| The Star Wars MMO is really fun.

Super fun. Super-duper fun! I really think you guys would like it.

They looked at what is awesome about WoW, appropriated that, looked at what is not so awesome, made that better, and then updated the graphics. The main improvement being how quest dialogues are fully voiced, with dialogue options. It's kind of a big deal because it really makes you feel like your character is part of the story. It feels like a single-player game within the MMO. Now I don't think the dialogue choices matter THAT much besides giving you lightside/darkside points, but it's still neat to be able to have that little bit of control over what your character does/says.

Other little neat things: when you talk to a quest-giver, it's private. You don't run into that WoW thing where you see an NPC saying to some random, "Hooray Smoxakahk420! You saved Dalaran from the pegasus!" Then you turn in the quest and he says "Hooray Frudo! You saved Dalaran from the pegasus!" They use instances a lot in little ways that work for the story.

Combat is fun! It's a nice change of pace to be getting into firefights instead of melees. (I'm not a Jedi though, presumably they go around lightsabering shit left and right.). Shooting everything with blasters and grenades is awesome! Things blow up nice. Combat is fast paced and super fun (a successful ported from WoW). I've only run into a couple of serious challenges so far, but I've learned to start using all my tools.

That said I haven't been off-planet, or done any multiplayer stuff yet (although it's supposed to be pretty solid). So I dunno if the awesome holds up past the starting planets but so far I gotta say, this is nice.

Only thing I don't like: they got a little lazy with the player races and they are all basically human-sized, human-shaped (easier to do the armor etc. that way). Feels a little weird not to be able to be a Greedo or an Admiral Ackbar. I mean come on, Hammerhead was my favorite action figure, I would totally be an Ithorian.

Happy New Year!

I spent my New Years weekend laid the fuck out with a horrible stomach virus I picked up from my visiting nephew. It affected him a lot worse, little guy. He was in bed for like 4 days miserable watching his sisters and us play and have fun. Then when he got better I got sick and it took me out for about 3 days. SUCKED.

Now I'm better, but goddamn, what a waste of a bunch of days off. I couldn't even play Stone Age. Set it up and got like 2 rounds in and then felt all dizzy and exhausted. That's not even a complicated game!

I'm still ready for a gift exchange! I hope somebody wants Quarriors, haha cuz I got you covered! ;)  (If not I'll find a use for it)

Our tentative wedding date is looking like June 3rd! We're still working out the details (we've got ALL the details to work out, really). Hopefully you'll all be able to make it to SoCal that weekend - once we get our stuff ironed out I'll reach out to you all individually. We're gonna go to Maui for our Honeymoon. It'll be my first trip to Hawaii, so I'm pretty excited. I'll have to visit Ryan if that's the island he lives on.

| Damn You, Temptress Internet

Happy New Year everyone! Hope it's filled with teabagging, Dirty Sanchezes and whatever all else you deviants enjoy. Alligator Fuckhouse, anyone?

Some decent stuff on Steam today -- Skyrim for $40. The new Deus Ex, which is supposed to be outstanding, is $16.99. Gonna hold off on it for now because I don't have time right now, but that game is definitely in my future. Man the first Deus Ex was good.

I did go a bit old-school and picked up a few older games from GOG.com for $2-3 each: the Ultima 7 collection, Might and Magic 7 (I didn't even know they made this many games in the series, but I read the reviews and this one's supposed to be quite good), and The Last Express, an really interesting adventure game I missed out on at the time.

For those who like their games old-school, yet completely free, this looks pretty cool. These guys created updated versions of Space Quest 2 and King's Quest 3. Free to download! Tons of unfair ways to perish!

Speaking of which, Dragon's Lair II is total bullshit. Even with the option on to tell you what to do at each move: total bullshit.

Enron, Rude and I didn't do our board game gift exchange yet (decided to make it a New Year's Gift Exchange). So if anyone wants to jump on in there, holler! Maybe someone who sold Agricola before could get it again. ;)

| DO NOT READ

If you hate WoW.

_________________________________________________________________

The guild totally did two nights of dungeon runs! We maxed out our weekly guild XP from doing instances and I think everyone went up like 8 levels over the two nights.

