The Game of Flop and Twitch

          So I admit it, I'm an ADD gamer.  I get rolling on something and some shiny comes along and makes me shift gears,  Guess even writing about things can't keep me from bouncing like a meth head from one place to another.  Rolling fine in Vanguard, and my long time gaming buddy calls me up wanting to start gaming again.  We look around for a game we can both get into that we haven't played together, and settle on Guild Wars 2.  I've never played it (came out during my move to Washington) and while he has a max level toon, he's not really tried out anything other then leveling it up.  So I buy the game so we can stop our other activities once a week and game together, just like the old days.  Well, when we were playing, I was totally nubbing everything up, and all the starter shit is old hat to him, but we make good progress.  The next day, my altitus starts itching.  So now there's nothing to do but try out all the classes and see which is for me.  Unfortunately, my gametime is limited due to family time, so me trying out multiple toons means that the only game I'm playing is GW2. 

          Adding insult to injury, I finally convinced the wife to go back to gaming when the kids go to bed, but man did she throw down the gauntlet.  She wants a toony, WOW like game that is F2P.  She wants NOTHING to do with Vanguard (a result of me overplaying it at launch) and has no interest in min/max, difficulty, anything.  She has only ever played WOW, and really enjoyed it until she had to stop playing for college finals, and never let herself play it again.  Fear of gaming too much led her to not game at all.  She's gotten on most of my accounts when I'm at work and tooled around a bit, but really missed gaming with me and my online friends.  Ironically, one of her favorite gaming memories is when she was being camped in Hellfire Peninsula.  I was running heroics with a buddy (one of those people that make MMO's great.  Some random dude in a random guild that ended up being a friend for life, but only online.  My big regret when I moved across the country is that I didn't have time to stop by his town and hang out.)  Anyways, when Rizette got killed for the third or fourth time in a row by some max level toon, she asked for help.  Instantly 151(the buddy) and I dropped what we were doing and headed out.  For the next couple of hours we killed the ganker while my wife quested and harvested happily.  She just loved the fact that we dropped everything to come over and beat up her bully, she still giggles when she talks about it. 



Wow, that wasnt' supposed to become such a tangent.  Moving on.



          Well, I looked around, and seems like Runes of Magic will fit the bill for a game for wife time.  I have to build her a desk for her laptop, she refuses to game on her lap, so that won't start up till next week/weekend, but the family gaming times should be starting up again soon!

It has begun

So I've started up a couple of combo's in Vanguard, and am slowly figuring this Vanguard Multiboxing thing out.  I did a 4 sorcerers team up to level ten, the problem with it was if I didn't kill a mob in one or two hits, the toon I was taking damage in was a cloth wearing glass cannon.  I was starting up a team of 6 necro's when General chat informed me that the most recent patch unlocked all races and all classes for F2P accounts.  Bam! Time to do this up kick ass style.  Started a new group this morning that consists of Warrior, Bard, Sorcerer, Druid, Blood Mage and Shaman.  I'm considering whether I want/need 2 1/2 healers on my team, but I like how this looks at the moment.  This will be my first attempt at boxing melee toons, but a Bard is such a force multiplier that this should be a no brainer.  If they haven't patched it, I know Warrior was the crappiest tank, but I already have a Paladin at level 48 and a Dread Knight at level 20 with level 50 armorsmithing.  I will probably exchange the Warrior for the DK when the group gets level 20.  Even not getting a toon past level 10 yet, I am having an absolute blast again, I just wish the day had more hours in it, as I only play very early in the morning, and late at night when the kids are in bed.  Hopefully sometime soon the wife will join me in gaming again, but in order for that to happen I'm probably going to have to build her a computer desk, since her old one didn't make the trip across the country.  Always another project....

Welcome home presents

          Well, like I said in the last post, I looked around in WoW a bit, then jumped into Vanguard with both feet.  My buddy got my account working(something wrong with the sony files, nothing to do with VG at all) and now I'm back.  I downloaded HotkeyNet and started remembering all my old account info.  Just got through doing a 4 box Sorc through the Isle of Dawn, and am really digging how well Sorc was set up for boxing.  I'm going to try a group of Necro's for my Necro crafter, and I really need to test out my ability to play with melee guys, but for right now, I'm in a pretty good place.  I'll have some pics and introduce you to the crew eventually, but stay tuned, cause more Vanguard: Saga of Heroes posts are coming. 

Plans for the Future

    This was written while I was gone, on pad and pen.  Some of this has been decided, but still putting it up for posterity

