And the Other Obsession Is.......

My other obsession lately has been trying other games. I have tried a bunch of them lately....the free ones. I thought I would give you a short review of the ones I have tried. Ranking system of 1* to 5.

SilkRoad - (**) The graphics in this game are pretty nice, about the same as Perfect World or SWG. The character creation is non-existent, you chose from pre-made toons. The in-game tutorials were pretty good, on how to play the game. The major problem with this game (and why I would not play it) is the only type of character movement is point and click. I hate that !!!

Mabinogi - (*) I was all fired up about trying this game.....it has good reviews and from what I read, an extensive crafting system. You can even make originally designed clothing ! It sounded like heaven, to a crafter like me. Imaging my dismay when I logged in and found a game that looked like a Saturday morning cartoon from 1969. The graphics are worse than awful. The characters all look like 10 year old kids and only had point and click movement. (you know I hate that !) Ten minutes of playing this game and it was on the express train to uninstallville.

Anarchy Online - (*) The concept of this game was really cool......a sci fi theme with spaceships and aliens. Sounded like it was right up my alley. Another crashing disappointment awaited me, after going in. The graphics are pretty horrible, though better than Mabinogi (what isn't) they are blocky and dated. The character creation, while you don't have that many choices of race, you do have some customization in appearance, if you don't mind blurry, blocky heads. One saving grace is that they have a TON of professions, all of which sound pretty cool and interesting.....if the rest of the game was not so dismal. The character movement, while using W, S, D, A and the mouse, it's very hard to guide your character (literal hell for this carpel tunnel wrist of mine) and the only way to fire your weapon is by hitting Q. Q ?? This game sucked and was, as they say......gone in 60 seconds.

Hero Online - (****) Hero is pretty fun, and while it is no WoW, at least it is playable and has nice graphics. The character creation is garbage.....you have 3 women and 2 men to choose from and their appearance is pre-determined. (I felt like I was in Clone City whenever I was in town, with the same 5 faces everywhere...hehe) The character movement can be changed from point and click (you know how I feel about that!) to W, S, D, A and mouse in the key bindings. The armor and weapons and quest system is not hard to figure out. The worst thing about it is the lack of quests. You only get a few per level and the rest of the time you have to grind. There are many comical things in this game, not the least of which are the men's hairstyles. Since the game is Asian based, all the toons wear Japanese looking armor, and instead of helmets, you get hairpins for head armor. When a guy puts on a hairpin, it gives him a little bun on top of his head with this giant pin (it actually more resembles a knitting needle) stuck through it. The first time that we saw that, Sy and I almost fell out of our chairs laughing.....it is hilarious looking. The good news is, hairpins actually improve the hairstyle on female characters. Anyway, Hero isn't bad to play, for a free game. If you want something to do as an alternative to WoW, while you are waiting for WotLK to come out, you may want to try it.

I think I am done with other games for a while. After reading the hype on their sites, the reality is just too heartbreaking. :)

Till Next Time,

Jade

I Squidoo, Do You ?

Lately I seem to be obsessed with a couple things.....lol. The first is Squidoo. I found Squidoo a couple weeks back and since then I can't seem to stop making lens ! Lenses are a squid term for pages. Squidoo is a site that you can go and make pages (for free!) about anything you want. They have tens of thousands of them on any subject you want. The interface is so easy to use, you can have a page up and literally running in 15 minutes. They also have totally automated "modules" you can put on site that require no website knowledge at all. Like modules that will put 3 to 5 (you choose how many) things from E bay, Amazon (I told you they were affiliated with everyone on the planet) or Cafe Press on your site, and if someone buys something you get a cut of the money. You can put an RSS feed on the site that contains daily news about your topic, and will change every day, all by itself. You can also put polls, You tubes, Twitter stuff and just about anything else you can think of.....all with a few simple clicks. Now how can you beat that, for free ?

The following are a list of my lenses:

WowTipspace
Introduction to Perfect World
Perfect World - Races and Classes
How to Buy Cubigold for Perfect World
Perfect World - How to Use the Item Mall
Perfect World International

I know it seems like there is a lot of love for Perfect World, (another MMOG I play) and not much for WoW, but the reason for that was there were no lenses on Perfect World at all......so I figured I would fill that void......hehe. Anyway, Squidoo is fun ! Many people have made "how to" pages for everything from how to make french onion soup, to how to change the oil in a car. Some folks just make a page about their hobby, or passion.....or even about themselves. Lots of people make lenses as lead in pages to get people to their website to try to sell them something. Squidoo does not care if your page is commercial, unlike most other sites (such as My Space) so you can even make pages to sell stuff.

