Support WiFi


As mentioned in my earlier post, wireless in the park would rock! Please sign this petition and support it.
Thanks!

Summertime Fun

Summer has started and its looking pretty good so far. Over the last few years - with the exception of my vacations out east, summer has been spent indoors toiling away at some quest or raid. Glad to be playing with people in my own time zone once again - those early saturday mornings...(friday nights?) setting the alarm for 3am to start a raid was starting to wear on me. Nonetheless, my time has been split between EQ, L2 and Horizons. (not to mention school, the girls and a social life).

I remember wishing i had a laptop so that i could just play in the park, but then there was always that little thing called an internet connection that stood in my way. So now im set up for wireless and alas! i still cant play in the park!!
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With absolutely perfect timing Mike just posted a response to my unasked question. Now if only i can get some wireless happening at the park next to my house we could be in business!

Horizons

Recently I started playing Horizons, yes forever on that quest for the game to replace Everquest. Horizons is a nice mix of successful elements from other games. Although the player population is relatively low, the game design has succeeded in weeding out many bad apples who like to ruin the game for others. (with smack talk, griefing etc.) The game requires alot of dedication, and caters to a particular type of player. The atmosphere of the chat environments is friendly and constructive. There is no one general chat window, but player created channels that anyone can join. There are always the standard windows such as guild chat, marketplace etc, but players have the ability to create more topic specific channels. Last night i noticed there was even a Quebec channel! Although this keeps chats and in essence players seperate, you also get to talk about the topic at hand (no more selling in an OOC channel)

There are a few things that is nice about this game, tradeskill system, player generated economy and mainly its overall purpose. Unlike most mmorpg's that have come out over the last year or two, the game is not mob oriented nor pvp oriented. The gist of the game is this: Mobs do not drop any items other then materials used for tradeskills, therefore the economy is purely player driven since you can only get armor, weapons spells etc from other players who make them. The goal of the game is to build towns and cities using these collective resources. You want to build a house, you will need people from every element of tradeskill to build that house; this creates a cooperative community.

A player can be a tradesman and level to capacity within the trade, be a significant member of the game and never pick up a sword or cast a spell.

Career paths are interchangeable - you can play a cleric for 20 levels, then decide you want to be a warrior, you simply find the appropriate NPC and request the change. You then start out as a lvl 1 warrior with lvl 20 cleric abilities, as time goes, you can be a lvl 20 cleric, lvl 39 warrior and a lvl 19 shaman if you chose - having the abilities of all three classes up to your level ability. This allows for some creative hybridity.

Lastly, something that has been brought up on this space, as well as many others that are concerned with gameplay, is how Horizons deals with death. You do die in Horizons (as i candidly found out last night mining at the bottom of a lake!) but you dont lose experience or levels or gear. You gain death points, which, as they accumulate you lose abilities until you regain them. Interesting concept since dying too often will affect the game play, but imo, death is not that important a role in Horizons as it is in most MMO's.

There's alot more to talk about when it comes to character selection and creation, but ill get into it another time.

More Sad News

As i've gotten older, it has been harder to find a radio station that plays the kind of alternative music that i have always loved...thanks to the internet (and the radio tuner on media player) about a month or two ago, i finally found a station that i love. WOXY Cincinnatti Ohio. Sadly, internet broadcast is expensive and their costs far outweigh the income free radio brings in... so they were supposed to end their online broadcast on may 1st - luckily they are still on the air ... for now.

They still have their fingers crossed for some corporate sponsorship, but then with corporate money tends to come mainstreaming... which i cant imagine which i option is worse - the end of the station or the mainstreaming of it....

When good things go Bad

It is time to bid a sad farewell to one of my favorite stores...Torrid. Although they are still in business, their original business model of rockabilly/punk rock/alternative clothes for plus sized women seems to have been revamped to cater to a more.... mainstream population. With a softer more ... girly pink look, and new categories like Club and Career, Torrid.com has turned into every other store ... No more plus sized models (except for one wonderfully airbrushed beauty queen for a cover model) The clothes are now displayed on perfect mannequins ... I always liked the real models, cause you could see how a shirt really fit on a plus sized body... now, the mannequins have flat bellies and perfect boobs... /sigh

So, guess its back to the drawing board. So long Torrid, was nice while it lasted. Maybe someday, someone will start something and stick to it because it was the cause that counted not the [excessive] profit.

p.s. torrid was a successful alternative store before they went mainstream, it was not a change brought about because they were losing money - i can only assume it was to make more.

EQ2

Applications for EverQuest2 Beta opened today, and after much net congestion, three hours later, i FINALLY got my application in, although that meant that i had to install a better video card on the fly heh.

For further info check out the official website.