No Age for Gaming
Here is a good article about Seniors who spend their retirement time gaming, or start to, and what they benefit from it:
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/video-games-retirement-senior-men
Videogames
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines sequel announced!
I bought Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines when it came and I thought this game is just awesome. You had to manually install Wesp’s unnoficial patch back then, but now it’s an exe that install in a short time the patch by clicking, or double-clicking, the file. I definitively want to thank Wesp for his hard work and dedication for still working on his unnoficial patch. At first it was to fix the bugs the game had (Basic), then to uncover the unfinished materials the devs were still working on and put them in the game (Plus).
Videos on how awesome Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines is. I’ve tried to embed them in my post, but it won’t let me. I’m really happy about this news.
My favorite clan to play is a female Gangrel, love their skills, they’re hardy and badass. I love that they may seem human at first, but if you start to look at them closely, you notice they’re not. And personnally I love their claws, looks feral. They don’t look monstrous like the Nofteratu, but like them they have to hide and cover themselves, hidden in the shadows. And since I play a female, people probably just think my claws are just long nails. With points in Seduction it makes the game easier to feed on people. Maybe because to me the Gangrel is the closest to my idea of a real vampire, strong, hardy, lots of stamina, can turn into bats, wolves, mist, can call animal spirits for help, like bats and wolves.
I don’t play the Vampire the Masquerade games from White Wolf, though, saw some of their books on Vampires the Masquerade from them in a store in English. I’m French-Canadian and my English was pretty bad, and my friends’ English was worse. Anyway, so my sole experience I have with their PnP is with their videogames. I bought Bloodlines first when it came out, found it amazing, and Redemption much much later on GOG. I haven’t played Redemption yet.
Diablo III
Personally I really like Diablo III, and after I started mode Nightmare with my 4 characters, I heard they were working on a new loot patch 2 which would make the loots better. After you go through the game on normal mode, the main reason to play after is to get better gears, so I decided to stop completely playing my alts and wait for the patch, which took around 9 months. It’s a good thing that I’m patient, and instead I played my hardcore monk that I had made.
The new loot patch occurred a bit before the launch of the expansion Reaper of Souls and Blizzard had for 3 weeks an extra 50% XP boost. My characters were around level 33-34, and I was worried they would never reach maximum level, so I was really happy about this, and I used the boost in question to get all my 4 alts to level 60. So I’m really proud to see that my characters are so high level. With the expansion the maximum level has been raised to 70, but with them being at 60 already it will be easier to get them maximum level again.
I’ve played solely my monk and I’ve done the new act, which I find awesome. Now my monk has reached maximum level of 70, and I’ve been doing bounties to raise my Paragon levels. Right now my Paragon level is 29, and I’d like to get it up around 100-110. I also prefer the new levels of difficulties that has come with the loot patch, the adventure mode, and the new Paragon system, because now all the alts share the same Paragon level, which means you just need to do it with one alt to level up Paragon, and all your alts have the same Paragon level too.
Here are signatures made with my characters, including my new born crusader, showing the classes, levels, etc.
Video games are good for us
Like all the other gamers out there, we all get tired of the superstitions about gaming: that it’s bad for our health, that it makes us more violent, that it make us lose contact with other people, that gaming can get addictive, etc. One has to remember that every new media has been bashed from radio, movies, tv, video games, internet, etc.
I’ve decided to share links about video games that have just good things to say.
5 Reasons Video Games Are Actually Good for You
6 Ways Video Games Are Saving Mankind
Could video game addiction help save the world?
How Video Games Stretch The Limits Of Our Visual Attention
Top 10 Frustrating (and Incorrect) Preconceptions About Video Games
Video Game Research Project Helps Blind Children Exercise
Video Gamers Can Control Dreams, Study Suggests
Video Games Lead To Faster Decisions That Are No Less Accurate
Video Gaming Prepares Brain For Bigger Tasks
Why video games are good for kids
Gamers make for better workers
Some online video games found to promote ‘sociability,’ researchers say
Social Games Can Save the World
Me love cuteness – Free Realms
I admit it, I love cuteness. 
I love those games with cute graphics and I often check out asian MMOs because of their high level of cuteness factor. Alas for me, asian MMOs are 99% of the time hardcore grinders with not much to do than kill the same mobs again and again to level up, which brings back to me nightmares, the ones I had when I had to do it in Saga of Ryzom, and also when I had to do it for slayer deeds in The Lord of the Rings Online.
I’ve noticed Free Realms last year but it was hard to tell what to think of the game, all I could see were a very few small bad quality videos of a cute world. Since the year has started, more screenshots have come out and more videos, it looks really interesting. The game is focused on kids and teenagers but the adults can play it too if they want. The beta has recently started and the open beta should be there in a month or so, I definitively intend to try the game out and see by myself how it is. It seems the game is more focused on exploration and socialisation, we get to have a house and a pet and we also get access to many classes that we can switch anytime, one aspect I love very much, flexibility, which is something I deeply miss from Guild Wars.
