Working out again, and SWTOR goes live

 I haven't been writing as much this last week. That's mostly because I was really enjoying the Early Access I received for Star Wars: the Old Republic.

 I have been absent from MMOs for quite a while, but lately, I have a lot of free time in my evenings. I find it gives me some good diversion. Video Games are a poor substitute for having my wife around, but some things we just can't change.

 So, the outlet I found was SWTOR.

 I have to say, as far as new MMOs go, the Beta was impressive, and the pre-launch went really smooth. There have been complaints about FPS issues, which I have had; Lag issues, which I haven't, and the queue times for the servers.

 Well, it's brand new and they keep opening up new servers everyday, so I imagine that will be rectified.

 Other than that, all I have to say about the game is: It is awesome!

 It's no secret that I'm a huge Star Wars fanboy, so this is pretty much a dream for me. We had Galaxies before, and love it or hate it, it was what it was. I won't comment, as steered away from it by some gamers I trusted.

 As it is, SWTOR is what we have now, and I'm not disappointed in the least. The graphics are beautiful, if a bit stylized. The voiceover work is incredible. The big draw for me, though, is the stories.

 It isn't much of a surprise, as that is something Bioware does well, and has for a long time now. I actually care about the quests I'm moving through. I want to see where it goes next.

 WoW (which I played for 6 years) is a great game, but when it came down to it, it was a grind. All the early times I played were a grind to hit the level cap, so I could go raid. All the raiding was to go find better gear. The better gear let me raid more.

 In the end, it got to be like another job, so I stopped raiding and switched over to PvP. That was more like a job in the old days than raiding was. In the end, midway through Wrath of the Lich King, I realized I'd done it all before, and I quit, never to look back.

 Bioware made me care about the MMO again.

 So far, it is just fun. What a novel idea. One of the best things to come along, is the conversation options in your quests. Not only does it really give it a personalized feel, and you really get into the bits and pieces of your character's personality, but some of them are really entertaining.

 Meg has had a lot of fun helping me make my characters, so I have several female characters. The customization options are pretty good. Quite a bit better than WoW, though not as in-depth as CoH/CoV. My daughter had fun with it though. So did I.

 So, I don't know where the game will be a year or two from now, but right now, on the eve of the official launch, I have really high hopes.

 In other news, I signed up for the Pennsylvania Tough Mudder up in the Poconos with a team of guys I work with. It is gonna hurt, but it is gonna be a lot of fun. So today, I also started working out again. I have a little over 5 months to prepare.

 Robin always told me to spend less time thinking about things I want to do, and just doing them. So I said, 'what the hell', and went with it.

 Here is the link if you wan't to make any donations on my behalf to the Wounded Warrior Project, which Tough Mudder is a HUGE supporter of.

 The way I see it, this is a way to thumb my nose at the shit this last year was. The best way I can think of to get past everything is to go harder. If I can get through losing Robin, I can get through anything.