Theme Hospital: "You Have Conquered This Realm!"

Original post title: "Rift: Sorry, Completely Forgot About You"

Ok, first of all, the screenshot folder is aptly called "screenshots" and it's just inside the main Rift game folder. If you can't find that, just open your Rift desktop shortcut properties and see where it points to. Now stop Googling it, jeez...

I got home yesterday and I decided I'd play a little Theme Hospital before dinner. This had a lot to do with my first post and the nostalgia I felt when I looked back at my past. I had the .iso in my work flash drive (which I downloaded after I discovered my original copy is probably still in a box at my mother's) but I can do fuck all with no admin privileges; I even tried using DOSBox Portable to no avail. So I plugged it in my laptop, put a blanket over my knees, searched around for my small mouse (which my cat has tried several times to separate from the USB plug) and I mounted and installed.

Need more janitors, stat!

Surprisingly, the game looked just as I remembered it, down to the midi soundtrack. The graphics were even better than what I was hoping, mostly due to the fact that my computer back in the late 90s was everything but top of the line. This only added to the fun I ended up having.

The game revolves around, as the name implies, running a successfull hospital. To do so you have to manage your alloted terrain and build GP's offices, general diagnosis, X-ray rooms, clinics, pharmacies and place benches, heaters, KitKat vending machines (that serve soft drinks) and pretty plants. You also need to hire doctors, nurses a receptionist and handymen. You need to research treatments, diagnosis equipment, drug efficiency. You need to train your doctors and prioritize either watering the plants or mopping up vomit. You build facilities to cure illnesses like Gut Rot, Spare Ribs, Slack Tongue and Bloaty Head. And when you finally meet your quotas, you leave that hospital and start anew at a more challenging site.

Micromanagement is the word and the game manages to be just difficult enough to keep you wanting to get better without completely frustrating you and your efforts. At length I finally asked "oh God, what time is it?" It was nearing 2:00 am. I had completely forgotten about Rift, grinding, questing and pig skinning.



All this vomit, they do not approve.

So what does this say abour Rift? I'll tell you what it says about me. It says that the main reason, by far, that I have purhcased Rift is my guild. I probably wouldn't have bothered if not for them. I have a "fantasy game" hole in my heart that always needs to be filled but that would've been taken care of when Dragon Age 2 comes knocking. I have no real MMO need, at least not anymore. I just didn't want to lose touch with all the friends I made in that guild and so I slugged over to Rift. Again, it's not that I don't like the game or that it's too daunting. No, it's just that I don't get excited thinking about it, I don't desperately want to go home just to play it. I do, however, feel like going home to play a bit more Theme Hospital, see if I can finally beat the game after all these years.

I will be playing Rift tonight, though. I don't want to be left behind. I try and make excuses for the game. It's an MMO, it would be a bad thing if it got you that hooked, you'd never get a life; you're supposed to be playing this for a long time, better not to exhaust things to do so quickly. Bad excuses that. I got that hooked on WAR in the beggining. I'd cringe and frown and moan all day because I wanted to go home and play it. And if I play enough Rift that I exhaust things to do, the game suffers from a severe lack of content because I could never play that much, I don't have the time, my life doesn't function that way.

I'm still waiting to find that one thing about Rift that makes me love it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed but I'm not getting my hopes up. Right now, it's like settling for a tuna sandwich when what you really want is grilled salmon.

Rift: "Your workshop is not big enough"

Oh, so there's something big happening today? Hmmm....
I'm more interested in sharing my experiences of yesterday, concerning PvE and crafting.

I managed to piggyback on a Darkening Deeps run. Darkening deeps (DD) is a level 23ish dungeon that, like any other dungeon, I'm willing to bet, circles around the "kill or be wiped" motto and not much else. You go up a ramp, you kill some things, you roundhouse kick a few shrines, you go down a ramp, you kill more things, scissor kick more shrines, rinse, repeat, loot, wipe, res, wipe, "getting late", "was fun", "maybe some other time."

As with the rest of the game, I was not disappointed but neither was I pleasantly surprised. I was playing the part of main healer, doing my best to look as competent as possible while still hearing a faint voice in the back of my head whispering you don't really know what you're doing, do you?

Spider bosses.
Fuckin hate them.

But, then again, healing is healing. How much of a learning curve can you possibly get? You have some spells that restore hit points gradually over time and others focused on burst. Some are cast instantly, others take longer. Apply them when needed, no real big secret there. Most challenging thing is deciding where what is needed and when (if that even made any sense).

When we got to a spider boss (read caption) we wiped. Mainly because there was more to it than "apply HoT; hold; apply HoT". And then we wiped again for other reasons I was too tipsy to remember. And then my soul vitality was down to 25%.

In the days of old, ships leaving port for far-off uncharted lands would often employ a portuguese sailor for they possesed a unique skil not found on any other kind. The art of desenrascanço. This ancient skill is no more no less than the ability to make do and pull through any situation using whatever meager means at your disposal. It is a skill that has permeated the entire world, as seen here, and a skill I have resorted to many times in my gaming career.

When I respawned outside the dungeon I was in the middle of nowhere, forsaken amidst a horde of annoyed goblin-like creatures. I needed to find a healer but it was clear that none of the goblins were inclined to help me in any way other than relieve me of my health. I jumped up and down the road for a while and ended up soul recalling back to Argent Glade. I couldn't find a healer there either, mostly because I was getting stressed that everyone was waiting for the main healer to come back so I ported to Sanctum. Surprise, couldn't find one there either. I went outside and crossed the bridge, remembering that time I fell off the bridge and died only to respawn 10 meters away. No healer there either. Fine, I thought, I'll just make do.

I wish I could tell you that we fought the good fight, and the spider let us be. I wish I could tell you that, but Telara is no fairy-tale world. Well... actually it is but hey, that's how the quote goes. We wiped again, our lack of AoE making me pull every single ad and being setback into forever.



More like Pigkilla

 We called it quits and I decided to craft a little before turning in. Crafting, for me, is a slow process. I went with Butchering, Outfitting and Runecrafting. The thing is, I lack the patience to specifically hunt down certain mobs to skin them. Some people though, as shown above, seem to have all the time in the world and all the willingness in the world and make it their futile mission to erradicate the pig genus from the shard.

I can't do that. I can't be that leet or that no-lifer. I just can't bring myself to lose hours of my life tracking down virtual pigs and ending their fictional existence. I do want to be a master crafter and I don't wanna spend all my money in the auction house.

Soulkilla, you depress me.

Rift: Found the screenshot folder!

Here. Afore mentioned graphical bug:



My shoulderpads. That awesome, they are not.

And a very poor name choice. Or a complete win one. Who am I to judge?

More significant things tomorrow for tonight, I Rift.