Anybody out there?

[Alirc]

So what's everyone up to these days? Those who still log into SWG (Jewelster?) may have noticed I haven't been logging in much... I flew in Fridays event with Neal and Novaro, but otherwise haven't been playing SWG. I guess I'm taking a break, I just find I'm bored these days. I'm sure everyone understands...

Is anyone playing anything interesting? Since EQ2 and LOTRO went "free-to-play", I checked them out. Both are a lot more fun than I expected. Pirates of the Burning Sea is going f2p as well, so hey, it's free, I'll try it. I still don't have a ton of gaming time, but I find an hour here and there in the evenings.

I miss hanging out with you guys in SWG, but I understand why hardly anyone is there. If anyone wants to do some questing in one of the games I mentioned above, give me a shout on MSN. We can always create some new characters on the same server.

[Ehne]

School along with the start of Hockey season (Season tickets to the local minor league team) Have kept me buisy. I ususally log in on Monday and Wednesday during class for a bit.

As far as gamewise Radiant is so empty I find no reason to log in. If the 7 people I fly with are not on space is empty...

Vegi moved to Starsider... Maybe it's time for us to follow him or a Bria/Flurry that may have enough people for a space community. I know we have fought long and hard to not be part of "the starsider crowd", but if we want space content we may need to bite the bullet... Would not need to transfer everything, just space stuff and cash...I can only transfer Ehne's account unless it's free since Ehne's is the only one I have owned since it was registered...

[Ehne]

Also, anyone tried the starmap quest of late???

The spider cave Had twice the nightsisters in it and I had to try twice to get airdew through....

WTF! Good luck running a crafter through it.

[Balcifer]

Alirc wrote:

So what's everyone up to these days? Those who still log into SWG (Jewelster?) may have noticed I haven't been logging in much... I flew in Fridays event with Neal and Novaro, but otherwise haven't been playing SWG. I guess I'm taking a break, I just find I'm bored these days. I'm sure everyone understands... Is anyone playing anything interesting? Since EQ2 and LOTRO went "free-to-play", I checked them out. Both are a lot more fun than I expected. Pirates of the Burning Sea is going f2p as well, so hey, it's free, I'll try it. I still don't have a ton of gaming time, but I find an hour here and there in the evenings. I miss hanging out with you guys in SWG, but I understand why hardly anyone is there. If anyone wants to do some questing in one of the games I mentioned above, give me a shout on MSN. We can always create some new characters on the same server.

If I'm gaming at all, it's usually some single player game like Red Dead Redemption or various ROM's on emulators from NES, SNES, Gameboy or Playstation 1. Usually I'm just burning through seasons of shows I've missed streaming from Netflix.

I didn't like EQ2 so much when I played before, but that was at launch, so I'm willing to check it out. I have a LOTRO account with all the perks (whatever they are /shrug) of having had a lifetime subscription before it went f2p. Can't remember what server off the top of my head though. I guess I'm oblivious about that pirates game though. Can't remember ever hearing of it.

I forgot about the event Friday, sry.

On a side note, anyone looking for space action on their iPhones, check out Galaxy On Fire 2. It's 7 bucks (for now) on sale from 10, but it seems well worth it so far. Lots of ships and customizations, asteroid mining, commodities trading and promising combat (haven't been in a fight with more than 3 so far, but I'm pretty early in the game with a fairly shitty ship. You can control it either with the accelerometer or the typical iPhone game's "virtual joystick."

[Ehne]

Balcifer wrote:

On a side note, anyone looking for space action on their iPhones.

iPhones are for losers!!!!!!

Droid X rules!!!!!!!!!

[Balcifer]

Ehne wrote:

Balcifer wrote: On a side note, anyone looking for space action on their iPhones. iPhones are for losers!!!!!! Droid X rules!!!!!!!!!

Droids are too unreliable. They don't perform to specs if you use a restraining bolt, but if you remove it, they run off to find some old hermit in a desert. Lame.

[Celaki Goshi]

I'm playing AoC and enjoying it. I also have a LotRO account but it's not installed on my computer currently and I'd rather wait to reinstall it from my DVD instead of the download. I might give the f2p LotRO a try but I think I'll be a little peeved that my characters are going to lose some things I busted my ass to get and I'd have to pay to get them back. I keep trying to like DDO but it's solo unfriendly and trying to find groups is a pain in the butt because they tend to only want certain classes and stuff. I tried EQ2 way back in like 2005 and didn't care for it, doubt I'd like it now.

Outside of that, I'm kinda close to getting a decent job (I hope) working for a small aviation company as a tech writer for their test equipment. I really want this job to the point that I'm getting restless waiting for my interview next week.

[Joiry_]

My gaming time has been somewhat erratic, tho I still login to GW every day or two to do some stuff there. There doesn't sound like anything new in SWG that's going to draw me back in.

I finally got my paycheck for my first two weeks of work last week, only 4 weeks after starting. Got an apartment starting dec 1, which is far closer to work than my parent's house, and will finally have complete control over my internet (well, to the extent crappy cable companies allow).

I'm thinking of playing PotBS again, once I'm settled in. DDO can be fun, as its conveniently sliced into relatively short dungeon runs. Tho Celaki is right, going with a group is best. I've solo'd a lot of the early level stuff with a ranger, but you miss out on things like locked doors (need a thief or high strength character) and some other things. And you're constantly nursing your healing potions while solo, and doing things like leaving rest shrines unused until your hp are really low (and then running back to the last rest shrine).

[Alirc]

Celaki wrote:

I might give the f2p LotRO a try but I think I'll be a little peeved that my characters are going to lose some things I busted my ass to get and I'd have to pay to get them back.

I'm pretty sure everything you had on your paying account you keep. You get special privileges for buying it.

