I didn’t think it was possible to polish Call of Duty 4 and make it that much better than it already was, but Modern Warfare 2 has completely proven me wrong.  This is the best FPS game of its kind that I have ever played and I am so glad that I didn’t give in to my doubts.  I can’t put it down!  I’m writing this alt-tabbed and I’m already wanting to jump back in and play more.  I want to hit a few key points really quick though that I think you all need to read:

9v9 is perfect – I’m one of those CoD4 players who always went for the 12v12 or, ideally, 16v16 servers.  For some reason though, this 9v9 feels like I never have a lack of people to shoot at and the action is going on all around me.  If I didn’t know it was 9v9 I would have absolutely no complaints about the size.  It works, and it works well.  There is absolutely no reason for anyone to complain here when it comes to gameplay and the affect 9v9 has on how the game plays out.  However, I still truly regret the lack of dedicated server community and the lack of community that clans will have as a presence playing together.  There is no excuse for that.   (Edited for clarity)

Maps – I think I’ve played almost all of them.  They’re really well crafted.  Lots of different atmospheres and scenery used.  Plenty of sniping spots and ways to sneak around.  I’m still learning them, but my favorite at this point as the Airport.

Graphics and Performance – Simply stunning.  Gorgeous graphics and I mean gorgeous.  Best part is that it runs on maxed out settings without a single hiccup.  It’s smoother than CoD4!!  I could not believe how smooth and responsive it was the first few rounds I played.

Lag / Hosting without Dedicated servers – What lag?  Yeah, it’s all hosted on other people but I have had full green on almost every round (one round I had some yellow but it went away).  Aside from the lack of permanence that I’ll probably feel later on, there is no difference between these and dedicated servers.  I thought this would be the hardest pill to swallow but truly could not even give it any thought.  When a host disconnects it switches quickly to another one after testing to find the best.  That transition has never failed me and it’s always resulted in stable play.  Yeah, dedicated servers would rock.  But, this works.

Gameplay – Refreshingly polished.  Like I said before, I didn’t think it was possible to polish it up any more but they did.  The guns are really well done.  There’s a sense of quality when you shoot and each of the weapons that I’ve played with (I’m level 12) have proven to be unique and a lot more diverse feeling than CoD4.  The perks are taking a little getting used to since they’ve been changed, but I like how some of the ones from CoD4 have been consolidated and/or moved around.

The titles and emblem unlocking is not a bad addition either.  It’s nothing more than a way to customize your badge when you kill someone, but it’s a fun little addition.  The customization of kill streak perks and death perks added, like the turret and the stealth bomber plane, are cool too.

Steam integration – I like it.  Playing with buddies and joining games together works seamlessly.  Bartlebe and I got into a party and into a game in a matter of seconds.  In-game it shows your buddies as blue arrows with blue names so finding them is easier.

No leaning – This is the only complaint that I have about the game right now.  I can’t lean!  Q is now ‘throw secondary’ grenade and E is ‘melee’.   Took some getting used too… flash banged myself about three dozen times before it finally sank in.  It makes being a sniper a tad harder, but it makes killing them a tad easier.  There are trade offs, but in the end I would like to have my leaning.

Those of you who canceled your orders on principle or for whatever reason were at one point wanting to get the game but then let yourself be dissuaded, you’re missing out.   The fun outweighs the regretful shortcomings.  Yeah, the price is high, but we’ve been paying less than console gamers for a really long time not to mention how many of you willingly fork over an addition $5, $10, $20, or $80 for a collector’s edition of almost any other game that comes out.

Get it. It’s fun.  Let’s play!

Note: Graev and I are recording video of the 360 version and the PC version so that we can do a comparison video for you.

More impressions to come as I level up, get more guns/perks, and play the game.

In a design discussion blog entry, Orion of Turbine addressed the issue that they’re facing and presented a possible solution; one that I find to be a very good solution on paper.

“We have a problem. We have this glorious epic storyline that takes you throughout Eriador but requires you, at various points, to find others to assist you. This is all well and good when you are a newer game and the majority of the populace is roughly the same level and progressing at roughly the same rate. However, when you are 2+ years removed from launch and looking at the trends and notice that more and more players are abandoning that rich – focal – part of your narrative game, then there is a problem.

