Neoisms... w/ Nihil: Post-Hiatus I Guess Edition

Happy New Year, Dtoid. It's been a while. I've been thinking about you. I've been thinking about a lot of things, actually. But you took up a good portion of those thoughts. Raping my mind. With phallic notions.

You tend to do that.

For my part, things have been pretty status quo; working, being half-broke, looking for a second job, being a lazy-ass, inquiring into community college, and acting like I'm too much of a dunce to care. It's going okay for the moment.

So, I've finally gotten back to poking my head around the site and forums; seeing new faces in avatar form, judging their personalities in text form, gladdened by older faces still kicking about. All remains well it seems.

Even if it isn't entirely necessary, I have to apologize for slacking on the posting of the other blogs I promised. I take pride in being a man of my word (a man in the sense that I have a beard that says I am), so it's not like I've ditched them yet. Just gonna take way longer than originally anticipated to finish.

But the good news is I'm still playing games in very recent times, in relative solitude, and I'm about ready to share my impressions of them. Not as many I as used to play, but hell, it's something. Given my last post, it would've been fair to assume that it was my love-slash-goodbye letter to gaming. I mean, I assumed as much, and I fuckin wrote it.

Hope remains alive it seems. Or something.



I say I've been playing games in "relative" solitude because half of them are community-based. And have ads on this very site.

But a few months ago, after having my interested sparked by the buzz of this game that I have never even heard about until PAX, I started playing LoL. After an initial trial and adjusting period, it's fair to say that it got it's fucking hooks me. Like, it pierced the skin and got some meat. It hurt.

Boy, did it hurt.

There's something slightly insidious about the F2P model of a game (or games in general) that is as well executed and continually building on itself as this one is. And then they're like, "For just pennies a day, you can blast your opponents while wearing a top hat and monocle, and then devour them in style! Om nom nom!" And your just like, "FUCK, I MUST HAVE IT", and thus their diabolical plan comes fruition...

But suffice to say, I am all for it. It took me for surprise at first, but recollecting on it now, I think this is one of the best business tactics a game could have going for it. And given the quality of the design and replayability (why is this not a word spell check recognizes?), the Riot Games crew pretty much deserve your hard-earned monies, for however much you wish to spend on their product. Especially if you're an indy dev team, this would be the way go. Although this is probably old fucking news to the lot of you, this is the first time I've experienced it firsthand on this level, beyond XBL anyway.

Which brings me to one thing that I wanted to get out of the way: I've got two accounts that I play with. The first which has my usual handle (wtfnihil) has become somewhat a mark of shame for me... But one man's impulse buys could become another's treasure, as I want to give it away. Granted, only those of you who actively play LoL will give a toss about this, but if you have already joined THE LEAGUE, and don't have a whole lot of customized play on your account, then this bud is for you, bro. Or whatever other alcoholic analogy you wanna use.


lolwut

Anyway, here are the stats:

-Level 30 Summoner so you can participate in ranked matches. (yay?)
-40 unlocked champions, alternate skins for half of them
-A buttload of runes (mostly ad/ap)
-Over 1200 Riot Point so you can change the summoner handle to whatever your heart's desire (so long as it isn't already taken). That's if you don't like the current summoner name, which you might. Idk.

If that's something that interests you, then hit me pm-style or in the comments so we can work something out. Though if there's more than one person that wants it, I guess a hat raffle is in order because I haven't got the imagination for a contestoid of some sort.

Or maybe you could battle it out on the field of justice, and whoever comes out the highlander wins it (or if you're on the same team, whoever performs best). Hell, maybe you could fight me personally for shits-n-giggles and I'll give it to you, win or lose. Whatever your inclination, put it on the table and we can get the show on the road. To justice. And pancakes

As for my second account, which is preferably much cleaner and less muddled with champions and runes I never use, I go by the summoner handle 'PrecisionStrikes', and main all 3 Kinkou shadow warriors. Makin mofos who don't know surrender at 20 because NINJA.


ba dum *tish*

I remember trying out EVE Online a few years ago out of curiosity, before the major avatar overhaul. Apparently it was the "mature, thinking player's" alternative to Warcraft's MMO reign. It didn't leave much of an impression on me at the time because the computer I attempted to play it on could barely fucking run it. I'm still fascinated with the concept though, so I said what the hell and decided to get the trial last month.

I really like it. I mean, not 15 bucks a month "like", but it has a quaint UI and the explosions are pretty. If you're into sci-fi, and/or for me personally, just dig the tones and solemn look of deep space artwork, it'll do the trick, for at least a little while. Though each race has it's own aesthetic and "passive ability" flavor, they all pretty much start out the same and you're able to adjust your proficiencies a little bit later, so you're not missing out by choosing one over another.

The Corporation/community features are a cool alternative to the usual fare you'd get in a fantasy mmo. However, they are certainly right when they say the game doesn't hold your hand and give you cookies like WoW. Tutorial missions do their job well, but the game dictates how fast you advance with its Skill Queue system and combat is never a walk in the park if you're unprepared. You might say it's a little cheap (or very expensive) in that regard, but hey, that's space travel for you. Unfortunately, it's also still an MMO, so grind takes up a majority of your time unless you're gearing toward PvP, in which case the losses inflicted on you if you lose a fight are so staggering that it makes me wonder if anyone but the hardcorest of EVE players would fucking bother. And whether those people are complete sadists.



Might as well keep the sci-fi ball a'rollin' with Deus Ex. I can only tell from maybe what is only the first half-hour of the game, but I imagine it gets much more badass. The voice acting is a little hokey at times, but I'm really digging and looking forward to exploring the world they have set up. Unfortunately, even on the lowest settings my laptop has a hard time running it, so I'm thinking either I'll have to wait to buy a actual gaming PC, or buy it again for a different system before I can really dive in without having my progress stunted by yesterday's hardware. Kinda sucks but I've enjoyed what little I've played.

I'm also enjoying the FUCK out of its soundtrack. Such a great range of evocative techo. So fuckin good.


Finally, I used a Gamestop gift card I got for christmas to get The Sims 3. Evidently my SIMulated life is just as boring as my real one, minus the occupational success and house fires.

So there's that, too.