Forced
As I was handed a bag from a cupcake shop I was, as one does when handed a bag from a cupcake shop, thinking: “uuuuh, cupcakes!”. As it turned out, however, the bag contained a little box with lightsabers and the Lucasarts logo on the front. That’s when it hit me: I had been Forced.
Conan – The Barbarian
Not Conan – The Pastry Chef (although I can see why you would confuse the two).
Lasse and Adrian are responsible for 46% of my trips out of the house. Trips that usually takes me straight to their place and some times to cinemas. This time we were in for Conan the Barbarian. The movie is not really a remake of the old classic from 1982 although they share a name. Rather the new movie tells yet another story about the lovable brute and this is in man y ways very much in keeping with the whole Conan “tradition”. Conan is a universe in itself (his pecs contain one universe each actually). There’s movies, comic books, games and now even an MMO set in the Conan mythology.
Woehammer
I was elated back in the day when they announced Warhammer Online. I pre-ordered the “collectors edition” (which means paying more money to get nerdgasm items) and then forgot all about it.
Then one day it was in my mail. Very wtf moment. I only half remembered ordering it. I even called my Warhammer guru to ask if he had ordered it (some times he has things shipped to my address because he is paranoid) but he confirmed that I had been bouncing around his living room for an hour and a half after placing the order.
I spent days looking over the amazing artwork book which is an amazing piece in itself. Then played the game for a month or two. Got bored and went outside to climb a tree. You all know the story (if you insert WOW instead of the tree I guess).
Now. Years later another friend poked me about Warhammer Online and I must admit I am curious to see what has become of the game. What it turned out as.
I decided to re-activate my account. Only, as it turns out, that is no easy task at all.
I remember disliking the game website from the very start. It was very poorly concieved. Very rigid and unintuitive. At times I suspect that the content and site has been developed seperately. Verily so the content and imagery of Warhammer Online is powerful (the Warhammer World being what it is) but all the beautiful images and rich background story seems like fish caught in a net when presented on the webpage.
Returning to the site… it is roughly the page I remember although changes has been made for the better. Still, it resembles the ugly twin sister of the WoW site.
I choose to go to “account management”. Having dug up the old emails from Mythic with relative ease thanks to my slight case of OCD when it comes to ordering my inbox (2007? Really?) I thought I might have to ask to recover my password, nothing too stressful (2007 was back in the day when I still insisted on using different passwords for every service, game and website I used).
However as I go to “Account management” I am asked to log in using my EA account.
I do not have an EA account. The page, however offers a lot of other options and surely one of those will help me to update the old game account?
I start by slicking “start” since I do need an EA account and I do have a CD key to verify my account. Only that option takes me to a formula to create an entirely new account and I am politely informed that my email address is already in use. A positive thing surely… it means they still know who I am (or at the very least that I am and that’s all an existentialist can really ask for).
Thus, divulging both my birth date and country to the internet, I return to the previous page to try out one of the other options. I notice that your EA account name supposedly is also your email.
So maybe, since they have told me that my email is already in use, my old game account has become an EA account and I can ask to recover/change my password.
I’m a bit confused now since I have just been told that:
1: My email is already registered and so I cannot make a new EA account.
2: My email is not an Account Name.
I return to my point of origin: The account managament page. I look over the original emails sent to me and there is both a “login name” (that is not my email) and a “username”. So my last option is to see if any of these corresponds with the “Mythic Master Account”. My game account might have been changed into one of those… according to the page I can then tie that into an EA account, log in, re-activate and play the game.
The page does not recognise my email or my “login name”. It does, however respond to my “username” and tells me that I should recieve a confirmation request in my inbox soon.
I never recieve an email. As I am politely asked to notice that the email is only valid for 24 hours for security reasons I decide to wait for a day or so just to be sure. No email.
I assume the “username” I have typed in belongs to someone else and I’d like to apologize for having three of these messages sent to you by now (the original, one to be sure and one just to make the screenshot).
That, however, leaves me with no options left. I am unable to access account management and I see no other option than to contact Customer Support for help…
Details
Incarna makes your character more “real”. For the first time in the history of EVE you can see and move your character around (though lmited to your quarters on the space station you’re visiting). I’m actually kindof liking the new, more dynamic, backdrop. My character lounges on a couch while I have my windows open and play the game like I always have.
I’m not a fan of the idea behind Incarna. It seems to me that it mostly serves to streamline a game whose main feature is being different. I am a fan of the vast amount of small interface fixes and upgrades Incarna has brought with it though. Taking the time to improve my search options in the market tab is an investment of time and energy I appreciate. Claiming to make the game feel more real and then forgetting to give the avatar of my capsuleer the trademark socket at the base of her skull, is not.
Incarna So Far
I can’t say I’m all that fussed about the “first leg of Incarna”. As an immersionist I should be having a hard time getting my arms down over this but fact is: I’ve never missed immersion in EVE. I’ve always felt very connected to the idea of my clone self. The cold world of the capsule. The data interface I see on the screen. In my optics it’s a mistake to confuse “avatars” with immersion. I think a lot of people are missing the point that the screen you see in front of you is NOT the game interface. It’s the interface your character sees as she/he is connected to the system of his capsule. The view of space is through the eyes of drones. Every window you call up is how it actually looks. When I see my character walking around in a first person view that’s when it gets unrealistic for me. Is a camera drone following me around? Why do I need to see the world like this and not just through my own eyes? That is when the immersion is broken and EVE becomes just like the other games.
Incursion!
“Sansha’s Nation
Founded by Caldari megalomaniac Sansha Kuvakei, the Nation was created to be a personal vehicle for unfettered technological research and arms manufacturing, and sold to thousands of eager colonists as a new Paradise where every citizen is free to pursue their dreams. Deep in his secret facilities in the heart of Stain, Sansha melded man and machine to create unquestioning cybernetic slaves who he intended to serve as soldiers in the coming war.
When the Empires discovered the true extent of his work, and the threat he posed to civilization throughout the EVE cluster, they put aside their differences for one singular moment and united to purge Sansha’s Nation from the map. While they succeeded in destroying his colonies and the bulk of his equipment, they failed to decisively complete the job; Sansha’s corpse has never been found, the True Slaves were never truly exterminated, and in the intervening years their numbers seem to have started growing once again… “
Now Sansha’s Nation is launching incursions into otherwise secure space, CONCORD calls the capsuleers to arms and luckily I do not have to concern myself with this at all since EVE remains such a vast game where your focus is for yourself to decide. Currently I’m working on my skills at building advanced spacecraft and extracting resources from planets.
