Tyranny of Heaven [ToH]

Borderlands took me away from Demon's Souls, which is unfortunate, since one of my friends started playing DS. I was hoping to try some co-op there. But strangely enough, out of nowhere, Bioware's newest epic, Dragon Age: Origins forced me away from Borderlands (for a bit, perhaps).

DA:O was never on my radar. I'd occasionally see ads for it (mainly in Bioware's newsletters!) but it never interested me. I think I even watched the trailer once. It seemed to me as yet another fantasy RPG.

A few weeks ago, I picked up Demon's Souls on the PS3. Some random review (calling it something like the most tortuous, but also, the most rewarding experience ever) caught my eye. So I just had to see what it was like.

And after the first day, I was hooked. It's surprising to find an RPG that gives serious weight to death: It's not just "you have to start over again," it's "you have to start over again from the last checkpoint." And the last checkpoint was the last boss you killed!

It's so hard to find like-minded people, it seems. In MMO games of past, I would make friends (or bring in existing friends) but that gaming camaraderie rarely persisted beyond that particular game. Even with existing friends. Very often, for the next game, I would start all alone again.

I think it's that people just get too attached to the game. I consider myself a gamer — I enjoy a wide variety of genres and playstyles. I can move on and enjoy new things. Unfortunately, finding others with the same passion has been very difficult.

Well, I've been playing EVE and WAR even less lately. And it's entirely because I finally got into the Champions Online closed beta. But it's not like they invited me, despite being registered over a year ago. I just managed to snag a beta code at a gaming site.

Sadly, I really haven't had much time to play MMOs. Been spending a lot of time doing other things — reading books, watching movies, playing console games. Yeah, yeah, blasphemous idea coming from an avid PC gamer.

My Disciple of Khaine finally hit rank 40 a few weeks ago. In the tradition of my other level-cap dings, I video capped the event. Unfortunately, I don't have that video available yet. It was a really boring ding-by-quest-turn-in anyway. ;)

Despite what I previously said about back-row healing, I respecced as a full back-row healer. It seemed the right way to go, as the class doesn't really have much front-line survivability. (Especially after the nerf to the Khaine's Bounty tactic.) I still enjoy playing the class, strangely.

Nah, just kidding. Well, I did decide to resubscribe for a while, so I could finally try out Wrath of the Lich King. (I've had an unopened Collector's Edition box sitting around for a few months now.) I wanted to try Death Knight, but unfortunately, I had no free character slots. So I moved stuff around between my alts, and emptied my main banking toon. (Unfortunately, he had the name that I wanted for my Death Knight.) I created my Death Knight and... was underwhelmed.

I think I hit tier 3 around last weekend. I don't know what all the naysayers were blathering about. Just about every night, there's been some open RvR activity. In fact, one night I took part of two successful keep sieges. And one of those keeps was moderately defended. I was quite surprised once I found myself up on the keep lord floor with everyone else.

I thought I'd start blogging under this name, rather than Amelante's.

Well, it's been 4-5 months since my last entry. I dropped Age of Conan within the first month. Funcom just really screwed up that game. The game breaker for me was the change to gray-level elite mobs. It prevented me from finishing certain quests. And after level 20 or so, it felt like the content just dried up. It was a really common complaint. I lost the will to play and eventually, I just canceled my subscription before my free time was up. I really don't plan to re-install the game or go back.

Back in August, I finally got into the Warhammer Online closed beta. (Well, it was simply because I preordered the Collector's Edition.) I didn't even know I was in the beta, I just checked my beta center account one day and it said "You're in the beta!" So unfortunately, I lost about 4-5 days of playing time (it took about 3 days to download!). But once I started playing, I was in awe.

I haven't blogged here in a while. In fact, I haven't blogged anywhere in general for a while. But today feels somewhat significant because after some 3.5-4 years of playing WoW, I finally let my subscription lapse.