Those Free to Play Games

I've been playing Guild Wars for a few years now. If you don't know, it's an MMORPG, and if you don't know what that is, nothing I say from here will make any sense to you! I came to Guild Wars from EverQuest and EQ2. I loved EverQuest so much I was a member of their volunteer customer service program for something like four years. I left the program because of timing, and because the things they required Guides to do changed, and because it seemed the players weren't really all that interested in those changes. It could have been really great, but I had many days with no takers and that was very discouraging.

So, I left the Guide program and became just a regular player. The problem was I didn't play very often (something happened in my guild and no one was ever around to hunt with me and it was all very annoying and you really can't solo in EQ), so I just wasted that monthly fee more times than not. I eventually cancelled my account. But I am a gamer, and I needed a game. I tried Star Wars Online, which was ok but advancement was very slow to me, and I never saw any of the storyline. I played Earth and Beyond for a time, which was a really awesome game, beautifully rendered, but with an incredibly small player base. I never tried WoW, I hated the art style and animation. Then Fox told me about Guild Wars. It was similar to EverQuest, only without the monthly fee. I started to play and I was totally hooked. And I further loved it because it was ok if life got busy and I didn't play for months at a time - I wasn't wasting money in subscription fees.

And I, like millions of others, am eagerly anticipating Guild Wars 2, but I digress.

In that time, Lord of the Rings Online came out, and Final Fantasy Online. I was told that both of these games were absolutely beautiful, but I was just so happy not paying a monthly fee that I didn't try either. It was like the console games my brother and I would play together (Secret of Mana, one of the BEST Nintendo RPGs ever!); you buy a game and play it when you want it. Sure, I advance slower in the game that way, but at least I'm not wasting money!

Just this month, EverQuest launched a free to play model, where you have limited access to the game for free, or you could subscribe to a couple tiers of membership to get even more access. I heard LOTRO did something like this as well. I would love to knock around EverQuest again, just for all the memories. I actually got an e-mail from SOE stating that with their new free to play model, my account had been "upgraded." I think by upgraded, they meant from inactive to active and free.

Now, the thing with EQ's new F2P offering is that it's limited. You only have the option to play four races (no elves) and four classes (no paladins or bards). This is a bit of a hang-up for me, as my two main characters were an Erudite Paladin and a Wood Elf Bard, even my Guide character was a Half Elf Paladin, and I can't recreate any of them! Booo!!!! I could go on and on about the awesomeness of the EverQuest Bard class, but that would be another digression.

I would like to relive my early EQ memories again, even if I can't do it with the same races and classes that I am used to. I have no desire to start playing that game with any regularity so I can totally save on that monthly fee, but just to see some places and jog some memories might be fun.

I remember watching my brother play EQ the first time (my brother and I have this fairly unique ability to get as much enjoyment out of watching someone play a video game as we do playing it ourselves- remind me to tell you about Resident Evil 2 some time!). He was a Wood Elf, and their starting city is high in the trees. He couldn't figure out how to get down to the forest floor where all the baddies were that you had to kill for experience, so he found another player and asked, "Pardon me, I am new, how does one get down from here?"

And the guy, a Barbarian, if I recall, said, "Jump! ‘Tis not far down!" and then he stood up and ran off the edge of the platform. Then my brother gingerly walked to the edge and looked down and there was our Barbarian friend, dead at the bottom. Needless to say, we did not follow his advice and asked someone else, who took us to the lift.

Yeah, I think I might have to log in and knock around a bit. Maybe tomorrow I'll share my first EQ adventure with you!

I Got Mad Skillz

One of my coworkers, Greg, was complaining to me a few weeks ago that a contact kept calling him Gary in correspondence. And one day they called him George! "Greg" isn't a hard name, but they just weren't getting it right, even though all his e-mails back to him were signed with his actual name.

So, I started calling him by a different name when he got to the office in the morning. He was really surprised! Then he decided he was going to play along too, but instead of just finding other names that begin with E, he was going to go through the alphabet. I kept with the G names.

