I thought I’d give you a little bit of my thoughts on some of the different online games that I’ve played. After all that was part of why I wanted to join this site, too share some of my thoughts from a non-hardcore-gamer point of view. I look at some of the games a little differently. I don’t know what all the specs for every class and weapon and spell and such are. When someone says something about that I usually reply with, “????”. So I would not class me in the hardcore category.
I have played a few differentl games though. All trying to find something that I really liked and felt like I could really advance in. Initially my primary criteria was that the game be free to get and free to play. This limits what you can play somewhat and it keeps you out of some of the bigger games/worlds. However, it does give you an interesting collection to choose from.
I started with Second Life. I know it’s not a game to most. Ok. It’s a world. I started there. I soon figured out, there is a reason it is called Second LIFE. It’s a bit like life in that you gotta figure out what you are going to go do when you get in world. You might want cash, you might was stuff that will require cash, you might want land. And getting cash, isn’t always that easy. I still keep my Second Life account. I log in periodically and change the decor on my land. I dress it up for the season sometimes. I’ve helped out with a demo of online worlds for a college class. I can’t say I do much with it. When I first got in world I met up with someone who helped me learn how to build and a lot of those type of things. She was really nice and helpful.
I tried a game called Shadowbane. I liked this at first. I had a lot of fun getting up to level 20 and then I got kicked out of newbie land. Ugh. That’s when life in that game becomes difficult at best. It took me several characters before I found a combination that I could get anywhere with and then I was able to join a really good guild. They were huge and they were helpful. And I was able to level all the way to 55. I like the fantasy aspect of this game. However, it’s mostly just fighting things and raiding. There isn’t a lot of crafting in the game like other games. Even in Second Life you can build stuff and sell it. In Shadowbane, I never got to any crafting. And there was not real communications system for if you are out of the game. In Second Life, if you get a personal message in game, it not only queues it up until you log in, you can also set it so that you get the message in your real world email. Not so in Shadowbane that I recall. The other aspect of Shadowbane is that once you leave the new player lands you are in a pvp zone unless you are in the walls of a city. What that means is that you can be quietly killing your monsters and have some rat sneak up from behind you or overhead and destroy you before you know what hit you.
I think the next one I tried was Anarchy Online. At the time you could play at the base level, with no addition expansion packs, for free. No subscription either. I liked that it was sci-fi based. There didn’t seem to be many sci-fi games available and I’m more into that than fantasy. So, I read all the background stuff and started playing Anarchy Online. Holy Cow! This game is just a touch complicated. It’s kind of cool in that there is a lot of technical stuff to really get into and if that is your thing then you will love this game. First choosing your character and then the leveling and allocation of skill points is just mind boggling. Then there is the fact that you have to save you status periodically or if you die you loose points. Then there are the 3 sides. I don’t remember the names of the two and then the neutral. You can get things that are faction specific and they are supposed to be better. And when it comes to crafting and enhancing. Oh my. There are so many different items and things to make and combinations and requirements. And, you have to have the right skills and profession and class to begin with. Don’t get me wrong, I actually like/liked this one. I got a little bored because it seems a little hard to meet up with people of your level and do stuff so I just kept running missions and some of them would take a really long time to get to because I had to run all the time. I never made it high enough to buy a transport.
I’ve even tried some of the asian games. I think they are anyway. All the characters look like manga people. I think I played Space Cowboy. It was ok though I didn’t stay with it long. Don’t think I ever got past about level 15 if that.
Next time, I’ll tell you about Entropia Universe, Voyage Century Online, and 9 Dragons.
See you in the machine
Games
Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.