First and foremost we are a game driven by story. Your place in that story. How you deal with elements of that story and interact with the story. Our epic is clearly one of the most important facets of our game. Now, few people are continuing on with it post Volume 1, Book 1 and this means that we have a problem that needs a solution.

The Solution? Moments of inspiration. These are the moments when your character digs deep into their reserves and finds something more. Whether this is drawn from the people around them or from their own sense of purpose these are the moments inspiring greatness.

Starting with Volume 1, Book 2 – completely revamped and restructured in the upcoming release on December 1st, the Epic Book series will be getting treatment to identify key moments in your character’s life. These types of moments will allow your character to don the mantle or heroism and fight against far greater odds.

Inspired Greatness does the following for a player:

Increases morale and power significantly, increases in-combat and out-of-combat morale and power regeneration, increases damage output from melee, ranged and tactical sources, increases healing output for all healing skills.” [Source]

Having played through all of Eriador, I know that I would absolutely never play through it all over again in its current state.  Those story quests were hard enough when the majority of the populous was doing them.  Trying to do them now sounds like my worst nightmare come true!  However, if I were able to start a new character (even an alt) and be able to have these “moments of inspiration” and complete them by myself then suddenly it doesn’t seem like an insurmountable hurdle.

In addition to simply making your character stronger, I think that giving you some super strong NPC’s to fellowship with during these Epic Book quests would be a good idea to offset some of that “I’m all alone pwning Angmar” breaking your immersion/belief in the story/setting.

This sounds much better than giving a huge exp bonuses or simply turning a blind eye and expecting people to skip the content.  More and more games are going to start seeing these problems as many of the themepark games of this age begin to age.   Solutions like this will hopefully allow them to survive and continue to thrive as LOTRO and WoW have both illustrated.   This raises the question though: Would we even have a problem to begin with if the games were designed differently from the start?  It’s an interesting thought to turn over a few times in your head.  What are alternative methods for designing content so that it does not face this problem?  Ideally the solutions would not involve devolving content so that it is all solo-able from the start.   Worth thinking about — and in the case of developers, it’s worth thinking about before your game becomes several years old.

I like the idea a lot.  Kudos Turbine!

I can’t resist.  I’ve been playing CoD4 since the day it released back in 2007 and never once regretted the purchase.  It’s been my go-to game and a game that I can pick up at any time and enjoy.  I’m not going to pretend that it’s all going to be okay though.  Here’s a list of things we know are going to change the game:

- No dedicated servers.  Players must host games (this might be where IWnet comes in) and there will be very little customization (if any) available for rule sets.  People are speculating that this will lead to lag.  I believe it will lead to a more superficial “get in, get out” experience without the sense of permanence that a dedicated server brought.  I won’t speculate on lag.

- Limited to 9v9 matches.  Ouch.  This one is pretty big for those of us that played on 24+ servers.  Maybe it will be more tactical?

- Steam is required.  This is where the boycotting from digital distributors comes in.  Direct 2 Drive has called Steam a “Trojan Horse” and refuses to sell the game on the grounds that they feel it violates some quality code of theirs.  Just shut up and make millions, would you please?  I bet IGN (who owns D2D) will further prove their ‘expert reviewing skills’ when they actually break their 7-9 scale  to give the PC version a 2.

- Steam is required, but those who buy from Steam won’t be able to get the game until Thursday.  Lolwhat?!

- Nukes are added for 25 kill streaks.  They end the match.  It’s the Golden Snitch!

There are probably more ‘WTF’ points to add to the list, but that’s enough.  I know many of you have already said that your preorders are canceled but you still want to know if the game is any good.  Since I can’t resist the urge to get the game, I’ll be sure to let you know all about it.  Maybe the list above will turn out to be no big deal when I actually play the game.  You’ll actually be getting a double whammy here at K&G since Graev is picking up the Xbox360 version.  We’ll be able to compare notes.

I’ll be going to Gamestop (Ugh) tomorrow at 9pm PST for their midnight release (to make sure that I get my copy and they don’t sell it) since I don’t plan on waiting until Thursday for Steam.  I’ll keep you guys updated!

I have a few points of criticism:

1.  Only one town with a single NPC providing the story.  The rest of the NPC’s seem more interested in just giving you a reason to get a reward than to provide you with much in the way of meaningful story.

2.  One dungeon feels weird even though it’s only an illusion.  I’m just going deeper and deeper in the same mine!  Although I’m experiencing several different ecosystems and entirely different looking tile-sets, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m just descending down one big hole.  Can’t deny that the game is gorgeous though.

