I was going to do a write up of Bioshock 2 tonight. I finally finished the game yesterday. Things change.

I asked a friend of mine to work on a new logo for my site. He also figured out a way to make it a more pleasing pink color. I know some of you logged on and wondered why the code was a ll of a sudden completely wonky

I am decidedly untechy. While I love my gadgets, my understanding of their inner workings are superficial at best. It’s why I have brilliant friends

There are still a few more changes coming, I hope, if my friends don’t abandon me after I turned into a puddle of mush with today’s changes. I am thrilled to have the site FINALLY showing off it’s pink hotness. Looking forward to getting a few more of the kinks worked out in the coming weeks.

In other news, I caught an article on Massively yesterday about Star Trek Online. It featured the new Destiny class ship. The stats on it are fairly impressive.

Overview

With the resources needed to chart distant star systems, deep space science vessels such as the Destiny class will lead Starfleet into a new era of exploration.

Boasting all of the advanced technology with an advanced warp core and expanded engineering facilities, the Destiny is ideal for either long solo missions or fleet support.

Capabilities

Weaponry:

Fore weapon slots: 3
Aft weapon slots: 3

Bridge Officer Stations:

Tactical: Lieutenant (1)
Engineering: Ensign (1), Lieutenant (1)
Science: Lieutenant Commander (1), Commander (1)
Total Available Powers: 12

Modification Slots:

Tactical: 2
Engineering: 3
Science: 4

Device Slots: 3

Crew Size: 500

Impulse Speed: 15

Turning Rate: 6

Quote taken from Zam.com

At first glance I am super excited about it. I then watched the video which I am inserting below. Watch and then let me know what the thing looks like. I’ll give you a hint…I think of how to unwrinkle clothes when I look at this ship

I am off to finish a little crafting in LOTRO before I fall into bed. I won another lottery in LOTRO and discovered mail in my box when I logged in today. Now I feel like I need to make some money, and crafting seems to be the only way I make any these days.

More on my final thoughts of Bioshock 2 tomorrow.

(New Destiny Ship Video)

GAME ON!!!

I didn’t get a chance to game this weekend. Rarely happens in my world, but occasionally real life rears its ugly head. Unfortunately I rolled a 1 on my 20 sided pink dice this weekend and ended up nursing myself and my family. I just loved all the bonding time *rolls her eyes*

While I lay wishing for death on my couch this weekend watching season’s of Numbers and Bones on DVD, the gaming world had a few interesting tidbits of news I thought I’d pass along.

Bioware emailed me about Dragonage Awakenings. I am inserting a video below on the new expansion for this fabulous RPG . It looks like its a fully fleshed out expansion. I have a few friends who are rabidly awaiting this release. Included in the e-mail was a link to Hot Topic who is offering a couple of different Dragonage T-shirts. I think I may have to have one of these

Star Trek Online has been busy pushing out patches as fast as they can to correct the various bug reports and issues the game has been experiencing in it’s first few weeks. I have to hand it to Cryptic, they have been awesome about talking to their community about the various problems the games has been experiencing and have put in patch after patch. I haven’t been playing it much. The game just hasn’t completely captured my attention, but its not a bad game.

There has been a lot of talk about the skill system in the game. Lead Designer Al Rivera talked about the ins and outs of the system in a fairly detailed article. Most important thing I took away from the piece was this quote. “Finally, a note about Respecs… Simply put, they are coming soon. We are currently working on this feature right now. The details are not final, however.” I am relieved to hear it. Most of us have made mistakes we would like to correct as we have learned the system. It’s nice to know we may be able to fix things in the future.

I got an e-mail from Cryptic over the weekend letting me know the buddy key’s are now live.

So if you have a friend who has been wanting to check out the game, pass them a buddy key and show them how to save the Universe from the evil Klingons

LOTRO sent me a newsletter detailing their new update, coming soon!

The thing I am the most excited about is that the hubby and I will be able to take advantage of the new DUO option on skirmishes. We haven’t really been doing them as we have a set of characters we play as a team and neither of us wants to play them solo and get to ahead of each other on xp.

In other LOTRO news, looks like they are looking for some new testers for their preview server.

The Isengard Private Preview Program Needs YOU!

* Do you gain a sense of pride when you file bugs, knowing that you’ve helped us improve the game by doing so?
* Do you have a few hours of free time a week that you would like devote to helping us test LOTRO?
* Do you enjoy seeing things in an unfinished state and watching them develop?
* Do you like the idea of having an influence on how those same things turn out in the end?
* Can you keep a secret? No matter how many bribes of you may get?

