Memoirs of a Gamer Girl

Games, Games, and more games.

2010-01-08T15:56:00.000-08:00

I recently started playing several different MMO's. As most people know, I've been on LotRO for close to a year now, just a couple of months shy, and I stay in my little cubby hole on Windfola, away from prying eyes where things are quiet.

More recently, I started branching out into other games, most of them not exactly new, but just to spread my wings a little to prevent LotRO burnout, which happens from time to time if I don't spend some time away from my beloved world.

I've recently started, or rather, attempted to start playing three different games. The kindness from one of my friends gave me a Preorder Aion account, and that has been a good bit of fun so far. I'm currently playing it with two of my kinmates from LotRO, and we decided it would be a one-off type game, where we only subscribed on months we know we will be playing it.

Aion: • • • • •

Character Creation: The system of character creation is complex, allowing you to fully morph everything from facial features to body size and dimensions. The only thing it lacks is any ability to more detailedly customize one's hairstyle, instead giving you a large number of preset styles to choose from. Many of the styles are elaborate, decorated, and quite nice, for both males and females, with several hairstyles being shared between the two genders.

There are actually only two races in the game, the Asmodai, and the Eylos. Despite what would seem like an obvious limitation to creativity with only two essentially human races, their character customization is so expansive that it is very easy to actually tell people apart purely on visuals without ever looking at their names. Those who are a fan of the more traditional fantasy races, Halflings, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, even Ogres, will find that it is easy to make a unique looking race in the style you'd like, with just a few clicks and tweaks of their system. Something that you don't find in most MMO's and is a welcome and refreshing change.

(More Pending)

A Lifetime of Gaming: Reflection

2010-01-03T16:34:00.000-08:00

For most people, gaming is just a hobby, something that they do every now and again, as something to pass the time. In bygone days, you'd pick up a controller for an hour or so, then put it back down and continue on with your day. But gaming is more than a sum of the console and controller, more than the restrictions of the paper and dice. Gaming has changed from a past-time to a lifestyle. What's more is that gamer has become a catchall title for those who pick up any game and play it a little bit. Some gamers find it insulting, but I find it a refreshing change. No longer is being a gamer something that implies you have no life.

No, every gamer can now stand up and be counted with only the potential shame of the woefully uninformed. But how easily these 'new' gamers forget the grief they thrust upon the old-schoolers who were taunted and teased, bullied, and even beaten upon, because of their chosen 'hobby'?

We all game, in different ways, from our youth, into adolescence, and into adult-hood. But what defines a gamer? Someone who plays console games? PC games? Table-top games? Do online text based role-plays count as well? Who sets down these guidelines, and decides for us what is and isn't legitimate gaming? What about LARP? Are they gamers any less?

I wonder, sometimes, about the different labels that people choose to place upon themselves and others. I can honestly say I'm proud to be called a gamer. From Atari to XBox 360, Text-based to table-top and board games, single person RPG's to MMO's, I've dabbled here and there for the entirety of my life in different mediums that are considered part of the whole of a gamer's paradise.

At the dawn of a new year, 2010, I sit in contemplation about gaming and the impact it's had on my life. I've played games that have made me laugh, and made me cry, met wonderful people, and run across the most foul individuals I feel I've ever had the misfortune to meet. I've made solid friendships with people from across the world, and enjoyed casual gaming with my family over the course of my life. Gaming has had such a profound impact on my life. It has, in a way, shaped the person I've become, showing me the direction I want to go, fueling my imagination, and keeping my mind sharp even when the rest of me grew dull, giving me entertainment, an escape from the wretched monotony of everyday life, and providing me with a stable and ever expanding medium with which to fuel my creative impulses.

Do I regret committing so much of my life to gaming?

Never in a million years.

- J

Updating, at last.

2009-11-14T08:49:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a while since my last post, and I have to say that Wonderking didn't hold my interest for very long. I reached level 15, stopped playing, and never thought to turn the game back on.

I have always been a fan of games with more than two dimensions, and while I have to admit that certain aspects of Wonderking were addictive, the game and I simply didn't agree on what was considered 'fun'. I played an Archer during my short lived career in the game, and while I'll admit that the game itself is quite enjoyable, I don't see myself as ever going for a long-term commitment to play it.

Wonderking, in my opinion, is cute, but just not for me. Since I didn't play it enough to really give a fully detailed opinion on all the classes, I'll leave it right there.

In other news, I'm extremely pleased that Final Fantasy XIII is going to be released for the XBox 360. That means I won't have to purchase a Playstation 3 just to enjoy the next in the long line of RPG's I've been following since I first discovered them.

