I was lucky (?) enough to get accepted into the beta of World Of Warcraft, which if you don't know, is an MMORPG (which if you don't know is a massively multiplayer online role playing game, which if you don't know, is a game where you wander around hitting monsters repeatedly as you slowly gain experience points and suffer a horrible addiction) set in the ... um, world of warcraft. You know, I totally see how people get addicted to this stuff! I can't believe what an amazing job (as usual) Blizzard has done with this game. It's so incredibly huge and diverse. I haven't really played other MMORPGs, so I don't know how they compare, but this game is really amazing. It's a complete world, with thousands of miles of really diverse terrain, monsters, towns, cultures and quests. It's really amazing. And you can play as maybe 8 different races, which start in 6 totally different parts of the world, and a bunch of different classes with unique abilities. Then you get tons and tons and tons of quests, which are all kind of stupid, but compelling for some reason, and of course each different area offers different quests, and each class has a few unique quests, and each race has a few... so it's a whole unique experience for every character. On top of that, half the races are Alliance, and the other half are Horde, so when you get powerful enough, you can go over and attack the towns belonging to the other side. It's a really nifty environment in that you really feel like you're on the same side as the other guys around you, and that somewhere across the world are a couple thousand more people who all want to kill you. It makes it feel much more cooperative than competitive, which is nice. Then the best thing are trade skills - it's so fun to go around skinning the monsters you kill to get leather, then sewing the leather into armor... or mining for ore, refining it into metal, and then blacksmithing new weapons... or picking herbs and making them into potions or enchantments. It's great stuff. I hope you're prepared to see me rip all that stuff off in my games in the future! Anyway, if it didn't cost $5 (or whatever) a month once it is no longer in beta, I'd be stuck being addicted to it! But as it stands, I'm still more addicted to having my money in my pocket than any monthly fee for a game. Good thing... it'd keep me from getting stuff done! But I still get to enjoy it for a couple months in the beta.
Still working on Kid Mystic these days. Got a couple of new levels in, and the first 3 fairies are working. It's pretty cool! Bah, back to relaxing for the weekend.
