Fat Tuesday : Neverwinter, EQ2, GW2

Sitting here drinking a coffee waiting for the Neverwinter gates to open in just over an hour's time, wondering why everything always has to start on a Tuesday.

For as long as I can remember Tuesday has been the weekly server-reset day for SoE but they're going one better than a mere reset today, landing GU66 aka Scars of the Awakened, which if I remember rightly is the third installment of EQ2's Velious saga. Somewhat to my surprise and much to my great pleasure this includes substantial new overland content accessible from Level 90.

I'd been assuming it would be aimed at the folks who bought the Chains of Eternity expansion, which I didn't. Haven't. Yet. But no, apparently that was just a little holiday from the seemingly endless revision of Velious and now we pick up where we left off a year or so ago. I foresee a return to Norrath in the near future.

ArenaNet doesn't take servers down the way SoE and most other MMO companies do. They have some clever way of patching on the fly. Even so the servers start to creak a little after a week and Tuesday's the day they get reset. Things tend to get glitchy after a while, events bug, rewards don't always register. Today there's yet another major issue with the Guild window. It definitely feels like the batteries need changing. Add to that it's the end of the month so there's the third and final part of Flame and Frost on the way too .

As I was finishing dailies on my second account a few minutes ago the big yellow "new build" notice was flashing on the screen. Normally I'd be raring to get started, especially since the new dungeon is supposedly only with us until the 12th of May, which should create some frenzied pugging. If only Cryptic/PWE weren't Tuesday's Children too.

In a three-way death-match between a major update, a minor update and a new game the winner is so obvious no bookie would take the bet. Of course it isn't a death-match. More like a running order. I'll get to all of them eventually. It would have been a lot better if they hadn't all arrived at once, and especially if they hadn't all arrived on Tuesday. Tuesday's a work day, y'know. Okay, I'm not at work but that's hardly the point.

Presumably the reason these things happen on Tuesdays is precisely that, though. The Devs are at work and so, largely, are the players. That way the log in servers don't catch fire and when the inevitable emergency patches follow there's the rest of the day, and the week, to write and apply them. And by the weekend everything's running smoothly, the players can play and the devs can play golf and go to the opera. I assume that's what they do in their spare time...

Okay, that killed an hour. Time to log in!