Aaaaaand We're Back! (Online)

Hey guys! Just letting you know, it seems that I've been able to address and fix my internet issues that I've been having. Make a long story short, it turns out my computer had some services and processes running that constantly hit the network, so it slowed things to a grinding halt when I actually tried to use the internet. I've had two nights of no disconnects, so it looks pretty good so far. I'm still playing through Lineage II, hoping to get to Awakened class on one character before I post the review. Will have it up as soon as I can. Thanks for being patient with this [rather frustrating] issue!

Just Some Stuff

Hey guys! This is just a bit of a rambling update, really, to sort of keep y'all in the loop. I know I've been saying that my internet has been really bad in the past couple of reviews and such that I've made, but it's a bit more than that. For the past couple of months, the internet at my house has been beyond sucky. It goes down about 3-5 times on average in the span of five minutes, conveniently right when I need to use it. It typically happens in the evening times (post 6:00) and weekends and lasts until the early morning at the least (when I pass out, anyway, and has been going on as late as 2 AM to my knowledge). In addition, sites are sometimes very slow to load during this time period. I'm living with my parents right now until I can afford to move out on my own, and we have my 1 PC and their 2 Macs. While I'd thought that had been the issue, due to "Apple chatter" and such, we've had this setup for several months before this problem. We are using AT&T internet and they're the only ones available in our area, aside from Comcast, which we've had problems with. Like I said, it's only been like this for about a month or two, and I know that other AT&T users are also having these sort of problems in other areas.

Why should you care? Well, obviously, it's going to affect my MMO playing time which means it'll also affect my reviews. Unfortunately, I don't know how badly it will affect everything. I'm going to try to download Lineage II this weekend (which I'm anxious to play with their newest updates) and see how it goes. Maybe it won't be that bad. Who knows. But I know I lag to hell sometimes when I play Team Fortress 2, sometimes I can't even connect to Steam because I lose connection conveniently right as I'm going to open the damn thing. It's extremely frustrating. And since, as a healer, it's rather essential to have a half-way decent connection in order to do my job, I can't really play MMOs while my internet is like this.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been trying to be active on Twitter and Facebook in order to promote the blog. I feel really obligated to tweet frequently (though half the time I don't really know what to say...) so don't mind me if I seem like I'm just spouting random tweets to get your attention. I have questions for you guys, though, you readers of mine!

How do you guys find me and/or keep up with me? Do you like the tweets and/or Facebook posts? Do you use that more than other means to find out about my latest blog posts? Do you want me to do something different in terms of communications like that? How did you find out about me?

I wanna reach out to you guys and expand my audience (I want to rule the world one reader at a time) so any feedback like that is definitely appreciated. Twitter and FB links are on the side, you can comment below, send an email, etc.. Let me know!

Free to Play versus Pay to Play

Also known as "Why I dislike most MMOs' gameplay"

(and the return of the meme faces)

Hey all, Little Miss Squish here. Now, before y'all freak out and such that I'd be posting two reviews within one week... I'm not. For those that have poked around old posts and such, every now and then I put aside the reviews to discuss MMOs in general, particularly relating to the healing classes ("uh, durrrr, LMS. That's obvious, you retard."), and all that good stuff. I'd been thinking about what to review next, whether I wanted to replay something I'd played before or play something new entirely. I'd poked around www.mmorpg.com (which you should totally also check out!) and found an article on free-to-play versus pay-to-play gaming, specifically, RIFT versus WoW. While the article itself isn't exactly about free-to-play games versus pay-to-play ones, it did make me think about why exactly I play free-to-play ones specifically and question why I tend to review those more than the pay-to-play ones.

Well, there are a few answers, most of them fairly straight-forward, honestly.

Review: Team Fortress 2

Hey guys, Little Miss Squish here! Sorry for my lack of posting for.... god knows how long. The internet where I'm living right now has been ridiculously horrible and incredibly unstable so my actual MMO playing has been.... well, non-existent. That and my life has been taken up by a lot of other things lately. BUT, I was thinking about what to review next. I knew I hadn't posted in a while and I felt really badly for not doing so but I was like "I haven't been able to really -play- anything, let alone enough to review a new game on the blog!"

And then it hit me. There was one game that I'd played a lot, loved the healing class for it (enough to start to put together a costume of it!) and went back to it over and over again. It always plastered a huge grin to my face whenever I played it or even thought about it. And when my boyfriend suggested I reviewed it, I knew I had to.

Review: Age of Conan

First off, I apologize for not posting as often as I had been in the past or when I say that I will. I'm still kinda adjusting to new things in my life and I'm also working on making rather large changes in my life. Things like settling in with my new job, being in a long-distance relationship, working on buying a house and moving closer to my job... Things like that. It's taking up quite a bit of time out of my day and energy from me, so by the time I can sit down and hammer out reviews, I'm ready to fall asleep, most often. But, I've decided to sit down and write a review, since I owe you guys at least that much.