If you answered ‘YES’ to all the above questions, then Isengard may be the place for you!

The Isengard Private Preview Program is taking applications for new members. We would love to have you on board, getting your virtual hands dirty with our new and upcoming content, and telling us what you think!

Requirements:

1. Must be at least 18 years of age
2. Must have a current, valid Turbine* subscription to The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood registered under your name
3. Must have a clean forum and game history
4. Must be able to interact with the community in a mature and constructive manner
5. Must be able to communicate well through forum posts and bug reports
6. You must accept the terms of the Private Preview Program Non-Disclosure Agreement, the full contents of which will be provided during the registration process should you be accepted to the program

If you think Isengard is right for you, we encourage you to apply! See the next post for the ‘How Tos’.
We look forward to hearing from you, and good luck!

The Isengard Private Preview Program Team

That’s the second announcement for a Turbine game I have seen in the last few weeks. DDO had a cattle call for their preview server last week. I am glad to see them opening up the flood gates. If you think you would want to participate, be sure to apply!

Speaking of DDO, Episode 156 of DDOcast went up last night. It covers the weeks news as well as a few segments.

I am a little late in mentioning it, but Fernando Paiz spoke to the DDO community on Thursday about the game’s 4th Anniversary. There was nothing earth shattering in his post. Mostly it was a regurgitation of the events already announced, but he did hint in the coming weeks we should be on the look out for a State of The Game Address from him.

In a major announcement Turbine has stated “As the final stage of our datacenter move, all Turbine games will be offline on Tuesday February 23, from 4:00AM - 4:00PM Eastern Time (-5 GMT).”

I am excited and hoping this will take care of some of the rubberbanding I have been seeing in both DDO and LOTRO! *fingers crossed*

I am off to play some Bioshock 2. I want to finish the game this week, and barring any more family emergencies, I may just get it done! Looking forward to some sore fingers from all the gaming I am hoping to get done this week!

GAME ON!!!

(link to dragonage awakenings video)

A patch to update 1 went live today. It had quite a few changes which you can see a complete list of on DDOcast.com.

Our static group had to switch nights this week due to unforeseen circumstances, so it gave us a chance to check out the new 4th Anniversary game.

Celebrating 4 Years of DDO

We’re kicking off the festivities for DDO’s 4th Birthday, starting with a special scavenger hunt event! By finding hidden decorative eggs in the Marketplace, you can get a prize, and the more eggs you find, the better the prize! To learn more about the event, click here! Additionally, check out the following special activities related to the Scavenger Hunt for DDO’s 4th Birthday!

• All characters created prior to February 18th, 2010 will receive Tokens of the Traveler that can be used to participate in the Traveler’s Scavenger Hunt.
  • Free player characters will receive 5 tokens
  • Premium player characters will receive 10 tokens
  • VIP characters will receive 15 tokens
  • Additional tokens can be purchased in the DDO Store!
• All characters created prior to February 18th, 2010 - regardless of account type - will receive a Blessing of the Traveler. This special item can be redeemed after a successful run of the scavenger hunt for rare prizes! Speak with the NPC Taj in the Marketplace after completing your egg hunt to redeem your Blessing. If you miss the event or do not wish to play the scavenger hunt, Taj will also offer you a somewhat less exciting prize in exchange for your Blessing at any time.
  • Additional Blessings of the Traveler can be purchased in the DDO Store!

In honor of DDO’s 4th Birthday, redeeming a Blessing of the Traveler with Taj after an egg hunt gives a chance to receive Hearts of Wood!

I logged on and the gang told me how to get started.

I met them in the market place and looked in my inventory and saw two new items.

I found the NPC Taj and started on my search for Different colored Easter eggs in the Marketplace. Taj gives you special vision which makes the Eggs visible to you. I tried it a couple of times and went to get my prize. I got a shield and a Robe. Nothing earthshattering, but it was fun to have something new to try out.

It’s not the best Anniversary event we’ve ever had, but its not the worst. I don’t see me logging on just to play the game, but its a time sink to use in between quests and groups to make a little coin.

A player on the forums has put together a map of the best route as well as a youtube video. For those interested, the map is below and I here is  the link to the video.

In other news, Lessah and Samius have started a spin off podcast.

You can listen to the show HERE!

I’m super excited about the spin off. Can’t wait to see where they take this!

