Rift

Oh my gosh, when was the last time I updated this? oh yea, that horrible weekend.

So, the results of my 4 complaint letters to them yielded me ... not a refund ... but two complimentary 2 day 2 park passes. After that debacle, and me telling them I'm not planning on going back any time soon ... that's their solution.

Meh, I suppose we could try again sometime next year, or maybe later this year, I mean, we did pay for the passes and were seriously disappointed. And they're not seeming to understand that I'd rather have my money back than to go again just because it's "free".

I think the last time I posted, I had gone back to FFXI, and was having some fun there. Up until I decided to take one of my lower leveled jobs up to the new cap...boy was that a mistake. I mean, I got bitched at for being gimp, bitched at for not having the best gear for my level (when I was leveling super fast with the new areas), bitched at for TRYING to skill up my skills (because my damage sucked, they just wanted me to sit and do nothing), THEN a tard that I thought to be a friend sends me a tell saying I should listen to the people that were already top level on the job I was trying to level. I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING DAMNIT. That's exactly what I said to the guy just moments before canceling the subscription to FFXI, and browsing some free games.

I found Vindicated, which was a pretty nicely done graphically game. It being free, it was surprising to see that level of graphics. Then I ran into the part where they LIMIT your ability to play the game per day, or even per 3 days if you go through and use all your travel tokens on the same day that they are granted. Oh sure, you could have other players foot your travel cost if they're nice... but why would they decide to do that if they're trying to ration them to play for the three days? Sure you could go play the starter area that doesn't cost travel coins, but after a certain point, you get no EXP, and end up just walking through beating the snot out of everything while the newbies that are trying to do it themselves just soak up the exp that your pain-train is causing. Granted, even at max level you couldn't one-shot the bosses on the beginner isle, but still, the fodder was laughable.

Friends in the UK wanted me to come back to WoW again, so I went back ... All was well, got to the new cap in a very short amount of time. Found that the hacker that had gotten into my account had stripped me of all my gold, and taken off my herbalism, and replaced it with mining. The GM's weren't able to restore my character or anything because it was so long ago. Luckily the tard that got ahold of the char didn't strip it's gear, just the gold. So I made my money, got the new stuff, and was ready to raid the new dungeons ... but, then it got boring again ... I hadn't even gotten into a "schedule" with doing things (mainly because there was no schedule with the guild I was in, but also because I was getting bored). So, I rolled up a mage. I was topping most DPS charts for a while, and it was fun ... got myself up into the 60's or 70's I think before it got boring there as well.

Went to Wal-Mart and was wandering around, saw Rift on the shelf, and figured, meh, I'll try it...what's the worst that happens? I write a review of it saying what it's about and why I'd not play it? ... Well, how about this, I write about how quickly I canned my WoW subscription once I popped in Rift. It was exactly 10 minutes BEFORE I started Rift up for the first time. Wait, how is that possible? Well, I could care less about WoW really. I'd read reviews and stuff from people about Rift that had played the beta, and I was actually kind of looking forward to playing it eventually anyway. This just came sooner than latter.

My personal experiences so far have made me feel I've been accomplishing things along the way (and not in the fact that there's achievements in the game). The gameplay is nice. The dynamic raids that the NPC's cause is superb (although at one event I'd taken part in, it bugged out). There are so many other things that are great about this game that I can't write it down. I am playing on all the ultra settings, and the only time I see a slow-down in my FPS, is when one of the zone events kicks in and I run over to the boss...75+ people all firing spells and skills at a huge mob makes for huge particle effects all over the place, which slows me down to like 7-15 FPS. Meh, that's not bad really considering what's going on, with ULTRA settings no less. Granted I've also got a kickin system so to say for it's age (I could use a better vid card).

The downside that I dislike about it, that I had liked in WoW, is the fact that there's no dungeon queue thing. You have to watch or shout out for dungeon crawls. Granted, dungeons aren't NEEDED, mainly because you'll be going through them all when you hit the 50 cap, and do all the dungeons on expert difficulty. Sure you'd leave a few quests behind by skipping the dungeon, but that's no biggie really.