Sony claims it will be free-to-play but actually there will be a small monthly fee of 5-6$USD for those who want to have access to the whole content and areas and there will be micro-transactions as well. It’s unfortunate because when I first saw the game, the game was supposed to be wholly free but with a small monthly fee for parents who wanted more security for their kids, understandably. Considering the game is marketing kids, I think that now with monthly fee for everyone and micro-transactions, that it might make kids somewhat addicted and make them litteraly beg their parents for virtual items. They are already begging their parents for real items, now it will be virtual stuff, I doubt it will be healthy
In the meantime, here are some links:
Free Realms on SOE website (screenshots and videos there)
Latest videos on Free Realms, really cool stuff
This is a past blog entry from my gaming blog on Multiply.
Warhammer Online
I’ve never planified to play Warhammer Online and yet here I am playing it. The reasons why I’ve stopped playing momentarily LOTRO are a bit long and complex but I’ll try. Excited by Mines of Moria, I rushed ahead to level up my alts to make them ready for Mines of Moria, LOTRO’s upcoming expansion, that tired me up a bit of the game. Then there was all this drama on the official forums about the trollish lore-nazis, constantly bashing players like me who love playing casters. Then there was the destruction of the rune-keeper by the lore nazi in the beta, the rune-keeper was fun but the animations are pretty much gone, I was really looking forward to it. The nail to the coffin is the upcoming nerf to my two favorite classes, lore-master and minstrel.
It really feels as if the few issues I’ve had with LOTRO have become bigger: lack of magic, absence of caster classes, lack of fantasy (the game feels more like a medieval MMO than a fantasy one actually).
I’ve spent the last two months not really playing but I payed my game card anyway, and I’m too poor and rational to waste money on a game I barely play. So I’ve decided to momentarily stop playing LOTRO and invest in another game for the next months, I cannot imagine myself not playing any MMO for a while. I’ve been through and through Guild Wars and I’ve burned the game so it has to be something else. I’ve heard good reviews about Warhammer Online and it had a good launch (unlike a few like Age of Conan per example), I can see there are many cool caster classes in their game, their PvP is fair, etc. Now that I’ve started it, it’s obvious they took a LOT from Guild Wars in a good way. The community is nice, the classes are fun, there is a decent PvE side along with their PvP, no death penalty, no item wear, anyone at any level can PvP. Some of the people in the guild I’m in in LOTRO are in Warhammer Online too and I’ve found a good guild there, I was in their guild at some point with them in LOTRO. The guild is Shadow Company.
I find the Destruction side wicked cool and their classes oh so wicked cool too, so I play on the Destruction side on the NA RP Ostermark server and the Order side on the NA RP Phoenix Throne server. My Destruction alts are Azaroth (Disciple of Khaine), Khainlin (Sorcerer), Minesha (Magus), Rahmiel (Zealot), Tamarah (Witch Elf), Waaka (Shaman) and Waaroth (Squig Herder). My Order alts are Flamelia (Bright Wizard), Kharzem (Engineer), Mazaroth (Shadow Warrior), Minesha (Archmage), Sapphir (White Lion) and Sulian (Witch Hunter). I like that it’s dark and gritty. Warhammer Online is not perfect of course, it’s interface is far from being intuitive and there are elements missing but it’s decent and the classes are fun to play. I’m very lost since I know nothing about the lore of the game but at the same time, discovering a new world is fun.
LOTRO and CoV
I’ve never had interest into CoH, thought playing a superhero in a MMO would probably be lame but I thought I’d play the villain version though. Sounds like they listened to a lot of people’s prayers because the villain version came out and I ended up playing it.
CoX is a breeze of fresh air among all those fantasy MMO and being in that modern/scifi environment is fun. Sure you can create supernatural characters of course, from zombies, demons to werewolves, but the surroundings are modern. The character customization is amazing and I must have spent at least an hour creating each of my character. I was surprised to discover that the community was mature and all and I even got the opportunity to RP. CoV’s graphivs are better than CoH and the cities are dirty and the music is really rock. It looks really nice. You get all those weird powers. There is a lot of dark humor in it as well.
I managed to find a good SG and even good friends, one in particular I was RPing a lot with. We were making death threats to each other, it was funny. You get to write your characters’ bio and it’s great to bump into players who take the time to read your bio and act accordingly, and even make jokes about your character.
I’d say the downside is the repetiveness. All the maps are the same, in particular the inside of the buildings.
I was checking out Tabula Rasa too and at some point it looked like it was going to come out so I cancelled my subscription to CoV. I ended up not liking TR later. Anyway, it was a good thing because there were hard moments at that point and I really needed every cent I could save.
