Breathing the Air of the Free

In an unusual turn of events, I forsook my scheduled World of Warcrack guild run to the Molten Core (MC) over the weekend. What was the occasion? Arenanet, the developer of Guild Wars, held a head start event in celebration of the April 28 release of Guild Wars Factions, their new "Campaign"-a stand-alone game that adds a new continent and two new professions-in the Guild Wars mythos. It felt strange, being uncoupled from the construct that is Azeroth which, since August of last year, has had a stranglehold on my gaming life.

I originally planned on coming to the MC raid after participating in the headstart event, but I decided to use the weekend to work on some design projects early, instead of waiting until the day before they were due. I guess I'm currently on the second trough of my interest in the game, having taken a similar break from World of Warcraft a couple of months ago. Before this slump I was actively engaged in climbing the Player versus Player charts on Bronzebeard-my World of Warcraft realm, aiming to achieve rank 10, Commander, so that I could purchase the epic mount reserved for players who reached this milestone (the current ladder maxes out at rank 14, Grand Marshal for the Alliance and High Warlord for the Horde).

I also logged less hours into World of Warcraft a few days leading up to this break because my copy of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion arrived in the mail. As far as I've gotten into the quests, I think it's a great game, although not as great as it's been hyped. It's world is beautifully realized, especially if your computer has the chops to run many of the visual sliders maxed. Oblivion on the PC seems to have what it takes to be another long-lived game, as graphics hardware advance in capability it will only look better, and with the mod community and Bethesda Softworks set to produce more content for the game it ought to engage people well into the future-until the next installment in the Elder Scrolls franchise comes around that is.