Lounge L33ts Episode 12: The Crater

Northern Gun meets up at The Crater, the best bar in town! Well, the ONLY bar in town, thanks to the apocalypse. Ed, aka "Drenivian" joins us, as well talk about our experiences so far with Defiance from Trion Worlds. The conversation soon turns to other topics such as MMO budgets, insider trading, and games that remind us fondly of other games.

Lounge L33ts Episode 9: Bastion Guild Hall

What's this? A serious discussion on the gameplay and storyline of Scarlet Blade? Well sort of...Ran shows up in his Weefleboy persona again as we discuss our favorite classes, the plot behind the warring factions, the ideas behind adult MMO's, and the affects of gold farming in general.

Lounge L33ts Special 2: Frostbluff

Our resident expert on all things Tolkien, Sarah Bloy, takes us on a tour of the newly renovated Bree on Landroval server. Then it's off to Frostbluff to part take in some of the Yuletide Festival activities. Ran momentarily gets into a kegger of a problem, while the rest of us try to save up for a pony. Afterward, we go to see a play at the famous Frostbluff Theater, where Sarah becomes the Star of the Show and Matt finally finds a use for all that rotten fruit and flower he's got laying around. Finally, we don't play enough MMO's to warrant a Top 10 list, but we do go over our most favorite MMO's and the biggest disappointments for 2012.

Lounge L33ts Episode 7: Home for the Holidays

We spread some holiday cheer from the Home for the Holidays dimension in Rift (Faeblight server). Joining us is our friend Bob to explain why he's chosen Rift to fill the base building hole in his heart that City of Heroes left behind.

Master of Imperious Task Force

Something a little more upbeat than the previous video! The Legendary super group and I run through the Imperious Task Force on City of Heroes. We were going for the "Master of the Imperious Task Force" badge, went meant we couldn't use any of our temporary powers. Also, we lost our chance at the badge if anyone in the group died.

Lounge L33ts Episode 6: The Loft

We eventually get around to talking about our experiences so far with the super hero MMO Champions Online. But first, so more geeking out over Anarchy Online!

Lounge L33ts Episode 5: The Horned God

     I've been playing The Secret World off and on since it officially opened up, and so far it's been a lot of fun. It has it's faults, though. Every time my friend Barry comes over, I have a brief moment of fear that he'll ask to play the game with me. Lately he's been picking Star Wars: The Old Republic, which I don't currently have installed and have informed him of this fact last three times he's been over.
     I'll get to SWTOR again in the future. Right now my plate is already piled high with my friends' latest surge into LOTRO, trying to find solace in that sweet bosom before the closure of City of Heroes. Have I told you yet how Ran-san (aka "Namiru" in earlier posts) pledged to never play LOTRO? Have I mentioned that he just bought the Riders of Rohan expansion and is currently marching his way through the Lone Lands on a level 30 toon? Of course, Matt, Sarah, and I have been there with him.
     But to get back on topic, it's not that Barry is a bad gamer. He's saved my skin quite a few times. It's not that TSW is a bad game; I've been enjoying myself. It's just that certain teams of people work better in certain games. Barry and I work pretty well together in Champions and City of Heroes. However, get us to try to work together on even the most straight forward of TSW's missions and we're usually slaughtered at least once. Usually from some misinformation gleaned from a website, or faulty memory. When I teamed with Matt and Eric, I didn't die once.
     What I enjoy most about this game is the immersion. It sounds silly, but I'm the kind of person who loves to approach random NPC's and see what they have to say, read their back stories, watch practically every cutscene, and follow every dialog tree I can for them. I want to know the whole story, explore the entire city without leaving any trace of fog of war, gather all the exploration badges, and do as many side missions as possible to unlock further information about the world I'm playing in. It comes down to a love of miniature things. I used to love collecting dollhouse furniture and stuff like the original Polly Pocket and Littlest Pet Shop toys. Maybe it's a craving for control over something. Maybe it's a creative outlet for building my own character's backstory. Either way, TSW satisfies this curiosity in a way that CoH, AO, and even LOTRO haven't. The illusion always seems to wear thin in those games, but not so much in TSW.

Lounge L33ts Episode 4: The Prancing Pony

We manage to get Randy to play LOTRO, Sarah Bloy joins us to bestow some Tolkien wisdom, and we hear the Tale of the Bag of Devouring (it involves a dragon).

Lounge L33ts Episode 3: The Ski Chalet Part 2

In the second part, we come to a conclusion. NC Soft is the FOX of MMO's.

Liunge L33ts Episode 2: The Ski Chalet Part 1

     I think we spend more time reminiscing about City of Heroes/Villains, than we do berating NC Soft for...well...being assholes and shutting down the game in late November. I'm sorry if you're tired of hearing the CoH community voice their disapproval over the game's closure. I disagree with Ran-san (aka "Nomiru" in previous posts), I know the game wouldn't have been around forever. Eventually everything ends. This was not the way to end it though, and NC Soft has only themselves to blame for the bad PR. However, even after all that, I'm still going to play Guild Wars 2. I figure I paid for it, there's no subscription, and I'm pretty sure I can enjoy the game without paying into the cash shop, so why not? I've only managed to log about 2 hours of gameplay, but it was fun enough to make me want to return.
     This episode, I also introduce Eric "Setzer" Craig, the current Head of Registration for Geek.Kon 2013 as one of our guests. He's been playing CoH for quite a while and I hope I can have on in future episodes to discuss other MMO's.
     We wind up touching on a wide variety of topics this episode including Tabula Rasa, Korean Grinders, esports, The Secret World and other Funcom games, etc. As always, polite, constructive criticism is welcome, as this show is still very much a work in progress.