If I Can't See It, It's Not There

Above is a screenshot of my desktop. Some of my desktop. I cropped four columns - forty icons - from the left-hand side.

Apart from a handful of single-player games - in fact, all the single-player games I currently own - everything that remains is either an MMO, an MMO platform or an application related in some way to playing MMOs.

The background is a screenshot from Guild Wars 2. All my desktop backgrounds in living memory have been shots from MMOs. I have tens of thousands of them so there's plenty of choice.

Obsession is such an ugly word. Then again, so is breezeblock.

As I mentioned in some post or other a while back, I got a 2TB HDD for my birthday but I only got around to installing it after Christmas. That gave me three internal HDDs and four terabytes of onboard storage in total.

This morning I hooked up an external HDD via a USB caddy and moved a bunch of MMOs across. Then I went through all three drives and made sure the icons for all those MMOs were present on the desktop.

Well, I say I went through them. I mostly opened folders in a haphazard fashion and pulled out any launchers or executables that I happened to spot. I am no more organized in filing or ordering my games than I am in playing them. Still, I think I got most of what there was.

This means I currently have thirty-eight MMOs, MMORPGs or limited tests for MMOs immediately available from the screen. Having an active icon on my desktop significantly increases the chances I will actually play any one of these. If I have to go find the game on an external disc, or even go digging around in the files on an internal drive, chances are I'll get distracted and end up doing something else entirely.

That said, not all of those thirty-eight MMOs are playable right now. The icon for Valiance, for example, one of the numerous would-be successors to City of Heroes, used to go to some kind of tech demo or sneak peak. I don't think that's running any more. Hang on, I'll find out... no. it's not.

As for Minions of Mirth, it used to be an MMO but now it's not. I'd forgotten all about until it got a mention on MassivelyOP a while back. The server hosting the MMO died but the offline single-player version still works. I patched it up today, made a new account and logged in to check. I never got very far in MoM the first (or second, or third) time around and I certainly don't plan on trying to get any further in single-player mode but I've confirmed it's there if I want it.

Dino Storm I did used to enjoy playing. I might very well fancy another go. Is that one still running? It didn't work when I tried it a few minutes ago. I thought maybe it had finally died but nope! As it turns out, it's just not on Bigpoint any more. Not that I 'd remembered it was.

Bigpoint decided to get out of the cowboy dinosaur business back in September last year but the game continues under the banner of Splitscreen Games. I just downloaded the new launcher from their website. It let me log in with my old username and my character was waiting for me just as I left him, what must now be several years ago.

It never ceases to amaze me just how many MMOs there are and how long they last. Also how devotedly they retain our data even when we don't seem to have any more interest in using it. Dino Storm was fairly busy when last I played but there seemed to no-one but me around this time.

Auteria, an MMO in comparison with which Dino Storm is World of Warcraft, is also still plugging away. I just logged in and there it was. Why, and for whom? No idea.

Speaking of obscure MMOs that no-one ever talks about, let alone plays, one that's not on the desktop screenshot above is The Hammers End. Actually, it is on the desktop now but I added it after I took the screenshot. I remembered it as I was writing this post si I went to see if it was still around. It is.

The website has been smartened up somewhat. Not only that but the ludicrous payment model I balked at has been replaced with a straightforward F2P/Premium system. I downloaded the game and, yes, my old login still works and my character is still there.

What's more, THE seems to have received some significant quality of life attention, possibly as part of the F2P conversion. If I can find a spare hour or two I'll have a run around, see what's changed and maybe do an update post. It's an interesting little game that deserves more attention that it gets. Well, it would be hard for it to deserve less since it gets approximately none...

The main reason I started all of this wasn't to dig up obscure old titles and see how they're doing. It was to dig up big, successful titles I keep reading about and see how they're doing. The two I specifically would like to look at again are Elder Scrolls Online and Black Desert Online.