Which reminds me, I need to unpack my PS2 and replay the older games. Of course, I need to find those games first, but hey, them's the breaks. They just recently released the trailers on the XBox, and I've watched two of them so far - graphically, the game is very appealing to look at. But I'll reserve my judgment on it until I actually play it. The combat system is interesting, I'm not sure on the exact mechanics of it, but it reminds me of a mixture of FFXII, which was MMO reminiscent, and Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, which was uh, interesting. Still, I hope they release a demo of it before it actually releases.

Speaking of MMO's, Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood releases in 17 days. My husband and myself, along with some of my Kinmates from in the game are preparing for the long day ahead of us on December 1st. As if preparing for Christmas wasn't enough, we're getting geared up for an all day session of gaming on the 1st.

I eagerly await the release of the expansion. While following the forums I saw a lot of mixed reactions to the way that Mirkwood is being released, and while admittedly this is LOTRO's first digital expansion, I think that it isn't a bad idea, especially for those of us who are home bodies and don't want to have to run out to the store, or wait for delivery from an online website (ilu Amazon.com, for getting my Halo 3: ODST to me on the same day it was released).

The first character I'm planning on getting through the borders, and into Mirkwood, is of course my Minstrel, Mysticari. I've got her as geared as I possibly can without running Halls of Crafting, and getting the new Lady's Grace set from DN. We're going to have a decent mixture of classes, three minstrels, a champion, a rune-keeper, and a captain/hunter.

Speaking of Mirkwood, I was recently reading the new developer diary from lotro.com, and I like the layout of the new menu. I'm still incredibly sad that I wasn't able to get access into the beta, but these hints and sneak peaks through the Dev Diaries has been great for keeping me 'in the know'. Now I can only pray that the next / newer Minstrel skills don't suck.

I expect there to be full release notes for the expansion sometime just before it releases. Watch, though, they'll give us one day to process what's going to be changing before it actually hits the intarwebs.

I just recently started writing a Minstrel guide on my kin forum. Once I have it entirely finished, I'll post it up in this blog, so I can point people to it here, since the forum is private. For now, back to LOTRO!

Quick edit - just watched the 'Special Announcement' for Final Fantasy 13 on my XBox, and the release date is 3.9.2010.

I know where I'll be that day!

The Blog

2009-10-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

Well, the blog has undergone a number of changes over the past few days, from names, to domain, to all sorts of various stuff. I ended up settling on Mysticari, which is typically my most used character name on MMO's that I play.

I've been intent into LOTRO since I last posted. I've moved away from World of Warcraft entirely, and at this point I'm fairly certain I won't be returning to it at all.

However, I've started going through and playing other MMO's, from Cabal Online, to the beta of Wonderking (which is a cute little game, by the way), DDO, which I wasn't very fond of, and a few other little games here and there.

I'll be going more indepth on LOTRO once I have more time to sit and write, I just wanted to let people know that I decided once and for all this will be my final name-change for the blog, and Memoirs will be sticking around, hopefully, for a very long time.

Well...

2009-04-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

It's been forever since I posted in my blog, because I've been so out of touch with World of Warcraft that it isn't even funny. My subscription expired last October and I've been going through heavy withdrawls ever since. I still plan on getting back to Kilrogg server, and my excellent guild there, but in the meantime, a friend of mine decided it would be funny to get me hooked on a new game - specifically, Lord of the Rings Online. Now, at first glance, I swore up and down that I'd hate this game. The graphics were so high quality that I couldn't run them on my computer, or worse, the game, like Lineage II, just wouldn't load.

-Insert complaining and whining about needing a new computer-

So, I manage to get into the game with it on the lowest settings possible, and Oh My God. The game itself is fantastic. I've noticed something I didn't notice on World of Warcraft. A decided lack of drama. Oh sure, there's still drama on the forums, but I'm talking about 'in game'. I stay out of the Global LFF channel, where most people say the drama exists. Instead, I keep to the smaller channels and hide away like some recluse, lurking, offering help to people where I can, and relaxing.

And oh boy do I find the game relaxing. Where World of Warcraft was so heavily focused toward grinding, I've not had to grind a single thing in Lord of the Rings, except for Deeds, and that's just because I'm a deed-a-holic, as someone told me.

One of the things I liked immediately was the profession system. You have specific items you can make, and need certain areas to be able to make them. Now, this would have ordinarily put me off, but instead, I leaped in head first, and started work on mastering my tiers of crafting. Being the overachiever I am, my professions are above and beyond my level. Which wouldn't be bad, except good god a mighty, does it get costly.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. I just wanted to let people know that I'm still alive, still gaming, and having a blast. Did I mention yet that I got an XBox 360, and started playing Halo 3? Yeah. That takes up what percentage of my time isn't consumed by LOTRO.

x.X; I need a hardcore gaming setup to accomodate my gaming needs.