I was quite unimpressed with the download time for LOTRO. Click click, oh, 6 hour wait, I guess I'm not doing that tonight.

On the other hand, EQ2 was very impressive, this is something that SOE totally nailed. I was in the game playing within a minute. Seriously, they have this fancy system where they only download what you need. It must download data for nearby zones while you play because I didn't even notice a delay when you enter a new zone. When I log in, it says there is still 9GB of data left to download, but since I don't need it, it doesn't come down.

[Balcifer]

Alirc wrote:

Celaki wrote: I might give the f2p LotRO a try but I think I'll be a little peeved that my characters are going to lose some things I busted my ass to get and I'd have to pay to get them back. I'm pretty sure everything you had on your paying account you keep. You get special privileges for buying it. I was quite unimpressed with the download time for LOTRO. Click click, oh, 6 hour wait, I guess I'm not doing that tonight. On the other hand, EQ2 was very impressive, this is something that SOE totally nailed. I was in the game playing within a minute. Seriously, they have this fancy system where they only download what you need. It must download data for nearby zones while you play because I didn't even notice a delay when you enter a new zone. When I log in, it says there is still 9GB of data left to download, but since I don't need it, it doesn't come down.

What server do you play on? I'll check it out tonight or tomorrow. I have a few chars, but I don't remember which server they're on...... or not. Apparently the free part of the game is separate from the regular subscription based game. Tried to get on with my existing account and it told me to choose a subscription. Guess I'll start a new account.

[Celaki Goshi]

Alirc wrote:

Celaki wrote: I might give the f2p LotRO a try but I think I'll be a little peeved that my characters are going to lose some things I busted my ass to get and I'd have to pay to get them back. I'm pretty sure everything you had on your paying account you keep. You get special privileges for buying it. I was quite unimpressed with the download time for LOTRO. Click click, oh, 6 hour wait, I guess I'm not doing that tonight.

Turbine posted a "perks" chart that listed what was available to which type of account. Since I bought Mines of Moria and Siege of Mirkwood, I'll keep the content and most of the perks but I'm losing some things with my "premium" account. I lose access to feats that I have already earned and slotted to boost my guardian and hunter as well as losing chat, mail, and auction house rights (limited chat, mail, and auction house use). I think I'm also losing access to 2 character slots which means I lose access to 2 characters I've created and worked on. Having to chose sucks because they had their purposes for me beyond just storage (I have crafting skills that I used all the time like armor, bows, staves, clubs, jewelry, and foods and potions).

The DL time is why I'm waiting to get my stuff outta storage so I can reinstall from the DVD, .

[Balcifer]

Ok, so I checked out EQ2. Made a swashbuckler named Demerzel. I guess there's only the one server. It's not bad, I guess. Can't remember too much from when I played before, so I can't tell if anything is different. I do remember the collections... running around to glowing points on the ground to get different types of shells and butterflies... yay. I can't remember what happens when you complete one though. I'll give it some more time.

[Joiry_]

Alirc wrote:

On the other hand, EQ2 was very impressive, this is something that SOE totally nailed. I was in the game playing within a minute. Seriously, they have this fancy system where they only download what you need. It must download data for nearby zones while you play because I didn't even notice a delay when you enter a new zone. When I log in, it says there is still 9GB of data left to download, but since I don't need it, it doesn't come down.

Guild Wars has had this since the beginning. There's only 2 files total, GW.exe and GW.dat. You only need to DL the exe, and it will load the minimum files you need to start into the dat (but it will allocate the full ~4gigs for the dat file), and only dl in new data when you enter a zone you need them in. It also will DL in the background, at a low rate, or a commandline option to just get everything.

I thought about playing EQ2 a few times, even did the demo once long ago. It just seems a very grindy game, with very narrowly defined classes. But, I might give it a whirl if a number of you want to give it a whirl, given its free.

[Balcifer]

It's free............... but only 8 of 24 classes, 80 of 90 levels, 2 of a shitload of bank slots, can only receive mail, 2 of 10 character slots, restricted to 5 gold per level, etc, etc..... a lot of restrictions unless you pay. You can make a 1 time payment of 10 bucks for a silver account which gives you a little bit more stuff. After that, the gold account requires you to pay the regular monthly fee of $15 and you can get still more things, but not everything. The platinum account which is the only account with you can get to lvl 90 and your full 10 character slots (aside from buying the rest piecemeal) with is $200/year.

Here's the breakdown: https://account.station.sony.com/authenticated/commerce/selectSubMembershipOrSA!input.action

I'm not sure it's worth playing full time without upgrading, which I AM sure was their plan.

Even if we somehow scrape enough of us together to play it full time and make it worth the money to upgrade, all my other characters are lost because EQ2 and EQ2 Extended are two separate games. So I'm bitter about that.

[Joiry_]

Yeah, I just tried it out a few hours ago. One fourth of the races, one third of the classes. Just 2 bags. Each extra class costs $7.50? (100 SC = $1, right?). Though, I think you can get silver by just buying $10 worth of upgrades, not just waste 1000 directly on silver.

Kinda ridiculous. Turbine does much better with DDO f2p. There's only a couple of restricted races and classes (popular stuff like monk and dark elves). I think turbine does it more intelligently, at least for DDO in giving you most of the classes and races, but making you buy extra dungeon modules (which, apparently, are not needed to get to max level). You can also earn Turbine points in game, and unlock certain features (but on a per server basis).

Main thing I hate about Turbine is the conversion of money into points is not straightforward. Eg $6.50 gets you 420 turbine points. Makes it harder to figure out what new modules cost in real world terms, which is probably their intent. At least with SOE its a straight conversion of 1 cent = 1 point.