There's always seem to be plenty of people willing to bang on about how no-one makes proper AAA MMORPGs any more and how the entire genre is doomed and yet there's these two, seemingly doing great business, both popular and successful. Not to mention Warframe. And FFXIV. Just off the top of my head.

I don't think Warframe's ever going to be my sort of thing, mainly because the suits your character has to wear are so unremittingly hideous. I have never seen one single screenshot of the game where the player-character didn't look repulsive. I thought it might be different in the game itself but if anything it was worse.

If Warframe's off the table for reasons of fashion, FFXIV certainly isn't. Characters there are a pleasure to look at. I might play some more of that, some day, seeing as how Square were kind enough to offer the first thirty or so levels for free.

What I really want to do, though, is to visit my old house in BDO. The housing there doesn't get much of a mention but i thought it was pretty spiffy. and maybe see how much ESO has changed.

I might also, finally, get back to Dragon Nest. That turned out to be another icon that didn't work. Dragon Nest has a convoluted history of ownership/publishing/regionalization that I could never keep straight but it seems whatever version I had installed isn't around any more.

Dragon Nest Europe is still available via Steam, though, and I'm patching that up as I type. (Ed. It didn't work. Now I'm downloading it direct from the website). I also have the mobile version on Android. Supposedly it's cross-plattform now. If I could find my old log-in details I'd test that but I have a horrible feeling I might have to start again from scratch.

Anyway, enough of this. I'm just hoping that having all these titles directly to hand, ready to fire up on a whim, might lead to me playing a wider variety of MMOs again. Of late I've been in something of a comfortable rut, doing dailies in GW2 and pottering about in EverQuest II. Very enjoyable it's been, too, but it wouldn't do me any harm to branch out a little.

I am very definitely not going to follow the blogging trend and start setting myself goals or targets, let alone producing some kind of schedule. Heaven forfend! I am hoping, though, that merely seeing the icons in front of me each time I sit down at the keyboard might lead to a little meander across the MMO map.

After all, there's so much out there I haven't seen.

Bringing Things Up To Date

Having thought about doing it yesterday, today I bit the bullet and began patching all the MMORPGs on my desktop. What fun!

First up was Allods. That was neither alphabetical nor random. It was because, while I was choosing screenshots for yesterday's post, I came across a bunch of shots and it reminded me just how beautiful a game it is. With such great art design, rich with visual wit and flourish, plus very solid gameplay, unusual and appealing races, interesting classes and an all-round high level of polish I'm at a loss to explain either why Allods hasn't been more successful or indeed why I haven't played it more than I have.

I'm in a bit of a mess with Allods as it happens. I can't recall my old account details so I'm stuck with just the fresh account I set up to try the new starting zone. That I mostly played on my Windows 10 Tablet, where it works very well, but I very soon realized I don't want to play games in my lunch-break. I'd much rather read.

That's probably why, rather than just patch, the MY.com Games launcher decided to download the entire game to my PC. I didn't specifically use the launcher but it decided to get in on the act anyway.

This trend towards Launchers that supposedly manage updates for a company's full portfolio of games is very trying. SOE spent many years fiddling around with the concept and it never really worked better than just patching the games individually. Daybreak Games seem to have loosened up on that somewhat. There is still some kind of underlying unified launcher but I have all the individual game icons on my desktop and clicking those seems to start the update and log-in process just fine.

Trion has Glyph. What used to be Perfect World (and for all I know may still be Perfect World to the financial regulators) has ARC. Blizzard has BattleNet and so on. If it's supposed to make things easier...well it doesn't.

After Allods I patched WildStar, which went very smoothly, and then A Mystical Land aka Villagers and Heroes. That also took just a few minutes. I see from their launcher that they've had a level cap rise and added a new zone among other things. I wonder how my sheep is. Dead, probably.

From there I moved to Project : Gorgon but I actually updated that a couple of weeks back and apparently Eric hasn't added anything since then so it was playable immediately. I didn't play it. Instead I patched The Secret World and then EverQuest.

