Mood: Excited...new grill in 20 mins....
Music: Starlit Skies (10pm-Midnight on Wednesdays) KSER, 90.7 in Seattle...or listen online!
Game: Battlefield 2142, Titan Quest, Lord of the Rings Online, Puzzle Quest
Book: Finishing School, Dick Couch
Watching: Buffalo wallop the Rangers.
Weather: Cloudy, cool.
So Lord of the Rings Online came out this week. I've been beta testing and guide writing for it for about, oh, 6 months. I bought it anyway, which should be an indication of how much I like it, and how much longevity I think it has, in spite of having messed with it for months.
Lately, the band of online misfits haven't really been gaming together. There's lots of reasons why, but suffice it to say that but for a few nights occasionally when we get 3 or 4 people together, it's not like it used to be a few years ago.
Folks are homeowners now. They have other chores/responsibilities. They don't really feel like playing the same games any more.
There's nothing out there like Soldier of Fortune 2 or Call of Duty 2 that got everyone to agree it was a fun game, and we all could play together. Battlefield 2142 comes close...but it doesn't seem to have the intensity of drawing people to play nightly for some reason. Probably the aforementioned shifts in priorities.
It's also true that I'm not around until much later, being on PST. By the time I'm home and ready to play, it's 10pm EST or so. Occasionally, I can sneak out at be home an hour or so earlier...but even then, there aren't a gang of people online playing.
So, I made an effort. I said I wanted to play LoTRO, suggested that we all meet up on a specified day for a specified period of time, and we could all play together, if but once a week. We could not use those characters unless the team was around, and that would prevent the whole "We did that" thing or the level differential thing. LoTRO is largely storyline based, so we could all experience the storyline together, as a group.
Well, having said all that, no one was interested. No one. No time. Don't think it would work. Don't want to play that game. In a group of 10 guys, no one said "Yeah, let's give it a shot."
The whole idea of not being able to have a gaming night or gaming period any more isn't really surprising...but since I typically relied upon it on a regular basis in order to have contact with the fellas, maintain friendships and such, it doesn't really come as a surprise that we don't hang, chat, or talk much any more.
Where we had a clan, we kind of now have a local bar where sometimes we go in, and if we see someone we know, we say hi, have a laugh for an hour or so, then go our separate ways.
Eh, it's probably just life. But it still doesn't make me overly happy.
Posted by Glenn at April 27, 2007 09:49 AMI hear what you're saying. Although it is finally spring-ish and it's an MMO that doesn't seem to have a lot of pull for the group. We're actually getting a decent group of folks into BF2142, self included, but the times that folks are on is all over the map and is more inconsistent than it used to be.
I think the gaming market is fracturing more and where a release of say, Quake 3, was something that literally everyone purchased, there are fewer and fewer games that all of us want. Even Team Fortress Whatever It's Called that is coming out soon is something that two years ago would have been a slam dunk. Now, I'm not sure. I am positive I'll get it but who knows?
All I know is I'm ready to get a Windows server up and running so we can have a dedicated server running at release day. I think that might help some.
Posted by: Firethorn at April 27, 2007 07:47 PMI definitely miss "the good old days" of gaming. And I have to say it's a bittersweet thing to have other priorities supplanting my desire to game for hours on end almost every day. I miss the gaming, but the real life is so good! I also miss mussels downstairs.
Sigh.
Posted by: Adam HH at May 2, 2007 08:33 AM