Vanguard, LoTR, EVE...and a partridge in a pear treeeeee

OK....sorry about the partridge thing, I'm feeling a bit punchy this morning. A couple of things before I go completely nuts here. Apparently, I'm still playing Vanguard...I have no idea why, I just am. If you're looking for me in the Hilsbury server, look no further because I moved to the Gulgrethor server a couple of weeks ago. I've joined a guild as well and am now a level 19 Ranger, name Belmirus. The game has improved by quite a bit since my review three weeks ago. Vanguard still isn't quite there yet though and probably won't be "there" for another 3-4 months. I'm going to keep playing though. I'll probably do yet another review (....jeesh...), maybe at the end of the summer or early fall.

LoTR Open beta for those that pre-ordered is just around the corner and I'm really excited to fully start this game. One thing I'm not looking forward to though, is going through levels 1-15 again. When the open beta hits this week, this would be the third time going through those levels and repeating that content...so...yayyyyy. It might be slow going for those levels because the exploration drive just isn't there after the second time for me. Once that's done, watch out. I think I'll end up making a Captain as my class because, well, being a Captain of Gondor is just too cool to give up on. I figure LoTR will be a nice casual break from Vanguard's style, but I have no idea which game will win out in the end. LoTR has a head start due to it's polish, but Vanguard is making some headway in that category...but it still has a long way to go. I have a couple of friends playing Vanguard right now, and one of the bad things about LoTR coming out is that I don't want them to get too far ahead of me in Vanguard. Bah....damn you 2007...why must you be so full of MMO goodness...(/emote Darren shakes fist in the air).

With more LoTR news, this article seems to be making the rounds. It's quite a long read and the the amount of effort put into this article is amazing. The article is about Turbine's recent announcement that basically says that those living in North America will not be able to play with any friends they may have in EU. From a purely selfish point of view, I'm kinda "meh" about this...simply because I don't regularly play with anyone from the EU. From a community PR point of view, I can see how this would be a big deal...especially for guilds that have members around the globe. I'm still munching on the details of what he asserts in the article...and I may comment on them later. The article is definitely worth the read.

Eve Online has now rolled out Revelations 1.4 and voice chat is one of the big features. I must admit, I don't play Eve anymore...I canceled about a month ago (...there just isn't enough PvE stuff in there IMHO, or I just plain suck at the game...one or the other). I'm sure all those in Eve are adjusting quite nicely to the new voice chat feature. I know I'll be heading into Eve again in the future, so this will be a nice addition to look forward to.

So...that's it. Oh, Silent Hunter 4 is still progressing...so I think this single player purchase was worth it. There are lots of bugs in the game right now though. Oh....and the manual SUCKS! There are sooo many undocumented details in this game, it makes me sick. Example: Did you know that you could not load torpedoes while you're in silent running mode...me neither! I can only say that WWII would have turned out a lot different if sub commanders where given this stupid, wimpy manual to fight the Axis with. My thanks to the community over at Subsim for all your help so far...great bunch of guys over there.

D out.