Too many icons for games I have no intention of playing again. I don't see any point in keeping them installed. Games I liked but declined interest or needed a break from remain. I only un-installed games I have zero intention of playing again.
Games that got the axe:
Star Wars: The Old Republic - tried it until level 25 and that was enough. Loved the class quests and instance content the rest was uninspired
Defiance - what the hell was I thinking? I don't FPS and nothing tied into the show as far as I could see.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - amazing graphics, great instanced content, fun crafting but the rest was a grind.
Rift - too little, too late sirs. If it takes too long for new levels and zones to come out, I'm likely on to the next thing. I might have come back but by then GW2 was out and I wouldn't have left that for Rift and still wouldn't now.
Dragon's Prophet - all round meh experience.
World of Tanks - what was I thinking part deux!?!
The Secret World - knew it wasn't my cup of tea and it wasn't.
Asheron's Call 2 - answered the age old question, can you ever really go home? NO. At least I couldn't.
Pirate 101 - I wanted W101 in a new theme, classes and enemies but with the same deck building mechanic. This was not it.
I’ve been playing a bit of Dragon’s Prophet (DP), the new title from RuneWalker, who also developed Runes of Magic (ROM). I was enticed by player housing, where the homes are visible in the landscape and the promise of creating my own furniture much like I did in EQ2. I bought into one of the founder programs to secure a free house and some starter furniture. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn until I started playing that unlike ROM, player housing is end-game material and not something immediately available. Unfortunate, but not a deal breaker for me.
Consus Cave - First Instance in Puretia
Sitting at level 13, I’ve moved past the starter zone into more active combat quests and have completed the Consus Cave, the first instance in the Puretia area. Consus was a bit underwhelming to say the least. While I did enjoy the fact that I could enter solo and complete the trash mob quests alone, the encounters were pretty bland. None of the special mechanics or orchestrated combat I expect when you take the time to instance an encounter. It was more of the same hack-n-slash quest material.
Many people slammed ROM for its generic watered down World of Warcraft feel. I liked it well enough. I enjoyed the housing. The crafting was decent and I liked the meta game of upgrading your armor. The daily quests were helpful in gaining XP. What I disliked most however, was the lack of combat against humanoids. I really get bored fighting beasts out in the wild! It’s so uninspiring.
Paler Version of ROM
From what I’ve seen so far, DP is a paler version of ROM. Hard to imagine you could make a ROM-like experience more generic, but apparently, you can. I do like the class I’ve selected. Taming a stable of dragons is appealing. As is the meta game of acquiring ones with different skills for different situations. I like that I can place them in the lair and send them out on errands (processes – that so needs a better, more RP name guys) like harvesting raw materials, training up their skills, etc. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mitigate the banality of the leveling experience. *sigh*
If you’re like me, one of the first things you’ll want to do in Dragon’s Prophet (DP) is get your first dragon! Dragons serve multiple purposes in DP. They are used as mounts, combat companions and can be stabled then sent out to harvest materials for you. How cool is that!
Not all Dragons are Equal
Even in the same species, there is variation in the attributes and skills your dragon will unlock for you and have at its own disposal in combat. For now, I don’t care about their skills, I simply wanted one that could fly. That’s right, not all of the dragons fly. Some are land mounts, others water mounts and then the flying sort. If the distinction between flying and riding matters to you for your first dragon, the starter zone you pick is important. I’m sure all the zones have each type at some point but from the little I played, the starter zone low level areas only have one type each.
Easy to Find Land Mount
Satuma was the most densely populated starter area. It might have been the earliest zone released during testing so people are comfortable with all the content already. I don’t like playing the same content I did during beta if I can help it. I found the closest trainable dragons in this zone. They were a few yards outside your first quest area. If you’re cool with your first mount being land-based and fighting over mobs for the first set of quests, Satuma is a good choice. And it was the only public quest I encountered in the level 1 to 8 range.
Fast Land Mount
Bakra was the next most active starter zone. It also had the longest distance before running into low level trainable dragons. Granted, I might have missed something along the way. Some of them don’t look as dragon-like as you might think. They're more like garden variety reptiles - lizard, rhino, etc. Regardless, if mounted speed is your priority, then I found the fastest lowbie dragon in Bakra with a riding speed increase of 263%. At least that's what the tooltip said.
Flying Dragon
Puretia was the last zone opened up to players from what I’ve read. So far its sparsely populated with players. This makes early kill quests a breeze with very little competition for mobs. Even better, this is where I found the flying dragon. Just follow the main road out of the little town. You’ll pass dragons that are “red” who will attack you. I think you can attempt to train those too. However, if you go a bit past those, to where there’s a portal looking thing with a quest NPC, you’ll see a non-aggro version of the same dragon. Hop on his back, ride ‘em cowboy and you’ll be flying the skies in no time.
I’ve only messed around this far – getting to level 8 and obtaining my first dragon. Am waiting for Open Beta to begin and other folks to join in the fun. If you’re playing, let me know your name. I’m on Kronos, Puretia starter area as Alysianaah. Also have alts in the other areas that I might mess around with when not static game night – char names Alysianah and Saylah.
Interests Beyond Dragons
Crafting whore that I am, I'm looking forward to another MMO that has player housing and a carpenter profession. I don't have time for my EQ2 level shenanigans or even Runes of Magic right now. But I can always spare some amount of gaming time to tinker with furniture and decorate houses.