So that is one of my obsessions lately, see the next post for my other one.

Cheers,

Jade

Profession Spells

Bliz released this week that we will be getting a new, unique spell, depending on which profession you have. They released a partial list as follows:

Blacksmithing

Socket Bracer - Permanently add a socket to your bracers. Requires a level 60 or higher item.
Socket Gloves - Permanently add a socket to your gloves. Requires a level 60 or higher item.

Tailoring

Lightweave Embroidery - Embroiders a subtle pattern of light into your cloak, giving you a chance to cause an additional 800 to 1000 Holy damage when you damage an enemy with a spell.You can only embroider your own cloak and embroidering your cloak will cause it to become soulbound.

Darkglow Embroidery - Embroiders a magical pattern into your cloak, giving you a chance to restore 300 mana when you cast a spell.You can only embroider your own cloak and embroidering your cloak will cause it to become soulbound.

Swordguard Embroidery - Embroiders a magical pattern into your cloak, causing your damaging melee attacks to sometimes ignore 1000 of your target’s armor.You can only embroider your own cloak and embroidering your cloak will cause it to become soulbound.

Herbalism

Wild Growth - Embrace the natural energies surrounding you, healing you for 2000 over 15 sec. (300/480/720/900/1200/2000 Depending on Rank). Instant, 5 min cooldown

More later, :)

Jade

How to Use Macros

Got a short freebie for you today. It's a tutorial on:

How to Use Macros

Hope you find it useful.

Jade

WoW's Version of Mystery Science Theater 3K

Cool site number two, for the day. It's called Project Lore. It's a site made by five guys and they are making a string of "episodes," ....... narrated videos of playing WoW, such as Episode 4.1 Underbog. This vid shows their five toons doing the instance Underbog. Funny outtakes that cut to the room where the guys are playing at their computers (complete with monitors that have better paint jobs than most muscle cars) are a fun diversion from the work of the dungeon, but when they are fighting in UB, it sometimes shows a small picture of four of them (one in each corner) playing while the rest of the screen is in the dungeon. The sound that plays is the actual guys talking as they kill the mobs........ arguing, cussing, compliments and wisecracks are all heard and most are pretty funny. This is why it kind of reminds me of MST3K. The good humor and comical comments run along the same vein as the old show, and give you the same feeling......like you are there and a part of it, instead of just a spectator.

There is one introduction vid and 16 episodes: 3 for Hellfire Ramparts, 4 for Slave Pens, 5 for Mechnar, and 4 so far for Underbog. All of them are worth watching, if for nothing other than the comedy. (you will definitely find them more humorous if you have done these dungeons as many times as I have) You will also find some useful tips and information about actually doing the dungeons and playing the game in general. Laugh while you learn, that's a win/win situation.

The site also has some pretty nice guides for the classes, professions and dungeons. Though the information in them is pretty basic, they are fairly complete and I did learn a few things from reading them. I noticed they are looking for more guides and asked for any guide authors that are interested, to get in touch with them.

This is a new and innovative take on WoW.....something you don't really see all that often, any more. Definitely worth checking out !

Project Lore

That's all for now,

Jade

Your Character, Immoralized !

Well, it has been a week of discovery. Today, in my internet travels, I ran across a rather cool site called FingerPrints.com. This site will make a 3D statue of your WoW toon in exact detail. From what I understand, when this site first opened, they were so swamped with orders, that they did not have the resources to fill them all, so they have gone to a lottery system and you can enter, and if you get chosen, they will immortalized your toon for a mere $125 + SH.

It's a pretty interesting site, you might want to check out just for the heck of it :)

More Later,

Jade

Off Topic - Blingo

I ran across a rather cool thing today during my travels on the internet. There is a search engine called Blingo that is run by our old buddies at Publishers Clearing House. Every time you do a search on Blingo, you have a chance to win a prize. Now, the prizes are not new Lamborghini's (much to my disappointment) but they do give away gift certificates to Amazon (is there ANYONE on the planet that they are not affiliated with ??) or cash or other stuff that most folks find useful. Since you use search engines every day to look things up, why not use one that gives away prizes ?

Anyway, I thought it was worth mentioning, since it's free to register. :)

Here's a link for you:



Check it out !

Jade