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08/01/2005 Archived Entry: "WARNING: Severe Game Geekery Ahead!"
WARNING: Severe Game Geekery Ahead!
Not responsible for gagging, utter confusion, or lack of interest. Continuation of reading this entry is therefore your own damn fault.
I'm thinking of... Dah-NUH-NUH! Upgrading my Greymatter to version 1.31 and I'm reading the upgrade stuff. I successfully installed it onto a client's website, but am I smart enough to upgrade from an older version to the newer version...? Things are uncertain at this point. But, oh, well. If I bork it, I'll just wipe and start over. I'm not so daft as to not save a backup of the old CGI, anyway.
So... anyway. Where have I been?
Eh, just around. Living my life and paying my bills. I know, disappointing and not glamorous. But what would I do or want with glamor? I think real life's got enough upkeep as it is. Though I wouldn't mind the money.
Things I Miss, Things I Don't Miss
I miss Ragnarok Online, but only certain aspects of it. Yeah, I got really attached to that game. There is really no other online game like it. Even with all its quirks and initial "bad Engrish" from when the beta was being played, it had a lot of charm. It was, for lack of a better description, like "Final Fantasy Tactics" on a real-time playing field that wasn't turn based. Some of the classes, though, translated oddly (like the Bard/Dancer classes, they made more sense as turn-based).
The music! I miss the music, SoundTemp really jazzed up the game. The game is, IMHO, nearly half of the entire experience. But after Niffelheim and that latest new town whose name I forgot, there wasn't any new music.
They just started piling on maps... So sad. Instead of fixing the maps they already had, they just piled on more maps and towns that no one will visit on a regular basis. My dream was to find a way to get people to populate Juno. You talk about a beautiful map! Juno was so pretty.
My Hunter was inches away from Level 99. *sob!* Some days I'm tempted to buy a month's worth of play and actually -get- my glow, throw a item drop party, and become a high novice. I wanted to leave with a bang, but I left feeling very, very sad. A lot of old memories were attached to that game.
I'm aware it's just a game, I'm not even going to attempt to claim it's -the- only game because it's got a LOT of quirks and it's becoming more dated as games now are bowling over even silver screen effects. Real-time cinematics are nil in RO, for all the charm of the sprite-based characters you can't customise clothing because they'd all have to be manually added to the database. The game economy was DESTROYED when the Blue Box quest became an exploit. Bots were created soley to gather the items needed to get the Blue Box, a mystery item box that often gave you very rare game items.
A Pirate, No More
I've quit playing "Puzzle Pirates". When a game becomes less as a thing you do for leisure and more of a chore, it's time to put that game away. I've never liked the idea of being -expected- to show up for a game, I don't like being obligated to play a game that I'm paying for. I -like- the game itself, it's a wonderful game and so well balanced! It's a good game with all manner of puzzles to play with and you earn points doing so that you can trade in for all manner of in-game items just as a good online game should. It's that you should never feel -guilty- for not wanting to play it. I like the people who I was a crew member of, an Officer even! I enjoyed talking to them, but I wish it wasn't only in-game. We were all adults, perfectly capable of calling each other on the phone or sending an email and yet... they never thought to. It's a fabulous game where the older kids could play and have a cup of coffee (or in my case, a rum and Coke).
All-In-All
I wasn't taking full advantage of my nine bucks a month and that's one less expense throughout the year so I can get my bills taken care of. I just can't afford to pay for games on a monthly basis.
Which brings me to the -best- and most -refreshing- game I've ever found... "Guild Wars"! Whilst reading up on "World of Warcraft", there was an ad for "Guild Wars" like one day before it went gold. So that weekend I bought a boxed copy ($50, standard price for online games these days) and found that you paid NO additional monthly fee, you had -two- classes per character, the characters were customisable, and PVP and Role-Playing are integrated in such a way that it's actually -fun- to play either! I used to really hate PVP, but the PVP in "Guild Wars" reminds me almost of "Wheel of Time" (which is a biiiiig plus, for me, WoT is a really fun game).