Peter, Denis, Me, and Chris (old pal from work) ran Ragefire, Deadmines, Shadowfang, and Wailing Caverns and I think had a lot of fun doing it. Got lots of kewl items, lots of kewl achievements, and at one point only randomly ran Shadowfang 3 times in a row. :\

Blizzard has redone many of the low level dungeons and updated them so they are more challenging and make more of an interesting go of it.

Ether way, good times were had and looking forward to some more!

Myke, gotta get back from Texas so you can get in on this, yo :)

I would play A&A OR Diplo over email! Real time seems damn near impossible with this crew, so I think email would be some hot shit.

I played axis and allies online a few times a couple of years back. It was definitely quick and the graphics were quite impressive considering it's an online java game. I'd be down if others are (highly doubtful due to a strong resistance to MB games). And thankfully, it's not one of those PBEGTFOM javas. It's actually real time. I just don't think it'll ever happen though!

Viva La Resistaaaance! -Agent Lee

| 40k RTS

All right guys, time for a shameful admission, I'm kinda intrigued by 40k. BUT, the last thing I need to do is buy more frickin' miniatures. I see the Dawn of War II complete pack is on sale for $20 on Steam. Seems like a good way to get my fill of Dreadnoughts n' shit without wasting a bunch of scrilla. Is anyone else interested? I will totally pull the trigger!

| PBeM

I will totally play by email if we play Diplomacy. It's the game that play by mail was practically invented for!

C'mon Aeryk, you know you want to unleash your inner bastard.

| No, no no, Fa La La La La!

Rugs, that is great about the AFLAC shop. I am sure it feels lovely to be back in the saddle working again. Funemployment is great for about two to three weeks and then just starts to way down on the sad glands.

I think eLzar had pushed a little on play by mail a few years back, but I don't know that it ever took off. Might be worth looking into.

Happy holidays everyone. Hope everything has gone well so far. After a few days off in LA, I am back at work today. Yippie.

D>M>

| FAH RAH RAH RAH RAAAAAHHHH

Hai Guyz!

Real life has been kickin' my ass lately.. come back for a look see and Rood man done got hitched up! Good for you mang! Just know your lady friend is now going to be eight shades of crazy while she plans her perfect day, lol.

I'm in full swing with my new jerb.. opening my own AFLAC shop! Been in training the last few weeks and getting up to speed. It's all kind of a blur, lol.

Regarding Christmas, the family elected to go non traditional this year. So I decided to try and recreate one of my favorite specialty rolls from our favorite Japanese restaurant! What could go wrong, right? Haha..

Making the rice red and green didn't go quite as planned, lol. But the flavor was still outstanding. I remain a little shocked that it came out so well, it was really, really good!

The rolls were filled with tempura shrimp and teriyaki chicken with avacado. Outside with bonito flakes and sweet sauce.

Dee-lish!

Elrock, haven't forgotten about WoW.. just haven't had time for much gaming at all mang. Hoping later this week maybe? Meh, I know you're running out of time, sorry. We'll have to figure out some time though, for sure.

What do the rest of you jerks think about doing some games-by-mail stuff? Ever looked at that website? Axis and Allies! Whenever it's your turn you can log in and take your turn on the website, then check back as other people go through their turns. Only takes a few minutes to process your turn, too. It's pretty fun! I did it a while back with a different group of guys. Wonder what else is on there we could screw around with. It solves the whole "I'm too busy to play games" issue. Don't have to worry about conflicting schedules, etc.

Ok, welp.. off to get a haircut then it's time to go schmooze business! :)

'Twas merely a jest. I don't want to get it until I've got a solid month to play it, so maybe after the holidays settle things down.

I got the Galaxy Trucker expansion! Which is cool, I was starting to feel like it was getting a bit easy. Adds lots of different things to the game, excited to try it out.

Hope everyone had a good one!

Did you end up getting Old Republic Jono? Any thoughts? You made a comment that the level up sound was the light saber woosh, but maybe that was in jest.

What did Wylie get for xmas? Howd the rest of you do? I got clothes n shit, LIKE THE LAST 35 YEARS, arrrgh!

happy x, yo

| Merry Christmas, jerks