Dub's Playlist of the Week.

My playlist this week is going to be kind of short. The week has been dominated with Warhammer Online. I understand that Civ V was released this week and I do plan to play more of it, but WAR has really sunk its teeth into me. There was a little tiny bit of Bad Company 2 and Jolly Rover sprinkled in, but it's been all about WAR.

Greatest Invention of the 21st Century.

Some people say that the iPhone has been the greatest invention of this generation. I'm not sure about that, but I am sure that the greatest invention of the 21st century has been the Razer Naga Gaming Mouse.

Now I've known about this mouse for quite some time, but had little interest in actually buying one. That was until I mentioned on Twitter about being a mouse clicker in Warhammer Online. It was like a light bulb went off in my head as I said to myself 'self, isn't there a mouse that is suppose to help with that?'. And indeed there is.

What you have to understand is I have been using a Logitech Trackball mouse for over a decade. Not the same mouse of course, but it has been a trackball mouse. I have tried to migrate back to a regular mouse a few times over the years, but I just couldn't get accustomed to the feel of them. So when I went to Best Buy to pick up the Razer I had asked about the return policy. I didn't want to spend all this money on something that may or may not work for me.

But it doesn't matter now because I love my new mouse! Not only does it feel great and is comparable to how I felt with a trackball, it also has made WAR that much more fun. I won't lie, it has been a challenge, but it hasn't been as hard of a transition as I thought it would. I've even used the Razer in Bad Company 2 and did well, that's a great thing for somebody like me who had been tracking it as long as I have.

Is the Razer Naga needed? Not really, I did just fine in FPS games and in MMO's in general. The main reason for the purchase was for the 12 buttons on the side of the mouse. I have tried to be a keyboard clicker, and it just doesn't work for me. I would spend more time looking at the keyboard to make sure I was hitting the right keys. Where the Razer was needed was in PvP. I am tired of just being mediocre, I want to be somewhat competitive, and the Razer Naga is doing that for me. Is the Razer perfect? That depends really. There is still the occasional confusion as to which button I am pressing, but the majority of the time it works perfectly for me. The best thing about the Razer is it allows me to focus on watching the screen. It really has improved my experience in oRvR in WAR, and I do think it's helping me improve as a pvper.

Dub's Playlist of the Week.

I haven't done one of these in awhile, so I figured it was time for another. My playlist has been dominated primarily by two games over the past month: Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Warhammer Online. There has been the occasional other game like Jolly Rover and Napoleon Total War thrown in there, but according to Raptr those other two have been the games of choice.

More F2P goodness!

Remember that time when I was excited about the Everquest 2 Extended, and how I went on and on about it? Well, as time went on and more information about the pricing came out the excitement kind of died a bit. It also didn't help that I jumped head first in Warhammer Online again. I would actually attribute the lack of EQ2X play time more to WAR than anything else, I'm just so addicted to PvP in that game.

But enough about that, I wanted to talk about something else. You see, if I just wet myself at the EQ2X announcement, then I totally crapped my pants at the announcement of Pirates of the Burning Sea going F2P. Around May of last year I bought PotBS on sale for only five bucks from GoGamer.com. I actually had six weeks of free play because I also signed up for the 14 day free trial, smart thinking eh!

I had a blast playing the game, even talked one friend into at least trying the game for two weeks. The problem was that Champions Online and Aion were right around the corner, and I was still subbed to Age of Conan as well. So I never actually subbed after my free time was over because those other two games I was going to be writing a review for and knew I wouldn't have much time. As much fun as I was having, I never quite felt that PotBS was worth a fifteen dollar monthly sub. Don't get me wrong, the game has awesome ship to ship combat, something I haven't been able to find in an offline single-player game.

Regardless of whatever MMO I may be playing at the time, I am most definitely going to be playing PotBS, and you should too!

Sport the WAAAGH...