I've used Gilligan, Giles, Gilderoy, Gilgamesh, Graham, Gulliver, Gomez, Garfield, Geordie, Gustav, Gandalf, Gawain, Galileo, Gabriel, Gershwin, and Gaston. This morning he said he was really impressed that I can find so many G names. It's cuz I got mad skillz! I told him I was sure he would run out of alphabet before I ran out of G names. We are almost to the end of the alphabet, and I still have plenty of names!

It was a fun game!

That Is the Question

My awesome artist friend Rain wanted to play around with the colors of my tattoo image and I completely and totally love what she did with it! So, only one question remains.

To outline





Or not to outline?

(this image is a little 'outside of the lines' that the final image will not be, so don't judge on that, please!)

I'm leaning towards the outline because I worry that the yellow flame tips will get lost against my pale hide. It also makes the gradients look cleaner and gives definition to the knotwork. The not outlined one is very nice and I think will give it a more organic feel, something that just fits with the vaguely fiery theme. As always, I'm happy to hear opinions!

Public Service Announcement

If the e-mail address you have for me is from burninglakearts.com or thesaurusarcanum.com, I'm going to shut down these domains and will no longer be using those addresses. I sent an e-mail to all of my contacts (and they are few: I don’t store a lot of e-mails) for two of the three addresses I currently use from those domains. If you did not get an e-mail and you want my current e-mail address(es), let me know and I'll get them to you!

There are several factors to why I'm shutting down my .coms. The first is that I haven't updated either in some years. Something happened on my host’s end and messed ThesaurusArcanum up big time anyway, like it reverted to a previous save or something and I lost a lot of content. Another reason is that I get calls from marketing companies that contract with my host at least twice a day. As I am not a business and do not need to increase the traffic to my sites, this is really irritating. The last reason is that it's expensive to keep them around just for the e-mails (since I haven't been updating the rest of them). I may revisit the world of designing my own websites for the hellofit in the future as I did find it quite fun, but for now I don't need them.

Also, if there's anything particular you want me to save from either site, or information you want to keep, let me know and I'll get that to you as well! My contract just renewed so it will be a bit before I take them down, but it will happen!

One More Year

Happy Birthday, Bro!

Something Completely Different

If you read my FB page, you might have seen that I've decided it's time to get my first tattoo. I've wanted this design for years but a number of things held me back (honestly, one of them was someone I was dating who liked to dictate what I did with my body, and me getting a tattoo was one of those things he didn't want, but I digress). This was drawn by Sqwerl when I asked her to design a logo for my Gnome-selling business. One of the things that she came up with was this awesome Celtic knot-ish fiery thing she said was inspired by my name, which ended up in the name of my store, Fyrecreek's Bazaar.

That symbol, like the name, came to represent me- though the truth is I wanted it as a tattoo the instant she presented the first rough sketch of it to me. I've been spending a lot of time with it lately, knowing that I'm finally going to do this. I've noticed new shapes in the artwork, pieces of it started to stand for certain things. I've really been contemplating color, as that's the only thing I'm not 100% decided on at this point. I was playing around with it, and these are some of the things I've been thinking about. These are still pretty rough, and limited to what I can get Microsoft Paint to do simply because I haven't loaded the image on the computer that has my preferred image software on it yet. I also have a print out and plan to attack it with colored pencils. But, for just a rough idea, this will do.


Purple is my favorite color. Purple has to be involved. I don't think I like the full solid though.

Purple and blue go well together and I wear a lot of blue because my eyes are blue. I'm more fond of blue than I often admit. I don't think this will do, though.

Purple goes well with green, another favorite color, and blue. This isn't bad.

I initially said I don't want fiery colors like reds and oranges because I'm not all that into those colors. But I thought I'd try it with fiery colored-points, because the 'fire' is part of the point (hehe). Actually, I quite like this one. The purple highlights the vague heart shape in the center, the red and orange cover the fiery bits, and the green and blue that are still part of my favorite color palette fills in the rest.

