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The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by vaporlock.

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>> ^Enzoblue:

Seems funny to me that no one mentions Everquest any more. Now it's like WoW is the only mmo that ever was. Everquest was the first online game to have an economy larger than some 3rd world nations. I played it for 3 yrs or so and I still miss it sometimes.


I'm right with you there! The economy was much more player driven in EQ, without limits/restrictions put in place such as Bind on Equip/Soulbound armor (the most epic of the epic stuff was indeed non-tradable). Once you were done with a piece of armor you could easily resell it to another player. It was really fun to haggle with people/search for deals and just upright barter.

The whole game in general was just more player driven, and less rigorously structured around soloing: especially the PvP servers, with the pro-PK vs the pacifistic non-PK guilds, waging war and providing either their protection to newbs from highway thieves or pillaging certain zones of all players and looting the spoils. Not to mention all the social intrigue of player alliances, betrayals, guild spies and secret plots to overthrow/assassinate and usurp leaders, bounty hunters, and tests of loyalty to your compatriots. Such a dynamic has never existed in any other MMO, to my knowledge. It was a hard, unforgiving place where loyalty was worth more than any piece of gear.

If you're interested in revisiting Classic EQ PVE progression for FREE (Kunark is being beta'd atm and then Velious) I'd check out Project 1999, the finest private server available for purely Classic EQ, no custom modifications just the real deal. I have a level 37 Darkelf necro and have been playing fairly regularly, the server population is pretty good and everyone is friendly, helpful towards newbs as well. You wouldn't believe how happy I was when I discovered P99 and ended up seeing a few people I remember from my dear old Quellious server. It really is everything one could ask for considering Live EQ1, at this state, is an abomination. Well, there it is. Try it out, I'll help you get started right! PM me if you decide to come back to Norrath, this also goes for anyone else on the Sift who would try it/return. It really surprised me how harsh they start you out in that game after years of WoW, one needs all the help they can get.

Great WoW trailer as well, and I love Blizzard, but I just can't get back into the game despite my attempts to literally will myself into playing. I really feel as if I'm just being touted around, top-down style, by Blizzard to do this dungeon or that. My choices feel like they have no real impact on the game world, my actions rarely end up having actual consequences, besides maybe a momentary invconvenience. It's just too damned safe to be exciting! Raids are easy mode, though from all the impressions of Cataclysm is seems like they're trying to return to form of having the content be much more stimulating, brain intensive. If raiding becomes more like pre-BC/BC then I will return. I will most definitely at the very least try Cataclysm and see what happens.

They hired PK Winsome!

http://politics.videosift.com/video/Colbert-P-K-Winsome-Offers-to-Help-Tea-Party-With-Racism

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002538-503544.html

I'm not sure how many former Ultima Online (UO) players are in the audience (and will know what I mean), but that game and the experiences I had with it set the bar too high for any subsequent ORPG to reach (imho).

By way of background, UO was player-killer (PK) friendly everywhere except for cities (you could still kill people in cities, but the guards would come after you) and if you died, your corpse (along with everything you were carrying (which could have taken you months to acquire)) sat on the ground ripe for the picking until you could run back to it in ghost form from the nearest rez point. What that resulted in was bringing real emotion into the game with you. Running for your life from a guy intent on ending it actually felt a bit like running for your life. It was great!

I’ll never forget the time I happened across a ship that had been left unlocked, right next to the keep belonging to the Mercs (the most notorious PK guild on my shard). After waiting in the woods for a good 20 minutes (mainly to build up my nerve), I ran onto the boat, grabbed a ton of loot from the hold (these guys were loaded) and took off running, right as at least a dozen black-robed plate-armored Mercs came pouring out of their castle. The ensuing pursuit, not to mention the potential haul (I’d managed to grab more high-end gear and stuff than I would have earned by myself in 6 months of playing) made for one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve ever had with a video game.

Newer ORPGs certainly have a lot going for them, but I don’t think they’ll ever give me butterflies in my stomach again.

Well... When I proposed to my sugar-pie, honey-bunch I bought two bottles of champagne. One was $90 and it was supposedly their best champagne. The other was I think $45 on sale http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_z0MJ0ofU-Pk/R3pIrB92crI/AAAAAAAAAsg/TfKAbcEjMN4/s320/duval+leroy+brut+champagne+nv+002.jpg, Duval-Leroy. I can't recommend it more. It was excellent.

OMG, I HATE the UFO Hunters. They are SUCH jackasses. Also, I totally agree about the "History" channel. I realize you need to fight for ratings, but really, what they are doing is just whoring their once good name out in the name of ratings.

I LOVE the second clip of the reactions, especially when the UFO Hunters show snidely says that the local cops were wrong in saying that it was just some balloons and flairs (exactly what it was). Then they go on to the statement that the great UFO Hunters "prove that explanation is implausible."

