The Land of Oz

Hi there, I’m Oz. No peeking behind the curtain – it’s laundry day and I’m really not dressed as fancy as I’d like. All I had left was a “Daytona Beach” t-shirt and some cutoff shorts, and it’s not a pretty sight. Tomorrow I’ll wear a suit and we can have some face time. Alrighty then? Good.

I’ve been into the MMO scene for a bit now, playing EQ since its release, and during assorted frustrated breaks wandering off to play other games. This is the part where I establish my “street cred”, so here’s the laundry list. I’ve played AO a few times (at release, until the famous balancing patch that made NPCs into gods, and on and off during the new freetime), DAoC (long story, I’ll relate some of it at some point, perchance), CoH (still the most consistently fun/funny MMO I’ve played), Toontown (more on that below), the aforementioned EQ, and as of late, WoW. After many many years with EQ, I felt it was time for me to move on, and for the limited game time I have, I now use WoW to fill that gap.

In my list of games, I’m sure several people chuckled at Toontown. Yay for the kiddie-MMO. As a gamer-with-small-kids, and more so a paranoid parent, I wanted to let them play an MMO, but still have complete control over the experience. Toontown gave that to me. While I only rarely play now, my kids still do play. My daughter is the powergamer type, with several high chars, one maxed one, and a friends list a mile long. Someday, she’ll be that raid leader yelling out -50dkp, I just know it. My son plays mostly to watch stuff blow up. Ah, testosterone. He’ll be wrapping the family car around trees at 16.

From me you can expect to read mostly about WoW, with a bit of EQ from time to time if something interesting comes up from that side of the pond. Perhaps a bit of info about gaming with your kids, should something interesting present itself. Hopefully it’ll will all round up into something you’ll enjoy. In conclusion, I’d like to thank Ethic for the soapbox, buy a round for the KTR staff, and say “Hiya” to the folks out there as we move forward together.

-Oz