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

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

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.

Oops.

But seeing as Ruthy has now discovered the time-sucking ways of the game, I’ll have a lot more time to get back into things I should really be doing.