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Another Great Guild Wars Weekend

July 18, 2005 at 7:41pm By: Mr. T Posted in Mr. T's Den

I spent a good chunk of this last weekend playing Guild Wars – a new arena.net MMORPG that came out earlier this spring. GW, basically, is another swords and sorcery MMORPG. You get to choose a character from 6 different human classes, including the typical ones (warrior, monk, elementalist, ranger) and a few non-typical ones, such as the mesmer and necromancer. Unlike most of the other MMORPGs I have played (Asheron’s Call 1 and 2, Final Fantasy Online, World of Warcraft) you can actually multi-class your character. I chose to play a mesmer/necromancer. The mesmer is basically a casting class with spells designed to cancel out or negate other classes (i.e. cast a spell to slow down fighters) and the necromancer is also a caster with a variety of curse related spells, also intended to “negate” other characters. Why would I choose such a strange combination? Well, the game isn’t called “Guild Wars” for no reason – the heart and soul of the experience is in team PvP play – which makes it entirely different in structure from the usual MMORPGs.

Let me explain. Instead of typical grinding to level 100 or what have you, there is a skill cap of 20. I reached level 20 after only 6 weeks or so of gameplay on the weekends and some evenings. You proceed in the game by winning various missions that take you across the fictional world of Tyria, defeating NPC monsters and finishing quests. At any time during the game, you also head to PvP arenas where you can take on other real life players with your characters. Once you hit level 20, you don’t really gain any more levels or increase your attributes or skill levels, but you do earn hard earned “elite skills” specific to your class as well as unlock various ways to increase your character’s PvP abilities. My character is nearing the end of completing the storyline and exploring th
e entire game world. However, by defeating more people in PvP play, you gain the “faction points” that enable you to unlock the various elite skills and weapons/armor that will make your character stronger. The PvP play is addictive. You can form teams and take on others, or your entire guild can invite other guilds for battle, and both your character and guild gains fame for defeating enemies. Right now, the rivalry is entirely international with Guild Wars players playing in 3 regions: North America, South Korea, and Europe. The majority of the time, the Koreans own the “Hall of Heroes” – where the guilds fight each other – followed by N. America and lastly Europe. The thing is, whoever has “favor” in the “Hall of Heroes” – ie whoever’s guilds are winning the most battles – affects the non PvP play as well. So only if North America has favor can all people playing on the North America servers access certain zones and dungeons critical for character advancement. This is a unique facet of the game which sets it apart from all of the other MMORPGs I have played. This PvP play is intense, and makes the game more accessible. Instead of logging in to grind every night and finish missions that can take up to an hour to complete, you can head straight to the team arenas to fight against real players in brief “annihilate the enemy” or “protect your shrine base” environments pitting your team of 4 against another 4 players in fast and furious battles that last no more than 3-5 minutes.

I may write a longer review later, but suffice to say, Guild Wars has been an enjoyable experience for me. The graphics are fantastic, the interface is easy to use, and you don’t have to worry about “the grind” where you go to bed and wake up to find that everyone else (ie the high school kids on summer break) is level 999. Pretty much the majority of players are level 20 now and when it comes to fighting, the victorious are those teams who play well together and know their tactics. In this sense, the game is sort of a swords and sorcery version of Counter Strike.

One more important thing to add – there are NO monthly fees to this game. You pay your flat out $50 for the game and that’s it. Arena.net will likely have an expansion out within the next 6 – 9 months or so (they gotta make money somehow), but its nice to have a game on that you know you aren’t paying for on a daily basis. This will give Guild Wars some staying power. It will be interesting to see how it fares when Dungeons and Dragons and the Middle Earth MMORPGs come out later (which I believe won’t be until Xmas or later). 

I imagine I’ll be playing Guild Wars solidly for the next few months. I do wish, however, that someone gets around to putting together another, more creative MMORPG that takes place in a non-swords and sorcery world. I have heard many negative things about The Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies and Anarchy Online (sci-fi worlds) and dabbled briefly in the hideous Planetside (I removed that one from my computer about 2 weeks after purchasing it). My dream is for some developers to put together either an H.P. Lovecraft based MMORPG or something akin to “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” I also wouldn’t mind seeing a sci-fi MMORPG based in the “Star Trek” universe.

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Blog Assistance!

May 19, 2005 at 9:17pm By: Mr. T Posted in Mr. T's Den

Hey Mr Wilson -

For all of us budding bloggers out there - What blogging services do you recommend? My blogger blog is getting spammed! i.e. I am getting 40 “anonymous” responses to my blog a day now. What’s up with that?

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And the Culture Wars continue…

April 23, 2005 at 11:37am By: Mr. T Posted in Mr. T's Den

A lot of C-Span junkies and political blog readers have been following the ongoing controversies over Harvard President Larry Summers. A generally supportive article about him can be found here.

