My industrial character is about 20 days away from being able to use Exhumers, give or take a few days. At 1.8M SP, too. I'm not sure if I'll resub it once the time rolls around. I may just put EVE into the position of "back-up" in my current line-up of games. I'm still making a decent amount of money with him (well it's mostly thanks to the use of my friends 30m SP industrial character), just broke 200m in profits, and that's with extremely sparse playing - maybe a one-hour mining session every couple of days. I'll probably end up continuing my main character subscription to at least get its production and refining skills to a decent level so I can maybe one day be independent and not need to use my friends alt, as I'm sure he'll want it back to himself sometime.
My combat alt is coming along nicely, almost at 600k SP, and I just got my Small Hybrid Turret to V which is going to open up a lot of doors for me in terms of weapons. I still have yet to do one instance of combat, though. I'm thinking of trying to get into Faction Warfare to see how that is. My goal is to get into one of the SOV/0.0 alliances and trying out large fleet combat. But no telling when I'll be able to get into that, or when I'll feel that I'm ready to commit to that. I got this account pre-paid for three months, though. And it's not even two weeks old yet. I'll be skilling it up a lot during that time.
In other news, I've been playing a lot of Fallout Online: Reloaded these past three days. I've never played Fallout 1 & 2, and now I'm regretting it. I did buy them on GOG sometime ago, so I'll probably download them and give them a play sometime in the near future. But for now, I'm having a blast in FO:R. It's basically Fallout meets UO. It has pick-pocketing, lock-picking, housing, player factions, player faction bases, territory control that allows factions to take controls of towns and dictate the laws in those towns and collect taxes, vehicles, a companion/slave system... so many features that it's hard to believe that this was made my volunteers. It has just about everything that makes an MMO fun for me, an awesome setting, an active community that has between 150-350 players online usually, and more.
I've liked the game so much that I've even started to write a guide for OnRPG users, trying to help them get started in the game. I plan to set up a public OnRPG shelter for members to use as well. So far it seems like Powster is the only other user that is actively playing though. One of us can usually be found in the OnRPG IRC channel that we've set up for FO:R and you can go there for help (if you decide to play). Anyways, I'll go ahead and quote a post I made on OnRPG earlier.
"Slowly progressing. I keep getting killed - I have a lot to learn about the game. Probably would have been good if I had actually played Fallout 1 or 2 at some point. Kind of regret I hadn't, now.
So far I've got a regular tent and now I have a shelter. I set my shelter up right next to the NCR Protected Mine (basically as close to it as you can get). I've built up my stock of minerals and iron ore. Basically that means I can produce money with extreme ease. At least to a certain extent. For example, it takes me all of two minutes to make 1,000 10mm ammo and take it to NCR and trade it for 2,100 caps.
I'm glad I went and got the Ranger support perk. That means all my tents will be shelters instead of regular tents. Shelters are nice due to increased storage, the ability to lock your door (just in case, I guess), and they come with a work bench. On top of filling my storage with minerals and ore, I've also filled it with wood. Basically everything you could want for most basic craftings. I went and got the Small Guns gunsmithing profession (level 1, required 50% repair skill. I plan to go for level 2 which required 100%), and I also grabbed Armor smith level 1. I plan to go for most of the professions so I can be able to craft a wide variety of stuff. I've been keeping my eye out for good blueprints in the towns, but none have jumped out at me and made me think I should buy them.
I've been toying with the idea of buying a private mine, which cost 70,000 caps. This would give me access to a private mine that has high quality resources available. Downside is that it takes longer to respawn ore compared to a regular unprotected mine (or so the wiki says). However, it is private and therefore not as dangerous as a regular unprotected mine which is usually the only place to get the high-end ores.
I'm also on the lookout for a Brahmin. I plan to get one as soon as I can, and also get one of those carts you can attach to them. I may eventually try to buy a vehicle, but I'm not sure where to get one yet or if I would be able to keep it (I still have an issue with staying alive... need to learn a lot about this combat system).