Life is full of decisions.  What should I eat, How much should I tip, What should I play?  Well, today I'm offering answers.  Whatever tastes best.  Life is too short to be constantly fearing cancer or obesity.  Eat a fucking steak with potatoes and enjoy life.  20%.  I know, 15% is the standard in America, but having worked for tips before, I know that most people don't.  A good server can make a HUGE difference in your meal, so why not let them know how well they did?  Besides, 20% is easier math.  Just multiply the meal by 2, and there's your tip.  Meal cost 25 bucks?  Tip 5.  Life is better when things are made simple. 
                  What to play is a more difficult question.  It depends on what you want to do, and how much cash you can spend.  There is WoW, the old stand by.  Works fairly well.  $15 a month.  Has all the major spheres required to be a major MMO.  Everyone has played this game to death, and while playing you can't help but think about how much better the game used to be.  You cannot help it, you've played WoW for so long that now you constantly think about YOUR favorite in the game.  BUT, WoW is pretty awesome in other ways.  Multiple leveling paths.  For an altoholic, being able to level in a variety of ways is a big plus.  If you like questing, WoW has a bunch of different ways you can quest, and, at least until you hit level 60, you can go in different areas with different toons.  Granted, at 60 things do slow down because it forces you into the path of same old same old.  If you want to do dungeons to level, again it's not a problem because WoW has dungeons that go from 10ish all the way to max level.  Once you get to that first instance, you can just grind till you ding 90, and it's all good.  If you're by yourself, again no problem, LFG will automatically group you with people about the same level wanting to run the same instance.  LFG has taken a lot of shit for how it's killed WoW, or turned everyone into asshats, but it is an amazing tool for doing/seeing content if you're playing the game solo.  LFG deserves a post of it's own, so I won't get into it now.  Anyways, back on topic.  If you like PVP, you can level up by running battlegrounds over and over.  It has harvesting, crafting, achievements, rep grinds, collections, solo content, group content, vanity gear.  WoW is pretty amazing.  If I were to play WoW right now, I would probably spend most of my time running old content for mounts/pets.  I'm currently retired from raiding because I'm gone too much.  Being constantly under geared because my job makes me leave the Internet, I can't be counted on to be a consistent raider, and I'm not much interested in having to grind 5-mans non stop twice a year so I can catch up.  PVP is possible, but soloing battlegrounds is less then awesome, and arena is only cool with people I know.  Multiboxing solves the PVP/Grouping content problem, but even ignoring the purchase price, WoW is $15 a month.  Paying for 5 accounts is $75, which is a bit much for a late night/early morning activity.  I am planning on starting up the wife's account to try to get her gaming again, and I have some friends who's accounts I can occasionally borrow, but it will require coordinating times and all, so an annoying idea if used. 
                   Vanguard.  Good PVE.  No PVP.  Great crafting.  Great harvesting.   Nice community.  Free to Play.  I know, I'm a fanboy, but you knew a Vanguard post was coming.  Vanguard's questing is very good, but difficult to solo with most classes.  Vanguard has some very unique classes to play, but alot of them are now behind a pay wall.  Multiboxing is now possible due to F2P.  Crafting and harvesting and diplomacy are absolutely epic.  Dungeons are pretty awesome, and are non instanced, but no LFG means getting a group requires some good old fashion shouting.  Zero PVP is a minus, but I'd rather have a game with no PVP then one that balances too much to compensate.  If I play Vanguard, assuming my friend fixes my account while I'm away, I plan on mostly multiboxing to level, and grinding out some crafting.  That has a lot of win factor for me, but I'm kind of curious how much processor power it will take to run more then two accounts at once.  I'm also wondering how many of the F2P limitations can be paid away permanently.  I'm a fan of giving game companies money, but prefer to buy things I want instead of subscribing.  But that's another post. 
                  Final Fantasy XI.  A huge part of me wants to play this again.   With the addition of the Dancer class, this game's solo-ability when through the roof.  But, again, this was a game made for a duo.  Because of the game's simplicity, you can play two accounts on two PC's with little to no difficulty.  FFXI has arguably the best community in any game I've ever played.  The economy is solid, and you can make money just playing the market if you know what you are doing.  Understand that to play FFXI is to grind, cause that's all the game is, but memories make this grind more pleasant then most.  FFXI has two problems.  First, it IS a sub game.  Granted, with no bank toons, it's only like $11 a month, so potentially doable when I get out from under the WoW 1 year sub.  The bigger(and possibly insurmountable) problem is the level cap quests.  Starting at lvl 50, and every 5 levels after, you have to do a quest in order to level up anymore.  No biggie by itself, but these quests aren't doable at level solo, they are designed to require a raid to accomplish.  Since there is not a bunch of people doing this all the time, it means you have to bug the max level people to run you through it.  So, Basically, if you aren't cool with joining a linkshell(guild) and being an annoying, whiny, needy new guy, you are constantly trying to pay people to run you through things.  Not my fav thing to do.  Also, don't forget that the high level toons have WAY more money then you, so your "bribe" is pretty pathetic.  You're basically the pixelated version of the guy offering you a quarter for a smoke, while praying I'll give you one for free.  While the people in FFXI are super helpful, and I have never had someone complain, I HATE having to beg for run through, so thus the big problem.  Squenix, if you're reading, do away with all of them but the last couple.
                   Rift/SWTOR/Aion/AoC/Every other not broken F2P game out there.  All have positives and negatives.  Rift's bard class is a multiboxers dream.  Aion's crafting quests are the best thing to happen to crafting leveling since VG.  SWTOR's companions increases the power of a multiboxer.  Age of  Conan's version of a necro would be amazing with multiboxing.  Any/All of these things are possible, and I might try some/all of them at some point, but that time is not now. 
            

                     For now, my plan is to get reacquainted with WoW and VG, and experiment/improve my multibox abilities. 

Guess Who's Back

After a long, involuntary hiatus, I have returned!! While I've been gone I moved across the country, and went to a world without Internet through all the holidays (Halloween-New Years)(I mentioned that my job makes me go away, right?). Well, regardless, we are getting back into the swing of things here, but we're ready to start rocking out. Not entirely sure what all is gonna happen, but we definatly will be getting our game on.