My MMO of choice the past month has been WAR, and boy has it been fun, most of the time. I am a PvE carebear at heart and generally stink at any sort of PvP in MMO's. So when I initially came back last month, I created an Engineer on the Iron Rock server and instantly went back to the Dwarf T1 starter area. So for about six levels I just quested and ran a few Public Quests while waiting for scenarios to pop.

Then one day I had this idea that I would go ahead and check out the Empire vs Chaos T1 oRvR, cause with all the free accounts there has to be some PvP going. Let me tell ya, after that night my way of playing WAR changed. It was as if the rain had stopped, the clouds had opened and a ray of sunlight hit me in the face, all the while angels where playing music as if to tell me 'Now this is how you play the game!'. From that point on I logged in, joined an open warband and proceeded to blast Destro into tiny bits.

That was all well and good, till I hit T2 with the Engineer. At this moment he sits idle waiting for me to just take my punishment like a man, cause everyone knows starting out in a new Tier is like having your face kicked in repeatedly, eventually it will stop, I hope. I did have two other characters already in T2, my Chosen on Badlands and the Black Orc on Volkmar. Well I remember when I used to own face back with the Chosen, I'll just dust him off and give it a go.

That didn't last very long. I know I am not playing this class correctly, but it's really discouraging to get creamed as a heavy armored bringer of death. So I decided that I would mess around with the Orc; that turned out to be a great decision. It was a bit rough at first, but eventually I got the hang of the Black Orc and started wreaking shop in T2.

But once again, that was all well and good till I hit T3 with the Orc. T3 on Volkmar is a mixed bag so far. Last night was probably the best night in my young T3 days. We had a full warband take a keep and some BO's and get the elf lands to flip to Destro. I will say one thing, the renown xp is nice. But again, being on the beggining end of the tier, I am easy picken's for high level Order.

Regardless, I am still enjoying WAR, I look forward to going home after work every night and logging in, evern if it's for an hour or two.

LOTRO F2P this Friday.

So apparently on September 10th, Lord of the Rings in its F2P incarnation goes live here in the US. No offense to Blue Kae or anyone else who may love LOTRO but I could really care less. If you were not a paying subscriber or lifetimer before the F2P announcement, then there is absolutely nothing in the F2P version that will draw you in other than the price. Let me put it another way - going F2P is not going to make LOTRO any better.

I predict that there will be a large number of players from the levels of 1 and say 24, but once players will be required to start shelling out money to continue questing those numbers will drop. But this is me being jaded, I am sure there are a number of players looking forward to this and I hope that it's successful, but I highly doubt that you will find me in the world of Middle Earth.

How I feel about F2P LOTRO.

What I am looking forward to in September!

Well September is here, and that means we should start seeing a lot more games being released for the holiday season. I thought I would share the few games that I am looking forward to playing this month!

1) NHL 11 for PS3.

Since I no longer have a working Xbox, I will need to satisfy my console thirst on the PS3. Not a bad thing, but I have become comfortable with the Xbox controller when it comes to my hockey games, so hopefully there is little difference between the two. The Be a Pro mode was what I played most last season, and this years mode looks even better. I also would like to get into online play once again; I did very little last season because of a few tweaks to the controls that I felt made playing online to difficult as a Defenseman. NHL 11 comes out on Sept. 7th, I will be paying off my preorder this weekend to insure I receive one.

2) Civilization V for the PC.

What can I say, I have loved the Civ series since I was introduced to Civ II. What I do know is that I will most likely be losing sleep because I can always just play one more turn! Civ V releases on Sept. 21st, so I better get as much sleep as I can till then.

3) Dead Rising 2 for PC.

I wrote Dead Rising 2 off when I Xbox fried. But then I learned it was PS3 as well and I suddenly was interested. But the other day I noticed that Steam has the PC version for preorder, and now I am excited. I loved the first game and number two looks to be just as awesome. The fact that Capcom is releasing this for the PC makes me the most happiest of all. It will be Games for Windows Live which I love for two reasons - achievements and controller support! The zombie beheadings will begin Sept. 28th, can't wait.