GAME ON!!!

And we are LIVE baby!!!

I have been mulling over moving my blog for a coon’s age. I’ve hemmed and hawed, wondered at the trouble, cost, and time commitments, but the bug bit me a week ago. I couldn’t shake it.

Blogger has been a wonderful home. I will miss it. I just needed a place with a little more customization. A few more options, the right to own my own content, actual real media integration and the chance to play around with something new.

I’ve gotten used to most of the Wordpress Dashboard thanks to Myddo and Mylotro. I felt it was something I could get used to and maybe even come to enjoy.

Listen, it’s 5 AM… and I have been coding, importing, changing labels to category’s, moving permalinks, redirecting traffic and otherwise losing my mind over the weekend.

There is still a bunch of stuff I would like to see done on the site, but for now go take a look and see what you think.

It’s cleaner, has a double tabbed interface, the front page has mini posts, recent videos and a featured article spot.

I think it’s kinda nifty

*falls over from exhaustion*

GAME ON!!!

I went over to pick up my copy of Bioshock 2 today. I had my receipt and such and the guy manning the register at my local Gamestop pulled out a PC copy of the game. I asked politely if it was the Limited Edition copy of the game. He said no, and so a search ensued. After 15 or so minutes , in which I was told they didn’t have it or wait maybe they did, I stood around the store vacillating between terror and anger.

Finally the guy brought out this box and hefted it onto the counter. I figured there must have been a bunch of copies they were missing since the box was so big.

Uh uh. The entire box was one game. Mine.

I can pick stuff up, but this thing is heavy! I knew I had ordered a limited edition of the game, but thought nothing more of it than the copies of Dragon age and Star Trek Online I’ve picked up in the last few months.

Just look at this thing.

Yeah. It’s ginormous. That’s a regular sized box with the game in it on top of it. I couldn’t wait to get home and see what was inside!

This edition, which will be limited to a single production run, will contain the game along with three posters featuring fictional advertisements from Rapture, the orchestral score from the game on CD, the orchestral score from the original BioShock on a vinyl 180g LP, and a hardbound, 164-page art book. It will all be packaged in a 13″x13″ premium case with special art on both the slipcase and the box cover.

(above quote was pulled from Wikipedia)

The hubby and I were both in awe of the thing. It’s simply huge. Plus, we don’t have a record player. I don’t even think I know how to work one. While I find the Vinyl very cool, its kinda impractical until I can get someone to burn it to a CD for me. Still, it’s pure geek factor alone makes it super awesome.

I would love to tell you all about the game itself, but my new power supply was delivered about 5 pm. Then I had to go get the game once the hubby got home, and have him install the power supply and then the new hard drive and now I am formatting the bloody thing.

All I want to do is go visit Rapture and kill a few things!

*sigh*

Game On!!!

After all the trouble logging in Friday night, the hubby and I were able to get into STO with out any trouble both Saturday and Sunday. We logged quite a few hours and we got our guys to level 8.

I am beginning to really enjoy the game. Parts of the story are beginning to make sense and feel fully formed. Combat on the ground is still not as slick as I would like, but its still fun. Space combat has gotten easier for me, although I still think I need to go back to the Starfleet Academy for some basic flying lessons!

I am working on the first level of crafting. It’s laborious and I am not sure how much fun it truly is, but at first glance it maybe worth it to be able to upgrade some items.

Tribbles. Ohhhhh they are simply wonderful. In beta I wasn’t really sure what they were for. I went looking for a forum post on it tonight when I heard some of the chat from my guildies. Seems you can upgrade your tribble?

I hadn’t found one yet. I kept killing Klingon’s on ground missions looking for one. Seems the Klingon’s love their tribbles and are hoarding them. The hubby finally got one and stuck it in his inventory to look at later. By the time we had gotten out of the mission, he had two tribbles!!!

Yup, they breed in your inventory. If you have food in your cargo hold, they nibble it up and reproduce That’s just fun.

I finally amassed a few credits this weekend and starting looking around to try and figure out how to upgrade my ship.

I found the pink paint!!!

I know I know… no self respecting Starfleet ship should be pink… but I couldn’t help myself

I also figured out how to rename my collector’s edition ship as well as the registry number.

I am going to have “r” to the end of every new ship I get since I can only have a ship’s name once LOL.

