Blaugust Day 19 - Paying it forward in MMO's

Something happened to me today in Eve Online that I felt might make an interesting post. Eve is notorious for its unforgiving community, people that would rather rip you off or blow you out of the sky rather than give you a helping hand, but I'm here today to tell you that is not the whole picture.

Today, I learnt more and was offered more generosity than I've had in my almost 6 months in the game, all thanks to one fellow gamer who just loves to give back. Not only did he advise me on a new fit for my mission running ship, but he taught me about Jump Clones, Augmentations and even offered me a ship I've not yet been able to afford to buy.

Now I've been veteran of LOTRO for 5 years and when I first started, I got similar help. The community was such, back then at least, that more experienced players were willing to offer tips and guide new players through their first steps and beyond. In return, as years passed, I did the same. I've helped countless people through the Legendary Item system, taught complete newbies how to tank or heal and crafted more suits of armour and weapons than I care to count. Last year, I rolled characters on a second server, Landroval, where I acted as mentor for a ton of new players as part of the Coursera course on MMO's. I still play with that group and I see the ones I taught passing on the knowledge to newcomers, paying it forward.

This, to me, is what makes an MMO so special. You can teach someone to play a game, as I might teach my daughter to play Snakes and Ladders (as I did last week) and have in impact on their memory of the game. I was surprised to find it in Eve, given the reputation, thought we should all remember, we're all human behind our keyboards, after all.

Blaugust day 18 . Back in the saddle

Well after some fiddling about with the innards of my Alienware, I managed to get it to boot. The fan still sounds like a 747 taking off, but having builders working both next door and opposite my house, you can barely tell!

So between working, I managed to get into a couple of games. 

Much of the day has been Eve Online. I am starting to love the game more and more, as I uncover even more complexities within. My main, Aeldritch Marstoldt is an industrialist, mainly mining ore and ice. I recently obtained a new mining vessel, known as a Mackinaw. Pretty powerful beast and after the hefty initial investment, it's paying off, so much of today has been playing with him.

One of my alts, David Lystre, is a specialist salvager, based on the outskirts of space, null sec. He's a very new character, so he's a tiny fish in a massive pond of sharks, but he manages to survive. His speciality is lurking around PvP areas and salvaging things quickly. Today I got him trained in high speed manoeuvres and cloaking, so that will aid him greatly.

In addition to Eve, I made a brief return the Guild Wars 2. I've not played in a couple of weeks, but I decided to roll a new character today, for some reason, a Charr Thief. Didn't get much time to play him, but I enjoyed what I saw. I don't get have a cap toon in GW2 so I still have so much to experience and in enjoying taking it slowly.

PS3 gets a workout (Blaugust Day2/17)

Blaugust day 2 for me (day 17 for everyone else!) and the PC is still dead. Rather than trying to play Eve on the superslow laptop, I dusted off the PS3 today and dug into a couple of games I haven't played in some time.

First up, GTA V. I love this game, but access to the family TV is a rarity, so in the several months I've had the game, I've still not finished the offline story and have hardly played online either. Loaded up Trevor, one of the offline characters, to find him waking up in the middle of the desert in a nightgown, "If I find the deer that pissed on me," he growls, "I'll eat his liver." This game never fails to amuse.

After blasting through a couple of fun missions, I loaded my level 12 Online character. There have been a ton of updates since I last played, though I'm probably not advanced enough to notice the changes. Seems no-one else was in my session, so couldn't run any group missions, but did a few parachute missions, which I've never seen before. Great fun!

Finally I fired up Call of Duty - Black Ops 2. I've barely played this but have been through most of the previous games. I used to love them, especially those based in WW II, but the games seem to just be more of the same. I'm not great at FPS games, so I tend to just run through and hope for the best until I finish them.

I miss LOTRO :(

Blaugust day 16 post 1

Ok so I came a little late to the party, fashionably late obviously. I just heard about Blaugust from the wonderful Contains Moderate Peril (if you love games, you should really check it out) and so I thought I should embark on an attempt to blog every day for the rest of the month.

Now call it serendipity or fate, but just as I was considering this today, my Alienware gaming machine gave up the ghost. It's been making a racket of late, fans blasting full on, apparently a common problem with my model and as I'm unable to get it fixed any time soon, I've hooked my wife's laptop to  my monitor in the hope I might have the chance go play something. I installed Eve and it runs like a hippo through mud. Needless to say, I am not happy. No LOTRO for a while, and probably no Eve aside from maybe adding skills to my queue. 

ah we'll, gives me time to blog from my iPad doesn't it?!

Here's to payday at the end of the month! Hope you join me for my cold turkey away from gaming.

Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative - Coursera 2014

Last year I joined a course via Coursera, Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative run by Jay Clayton of the Vanderbilt University.

It covered a range of topics related to the "remediation" of literature into other forms of media, notably gaming, and this ties with the courses connection to Lord of the Rings Online. Through the course, I joined Landroval, a second permanent server for me, and made some great friends.

The course is due to run again for 2014 and if you have any interest in trying an MMO or learning more about the subject, I can't recommend it enough. It starts on 14th June and runs for 7 weeks. It is free and of course, LOTRO is a free to play game, so it's not going to cost a penny.

If you want to sign up, join us on Landroval. We have a Kinship, a guild, dedicated to course members called the Courserrim. Leave a comment or drop me a line @jestrosneak on Twitter if you need an invite.

Course information here

Return to Eve Online

A couple of years ago, I tried out the 14 day trial to Eve Online. I remember enjoying the experience but after the 14 day period I just dropped away.

Last week, after hearing a discussion on the game on the excellent Contains Moderate Peril Podcast, I was tempted to give it another go. I rolled a new character and started the training again from scratch. Such is the complexity of the game, even the tutorials, it didn't come flooding back so I trawled through it, itching to get into the game proper.

5 days in and I'm hooked. I can't speak highly enough about how well the game holds together even after ten years. There are many reasons why this game has enjoyed the longevity it has and will continue to have. The world is rich, the graphics and sound excellent and there are so many choices of style of play you can never get bored. It reminds me of my early days in my first mmo, where I didn't see the mechanics and just enjoyed the game, something no other mmo has been able to capture for me since.

If you haven't given the game a go, please do. It's not for everyone, but if you want a complex and frankly unforgiving game experience, something you can throw yourself into and not hit cap in a few days, this may just be for you!

New Class comes to Neverwinter!

I've had an off and on relationship with Neverwinter lately, but the new expansion released this week, Shadowmantle, has dragged me back in with an introduction of a class I've longed for, the Hunter Ranger.

The class plays like a dream, awesome ranged power will the ability to hop backwards to put more space between yourself and the enemy, this actually plays better than my favourite class in Lotro, the Hunter!

I've not played through any of the new content yet, but for the release of this class alone (and Free to Play!) I hail Perfect World for a job well done. If you haven't tried it yet, give Neverwinter a go. It's a blast!.

http://nw.perfectworld.com/