Games and books

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.

Reading

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. In the Chronicles Trilogy, authors Weis and Hickman told the tale of the Hammer of Kharas when the search and discovery of it had already taken place. This is the actual story of how it was found and by whom. The story allows us to know one of the main characters of the whole series, Flint Fireforge, a Neidar (Hill Dwarf) whose ancestors had been locked out of Thorbardin. We can see the turmoil surrounding his return to their ancestral home as well as the ideological troubles that fester in Krynn.

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!!!

Renewal

Oh boy, it has been a while since my last update, two months have gone by, and to say that nothing has happened would be untrue, yet it feels like that to me.

Many things have passed me by, the holiday season, the ungrateful return to labor, the persistent writing block that attacks me every January and the blossoming of my characters in SWTOR. Also, I have not found a book to read, so I am reading 8 or nine books at the same time...a bit chaotic, the same way my head feels right now.

I will elaborate.

My wife and I love the holiday season, we love buying the Christmas tree and setting up the whole house to look like Santa's workshop. Our two kids love it also. So it was at this time, that the Beta weekends of SWTOR finally arrived, and with it a void had filled in my life but at the same time, the need to play an MMO had matured into a candid desire to just unwind from the inevitable horrors from work. The holiday season and SWTOR, who could ask for more?

December was not a good month at work, we did not have the amount work we needed to have, but it was a great month in terms of new beginnings, new clients, new and renewed hope. The last six months took a toll on me; I am tired of being tired, of being worried. But with the burden of potential doom, clarity came along, a frantic oasis of stillness that mitigated the overpowering sensation of loss. I could now breathe easier, I could sleep and rest and I could play and write and read.

Not so fast.

The playing part has been great. I have not felt the urge to play at all hours, at all times. The addiction is under control, so far. I am enjoying the game and I am taking my time to enjoy it...I will expand more on the game later. However, the writing and reading part is not going well. It seems that when I make a New Year's resolution, my real aim is to disregard anything associated with it. Thus, the elusive muse is still hiding, somewhere, inside my head and I can't seem to lure her out to the pages, where she belongs. The short story is coming along nicely, but slowly, the two novels want to burst out of me now, but when I work on them they retreat to their shadowy hiding place. I will finish the story soon, but I am afraid to set a due date, procrastination is an art form and I can perform it flawlessly. Such is life.

The writing conundrum has wrought havoc to my reading habits, and I have been unable to choose which book to read next, so I have been jumping from book to book to no avail. I am a creature of habit, I need uniformity, and I have not been able to get it so far this year, although February should be better.

The game is very good; it is a mesh of everything that is good from every MMO that came out before it, mixed with the brilliant Bioware story weaving and the immortal Star Wars series. I initially wanted to level up an Imperial Agent Sniper, and I am doing just so, but at a slower pace. The Agent is level 33, the Bounty Hunter is level 48, ready to hit 50 this week. Our guild, Soul Harvesters, has only one 50 so far, but that will change in the upcoming weeks.

So, I will try to write more, try to eat less (yes, the diet was one of many of my resolutions, along with not smoking, that so far, I have been able to maintain), try to sleep more, try to read a single book, or no more that three at a time, and be a better dad, husband, son, brother, writer, Guild Master and last, but not least, a better person.

See you all next week.