Desert of Zin

That would be Warhammer Online then.

First things, first.  It’s nowhere as good as Guild Wars.  Gameplay, graphics, subscription -  Guild Wars wins hands down.

But it works (after a period of uncertainty – transferring the server info from one company to another.  Not a flawless transfer apparently) and it’s good for a casual game.  If you can, get the collectors edition in HMV for 15 quid and a 60-day subscription game card for £13.  Still cheaper than most but not really worth it in the long run I think.  I’ll be making the most of my time on it while I can.

I’ll say that it does a good job of capturing the setting.  Warhammer-related computer games have been getting better at that in recent years.  And soon there comes Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium which is a big ol’ MMORPG set in GW’s futuristic setting.  Initial reports are that it looks good.

For Sigmar! For the Emperor!

- Alistair

For a while, and for reasons I can’t possibly explain, I’ve been playing D&D Tiny Adventures on Facebook.  And when I say ‘playing’ I mean I log in occasionally and click some buttons to send my character on another quest which, an hour later, will be finished and awaiting my further intervention.

Guild Wars it ain’t.

Initially, it was a fun wee distraction, as is much of Facebook, but role-playing games are better than that generally.  Here’s what I’m playing at the mo.

• Guild Wars – I’ve logged in once in the last month!  Ruthy and I started some new characters ages ago and they sat dormant for months.  I may play again within the next 30 days.  Oh, will the excitement ever stop?
• A Play By E-Mail session – Exactly what it says.  First time I’ve ever done it and it’s fun.  But because it’s intermittent it can be a bit confusing to what’s going on.
• Progress Quest – Better in many ways to D&D Tiny Adventures, after ‘Character Creation’ you have no input at all.  As long as the software runs, your character will quest away to his heart’s content.

I have been reading though the old Red Box edition of Basic D&D, with the idea of running a Pen & Paper session.  It’s been a while since I’ve been involved in a game, either playing or GM-ing, and nothing really beats the experience.  Must try and rustle something up.

Oh, before I forget, try this one out.  It’s the Linear RPG.  Nice bit of fun.

- Alistair

I’ve been busy a lot recently.  Odd day at work interspersed with odd jobs for peeps, website tinkering, a bit of hardware tech and no time for Guild Wars…  What, NO Guild Wars?  Yep, that’s just how little time I have at the moment.

So I have taken a sly day off work to catch up with some writing.  I’ve got this nagging suspicion at the back of my mind that I have things to do in the office today, but nothing so important that can’t be put off ’til tomorrow.  It’s not like i’m full time with the church anyway.

There are a few things I’m working on today, notably at least another 2000 words for DoZ.  I’ll give a full update later to show how productive I’ve been.

Or, hello to the 14-day EVE Online trial.

As I mentioned here, my experience with Star Wars: Galaxies was less than impressive but I had heard good things about EVE Online ages ago from Kai.

As that was about a year ago and I know I’m a slow learner so here we go to another time losing experience.

There’s every chance that I won’t take this any further than the 14-day trial, and I’m not abandoning Guild Wars which remains my Number One choice for online gaming, but if you have access to a trial key it would be pretty dumb not to use it.

I’m down loading the client as I type this, so in 500MBs time I’ll be back on sharing what I think of it.

Last night, during a truly spectacular thunderstorm, the home computer suffered a bit of a jolt and died.

Everything was going fine (thinking I, the surge protector will keep us safe, foolish boy…) and there was an almighty flash at the cable modem and everything stopped.

So, wasn’t the PC surge protected? Yep.

Was the cable modem? Nope…

Oh, frak.

Nevermind, life goes on and it is only a computer after all. And the wife and I are (almost) fit and (kind of) healthy and that’s the most important thing.

And this is the perfect opportunity to concentrate more time on the ever-present novel. With GuildWars out of the way for the time being (and oh, I’ll miss it) I’ll have no other choice but to spend time finishing the damn thing off.

Strange how things work out, isn’t it?