Sunday 19 December 2004

Pic of the day: The Shugogetten, a protective spirit, discovers to her horror what a school really is! (Screenshot from the anime Mamotte Shugogetten.) She then proceeds to raze the vile prison to the ground, of course.

DAoC and Shugogetten

A pleasurable day. I took a long walk, ate, and played Dark Age of Camelot. No, you are not mistaken. My "previous" multiplayer game, not City of Heroes. (Well, at least not much.)

I have mentioned once before how DAoC now rewards people for not playing too much. If you level only once per week, you get one level (and a lump sum of cash) for free. I kid you not. Seems like a sound business decision, since the more people play, the more stress on the servers. Of course, if you reward people too much for not playing, they may forget to come back. One level a week, however ... once you get a bit up in levels, that's a pretty natural pace. And if you don't have work or school to waste your time on, you could always alternate between two or more characters.

There's a new expansion out for DAoC, Catacombs. I am not a big fan of dungeons myself, I have a slight claustrophobia. (Not something to keep me from shutting the bathroom door, or avoid bus routes that go through tunnels, but I don't enjoy spelunking.) However, it has a fascinating new class called "Vampiir". It is not actually what it sounds like, it is a hybrid class that derives its magic power from inflicting damage. So you start the day (or night, I guess) without magic, then slice at some baddies with your sword, and the magic begins to fill you. That's a new one for sure. Not worth getting two expansion packs shipped from overseas, though.

***

Oh yeah, and I watched the first episodes of the anime Mamotte Shugugetten. It is kinda hard to read that name, isn't it? I enjoyed this anime, despite its humor being mostly based on gross destruction of property. It teaches the basic lesson that you can love someone even if you don't like everything they do. A very useful lesson indeed.