Tyranny of Heaven [ToH]

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.

Well, I really like the Death Knight rune mechanic though. Complexity is nice, and for me, complexity = fun... sometimes. The phasing technology that I hear about so much is pretty neat. But I think it kinda takes away from the point of MMO games, and that's having a single cohesive unified world that you share with other people. Might as well be playing a single player game... (*cough* AoC's night mode...)

Anyway, I decided to leave Amelante the Warlock retired after all. I really have no desire to grind through another 10 levels. If Blizzard's next expansion is another vertical expansion, I think I will just leave the game for good. But it's not like I'm really playing now. I already canceled my WoW account.

Playing WoW, however, has given me new appreciation for WAR. My guild in WAR disbanded recently, which was a factor in me returning to WoW. (But I found, all the familiar faces in WoW are either gone or play at vastly different times than I. So it really wasn't much of a comfort.) So I started questing and running scenarios again.

I found a new guild in WAR, and it seems like a nice, active guild that makes no hardcore demands of its members. And WAR has been interesting in the past week. I'd been trudging along at the early 30's in tier 4 for the past few months. I was surprised when EVE began to take more and more of my time (sacrificing my time in WAR). And then patch 1.2 came along, as well as another live event. I then found myself playing WAR more and EVE less.

Strangely, my interest in EVE usually wanes when I switch to a more PvP oriented mindset (such as joining a PvP/0.0 corp or joining the faction war). Even though I'm relatively rich by my own standards, I know I can lose it all by losing 4-5 well fitted frigates. (And hence a dilemma: fly cheap and risk losing due to sub-par performance, or fly expensive and risk losing 10 times the ISK.) I've switched back to a more industrial mode of play, while the ISK is nice (for basically doing nothing), it doesn't compare to what I can make running missions. Unfortunately, missions are such huge time sinks (especially when you loot and salvage) and after a while, they get repetitive/boring.

But EVE Apocrypha, the next expansion, releases tomorrow. I briefly tried out the new scanning mechanics, Tech 3 ships, wormholes, and other goodies on the test server and I was impressed. The Sleepers should be a fun NPC opponent. And interestingly, it was against them that I lost my first battleship... on the test server. ;)

Anyway, WAR. I finished the live event, unlocking the new Slayer/Choppa classes for next week. I gained two levels, so now I'm just shy of hitting 36. I really need to hit 37 ASAP because I believe only 37+ can defend/attack fortresses. And speaking of which, I got a taste of WAR's end game content over the weekend.

On Saturday night/early Sunday morning, I logged onto WAR to try out an upgrade to one of my mods. I checked the zone map like I usually do when I log in and found that Order had captured one of our fortresses. And they were already working on a 2nd. Not being sure about the level 37 thing, I headed over to the fortress under siege... only to see streams of Destruction players heading back to the Inevitable City. The fortress was already lost. The Inevitable City was open for conquest.

I went back inside and spent hours defending the city against both Order players and Order NPCs. I even managed to win a loot bag from the PQ. (Oddly, even though I was only level 35, I was always one of the top-contributors to the PQ. In fact, in one, I was the top contributor. Odd how PQ contributions work...) Anyway, by the time we had secured the city, it was like 4am in the morning (recall it was Daylight Savings though). But I had loads of fun.

The next day, I spent hours running around in a warband (with 2-3 other warbands) trying to capture and defend zones. I'm slowly easing into my role of combat healer. But I'm a bit disappointed at the truth of something I heard a while ago: DoKs and WPs in the front line would die and die often. Back line healing isn't my thing.

Anyway, I briefly tried the new Choppa class on the test server. It seems like a melee class that's a lot of fun. When it's finally made available to us, I think I'll be leveling a new toon for a while (I might as well, to take advantage of the fact that T1-T3 will be once again populated by everyone else doing the same.)

The one fear I have is that my server is dying. I would really hate to move off my server. (And deal with possibly a new name or a new guild.) But I think our tier 4 population is pretty healthy. But I'm just a noob, really. My other fear is that WAR is dying. But as long as scenarios are popping and tier 4 zones are changing hands, I'll be around. I'm really disappointed that WAR didn't really catch on big. It may not be the best MMO game, but it is the best MMO game for me.

Well, at least when it comes to fantasy-themed MMO games. EVE will be my sci-fi game for the foreseeable future. Star Trek Online nor The Old Republic probably won't change that.