Looking Back at 2010 – Highs and Lows

Yesterday I looked forward to figure out where I might be headed in the new year, at least for MMOs. (There are some single and multi-player games on my list, but that is another post.)

Today, it is time to look back at what came to pass in 2010, or at least what came to pass in my little corner of the gaming world.

Lord of the Rings Online

Highs:

• The instance group had a great summer diversion from WoW into Middle-earth.  LOTRO gets better every time I go back to it.
• I had more fun than I probably should have playing with the music system in LOTRO.
• The transition to Free to Play seemed to be mostly a good thing for the game.  There were a lot more people playing.  And Turbine has been adjusting what is free and what you need to purchase from the LOTRO Store based on feedback.
• I feel quite satisfied, as a Lifetime Subscriber, as to how I was treated as part of the transition to F2P.

Lows:

• Only four of us hit Middle-earth, and since there is no mentoring or “buy a level” method in LOTRO, there seems little likelihood that we will be able to carry on past where we stand with the whole group involved.
• Still haven’t seen Moria yet. (Only 8 levels away though!)  And Mirkwood?

EverQuest

Highs:

• It still lives!  And look at how many servers it still has!  Not bad considering its age.
• Now has housing in what looks to be an interesting mix of the EQII and LOTRO approaches.  It is really well done, given the architecture and interface that EQ has been carrying along with it for nearly 12 years.
• Server merges, once I could find my characters, beefed up the visible population somewhat.

Lows:

• Only focused sustaining the current population, though that is probably both the right and practical choice.  It just makes me a little sad to have to admit that there just isn’t going to be any significant new player base.
• Server populations feel pretty small even post-merger.  I suspect we’ll see another round soon.
• The game is really feeling its age.  Every time I go back the interface feels older and more cobbled together.

EverQuest II

Highs:

• EverQuest II Extended is bringing in enough people to its single server to make the game feel more alive than it has in a long, long time.
• New Halas is a good starting area and if you follow the quest line all the way through, you get a mount as a quest reward.  One more for the “why didn’t you do that sooner?” list.
• The integrated quest guide functionality really helps out in New Halas.
• The basic New Halas housing makes the old single room cells we got as housing in the racial ghettos at launch seem like… well… single room cells. (Though they are now two-room cells these days.)
• The Revelry and Honor guild hall (on Guk) is still awe inspiring, and in a much less game-lagging sort of way.

Lows:

• EverQuest II Extended has effectively ended any possible influx of new players for the old EverQuest II servers.  How soon until EverQuest II live is just the Antonia Bayle server?
• On the server with my main characters (Crushbone), nobody on my friends list or in either of my guilds is still playing.
• The integrated quest guide appears to be a work in progress, at least in some of the older zones.
• The rest of the New Halas housing looks just like the basic from what I have seen, with a room added here or there.  I’ll just stick with the basic.
• Eyesore marketing.  EQII deserves better.
• The Freeblood Station Cash Grab.  $65 for the race and all the accessories.
• The loss of Stargrace as a subscriber.

TorilMUD

Highs:

• TorilMUD is still up and running.  I’ve only been logging into it since the Fall of 1993.
• ZMud still works for me on Windows 7!  More than a decade of triggers, scripts, and macros preserved a while longer!

Lows:

• Oy, you think EverQuest or EverQuest II Live have population problems?

Star Trek Online

Highs-

• It shipped!  A Star Trek MMO at last!
• My classic NCC-1701 ship model looks great!  I love it!  I make original series sound effects whey I fly it!
• Seems to be getting all sorts of of new episodic updates.

Lows –

• Apparently it wasn’t the game I wanted.  If you ask me, I’ll tell you I like the game, and I’ll mean it when I say it, but I obviously can’t be trusted to speak the truth.  It is installed.  I keep it patched.  I never play. Damn.
• Then there is the whole C-Store thing…

Civilization V

Highs-

• Gets back to the series roots and what made my most favorite Civ game, Civ II, great.
• Actually runs well on my new machine.

Lows-

• Gets just as laborious to manage as you get closer to the end game (unless you’re losing badly) as Civ II
• Ghandi the Terrible! (Supposed to be fixed with the latest patch)
• Didn’t run at all on my old machine for no reason I could divine.
• Individual Civs and tiny scenarios as for-pay downloadable content?  I’ll wait for a big Steam sale.  And then I’ll wait some more.

Total Annihilation

Highs-

• Atari updated it so it has a single, all-in-one installer and it runs on my new machine.
• Game Ranger supports online multiplayer for TA.
• Continues to be one of my three best-ever RTS games. (the other two being StarCraft and Age of Kings)

Lows-

• I still don’t have anybody to play against. (Same for Age of Kings, and I am so out of practice with StarCraft I get slaughtered by the sharks on BNet so fast it is scary.)

Pokemon

Highs:

• HeartGold and SoulSilver continued the tradition of improving the Pokemon franchise in many ways with each release, both large and small.
• Lots of downloadable events.
• National Pokedex complete, including the rare, special event Pokemon.
• I am totally ready for Black and White this coming March.

Lows:

• I still need 325,217 steps to max out the Pokewalker.  I wear the damn thing everywhere.  Obviously I need to walk more or rebuild the Pokewalker LEGO machine… and then hide it from the cats.
• We didn’t get all of the download events they got in Japan. (Where is my special Celebi?)
• WiFi co-op play in HeartGold and SoulSilver limited to battles.   I miss the underground from Diamond and Pearl.
• Pokemon Ranch was no help at all.