A few notibles that have already been released that I am still looking to get are - Singularity and Mafia 2 for the PC. With WAR taking up my evenings at the moment and the other three games coming this month, I have no idea if I would even have the time to play these two games. Man it's a great time to be a PC gamer!

FFXIV slowness.

Not long ago I complained about the downloading and patching of Runes of Magic. Well I think the Final Fantasy XIV beta has got that beat. When I went to bed last night I was at roughly 50%, when I got up this morning it was nearly finished at 99.5%. It would seem that Square Enix went with a P2P type download system, like WoW's patcher, and it's awfully slow. Good news is tonight we here in North America should be able to get codes to play in beta, so hopefully all this painfully slow downloading and patching will be worth it.

UPDATE: It took I don't remember how many times to download the updates, but after four attempts to install said updates, I have given up for now. Each time the updating process would error out at 99%, the last time my anti-virus went nuts which caused the updating to fail. So I decided to uninstall the client I have for now and maybe in a day or two I will be able to get myself a code and a new client.

August.

It's been quite the interesting August. Actually not really, hence why the lack of posts on the blog. The rash of negative posts from bloggers about the new Everquest 2 Extended service really chapped my hide. For that reason I decided to just take a small break, try to refocus and decide if I really want to keep blogging. It does seem a bit overly dramatic when I look back on it, but I like to write, I have enjoyed meeting others through the blog and there are some really good bloggers out there I love to read.

It was almost a year ago when I wrote a few extremely negative posts about Modern Warfare 2, all from a lack of knowledge on how the game was going to work because it hadn't even shipped yet. When the game did eventually ship, I held off purchasing the game on principle, but after a few weeks I did pick it up and proceeded to play something like 130+ hours of the game, so obviously I liked it.

But that period of anger and ignorance about the online portion of Modern Warfare 2 reminds of the number of posts on EQ2X, and that made me think. It made me ask myself why am I taking this so seriously, why do I feel the way I do. I don't really have an answer for that. But regardless, that excitement I had for EQ2X has slipped away and has been replaced with Warhammer Online, so it was all for naught!

I never started the blog because I wanted to use it as a platform to move onto bigger and better things, it was started because I wanted to write about games and give my thoughts and opinions because I felt that the online and print publications were writing terrible reviews. That's how it started, and over the course of a few years the blog has molded into something a bit more, and I've been happy with it. Far be it for me to tell someone how and what to write on their blog, but I have become increasingly annoyed with some bloggers that write up these essay style posts they call articles as though they are trying to get a job at Massively, or somewhere else.

Sometimes putting my thoughts into a post is a way for me to work things out, helps get the gears moving and get me to thinking, and that's what this post has been about, nothing more. August has been a good month; the weather has been pretty decent, I turned 36, and now that it's ending I am just that much closer to NHL 11, Civ V and Dead Rising. Oh and I can't forget about Raiders football!!!

So Productive.

Talk about a productive day at work; I spent the better part of my eight hours watching Youtube gameplay videos of various F2P games that are out now. For some reason my mind was trying to convince me that I might somehow be interested in playing some F2P games, ha! I admit that some looked alright, but I know myself I have a hard enough time staying focused on a pay to play MMO, how in the world am I going to keep interest going for a game that I have nothing invested in?

What I was looking for was one of those Asian MMO's that had some sort of martial arts combat. I had played one a long while ago called Dragon Sky, but it no longer exists, and with good reason - it stunk. But the martial arts combat was soooooo awesome. Too bad it was a terrible game.

I did happen to catch a gameplay trailer for Star Wars Galaxies, the music alone is almost enough to want me to resub. I also watched a few more gameplay trailers for City of Heroes and Champions Online. Yep, it was a pretty boring day at work.

Shooterific!

Does anyone remember when First Person Shooters ruled the PC market? Well I do. Back in the day it seemed like that was all there was to play, but not anymore. I have had a real thirst for a good fps lately so I busted out Battlefield Bad Company 2 multiplayer again. I also tried out ArmA II, a game I bought during the Steam sales, and I bought Far Cry 2 for my birthday the other day.

