It's Been a While.

So I've pretty much fallen off of a cliff, gaming wise, since becoming a father for the first time. I did expect this to be honest as your time does seem to be completely consumed by the little bundle of joy and the spare time you do have, you want to spend it with them.

So, what have I been up to when I've had a few hours spare?

• Star Wars The Old Republic

I did (note did) have an active subscription to SW:ToR and I did enjoy it when I played it. EA have improved the game with the new housing, new items and what not and if I had 3 or 4 hours a day to play it I'd still be subbed, however I'm not willing to throw £8.99 at a subscription for a couple hours a week.

• World of Tanks

I enjoy World of Tanks quite a lot, but I have found that the constant grind does wear your down if you're not willing to throw a bunch of gold at it to help you up the hill. I've currently reached tier 8 along the American tree and must admit, I love my T29!

• The Lord of the Rings Online

I tend to fall in and out of love with LotRO quite easily for some reason. My Fiancee and I started playing it at release and with the Lifetime sub we picked up for her you'd think I'd play it more often than I do, as I get all the good stuff and don't have to pay a sub for it. I also have 20,000 coins to blow on expansions and cosmetic items so that will keep me entertained for a good while yet hopefully.

My only reservation with LotRO is which character to spend my limited time on. I am currently exerting it on a Hobbit Warden, however I have been pondering whether or not to make a fresh char and enjoy the experience again from the start - but we'll see.

• Others

I've also had a little dabble in a free Ultima Online shard and a free DAoC shard too, but I won't go into those as I've not put much time into them, they were for more rose-tinted reasons :)

Ish

Uthgard - A Free DAoC Server

Pew pew :)

Well, what a busy month it has been. Not only did the Camelot Unchained Kickstarter fund, I have found my way back in to Dark Age of Camelot - albeit on a popular free server called Uthgard.

Firstly the CU KS. There was some worried people, of which I was one that thought with 5 or so days to go that the project wouldn't fund as it still needed a good $650k, however come the last 72 hours there was a big push to get the word out - both by City State themselves but also the large fan base that had been created and it made it, and then some!

A Herald at launch, woohoo!

The final total on the KS page hit $2,232,933 but Paypal was also opened up to the masses (notably EU'ers with no credit cards) and that pushed the grand-total well clear of the second Stretch Goal.

Although this is great news, it's also disappointing as it's penciled in  for a Q4 2015 release, which is about 200 years off :(. However I'm not one to wish time away so although I'll keep an eye on the game and take part as much as possible on the Backer forums, I won't begin salivating just yet.

Now to the present. During my frequenting of the Backer comments section on the CU KS page it became apparent that there were a large number of DAoC players both backing and interested in CU, a number of which were still actively playing the game, just not by official means but instead on a free-to-play server.

So far so good.

The server itself goes by the name of Uthgard and on the face of it seems really well run. There are anywhere between 600 - 1200 players online most days/nights and I'm having great fun at present leveling a little Kobold Huntress - with the help of our CU inspired guild!

The biggest draw to the server has to be that it's of a Classic rule-set, therefore there are fewer classes, better RvR zones and Archery is back to how it should be (and not completely gimped by being classed as magic...). If you've played DAoC in the past or fancy giving it a go I'd recommend Uthgard for sure - it's certainly better than paying £12, not including tax that's for sure.

Oh - and dual accounts/buff botting is forbidden too so that's a win-win :)

Ish

Realisation - eFriends Are Key

Frwends!

At this moment in time I have not one, not two, but three MMO accounts currently open. These are Warhammer Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Dark Age of Camelot.

The predicament I find myself in is that my Warhammer guild up-rooted and moved to SW:ToR when it released as it was quite obvious that BioWare had decided to cut WAR loose and let it fester in the abyss until it either dies or the electric bill for the server room becomes more than the active subs. Seeing as my guild moved on I followed , however I have realised that blasters and Jedi aren't really my cup-o-tea and I much prefer the sword, shield and sorcery MMORPG.

This has fueled my re-enlistment in my second favourite MMO (DAoC) and the once-hoped successor Warhammer Online, to try and re-ignite the enjoyment I used to have in those games before they became hindered by either lack of players and/or lack of developer direction. I have found however, that it's one thing to jump back into a game and find PUGs to run with or go it solo, but the fundamental requirement to having a good experience in an MMO in my opinion has to be friends, be them e-friends or otherwise.

