There's More To Life Than Watching RMT

When I left Iceland following Fanfest back in April I didn't see much of a future writing about botting and RMT.  Team Security had done a pretty good job containing the use of bots and I figured nothing exciting or of interest would really show up the rest of the year.  I thought I'd write maybe one post a month.  Ha!  The last 2-3 months has seen a lot more posts than that.  But I don't eat, drink, and breathe this stuff.

So what am I doing in the realm of something normal?  Well, at least normal for a gamer?  Currently I'm reading Nick Yee's new book, The Proteus Paradox: How Online Games and Virtual Worlds Change Us -- And How They Don't.  People may remember Dr. Yee from The Daedalus Project, which involved interviewing gamers.  When I heard the book was out, I downloaded it onto my Kindle.  I've only read the first couple of chapters but I plan on finishing it riding to and from work on the train.  He has included the results of The Daedalus Project in the book and I look forward to reading the results of his work.

Over the weekend I also decided to download Star Wars: The Old Republic again.  I had problems the first time I played, but between having a better computer and the game going free-to-play I figured maybe I'd give it another try.  But when I went to create a character I couldn't find a class I wanted to play.  I have the Darth Bane trilogy by Drew Karpyshyn on my bookshelf.  Maybe reading that will get me in the mood.

One game I don't have to get in the mood to play is Tropico 4.  The opening music just makes me feel happy and ready to play.  I started playing the game before Fanfest but only got to the 11th scenario in the campaign before EVE took over my free time for a few months.  I'm back to playing once a week and am now on the fourth game of the campaign.  I really want to finish this time.

One game I'm surprised I'm playing is City of Steam: Arkadia.  I read Blagpuss' initial impressions on the relaunch and then just had to take a look for myself.  I took a Riven gunner up to level 7 and an Ostenian channeler up to level 6.  The channeler is the healer class in CoS and I think I may stick with that.  One thing I noticed is that I had a choice of three armors to choose from and I don't think a correct choice really exists.  I'll have to play around more.  Yes, I had fun running through the tutorial.  Just don't expect help from a wiki.

Of course, I also played some EVE Online.  I am now up to 285,000 loyalty points with the Sisters of EVE.  My current goal is to buy 2 blueprint copies each for the Astero and Stratios plus 4 Sisters launchers and 4 sets of probes before going back to Minmatar space.  So I'm 80,000 LP away from my goal.  If I just sit down for an hour or so a night I can knock that out by Sunday.

So I have some things I might write about in the future that aren't related to RMT.  I still have one more RMT-related post I've tried to write for a few months now, but with any luck I can get back to some regular gaming posts.  Unless, of course, someone nukes some bots or illicit RMT sites.  That I'll gladly write about.

First Thoughts On Tropico 4

EA and Maxis changed my gaming habits with the release of the latest SimCity.  I've stopped playing Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World and am now splitting my time between Eve Online and Tropico 4.  Tropico 4?  That's right.  My appetite was whetted for a city simulator but with all the issues going on with SimCity (I'm talking about the ones beyond server capacity and always-online DRM) I started looking around for an alternative.

I bought Tropico 4 on a 75% off Steam sale and have had a blast playing a Caribbean dictator.  So far I am playing through the campaign game, which is really helping me understand all of the things I can do in the game.  I look at the campaign game as what the Eve New Player Experience aspires to be.  I'm going through, seeing all the play styles (tourism, industrial, etc) and at the end of the 20 scenarios I'll stop having the game hold my hand and enter the sandbox to see what I can build from scratch.

After playing through the tutorial and first four scenarios I can say a few things about the game.  Just remember this is not a review as I've only spent 10-12 hours playing so far.  The first is that I love the music.  It is very catchy and sets an upbeat mood.  Maybe that's why I'm playing so much.  Next the game is pretty, although I don't really pay attention too much as I'm still learning how to play.  The same with following the individual residents of Tropico around.  One of these days I'll slow down and start following the Tropicans around.  From what I've heard of SimCity Tropico 4 does a much better job with pathing issues and citizen movement than the newer game. 

I also enjoy the political aspects of the game and trying to keep the factions happy.  So far I've only had one uprising but my army was able to ruthlessly crush the rebels.  And trying to balance the educational system so I have a good mix of workers to perform all the jobs is really interesting.  In some scenarios I actually had to import uneducated workers because my native Tropicans wouldn't demean themselves by taking jobs traditionally done by lower skilled workers.  Sorry, but not everyone gets to go to college anymore.

With Tropico 4 I can see myself playing for hours and hours to come.  I might even write about the game again once I get through the campaign and build a few islands.