3.  The drop rate is a little high.  Every mob that I kill explodes with loot.  I like loot.  In fact, I love loot.  However, it’s just a tad too high.  I spend more time opening my inventory, which fills up every 30 seconds, to identify and fill up my dog’s inventory to send him back to sell than I do killing.  I already avoid all white loot and focus on magic items and I’m about to start focusing only on the rare stuff.

Great game that’s lots of fun, despite my criticism.  I love the music, graphics, mobs, atmospheres, diversity of itemization appearance, maps you can buy to different locations (Which give the illusion of different dungeons), pet and pet mechanics, and just how much fun I have logging in and clearing several levels of a dungeon when I have an hour to spend gaming.

Today’s patch was really encouraging since it allows players to change the difficulty after they’ve already started.  There were also several improvements to the performance of the game as well as additional graphics customization.  Significant update.

Multiplayer would be a real blast and I hope that they take the opportunity to expand the scope of the game to include multiple towns and a deeper story.  I can see this being a game that releases episodic content and charges $5 for it.

Definitely worth $20!

My most recent regret is with Lord of the Rings Online.  Why did I stop playing LOTRO?  I can tell you exactly why .  In fact I have written about it several times.  I stopped playing because I ran out of content.  I absolutely loved the game and had multiple characters at the max level without ever taking a break from the game.  Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve accomplished something like that?  Years!  LOTRO was my last MMO that I really got into and spent a lot of time in.  I maxed crafting to the point of making steady profits.  I killed the hardest raid bosses in the game on farm status.  I had gear that was competitive to the best stuff available.  I had done the rep grinds they added.  I was even on the private beta test server — not the public one, but the private one that got to see content months in advance.  I simply ran out of stuff to do and as much as I liked the game I was lured away by the “next big thing” because it was new and I couldn’t see paying to log into a game that was very much about moving forward when there was nowhere to go (a reason why having a lot of social gameplay is important).

In hindsight I regret that decision.  I’ve watched Mines of Moria release, new chapters, and now Mirkwood which is a digital expansion and the conclusion to the MoM, and I can’t help but wish I had kept up with things to experience the content.  LOTRO’s PvE was never anything groundbreaking and the PvP was always “meh”, but they had a way of telling a story in the game and making you enjoy the content.  A big part of what made the game special was indeed the intellectual property (same with SWG) but that’s a topic for another day.  Bottom line is that I wish I had kept up with things to see Mirkwood.  I’ll continue to regret my decision every time a new expansion comes out. I should have just stuck with it a little bit longer.

This latest video really gets me.

I think what will hit me the hardest is when Rohan and Minis Tirith are implemented. Amazing property Turbine has at their disposal. Those of you still playing, I hope you guys enjoy the content! Let me know all about it and please feel free to share your experiences with Mines of Moria and content that has released since. I’d like to at least know what I missed.

Combat

Traditional is always better.  Age of Conan, Darkfall, and even Fallen Earth’s (even though FE’s isn’t terrible) combat illustrates that nothing is better than traditional.  For those having a hard time understanding, just think about the basics of WoW’s combat system or EQ’s combat system — that is traditional.

Progression

Entertainer Skill Tree

Let’s do away with levels for progression and go to a  skills system similar to what SWG used (pre-NGE because I have no idea what happened after), but not one like we’ve seen fail multiple times in the past few years.  Borrowing heavily from SWG’s system, skills would be arranged in a tiered tree system.  The system would be experience based meaning that if you used a sword you would earn sword experience.  This experience could then be spent on sword tree skills that you can purchase and move up the tree.  The tree system would be tiered with multiple paths to progress, ultimately leading to a “Master” tier at the top if you go up each branch.  Obtaining the next rank in the tree allows you to unlock not only new abilities but improvements to the overall use of your skill or other bonuses.

A Master Swordsman in this Fantasy Sandbox would have knowledge in the use of 1h sword, 2h swords, and other sword-like skills with bonuses and attributes matching a Sword user.  Such a skill tree would look similar to the Entertainer skill tree from SWG (shown on the right) where the Entertainer not only knows how to dance and play instruments, but also has become a specialist in entertaining (bonuses) and hair styles.  Imagine a Sword user increasing their finesse or something.  Similar trees would exist for Magic (offensive, healing, etc) and plenty of others.