There was a time earlier this year when I was playing EQ quite regularly. Then I changed my All Access membership to the account where my EQ2 Berserker lives and that left the EQ character I was working on, my Magician, stranded on F2P. Well, legacy Silver, but it still locked her out of all the Double XP weekends that would have motivated me to log her in.

At least she's patched up and ready should a window of opportunity arise. I still harbor a theoretical desire to get her to 100 some day, even though the cap has moved past even that landmark now. And speaking of Landmark...

That's what I patched next. I'd been thinking about good old Landmark even before Tipa jogged my memory but I probably wouldn't have done anything about it. Given the total radio silence on the game for most of this year I didn't really expect it would need to patch but it downloaded almost 2GB of something. That sent me to the forums to check the Update Notes but I couldn't see that anything new had been added.

I did, however, find this news posted by Darrin "Talisker" McPherson just a week ago. Well, I call it "news". It's more like news that there might be news.

I'll get the details out to you all soon, but expect some new initiatives, team-up builds and changes to the adventuring side of things. Lets build some content together!

I have no idea what that means but at least it's some sign of life.

Elder Scrolls Online came next.  It set off at a furious pace as it downloaded a vast pile of files but it soon ground almost to a halt when I tried to save some time by patching Star Trek Online and Neverwinter on top.

They both use the aforementioned ARC portal these days and that didn't recognize either of my existing passwords. Resetting them was simple and both games patched at blistering speeds, apparently at the expense of ESO, which ground almost to a halt. There were several gigabytes of updates for both STO and NWO but together they were done in a few minutes. ESO is still patching as I write, well over an hour later.

That, really, is how I came to write this post. Something to do while ESO is patching. I thought I'd better not try any more until it finishes. It seems to be having hard enough time as it is.

Still to come I can see Rift and Trove (well, I can see Glyph but same difference), Dragon Nest Oracle, ArcheAge, DinoStorm and Lord of the Rings Online. Dragon Nest I actually do want to get back to playing. I was enjoying that one. Rift I've been having weird pangs over. I thought I was done with it for good but perhaps not quite yet. ArcheAge I always meant to get back to someday and DinoStorm I always do go back to, usually late at night on a whim.

And LotRO? Well it's always there, although some of the numbers Ravanel mentions in her recent post make me wonder for how much longer.  LotRO has always been a nightmare to patch so I'm leaving it til last.

I tried to limit myself to MMOs I have at least a glancing blow's chance of playing in the next month or three, although by "playing" I really mean logging in, looking at my inventory, wandering around the main city for a few minutes and logging off again. That still leaves a few icons on my desktop that go to MMOs I really can't see myself getting back to any time soon - Istaria, Eldevin, Ryzom - although even though as I type those names I can feel interest stirring anew.

There's also City of Steam, which, being browser-based, doesn't need a specific update and whose main storyline I am determined to finish before they finally shut the servers down, assuming they haven't already - I didn't check. Then, naturally, while patching I saw at least two newish MMOs I hadn't previously heard of that I almost began downloading and as I write I've thought of another four or five that I thought I had installed but which don't seem to have desktop presence any more.

Enough! That way madness lies. And ESO is at 75% now. By the time I choose some screenshots and a title it should be done.

Taking Stock

So many plans, so many good intentions. So many projects. So many new MMOs.

So what happened?

Things I Was Going To Do

• Project 5/5 - That was the Syp-inspired notion of playing ten unfamiliar MMOs in ten days. Several other bloggers picked up on it and there were a few posts. It looks as though Syp ran out of steam at seven. Did anyone actually play and blog about all ten? Not being able to see myself finding the time to join in I whimsically suggested I might try five then promptly forgot about the whole thing. As if I ever intended to go through with it in the first place... Then again, I've almost certainly played at least five new-to-me MMOs already just in the normal run of things.

