"Differential Diagnosis"

I had always wondered what it was that motivated people to dress up as their favorite fictional characters and attend these large conventions with others in costume. I never quite understood it until 19 May, 2005.

The release of the final Star Wars movie was an event every Star Wars fan around the globe was waiting for. Despite what fans may have thought of Episodes I & II, we were excited! ? My friends and I had bought our tickets well in advanced and were prepared to make this one midnight screening we wouldn’t soon forget!

Hours before the movie premier, a large crowd had already gathered and the line extended well beyond the indoor lobby into the hot afternoon sun outside. You could feel the excitement and the energy radiating from the crowd as the anticipation for this epic movie heightened and its climax grew nearer. More »

As some of you already know, today is in fact my birthday.  I’ve been working on this particular post for a while now, not truly knowing when or if I should post it. This is one of my longer posts, but it explores who I was years ago, how I became who I am today, and what I’m doing to improve my social standing in life. It was heavily inspired by Floreta???s post ???On Friendship.???

I have included several links to previous blog entries that delve deeper into the subject matter written about in that particular section. For the full experience, I recommended you check out the blog posts linked if you haven???t already. Enjoy!

-Omega

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The initial introduction to my sister may have been a slight inconvenience for me due to the disruption of my beauty sleep, more on that here.  However, nothing could have prepared me for the sudden neglect I was about to experience upon her moving in.

Before she came along, my mom & dad would both eagerly spend quality time with me.  My mother would constantly read me books in Spanish, while my dad would opt for playing "Dukes of Hazard" with me and my toy cars.  As soon as my sister came into the picture, my books went unread, and them "Duke boys" suddenly found themselves without a "Boss Hoss/Sheriff" to chase them around Hazard County! What a tragedy…

Like most parents, mine turned to the TV, VHS specifically, to help them keep me entertained while they took care of my sister.  Our VHS library kept expanding until one day I came across a life changing movie.

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An MMO for a more "mature" audience, at least that’s the mantra Funcom utters about their recently launched "Age of Conan". What exactly makes this a "mature" game? The "M for Mature" ESRB rating, the fabulously gory fatalities, or is it the promise of in game nudity? After spending much of my free time this past weekend playing through "Age of Conan," I’m still not sure what exactly makes this game so much more mature than your other MMOs other than the potential for topless women and the occasional vulgar language and brutal fatality.

Upon initial impression "Age of Conan" is a beautiful looking MMO, no doubt about it! The promise of future support of DX10 effects via a "soon to be released" patch will only benefit an already gorgeous MMO. In an era where most MMO worlds look ages behind our current gen graphics, "Age of Conan" is an MMO graphical jewel.

The character creation screen is pretty robust for an MMO allowing you to make various small and large tweaks to your appearance, including several tattoos and scars. Of the several cultures to choose from, each has its own interpretation of the various basic fantasy RPG classes. I created a male Tempest of Set, which is the "spellcaster/healer/priest" class of the Stygian culture.

Every newly created character arrives in the city/state of Tortage after a devastating storm wipes out the slave ship you were serving on. It is here where you will learn to play the game and your class properly for the next 20 levels, give or take. Tortage is your typical "n00b" zone with your basic fetch quests, kill x number of this, and solve that mystery.

What really sets Tortage apart from other MMO starter cities is the well done voice over work for all your quest giving NPCs. Reading blocks of text explaining why sorcerer Y needs X number of frog tongues is not really my idea of "immersion." I demand voice overs for all MMO quest NPCs from this point forward!

Another very unique feature of Tortage is the ability to carry out story specific quests in your own private instance of the world (aka single player mode). The entire single player mode in Tortage takes place at night, while the multiplayer mode takes place during the day. This MMO single player mode for important story quests ensures that you will experience the story on your own without any griefers, or long periods of waiting for the quest item/enemy to respawn. This is an ideal way for my "lone wolf" styled play habits of most MMOs I play, while still maintaining the option to "group" and take on more "epic" challenges. Who really needs to group up to run fetch quests anyway?

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