Holiday Roundup

Been playing a little of this, a little of that:

SimCity Societies: Fun for about three days, then I became bored. Haven't tried the newly-added "challenge modes" yet, but I'm not exactly captivated by the gameplay. One of the things I liked about previous SimCities was watching my city grow and change over time - in Societies, what you place is what you get. I got nine of the ten achievements by building a small town that earned a profit, letting it run at top speed while I had lunch and read for a while, then using the hundreds of thousands of dollars I'd accumulated to build the rest of the city types on the same map. The "Authoritarian" one is the only one I haven't gotten, because it's dependent on having your Sims be not upset but not overly happy, which requires some fairly specific planning. Overall, I give it a resounding "eh".

The Sims: Seems to have run its course again. I've got a lovely little town I can come back to when I feel like it, but the charm has, once again, worn off.

TR: Went to the roleplaying event on Defeat of Earth Day, which was fun, if predictably disrupted by bored players with particle effects. The clans that showed up in uniform looked damned sharp though. Played some on Resurgence Day, but missed the actual attack. Pity.

My main hit 18 and I'm nearly done with Divide - one more boss, a few CP attack/defense missions, and the instances, and I'll be on to Palisades. I think the plan will be finish Divide, finish Wilderness on Jaxon, run through Palisades, go back to Divide on an alt, do another zone on the main, etc. The cloning system is awesome but there's definitely going to be some repetition, particularly when I have 8 troops to run through the 30-50 content. Fortunately, Divide at least has some bits I want to do again (the Bane-in-prison quest line in particular is fascinating.)

The fun of combat has definitely not diminished, and I'm beginning to play with some of the unique Ranger skills - I can see how the classes will begin to differentiate. I also want to start fooling around with crafting, now that there's a global trade system and one can find markets to sell equipment with well-chosen mods. 30 is a ways off yet, though.