• Playing GW2 Properly - As in leveling a character to 80 via a linear progression through contiguous maps. That lasted about two weeks until I discovered Asurans don't really have a clear line of progress to follow. They have Rata Sum, Metrica Province and Brisban Wildlands and then the map runs out. My new ranger decided the next logical step would be Lornar's Pass. He completed that and moved on to Dredgehaunt Cliffs but about halfway through one of the Living Story events blew in. He ended up first in Lion's Arch, then in Southsun and eventually, somehow, in the Borderlands upholding the Honor of the Yak in WvW. By then the whole thing was off the rails. He's currently level 64 and spending most of his time doing much the same as all my other characters i.e. aimlessly wandering about doing Dailies, Living Story, Dragon Events and WvW as the mood takes him. Project abandoned, on this character anyway. 

• All Eight GW2 Classes To Level 80 - Nearly there. If it hadn't been for the spare ranger it would have been done by now. The Guardian's sitting at Level 63 and so long as he only ever uses a Greatsword I can imagine playing him even after he tops out. The lack of any real ranged option still rankles and he's a weird mix of indestructible against some things and incapable against others but I've warmed to him.

• Playing GW2 with the UI Switched Off - Still on the drawing board. I want to get to this but I need to make a new character and I don't have a spare slot. 

•  Getting Creative - with Neverwinter's Foundry. That was the plan. See below for how well that went.

MMOs I Said I Was Going To Play 

(and one I said I wasn't)

• Final Fantasy XIV:ARR - The big success story. It came from the back of the pack, half-forgotten, to gallop into a clear lead. So far there's very little about that I don't like and unless something unexpected happens this will most likely be the next MMO I play "seriously", especially if Mrs Bhagpuss comes on board. Her initial impressions were favorable. If housing was in at launch it would be a done deal. 

 

• Neverwinter - There was a moment when this might have been the Next Game, but that moment was before I'd actually played it. Didn't dislike it; just never got going. Made one character, got to about level nine or ten in maybe three or four sessions and then...nothing. Like a great many MMOs Neverwinter would be quite absorbing if it was the only game in town but as one of many it doesn't have the necessary hook. I keep meaning to give it another run - I'd still like a look at The Foundry -  but there's always something else I'd rather do instead. It's noticeable that the flood of blog posts about it that were filling my Feedly for a while have dried up. By all accounts it's doing well but no-one I read seems to be writing about it any more.

•  City of Steam - Playing this regularly despite feeling somewhat let-down by the direction it's taken.That deserves, and may even get, a post of its own. I log in every day for the bribes loyalty rewards, which they tweaked to the point where they are really too tasty to miss. The way they chose to stagger the Open Beta into three phases with the Human races in the first, then the Elves and finally the Greenskins was very irritating. I have a level 15 Heartlander that I'd probably never have made at all had all the races been available at the start. Now he's languishing unplayed while I level the Goblin I wanted all along through the same linear content. Not best pleased.

• Dragons Prophet - Haven't logged in for weeks, a situation unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. DP is another one that would probably have gotten some play in leaner times but was always going to struggle to gain attention in the current MMO glut.  Only having humans as a playable race is a massive disincentive. I can be a human anytime; I don't need to play MMOs for that. 

• The Secret World - Back to playing this sporadically but not infrequently. Got my chainsaw! That was fun. Went to Egypt to do some of the Indiana Jones missions then realized I never bought the pack. Danced with Said. Fought with a bunch of Aten cultists I'd had no trouble with at QL6 and died to them repeatedly at QL10. Either they've got a lot better or I've got a lot worse. Decided I'd enjoy TSW a whole lot more if Funcom took about 90% of the fighting out of it. Or just 90% of the mobs.

• Firefall - Waiting on the upcoming launch because I enjoyed my brief visit a lot. Realistically, though, I imagine I'll putz about for a session or two, write an enthusiastic but ill-informed blog post and then never play it again.