My experience after jumping back into DAoC was OK, notably as I did not venture out into the level 50 open RvR lakes, instead I stuck to the lower level Thidranki Battleground. I found it relatively easy to find a group and when that group included half-savvy players we tended to kill more than we were killed.

Warhammer was more of a mixed bag. In tier 4 I spend a good 30 minutes each night asking in regional chat if any groups required a RR80 Choppa, but it seems that I was either too low for the elitist swines, or no-one understood my English on a European server.... I'm not sure, /meh. On the flip side when I dropped down a few tiers to T2 I managed to jump into an already open warband or could put together a group in no time at all and there were plenty of fights to be had, which makes me want to log into the lower tiers much more often.

In all of these games if I have my e-friends with me I have had no issues forming groups, getting help with quests or running premade groups, all of which takes the hassle out of LFG'ing and adds a huge amount to the enjoyment of PvP as you can stomp more people if you know who you're grouped with, their ability and are on comms ;).

What I'm trying to say is don't bother retuning to an MMO's unless you have pals that will come with you or if you're certain to be able to easily find a group/set of new friends.

Ish

Dark Age of Camelot.... Take 26 ;)

Doesn't look THAT dated to me

So I've only gone and done it, renewed my Dark Age of Camelot account - again.....!

Recently I've found that I've had zero, nil, nada interest in logging in to SW:ToR and that's because I find it a tad dull. I mean it's not that it isn't a good game, because I think it has a lot going for it but it hasn't grabbed me like DAoC, SWG or Warhammer Online did all those years ago (god I'm old).

New Frontiers, good for some

That being the case and the fact that there's a shiny 14 free days awaiting any returning player that hasn't logged into their account for 90 days, I thought why the hell not. My only issue, which I've tweeted rather a lot about recently is the idiotic account system EA have devised, I mean by the time you've finished creating this account, then linking another account to that account and made sure you've linked the right one you may have either lost the complete bloody will to live, or have decided to go out in the sunshine instead. It is THAT stupid.

After fighting with EA and deflecting all their attempts to make me not play one of their games, I downloaded the client from the website, patched it up and logged into a random character to try and remember how to do stuff. At the moment I currently have, char wise on Ywain 1 Midgard:

1. 50 Norse Healer
2. 50 Dwarf Warrior
3. 50 Kobold Hunter
4. 50 Norse Shadowblade
5. A 24 Runemaster & Savage

From what I can remember my SB was my main and then I tended to either go for my Hunter or Healer when the group required it. However I can't remember a bloody thing when it comes to skills/spells/macro's etc so I hope it comes back to me quickly.

At the time of writing this I did a quick /who on my Mid realm (one command I remember!) and there were 702 players, which for Mid isn't too shabby, considering you have the realms of Albion and Hibernian, both of which tend to be considerably more popular for some unknown reason. That being the case I'd guess that there was approx. 3,000 people online @ UK prime-time, which is promising.

I'll hopefully have more time to get back to grips with DAoC in the coming days, but to try and refresh myself I've also been reading these sites:

FreddysHouse DAoC Forums

Etaew's Blog 

See you in the Frontiers!

Ish

Ah, Sweet DAoC Memories

It's just sad that nothing has been able to beat it, here's to hoping that SW:ToR can pull something out of the hat.

Ish

Dark Age of Camelot .... 2!

So over the past few days I've been surfing the web, as I usually do checking over the usual MMORPG gaming sites, notable Massively and mmorpg, but also stumbled across a few sites discussing the goal that is Dark Age of Camelot 2.

Now, taking in to account that the creators of the original DAoC back in 2001 (Mythic) have now been consumed by EA Bioware (maker of RPG games) although still seperate entities, I'm scepticle of them wanting to make it, however they certainly have the skills (old Mythic bods) and the cash (EA) to inject in to it so who knows.

I've found a few sites that are trying to carry the flame to Mythic, which are:

• http://daoc2.com/ (over 1200 have signed the petition)
• http://daoc2.net/

Worth a read and a Tweet if you have a spare 5 as even if we could get a response out of the bods at Mythic it would be something.

Ish