Since I get my fantasy fix with GW, I wanted something different as second game, like CoV, or TR. As I said, I was checking out Tabula Rasa, I wanted to be in the beta and so in order to get more experiences in beta I subscribed to other betas including LOTRO. I never checked out LOTRO before. As strange as it may seems, I’m never interested into MMOs based on an IP. I’ve loved Stargate very much but I do not plan to ever play the game, I’m just sick tired now personally of the show and I wish that instead of making a remake (Stargate Altantis), that the producers would come up with a genuine scifi show instead with a new story and background, etc. I do not plan to play either Stars Wars, or Star Trek Online, or Matrix Online, etc. While I do love the LOTR movies, love the book and read other Tolkien books as well (Bilbo, Silmalirion, etc.), I’ve never payed attention to LOTRO. I was chosen to be in its beta thought.
I got tons of problems trying to download the LOTRO client so I was a bit pissed off when I started playing the beta. Still, I’ve fallen slowly but surely in love with LOTRO. I’m not saying the game is without faults but it has so many good things in it. The graphics are beautiful, beside the characters who are a bit awkward I admit; the world is living; the quests are well done and engrossing; the storyline makes me feel as if suddenly I’m in GW, meaning that you’re part of the storyline, not player #23455; it really feels as if you live there and with the housing now it just makes the feeling true; RPing in it is great with a mature community, etc.
I have to admit that lately I’ve started to feel a CoV itch, a desire to go back in it and have fun RPing as a villain and rob banks. The thing though is that I can’t really afford more than one subscription game at once and I really do not want to leave LOTRO that I love dearly. What to do now?
This is a past blog entry from my gaming blog on Multiply.
Tabula Rasa and other stuff
I WON A TABULA RASA BETA SLOT!!!
Now that I got it out of my system I think I can write normally. Yup, big surprise for me to learn that I’ve won a beta slot. I’m really excited, especially that Tabula Rasa looks better everyday, doesn’t it? I guess the beta should start in january but no date has been set yet.
Am I the only one watching Heroes? I dropped to the floor the first time I watched it, dropped even further when I watched the pilot (that I missed). WoW! I’m really addicted to this show, it’s so painful to wait a whole week just to watch the next episode. Now I’be been waiting weeks already until the Holidays are over so Heroes can finally restart. Supernatural also finished into a cliff-hanger of some sort with Dean ready to die along with his brother. Obviously he has not recovered from his forced rescue in the first episode in the second season, you can see he had chosen to die in this episode, had gotten used to the idea. And the show ended with Dean about to crack and finally tell Sam what their father told him… but no, we got the credits instead. I have to wait weeks again to finally know what it is. This is so cruel.
Dark Flame Blame my meleemancer in GW died peacefully last week. He was replaced by another meleemancer so I’ve been budy rushing her so that she can get a hat coming from the Xmas event in GW.
This is a past blog entry from MySpace.
Vampire the Masquerade – Bloodlines
I finally had the courage to install the unofficial patch, fine by file, which you can find here ( http://www.patches-scrolls.de/vampire_bloodlines.php ), you have to install the unofficial patch after the official one ( http://www.vampirebloodlines.com/patch ). They come up with updates often so check them out.
Well, I’ve been having a blast playing this game. I have not finished it yet but I can see myself restarting it and playing another clan once I finish this one, I’m playing Gangrel right now. I read the Malkavians are hilarious to play. While the first-person screen might fool you, it’s actually more a RPG than a shooter game, even though you can indeed use range weapons at some point. Personally, I prefer the third-person screen and you can put it but it goes away rather easy. The graphics are not super great but they’re good in an urban and gothic way. The characters ingame are well defined and have their own personalities, the dialogues are great and realistic, the voice-over is really awesome and well played. The neighbourhoods, which are well done, feel a bit small once you know your way there. The combat is better than I thought, considering the reviews I read, but you have to use the + on the screen to really hit at the right place, so it makes combat a but cumbersome because there is no auto-aim for melee and ranged unlike most of the games I’ve played. There are some scary, disturbing parts in the game that totally freaked me out. It’s obviously a game for adults with the sexual undertones. Don’t expect as well to go around and attack anyone and drink their blood, this is more difficult to achieve than you can think. In Blood Omen 2 you can attack everyone on sight but not here. Hence why you can buy blood pack or drink directly from rats because the chances of getting your sip from someone’s throat is rather slim. I think only one clan can do it, the Toreador, because their seduction is very high and they can drink in front of everyone without being bothered, noticed or attacked. I don’t regret for one second about buying this game even with the bad reviews. Once you’ve installed both patches, you’re good to play. I give it a 9/10 because perfection doesn’t exist in this world, not even Guild Wars.
This is a past blog entry from MySpace.
Strange Realms' Random Thoughts 