Well, haven't blogged in almost two weeks, but then, that's because I found some games to settle on and other business.

PS2 I've settled into my Persona 4 Expert Mode run and I'm trying to Max out as much as I can in the Social Links. PSP I've been bouncing between Jeanne D'Arc and Crimson Gem Saga, which have been really satisfying and its always nice to get out of an RPG franchise every now and again for something fresh.
DS its still been Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.

I also started tinkering on an old laptop since my old PC and since I don't really have an urge to return to FFXI, I've given the WoW trial a go and trying out Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine Online as well.

Its not that I have a problem with FFXI so much as there's just nothing left there that feel needs to be done. Exploration is a big part of MMOs for me and when you've really seen/done almost everything, its hard to have that spark to adventure anymore, Doing endgame endlessly for widgets is about all that's left.

I mean, sure I'd like more awesome gear for my Corsair, Beastmaster, Ranger and Scholar and to FFXI's credit, it does a great job of keeping every iteration of endgame gear relevant without obsoleting any of it. The downside to that is that it also means all endgame content is always relevant. Sane people would not try to cram all the content into every week of play, but I can't say for certain I'd be dealing with sane people were I to go back, even though I have some good connections.

To tell the truth, I just don't have the patience to deal with most of the "hardcore" of FFXI's endgame anymore. Hardcore being a nice way of saying "fucktard." Somehow, no matter how nice I am or how much of a team player I am, there's always someone in those endgame guilds to fuck me over. I've had several bad experiences with endgame players and its not for a lack of being part of the team.

Just as an example, I have a standing invite to an endgame guild, I have friends there, but on the FFXI community fansite I admin over on, the leader of said guild has made appearances on the forum and he's very much an embarassment to himself and anyone associated with him. Just as an example, he stalked a host of a podcast to from his forum to Blue Gartyr LS forums to our podcast's forum just to keep arguing with him.

Sadly, he's not met any criteria for which I could ban him from our forum, but he's gotten fairly close and he doesn't seem to understand he's bringing endgame elitism to an otherwise casual forum.

Anyway, back to WoW.

I've been enjoying WoW so far, though I'm totally oblivious to Blizzard games at large (aside from kids screaming about someone "cheating" in Warcfraft III at an internet cafe I used to visit) so the whole thing feels pretty fresh.

I do find it amusing that some people think no other MMOs have improved over the last five years, because a lot of them have made strides to add more accessible content, so it's not particularly soloability that impresses me about WoW.

WoW does do a good job of making Quests not so obtuse as other games have and as I've roamed from one town to the next some quests show a nice bit of overlap so I don't have to do so much backtracking. Seems each town runs out a little quickly on quests, but that could be a reputation thing.

I instantly took a liking to Hunter and Druid, so if I go with the full version, those would be the first jobs I'd level up. Gotta say FFXI spoiled me on character design, though, The characters there are much easier on the eyes than WoW's. I'd feel differently if the graphics were up to snuff with WoW's art concepts, though.

I couldn't bear to look at one male character on the Alliance side til I got to the Dwarves, who should look as stocky as they are. Also liked that Dwarf Hunters got guns, so that's the hunter I made. The other male designs are just obnoxiously bad, couldn't stand them.

Aside from the dwarf I made a female Nightelf for my Druid.

SMT Imagine I haven't really delved into as much. Its free-to-play, so I'd rather put my time into WoW so get a better impression of it before my trial ends. 10 days is pretty stingy the most successful MMO ever, I have to say. Its not really as if Blizzard - or any MMO with, oh, at least 100k subscribers is hurting for money.

I did take a moment to look at how Aeria Points worked for SMT:IO. I can totally understand this method of payment to help a company maintain an MMO, but I think subscriptions are better since that would allow them to add areas and content rather than just new widgets to buy or quest for.

$10 will get you 1030 Aeria points which gets you very little in-game. If you want to get some cool items to customize your toon, a $10 here and there isn't so bad spread over a few months, but they have stuff that's worth around 5000 points... that's just insanity. I'd rather just quest of other gear. I like SMT, but I don't like it THAT much and I'm not sure how much I like SMT: IO yet. Its a passable experience so far, but doesn't appear to have the scope FFXI, WoW or other subscription-based MMOs have.