robinj

I've been playing NWO since one of the beta weekends. The unofficial RP server is Mindflayer, RP community is http://www.neverwinter-rp.com.

My account handle is @Robnar

awesome!

Please don't name your first child Balandar.

oh, and if the baby comes out near the start of june, he/she'll be right around my birthday and my nephew's :-p

Yeah, so I'm self-publicising myself but hey Some of you have most likely heard me mention in passing that I'm a software engineer. I'm not obligated however to discuss what I'm working on until official press releases. I don't work for a giant company like EA, Activitsion, ATARI, or SEGA but I still write games for a living. So without further adieu, here's the latest trailer from my company:

http://www.ign.com/videos/2012/10/19/germinator-debut-trailer

Rate it up! And if you have a PS3, buy it next month! (*cough*, releasing "Soon" pending the typical release cycles)

Gauls and Celts were known to fight naked... at least "modern views" have added scanitally clad armor to the censorship inauthenticity.

But I don't thinkg GW2 will fail as hard as SWTOR

quoted for future use, not to be pessimistic.

is that the $80 option? if so I did...

I doubt I'll look at another MMO for quite some time.

I'm in that boat currently... I've logged into an MMO twice in the past 3 months, and that was DDO. Once to see if any friends were still playing (which they were), and the second time just to check out the druid class. I'm still on the fence about GW2 and whether or not I'll delve into it. Other than that I've been... *shockingly* socializing or playing some good old RPGs like Icewind Dale.

The guild wars franchise as it now is doesn't appeal to me but the financials of it are intriguing. Some coworkers have expressed a dabbling interest in the game, so if they get on the bandwagon I'll direct them here.

For that matter, look at the Turbine model... grind for "favor" in DDO or LotR and you can unlock everything, albeit slowly. Pay $15/mo and you get (almost, as of very recent expansions) everyting.

the way I look at TOR is while someone like Zoeller takes responsibility for how a game turns out, it's more up to the entire design team to make sure a game is what it is. I'd be baffled if Zoeller himself personally said, "MAEK THE GEAARRZ HAS MORE PIPES AND HOZEZ!!!" to the art team. On the other hand, blatantly not knowing what people expected of "SWG2" does rest more firmly on his shoulders as a "lead." If he pushed for a "Jump To Lightspeed 2" HD remix, then well... I digress. Hope he doesn't start working on GW2.

the sad thing is, I was looking forward to SWTOR for several years... I was around for the betas of RIFT, saw it flop (not as bad as TOR, but still flop), and was hoping being backed up by BioWare it wouldn't be as bad of a bomb as RIFT.. The thing is, I can shrug off faults in games because working for the same industry I have a different view on what's really involved behind the scenes in making a game. In the case of a fully-voiced MMO developed by bioware, I thought they could pull it off quite well. They did, just.. most people (2,500,000 out of 3,000,000 apparently) who bought the game expected more... It's rather impossible to make a voiced game, none the less MMO, have end-game content that follows the same paradigm. The majority of the server population seemed to not really care about the voice-overs despite that being some untold sum of money was spent on that. I've seen budget breakdowns for games and I'd take an educated guess that twice the amount of time and money went into the voice acting and coding/level design to support those speach clips alone than anything else. I think we've all come to the conclusion that the end-game gear was not designed by anyone born beween 1970 and 1985 or whom have grown up watching the original star wars trilogy.

On the other hand, having seen two "AAA" (supposedly) hyped MMOs with million(s) dollar budgets not succeed, I have a sour taste in my mouth about GW2 as well. I haven't logged into any MMO in nearly a month because nothing I have installed seems to offer anything interesting. I used to consider myself an MMO addict but shockingly I think TOR might've actually started to break the addiction. The only MMO I've considered playing again is DDO, but that's mostly because my old guild is still around and are always welcoming me back even if it's for one night a month.I doubt I'll see you guys in GW2, but at the moment I don't know. If you guys ever check out DDO, let me know. My old guild is a good group of friends who simply enjoy the game. We all have a bunch of characters of probably close to every level (1-20, x5)...

Anyway, I digress.

It's an interesting article, but I'm actually rather surprised LotRO and DDO aren't on the list... So they don't have a million subscribers and didn't launch recently. Oh, and they don't make it a point to balance for PVP: You can have a tavern brawl and that's about it. They do however have what I think is a decent and economically sustainable business model. The games are free to download and free to play. An optional "VIP" subscription unlocks all "adventure pack" areas which usually includes a raid or three. Or you can buy them for a few bucks. I think every adventure pack in DDO is about $100. They do however have ACTUALLY WORKING PUZZLES!!!! in raids and some dungeons as well. And for that matter in the shroud raid (most popular), there's one section where everyone gets dumped in their own "cell" and has to solve the floor puzzle to get out.

As for RIFT, I still want my $120 back from Trion.

I'm still up in the air about GW2. Auto-scaling enemies makes for an odd "balance" of gameplay that ultimately results in the player feeling like he's not accomplishing anything anymore... A sense of accomplishment when you reach level 26 and get your new ability that makes killing those 25-27 mobs much easier is great until you run out of abiltiies to gain.