There aren't any addons or plugins for the game, nor is there a capability to use them currently. I say currently because the devs hinted somewhat that they may be working on that capability, but they want to make sure that everything is perfect before launching anything (even though some things are bugged currently, they are working fast on them). The nice thing though, is that it's not really needed at all! Yes, I'd love a threat meeter, or a DPS meeter, but really, that's just extra information on my screen, and not REALLY needed. Quest helper? PSSH, it's built in naturally. Heck, when you pick up a quest, it puts arrows up showing you where to go, and big circles in the areas where your objectives would be located, or stars where specific goals are. I've not run into a full quest log yet, so I'm not sure that it even has a limit to how many quests it can hold.

The achievement system is pretty funny at times. Some of the achievements can be gotten just by playing and doing the quests ... while others, require specific things that aren't combat related to be done. For example, every zone has a puzzle. None of which that I've run into require fighting of any sort to get it done. One zone you just have to click the right plaque to go to the next tower... while another zone you play a simple 3x3 slider game. The last one I did was a pain in the arse though ... it had 3 concentric circles of torches. If you pressed one button, it would rotate the circle corrisponding to the button you pressed in that direction one slot, BUT, the other two circles would rotate in another direction 2 or 3 slots. The goal of that puzzle was to get the 'holes' in the circles to line up with some towers (where you were pressing the buttons). I didn't really decipher or figure out exactly how things moved, but I eventually got it unlocked. There are some exploration achieves as well, in which you just have to reach a certain location to get it, be it highest place on that map, or a small hidden outcropping somewhere. There's some fun ones too that can be difficult ... most notably ones which require you to jump from somewhere very high, and hope you didn't mis-aim (killing yourself), and land safely to get it. One that had even a nice context to it was a cliff with a sign that said "lover's leap" ... and yeap, jumping from that was an achieve for that zone. That's the other nice thing, the achieves are all separated by zones, so you can figure out where you should go mess around with stuff later when you hit 50 if you want to fill out your achievements.

So, With all of these things, I'm thinking that Rift is my new game for a long while. Whenever Firefall comes out though, it may steal some time away from Rift, but that one will be free, so I won't feel like I _need_ to play it. That and the fact that Firefall will be SKILL based, not LEVEL based ... I won't be "left behind" if I don't play for a week or whatever.

You may note that I didn't state anything about the PvP aspect of Rift. Mainly because no matter what game, I dislike PvP in games where people aren't on level grounds. IE: My skill vs your skill. If there are classes, with personalization to skills, I'm not for the PvP at all. Same goes with weaponry that can be seriously upgraded or changed via some cash-shop items. In game weaponry that anyone can get, just having to get the materials or pattern for? That's fine ... it's when someone that has a huge disposable income goes and breaks the balance system by having overpowered armor or weapons, that I despise and leave. Any game that has skills that are supposed to work better versus another class, invariably will have something that, with the right combination of skills, breaks the balance, and makes that class superior in PvP.

Ace Online (Space Cowboy, Air Rivals) had a system where it was a rock-paper-scissors setup with 4 classes, which right there is not really a proper RPS system anyway. A gears were supposed to be good vs I gears, but weak vs B gears ... but what about M gears? ... I gears were supposed to be better than B gears, but weak vs M gears ... but they're also weak vs A gears? Then B gears are supposed to be strong vs A gears, weak vs I gears, and an unknown vs M gears...then the M gears were supposed to be just support class, but supposedly strong vs A gears and B gears? It was confusing as all snot. The problem came when you could upgrade a weapon or armor to a ridiculous + 20 or even higher, that made the weapon hit super hard, or your armor take the damage and shuff it off like it was nothing. I flew an I gear, that was level 70 or something like that (of the 100 possible levels). My weapons were only +4 (the max safe level you can upgrade without risking loss of the weapon). My damage vs monsters were great, I could one-shot most mobs that were 5-7 levels above me. The problem lied in the fact that after level 20 or so, you were forced to be in areas that were contested and constant PVP area. I flew through one gate once, and got blasted out of the air before my loading screen was finished. I respawned and saw that there was an M Gear straight ahead of me. I popped all my skills, tossed 3 full salvos of missiles (total of 16 each) at him ... and watched the numbers FLY ... an astounding 5 damage each missile ... What the hell? I'm supposed to be superior to this guy...OSHI ... missiles, one salvo (of 4) headed towards me, and I was dead ... the damage numbers that popped up on my screen? oh, only 20k EACH MISSILE ... I only had 10k health I think it was... That right there? yea, that's what a cash shop can do to a game that's centered around PvP. I left there shortly thereafter LOL.

