WoW: The big news here of course is Cataclysm, which came while this site was idle…and went. I made it through all of the zone content fairly quickly, usually only taking a couple days per zone. It was fun enough, but it’s awfully railroaded, with almost no choice in how to go about working your way through things.

After that, the expansion felt kind of empty. There wasn’t really any reason to revisit the zones, I didn’t feel like grinding instances over and over for equipment I didn’t really need for anything, the faction grinding rewards seemed kind of weak, archaeology was fun for a while but now it’s down to tediously grinding for Uldum sites… Cataclysm is probably the expansion I lost interest in the quickest. About the only thing I really ought to do is work some more on my Worgen druid and see what the revamped lower level zones are like, but it’s a low priority.

EQ2: I can’t remember where I left off, but our group has pretty much finished with The Bonemire, and…we haven’t really done anything lately. Scheduling problems meant we couldn’t get the group together for a few weeks, and with that loss of momentum, we haven’t even bothered trying to regroup in a couple months now.

I’ve still been playing a fair bit by myself, though. I got my mystic up to level 90 alchemy and took him through all of the tradeskill quest lines in the Odus and Velious expansions, netting a flying mount in the process and unlocking some faction gear I can’t wear yet. I’ve also been leveling my illusionist alt, getting him to 72 and taking him through the Kunark zones right now and working on his tradeskill as well.

Vanguard: And I finally gave Vanguard a shot, along with a handful of other forum members who got caught by the curiosity bug around the same time. I’m only level 14, having gone through the tutorial island and a small handful of quests on the mainland, so it’s still early yet, but it seems like a pretty decent game. It has some of that old-school EverQuest feel, but with a more interesting combat system, unique crafting and diplomacy systems, and a lot to see and do.

Champions Online: And oh yeah, I tried this too, but the tutorial section didn’t really grab me, so I never bothered going back to it, even though it’s now free-to-play.

I’d like to get back and play more EQ2 and Vanguard still, but, well, there’s still that whole SOE-is-down-for-who-knows-how-long thing…

Things have been picking up again in the MMO worlds.

WoW finally released its 4.0.1 patch, pretty much completely redoing how skills and talent trees and stats work and forcing everyone to redo their talent selections. I’ve caught up on the main trees for my priest, warrior, and mage, and so far the differences aren’t huge, but it might require more play to really tell. My mage seems to have completely lost some buffs he used to have, though. The actual Cataclysm changes are still a ways away, but hopefully I’ll get my Loremaster achievement finished before then.

In EQ2, we finally got a full group together for a couple of weeks, so we’ve worked on the heritage quest for Rahotep’s staff and some faction grinding for the Maj’Dul quests. Unfortunately we aren’t quite strong enough for Rahotep’s final step yet — we gave it a try, but he’s an EpicX2 monster, and we just couldn’t damage him quickly enough. Maybe with a handful of more levels; we’ve managed to defeat an EpicX2 before with just the four of us, but it was on the verge of turning grey to us.

EQ2 also launched the Hallowe’en event, and today I took my mystic through the major quests that are part of it. One of them involved a hedge maze where I kept getting stronger and stronger as I defeated more enemies, and at the end I took on an EpicX2 boss all by myself and won. I’ll have to redo that one a few times, both just for fun and for other rewards like collectibles and a quest that only opens up on the second attempt. A couple of the other quests also have rewards for repeated attempts that I’ll have to try for.

And I finally got around to canceling my subscription to Asheron’s Call. I’d resubscribed earlier this year with the intent of revisiting it, seeing what was new, checking out the old stomping grounds, etc., but…it’s just not going to happen, at this rate. Sayonara, AC.

A bit more progress in WoW lately as I managed to finish off the zone achievements for Nagrand and Blade’s Edge with a friend’s help. That got me the Loremaster of Outland achievement, and now I just have Zul’Drak and Icecrown to go for the big one. For Zul’Drak I just need to do a run through Gundrak, which will eventually happen in a random, but for Icecrown I’ll need some group help.

This morning I also managed to nab three of the Argent Tournament minipets from the AH for only 300 gold each. That’s about the price at which I’d prefer to just pay gold for them rather than having to grind Champion Seals for them; that’s 120 seals total, or about two weeks of doing dailies, but less than a week’s worth of gold farming.

And in EQ2 last night we went and checked out a new dungeon, The Obelisk of Lost Souls. It’s extremely maze-like but fortunately one of the group members had the map. Some rooms were pretty tough fights since even the monsters down below would aggro and swarm us, but there was only one death for the whole evening. We eventually gained access to the inner area and an inner instance called the Vestibule, but that’s as far as we can go until we complete an access quest (and only one member has it so far since you need a drop to start it).

We also wandered over to the Temple of Cazic-Thule in Feerrott to farm a wraith for the start of the Screaming Mace quest. With the long respawn time, we could only get three of the four drops needed though, so I’ll have to get mine later.

Our Tuesday night EQ1 group has kind of petered out, but it did actually last a decent amount of time for such an old game. The problem is that without mentoring and/or AA xp control at the lower levels, it’s hard for someone who misses out on a day to catch up. Once people start falling behind, it kind of snowballs and more and more people drop out.

Ah well, it was a surprisingly good day in WoW at least. My warrior finally got the fourth crocodile from the Shattrath fishing daily, and my priest managed to finish off a few more Zul’Drak quests that I had thought I’d need a group for. I only need three more to complete that zone, and I’ll be able to do it the next time I do the Gundrak instance. I’m also now only 30 quests total away from the Loremaster title.

And in Dragon Age I finished off the Lothering quests aside from the ones I have to travel for. Next up I’ll probably try out some of the DLC content, now that I can freely move on the world map.