Thursday, February 25, 2010

Another Snow

Snow on the way again.

I have some travel coming up next week to the great state of Alabama. Just a one-nighter.

Did a realm transfer of my lvl 70 paladin from Anvilmar-US (PVE) to Twisting Nether-US (RPPVP) to bring a couple thousand gold over to my little hunter/rogue dual box team. But the funny thing is I actually dusted the guy off and did a level in Northrend and now might just run him through to 80 first before going back to the lowbies.

More and more have been listening to non-WoW MMO-related podcasts.

Haven't been on STO all week. Not missing it greatly. Still want to do the Lieutenant Commander levels this weekend though.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Snowdate: This Is Getting Old

Yet more snow last night and today here in New Jersey.

Not nearly as exciting as Snowpocalypse 2010 which downed power lines and closed schools for several days, but it'll do nicely to turn otherwise rational people into raving lunatic idiots on the roadways.

Or maybe raving lunatic isn't correct. But the sort of mentally ill person that sees a snowflake in the air and assumes that the ground is a)snow covered b)ice covered or c)generally unsafe and therefore drives their vehicle at absurdly slow speeds, mashing down on the breaks at irregular intervals for no reason at all.

If these maggots did something crazy called "using their eyes" they would see that there is absolutely no need for the extra caution because a)there's no snow covering the roads b)there's no ice sneaking around there either, especially after the warm temps this weekend, and c)it only becomes unsafe when you're going super slow and stomping on your breaks for no reason causing people to crash into you from behind.

There's no need for it! So stop.

Anyway, have hardly played WoW in about two weeks. I was all set to do the love is in the air events on my main toon and even read a little about the changes this year, but I just couldn't go back for more than one day of that garbage. My latest plan is to go back and get my priest who is now 80 through the quest chain to pick either Oracles or Frenzyheart. He's still working on Sons of Hodir too so that will be a nice little moneymaker for the time being.

Still have a pally sitting at 70 (and he's so old his main weapon is still the Hammer of Destiny).

Been doing a little dual-boxing on Twisting Nether-US but are only at level 15 on a hunter/rogue combo.

Mainly playing STO (got James Herbert Surge up to Lieutenant Commander and tried a Klingon for PvP - love the starting ship) and NHL10 on PS3 these days, with a dose of my Out of the Park Baseball online league and Total Extreme Wrestling 2010 thrown in for good measure.

TONS of podcasts were in the chamber today, so much so I couldn't sync before my frustrating car ride to campus.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Snowpocalypse 2010!

Just a quick note - the NJ area has been bashed with snow for the last few days, and the ancient power lines in Princeton just aren't what they used to be. Power has finally come back on, so expect updates to resume.

Cheers.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Stardate: You're Corny

I've been playing STO quite a bit over the last week. After being in the closed beta, the open beta, and the headstart you'd think I'd have had enough already. But I haven't. I sort of like it. It's providing a great change of pace for me from my WoW playing.

I've not been very adventerous thus far in terms of my toon. My first character is a human Starfleet officer called James Herbert Surge and he is the commanding officer of the New Jersey. I just got him promoted from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander this weekend during the "Winter Powerhouse" that "paralyzed the east coast" on Friday and Saturday. This week, after playing around a bit with Surge's new cruiser, I'll finally roll up a Klingon and some other kind of Starfleet alien race.

It's not mindblowing. But it's pretty solid. A comment in Zone chat yesterday pretty much summed up my attitude: "it'll do until TOR is ready."

A couple of typical random WoW-related posts that are always popping up at the launch of MMOs these days made me chuckle for some reason:

"NEED A RUN THROUGH STOCKS - PAYING 5G!"

"Need heals and 3 dps for ICC25 then gtg"

Ho-hum. Certainly not as chuckle-inducing in print as they were "in the moment."

Been listening to a bunch of new and non-WoW related podcasts, but some of the classics as well. Should be posting our updated list later today.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

To Meekly Go

I'm really bummed that my Asus "Republic of Gaming" laptop supposedly built for gaming can't handle Star Trek: Online without going through waves of lag. Even adjusting the -fps setting to 50 didn't help. To be fair, the laptop is now almost a year old, and I guess it serves me right for waiting so long to get a new desktop rig (I can dual box WoW on the laptop with no lag, but can't even run STO for longer than 5 minutes before it all goes to hell - doesn't make sense I tells ya!).

Anyway, interestingly enough last night I did some poking around the iTunes store to look for other MMO-related podcasts for the games I've dabbled (or continue to dabble) in.

Star Trek Online
I was happy to see that Aprillian from Ctrl Alt WoW has a brand new STO-themed show that has recently released its first episode. Ctrl Alt Trek provided a pretty decent overview of the beta and an interesting perspective if you're a Trek fan but on the fence about playing the MMO.

I also downloaded but haven't listened to STOked: The Ultimate Star Trek Online Podcast by the guys from Jupiter Broadcasting.

Champions Online

There were a couple, but the one that still looks like it is active is Podcast of Champions, which just released its last show on 1/25/10. Listened to the first 20 minutes, fairly amusing discussion of the box art included in that. Some large doses of yucking present. Also some fretting about the STO release and possible impact on support & development of CO.

Aion
Disappointing, really. None of the several Aion podcasts listed have been updated since we hit calendar year 2010. I picked up the Aion Fancast (12/4/09), Aion's Wrath (10/23/09), and Black Wings of Atreia (8/21/09) just to hear some examples.

Warhammer
Not much happening here either. Downloaded the Warhammer Alliance Podcast to hear their end-of-year special episode, but there hasn't been a new episode since.

Lord of the Rings Online
Some activity here - A Casual Stroll to Mordor and LOTRO Reporter both had news episodes out within the last week, while LOTROCast's last show was #20 back on 12/23/09.

Star Wars: The Old Republic
Apparently there's more going on here right now for a game that's not even released then there is for Aion. I picked up TOROcast #41 (!) from 1/31/10 and Mos Eisley Radio but have yet to listen.



If there are any others you regularly listen to, please let me know. I'll try to give these guys a listen this week and post some initial reactions.