Anyway, long rant short... I don't do PvP unless it's skill vs skill, not time/money vs lack of time/money.

My anniversary weekend

So, this past weekend, was my anniversary. YAY! 12 years down, with a lifetime to look forward to!

That may have sounded a bit harsh, but no, I'll look forward to every day, month, and year to follow with joy.

So, what has been happening in the mean time?

Well, Victoria just recently got transfered over to the higher-class restaurant in the wilderness lodge. With that change, she had her days off changed slightly. Now, instead of getting Monday-Tuesday, she's getting Friday-Saturday. Finally, she gets a schedule that gives her some weekend time off! Of course, this is kind of lucky in the fact that her first 'weekend' off happened between my B-day and our Anniversary. So what did we do?

First, we got my parents to watch the kids for us, and we took off on Friday morning towards Universal. We haven't been there since 2005 or thereabouts. Figuring we'd do both days there, we decided to purchase 2 day 2 park passes. Now, this is where our day started getting hairy. Florida resident? Best get your passes online, because you CAN'T GET THEM AT THE GATE! ...Wait, WHAT? ... That's right, even though if you purchase the tickets online, you have to go to the ticket counter to prove you're a Florida resident, you can't purchase them at the gate. I was asked if I was a triple A member, or military. I calmly pulled out both my AAA card and Military ID from long ago. She said that the military discount was more than the AAA so she gave me that. I didn't think to ask at that time what the difference between military and Florida discounts were. So, we entered the Studios to spend the day there, and perhaps do the Islands of Adventure the next day, thus making use of our passes to the best we could.

In Studios, is a new roller coaster that we hadn't been on, that of some 'rip roaring rocking roller coaster' or some such nonsense. Now, we walked in about 9:15 (park opened at 9:00), but that ride was not running yet, something about maintenance not there yet to double check everything. Continuing around the park we came upon 'Disaster' (AKA: Twister) ... which was closed when we walked by. Up next around the bend was the Monster show, which we've never been impressed by, and besides, there wasn't a show this early for it. Following that was the Mummy ride. We've been on this one of course long ago, but there was a 5 minute wait supposedly (for the Universal signs, 5 minutes is the shortest they can put on the timer) ... which ended up being about 5 minutes worth of walking the FULL QUEUE layout before reaching the cars, where there wasn't a team member to tell us what seat to take, we were expected to just find a row and board at our leasure ... granted, there were very few people there in line, but still.

Getting off our first ride, which seemed to be a bit darker than before (not a bad thing), we walked back over to the roller coaster thing, which, was closed still. So, we walked over to Amnity ville area... yes, the Jaws area. The area just before Jaws usually has all kinds of midway games, Unfortunately 90% of them were CLOSED, and the final 10% were busy setting up their displays, and thereby unplayable. Jaws itself was also closed, by this time it's already 10:00 mind you. So, we continued our way around to MIB, and rode that (another 5 minute wait line).

It started raining about this time, and we stopped at the Simpsons ride. If you haven't been to the park lately, this is where Back to the Future used to be. The ride carts for Simpsons = ride car for Back to the Future with a paint job. The theatre was still the same as well, just different movie. The problem with this ride's movie: There is TOOOOOOO much going on in it. Your mind will flay from one 'scene' to the next (which change so quickly you don't know where you are, nor which way you're going ... and at times wondering how you got to one location that shouldn't be there). It was like 20 different 'scenes' stuck in a 2 minute film ... figure that one out and how much your mind will flipflop. Add in the cramped space of the cart, and jerky behaviour of the cart itself (which was so bad it was knocking us into the other occupants of the vehicle). I got to feeling pretty dang ill, to the point where I was forcing myself from hurling, causing a sick-sweat to form all over. Luckily it had stopped raining while we were in the ride.