In other news, I took part in a group discussion of DDOcast this weekend. The episode had been out 24 hours when there was already a complaint about my “whining and complaining!” *shakes her head* I love DDO, I just sometimes don’t love all of it. I suppose I should be greatful to have a reaction at all, but it reminds me why I haven’t been doing regular segments for a while. *shrugs*

Tomorrow is LOTRO day for me. Our guild is having our monthly meeting in our kinhouse and I am going to spend all day crafting to make something for the exchnge we normally have. I’ve been slacking lately. Hope I have enough time to make things.

I am off to bed. Bioshock 2 party at my locacl gamestop tomorrow at midnight. The hubby has duty. I don’t think I going to wander around the city that late by myself, so he will just have to bring it home to me on Tuesday. Plus, I have a new power supply coming tomorrow or the next day. Additionally, I still haven’t finished Mass Effect 2.

So many great games, so little time.

GAME ON!!!

After much groveling, I finally convinced my other half to sign onto Star Trek Online and spend a few hours killing Klingon’s with me The Collector edition’s had been sitting on our respective desks since Wednesday staring at us, begging to be used.

While I was messing around the forums and such, he went ahead and set up his account. Everything went smoothly. Oh, and for those wondering, yes they are offering a lifetime sub which has been raised $50.00 from the before launch price to top out at $299.99 bucks(for those wondering, that means if you paid 14.99 a month for 20.01267511 months you’d have spent $299.)

I’ll get right on that >.<

He needed to log into game and run through the tutorial, something I had already done in headstart, so I decided to keep reading online vent-a-thons on the Star Trek Online forums ( I love unmoderated forums, don’t you?) while he learned the controls.

He couldn’t log in at 7 or so in the evening on a Friday, the first launch weekend even, due to server maintenance. Huh?

Curious, I went delving into Dev posts. One thing I will give Cryptic is they are extremely talkative…sometimes they might stick their foot in their mouths, but at least they say something

One of the issues during open beta and headstart became the inability of their “single shard” server bank to hold the load of all the players. Cryptic hadn’t expected as many people as they had playing. I’ll swallow that…once!

Apparently launch week they forgot to feed the hamster. The server bank went down again due to overload and we couldn’t log in.

Within about half an hour, and after Zeff had already loaded into LOTRO to “check his mail” *coughs bull#&^%*, the game came back up.

He’s already a little cranky about STO, but he agrees to log in. I started praying to every god I could think of things would go well.

We played an hour or so. He’s made a character with huge breasts and subsequently changed his mind (could it have been the looks I was giving him from across the room?), customized his ship, explored and such. I begin to think he’s maybe getting the bug.

Our second mission we’re chasing down the evil guy who killed the Vulcan ambassador when we get disconnected from the server.

Trying not to panic, I tried to immediately sign back in. We both get back into the star map only to not be able to access any missions in our log, much less the one we had just been kicked from.

Frustrated beyond belief at this point, I logged back onto the forums and see the red dot telling me the server is down again.

That was an hour ago.

I couldn’t think of anything else to say. He’s back in LOTRO, I am considering playing some more Mass Effect 2.

I don’t know when I will be able to convince him to go back *big sigh*

GAME ON!!!

Update 3 hit DDO today and it’s been nothing but buggy. Even Turbine has announced they will be doing a hot fix on Thursday to work it out. As I type this, my static group is stuck in one of the new quests that is bugged

I officially took one of my DDO accounts free to play today. I was doing a game inventory and realized with STO I would have 3 MMO’s I was trying to play and pay for. Which to my mind is simply ridiculous. I don’t have that many hours in day.

So, I am going to take my static group account free to play and see how this works for me. Then the hubby will get an idea of costs per account to buy the adventure packs and we’ll make a decision on the other 3 accounts we currently pay for.

I am sad to be making this choice, but it is what it is.

I participated in the anniversary ice skating event tonight in DDO. It’s fun for about 5 minutes and then its bloody annoying. *shrugs* I am glad for fun things to pass the time with. Maybe I am simply snarky tonight.

They have done some aesthetic changes to some of the game elements. I caught sight of the bank in the marketplace and went huh? Whose idea was it to put ugly mosaic tile all over the outside of the thing? *ponders*

STO launched yesterday. I would love to tell you about it except I haven’t played it at all. I went and picked up our Collector’s edition boxes tonight. We ohhhed and awwwed, but otherwise we neither had the desire to immediately log in. In future, I think we will skip open beta’s. They sour our perspective prematurely.

I am off to bed. A GM never responded to our ticket, so bleh. We’ll just repeat the quest next week I guess.

GAME ON!!!