My 360 is emo. At least according to my 360voice.com blog I signed up for when I got it:

I have come to realize that turk1701 has no soul… and his heart is a twisted black mass of evil. To never play a game is my new eternity!

Poor thing. It’s not my fault there isn’t anything I want to play that has come out since Mass Effect.

Two months is the max I can take.

Tabula Rasa account successfully cancelled. This account will no longer auto-renew, and you will not be able to log in after your current subscription expires.

It’s sad really. There are some really nice things about the game. Cloning for example. Well the one thing that is nice about the game. It makes starting over something that is not as tedious as it is some other games. In Tabula Rasa one can clone their character if they have clone credits. You can get these credits from doing quests.

After you have clone credits you can clone anytime. What happens is you copy whatever character as it is. Skills points are reset. You keep your level and any advanced class choices you have made. Which is where cloning is nice. At 5, 15, and 30 you get to pick an advanced class. So clone right before 5, 15, or 30 and then you can try the class you did not take for your main character. Below is my Ranger and then his Commando clone I made at right before hitting level 15.

That being said the game is more or less like World of Warcraft with more guns. It lacks something I call soul. Gawain just says it’s not any fun to play. Which I suppose both are correct. Maybe in a year (if it is still around) I will try it again.

Also one more negative thing to say about Tabula Rasa. Let’s say you join a clan (guild) with a bunch of people you don’t know and then later decide to quit it because you want to play with people you know. You would think it’s a simple matter of clicking the accept button to get into the new clan (guild). Nope. Your told by the game after you click the tease of an accept clan invite button that you have to wait a week in real time before you join a new clan. Why even be able to invite someone to a clan (guild) if they have the week waiting period? Honestly it was very irritating.

I like mmorpg’s and Star Trek. So naturally I’ll regurgitate this info posted here. It is the first in game screenshot released for Star Trek Online.

Not really much to go on. They go on about the interaction system. But really give no details that disprove the Shacknews article:

Perpetual has been acquired by new ownership, reportedly a media company looking to use Star Trek Online to make its first major inroads into the video game market. Along with the acquisition comes a partial retargeting of Star Trek Online to what our source describes as a “more casual” experience, one which may potentially eschew subscription fees in favor of the practice of charging real money for optional in-game items, a practice popularized by various Korean MMOs.

Dumbed down is the wave of the future.

So I’m jonesing for a real mmorpg to play. I thought I had one to play. No not fucking Hellgate: London. I had purchased Tabula Rasa from GoGamer.com when it was on sale for $29.90. Me and Gawain both tried it out when it was in beta. It was an enjoyable game. It a nice change from the fantasy type mmo I usually play. It has a nice sci-fi guns thing going on.

The problem is that I ordered this on the 9th and I have yet to get the game. Damn me for being a cheapskate. The USPS tracking number is no good at all. It makes me wish I would have picked UPS or something other than the damn USPS. Here is the info I get with my tracking number:

• Electronic Shipping Info Received, November 09, 2007
• Processed, November 10, 2007, 2:01 pm, BELL, CA 90201

Since the 10th there has been no update. With UPS I could always check daily and see what was going on. I’m starting to think the package is sitting somewhere in Bell, California, perhaps it fell off the truck. Maybe I won’t ever get my game. Give me an update USPS!

Back to Hellgate: London for a moment. I feel foolish for wasting 10 bucks to subscribe only to get some lame Halloween shit and even lamer Guy Fawkes stuff. I’m canceling on next friday which is payday. I’m waiting because I don’t trust this assholes and their billing department. The game is fun, 10 bucks a month is not worth basically only extra character slots and a bigger stash.

Next Mass Effect. A Xbox 360 Bioware rpg. What more do you need to say? It could be said that Mass Effect is the spiritual sequel to the great Knights of the Old Republic. The 20th just can’t get here fast enough.

