Too addictive…

Insanely geeky post warning…

The above explains lack of posting….

Seeing as I re-rolled Destruction, I have a lot of catching up to do in order to stay in line with the general leveling curve. Thus I am playing a LOT of Warhammer Online (WAR).

I think I’m doing ok as there is a lot of RvR (Realm vs Realm, think open warfare) going on in my tier at the moment, and keep sieges are a whole new experience for me, and a lot of fun. I’ve never been much of a PvP (player vs player) type, but there is something genuinely amazing (and more fun than you’d think) about two sets of players trying to beat the living daylights out of one another so they can gain control over a keep (and thus, for unguilded folks like me, actually get hold of our renown rewards).

I spent two whole hours last night as part of an ever-diminishing Destruction group trying to wrest control of Mandred’s Hold from a massive Order force. I threw in the towel when our warband was left with only 5 members (down from 20) since we were hopelessly outnumbered, and it really wasn’t much fun dying every 2 minutes, paying to have the penalty removed, running back, rezzing dead casters, HoT-ing them up (that’s heal-over-time, not anything kinky) and then getting mashed again, rinse and repeat.

Am looking forward to having another shot at it tonight though.

There is a lot of whining and complaining on various fora (spell-check not liking the correct plural of forum?) about the game, but truth be told, it’s just a lot of fun. If it keeps up this level of entertainment all the way through (and I don’t see why it shouldn’t, at least on Burlok which is a fairly busy server), I can’t see myself ever getting bored of it.

Mind you, you can only really play the game as it’s meant to be played during prime time, so for me that means that I’ll be spending a chunk of today solo-grinding public quests to get my influence level up (not a lot of fun) but it will leave me free to do nothing but RvR for the whole evening. Bonus!

Oh, and on a completely tangential note: this game could help you stop smoking. I smoke like a chimney while playing WoW since it’s largely player(s) vs computerised monsters in a very controlled environment (can do dailies with my eyes closed at this stage, and even manage the odd smoke in heroics etc.), but WAR is too dynamic for that, and I’ve noticed I’m smoking a lot less because I’m constantly busy keeping other players alive, and watching out for other players trying to kill me. An interesting side-effect of the game design, methinks, and one that makes me feel slightly better about being stuck in front of my computer screen for a few solid hours a night. (Rampant justification ahoy!)

Not about a book…

…about an interactive online game that I liked so much I paid for even though it’s free.

If you’ve ever frequented internet forums you’ll know all about trolls and whiners and “always right”-types. Possibly the best example, though not a forum, is here – the now infamous roasting doled out on the Guardian “Comment is Free” website to a hapless (and hopeless) young “writer” who seemed to be handed a blog as part of some misguided crossover with C4’s “Skins”, with added dollops of nepotism. That page contains some of the best troll comments I have ever read. It also prompted some really good blog entries (like this which I won’t even attempt to add to). Wouldn’t it be great if there was a place we could all let our inner troll/camwhore/emokid out to play? Well there is, in the form of an insanely addictive (and completely free!) online game that manages to take the mick out of just about everything to do with the internet and its millions of users. It’s called “Forumwarz” and you can sign up to it here . Please do not sign up if you’re going to get all offended and huffy about the content, which is obnoxious and rude (don’t say you weren’t warned), but a lot of fun. Sadly only the first “episode” is available to play at the moment, but having finished it I’ve now gone back to the start to play it again as a different class (yes, I’m that kind of game nerd too) and I even gave them money because they deserved some for all the distraction they have given me. In fact, seeing as sleep is nowhere near approaching I think I’ll head back over there now.