Lineage II (Open Beta)

Applied for Open Beta testing 03/29/04. Downloaded the 1.1gb full size client.

World of Warcraft (testing)

Received Beta Phase 2 Acceptance email from Blizzard on 03/19/04 at 9:30pm. Phase 1 is in progress, and I can expect to be playing in a few weeks. I've joined Nebuchadnezzar's in game guild: Kali WoW.

GuildWars (testing)

In this game, groups of 8 unite to quest, gain experience killing monsters (PvE), and war against other parties or individuals (PvP). The game is not yet released, but "The release is scheduled for 2nd Half 2004" according to the FAQ.

From the GuildWars FAQ: "Guild Wars is a competitive online role-playing game. Players can engage in cooperative group combat, in single player adventures, or in large head-to-head guild battles. Guild Wars is a mission-based game set in a stunning 3D fantasy world that offers full, integrated support for guilds. Because the team that is developing Guild Wars has had experience creating successful online game series such as Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo, the members are familiar with the complex issues surrounding online games, and are creating a game that's both easy to learn and compelling to play long term, and yet doesn’t require players to spend hundreds of hours slogging through the preparation just to get to the fun bits."

From Evldor of EQ-PD-SolRo: " There are areas where everyone meets then you as a group can pick a quest to go on and you are all ported there. Very little downtime and no real lvling treadmill. No fighting for spawns because when your group chooses a quest/mission you get their own *instance* of it. There is pvp that works similar to best of the best but the computer sets up the matches, pretty much get your group and hit enter and then when another group has done the same your match starts. 8vs8 and 8vs8vs8vs8 is what I have seen so far but everything is up for change."

Dungeon Siege Legends of Aranna

After taking a very long break from gaming, I got hooked on DSLOA after my brother's gameLAN party at new years. I played this mostly offline, and when online, only on my brother's gameLAN. It's a great game, I advanced four characters to level 80ish, but the exp advance slowed to a crawl, and no new content, just killing the same creatures over and over for very little experience points.

My DSLOA Characters

PlanetSide (beta)

Great game, only played in beta though. Lacked end game content to keep interest.

Asheron's Call

Purchased, but never played.

Dark Age Of Camelot

Great game, terrible leveling grind. Lacked end content after 5 months. Stealthers were just too invisible and gained far too much Realm Points (RPs). Also, cheat hacks like Radar ruined the game.

Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC). I started playing DAoC shortly after quitting EverQuest. Initially I hooked up with the fuckheads, but after a few months, their numbers dwindled and some of them joined The Combine. The level up is a grind and involves PvE, but after reaching 50, the end game is all about PvP. However even after the first expansion pack, there are definate unsatisfying limits to the end game experience. It gets old and repetitive too soon. There are not too many game unbalancing factors still remaining but stealth was and is overpowered. With the expansion, new abilities to counter stealth have reduced its bite, but it's still very annoying that some characters are absolutely invisible. One aspect of PvP is to take a group and hunt out and kill other groups. Groups are made up of up to 8 characters. Collections of groups can unite and hunt together. Success in hunting can often depend on element of surprise, and getting the first jump. Thus bred third party external programs to provide Radar capabilities. Although Radar doen't reveal stealthed characters, it shows where they are when they reveal themselves. There are two classes of Radar programs. One type runs on the same computer as the DAoC client, the other is a packet sniffer running on a separate box. I used a linux box to run Excalibur from about March 2002 until June 2002 when online guides deduced that I was using it and banned my account. Which was fine with me since I was done with the game anyway and needed to get away from gaming and attend to real life for a change. I've been away from gaming ever since.

EverQuest

EverQuest promises to be the successor to UO. It's in beta testing now and is scheduled for release on 03/16/99. I've pre-ordered my copy. But I've heard that it's a game for 24/7 players. I'm more of a 2/5 player, so I'm not sure how well I can advance a character in that world. It also is the type of game that is best played with a group of people. That's how it should be, but trying to keep a tight small group of close friends and be online at the same time is next to impossible. The best thing to do is join a guild and get to know some new friends. Hopefully, I'll find some friends from UO that will be playing. A great site for EQ information is the EQVault.

• Excelander Bufferman Level 54 Barbarian Shaman
  
• Excelsiore Level 51 Half Elf Rogue
  
• Tite Twoslash Level 41 Wood Elf Ranger
  
• Arrguile Level 51 Barbarian Warrior
  
• Skoal Thunderhammer Level 60 Dwarf High Priest
  
• Menov Level 51 Dark Elf Cleric
  
• Scorpvenom Level 60 Half Elf Warlord
  
• Zacaria Level 58 Halfling Druid
  

Excelsior is a Shaman Barbarian from Halas, a city in the Everfrost peaks, a cold northern region of Norath. The harsh environment has hardened him into a strong and willful warrior. He lacks in some social graces but worships Mithaniel Marr, and Marr believes that valor is what separates civilized beings from beasts. He prizes truth, honor, and charity and strives to rid Norrath of all things dark and evil. He has little patience for mischief or mayhem.

Excelsior as a Barbarian is huge, buffed, stupid, and very cool. To practice warrior skills, he began fighting the goblin whelps and gnoll pups of the everfrost forest. He then slayed decaying skeletons from which some weapons were obtained. Once he learned the Heal spell he began to fight polar bear cubs. Then he fought wooly spiderlings.

His first adventuring trip took him to BlackBurrow, a dungeon that connects west Qeynos and Everfrost. There he did battle with scrawny gnolls.

Baulder's Gate

Baulder's Gate is a great game based off the paper AD&D. There are many quests and story lines. But after playing it through two times, it's finished. Time for the next game.

Starcraft - Ongoing local lan only

The latest release from Blizzard Entertainment is Starcraft . I haven't played this game online yet, and I'm just now practicing playing the different races. I don't think I'll get into the online group like I did with War2. I'll probably just play with local friends and family. Playing online simply consumes too much time.

Update: Starcraft Broodwar has been released and I've been playing this with my brother and his friends. It's a fun game and has a lot of staying power. There are many strategies possible and it's just a fun game over and over.

Ultima Online

Ultima Online (UO) was in beta August 1997. My character Excelsior played UO until 04/22/98 when I suspended (cancelled) my account. After putting up with cheats, exploits, and bugs for 9 months, I finally grew absolutely sick of the game and quit. However, it did have some good points and I had a few good times. My favorite related site is the UO Vault. I don't know if I'll get into another online game, but if I do, it may be something like Everquest or Asheron's call which will bring me back.

Diablo

I then started playing Diablo when it was released in Feb'97. I played this for about 4 weeks until all the cheats and hacks made the game impossible to enjoy. It was August before I started into the next online game.

Update: I've heard that Diablo II is in the works and offers some great advances in the game. Most notably, they intend to address the cheating aspect that so ruined the first release.

Warcraft II

I first got into online gaming with Warcraft II . I played this game from when it was first released sometime around March '96 and for 9 months following. I was a member of the International Warcraft II League (IWL) and the Bleeding Hollow Clan as the character KxUBut.

Update: Warcraft II Platinum will bring War2 to Battle.Net which is Blizzard's charge free multiplayer network.

Prior to online gaming

History TBD.