Eventually I want to set up a sort of base of operations that OnRPG can share. I'll probably set up a shelter near NCR's mine (perhaps between NCR and the mine) and I'll bring anyone from OnRPG who wants to have a place to craft in safety go there. I'll also fill it with some resources for anyone to use, too. If you want to get the location of the OnRPG shelter (maybe we can make a faction and get an actual base someday), contact me on IRC (link in my guide). We'll meet up and I can show you. Of course, got to wait for me to actually put it up first :P
Edit: I can also provide some basic weapons and ammo to those who want to help spread the opression of hte OnRPG Militia across the wasteland. Once I get the Shelter up and running, I'll try to keep it stocked with weapons and ammo as well. And maybe eventually some armors once I figure that out... "
Another game I've been playing is Tera Online, for the purpose of reviewing it. It's a pretty nice game, and damn is it beautiful. The only thing I'm not liking is how repetitive it feels. It seems like they put all this work into making a fun combat system, and then didn't have the time to develop any interesting gameplay features past that. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of neat stuff there. It's just almost drown out by the repetitive gameplay. I should finish it early next week, and then it'll be on to the next game to review.
The last game I want to talk about is Fallen Earth. There was a thread on the OnRPG forums about playing, so I went ahead and downloaded the game. I've got to say, I'm surprised at how fun it feels. Of course, I'm only level 4 and playing extremely casual. I'm a bit disappointed that PVP doesn't seem to play such a major role in the game. Honestly, all it needs to be on par with the above mentioned Fallout Online: Reloaded is more emphasis on PVP (even if it's Faction Vs Faction), and some form of playing housing or at least base-making for clans. Then it would probably be the ultimate in Post-Apocalyptic wasteland online experience. I'd miss the stealing/lockpicking/backstabbing factor of FO:R, though. But it may be worth it for the first/third-person experience that FAllen Earth provides.
The thing I like the most about the game is the atmosphere. It's got that post-apocalyptic feeling to it, even if it's a bit weak. Sure it's got hostility, but it feels like you're entering the game during the last few years of "lawless, dangerous wasteland" as a majority of the people seem to be living fairly comfortably. Plus there's the endless hordes of enemies that is typical to a quest-grinding MMO (which Fallen Earth is). However, the atmosphere, combined with the fun combat, vehicles (most of which you can shoot from, including horses and vehicles with weapons mounted on them). I'll just ago ahead and quote a post I made on OnRPG that sumps up how I feel about the game pretty well.
"It's a pretty decent game, at least so far. I mean, the gameplay itself seems fairly generic (Go out and do quest to level up). However, it doesn't feel like a boring generic grinder. I mean usually I get extremely pissed when the questing is just generic "Go out and collect X for me because you've never met me and have no reason to. Oh sure you'll get a subpar reward for risking your life, but that's it." But the setting of this game makes it feel like you're in a similar world as that in Fallout. And honestly, the level system is almost an exact copy of the original two Fallout games, which is extremely nice as it's not a generic cookie-cutter system.
The world has a lot of atmosphere to it. The only thing that could improve the game, at least for me, is if they released a completely open-PVP server where you could attack anyone at any time, where you dropped all your stuff when you die, and they added in stealing. Then if they took it a step further and added in pre-determined locations that clans could build bases to get access to expanded content (such as being able to craft the higher end gear or something), that could be attacked/sieged by others so a sort of player politics became part of the game, it would probably instantly become my go-to game. Until then (and I highly doubt it will ever happen, unfortunately :/) I'm just going to play it casually when I need my post-apocalyptic fix.
But really, this has the potential and the framework in place to become what Fallout Online Reloaded is, but in 3D, action-based combat and without infringing on any copyrights."
That's about it for now. I'll make a new post here in a few days, probably after I get my next review assignment. Oh! I might as well mention that I've been playing Hawken, MechWarrior Online, and Natural Selection 2 quite a bit the past week or so. I've been having a craving for mechs (as evident in my recent mecha anime binge...), and Natural Selection 2 was on sale for just $6 and came highly recommended by a few friends. All are great game and offer some fairly unique gameplay, which is something that I sorely need nowadays. Anyways, see ya and thanks for reading.