There would be a limit to the number of skill points you can allocate.  Perhaps you can only “Master” 1 entire tree, but you could have points to go up a single branch in another.  This would allow you to be a Sword Master, but also be proficient in shields, or perhaps some healing magic, or buffs.  If you wanted to be a “tank” you could “Master” whatever tree focuses on the defense and go up the 1h sword branch in Swords (Or maces, etc).

Armor use would be incorporated into trees.  Anyone can wear simple cloth but to use higher level armors without immense penalties you will want to go up the branches in your tree that increase armor use.  The major defense tree may have a branch dedicated to alleviating the penalties of heavy plate, whereas the magic trees would have a branch dedicated to giving the player bonuses that make up for some of the shortcomings of just using cloth.  Regardless, armor will be important but not the end-all-be-all.  You may come across a Master Swordsman who kicks the crap out of you and all he’s wearing is Cloth even though you’re in plate.

Unlearning skills would be as simple as pressing a button.  However, you would lose all exp gained and spent on that skill.  This would allow people to feel like they have some ability to experiment and change what they want to be without always being stuck in one play-style, but at the same time give the community a sense of permanence where people aren’t masters of everything or bouncing around.  Investing time to earn “Sword Experience” enough to earn the top skill in a branch would be something you won’t easily want to abandon because you worked hard for it.

Crafting

Artisan Skill Tree

The beauty of the crafting system is that it provides literally everything.  The entire economy is player driven and based upon a principle of constant need.   To craft a sword requires resources.  These resources come from areas of the world/region that are particularly rich in the resource.  However, these resources would shift on a weekly basis making them harder to come by — again, very much borrowed from SWG.  Where the system would differ from SWG is in the automatic gathering.  SWG used harvesters that you placed and paid upkeep on that would extract the resources.  You simply come back and collect.  That doesn’t fit into a fantasy game too well, unless we stretch deeply into “magic”.  I would prefer the manual collection of resources in this setting.

Resources would vary in quality.  I might find Iron from a mine/rock in one location but it might only be of a .785 purity.  Testing the resources in another location, perhaps 20 feet or even a mile in another direction could yield a richer purity at .984 which means I have found a much higher quality.  The higher the quality, the better my ability to experiment with it during the creation process.  Crafting something would not only depend on the richness of the resources, but allocating experiment points and then succeeding when experimenting.  This introduces an enormous level of customization to the crafting process and diversifies the items crafted to the point that someone could have an Iron sword made by me and one by Bob and they could be extremely different.  We both might have even used the .984 Iron but based on how I experimented my Iron swords might have more durability and his might do more damage, or my Swords might offer you some other bonus (let’s not even get into how freaking amazing this crafting system gets when we introduce magic to the equation).

Crafting would not be on a single item basis either.  Bringing back Iron will take time and experimenting to find that perfect sword you want to make will take skill, effort, time, and more.  Each individual piece of the sword (hilt, blade, etc) can be experimented on thus increasing customization exponentially.  When it’s all put together and you have the template for the perfect sword it will take a long time to craft.   Why not create 3, 4, or 5 swords at once?  I see no reason why you can’t do this.   In SWG we could create crates of pistols sharing the same stats and the market flourished.

Gear would break and be gone forever.  Yes, it is necessary for the economy.  You’ll get a LOT of use out of your things though and this will create a necessity for full-time crafters.  As you use your gear it will degrade and you’ll lose condition.  As you repair your gear it will lose durability.  A weapon may have 100 condition but 10 durability.   Eventually it’s going to break.

Player Housing/Cities/Shops

This is key.  Players need the ability to set up their own buildings in the world freely (with the help of a player who is a construction crafter).  Not only can players have houses, but they can convert these into shops that have NPC’s in them.  Players can decorate their houses like this industry hasn’t seen in years with elaborate levels of customization (there’s a crafter for that).  Cities can develop around this concept with players coming together and electing a mayor.  Player cities won’t be like Darkfall cities that are all pre-determined.  They can actually be placed freely and the Mayor can place buildings and choose which ones go where, etc.

