Returning

My fingers feel a little sluggish after such a long hiatus. I feel it’s going to take a few paragraphs to get back in to the flow. So, let’s get cracking!

Before I delve in to my EQ2 and other adventures, I think it’s time for a real life update. Work recently (and still is) has been a nightmare. At a time of year when I have many reports to complete that have to be submitted in time as stated in various bits of legislation, the folks I need to supply information for those reports all seem to have an incredibly laissez-faire attitude to it and don’t seem to realise that if you fail to submit these reports we break the law and all could go to jail. Add in an incredibly useless filing system that has already lost a couple of files that I desperately need to supply information on with the files still outstanding, my stress levels are pretty high. I guess having been the only one out of this bunch who has actually seen the inside of a jail cell (from the correct side you will note!), I have a reason to do my job properly. They quite obviously don’t give two hoots. Problem is, I would let them get on with it and just go to jail, but seeing as I am the one who has by law the responsibility to gather and submit this information, if I did that, I could end up going to court for their ‘couldn’t give a flying ****’ attitude and ultimately for their laziness, go to jail.

It’s so so weird. I get really mega stressed by all this ‘deadline’ office work. Like not being able to sleep, being quiet at home with the family, you know the many knock on effects of stress. But when I was in law enforcement nothing got me stressed. Nothing. Multiple car pile up, bodies everywhere, no stresses for me, get the job done. Extreme violence directed towards me, not an issue, tussle then get ‘em down the pokey, change your blood stained ripped shirt, back out on patrol, not a worry. When I was a marksman, that guys got a gun, mentally unstable? Any stress? Nope, just tactics and a job to be done. But office work? Wow, I have never felt so stressed in my life. I hate it. I guess in all those other circumstances I was in control and able to manage the incidents to successful resolution. In the office environment, I am reliant on so many other muppets who really do not understand the gravity of this stuff. I’m a bit of an perfectionist and I just cannot stand others who don’t seem to care about their liberty. Oh well.

I had a long conversation this morning with one of these ‘executive officers’ of our company who, used to living the finer lifestyle was telling me about how they spent several evenings dining out over the Easter holiday at ‘wonderful’ restaurants. I showed interest in their conversation to pass the time of day, but couldn’t resist a “That’s fantastic [insert name-yes I don’t wish to lose my job]. Glad you had a nice holiday weekend. Glad that you made the most of it because if you don’t get me that file I am after, your next holiday weekend will be fuelled by bread and water”. Perhaps a little snide, but the answer shocked me more “Oh, that. I’ll look at it next week”. The deadline is this week. He’s been told like 30 times. So, work stress and a large workload still exists with little chance of dissipating before deadlines hit. On a brighter real life note, this coming weekend sees the next MotoGP at Portugal. C’mon Rossi! (although I have a sneaking suspicion that Jorge will run away with it again).

OK, now the RL rant is over, on to much more fun stuff. This weekend and passing week has seen quite a bit happen for me gaming wise. I happened to log in to Steam the other day to activate a gift from my Bro of Portal [Thanks Bro!] and my buddy Konador shot me a message. It was great to chat to him. He’s one of my very best RL mates and I hadn’t spoken to him since Christmas. After waxing lyrical about the benefits of Test Drive 2 over its first incarnation, we got to talking about the rest of the gang. It turns out they have all been playing RIFT. I had no idea. Ema still had a RIFT account live after she dabbled following her leaving EQ2. She doesn’t use the account anymore so I thought I would give it a go. Regulars here will know that I Beta tested the game and ‘kinda’ liked it, but didn’t love it, so I thought it would be interesting to hook up with the old crew and to see what it is like post release.

To be honest the game hasn’t changed that much at all from Beta as Beta was very polished indeed. But as it stands I have created a Rogue based toon on the Tehkhat server [think that’s spelled correctly] and he currently sits at level 13. I’m planning on eventually turning him to a Marksman. I’m quite enjoying it, but I’m not sure if that’s the fact I am amongst old friends or if the game is OK. I certainly know that I died a lot and the game can be quite challenging at times for a noob, which is actually fun. Because it’s an all new world to me I have a feeling this is where the excitement lies. The gameplay is quite like EQ1 but a lot less waiting around. I guess if you broke it down there wouldn’t be too many similarities, but it just ‘feels’ like that kind of game. I’m not so sure what will happen later on when I’m more used to the game. I have a sneaky suspicion that I’ll get bored quickly. That probably won’t happen too soon though as RIFT is most definitely my ‘secondary’ game at the moment with me spending time in EQ2 with my Bro, as he mentioned here in his latest blog post. I have no intention of making RIFT another MMO that I dedicate my life to. It’s going to be a ‘dabbler’. Summer is coming and that means long very hot evenings by the pool and BBQ with friends and family, which of course means less face to monitor time. All of that means RIFT will remain a small part of my gaming life and I suspect, more of a way to keep in touch with my ole RL buds back in the UK. I guess my gaming hours on the game to date only add up to about 4 or 5.

EQ2. I must say I have been having a bit of a hiatus from this too. I really am only interested nowadays in loggin’ on to complete the older content with me Bro, or alternatively completing long lost smelly old quest lines from my journal. The new expansion holds nothing for me now. I am not interested in doing the instances, gathering the shards, getting the armour and kit. Nope, does not interest me one bit for some reason this expansion. I guess I should call it my nostalgic game now. Only older tiers for me at the moment.

So, what have we been doing? The last week or so we haven’t been playing too much as my Bro has been playing Portal 2. A right rip-snorter of a game I’m told. But what time we have had has been primarily been spent on the Claymore questline, with my Bro now level locked at 70. We have also been dabbling in the strat of the Swords of Destiny line [SoD], which is great because me and another friend Drow have already started that but I had hit a bit of a brick wall when it came to gathering all the little statues. Hopefully we’ll get to that point soon then Drow and I can resume from where we left off too.

I never actually realised how much content there was around level 70 that ‘needs’ to be completed if you want to truly make sure the main questlines are complete. There’s loads. From Hoolohs to SoD, from Claymore to The Tower of Four Winds, it’s all great fun in that tier. Mere and I haven’t even touched upon the Mark of the Awakened questline in Bonemire yet. Thinking of the Claymore quests it’s amazing how little I recall, but also how I have remembered some of the finer details. When we were in Sanctum, there is a part where you have to go round collecting staves from pretty much each room. I didn’t recall that part of the quest at all when I re-did it. Even to the point that earlier I had asked Mere if he knew what the staves in each room were for. Weird how some things stick in your mind and others dribble out your ears.

All in all I am really enjoying running through it all again and especially mentoring down to 70 meaning that the ‘quick run back to the bottom of Sanctum for a quick update’ really is that and not an hours long slog just to get there as it was in the old days. I recall that part of the Claymore questline. The slog in just getting from one update to the next in dungeons that are large and take a long time to get to the end (when you were level appropriate with kit that wasn’t several tiers above!) was a big part of this questline. I remember sometimes just getting one quest update a night. That’s not completing the quest, just one step of the quest. Wow, the Claymore line took AGES.

With all the business with the major questlines we have yet to complete, I think I may need to break the news to my Bro gently that there is the whole Loping Plains Freethinkers stuff too to do that we are missing at the moment, and on top of all that the level specific armour that is to be gained from the instances (Obelisk of Blight, Valdoonicans, Unrest, Mistmoore Catacombs etc). There is surely a whole lot to do.

Oh, before I go..I’m loving Game of Thrones!

Be well.