Join the new world

Wow, I haven’t published anything since V1! I think we wrote with ink and quills back then.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about dusting off this paper and writing something for a while now. I thought about discussing politics, but I don’t really know enough about what’s going on to be an authority on that. I considered economics because I’m minoring in that in college. But then I realized that each time I published an article, the last one would probably be outdated because of the infinite wisdom of Plato and his changes. I could have been one of those guys that recommend other articles, but I probably would have mostly recommended stuff that Chutley writes.

And then it hit me. Why should I need to write about this game? There are lots of things outside Erepublik that are interesting. So that’s what I’m going to do. Write about things that have nothing to do with the game that brought us together.

For this article, or at least the remainder, I’ll be talking about a couple of other games I play online. If they sound interesting, message me so I can send you my referral link (so I can get stuff when you sign up!).

Other than Erepublik, I mostly play two other games online: Lords and PirateQuest.

Lords is a browser-based MMOG that has you take on the role of a medieval lord (sort of) who needs to build up his/her army, technology, and glory (among other things, I won’t bore you with details on here). Mostly, you do this by stealing gold from other people. There is a good amount of strategy in this game, as there are defensive players, balanced players, and those who prefer pure attack. There are several other strategies too, but mentioning them wouldn’t do any good unless I explained a lot of the game mechanics.

The fighting, building, and upgrading is all well and good, but it all resets every 90 days or so to keep it fair for newer players and to let veterans try new strategies. That’s where arguably the best part of the game comes in: factions. Factions (and kingdoms, which are just groups of factions) represent the social aspect of the game. Older players share memories of other rounds and mentor new guys. We share strategies and intel on other players. And, occasionally, one of us gets really, really drunk (you know who you are) and provides us with endless amusement.

If that sounds interesting, check out www.lordsgame.com

The other game, PirateQuest, is a browser-based MMORPG that puts you in the place of a Caribbean pirate (bet you didn’t see that one coming). You can pillage, kill, sink ships, and smuggle, and most of us do. You level up, train, improve your ship and crew, and rule the high seas! Until one of the serial crewers (what I call people who spend hours per day sinking ships) puts you at the bottom of the ocean, at least.

The social aspect of PQ is a big one, too. You have fleets (groups of pirates that can engage in wars with other fleets) that each have their own forum, the main forum, and the town crier, which lets anyone communicate with everyone else in roughly real time. There’s almost always a few older pirates who are willing to help newer people checking out the forum area set up solely for asking questions, so don’t hesitate to ask anything.

If you want, go to www.piratequest.net (or better yet, ask me for my referral link!)

That about does it for my online gaming, at least the ones I spend any substantial amount of time on. If you play any other games online, post them in the comments. I plan to make my next article about games that I play that are not solely online, and games I’m looking forward to. Spoiler alert: Bioware.

Anyway, thanks for reading, or at least jumping to the bottom. I hope you enjoyed it.