I find that with any online fps there is a warm up time of maybe ten or so minutes where I have to adjust to the speed of the game, and that's definitely true with BFBC2. There are still some 'BS' moments in the game that make you want to cry hacker in chat, but I have learned that if I am not having fun and I am not 'in the zone' so to speak, then it's just best to just exit out of the game and avoid the rage chat that I have been prone to doing in the past. My main problem with BFBC2 is that it runs like crap, and to get it to run better I have to force DX9 and turn down a few settings without destroying the graphics too much. If only there was a game that played like BFBC2 but looked and ran like Modern Warfare 2. Actually, I think that's what the new Medal of Honor is going for.

ArmA II is an interesting game. For those who don't know, ArmA is a military simulation developed by Bohemia Interactive, the same folks that made Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis. If you're looking for a heavy dose of realism in your shooter, these are the games you want to play. OFP was ugly, ran terrible at times, and AI was superhuman at times, but it was like nothing I had played at the time. Shooters have evolved since OFP was released, but my initial impression of ArmA II made me feel like I was playing the same buggy game just over ten years ago. To be fair I have only played about an hour of ArmA II, but I did like what I played enough not to regret my purchase.

Far Cry 2 is a purchase I made for a couple of reasons; A host on a podcast I listen to talks highly of the game and I wanted something that ran well and looked pretty. I loved the first Far Cry, that too was a game like none I played at the time. It looked great, played great and was a lot of fun. Far Cry 2 takes place in Africa this time as opposed to a tropical island like the first game, but it's still just as pretty looking. I have only put about two hours into  Far Cry 2 and done only a couple of missions of jobs I think they are going to be called, but so far it's fun. Far Cry 1&2 are known for their large open world but not in the traditional sandbox kind of way. It's more like you are confined to a certain area of the map, but you are free to traverse any part of that area you want to. This allows the player to approach missions any way they want to.

So those are my shooters for now, eventually I am going to pick up Singularity and the Crysis pack, but for now these will have to do.

Fallen Earth Revisited.

Thanks to the blogosphere craze over Fallen Earth after launch, I decided to pick myself up a copy. Here's some advice; sometimes it's ok not to listen to bloggers, cause Fallen Earth for me was a big dud. There's no real one thing I can point to as to why I wasn't enjoying the game, I just wasn't. Mostly it was that the ranged combat was borked and by not wanting to craft, I felt like I was only playing half a game. I never hated Fallen Earth for what it was trying to do, it just wasn't for me. So after playing less than ten hours during my free month, I cancelled.

The almighty Jaye Dubb

As time went on and the game was patched more and more, I had a slight desire to return to Fallen Earth and see how the game compare to when I first played. I won a code to FE off another blog, but instead of using that, I thought I would start with the 14 day free trial, give myslef an extra couple of weeks in case I was enjoying the game.

The good news is I am enjoying the game thus far. It looks better, runs smoother and I am actually interested in trying to craft this time around. The bad news is that crafting is still overwhelming, the starting towns are very empty and if I quit today I don't think fell like I am missing something. Like I said, I am enjoying the game, I'm just don't see myself playing FE like I have other MMO's.

The basic tutorial hasn't changed; you wake up in some facility that I wasn't paying attention to learn where and you must escape. What has changed is some of the extended tutorial you can do once you pick a started town. I picked Zanesville because it was a combat town that focused on pistols and rifles. The once was a mission to get a free horse, but it seems to be given to you, at what point I don't know cause I wasn't paying much attention to the mission text.

To be fair to FE I have only been playing very casually, maybe and hour a night. But I do think that part of my enjoyment comes from knowing what to expect this time around. I know how the combat is, I know half the game is crafting and I know that it's not a great looking game. I am not interested in trying the PvP, and I have no idea what the 'end game' is like, but I am interested in getting out of the started town and crafting some of the better gear and weapons. It would be great to not be using BB guns for once.

Tates like chicken!