Also, on a side-note, I'm working on making and implementing a more standardized review layout/template, so don't be surprised if you see some things changing a bit over my next few reviews. I'm trying to find what looks best and what would work for y'all and myself. If you guys have any suggestions/comments/opinions, I'm glad to listen to them. 

Anyway... On with the review!

Guide: Healing 101

Hey guys, Little Miss Squish here again. Sorry for my lack of posting over the past few weeks. I've been a bit busy between starting a new job, moving, and working lots and lots of hours lately, so I haven't really been able to play any new MMOs as of late. I'm working on getting my hands on something new to play so y'all will have something to read soon. I'm considering replaying Mabinogi as I have a friend who was curious about my thoughts on the game. I've also been told by several people now to play Star Wars: The Old Republic and I'm looking into that as well. (If you have any thoughts on the subject, feel free to contribute.)

That being said... I've decided to make another healer's guide. Why? Because I think that there's more to healing well than just knowing what skills you have, which is what I focused on in my last guide, Bandaids and Disinfectant Required. I'm aiming for this guide to be more beginner-healer friendly than the last one and I'll explain things [hopefully] a little better than I had the last time. As a warning, this will probably become a little long, so I hope you're prepared! (Though, I hope it'll be more entertaining and less textbook-ish.) So let's get started, shall we?

Review: Blade & Soul

Hey all, Little Miss here again. Well, it's official: I've graduated college! It's surreal to say the least. I don't honestly feel like I've graduated. But I digress; I'm sure that's not why you came here, is it? You're probably demanding me to get on with the review.

(Sorry, I couldn't help it. As soon as I said "get on with," this is the first thing my brain thought of. You can attempt to throw a brick at me if you like but... I wouldn't recommend it.)

Anyway, yes! The Blade & Soul Review. Without further ado...

Review: Call of Roma

Hi again guys, LMS here. I got a request to review Call of Roma, based on an advertisement that kept floating around a WoW RP server that I'm on. Specifically, it was this image:

Now, I know what you're probably thinking. "Holy crap, a Roman orgy! That sounds fantasti-- Wait what does this have to do with an MMO?" And then you're probably going to look at the screen slightly creepily and sketched out. And yes, I would have, too, if I were you. To be honest, I believe the review request was more for jokes but I figured, "Hey! Why not actually review it? Maaaaaybe it'll be interesting?" On a side note, I know I said I was going to review Fallen Earth, but the game refused to cooperate so I kinda had to give up. The environment wasn't rendering no matter what I did. So I kinda had to give up, sorry guys. Without further ado, here's my review of Call of Roma!

Somehow I Ended Up Playing WoW: Cataclysm

This is the story of how I lost my soul, otherwise known as "Somehow I Ended Up Playing WoW: Cataclysm." To make a long backstory short, I was waiting for TERA Online to come out for CBT and needed to play something in between that was new and entertaining as I was getting bored of the same old thing day after day. Since the server I play WotLK on just released Cata realms not too long ago, I decided to sell my soul and try my hand at Cataclysm. I had heard horror stories from enraged fans about how Blizzard destroyed X and Y classes, the talent system was completely changed, and this that and the other. But.. Surely it couldn't be that bad, could it? I mean, when I heard of Cataclysm's changes to Priests (my default class in most games), I looked into them and was rather excited. Not to mention I was curious about what environmental changes Blizzard had done to different zones now that Deathwing was prowling about. And, to be honest, I was really frickin' excited to see those underwater mounts and zones. That sounded really friggin' cool. (And shut up, I know I'm easily amused sometimes.)

Glimpse into TERA Online

Hey guys, LMS here. I FINALLY got into the Closed Beta Testing of TERA Online this past weekend. I was very happy to have the opportunity to play the game as I was really looking forward to the combat system the most. I only got to play for a few hours due to a tight work schedule this weekend, but my overall opinion is very positive of this game so far.

Pre-View: TERA Online

Hey all, Little Miss Squish here! Sorry I haven't posted in... well, god knows how long. School has been kicking my butt with graduation and classes and all, so I haven't had much time for trying new games. I promise come summer I'll be a lot more active. I have, however, been keeping up with the up-and-coming games of 2012 that I'm interested in. One of these games is TERA. I don't know whether or not a lot of news related to the game has been circulating around MMO/game sites or blogs or anything. But I found it kind of by accident, to be honest. I had been looking for new up-and-coming MMOs to try out and this was listed on most of the sites I happened upon on Google. I looked it up and I WANT IT SO BADLY.