Friday Musings

Right before I left for Gen Con, I received a mysterious e-mail from Syl of MMO Gypsy, which contained only a URL and the line "There are no excuses now!! :-D"

The URL pointed to a Guild Wars 2 free trial weekend, which runs from August 23rd through August 25th.

I'd been hemming and hawing over purchasing the game for a while now, and I figured that since Gen Con has come and gone it'd be safe for me to consider purchasing the game this fall.  Well, ArenaNet took that out of my hands by offering me a chance to give the game a spin before purchasing.

As of this moment, GW2's game client is busy being downloaded onto the main PC, so by the time I get done with work for the day it ought to be ready for me to try out.

And to be honest, if I get more game time out of GW2 than I have Skyrim, then the game will be worth a purchase.

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Until GW2's trial dropped in my lap, I figured this weekend's MMO playing would consist of chain running Alterac Valley --it's AV Weekend in WoW-- and working on finishing up my Trooper's story in TOR.*

Among other interesting items is that Neverwinter added a mini-expac concerning the Feywild, which I'm curious about.  In D&D 4e cosmology, the Feywild is the home plane where all sorts of Fey creatures live. A PC can only cross into the Feywild at certain locations and/or certain times of day/month/year.  Think of it as the mythical Realm of Faerie placed into D&D.  The Feywild is also home to the three branches of Elves: Eladrin, Elves, and Drow.  The Eladrin still remain (primarily) in the Feywild, the Elves have long ago migrated into the normal world, and the Drow betrayed their brethren and now inhabit the Underdark.**

I'll freely admit that I am more interested in the D&D 4e setting than the 4e game mechanics itself, so the fact that the Neverwinter MMO is moving in this direction is a boon to me.

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Since this is a Friday, and Saturday is usually a gaming day around the house, I'll leave you with a link to Wil Wheaton's Tabletop.  In this episode, he and his friends play Settlers of Catan.  You know, that "wood for sheep" game that drew some laughs on an episode of The Big Bang Theory:

You could have been videocapped better, Wil.  /sigh

*She's in Ilum right now, which is "the crystal planet" as my kids so aptly put it.  Yes, they are devoted fans of Star Wars:  The Clone Wars.

**And worship Lolth.  See my last post for a pic of her in her drider form, which is half human, half spider.