The month of August is shaping up to be a good one for MMO addicts such as myself. There's the new EQ2X beta starting in about a week, Champions Online is getting some huge patch I believe, City of Heroes Going Rogue launches and all of this on the same day if I heard correctly. All of this along with a renewed interest in WAR that has been growing for some time. I am going to continue with Fallen Earth after the trial  for at least the free month and possibly playing WAR, but who knows with these things.

Runes of Massive Patching.

Here's a tip to those companies that are F2P or have a free trail - have the latest version of the client for your game to download. Nothings more frustrating than having to spend about an hour and a half downloading a client only to turn around and spend the next half hour to forty five minutes patching, not a good first impression.

For anyone wondering I have decided to try out Runes of Magic. Since I have no active subs at the moment and Fallen Earth still has free time remaining, I thought I would try out RoM to see what it's like.

Alpha Protocol Review.

Well the great folks at Gamesquad have allowed me to write them a review for Alpha Protocol for the PC. If interested you can check it out here.

It clicked.

As I was finishing up my review for Alpha Protocol for Gamesquad today, I had a thought; I am giving this game a low score, but I loved it, how can I do that to this game. I am required to give the game a score so I gave it a 6.0. Is this game really a 6.0? It has some really bad AI, doesn't look great and there are a number of bugs in the game, so yes it does. But I love Alpha Protocol; I finished it 5 times and invested almost 70 hrs into the game. Something about the game really clicked with me. I am really hoping that my review isn't so negative that it will deter people from ever playing AP, because it should be given a chance.

Wait and see.

At the expense of sounding like a homer for SOE or a defender of the EQ2X faith, I think I am going to refrain from further posts arguing against those whose sole knowledge on the new F2P service is ignorance. Frankly I am just tired already of reading the same type of comments from people who have decided not to wait and see but instead offer up their prophecy of doom for SOE and EQ2.

Honestly no one will know what the short term and long term effects will be till after the beta starts in the middle of August. My goal from now till beta will be to flood the forums with questions about the new service in order to learn more about what I am getting for free. Free. I think I will say it one more time, FOR FREE!!! Community concerns aside, it seems some are forgetting that if they if they do not like the free service, there is a perfectly good paid server that is still available for them to play on.

I am going to make an assumption here and say that although the community may be great, it hasn't been growing much which means little revenue coming in, and the popularity of micro transaction based games was the fuel for this move for EQ2. Let's not forget that in June Massively had an article about another SOE game called Free Realms hitting 12 million registered players. I'm not going to pretend that Free Realms actually has 12 million players, kind of like WoW still has 11 million players, but they certainly are not new to the F2P model like some may think.

My hope is that everything works out, the community on both sides grows really strong and SOE continues to bring substantial content to EQ2. Why not hope for the best instead of just spewing out irrational uninformed commentary on a service that hasn't started yet?

On a side note; I activated my free Fallen Earth key that Werit game me almost two months ago. So I think I might do some progression posts on detailing my experience starting with the tutorial and how different the game is now from launch. That is of course if I can remember the game from launch, but it will give me something to do for the blog. And thanks to Anjin I am like this close |-| to reactivating my Champions Online account. Problem is the new City of Heroes expansion comes out in a few weeks and that has some interesting things in it. Who knows, I have a bad habit of wanting to resub to games, but not doing it.

Word of the day.

The word of the day is: Conjecture.

Pronunciation: \kən-ˈjek-chər\

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French or Latin; Middle French, from Latin conjectura, from conjectus,past participle of conicere, literally, to throw together, from com- + jacere to throw — more at jet

Date: 14th century

1 obsolete a : interpretation of omens
2 a : inference from defective or presumptive evidence b : a conclusion deduced by surmise or guesswork c : a proposition (as in mathematics) before it has been proved or disproved

If you would like a current example of the use of conjecture, please see any and all blog posts on the subject of the new EQ2 Extended service and how it along with SOE will die because of going F2P. In fact, you could read any post that foretells the future of the game and company, because at this point no one knows what exactly is going to happen.

