Online Gaming

The weather is getting colder. My friend Paul contacted me the other day, and in conversation he noted that in the winter he often has strong desire to bunker up and spend hours playing computer rpgs. I'm not sure if it's seasonal or not, but I know I go through cycles of computer gaming desire/repulsion. Recently, I felt the urge again.

Spielbyweb.com

I've been using sbw for a while, but I've been in a real frenzy lately. A lot of my games have just ended, so if anyone's up for some gaming, let me know. I really like being able to just take a quick move whenever my turn comes up on e-mail. It's so convenient.

So far, I'm really enjoying Reef Encounter and Hacienda. The turns play pretty quickly, and the game moves along at a good pace. I'm not as happy with Santiago and Amun-Re, in which there are a great number of stopping points that hold up the game progress, and make it extra-frustrating when you have a slow player. I haven't tried Tikal yet.

The game of Hacienda I just finished reinforced the idea that going for as many market connections as possible is good. I started with a corner water opening, and then moved to the middle, connecting to all but one market ftw. In the game I have still going on, players are being more confrontational, with one player spending his opening moves completely isolating one of the side markets. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

The Amun-Re game that also just ended saw a three way tie for 2nd, as Thies pulled a huge second round ftw, and I made the second most second round points, to go from the basement into the second place tie. I think I failed to make enough money in the first round, and got unlucky card draws, with something like 10 free farmers and 9 master builders(you can only play one per turn, for 6 turns) over the course of the game. I do like the way this game makes you think about the future, and I'd like to own a copy irl.

World of Warcraft

Lots of my friends have been deeply involved in mmorpgs over the years. I've mostly resisted, although I've tried my hand at Ultima Online and Runescape. Recently, WoW went on sale and, when Sean picked it up, I decided I'd give it a go at the same time.

I've spent the expected (way too many) hours on the game since purchasing it a week or so ago. I'm pretty happy with it, though. I think they've done a fine job of designing game content that can be satisfactorily played as an individual or with a group. One caveat, though, is that few of the quests really involve critical decision making, and are fairly repetitive. I doubt the game will hold my interest for more than four months, although I guess that's a pretty long time...

I've played mostly on my own, but have enjoyed grouping with old friends from NH (Sean), and CA (Chris). I've grouped with people I didn't know when it was clear we were finishing up the same quest. I'm interested to see how enjoyable it will be to form groups with people I don't know. I'll probably wait until I understand the game a little better - I don't want to really frustrate anyone. While I'm mostly interested in the game as a way to keep in touch with old friends, in a recent conversation with my friend Bob (I'll take this moment to publicly congratulate Bob on being voted into the Magic: the Gathering Hall of Fame), he stated that he was mainly interested in playing with people he was not previously acquainted with. Bob is also pretty serious about pursuing the most competitive way to do things, so he probably gets the most out of it this way.

So, if you play WoW, and you're interested in gaming together, drop me a note and I'll let you know which server I'm playing on, and I'm sure you can get a character to my level pretty quickly, as I only recently started. I'm at the point where I'm trying to get friendly people together for Ragefire Chasm.

GG, GL
JW