If I’m a blacksmith I may want to have a forge near my house/shop or in the player city that I hang out in.  I can have one made so that I do not have to travel to town all the time.  If I’m an entertainer (Yes, I want Bards to come back and the social aspects of the Taverns to live again) then I’ll want a Tavern built.  Imagine a player building his own Tavern off in the wilderness, perhaps near a popular hunting spot, and it turning into a thriving location for commerce, entertainment, and social gathering.  Not only has this barkeep succeeded in his accomplishment but he has created a place for someone who makes drinks (yes, with bonuses for players) to sell goods, entertainers to hang out and receive tips, and players who love combat to have a place to come back and receive buffs (from watching dancers, etc) and stock up on supplies (again, provided by actual players).

Dungeons

These would be a mix of open-world and instanced.  I’m not entirely against the idea of removing instances because they do have their place, however I do not see them as something that should be overused to compensate for a lack of quality open-world content.  You won’t find amazing loot dropping from your average dungeon (in some, but not all, and never better than what can be crafted), but you will find ingredients in these dungeons that you can bring to a crafter that will allow them to augment your weapons and make them something special.  This is key here.  If I kill a dragon and bring back a fang then I can have that fang used in the creation process of my staff and it will allow the crafter to create a staff with magical properties and stats vastly superior than had he not used the staff when creating it (even if he used a .99 resource with experimentation points used where you wanted them).

PvP

Oh yes, there will be PvP.  This is a key part of the game, in my opinion.  While the game will not revolve around it unless you want it to, PvP will be rewarding and a part of the game with fun content.  There will be sides (this won’t be a FFA PvP game — go away).  Think Rebel vs. Empire, Albion vs. Hibernia vs. Midgard, etc.  You can do battle with people anywhere in the world if they’re not of your realm, but there are areas of the world that are clearly designed for PvP content.  These would resemble the old DAOC frontiers with Castles to claim.

Why PvP?  Well, there would be a specific skill-tree (with its own limitation on points) for it that you could earn exp and allocate points into.  It would be very, very difficult to earn this exp but you would not lose it.  It would operate the same way the normal skill-trees do giving you the ability to remove points invested in something but lose the exp you spent.  These abilities would give you a clear advantage, but resemble the older DAOC realm abilities.

The additional benefits of PvP could include something along the lines of DAOC relics.

In conclusion…

I really think this would work well.  Obviously I have not gone into any details about the game world itself but I think it should clearly reflect a big open sandbox game world like we have seen in the past with Vanguard, UO, SWG (think of the planets being combined though..), and other games.  Ultimately the sandbox style needs to be all about setting the player free while providing structure without the player knowing it because that structure is being a tool in providing freedom (ie, items breaking giving players a need for crafters, giving people the ability to play a full-time crafter, giving the game a full-time player-drven economy, and so on.)

It’s a rough big picture outline, but take this idea and run with it.

Looks like a scene from Diablo 3

I’ve heard pretty much nothing about this game, aside from seeing it’s name pop-up here and there on a few news sites I frequent, and initially wrote it off as some obscure indie PC title that most likely wasn’t worth my time or money. However, after doing some research I discovered the game might be more interesting than I thought. Usually I would try to read reviews but there didn’t really seem to be many for Torchlight. After some internal debate I finally decided just to buy it. I mean, it’s only $20, right? Well, it turns out that this is one of the best $20 purchases I have ever made.

I’ve only played for a few hours but I’m already hooked. The game plays like a spiritual successor to Diablo, which makes sense considering who made it. I really like how they incorporated a skill tree and learnable spells. Almost like they took the systems from Diablo and Diablo II and combined them. Another cool thing is giving you a pet to start with, the neatest feature being its ability to take loot to town and sell it while you continue adventuring. How awesome is that? Not only is the game fun, but it looks great. The art style seems similar to WCIII/WoW. Some might not appreciate it, but I dig it. Especially since it runs extremely well on my dated laptop.

From what I have seen thus far I highly recommend Torchlight.

Anyways, I need to get back to scouring dungeons. I’ll try to poke my head up later for more impressions.

Aside from a few things I would have done to make the game better, this is my only real complaint with the game.  I believe the last time it was this bad for me was in SWG when I was bouncing around in Thede.  It’s bad enough that when I tap an arrow key my character will spin around and have gone several yards in a different direction.  Trying to conduct business in a town, pick up quests, etc. just becomes downright frustrating.   Relogging fixes the lag momentarily then it kicks in again.

This will definitely factor into my decision of whether or not I’ll be subscribing.  I have 6 more days to make up my mind.  Modern Warfare 2 being just around the corner, my itch to get to 35 in Aion, and other factors will also be weighed.

