Game = Life

I spent most of the last week (evenings) and pretty much all of the weekend playing City of Heroes. I'm starting to wonder if my addictive personality is having a wee bit of a problem here... I have a boatload of stuff to get done before Origins, so I'm going to cut myself off from CoH for a couple of weeks to get it all done.

Dang, but it's fun!  I love the character creator, while I still yearn for even MORE options for clothing, faces, and in particular footgear for female characters.  There are not enough "shoe" choices, imho, or body shape options.  I tried to make a toon that looks somewhat like me, and simply couldn't make one fat and dumpy enough.  It's more like me after a successful weight loss regimen, though my chum Philsie did observe that she has a "big butt", so I guess I got in the general neighborhood.  I wish we had all of the costume tools that they have for the NPCs, like tie-died t-shirts and middle-aged spread.  And more than 3 kinds of women's shoes.

Game play continues to hold my interest because they keep making changes and improvements.  I'm *not* a hard core gamer, and my reaction time is pretty slow. I appreciate that I can still play the game (even if I do spend a lot of time running into walls and corners) and be a useful part of a team.

I like the team/hang out with your friends aspect the most.  I can spend the evening with dear friends who are far away, beating up bad guys (or good guys in City of Villains), chatting on Skype and generally basking in camaraderie.  I'd say that's why I've been playing so much, except that I've also spent a lot of time playing solo.

It's also a good avoidance tool -- and I don't really need more of those. It's soooo easy to fire it up and play on the laptop....

So, I'm cutting myself off for a couple of weeks.  With any luck it'll be like my off and on relationship with coffee.  I love coffee, I even need it, but since the last time I broke the caffeine addiction I can take it or leave it.  Ideally I'll be able to go back to playing CoH a couple of times a week like before.

But first... man, have I got a lot to do in the 2 weeks before Origins!

... and take the plunge.  I just registered for Gencon Indy.  I attended my first Gencon in 1987... and this will be the first time I haven't been running anything.  I've run my own things (with a very loyal following), I've run for RPGA -- but I've never just gone to play.

Since any day off is without pay, I'm only going Friday through Sunday.  Even more oddly, I'm mostly not playing RPGA stuff.  I've grown so very disappointed in RPGA (and skeptical of the managerial capabilities of the Senior GM) that there's really very little I want to play.

My schedule is thusly (for anyone who cares...)
Fri 8/20: Noon - 4pm - Firefly the RPG (Cyberpunk 2020)
Fri 8/20:  6pm - 10pm - ARPL Technoterra (D20 Modern)
Sat 8/21:  8am -  1pm - Broken (RPGA Living Death)
Sat 8/21:  1 pm -  6pm - Restoration (RPGA Living Death)
Sat 8/21: 6 pm - 11 pm - LDS 16 - As Above, So Below (RPGA Living Dragonstar)
Sun 8/22:  10 am - 2 pm - Living Spycraft Premiere Event

How could I resist a Firefly game?  And, since there wasn't anything I wanted to play from RPGA on Friday evening, why not sample ARPL?  I'm not impressed with their business model (too much emphasis on them making money, not enough on proving their product), but I can try it out at Gencon without having to pay for a membership, so I'll try it.  Besides, I'd like to get a better handle on D20 Modern.