I got a bad feeling about this...

I'll admit,  I hated Star Wars The Old Republic in beta.  I felt it was a generic WoW but instead of swords you had little glow sticks of death and instead of magic you had 'the force'.  I tried giving it a chance but the more I played the more I hated the game.  Particularly the fact that like all MMO's side quest are how you get your dose of leveling and in SWTOR it's no exception.

See side quest are bad, but in SWTOR you have to watch a 2-5 minute movie in order to be told that you have to kill 5 womp rats.  I would hit a quest hub and see 6 guys with their little quest thingies over their heads and I would just do the mental math.  6 quest x 2-5 minutes voice over = 12-30 minutes of sit on your ass and do absolutely nothing goodness. 

Oh and don't say 'just spacebar past the story, dude'.   Spacebarring the selling point of a game should not be an answer.   That's like complaining about a dead skunk in your neighbors yard, and when you complain about it your neighbor says 'just breath in thru your mouth,   dude..."

I work; I don't want to sit here and virtually do nothing and blindly hitting spacebar as fast as I can should never be a game mechanic.  I want to virtually kill stuff.  I want to grab my glow stick of death and jam it in a jawa's eye.  I don't care what the jawa did to the poor guy who just wasted 2-5 minutes of my life.  I just want to exact the revenge on the jawa and let someone else figure out if I did something dark or light side. 

So after about 2 months of playing beta I went to Gamestop and cancelled my SWTOR pre-order.

Funny thing...  about 7 weeks later, SWTOR was out.  It was on its 2nd week of release and the marketing is just everywhere.  I had been MMO-less for about 2 months or more.  (4 months if you don't count beta)  I was really starting to feen for an MMO.    LOTRO wasn't doing it.  LOL isn't an MMO per say.  I was done with WoW. 

I was really starting to miss dungeons and raids.  So I said fuck it.  I am getting SWTOR.

OK, so peer pressure is a bitch.  Then again I never would have gotten into WoW if it wasn't for peer pressure, and WoW gave me 6 wonderful years, then Cataclysm came. /sigh

3 weeks later...

I like the game...

I am not in love with the game...

but I can see myself playing till Guild Wars 2 comes out and destroys all things MMO's, or gets me to quit MMO's due to the sheer disappointment.   No pressure ArenaNet.

SWTOR has it's own swagger; it's own charm.   Sure I hate that they give me 4 classes and dress them up as 8, but the game has nice instances and once in a while you will find a quest with a good story to it.  (Tattoine; "What CZerka has found", favoite quest yet.)

It also has alot of instances, hardmodes and nightmare modes.  PVP is fun, imbalanced but fun.  GO REPUBLIC!!!

All in all, the game is good and I am glad I got it. 

Now when is Guild Wars 2 coming out...

League of Legends Sejuani Tryout in LoL: Dominion

Watch live video from joegio13 on Justin.tv

SWTOR Commando Leveling Stream

Trade Nations Review

I found this game after playing several games where I didn't like the touch interface as a control scheme.  Then it hit me.  A sims type game and/or a civilizations type game would work great on my iphone.  So I searched and found Trade Nations.

Trade Nations is a simple game where you set up several farms, mills and workshops in order to trade with other nations.  The real charm to the game comes from adding other players to your friends list to trade with.  Friendly nations allow you to use one of their mills or workshops at a time.  Meaning that every time you add a friend, you potentially gain a mill or a workshop.  Additionally those friends gain access to one of your mills or workshops.  Meaning that I get a portion of the materials they put in the mill.

All mills and workshops used by friendly nations

All in all, it's a great little game.  I like that i can play it once every couple of hours.  I check all my farms, shops and workshops, then log off for 4-6 hours.  It doesn't need constant playing.  Another major feature I like is that the cash shop is not necessary.  Unlike other games free games, you don't need to buy anything to play.  There is an advantage to buying beans but not necessary.

I personally liked the game better on an iPad though.  As you won't misclick as much and the friend screen will show 16 friends instead of 7.  It allows you to play the game faster too since you can see a players full nation.

Add me if you want.  Ingame name:  haxyou

Minecraft item id's

For everyone that runs a minecraft server. Here are some item id's.

Have fun.

UPDATED TO 1.8

WoW that's going down cataclysmically fast

Years ago a good friend of mines said that WoW wasn't gonna get killed by an mmo, but rather it would die of cancer or in it's sleep of old age (metaphorically speaking). He then ended the statement with "WoW will kill itself"

He was right, WoW is bleeding subscribers every month for the last 2 quarters. In the last 4 quarters they have had subscriber losses in 3 of the 4 quarters. (Cataclysm launch being the only good quarter) WoW isn't being killed, sure Rift is laying in some pain to WoW but Rift isn't killing it. WoW started losing subs before Rift. WoW is slowly hemorrhaging subs with stale out dated tactics. Content and raids are no longer enough to sustain an MMO. WoW's playerbase has grown, literally in all aspects, size, age, and MMO needs.

This is leaving a void in the MMO genre. See as much as you hate WoW, it started something. It brought players to our genre and now the players are hungry for more. In WoW's wake there lays a two contenders that have alot of promise. More promise then any MMO before it and with these two new games the genre will start to get even more fragmented. No more 90% subs for WoW and 10% for every other MMO. (90/10)

This may become a more diversified market with Star Wars The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 coming out soon. It may even become a 30/30/30/10 industry. (WoW/SWToR/GW2/others)

World Exclusive : League of Legends : Dominion - complete match

Great video from TotalHalibut. I must say, I am salivating for this map to come out.

Complete Guild Wars 2 video compilation (WIP)

Divided into sections. You can click links to jump to section.

Q&A and INTERVIEWS
DEV COMMENTARY
PVP
CINEMATICS AND CUSTOMIZATION
CLASSES
RANDOM VIDEOS

Q&A and Interviews
Q&A With Colin Johanson and Eric Flannum

Interview with Mike and Ree from ArenaNet


DEV COMMENTARY
Complete Press Demo with Developer Commentary

Tequatl The sunless Boss fight Asura Guardian (with commentary)
Gamespot Version

Same video for show floor

Asura Guardian in Sparkfly Den Dynamic Event & Underwater Combat

Asura Guardian - GamesCom 2011 Gameplay Demo/Character Creation

Charr Engineer - GamesCom 2011 Gameplay Demo/Character Creation


PVP
PvP at GamesCom 2011 ESL Stage: ArenaNet vs Boom Control

Better quality vid of ArenaNet vs Boom Control

PvP Demo: Battle of Kyhlo Warrior

PVP Asura Thief

PVP Q&A

TotalBiscuit PVP interview


CINEMATICS AND CUSTOMIZATION
Charr Cinematic and Sylvari Character Customization

Asura Customization


CLASSES
Charr Engineer

Sylvari Engineer

Character Creation [Asura, Sylvari, Charr]


RANDOM VIDEOS
IGN: Sparkfly Fen

IGN: Hero Inventory

IGN: Boss Battle

Battlefield 3 Alpha Test are out!!!

I just got my Battlefield 3 Alpha Test invite. Download at 62.49% as I type. Anyways, Alphas are out, betas should be soon!!!!

Unfortunately, I can't tell you about anything I see.

edit: INSTALLING......