Sunday 16 August 2009

Expanding my horizons a bit

In a break from Eve related news (kind of) I've just upgraded my computer - no longer am I running on the couple-of-year old HP laptop which has satisfied my Eve craving for all this time, I've now reverted back to having a desktop. An Acer Aspire Predator 7200 gaming rig (yeah boo, hiss should have made my own up from bits, but I was feeling lazy and it was on a sale)

Because of the added computing power I've upgraded to though, I've got a few more up and coming games that I want to give a go:

Aion - I've signed up for this, was hoping to get in on this weekends closed beta event, but thanks to the terrible download speed I get from my ISP (Sky) during the day, theres no way that the client would be downloaded in time - its currently sitting at 85% downloaded after the better part of 2 solid days on the go... so much for the '5 hours' it first estimated when I was getting 400kb/sec first thing on Saturday morning.

So it seems that I'll be in Aion when open beta comes around (pretty sure thats due soon after the closed beta events finish) on or before September.

I've also gotten signed up for Champions Online - though again, just a preorder at the moment, but that is going to come in DVD format to install rather than try and download it after the experience of Aion. Problem is that theres a great offer for Champions online that lets you get a life long subscription for about a 1 year cost... but in order to get it, you need to have taken this option before the 1st September when the game goes live.

With the pre-orders supposedly getting a 'head start' entry on the 28th of August, it does give a day or two to test the game before making the decision to drop the better part of £140 on a lifetime subscription, but knowing the uselessness of the british postal service, I'll probably not get the game until after the 1st of September and by then it'll be too late. Dunno if I should take the gamble and go for it - everyone whos played in the Beta who I know has said it's a fun game and definately should keep anyone entertained for at least a year, so the lifetime subscription should pay for itself.

I've also been getting hold of a slightly older game in the form of Dawn of War II (warhammer 40k spinoff computer game) which should satisfy my strategy cravings for a little while. The beauty of that supposedly is that its got a good online system/community which is what I always look for in games these days (I never really have much interest in offline 1-player games anymore, I get bored without some human contact after years of MMOs) so I'll see where that takes me after I learn how the game works a bit more.

Add to that I'm also discovering the joys of Quake Live (oddly enough even though its just a browser based version of Quake, my HP laptop really struggled with the framerate on it, and its taken getting the new PC to really make it shine) to give me a bit of an FPS fix means I'm covered for the forseeable future with pretty much all genres of games I've got an interest in.

Now I just need a few long skills I've got planned in Eve to finish as well so I can try something new I've had queued up for a while, and it seems that over the next few months I'll be a very busy bunny indeed.

I suppose the question for anyone out there in blog reader land is whos planning on joining me in any of these games? I'm looking for Europeans preferably so im not sitting there like the lonely old soul in the corner of a new party trying to find someone to chat to so I can make friends... I always prefer to drag my own company along and get everyone traipsing to be friends with me - I always find its easier to get groups when you have 2-3 people as the backbone of any group trying to find 1-2 more, rather than running around trying to find groups of random pickups.

2 comments:

Rettic said...

Hey Karox,

I know a good bit of members of Rage Quit inc (a corp i was in for a short while) jumped ship for EVE.. and checking their website it looks like they've already formed a guild. Good group of guys... not sure whether they're EU or not, but you might want to get in touch with them.

http://thedarkknights.com/

On a side note, you know how to help an EVE rookie out, Lominax... I read your guides while I have coffee about every morning. Enjoyed the content in the latest EON too. Keep it up man.

Rettic

Redundant blogger said...

I too recently took a break from EVE for about 2 months. It was refreshing to get away from games altogether and get some perspective back.

One of my old corp-mates is currently playing Arch-Lord-Online, but only 'cos it's free and he's outta work atm.

If you're ever on X-Box live you can find me 'cartoonboy' playing GTAIV (look for the guy running over pedestrians) or I sometimes play Homeworld 2 online too under the name 'NOXx.'

Maybe I'll see you about, if not have fun...