What do you think? Any other combinations I should consider? (Yes, it’s my skin and I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life, but I’m open to suggestions! I might absolutely love what you have in mind, who knows?)

Ups and Downs

I had a low moment yesterday. I know they're going to come and go. I just have to let them in as they happen.

But for the future, so you all know:

I do believe...

... that I am wonderful.
... that I deserve happiness.
... that I was in a mutually loving relationship.
... that I was happy in that relationship.
... that I may be happy like that again.
... that I will be ok.

I do not believe...

... that I am worthless.
... that I did something wrong.
... that I'm not allowed to be happy.
... that all my happiness is based on my relationships with other people.
... that he never loved me.
... that I will never recover.


I need to feel through this, the ups and the downs, or I'll shut down and never feel anything again. One day, one step, one moment at a time. I know I'll make it. Just let me have those down moments. They won't last forever, I promise.

In fact, sometimes just writing it out here makes me feel better.

So don't worry (well, you can worry a little if you want to). No man has so much power over me that I'm going to do something crazy like hurt myself. And I've said I've given up on finding a life partner before- heck, I obviously still haven't found him- but I've never really given up. Yes, my heart still aches. It’s not going to go away overnight. But I’ll get there. I’m sure of it.

I'll be ok. This will pass in time. I know I’m stronger than this.

Waterfall

Ah! Waterfall!

Wondering Unbidden

Do you miss me?

Do you remember fondly the time we were together?

Do you regret the time we're not together now?

Do you think of me at all?



I'm not looking for an answer to these; actually I'm pretty sure it would be "no" for each one. It's easier to do the leaving than to be the one being left. I know because I've done it. I've left someone I didn't want to be with anymore and never gave it another thought. It was easy, it did not make me sad to be without him, I rarely even thought about the good times (they were few and far between but that's neither here nor there) because it was all over.

But being on the other side of that is very different. I think about him so much. I think about the last 18 months, mostly trying to find where I messed up even though he said I didn't - there has to be something I did wrong or he wouldn't have just given up on us. I also scan my memory looking for the signs that he said should have been there. Still nothing. I feel like such an idiot for that.

And he left me with that little bit of hope and I'm an idiot for holding on to that too. He's not coming back. I'm sure of it. Why would you allow yourself to hurt this much when a simple phone call could ease that? No, the only reason has to be that he's not hurting, and he doesn't miss me, and he won't be back. It was cruel of him to say he might, like it was some way of holding on to me even though he no longer wanted me. And my heart just won't let it go.

It doesn't really matter. It's not like there is anyone in my life who was waiting for me to be single again so he could make a move. I don't expect there ever will be one again. I'm just not that special person everyone thinks I am. I am broken and not worth the effort. Easy to leave, easy to forget.

Crabtree Falls

My parents and I visited my brother and sister-in-law this weekend. She's 14 weeks pregnant and looking fabulous. We're so excited! They they really deserve this and they are going to be wonderful parents.

They took us to Crabtree Falls, which features the tallest vertical drop in a waterfall east of the Mississippi. It's a 1.7 mile hike up the mountain to get to the top. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the top on this trip. My brother and Moon stayed at the first view point, mom had had enough at .3 miles, and dad and I made it half way before the lunch we skipped caught up with us. Next time, we'll eat first and then go all the way up!

Still, it was absolutely beautiful. The weather was perfect and there was a surprisingly few amount of people there. It was so peaceful - amazing to just sit and listen to the music of the water and the wind through the leaves.

Afterward, they took us to Wild Wolf Brewing Company for seriously delicious food that we really needed after climbing up that mountain. It wasn't a difficult hike, but it was mostly upwards! Dad and bro spent some time in the store contemplating brewing supplies.

We were all sore, so we skipped laps in the pool this morning. Now that I'm home, it's nice to sit around and rest!

So I'll leave you with some pictures of the falls. Next time, we're going to make it to the top!