Bats In My Belfry

Been a long time since I posted here because I just couldn’t quite decide what it was I wanted to be doing here. I’m a bit “iffy” about letting it all hang out, so to speak and whilst I admire others who have the guts to do so, I just can’t bring myself to. Think I’ll do that on an alternate, private site.

In thinking about this, I realised I was trying for too narrow a focus. I was trying to (heh) stick to my knitting. Well, knitting is an important thing in my life but it isn’t everything. I crochet, I game, I read, I do a lot of digging around on the ‘Net for information about the various things I’m currently enthralled with. So trying to keep myself to just one subject was causing me to be unable to come up with too much to say because, after all, when you’re at my level of knitterly skills…ermm…there’s not a whole lot to say. Some folks can manage to say nothing with great wit and be wholely entertaining. I am not one of them.

And so, ecclectic is going to be the “theme”. Also want to use this as a kind of “record” of what’s going on in my life. All too often Himself and I will fuss about when something occured and if I have it recorded here, hah! I can slay his arguments with demonstrable proof.

Lately been gaming a lot. Discovered a game that I never would enjoy…Auto Assault. This is an MMORPG based in post-apocalyptic future (think Mad Max, kinda sorta) where your character is…a car. Well, except for the brief periods of time when you’re in one of the towns. Now, like many other MMOs you level and grow stronger gaining more skills and becoming tougher. Pretty much standard stuff there. So you drive about the world, blowing stuff up and doing missions. Lots of fun. I especially get a kick out of how you obtain materials to craft (usually referred to as “gathering”) in AA. By blowing things up. Pretty much everything is done by…blowing things up. Not a particularly subtle game and quite the switch from my normal elves ‘n’ trolls preference.

Sadly, the game isn’t doing too well just now. Not a large playerbase and I’m not even talking the vs. WoW type playerbase but the old “norm” (about 250k). From all I’ve been able to find out there’s about 10k subscribers scattered over 4 servers with each server having 3 races (Human, Mutant and BioMek). There are times when you will only see 4 or 5 people in-game. Sad, really. I don’t think it was ever meant to be anything other than a niche game but I also think that the behemoth that is WoW has overshadowed yet another game that could have more folk playing.

NetDevil (the developers) are endearingly intent upon their game. It is obvious that they care a great deal and that they listen. Like many other small dev. houses, though, they are developers first and not so hot on the communication aspects. Actually, they are fine in my opinion but I have a bit of an insider viewpoint having worked in a dev. house and knowing how things work (e.g. it’s usually not wise to send coders out to deal with antsy, irritated clients…trust me on this).

PlayNC (publishers) aren’t doing a terribly good job in my opinion. They had a recent shakeup which resulted in layoffs but my dissatisfaction preceded that. They handled an issue that I had rather poorly until I broke down and made a long-distance call to Texas from Germany. Once I got a human on the phone, things were resolved in short order but that was after days of trying to get help via email and being tossed from pillar to post. I wish that NetDevil could find a different publisher but with the not-so-great numbers we’re seeing, not sure who’d take ‘em on.

I also was turned onto a new hack’n’slash by one of the AA denizens (thanks Bildo, but I STILL hate you!). It’s on order and should be here soon (should’ve been here today in fact but Deutsche Post and/or Deutsche Zoll are probably cheerfully reading the manual and examining the box contents, blast their hides). I’ve played the demo and it was comfortably like all the other games of the genre (Diablo, Sacred, Dungeon Siege etc.). Graphics are spiffy, classes are numerous, looks pretty good overall. More when I’ve actually been able to play the game as the demo was unfortunately too limited in my opinion.

Summer is here and after a really hot start has toned down a bit to the 80s. Of course, humidity is high and this means I’ve got all the physical ambition of a slug. Been having trouble sleeping too. I never thought I’d look back on the days of being able to sleep for 12 hours with fondness but there you have it. I realise as we get older we need less sleep but I think 4 or 5 hours is a bit on the extreme “less” side. Then again, it’s summer and it’s hot and muggy. No way to use a/c where I sleep either due to the way the type of windows. Bah.

And finally, for today, a bit on knitting. I’m still chugging away on the afghan for Himself. It’s almost to the point of needing more yarn but the budget dictates putting that off ’til July or August. Am cranking out bazaar items (mainly dishclothes and potholder with an occasional foray into sachets) and it’s peaceful. When surfing the ‘Net, reading boards I knit away. Have gotten to the point with the actual knit stitch where I don’t even have to look at what I’m doing and usually my fingers’ll tell me that I have just munged something.

Off I go to haunt the Titan Quest boards that I like the best (Titanquest.net) and get some more knitting done, whilst trying to stave off the mold accumulation between my toes.