God, those idiots need to be slapped. I'm hardly a scientist and I know their supposed "scientific method" is hooey. They might as well be running around with PK meters.

1. I work for a video game company.
2. I'm pretty good at video games, but I don't play fighters.
3. Our "break" room has nothing but fighters: Street Fighter 3, 4 and Marvel Versus Capcom. We have a Wii, but it's always occupied with people playing Smash Bros. Brawl.
4. I once lived on someone's couch and went by the name Guitar Matt, because my name is Matt and all I did was play Guitar Hero.
5. I'll probably work at the same company for the rest of my life.
6. I skate pools.
7. I did not choose my handle because of skateboarding.
8. I just started doing indoor rock climbing, because I'm tired of weight lifting. Ugh.
9. I spend a lot of time with PK Cali (Parkour California) and have met David Belle. On weekends you may see me crawling, climbing and jumping around UCLA, Fullterton college, or various California parks with old walls.
10. My body is always sore.
11. I probably have ADD.
12. Despite probably having ADD, I read a lot of books.
13. I cannot read one book for more than an hour, so I'm usually reading 5 to 10 books at a time.
14. I can't bring myself to study for anything. As such, I'll never finish college.
15. I did a lot of extracurricular activites in high school, despite having a C average -- or maybe that's why I had a C average.
16. Doing drugs has been the only way for me to concentrate. Unfortunatley it does not help me study. (I did not do drugs in high school, nor in college.)
17. I was in academic decathelon in high school because they needed a smart person with a C average. I won a lot of medals.
18. I was in drama and have written, directed and starred in several plays.
19. I was a film major until I realized the reality of filmmaking, namely the spending and aquiring of large sums of money.
20. The man who wrote and directed The Stewardesses, Allan Silliphant, is a family friend. His brother was Sterling Silliphant, who is best known for winning an Academy Award for In the Heat of the Night and being close friends with Bruce Lee.
21. Like my father, I am a jack of all trades and a master of none.
22. My grandfather was in the Navy and worked for General Dynamics during the Cold War, investigating missle silos. He told my father freaky stories about nuclear isotopes and communists hiding in closests. My uncle described my grandfather as being to the right of Archie Bunker. All in the Family was his favortie show, he said nigger a lot, owned a German Shepard and had several guns nearby at all times. He was also an atheist. Oddly enough, it was his atheism that my parents were scared of the most. "Grandpa's going to hell, son." If there's a hell, he'll probably be there, but not for being an atheist.
23. I'm not quite white trash, but I wouldn't be entirely uncomfortable living off the land in a shack full of automatic weapons, distrustful of the government, waiting for the revolution.
24. I'm neither religious nor rascist, nor am I an atheist. I just don't care.
25. I'm writing a book. My screenplays have never sold. One of my professors suggested I write a book, then write the screenplay for the book. Only problem is, I can't concentrate (which is why I wrote screenplays to begin with) so it's taking me forever. Ugh.
26. I have been drawing since conception and have been doing life drawing off and on for 8 years, but I don't see myself pursuing a career in it. It's just for fun -- which pretty much sums up my life.

Agree with Legacy. Soccer is my favorite sport to play, but it's such a terrible sport at a competitive level because of poor officiating, arbitrary off-sides calls, lack of instant replay, diving, games decided by the refs through PKs, etc...

And for whatever reason, women's soccer seems to have less of those things, so I actually enjoy watching it much more.

I see what you mean - I totally used the classic Civ 2 sense of PK.

In reply to this comment by calvados:
Krupes, I'm not sold on the peacekeeper tag, at least not for the Afghanistan mission at this stage. But hey, it is your post.

>> ^Irishman:
"America's CIA Versus Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf"
http://www.daily.pk/politics/3
7-politicalnews/6298-americas-cia-versus-pakistans-president-pervez-musharraf.html
"Musharraf: CIA has paid Pakistan millions"
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/09/musharraf_cia_h.html



And if Musharraf is in the CIA's pocket, then explain where A Q Khan is today? Oh yeah, he's in Pakistan under 'house arrest', and the CIA is not allowed to speak with him. My only point though is that global politics aren't nearly so 'simple'.

"America's CIA Versus Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf"
http://www.daily.pk/politics/37-politicalnews/6298-americas-cia-versus-pakistans-president-pervez-musharraf.html

"Musharraf: CIA has paid Pakistan millions"
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/09/musharraf_cia_h.html

The URL to go to to "take free surveys to earn minutes" is phonelagoon.com. YT says no longer available, but it is really that it has become unembeddable. Regardless, I think this is a self link, whether or not the video is dead to us. You can still see the video, which is straight self promotion, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_WVBF6-Pks

*discuss