If any of you have found a fix for this lag please let me know.  I’ve tried the Nvidia tweaks and the usual tweaks to fix mmo performance that we’ve been passing around for years — none have worked.

Halloween marks the end of a season, in a way.  When it comes to MMO’s, their launch schedules, and lifespans, Halloween always has a way of being important.  For many games it has been the dreaded day of death where subscription numbers begin to fall and others it has been a milestone of excitement.  Let’s hope that this next seasons (Halloween to New Years) is a fantastic one for everyone.

Where will we be in 2010? We hope that you’ll continue to stay with us to find out.

The Halloween event in Aion was a little disappointing.  I was hoping to see lots of decorations around Pandaemonium and a spooky atmosphere with some in-game events going on but the in-game Halloween celebration amounted to simply receiving treats sent in surveys.  I like the treats, especially the fantastic looking Pumpkin Head Hat, but a little more would have been nice.

Since I’m playing Fallen Earth as well, even as a free 15 day trial, I’ll mention that their event was a little lackluster as well.

My favorite Halloween events are from The Realm and EQ2.  Someone will hopefully top those one day.

Riding off into the sunset

Fallen Earth has really captured the deepest parts of what first attracted me to MMORPGs.   I’m constantly running into things which are totally unknown to me and the entire time I am logged in I never once come across anything that feels intuitive.  It’s the complete opposite feeling that I get when I play the WoW/LotRO/WAR/Aion model.  Time flies by because I am so engulfed by everything — I am totally immersed and lost in this virtual world.  I’m constantly brainstorming ways to improve the game because I want it to be perfect.

There are a couple mechanics/systems in Fallen Earth that I’ve been thinking over today at great length.

First, Durability.

I want to see items lose durability and eventually be destroyed.  Repairing them should lower their overall durability (perhaps a Condition/Durability system) and eventually they are destroyed.  Item wear is important in a player-driven economy and sandbox game with PvP/PvE/Economic elements.  Crafters need to always be in demand — always.  This means that players should come to crafters to buy great stuff, go out and use it, break it, and come back for more.  This keeps crafters continually working for business.  If items do not permanently break then even the happiest customer is a one-time customer.  Happy customers need to be repeat customers.  Everything should break eventually, even the best stuff in the game.

Second, Experimental Crafting.

Right now the crafting system is very similar to SWG.  You get the materials, you put them together, and wait.  Great!  It does indeed work.  However, I would like to see an experimentation system added to the game as well as resource quality.  For example, not all copper should be created equal.  Parts of the world should yield better quality copper and it should rotate like it did in SWG where sometimes better copper can be found here than there.  I might find copper with .99 quality and really want to make items that use copper because I’ll be able to experiment and make substantially better things than someone using .75 quality copper.   I should be able to experiment and increase the damage at the cost of durability or range, etc.  Allocating experimentation points while crafting could really expand the market and create a niche for the people who truly want to focus on crafting.  Increasing the quality of raw materials through a resource quality system and then allowing players to increase and customize intermediate goods will allow for customizing the final good to be exponentially more rewarding for the crafter and the customer.  I’d love to talk more about this if anyone is interested.

Third, Factions.

This is a part of the game that I am least familiar with, but one that I am very much interested in learning about and voicing my opinion on.  I was talking today with Bartlebe (friend playing) and we decided that we both think Factions should be a more permanent choice.  This idea that you can “play the wheel” and be liked by all factions turns the system more into a powergamer thing than something that defines your decisions in the game.  Killing someone of your faction or an ally of your faction should bring harsh penalties.  The decision you make to join a faction should really carry some weight because it should both reward you tremendously by unlocking vasts amounts of content but also lock you out from the factions you chose to forsake.  However the faction system plays out in the game, it needs to be important and it needs to have a feel of permanence and dedication to it.

My character is up to 55 Ballistics, 55 Science, and 45 Rifles.  I have a Shotgun, a Rifle (that I crafted!), some nice clothing (that my friends crafted!), and a brand new and improved Horse (that I crafted!).  I’ve spent most of the entire day just collecting resources.  It’s really quite impressive that I spent the whole day crafting yet at the same time advanced my character almost two levels, amassed a small fortune (then spent it), upgraded all my gear, and explored for the first time in a large radius around the city I’ve called home.

That’s all for today!  I’m sick again so I’m calling it a night.