• Dino Storm - Although you never can tell, because against all odds I'm still playing this one, and not just to get my log-in rewards either. It seems to be doing very well. They announced recently that they'd hit three million registrations. It's always busy when I visit, with whomping great dinos stomping round Dinoville and a whole list of well-populated instances popping up as options any time I zone. I love the music, the colors, the ambience. The controls are comfortable. The gameplay is a weird mix - relaxing and stressful at the same time. Simple escort, FedEx and kill ten rats quests in a cartoon setting that allows unrestricted PvP is a very odd combination.  I don't make any great claims for it but it's a fun distraction.

• EQ2 - Still thinking about it every day. Might even get to playing this week. Said that last week. And the week before that.

• Rift - The MMO I had absolutely no plans to play again. And I wouldn't have if it hadn't been for you pesky kids if Trion hadn't filled my pockets with Free Money. Mrs Bhagpuss has been there full-time for the past week or so, spending her 20k credits on Dimensions in a building frenzy. She's also taken to fishing in a big way. I've tried to get back into the game but it's resisting me at every turn. I'm not just finding it hard to like now, I'm struggling to remember why I liked it so much the first time.

For a minute there I contemplated going through the long list of MMOs on the back-burner: Everquest, Vanguard, DCUO, even some that aren't published by SOE, but if life's too short to play an MMO it's surely too short to blog about it. Although I did play EQ last week, come to think of it...

This One Goes To 11 : Rift

Contrary to SynCaine's repeated assertions that GW2 is good for about three weeks, it's done me proud for best part of ten months so far. It was never my intention to spend that much time in Tyria but there's just so much to do, so much to see and it's so relaxing. They made it so comfortable it seems like just too much effort to go anywhere else.

Still, there's more to life than wearing old slippers. You could buy some new slippers, maybe some amusing ones that look like Asura feet with the claws sticking out the sides. Or maybe get out that really old pair you used to love, the ones you pushed to the back of the wardrobe because the stitching had come loose and the left one kept falling off when you went downstairs, and that really could be dangerous, you don't want a fall, not at your age, old bones don't heal as fast as young ones...

I'll need to buy extra bag slots just to collect my mail

Where was I? Hang on, I'll come in again...

I think I mentioned that the arrival of Rift's Free-to-Play apocalypse regeneration drew Mrs Bhagpuss back with the lure of vast quantities of free housing toys and Dimensions to put them in. She's been hard at work all weekend building some kind of sweat lodge up in Iron Pine Peaks, in cahoots with a friend from EQ2. The upshot of that was that when I heard about all the free goodies I got sufficiently curious to go find my old password and log back in see what goodies were waiting, which led inevitably to fiddling around with various characters, rifling through old bags and boxes and eventually to pondering on all those empty, reset roles sitting there staring at me, begging to be filled.

Our friend, who played Storm Legion last year and got to 60 and therefore has recent knowledge of Rift, or at least at lot more recent than mine, spent a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon patiently reminding me how all the things worked that I'd forgotten and explaining all the new things that I'd never known to begin with. When I started mithering about how impossibly slow and tedious the combat had become after 50th she pointed me to the forums and a Rogue spec going by the unlikely name of Granpa said knock you out .

I've never used anyone else's spec in Rift before. I muddled along with my own taking three characters to fifty before I lost interest the first time round. I also never used Macros on any of them, although I did on my fourth Archetype, my Warrior who was in the low 40s when I stopped playing. After my brief and dismal experience with Storm Legion last year, when I was using one of Trion's pre-set builds, the Battle Bard, I was ready to try anything.

Slavishly copying the build from the forum, including cutting and pasting the macros, took less than five minutes. I was so unmotivated I didn't even bother to put any of the abilities on my hotbars once I found out the macros work fine with all the skills left in the book. I porticulumed (it's a word!) over to Pelludane to try it out, not expecting much.

Holy Hannah in a handbag! Suddenly I'm playing a different game! From struggling to kill anything in less than five minutes and only living through it so long as absolutely nothing joined in my Rogue turned into some kind of overclocked threshing machine. Single mobs died in seconds. Clusters of invaders took barely longer. Even freaking Elites fell before me leaving me standing over their gigantic corpses with the best part of half my health intact!

