Torchlight II coming 2011 – have you played Torchlight I yet?

Last October, a game was released called Torchlight. People compared it to Diablo I and II and the creators just by chance happen to have been part of the development team for Diablo who created their own company, Runic Games. I grabbed it for $19.99 and was not one bit disappointed in the purchase.

The game is pure fun. You rip thru layer after layer of dungeon feeling powerful and unstoppable, grabbing all the loot you can…and when you fill up, tell your pet to run back to town and sell it for you. Don’t get me wrong…you will die, but you will have fun doing it. Torchlight will provide you with hours and days of fun. You can go see 2 movies for $19.99 or buy this and get the equivalent of 50+ movies. I played a ranged vanquisher and loved it.

Now they have just announced Torchlight II for Spring 2011. Yet another 2011 release to add to everything I want to play. Part 2 will have the added ability to play with others, while Torchlight I was just a single player game. If you haven’t tried it out and are slightly bored with your current gaming choices…grab it! Steam has it too.

Back into Virtual Worlds

Peeking at my blog I notice I haven’t talked at all about getting back into the Virtual World building scene. Sooo, I’ll do it now!

The being of July, I got a message from Second Life from a person that owns land around the land I own. They wondered if I would be willing to sell my land so they could connect some of their property. I thought about selling and totally moving out of SL, but my Safety Girl store does pretty well, and pays for all my SL needs, and I have relocated too many times already. So instead – I set up a land swap with him, which turned my T shaped property into a straight line, and it let him connect his property. Win Win.

It gave me back my urge to create something…so I started messing around some. Then I noticed that my long time SL friend Jokay, happen to have recently started up her own personal Grid – JokaydiaGRID – I signed up and popped in to see what she was up to. A few days later I caught up with her to do a little catching up…and she handed me my own Sim to play with and mentioned she would like to have me come help her out with some projects if I felt like it.

A little bit of background on Jokay – if you look back in some other posts about SL, I mention her a few times. She is one of the first people I really talked to in SL. We were neighbors for about a year. She works on projects in which educators use virtual worlds to teach students and hold workshops. Something that is starting to snowball into something really cool and I think will evolve into the latest and greatest way to teach…instead of sitting at a desk copying notes being bored to death.

So now I have a new home in the Open Sim world.

Mirinesse Campus of Labs

Welcome to Mininesse (Also the name of my Swashbuckler on EQ2) My own little island with a hypergrid smack dab in the middle. jokaydia.metaverseworlds.com:9000:mirinesse if you want to hypergrid to me.

The current project on JokaydiaGRID is a build for training students in the hotel and travel industry. So we are making a role play environment so they can demonstrate and act out situations and meet up to learn in an engaging way. Below are some of the builds going on and you can also check out some screenshots at my Flickr Site.

Brownlow's With Furniture

WI - Pool after furniture

Taverncast Returns!

Not sure how many of you listen to Podcasts, but it seems whenever I’m driving, I have a podcast on. It use to be music, but now I listen to talking! (Does that mean I’m getting old?)

One of the original podcasts I started listening to was Taverncast. I was playing World of Warcraft at the time, and this was listed as a WoW podcast. It was quite impressive. Way above average quality sound and editing…but most of all it’s FUNNY. It wasn’t a 100% WoW podcast and as time went on, it became less and less related to gaming and more of a variety comedy show. It is a bunch of friends talking about their week that goes off on tangents.

They slowly faded away and made a return only to fade away again due to RL issues. Plus the time to create this show has to be 12 or more…they dont just take out the dead air and the Ummmms. Point your browser here and read about it – www.taverncast.com – Then log onto iTunes and grab a few episodes. The later the episodes, the less you will hear about WoW, if you aren’t really into gaming. If you are into WoW, grab the special Lore episodes or the Murloc Attack and a few earlier episodes. The field trips they did into WoW instances were great too!

Other podcasts I like to listen to:
Analog Holewww.analogholegaming.com – 3 basically normal people talking about what went horribly wrong that week, and what games they have played (MMOs, Console games, D&D) along with current gaming news. These guys play WoW. Listen to episode 167 (might be 168) for them to read my listener email!

Massivelywww.massively.com – Shawn and usually Rubi, talk about the news of the current week dealing with new and old MMO’s. iTunes calls it TV Squad sometimes, don’t let that confuse you.

Guildcastguildcast.wordpress.com – Also hosted by Shawn and Rubi… a podcast about Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2.

Others I’ll listen to now and then – Final Score, IGN Girl Fight, EQ2sday

Portal 2

Oh, It’s YOU.
It’s been a long time.
How have you been?
I’ve been REALLY busy being dead.
You know…after you MURDERED ME.
Ok, look…We both said a lot of things that you’re going to regret…
But I think we can put our differences behind us…for science…you monster.
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Guild Wars – What Makes it Fun and Different

I had tried Guild Wars when it was first released and it just didn’t grab me but about a year ago, after being bored with my current game, I gave it another shot and bought the Guild Wars Trilogy
I started a character in the Nightfall campaign and was hooked. I think the reason GW didn’t grab me the first time was the lack of storage space. I am a packrat and love to save things just in case I need them. And the game at that point was not packrat friendly. But now that a few years have past, they added a few ways to increase your inventory and let you trade between your characters.

What makes Guild Wars different from WoW, and Everquest, etc?
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