Miscellaneous comments pertaining to computer games that interest me.
Okay, so I’ve had a few too many “Second Life” posts lately. I’ll do my best to make this the last one for at least a few days.
The other day I bought my land- yesterday I put the finishing touches on my house.
I like the “rustic” look as opposed to the modern appearance many favour. The house itself is something I purchased at a shop.
I’ve also been working on the interior…
In real life, I own a home. Well, actually, the bank owns most of it. But in Second Life, I now actually own a piece of property.
There is a lot of buzz in the on-line community lately about a “game” called Second Life. And not just amongst traditional gamers- there are folks within many big companies that are experimenting with this world which relies almost entirely on user created content. What’s the big deal?
Oblivion has been and continues to be a fascinating game for me. I know full well that some people claim to have completed the main quest in as little as a couple of days, but I’m now up to over 70 hours of play time…and I’m still not finished.
The main quest isn’t hard and, in fact, it’s arguable that its easier to complete if you do it quickly. Oblivion “scales” your foes as your character goes up in level- so if you work on a quest when you are level 5 your opponents will all be around the same level as you. If you wait until you are 20th level, your opponents will have “kept up”…and although this may sound like the challenge is the same, the powers (spells, items, and so forth) at higher levels are (in my opinion) more challenging
to deal with.
So how is the game keeping me busy? Well, I’ll give a few examples, including my most significant accomplishment to date…
***** WARNING *** SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW *** WARNING *****
Continue reading Oblivion: still fun after several weeks…and the death of a demi-god
I’ve been playing computer games for…<shudder> decades. The first computer game I played was probably a text adventure game I hand-typed into my Apple II from a magazine. I saved it to cassette tape…I think the game had something to do with exploring an abandoned mine, but I’m not sure. That would have been about 1979/1980 or thereabouts: my memory is a bit hazy.
I mentioned in previous postings that Vanguard, an upcoming MMOG originally to be published by Microsoft, has now switched publishers to Sony. This is interesting at least in part because the founders of Sigil, the developers of Vanguard, originally jumped ship from Sony’s EverQuest team to develop their game.
Continue reading Vanguard’s move to SOE because of Microsoft Vista exclusive?
I mentioned a day or so ago that Vanguard is no longer going to be published by Microsoft. The reaction on the official Vanguard forums has been somewhat over-the-top, to put it mildly.
Continue reading Sigil answers questions about Vanguard switch to SoE
A few years back, several of the key players in the development of EverQuest left. Brad McQuaid, Jeff Butler, and numerous others set out on their own to form up a new game company (Sigil) to develop a new game (Vanguard). Microsoft funded Sigil, and there were great expectations amongst some gamers regarding how much better Vanguard would be than anything Sony could make.
Continue reading Sigil’s Vanguard to be published by Sony, Microsoft punted…
The “new generation” game consoles are stacking up to be pretty impressive. All of them are based on variations of the IBM Cell processor technology. The first out was Microsoft’s XBox 360, soon to be followed by Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s entry which was, until a few days ago, code named “Revolution”.
Oblivion was only released a couple of weeks ago, but it has already spawned a number of hacks, innumerable tips and hint commentaries, and one (two more to follow) “official” add on.