I haven't logged in for a few weeks and I got an email from "Vette" saying that she and my other companions can't continue the adventure without me, heh.

Just as well though that we haven't been raiding because we had a deadline yesterday at work, made it by 8pm...

*bleep* *bleep* *bleep* *bleep* *blaaaap* ((translation: I completely agree.))

I never got in to the Elder Scrolls series... I'd say "They should make a Neverwinter Nights MMO!" but NWN2 had online stuff, and Dungeons & Dragons Online is coming out with a Forgotten Realms expansion...

I'll stick with my Star Wars universe for now. I might delve into the Secret World some...

I have to level my jedi knight now to make a miraluken bounty hunter... that'll take me longer than 86 days

This was our best member (Although I don't approve of bourbon... I'm all for the Scotch or Rye myself)

I support this raid member. although myself, I prefer sam adams... summer, octoberfest, or winter lager...

ironic how nearly everyone ignores the warnings in events like these and instead does the exact opposite

Wait, so you're *NOT* supposed to stand in front of the bank and huddle around until someone pops?

apparently you get an option to skip orbital station shuttles too but I haven't gone looking for one yet.

I really like the UI editor but what irritates me about it is a lack of "snapping." The only thing I have OCD about is windows lining up.

The improved texture quality on armor is noticable but that only made it more apparent that it's ugly.

I hope they don't add a cross-server queue system. it breaks server community dynamics, plus with shien being an RP server some people would not want to be queued with non-RP players, and vice-versa. The "dungeon finder" in TOR is the "/cjoin LFG" and "/cjoin LFG50" channels.

The ongoing investigation of the rakghoul plague follows a lead on Ord Mantell. Republic scum must be behind this and further investigation is warranted. Due to economic set backs, a full-fledged Orbital Strike as ordered on Taris is not currently possible. Imperial Intelligence thus is commissioning small strike teams to seek out a derranged Doctor Lorrick for "negotiations."

((due to my slowsky DSL I won't be on until as late as 9pm-ish this thursday))

yeah, the sarlaac enforcer last year was much, much better... still gave me a chuckle though.

This ought to outweigh the "adjustments" in 1.2 and make us forget that rakata armor is hideous:

Cruising around the galaxy in your own personal starship is an important aspect of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. The player’s starship is like a home, and the player’s companions are like a family. No one knows this better than the dedicated Ship Droids who maintain the vessels: C2-N2 for Republic characters and 2V-R8 for Imperial characters.

Jedi Knights, Smugglers, Bounty Hunters and the other class characters may be the heroes in the wider galaxy, but on board the starship, the Ship Droids are the heroes. That’s why, as part of Game Update 1.2, you will soon be able to assume direct control over your Droid’s actions with Ship Droid™, a brand new mini-game coming to The Old Republic!

Features of this mini-game include cleaning the cockpit windows, calibrating the ship’s food processors, and several other exciting maintenance duties:

But that’s really only the beginning. No Star Wars: The Old Republic mini-game would be complete without the fourth pillar of “story.” In addition to your character’s personal storyline, you can also experience the storyline of these loyal companions! In Ship Droid™, you will be asked to make decisions that have a meaningful impact on the story and greatly affect the climate aboard your starship.

Another feature of Ship Droid™ is the Etiquette Points System. Not unlike social points that you can earn during regular conversations in The Old Republic, players living out the adventures of C2-N2 or 2V-R8 can accumulate these Etiquette Points in conversations and use them to unlock special features within the mini-game. Ship Droids earn these points in conversations with the class characters as well as conversation with other companion characters. We can reveal that companion to companion romance will be just one of the Etiquette Points unlocks.

We don’t want to spoil all of the Etiquette Points unlocks. We’ll leave those details for you discover when you play Ship Droid™. However, we do want to reveal that there will be an exclusive in-game vendor for Droids that will be selling and add-on mini-game especially for your C2-N2 or 2V-R8.

To be clear, earning maximum etiquette points in Ship Droid™ will not be an easy task, but if you are able to achieve it, you unlock the ability to really turn the tables. Playing as the ship Droid, you can become the main hero and your class character will become the companion.

If you weren’t already excited about all the new content coming in Game Update 1.2, we certainly hope you are now. We weren’t 100% certain that we could get Ship Droid™ to the necessary of polish to release with this update, and that’s why we’re extra-excited that it’s come together so well.

Thanks again for joining us in this epic adventure, and we hope to see you online soon in The Old Republic!

Now does anyone else find the uh, subtlety in the pose on the last image?

"What's a rancor?"

IT IZ DEZZZIGNED AZZZ INTENDED!!!

Honestly though I rather expected the raid gear to be the "iconic" cloaked Sith armor and not get the "iconic" cloaks at level 45ish. Then again, everyone after 45 "could" wear their "iconic" armor if (and only if) the operations loot had the 1.2 updates to armor extraction.

pshaw, bag pipes are easy...