Hellgate: London flavored chat log:

[05:01] Turk: HELLGATE!
[05:02] Gawain: I’m not as crazy as that.
[05:02] Gawain: thats fucking crazy ass crazy.
[05:02] Gawain: I saw that and I was like.. oh, hes just fucking with me.
[05:02] Turk: sorry
[05:02] Gawain: no.. you really did buy it.
[05:02] Turk: yes
[05:02] Gawain: so then I was like… well, they must have fixed a bunch of shit.
[05:02] Gawain: and then I was reading and you’re like “they haven’t fixed shit”
[05:02] Turk: I’ll update later with the current status
[05:03] Gawain: the extra funny comes in when you see that post right above the post with the forum pic on it.
[05:03] Turk: yeah yeah
[05:03] Gawain: jesus you’re not… subscribing… are you?
[05:03] Gawain: oh my god.
[05:03] Gawain: you’re subscribing.
[05:03] Turk: just to for a month
[05:03] Turk: to see, it’s only ten bucks
[05:03] Gawain: jesus christ you are sick. you need help.
[05:03] Turk: yeah
[05:03] Turk: the december patch sounds nice
[05:03] Turk: stonehenge as a hub
[05:03] Turk: outside areas
[05:04] Turk: again if they can fix shit
[05:04] Turk: and that is a big if
[05:04] Gawain: I don’t know you anymore.
[05:04] Gawain: fucking subscribing to hellgate.
[05:04] Gawain: jesus.

It gets worse. Below are two entries from my online banking statement:

11/05/2007 POS PURCHASE 11/03 20:55 HELLGATE PING0 800-346-3425 CAUS VCP 9.99
11/05/2007 POS PURCHASE 11/03 02:40 HELLGATE PING0 800-346-3425 CAUS VCP 9.99

So I’m already in for more than I wanted. Though the official website makes no mention of this billing issue (why scare away more suckers?) in the private forums the do at least admit they are aware. They offer little help. You can fill out an Ask a Question form. I received an email with this very unreassuring message:

Your inquiry has been received. You should receive a response from a Hellgate Customer Service Representative within 24 hours.

By my clock 24 hours have passed and I have yet to hear back from them. My bank account has not been credited. Perhaps Gawain is right and I’m sick and need help. But I hope they get the game in order. The glimmer of fun is there. The december patch also sounds like it has potential. I’ve heard mention of Stonehenge as a hub and the inclusion of more outside areas like forests. I just hope it doesn’t take longer than a month or two to fix these issues.

Here are some links from the game sites with more on this billing fuck up: Hellgate Billing Issues, Hellgate Subs Gone Wild?, and Hellgate London Subscribers Report Extra Charges, Restricted Access to Membership Benefits. Also worth reading is the Shacknews review of the game. Which gives a honest dead on review on how the game really is.

I’m weak. I picked up my preorder of Hellgate: London.

While it is buggy, I can’t help not enjoy the game. It has pretty much what I want in a rpg. Hack and slash light on the story. So far the two hours I can play at a time are a blast. I even joined the SA Goon guild Londen on the US server Shulgoth.

Which brings me to the new poll. Simple question with two possible answers.

Are you Playing Hellgate: London?

• Yes
• No

View Results

 Loading ...

Hellgate: London is live.

A view of the crashes forum courtesy of Gawain. It should be noted you have to be registered and logged in to see the Hellgate forums. They would not want people to see all of the problems still present in the game that may stop them from buying the game. The Blue text is more or less a hodge podge of developer quotes.

Update 11/01/2007 1:53am

Hellgate: London has a shitty launch worthy of the mmo wannabe it tries to be. I maybe sick perhaps because I enjoy this. Bad press anyone? Hellgate London Live, Subscriptions Not, Hellgate-gate 07: Subscription Servers Down As Game Launches, and Hellgate Servers Might Be A Go, But The Subscription Services Aren’t are all articles describing how launch day went. And if you go into the Hellgate Account Page it greats you with this message even now:

Subscribing is currently disabled

In red no less. My two favorite Technical Support Forum threads are Memory Exhausted and Single-Player Patch. I love how that developer build that was ahead of the multiplayer beta is shaping out.