Leaving that ride, both of us were feeling ill and not really daring to risk our stomach contents on the new roller coaster (which looked kind of cool, had our stomach's not been feeling bad, we might have rode it), which was finally open and already had a 45 minute wait on it at 10:30. We left that park as there basically wasn't anything else to do with everything closed, and our stomachs completely out of whack from the Simpsons.

Entering into IoA, we noted that the population of the park seemed to be 10 times more than Studios. We walked around towards seus land, noted that they had the slow-sky-rail ride operational ... which had a 45 minute wait to get on, and continued over to the lost continent area. We had a lovely lunch at Mythos, which we hadn't been in before as the menu always didn't look pleasing to go into with children. Walked around to the coin minter people, and got us a couple necklaces, then continued around the bend to the Harry Potter area. This place was immaculately done for the visuals... It looked GREAT ... except for one slight problem, it should have the nickname of: Toonarrow Deadends. The path between the building were so cramped that if 5 people in wheelchairs wanted, they could stop just half a foot from each other, and blocked the entire path in some points. Other areas weren't as bad, but the vast majority of it was. Now, this wasn't only due to the fact that the path itself was narrow, but because some of the shops (read: most, if not all of them) had a queue ... yes a flipping QUEUE to get INTO the store. About this time it starts raining again, and, we're not allowed to just enter a shop, because there's a line at the other end of the line of shops. Yep, they've got 2 or 3 shops tied together, and to get into the last one in the 'line' you have to work your way through the first one or two.

There were a few missed opportunities that they could have done in the area, but the majority of the 'shops' were just false shop fronts. What was behind them? Probably storage for other shops next to it. These shops were also so crowded, that had I been in a wheelchair, I don't think I would have been able to navigate them without running into someTHING or someONE ... they were so crowded with people it was difficult to even walk with my cane.

Leaving the horrendous area of the shops, we went to the end of the alley to where the harry potter ride was ... we didn't go on it because it was a 90 minute wait, and we weren't interested in standing out in the open for probably 80 minutes in the rain before getting inside. We walked around to the front of the park, and it had stopped raining. The Hulk was closed for some reason when we passed by it, so we didn't go on that, besides, at least my stomach was STILL not right from the Simpsons slammer earlier. We went back around and went to Poseidon's fury, then back around to the harry potter area ... it was a bit less people there now, but this time I also noted that they'd changed the entrance of the Dueling Dragons ... no wait ... they re-named it ... it's now the Dragon's Challenge ... The entrance of which was so camouflaged with the shop fronts and other items around that you didn't even see it. The wait for the Dragon's? ... 5 minutes ... I watched an entire car go by, EMPTY. Back when I worked there we were jammed pack full throughout the day, much of the time wait was around 30-60 minutes.

We left the parks and Universal shortly after noting that the wait time for the Harry Potter ride had climbed to 120 minutes... I'm sorry, I'm not waiting in line for 2 hours to see a 2 minute show. We discussed as we were leaving on getting to the parks early and heading directly to that ride just to ride it...but in the end, we ended up deciding to sleep in, then going to Disney's Hollywood Studios.

We got to the studios around noon, and left around 5. We rode the rockin roller-coaster, and went in to a lot of shops and stuff. It felt almost like we'd accomplished MORE in a half day at Disney, than we had done in the whole day spent at Universal.

In the end, we were very happy that we got to spend the days with each other and had some fun while doing it. We also now know that unless we get something from Universal stating a senciere apology for the atrocity that has become their parks, we're not going back there anytime soon. Next year: We'll be going to Sea World! Victoria's never been, and I haven't been there since just before Penguin Encounter was built.