Wii

Highs:

• LEGO Harry Potter shows that Traveller’s Tales still has the magic.
• Netflix Streaming… the downloadable version.  Perfect for our current setup, which includes a 14 year old 32″ tube TV.  And there are a lot of MST3K episodes available.
• Just Dance – If only Wii Music could have been that good.
• My daughter loves Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Lows:

• The Wii, on the other hand, seems extremely taxed playing LEGO Harry Potter.  At first I thought there was something wrong with the game, but it is the Wii huffing and puffing trying to keep up. The LEGO games look much better on the XBox 360 or PS3.  It is time for some better hardware from Nintendo.
• Netflix Streaming selection is still too small… and too random.  How do you make season 2 of a series available on streaming, but season 1 not?  I know, it is all in the licensing details, but they need to get those details worked out.
• I totally suck at Super Mario Bros. Wii.  My daughter and her little pals play, and I am the one always in the bubble.

World of Warcraft

Highs-

• The instance group is back together in Azeroth
• I can fly in old Azeroth! OMFG that is so worth it!  Especially with my druid.
• An all new race to play, redone level 1-60 content to go through, including updated instances, plus guilds have levels and achievements that give access to interesting things.
• With only five levels to cap out, I am taking it easy and enjoying the new content.
• The game is still smooth and polished and a lot of fun to play with my friends and family.

Lows-

• Once the instance group hits 60, there are 20 levels of unchanged content between us and the next new thing.
• Level 85 seems to come awfully quick for most.  Nobody else seems to be taking it easy.
• Can’t fly in some parts of meso and neo Azeroth.
• Guild levels come very slowly for small guilds.  I think we’re 25% of the way to level 2.  Achievements are also easier for bigger guilds.
• More reputation grinds… including one with your own damn guild!  I helped found the guild five years ago, and now I’m neutral with it?
• Gear inflation – my best welfare epics: Gearscore 245.  My first green drop at Mt. Hyjal: Gearscore 272.  My hunter gained a base 100 DPS rating by trading in his blue gun for the first green quest reward gun.
• Wintergrasp is dead… and when it isn’t, I end up getting owned by level 85s with gearscores that seem to be an order of magnitude above my own.

Blizzard in General

Highs:

• Still the brightest star in the PC games sales chart, with booming sales of StarCraft II and Cataclysm.
• Hasn’t been completely destroyed by Bobby Kotick yet.
• Tenacious D – Completely uncensored at BlizzCon.  Told my daughter she could watch until the first swear word.  She barely got to watch a minute.
• Gave Red Shirt guy his due.

Lows:

• Didn’t ship Diablo III… or give us a release date.
• Didn’t tell us a damn thing at BlizzCon.  We had to find stuff out this way.
• Forcing RealID on users who want to post to the forums?  That didn’t piss anybody off…
• RealID and Facebook integration plans in general.
• I still hate the new BNet Parental Controls window.  Firefox doesn’t seem to like it either.  There may be a correlation.
• It is starting to get easier to count the people I know who play WoW and who HAVEN’T had their accounts hacked.
• Still no cast list for the Warcraft movie.

Facebook

Highs:

• Family Feud – Comes in great, bite-sized doses and you can help your friends score more… or embarrass yourself in front of them.  The answers piss you off, but in a good way.  You feel smarter than your fellow man and woman.
• Warzone Tower Defense – In the MindJolt section, it isn’t really a Facebook game, you can play it other places, but I first found it on Facebook.  It is fun.

Lows:

• FarmVille, FrontierVille, and most everything else became an annoying, wall-filling, endless notification grind.  Not for me.
• I actually made a Facebook category for this site.  eeew.
• Those pirates at Zynga still haven’t sent me my damn FarmVille fridge magnet!  And they not only kept my magnet, but they probably sold my mailing address to somebody along the way.

Other Semi-Related Items

Highs:

• Scott Hartsman’s back and looking like all win with Rift
• Duke Nukem (and 2K Games) might have the last laugh after all.  Hail to the chief, baby!
• The MMO market in general looks like it is in for an uptick in the coming year.
• EALouse get’s it all off his chest.  I’m not sure any of it was a surprise though.

Lows:

• APB… I blinked and missed it.
• MassiveBlips, gone… and probably forgotten.  Who will continue to decide who runs the #1 WoW blog?
• For what seemed like forever this past Spring and Summer, Derek Smart and David Allen just could not shut up.  Well, at least until somebody got paid off and went away quietly.  (Okay, it was like Jerry Springer, we decried it, but we couldn’t look away.)
• The EALouse comment thread makes Derek and David look like the pinnacle politeness and restraint.

The Blog

Highs:

• Lots of great comments from the regular readership.  Tobold has a point, being less popular generally begets better quality.  There is probably a lesson in that which applies outside of blogging.
• Very little trollish behavior aside from SynCaine… and he can’t help it, he just foams at the mouth when somebody says “World of Warcraft.”
• Still writing regularly after more than four years.
• Writing and recording stuff that I enjoy going back and looking at years later, which was my main goal for the site.  This is my gaming memory.
• A very high complement and honor paid to me in the form of a mention from Massively.  Thank you so very much.

Low:

• I have a backlog of things I want to write about, much of which I fear I will never get to or, worse, that I’ll simply forget.
• I never got to a bunch of things that were somewhat topical and have since lost some meaning, but which I should have recorded at the time, if only for context.
• My most popular posts this year involved a World Cup predicting octopus, Talking Cats Playing Patty Cake, and Blood Elf Porn.  Now you know the secret to popularity.
• I still cannot find another WordPress.com theme that I like better than Regulus.  Not that I need to change, but something in my keeps looking. (Something in that probably explains men.)
• I looked at my site the other day without being logged in and saw the ads that WordPress.com slips in for the readers.  Gold seller ads.  I swear, I didn’t know.

And that was about it for 2010, wasn’t it?  Thank you all for being involved!

Now what highs or lows did I miss in my myopia?