That's a relief

Take this as fact, I got this from our CEO, COO and VP of Game Operations today. SWORD OF THE NEW WORLD HAS NO INTENT OF CLOSING ANYTIME SOON!

I am sick of hearing about these rumors by former disgruntled employees. We are not closing, we have no intent to close and we have a full staff around the world working on the title on a daily basis (including myself).

I gotta say, the lack of 3.0 (or all of 2.9) has made me wonder about the future of the game. But Neume just today said the above.

I'm still having fun with Atlantica, though. Just turned 52nd and a couple days ago got my 9th Mercenary, the Beast Tamer. She's an axe wielding chick that rides a tiger. Pretty soon though I'm going to have to decide whether or not to spend money on the game. It's like Sword in that you have multiple characters. But each "room" to store a character beyond the 9 you use costs $5

Another month for 3.0?

From this thread, we have Neume quoted as saying

I make no statement on dates for a patch... but we are working on it. Unfortunately imcGames will be out until the second week of Feb for New Years soo...

Sigh. Just what is the hold up, anyway? Sword seems to be relegated to the bottom of IMC's priority list, if that.

Woot! Got Emilia the Sage...

Still taking a break from the game, but logged on to buy Emilia the Sage from a very nice fellow on the forums.

Probably paid too much (100 million plus 5 mystery boxes plus merc), but it was something I wanted just for the sake of wanting. And since I finally had ETS, had no more need for the mystery boxes (have enough ottite perfume and AA passes).

And really, wasn't doing me any good, hopefully he can put the vis and whatever he gets to good use.

Also saw I got my whatever it was they were giving away for New Years. Some sort of back accessory (which I've never used, think they are cheating, really).

3.0 coming soon?

In a recent thread on the official forums, the new K2 guy said

"Keep checking the announcements on website and forum regularly, you might have a surprise soon rolleyes.gif"

Of course, considering the amount of times Neume has said something and was wrong, it's hard to get too excited. But still...

So, looks like I'll be playing Atlantica Onilne for the next month at least...

Well, guess I'll be playing Atantica for a while, during my break from Sword.

I can definitely see myself getting sick of Atlantica, but seems like it will be fun for a while. I played during the closed beta back in August, and sort of liked it, but was put off by a number of issues, including having to re-download the client all over again (which is 2.3 gigs, which is a long time when my speed is capped. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate Verizon? Now I'm getting disconnected constantly again).

But some of the game issues they fixed. For instance, the text is no longer wacky. The community seems friendlier, and a lot more populous. There's I think 5 servers, most of which are pretty busy at any given time. That's my main complaint with Lord of the Rings Online, almost no other players (and no one that friendly) at lower levels.

I'm still not sure I like the stamina system, which limits you to roughly 100 battles a day if you are under 50th level, or 50 if you are above it. As it is, I've been running out. On the other hand, unlike I feared, they aren't selling "stamina" pills in the cash shop to let you get around it. You can regain it by simply being logged in and not fighting monsters, or fighting in PvP tournies. Or apparently by giving gifts to newer players. The latter is something nice, a lot of what they give you is junk, but one person gave me 200,000 gold (or whatever the currency is) and another 100,000, which is pretty decent amounts of money for my level.

Anyway, anyone else playing, I'm Vonradir (name of one of my alts on LOTRO) on the Thebes server.

Time for a break, I guess...

Well, the search for a new clan has been futile, with only Telos showing any interest (and much thanks to the leader of Telos, it's nice someone at least asked. And nothing against Telos, I'm just incompatible, personality wise, with one of its members, his broads drive me up a wall).

I suppose I could get in a couple others, but as my experience with Core has shown, I want a clan that actually wants me in it, and will do things with me, not one that just lets me tag along for stuff.

And despite a large number of MBs, no Emilia the Sage. I did trade one Iron Chef Panfilo for Soho the Fighter, but honestly, I get kinda bored with melee fighters these days.

So, it's either back to LOTRO (which I'm also kinda tired of, it's really grindy, so much of the player population is at max level, so the lower levels are the game are empty, making grinding the only real option to level up, as opposed to group quests), or maybe a couple other "free" MMORPGs.

Thanks to an unexpected, but sadly brief, uncapping of my speed, I was able to download the clients for both Megaten Online and Atlantica (4 gigs worth) in only a few hours. Tried Atlantica in the Closed Beta, but the client wasn't updatable once they went live for some reason, and never got around to re-downloading it again. Didn't love that game, but it wasn't bad.

Megaten Online is an offshoot of the console games. Set in Post Apocalyptic Tokyo. Seems okay, though click heavy.

My Road to Expert...(January 1st)

My XP rate for my highest Character, Alorra the Scout:
--------------------------------------------------------
Jan 3rd - 1st
Feb 3 - 44th
March 9th - 72nd
April 7th - 85th
May 3rd - 94th
June 1st - Vet 1.3%
July 5th - Vet 9.5%
August 26th - Vet 11.5%
Sept 16th - Vet 15.2%
Oct 16th - Vet 20.4%
Nov 4th - Vet 24.7%
December 1st - Vet 30%
January 1st - Vet 40.7%


XP Rate for my 2nd highest Character, Ripiel the Musketeer:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Jan 3rd - 1st
Feb 3rd - 20th
May 22nd - 64
August 25th - Vet 1.5%
Sept 25th - Vet 6.8%
Oct 8th - Vet 10%
Nov 14th - Vet 13.4%
Dec 1st - Vet 15.7%
Jan 1st - Vet 26.2%