In anycase, looks like the latest round in the culture wars to come out of our favorite ivy league institution is the initiation of a new, completely online journal called the Harvard Journal of the Legal Left.  Looking at some of the articles from its first issue...well, lets just say that its obvious they didn’t have many submissions to choose from… I mean that in a constructive way of course. It looks like a mish mash of commentary on critical theory (generally good), politics (good or bad depends on your view), and a few random musings on life and the law school experience by various writers (again could be good or bad depending on your view, but what the hell is it doing in a law journal?!).

Most striking about this is how absolutely blatantly political this journal is. I can’t think of any other law journal out there, of the hundreds that are out there, which is so blatant in its political stance. As any former law review editor knows, law reviews are radically moderate and eschew both right and left wing politics. Although there are a handful of critical theory journals out there, I can’t think of any which even come close to this new harvard rag.

It will be interesting to see how this one develops. I’m all about supporting new ideas and thinking outside of the box etc., but I sincerely hope that the journal finds some sort of identity, and I think it probably will in the next few issues. In anycase, I better get started on a new article for these guys before it gets discovered. If the qual
ity of some of the articles in the inaugural issue are any indication, ANYTHING will get published by these guys. And having a Harvard Law School publication on your resume is a good thing.

PS this is not a bash.

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4 down, 1 to go

March 22, 2005 at 5:52pm By: Mr. T Posted in Mr. T's Den

For those of you interested in keeping up with the true boredom and nerdom of my life, I have just learned that I have now broken my record and will be getting published 4 times this year. I am gunning for an all time high of 5 this year, with my last submission just sent out earlier this month. All of the articles, with the exception of one, focus on the ultra-sexy topic of European law and policy.

By the way, since my fellow co-blogger and host here Mr. Wilson derides my interest in European law and policy, I have been forced to start my own blog specific to this topic. I thought for a second or two about sharing the url of this new blog with Mr. Wilson, but decided against it. I don’t want to see animal porn links or “nuke paris” comments posted on it.

Seriously, Mr. Wilson is actually providing some free consultation on this little project. Thanks dude!

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Tom DeLay is an asshole

March 20, 2005 at 6:06pm By: Mr. T Posted in Mr. T's Den

For the record, if I am ever in a persistent vegetative state, just pull the tubes and wires out. 

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FREEEEEEE!!!!

March 18, 2005 at 4:47pm By: Mr. T Posted in Mr. T's Den

Finally have a free weekend coming up. I plan to do very little besides watch basketball and various junk TV shows. I recently finished 2 articles I am submitting to the journals, the first on the High Court of England and Wales’ Al-Skeini decision and the second on the European Court of Human Rights’ Khashiyev and Akayeva decision. I thought I’d mention that for all you European law afficianados out there in Nebraska (both of you).

So anyway, this is the first free weekend I have had in months. Let’s see.....What to do...what to do...what to do.....Besides basketball, maybe I’ll finally finish that shitty/over-rated the davinci code book, which will be the first fiction book I will have completed in about 6 years. 

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Where’s Mr. T?

February 27, 2005 at 5:15pm By: Mr. T Posted in Mr. T's Den

This weekend was very eventful. Saturday - woke up late. Then watched hoops. Did laundary. Watched more hoops, and then hoops. Then went to bed. Sunday - woke up early and exercised. Then watched hoops, and then more hoops. Then went to Taco Inn for a burrito and flour chips. Then returned to watch hoops - Nebraska beat Iowa State. Now I am watching more hoops. This evening...watch more hoops, then maybe that movie award thing.

I did actually manage to get in a few hours of writing this weekend. I’m currently working on the 3rd of a series of articles about extraterritorial jurisdiction of Council of Europe nations, the first two of which should be in print within the next month or two. This latest one focuses on the Al-Skeini case recently decided by the High Court of England and Wales, in which the Court spent quite a bit of time wrestling with recrifying the famous Bankovic case (NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia) with the recently issued case in Issa v. Turkey (alleged killing of Iraqi Kurds by Turkish military in Iraq). 

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Taxes

February 13, 2005 at 3:31pm By: Mr. T Posted in Mr. T's Den

I did my federal (and state) taxes this weekend and came off better than last year. Perhaps because I was really socking away $ in my IRA last year? Or it could have been because of the 2004 deduction for state and local taxes? In anycase, I owe the feds $155 (and the state of Nebraska owes me $250). I would rather have owed Nebraska a bit for time value of money reasons, but it is fun to get $ back.

So speaking of tax breaks, how wise are they given the nation’s current deficit of over 400 billion dollars? 

Well as the theory goes, the more tax breaks = more $ to spend = more $ back in the economy. Well I did put money back into the economy...the BRAZILIAN economy...after purchasing a new rice cooker made in sunny Brazil to replace my old burnt out one. Let’s tango!

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