I'm not here to fight the good fight for SOE or EQ2, I haven't been an active player in quite a long time. But what I am here to do is to be a counter weight to the doom and gloom rhetoric that is being tossed around. What I would prefer to see are more posts that are picking apart EQ2X and asking questions to try and get clarification. Green Armadillo points out something that is quite important to those who are intending on dungeon crawling or raiding. This is a legitimate concern that I think everyone should be questioning, it's just to bad the rest of the post is based on assumptions about the future of the game.

I believe what has me most peeved about the whole situation is the comparisons to what Turbine did with LOTRO and how those same people believe SOE should be doing the same thing with EQ2. I believe that the success of DDO instilled a certain confidence that Turbine would be able to handle the transition of LOTRO to a F2P business model. It would seem that SOE hasn't instilled that same confidence.

Some EQ2 Extended Info.

For those who have decided to sound the death knell for SOE and Everquest 2 and its community due to the new f2p EQ2X, please check out this handy FAQ page that available for your viewing pleasure. Let me just point out a few things of interest in the order that I read them:

• Active players can create a new account on EQII Extended for free or copy over a version of an existing EQII live character for $35.
• Extended is an accessible game purposely developed to grow the gaming community through new players. The free adventure service allows new players to experience more quality content and increased participation than the previously offered 14-day trial.
• The purchase of items in the EQII Extended Marketplace is entirely optional. While many items in the Marketplace are designed to immediately enhance your in-game experience, some of the best items and gear are the rewards of adventuring or tradeskilling and are only gained by playing the game.
• To become a Silver member there is a one-time item purchase called the "Silver Membership Pack." That pack grants you an additional character slot, better chat options, extra inventory capacity, raises your quest journal limit, gives you the ability to create guilds, and more. It also grants you two very cool Advancement potions so you can level more quickly. Once you purchase a Silver Membership Pack, you are permanently raised to that membership level. There is no recurring fee for this pack or membership.
• Like everyone else, you can come play Extended by simply downloading the new Extended client and activating a freeExtended membership with your same Station account.
• Active subscribing EQII players in good standing are able to copy a limited version of the EQII subscription character to EQII Extended for a fee of $35 (except during Alpha). Your character is copied over with all combat, AA and tradeskill experience intact. You also keep your ATTUNED and NO-TRADE items, as well as all your backpacks, but your use of such items will be restricted by your Extended membership tier. However, nothing else is copied over included coin. Please note that this process copies your character, your EQII live character will remain, as is, on its EQII live subscription server. There will be no character copies from Extended servers to the EQII live subscription servers.
• Despite the fact that the two services are separate worlds, SOE knows which expansions you've activated and we'll ensure that you have access to those expansions in both of the services, subject to your current Extended membership limitations.
• Once Extended launches, the 14-day trial will no longer be available to the general public. New players can try the Extendedfree adventure service instead. However, 14-day trial passes for the EQII subscription service will still be distributed by active players on the live subscription service via the Recruit-a-Friend program. This way, friends can play together on the same server and still enjoy free time. The RAF program will be updated at a later point in time to include Extended invitations and rewards.

This is just a sample of the information that can be found on the FAQ page. My only concern is with the Gold and Platinum memberships and how that will differ from the live servers. My guess is that those two payment plans will be geared towards those that have invested a lot of time and effort into the game, but don't want to have to start over on the live servers. Which would make EQ2 live that much more enticing to someone who plans on playing that much.

I really shouldn't let a couple of posts and the subsequent comments from one of them get me so riled up, but it has. It's frustrating to read posts on the future of SOE and EQ2 when no one knows what is going to happen, it's all conjecture at this moment. From what I can gather, there is nothing new in EQ2X besides being free that is going to draw a player away from EQ2 Live if they are already a paying subscriber.

EQ2 Extended? Yes Please!

I have always liked Everquest 2, but for one reason or another I just haven't stuck with the game for any real significant amount of time, not like WoW. Hmm, I guess when looking back at the MMO's I have played since the launch of WoW, none have been able to grab me like WoW has. Maybe for short amounts of time....but this is a topic for another post.

