Hullo! Hope you all had a great week end!
I had a rough week, but that is what the
forecast predicts right? I mean, looking for a job in a depressed market is not
an easy task, finding a job seems to be an urban fantasy rather than a common
practice of our society. Regardless of my fruitless search for employment, this
little time off has given me time to reflect on my life and the changes that
might, or might not come. You see, I am now having time to write, to really
write. To hop down the stairs after having breakfast and write. To write after
lunch. To write after the kids are asleep and to edit until my eyes are red and
sore. And I am loving it, not only in terms of advancement (In two weeks I am
past the midway of the novel) but because it simply feels right. So I have made
a decision that a month ago I would not have even dreamed of: I will use this
time to become a full fledged writer. No more timid incursion, no more
half-hearted attempts. No more excuses. I have the time, and hopefully, I will
have the means to dedicate myself to write (while looking for a job, don’t worry,
I am not that crazy) and finish what I started. I want to publish, and publish
I will. The Indie route is jut fine with me, at least for now. The bottom line
for any product placed in any market is that if it is good, if it is a quality product,
people will buy it. That premise has ruled markets for most of our sentient
time in this planet, and the formula holds true for eBooks as well. So, I am
churning down pages, and I am getting closer to my word count goal. Suffice to say;
amidst being in utter terror of the uncertain future, I am also excited of the
prospect of the unknown. Crazy yes, but oh so good!
The process of finding a job might be a long
and tedious journey, one that I hope will end soon, one that I am actively
working on, but the time in between will be spent with me dreaming up stories
and painting the blank canvasses with my words. There is nothing better than
that.
Now onwards to what I have been doing so far
this year.
Games
In terms of games, I began playing SWTOR on
December, and quickly developed an addiction to the game. The storylines are
gorgeous, the voice acting is superb, the setting are awsome and leveling a
toon is one of the most enjoyable leveling experiences I have ever had (I am
not an uber veteran of MMO’s, WOW and Guild Wars are my only true experiences
in the genre, with a brief, demented dabble in DC Universe). Me and my friends
created a guild even before the game deployed and that turned out to be a very
good idea, because guild that were exported from the web page into live servers
were placed in servers with lively and active populations. The downer there was
that a couple of our members did not enjoy the game as much as the rest of us
did, added to the fact that we were an Empire guild and another friend decided
to roll Republic, so we never really had the quorum to explore end game content
as a group, and finding a good group to do that, via random strangers was not
in my plans. So, through a friend, the only active member of the guild other
than myself, I was led into the shark infested waters of PVP. Now, it is very
important to underline that I had never before attempted any PVP at all. In
WOW, I think in all the years I played I amassed about 1k honor points, which is
nothing. The surprise in all of this was that I really liked SWTOR’s PVP games
and maps, and I got fairly good at it. I really enjoyed it. But there was something
missing, and eventually those things that I missed outweighed the things that I
liked. The economy was rubbish and even though I had amassed a pretty nice
chunk of credits and materials, there was no challenge there. I had two level
50 toons, doing PVP dailies and nothing more. I craved for dungeons and
instances, maybe not raids, but some sort of progression that I never got. And,
being honest, I never could have gotten it. I was in the midst of trying to
save the company so I had no time to spare. Eventually I left the game about
two months ago, and to this day, I have not wanted to return and don’t plan to.
The game has some flaws that need to be
addressed. The engine is crap. It will nor run well in the best rigs and will
run great in middle of the mill rigs. It does not utilize all of your CPU
resources and will tax your graphic card to the max. (I had to change my card
in order to play the game properly). It is clunky and awkward in certain
situations, like being on the fleet in prime time and getting very low FPS and
lag. PVP zones were a nightmare as well with these types of problems. It has no
cross-server queue, not yet anyways, and even though server transfers are free
and in place now (which in truth are server mergers) fighting against the same
people, over and over again can be somewhat boring. The same could be said for finding
dungeon groups. Patch 1.3 comes out today with a group finder, rated BG’s and
other goodies. For those that stayed I hope it is a good one!
So I bought Diablo III and Skyrim to fill in the
void, but, in all honesty, with all that is going on, I have not played them
much, or at all. I have only gotten out of the first map part in Skyrim and in
Diablo I am in Act II in normal. Both games look stunning and I am sure they
are a lot of fun, but I just have not given them any time. Maybe next month.
I received and invite from Blizzard to return
to WOW for a 30-day trial, on both of my accounts, and so far I have enjoyed
being back. To me, WOW is my MMO home and it will be as long s it is running. Don’t
know if I will subscribe though, have just been doing dailies and farming mats
and that sort of stuff.
I am reading like a mad man, and have been thoroughly
enjoying my time back in Krynn.
Now, this week I will review the first book of
the Lost Chronicles Series, Dragons of Dwarven Depths.
I will not spoil the story at all, if you have already
read the Chronicles series, there is nothing to spoil (If you haven’t, don’t worry,
there is nothing to spoil either). The book centers around the time when the
Heroes of the Lance are forced to march towards Thorbardin, the ancient home of
the Dwarves, nestled deep inside the Kharolis
Mountains
This is a beautiful story, which will fill in the
blanks for to all of the fans of the series. It is a book crafted with special
care in maintaining the details of the original story, but focusing the
narrative through the eyes of the grumpy dwarf.
It is also a very well constructed story, using
the fact that the outcome of the story is already known, so they shift the
focus to the characters and the setting.
I highly recommend this book.
Next week I will review the second book of the
Trilogy.
However, I am also reading more books (like I
usually do) but will touch more on that next week as well.
Have a great week!!!
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