As already written, we did the family reunion thing last Saturday, which was cool in some parts, depressing in others, and painful at the end (I was sore as heck but meh).
Sunday was time to get collars for the puppies.
Monday was the puppies first shots, which wiped the money out of our pockets that we didn't have.
Tuesday was um...oh yes, an appointment for my wife at an augmentation office (get things evened out, and back to prior size).
Wednesday was supposed to be the day to take my parents to Animal Kingdom (which my Dad keeps forgetting that he's been to it), but my wife ended up being sick, so I made her stay in bed all day...not to mention that one of my Dad's friends had a stroke and didn't want the ambulance, so he had to go help the guy to the hospital.
Thursday my wife went with her sister, a niece, and our oldest daughter, to some outlet mall somewhere to hang out (my wife doesn't get to hang out with her sisters much at all, they all live so far away).
Friday, was the 'make up' day for Animal Kingdom. Hopefully by spending a whole day and doing almost everything in the park will be more memorable for my Dad and he'll remember being there. The day was supposed to be really friggin hot, but luckily for us, the lovely Florida rain came along to cool it down. Also lucky, it wasn't the ugly "I'll spit on the ground, then let the sun come out to make life a muggy mess", but rather a nice downpour (while we just happened to be inside eating lunch) and a continuous sprinkle through the rest of the day.
Saturday was a relaxation day, we did go to the store and get some groceries following a food plan so we didn't get too much, and which should cover us until Thursday when we get money again from paycheck.
Today, well, is the day my wive's gotta go back to work. I'll let her relax and get her internal clock somewhat back in line so that she can be able to work and not be super tired.
Only like 4.5 days left on my (first) trial in EverQuest 2. I'd really like to be able to play this for a while and see how dungeons and how friendly a guild I can find would be. I'm having to laugh at all the things that are in EQ2 that have been taken into other MMORPGs. Yes, you may say that all MMORPGs take things from each other, and they've become 'standard' things, like gathering of materials from the land to craft stuff up. The differences in craft systems in the big MMOs are different from each other, so each has it's own quirk so to say.
So let's look at crafting across a few MMOs that are big on the market: EverQuest (and 2), Final Fantasy XI, and World of Warcraft. EQ (I think) was the first MMORPG out of the three, their crafting system you'd have to find/buy the recipe for what you had to craft. Now when you went to craft things, if it was trivial to your skill, you could succeed flawlessly, if it was around your skill level you may get hurt by the crafting machine backfiring on you if you failed on the crafting. If you failed critically, say on a craft that was much higher than your current skill...well you'd DIE! In EQ2 they've slowed down the whole "blow yourself up" bit, and made the crafting a little more interactive, wherein you have to keep the durability of whatever you're crafting up high, while trying to push the progress bar up as well. Little "impurities" pop up and you have to use a skill to counter that impurity, if you succeed, you'll get a big bump in durability and/or progress. But if you fail at it, one of a few things can happen, small hit to durability and/or progress, large hit to the same, or... it could hurt you. Of course, you could die to this if you aren't careful.
Now how about WoW, the newest of the three. Crafting is roughly the same, wherein you have to purchase/find the recipes. But there is no failures. So no matter what, you don't have to worry about failing, or dying, and there's no interaction whatsoever. Just push button, watch it go.
So, what about FFXI? Well, granted this came out after EQ, I'm not sure entirely if this came out before or after EQ2, but I know that EQ2 was out and the crafting system above was in play before FFXI did something recently with their crafting. Unlike EQ(2) and WoW, you don't gather materials off the ground, you have to farm them up by killing creatures and hope the materials you need drop. Secondly, you don't have a recipe book so to say, you have to know the recipe yourself, or have it written down OUTSIDE THE GAME. Which means more than likely you'll have the FFXI Wiki up in another window at all times to look up how to craft something you want, or to look up the recipe that you forgot. FFXI used crystals for a time to craft, no interaction except some thoughts that depending on what direction you faced with which crystal increased your success rate or high quality success rate. Once you fired up the combination, you had no interaction. Now, the funny thing is that recently FFXI has implemented a 'new' crafting method. You have to find a pot somewhere (or have crafted a portable one) and start crafting with it. While crafting impurities will come up which you have to react to or risk getting harmed. You have to get the item 'pure' enough to extract the proper thing you were trying to craft. Again, you have to know the combination to make it. Sound familiar? Well, there is a small difference between this and EQ2's method...You can involve your party in the crafting process as well in FFXI. So your party members could be tasked with keeping valves turned properly, or make sure the pressure in this pot isn't too high or low, or just help by sitting there letting their other craft skill help in the creation of whatever item. Yea, see, in FFXI if you didn't know, you can only have one main craft with crystals. These pot combinations, some of them require that you have the main craft up high on two or more crafts. So that uber weapon you wanted to craft in this pot? yea, you've gotta find another player that has high crafting in other crafts, not to mention also have a good amount of this pot crafting method as well.
So yea, each has their own little quirks somewhat. Each has it's own difficulty. EQ's you gotta make sure not to drop the durability down too much, but still relatively easy. FFXI you've gotta have a wiki or external paperwork showing what recipes you can make. While WoW you just ... do it. I'm not sure if this makes FFXI the hardest crafting system as you've gotta kill creatures to farm up your craft items, along with having to know the combinations outside the game to make anything. Or would EQ's be harder as you do have to make sure not to ruin your item while you're trying to craft (sometimes taking a long time to make something). Hands down WoW's is the easiest, push button, watch it craft and succeed. I'd probably have to say: FFXI > EQ2 > WoW in terms of difficulty of crafting.
With this one system, you can see that if you're into crafting, and want a ton of challenge, go for FFXI. If you'd prefer an idiot's method to crafting, go for WoW. If you'd like a little middle ground, hit up EQ2. There are other things that make each game nice, but everything that I could point out has them in the same order for difficulty. Partying? FFXI it's basically the life of the game, you HAVE to party to get anywhere past 10. WoW and EQ2, both solo friendly, but have party only areas. Questing? FFXI doesn't have any indicators who has a quest for you, you have to know, have wiki up to know, or randomly talk to the NPC's. WoW and EQ2, both have indicators as to where a quest is available, but WoW sometimes sends you back and forth between areas to complete some quests, EQ2 hasn't done that to me yet, but I'm sure it may happen.
So yea, pick your MMORPG carefully. If you want a kid friendly, easy as heck MMO, go for World of Warcraft (oh, and make sure your secret question/answer isn't anything searchable in a dictionary...the gold sellers use that to get your password, and you're not informed when they try and/or succeed. Not to mention that Blizzard can NOT change this secret question / answer EVER. I've lost two accounts, one in US servers, and one in EU servers to this. I'll write about this either later or tomorrow). If you're looking for a crazy difficult challenge, go for FFXI (be ready to be inundated with gold sellers sending you tells, unless they've finally fixed that in the last couple months). Want ease of experience gain, semi-difficult crafting system, and good party atmosphere, go EQ2.
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