Good gosh...

I'd forgotten about this for such a long time.

So, what's been going on?

lots of things actually... some good, some bad, and some that I'm not going to disclose on the internet here.

The workfront of things hasn't gone any better. Well, at least in the case of having a steady paying job. I'd managed to get an interview with Universal Orlando, for a security position... I feel I flew through the initial interview with ease. The problem lies in the fact that Security positions require a second interview, which I've not gotten :(

Luckily however, I was approved for the WIA grant from the state (I got one of the last 4 for this year I think she said). This gives me $5000 towards retraining / certifications needed for job market. I've already gotten a class schedule set up with New Horizons to use that 5k, which they will be pushing another $500 my way towards their MCITP program cost. Which, will cover the entire thing! YAY being able to get certified for free. Not to mention that I'll be rubbing elbows with some higher ups from some great companies while I'm down there, so I could possibly get some good networking in to get a great job in the future.

On the gaming front, I was playing Rift for a while there, and it was a blast. Really, it was. Up until I needed to pay for the MRC, and with a lack of a steady paying job, that's impossible to keep up. So, I had to hold off for a while. In the mean time, the group I was playing with on there, were going downhill when someone pseudo-took over the guild, but some would still stick on Vent. A couple of them had started playing World of Tanks, and invited me to join them, seeing as it is free to play. Awesome I thought, get on there, play some tank shooting and have some fun. The couple of guys didn't want to start a guild up on it, and I kind of prefer to have a higher social-able group of people, so I managed to see that the OTG (Old Timer's Guild) was playing as well...so I joined up with them. Gaming is great, I get to have some fun, chat with some fellow older aged gamers, and ignore my constant pain in my back a little easier.

After grinding away for a while on there, I got an invite to a closed beta test of Eden Eternal. Being another Free MMORPG, I figured what the heck, I'll see what it's like. Closed beta didn't have as many bugs in it as you would half expect, especially from a translated game that's still in development. Closed beta only lasted about a week and a half, then the brought the server down for a 3 day maint to upgrade / update some stuff, before dropping it into open beta. they raised the level cap from the closed beta, but it's not to the true cap for the game (mainly it seems so that they can add only a couple classes at a time safely). See, in this game, you can change classes anywhere on the field, or in the dungeons...barring in the middle of combat. There are 5 main styles of classes: Defensive (tanks), Melee (close range DPS), Ranged (ranged dps), Healer (duh?), and Magic damage (another ... duh?). Each style of play allows you to progress however you see fit. When you first start off you only have the choice of being a mage or a warrior (magic or defensive). At character level 5 (there are character (heroic) levels, and class levels) it unlocks the ability to be a cleric. Later you get hunter (ranged) and thief (melee).

Unfortunately it seems the botters and gold-sellers are already all up in the game and trying to feed the people money that they got against the ToS. I enjoyed one time though, seeing a group of 5 botters that were hunters with their hunter pets out (a tiger). in sequence, they all would target the nearest mob, send their pets in (simultaneously mind you), then start auto-attacking. Kindly enough, they'd parked themselves near a path where a guild boss would walk, but smartly enough that their bot wouldn't go attacking that guild boss. These guild bosses HURT ... a LOT. Luckily they leash back to their spawns if you agro them and can get out of their way without getting one-shot. Unluckily for these botters, I could pull said guild boss in the middle of the group of them, pop into a hide that drops agro from me and pulls me out of combat, and watch them target it, and proceed to get owned by it. I called for GM assistance with the bots, as they would walk back one by one, and once all were at the spot, would start up their bot again. The GM said they'd watch for a little while to make sure they're botting. I said that 99.9999% of people that see a guild boss agro'd on someone, would immediately run for the border, seeing as all of the guild bosses have mean AoE attacks that will kill most people that are leveling in those areas. I then pulled the guild boss over again, they did their predictable thing of targeting the boss, siccing their pets, and start attacking. The GM started laughing and called in a couple more GM's to actually show up in front of all of them, rather than staying invisible ... they then popped some major bosses on top of them, and watched them start going to town on said bosses, which one-shot all of them.

Other than the idiot botters, and gold-selling spammers you see in the initial starting area and the main town ... the game's pretty solid ... I mean, what game do you know of, that gives you a pet for free early in the game, which will pick up all your loot so that you don't have to ... and said pet (a dog) ... has the graphic ... pretty ... shall we say, accurate? Well, at least the paint job, unless you'd consider them all to be females. The dog is a Pug, with a curly tail...under the tail? yep, that's a little brown spot ... it's bum-hole! Later on you get an all white Alpaca as a mount ... guess what's under it's poofy rabbit-like tail? Yep, the anus. Totally awesome to have a graphic designer actually put that detail in a model's skinning, and even more awesome for the devs and publishers to keep it in. Yes the overall graphics are child-like, but the game itself is no-where near childish. There is a LOT to do, and as you level up you get new classes to try out. You're even kind of encouraged (on a side way) to level up other classes. See, the more class levels you accrue, you get more class points, which, at certain point breaks, you get a permanent buff to your HP, MP, Attack, and Magic Attack.

The one problem I've seen so far? All classes have HP and MP yes ... and all skills use MP. Now, when you're thinking of a game that has 3 DPS class trees (each tree has 3 classes in them by the way), and 2 other class trees that are caster based... which one would you think uses the most MP potions? Mages and clerics? nope, they don't use much at all actually, even when in a rough fight. The real MP users are the melee classes, followed closely by the ranged DPS'rs. Heck, the second magic DPS class (requires character level 35, and mage level 30) is an illusionist, which has a buff at level 20 I think it was ... that regenerates mana for everyone in range. This spell is a god-send in dungeons, especially if the player keeps it up. Add in a Bard for party-wide Heal Over Time song, the party will dang near faceroll a dungeon. Unfortunately though, the majority of the dungeons are only 3 players allowed in the dungeon ... only because the first 5 person dungeon is 3 or 4 zones away from the starter one. Each zone up to that point has one dungeon each, and then from that point has 2.

Yes, being a free to play game, means there is a cash shop, and I've already seen my fair share of people dumping hundreds of dollars into it, and it's only started the item mall when the open beta started on Thursday (the 16th) ... I mean what the heck people ... I could use that money myself, why not donate it to me? :D

Anywhos ... I'll try to remember to update this more often.