Gaming

Yes, I know I know.. I stopped playing SWG in November of 05, and as such, I should let go already. But truth be told, playing that game for 2½ years certainly leaves a mark. Back in the good old days, when I started out and everything was new and breathtaking, I didn't quite realize just how much this game would mean to me for the next years. But it did, and as a consequence I follow it's developement at a distance. One of the reasons I quit, was that all the things I enjoyed in the game was being shafted viciously by SOE. The game focus was being moved from the passive skills, so to speak, over to active combat related skills. Since the social part of it meant a lot to me, being a businessman in the game primarily, I was devestated to find, that this part of the game was being being removed almost entirely. 

Anyway, this leads me to the point of this post. As I said, I watch it from a distance, and I was glad to read this post recently. Apparently the peeps over at Lucasarts have finally realized that SOE is a bunch of scatterbrained game developers. I dunno who made the executive decisions at SOE back in the day. All I know is, they should be removed asap. The game started out with a massive support, and I believe that support was dwindling from month one and onwards, due to devs not paying attention. It was all talk, but no walk.

Should the news posted in this thread be true, then I might consider going back, and resubscribing. I mean, it WAS a damn fun game. And I'd enjoy getting to play again, despite the fact, that it means lots of time wasted into what basically amounts to nothing :)

Rancor asked me a few days back, if I wanted to join him, a guy from his workplace, and the guy from his workplace's friend in a game night kind of setup. Apparently they were one man short, so I was called in. I reluctantly agreed, not being a fan of doing social stuff with complete strangers. But knowing Ranc, I figure I might as well give it a shot. That, and the fact that a deaf girl would be cooking us food as well. That I could not miss. 

For a brief moment I was scared the game we would place would be pen and paper roleplaying - something I consider myself above somehow. All power to those who like to play it, but I just find it geeky to a degree with which I wouldn't be comfortable identifying myself. However, it turned out to be the game of Descent (not the computer game with the spaceship that floats around), but an actual fantasy dungeon co-op kind of boardgame. It was a somewhat decent game, taking about 5hrs per game. One guy acts as Overlord/dungeon master, whereas the rest take on the roles of different heroes. It reminded me a lot of DiabloII. All in all an amusing evening with some slightly geeky people. I think I'll whip up my bro and go find a game we could check out from time to time. There are a lot of cool games with different themes. I find I actually enjoy the concept of playing a game for 7 hours straight, as long as it is even slightly entertaining.

The deaf girl was sort of weirding me out too. She was probably a nice person, but it's just odd to have a fifth person around you all the time, that you do not in any way communicate with. She was in the kitchen messing with stuff, when we arrived. Max told us not to speak to her, as she wouldn't hear anything anyway. But it's surprisingly hard not to comment on certain things. Like, when we ate, it is polite to comment on her food, which happened to be fairly nice. But... she's deaf. Won't hear anything. So I told Max, who speaks sign language, to tell her. Or I commented to him, and he translated. But for all I know, he could be telling her I thought her food tasted like puke. Or that I was gonna kill everybody in the room as soon as we were done eating. And when she went to bed, she talked to Max briefly, and waved at the rest of us. And as a reaction, I just said "night night"... then trailed off into a indistinct mumble and a halfhearted wave. She didn't catch any of it anyway. Quite an interesting evening all in all.