these do not seem to be required or automatic. Something I appreciate. =)

The game is in fact a browser based single player RPG with a decidedly Steampunk Piratey slant.

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In case you havn’t seen the new Modern Warfare 3 ad -  ‘The Vet & The n00b’, here is the youtube link. Really worth watching!

Harnessing the combined star power of  Jonah Hill as the n00b and Sam Worthington as the Vet and packing it into thirty seconds of action, comedy, and redemption, make this the most deviously effective commercial I have seen in a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if MW3 sales double.

If I didn’t know better, I would want to go play the game. Sadly the game doesn’t come bundled with either Jonah or Sam. Bummer.

So the new World of Warcraft expansion was announced at Blizz Con this past weekend. Titled Mists of Pandaria, it features a brand new race. The panda, sorry, Pandarians (yup, walking talking Pandas!)

Had to be a joke! After the april fools joke that featured the large cuddly bears, Blizzard swore up and down that Panadarians would never be a playable race in World of Warcraft. Which makes me think they are seriously running out of ideas.

The whole story even reads like a joke. And yet April is still five months away.

So not a joke, just another dubious design choice from the WoW team. It’s certainly not a confidance building announcement for me. My WoW time has already dwindled to almost nothing.

Though I will try the new Panda race and give the new Monk class a whirl, its going to have to be pretty spectacularly fabulous to keep me playing. And it might be. I do have a small amount of eternal hope left.

Final judgment will be reserved for after release. Until then I will continue to avoid Cataclysm as much as possible. =)

Bioware’s epic sequel was a huge success; sold millions of copies and probably single handedly funded the new Star Wars MMO (well maybe not). Of course all the reviewers loved it, which automatically makes made me suspicious.

Good reviews are a kiss/curse for me. Everyone seems to be talking about the damn game, yet I so rarely agree with the general media populace. Internal struggle ensues, which is why I tend to drag my heels.

Thus Mass Effect 2 managed to get shelved behind a bunch of other less controversial items. Plus, it had an extra strike against it because I played Mass Effect (the original) on the xbox. Ugh, playing with those stupid analogue sticks made me want to scream. I think it got a total of twenty minutes playtime before I vowed to torch the disk.

But I learned, and purchased Mass Effect 2 for the PC. If only I had gotten the original on the PC, I might have played it far more.

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Thanks to my fellow Diablo 3 beta-ite, my game is finally fixed and playable. Turns out that Comcast users are getting DNS errors after logging into battle.net, which looks like a crash trying to load the character selection/creation screen.

Took advantage of my fixedness last night and played with some buddies online. Polished off the entire beta in an hour and a half and got my Demon Hunter to level 8.

(Just checked too see about the NDA for the beta, turns out it’s not being enforced so I can blab all I want!!)

First impressions – Liked that I can play a female version of any character. Really liked the teleport instantly to party member. Liked the instant selling. Graphic seem bland and ridiculously dark. Ranged game play is almost all the same and the only way to go. Gold is abundant. Redundant game play, like health bubbles and health potions, or two types of mana.

Going to play more and get a better feel for the game. Also try out single player and the crafting system. So far having a good time playing, but it’s not hooking me. Feels like something is missing. Am hoping this is just due to beta.

<3

So I was going do a little bragging dance about how I got a Diablo 3 Beta key and all (yaay me!) but it turns out that my version crashes at the character selection screen.

My Diablo 3 beta experience is all in technical support right now. Which by the way has been pretty responsive.

Am hoping that I will get a chance to play…someday…before the beta is done. =(

<3<3<3 to my husband for getting me the beta key. <3<3<3

This past weekend my World of Warcraft guild got together for a BBQ, in real life. No we didn’t all sit around playing WoW on our laptops. We hung out, enjoyed good food and good company.

Lots of World of Warcraft discussions (aka warstories), even got some Everquest squeezed in there. EQ provides the much needed ‘I walked to school uphill in the snow both ways’ perspective for all the new and ‘easy’ MMOs of recent times.

I have to say it was a treat having something to talk about with every single person there. No matter what else, we all had WoW in common, but even more, we actually play together.

Which just reaffirms that our goal of inviting only real life friends and family into the guild was a good plan.

Thanks to all of my guild mates and their spouses for being awesome! <3

I finished Mass Effect 2!! The entire thing. I saw the credits! Been playing WoW so long I almost forgot what an end game scene looks like. Really didn’t think I would make it all the way to the end.

Anyway I’m just jazzed and wanted to share. =D
And for those of you who have finished it, I took the boom ending.