Sorry, Dozer. She doesn't know her own strength.

All this with nothing but four Macros on my hotbar, none of which I have even bothered to read, far less understand. No need to time anything or pay any kind of attention. And I'm wearing pre-Storm Legion solo gear that hasn't been updated since 2011. The only way this could get more easy-mode would be if I had someone to press the buttons for me.

None of this materially affects the other two of my three previously stated reasons not to play Rift again. The textures are still ugly (and the color palette in far too many zones is dour and depressing); the icons and the UI are still fiddly, far too small and irritating to use. The fighting, though, has gone from "slow, attritional and dull" to "fast, easy and fun" and that positive might just be enough to outweigh the two negatives.

New boots and kitty.

So, for a while at least, Rift is back in the rotation. And with Mrs Bhagpuss slipping the GW2 leash I have found my own freedom to roam so there might even
be a rotation. This Sunday in addition to Rift I logged into The Secret World for the first time in quite a while. I got my free black biker boots, did some bag sorting, used the Auction House and even went to Transylvania and did four-fifths of a mission. I was at the limit for stored AP so I blew them on the Chainsaw Auxiliary Weapon skill. Rowan kindly pointed me in the direction of the requisite quest so that's next on the agenda.


Daily visits to City of Steam and Dino Storm continue but the last few days have seen me actually playing, not just logging in for loot. I'd like to get EQ2 in there as well and of course there are various betas and one-offs to fit in as they arise. It certainly looks like a much healthier, more balanced diet than all GW2 all the time. We'll see how long it lasts.

Less Isn't More. More Is More!

Curious to see how perceptions vary. For Tipa there's way too much, for Keen there's far too little. Me, my head is about ready to explode as my struggling MMO mind tries to calibrate the possibilities. If Calvin would just lend me his Duplicator...

I'd buy Gems for one of these

Rift going F2P affects me not. Storm Legion did nothing for me other than kill most of the remaining interest I had. I'm already paid up until somewhere around November but I've yet to log in this year so nothing changes there.

Still subbed to all SOE games and playing virtually none of them. Try and get at least a few hours of EQ2, DCUO, Everquest and/or Vanguard in each month but its a real struggle finding time. Thought I would be back in EQ2 for the third slice of Velious but that would really be a waste without being able to level over 92. I'm not throwing away all that xp and all the gear requires 93 at least so that's on the back burner until we decide to get Chains of Eternity, which may never happen.

Neverwinter remains that new game I like but not enough to play instead of things I like more. If this was a slow patch I'd be burning through but it's anything but that.

Sand, sun, skeletons

City of Steam is very slightly less appealing than I was expecting, largely because I preferred it when it was more of a mysterious, atmospheric setting with not all that much of a game attached rather than the very good game in a rather less-convincing setting that it has become. Also I want to be a Goblin and I don't want to do everything all over again so I'm holding some of my fire. Playing every day all the same.

Go on, jump. I double-dog dare you!

A beta I'd written off as unplayable and highly disappointing has done that thing betas rarely do and turned itself around. That's back on the menu. Another beta's in the wings that I already know I want to spend more time in and probably buy the game when it launches. A third beta I've been in for ages and hardly ever manage to play because the server's rarely open at a convenient time. All those.

That leaves the huge bulk of my game time in GW2. Loving my dailies, my meta-events and WvW still, and after that lukewarm reaction to three months of Flame and Frost I'm more than a little astonished to find myself loving the new Living Story episode as well. Probably go into more detail at some point but the short version reads "Now that's more like it!" By which I am talking largely about the presentation, not so much the content. The content of Flames and Frost was fine.

