Thursday, February 23, 2006

DarkEmerald Is Back!

Heh as luck would have it, I managed to IM DarkEmerald on Yahoo today. We talked a little and she is now downloading the new version of There.

I am doing the same too because apparently There had an update on Feb 22 (Feb 23 Singapore time) and now I need to get the patch myself too, to get into There.

I am hoping it doesn't screw up anything when I install the patch... fingers crossed...

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Driving still sucks

My driving still sucks. One would think that after a week or so of practice I'd get better. Nope, I still suck as bad as before. Well, not as bad as before I quit There in 2004.

As I said, once, a long time ago, I could get into the top 3 spots of any buggy track I care to do laps in. Now I will be lucky to make it into 8th. Either everyone is really better than me, and I haven't actually gone rusty, or I have become rusty as heck and can't improve.

The whole place is damn lonely to me at the moment. I have nobody to run around with, unlike back in 2004 where DarkEmerald would be always with me. The few "friends" I met on the first day back in There last week kinda "disappeared".

Dune Valley is still irritating, although not as irritating as before. Every 30 secs someone would hit JOIN RACE and get a damn race going right in the middle of my laps. The hosts were right. They said apparently nobody can read the signs that are scattered liberally around the funzone. The rule is, if you want to start a race you need to give a 2 min warning.

In all my time in Dune Valley I have only seen this rule being followed like 30% of the time. Most other times, some newbie would come in and start the race without any sort of warning.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Disappearing Buddies

Well it's been like 4 or 5 days since I went back into There.

Been practicing driving my buggy at the various race tracks still operating. Well, at least they are still buggy tracks after 2 years. Some of the links I saved back in 2004 point me to Funzones that hosts hoverbike or hoverboard race tracks now. Some, like Golden Sands, used to be a hoverbike racetrack, but now it's a buggy track.

I really should take some time out to re-organise them.

On another note - I managed to catch angmo earlier when he logged in. I was actually surprised as heck that he'd still be in There. We chatted a bit via IMs. He was kinda on-and-off about There, not as bad as I was. I disappeared completely from 2004 to 2006. As stated in my previous post, I was fully expecting my account to be deleted and all my stuff vapourised for inactivity.

Anyway, we soon said goodbyes and angmo went about doing his thing I guess. I continued to try to beat the lap times on the racetrack I was on at the time but I still suck too much at it to really get my name onto the scoreboards.

If I remember right, it took me a couple of months (MONTHS!!) to get good enough to be among the top 3 the other time. It might take me a couple of months again to do the same this time around.

Ah well.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

New Stuff Wow!

Well after my short jaunt in There, I realised a few things:

  1. My driving sucks. I used to be a great racer, with lap times always coming up among the top 3 of any buggy tracks that I go to. Now, I can barely make 8th position (to get into the scoreboard).
  2. They have 2 new islands - New Kansas, and Comet Island. On Comet Island, they have this place called Snowtop Mountain where it snows all year round!
  3. TUVs have a new variant - Monster Trucks! Man I wanna buy one of those if I can. I got almost 45,000 TBux and I guess I can buy one of those.
  4. Islandview Speedway apparently has been taken over by someone else. LadyInRed must have quit There and thus the track is now a hoverbike track instead of a buggy track.
  5. Hardly anybody on my friends list is on There anymore. Just today Icute76 came back and apparently she quit There some time back too.
I was just showing some of the new guys I met over at Dune Valley buggy track my 2004 (vintage stuff) buggies and bikes, and among all the Oooh's and Aaaah's from them, they did say that I should hang on to them because they aren't sold anymore.

Which gave me an idea - I can try to sell my Foxwagen again and see if it'll command a high price like they said it would.

I also need to try to locate where the hell my NO BIKES and BUGGIES ONLY banner pieces are. I can't seem to find them among my inventory.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Going Back In There

Guess what...

I am really burned out on Everquest 2. On a lark, I decided to visit the There homepage again and, the past 2 years have indeed changed There lots.

I am currently downloading and installing the latest version of There, and will log into There once again to take a look-see. If I like what I see I might stay.

I have no worries about billing because the credit card info I have with them has been expired, and cancelled, years ago. My membership status is still billed as "Yearly Charter Membership" which technically doesn't exist anymore since they now offer only Basic (kinda like trial) and Premium (paid), and the paid membership is only US$10.00.

However I have no idea how long the paid membership lasts. Might be monthly, and I have a feeling it's a monthly fee.

Well off I go back in There! I'd be seriously pissed if they downgraded me to Basic member and remove my music, voice and other goodie stuff which I paid for.