I am really excited for EQ2 Extended, I know for a fact that once it goes live I will be playing. From the information that has surfaced today I have already planned on purchasing a silver upgrade, I will probably purchase some if not all classes and races and most likely if needed I will purchase the level cap increase from 80 to 90. Why you might ask? Well it's not that I am a huge EQ2 fan or have a load of money sitting around, but instead it's from the fact that I will have the closest thing to a lifetime sub to EQ2. That's my thinking anyways, things could change once EQIIX goes into beta testing.

When compared to what Turbine is doing with LOTRO, is much more in line with what I would want out of a game without a monthly subscription price. And I have just really grown a small amount of disdane towards LOTRO in general, which is sad cause coming out of beta I was very much looking forward to playing. I have never been keen on the small amount of races and classes in LOTRO. Does it need to be to the excess found in Vanguard or EQ2, not at all. I am not a fan of the combat as well; yes there was a change, but I didn't notice it when playing my Warden, and it felt worse when playing my Champion. And let's not forget about the constant running around from one part of the map to another, or the standard gather/kill/collect quests that are enough to drive one insane. Please remember these are my personal gripes about LOTRO, if you are enjoying the game than by all means continue.

I did get invited to the beta for the new and improved LOTRO, and all I can say is that it's pretty much the same game. If you have been playing and are a lifetime or paying sub, no change for you. But if you are like me and have been playing off and on for ages and had hoped the F2P switch would have something to draw you in, guess what, it doesn't. If you are not a paying subscriber now, then there is nothing that the switch will do to entice you into playing again. That may all sound a bit negative, but for me there is nothing in LOTRO that interests me anymore, and being able to log in for free doesn't change that.

Well that's my little rant on LOTRO and why honestly that last bit could be applied to EQ2 as well. Regardless, August could be a nice month for MMO's; Champions Online getting a big update, City of Heroes Going Rogue launches and then the beta for EQ2X.

Dub's Playlist of the Week.

Since finishing Alpha Protocol for the fifth time last weekend I found myself jumping from one game to another as I find something that will hold my attention. I thought Resident Evil 5 would do that, but I ended up starting and finishing that on Monday, my day off. I really enjoy RE5, I had it for the Xbox and bought it when it was on uber sale through Steam a week ago for only $12.50. I do plan on returning to it at some point, being a Games for Windows Live title I don't mind playing more to get me some achievements.

After that it's been a few games; a little bit of The Witcher and Stranglehold, some Empire Total War when I can at work, even some Napoleon Total War multiplayer with a friend. I did play some WoW this week in the hopes of getting my Paladin to level 80 so I can start the emblem grind that has become the end game. I do like many things that WoW does, so much so that I sometimes find myself wondering why other MMOs don't do those things like WoW.

I did have a friend point out why I might not be having the fun I think I should be having and why the game has slowed to a grind; I'm not doing level appropriate content. At level 79 I am currently questing in the Grizzly Hills, content for level 75-77 by the looks of it. I does make sense when thinking about it, I didn't have the instant dungeon finder with my last two characters that made it to level 80. And neither my warrior or mage had the awesome AOE grinding power that the paladin has. So I guess everyone can ignore my whinny post I made about WoW the other day!

I can't forget to mention that I played about twenty minutes of the new Medal of Honor multiplayer beta last night. If you've played Battlefield Bad Company 2, well you've played the new MoH. Shouldn't be too surprising seeing how DICE is working on the multiplayer portion of MoH. Still, it does look good and runs better than BFBC2 does.

Well that's it for this week. Not really sure what to expect gaming wise next week, I just purchased a handful of used PS3 games from Gamestop so I may be slumming it with the console. I am probably going to spend some time playing some of the games I have owned for ever but haven't played much, like The Witcher, and if they don't grab me now then it might be time to trim down the game collection. Or at least put them in the box that's in storage just in case!