No Intentional Bumping

All of which just leaves that totally unexpected entry from waaaay over in left-field, Dino Storm. Playing every day, loving it. Great change of pace and color palette and gloriously sloooooow. Why is it that MMOs supposedly aimed at a younger audience often require more stick-at-it-ness and patience than the stuff adults get spoon-fed?

No more time. Karka to crush, ratlings to rout, dinos to ride.

Dinoville Calling : Dino Storm

Hands up everyone who's heard of Dino Storm. Now put your hand down if the first you heard of it was Beau's review at Massively. Yeah, me too.

Smile when you look at me, punk.

I'm always ready to try a new MMO, particularly if it doesn't need a download and registration doesn't ask for anything more than username, email and password. Dino Storm runs in a browser but there's a standalone client if you prefer. Either way, if you decide to give it a try you'll be riding your Dino and yelling yippee-ki-ay in a matter of minutes.

Doing what? Well, after a very brief and to the point session in Character Creation you'll find yourself dressed as a cowboy or cowgirl loping into the sprawling gold-rush town of Dinoville astride a lean, sharp-faced dinosaur. Doesn't look like the most comfortable of mounts but don't worry, bigger and better Dinos are coming your way. If you don't mind a little honest hard labor, that is.

Almost since I started playing MMOs I've had a habit of winding down the evening either with a potter around the low levels in an old favorite like Everquest or Vanguard or a quick run through something lighthearted or whimsical. The habit started with The Realm over a dozen years ago and since then many games have filled the role: NeoSteam, Rubies of Eventide, Ferentus, Eden Eternal, Dragon Nest, Argo...more than I can remember.

Recently when I'm done with GW2 for the night and my mouse pointer is hovering over the Neverwinter icon I've found it suddenly veering away to click instead on the Sheriff's badge with the reptilian eye set dead center. Neverwinter is fun but Dino Storm is funner.

Planning regulations? What planning regulations?

For a start it looks great. The colors are bright and cheerful without being brash or garish. The environments are simple but feel solid. The animations are smooth and fluid and the UI is intuitive and a pleasure to use.

Dinoville itself is a strange place. The dusty Old West buildings bristle with vidscreens  and where you'd expect to see hitching posts there are computer terminals. The Splitscreen Games website doesn't shed much light. Here's the FAQ entry on Dinoville in its entirety:

Dinoville may look weird but the tasks on offer there are very familiar. Kill those Smilodons, water these plants, deliver these letters. All the old favorites. The quest mechanics are excellent; slick, efficient, organized. On the left of the screen is your Game Guide which gives a very clear idea of what's on offer, who to speak to and where they are. Dailies and quest rewards appear there too. The quest dialog is short and pithy. It would probably seem bland if it wasn't for all the official dinosaur names; somehow being told to go kill ten Entelodons offers an off-kilter frisson you'd never get from plain old boars.

Morals are as lax as you might expect in a Wild West Gold Rush boom town. Okay, maybe not that lax - there's a conspicuous absence of Saloons and Dancing Girls - but in a game that's supposedly aimed at a young audience it's somewhat surprising to be asked to Roll the Bones and play the slots. Gambling's quite the thing in Dinoville. Best part is, it seems you always win.

Combat is very straightforward. Point your Laser Gun and get your Dino biting and down

You should the one that got away

things fall. Leveling is surprisingly slow. I've put in several hours and I'm only level four. Lots of goodies come your way when you level so there's plenty of incentive to crack on, not least the chance to upgrade to a bigger, better dino mount. Further in the distance lie all kinds of shenanigans. If I read the Game Guide correctly there's not only the prospect of controlling buildings and camps that can make you a fortune but there's open PvP over the ownership of said assets. Not to mention you can run for Sheriff. How that works I have not the slightest idea.

Will I ever find out? Will this be one of those MMOs I come back to in short bursts year in, year out or will I have forgotten it in a month or two? What about Splitscreen's other two MMOs, Pirate Galaxy and Steel Legions? Are they worth a look too? And more to the point, how come I never heard of them 'til now?

What else have I missed?