Zero To Pissed Off In 32 Levels

Well, it would appear that R.O.S.E Online is out of the open beta period. There will be a closed beta during the month of September (which would be the month that today is the first day of) available exclusively (I think) to Fileplanet (doesn't deserve a link) subscribers (ie. not me), which may (or may not) be followed by another open beta. A much more concise way to put it would be that I am not going to play R.O.S.E online any more. Not just because I can't anymore, either.

My feelings towards the game have changed dramatically between last week's post and now. Once you hit somewhere around level 25, leveling up stops being so quick and painless - quite the opposite, in fact. If you're not constantly having your kills stolen (this assumes that you have found something available to kill), you're being gang-raped by 20 of the same cute thing you couldn't find one of 30 seconds ago. I don't think I've died as much in any other MMORPG than I have in R.O.S.E. Hell, I don't think I've died as much in any game than I have in R.O.S.E, ever.

I think I made it to somewhere around level 32 before I decided to stop playing. It was only as was logging into the game yesterday, knowing it would be the subject of today's post, that I found something was wrong. Like I said above, I really found it hard to care. My entire time playing R.O.S.E felt more like I was trying to enjoy the game, rather than actually enjoying it. The whole process was tiring enough that when I started to play Anarchy Online again, it felt simple, familiar, and welcoming. Not that I haven't enjoyed my time with Anarchy Online, nor will I stop playing it any time soon, but when playing AO solo doesn't feel like a grind anymore, you know you've just come out of a bad relationship.

In other news, Cube had another release this week - I'm sticking this in here because there really isn't enough material to deserve it's own post - which, sadly, may be it's last. After this, the team (or just Aardappel, I'm not very familiar with their development practices) will be moving on to Sauerbraten, which could basically be considered the "sequel" to Cube. Anyway, Cube's maybe-last release is a doozie, throwing in new models for items, weapons, and teleporters as well as a bunch of new maps, both singleplayer and multiplayer. One word of caution - if you like (as most people do) to play Cube online, be wary of the new version. Even though it's been out for a few days, every server in my server browser has the nice little message: [different cube protocol]. Oh, one more thing I haven't mentioned - lots of Cube stuff over at Quadropolis.