Mixing Things Up

Last week, in WoW, I managed to finish up the Noble Garden achievement. I am still trying to finish up the one for Children's week but the PvP part is irritating. I've belted out some pretty bad obscenities, even once while on the phone, while trying to carry a flag, thanks to an awesome healer I actually made it through a mass of stuns, snares and just a zerg of horde trying to stop me. I have half of it done and it was hard, at times. It takes a bit of luck too, if you have someone heal you when you carry a flag and just being able to be there when someone drops a flag and so on. Annoying and really IMO not something a PvE achiever wants to worry about. However, that isn't the worst part! My character bugged and couldn't enter BGs yesterday. So that went out the window with a 19 hour estimation on my ticket. Maybe I'll try again for it later, a bit disgusted with it now.

While I may be a bit disheartened about Children's Week achievement, I am pretty excited about  the 4.2 patch. A shiny new flaming hippogryph as a reward- woo! Also lots of content for everyone. There will be more raid content, five man content and solo content! I watched the blizzcast video on it and it really looks interesting. Blizzard seems to be moving content faster and looking to make different types of players happy as far as content goes. Maybe they are starting to feel the pressure of new and upcoming MMO competition? Whatever it is... I like the direction we're going in!

Some interesting things with this patch- legendary items, the raid log (!) which is sort of like a guide, or wiki, for raids, and personal progression with no phasing! While phasing is cool, ii can hinder players assisting each other. For those days I just want to do my own thing, solo personal progression sounds like a very interesting idea plus you can have a friend tag along and do the dailies with you. I'm pretty excited about this patch. MMO-Champion has a lot of information and the blizzcast here if you want to check it out.

I've been messing around in RIFT a bit too. I know I've been a bit quiet about it but I just have gotten stuck in  Stonefield. It is a rather dull zone and I just feel like logging out after awhile, all of the mobs are tightly congested over the terrain. Sometimes the towns get invaded  not by one but five or more different groups of mobs invading. They kill all the NPCs, which respawn quickly after the invasion is over, but it would take many, many people of that level to kill them. This seems to happen all the time. I have to log out and come back later. Maybe I just catch it at a bad time but it really is a downer waiting on people to join in and help, then most of the time it is a higher level helping someone and that isn't much fun because they won't join the public group and you're all by your lonesome self.

On a good note, I really have been enjoying the necromancer soul. My mage is almost 22 now and I like playing her a lot with more points to put in my necro/lock trees. It really is a lot of fun and I've been playing her more than the rogue.I suppose it all boils down to spending ten levels with any character in Stonefield. Not something I really am enjoying and I don't feel like doing any of it over with the rogue. Yeah, it really is that bad, I just noticed this afternoon MMOGC also has the same feelings about the zone. I'd really hate for this boring zone to kill the game for me but I find I really don't feel like mucking though it. Sure, the game could be better past these zones, it was great before this zone, but right now it isn't so fun.

In other news SOE must be really stressing out over the security problems. I wish they'd give out a bit more on what is going on, a lot of people have been upset about the lack of communication. I, being a SOE player, am a tad worried about what exactly has been compromised. I have heard it is other countries CC info but US residents personal account  information. I feel bad for the company, after all any company can be targeted like this.

All of the SOE sites direct to a security update page and all of the games are down. I am sure the company will take a hit from this. It will leave a bad feeling with players, a shame really. I am sure SOE will bounce back but some of the games may take a hard hit. People tend to shy away from a company when something like this happens, but who can really blame them. If your personal and financial information is at risk, it can be a really scary thing.

I was a bit annoyed I couldn't log into Free Realms but not much we can really do but hope for the best. I had been playing Pirates of the Burning Sea over the weekend and really wanted to write a post about it but I forgot to take some screenshots and now I cannot log in to take any. It is actually a very charming game and I really like a lot of the aspects in the game.

You can change your appearance any time you want, very cool. Lots of different looks with variations. Right off the bat I hopped in my ship and went exploring to different places across the sea, I really liked the freedom. There was ship combat and melee combat, a nice mix. I still have a lot to learn but it is a neat little game and I didn't have to spend a dime to check it out and have a fun evening with it.

That about wraps it up today. I hope things settle down to a calm with SOE, in the meantime I'm mostly playing WoW but I am still keeping it mixed up with some other games on the side. It has been quite enjoyable.

-kaozz