New Shiny

[City of Heroes, Guild Wars, EVE Online] This has been an interesting time for in-game new shinies.

A little while ago, I logged on to City of Heroes and just was not terribly interested in doing anything. I had hit the level cap, and I did not have a strong urge to begin the climb to level 50 again. I decided to try out my Kheldian and see how that went. Level 22 is the first time that you can have the best enhancements possible (before end-game raid loot), so it was pretty cool to fly around and two-shot large groups of even-level enemies. I mentioned the glory of Striga Isle and the content in the 20s, so that was great. I flew up 7 levels fairly quickly, worrying more about out-leveling content than about leveling. Actually, I did fly past one of the Striga contacts, but he let me proceed to the next. I re-did the re-furbished Citadel task force on my Tanker, since our group needed one. After that, the shininess just sort of faded. Hmm.

My wife, of all people, expressed an interest in trying Guild Wars. She likes City of Heroes, but the other games she likes all have “Mario” in the title. Still, Guild Wars is pretty, and if she likes CoH… A friend of mine lost interest by level 11 there, so I borrowed his copy/account. Not too shiny; I have played several fantasy MMOs, and for a non-PvP player, there was not too much shine. Level 9 (8? whatever) came pretty quickly, but it is not calling me back. The wife? Logged on twice, didn’t like the controls, and it is too much like World of Warcraft. Yeah, I know, there is a world of difference between the two games, but in the beginning and in the ways that matter to her, they are not too far apart. Besides, if you click on anyone, it looks like you are inviting them to group, and that made her nervous.

Okay, shiny #3: EVE Online. Now this is distressing: we cannot have three bloggers on a site commenting on the same game. Well, maybe we can, but would you, the reader, stand for it? Maybe, since there are differences in perspective. Anyway, EVE Online looks a bit like A Tale in the Desert (deep economy and trade skills, player-run economy) without the developer-run social experimentation. This may or may not be an improvement, based on your perspective. Oh, and prettier graphics.

I suppose there was a point here…one moment… Let’s go with:
Rapid experimentation is fun. Having friends to borrow from is always good, since games can get expensive. Sometimes it takes many shinies to find a prize worth keeping.

At any rate, I have my City of Heroes supergroup, and I have a new corporation in EVE Online. The two games have vastly different play styles, so we shall see if I can stand playing two MMOs at once and still have a life, such as it is. Now if only I could get the sound card to work in EVE without crashing me…

: Zubon