Sharon

I'd tell my husband, because that would be his Christmas present this year!

I ran the two new solo instances (Breach and Forgotten City) last night and thoroughly enjoyed them both. The population does seem significantly larger, which is always good, and surprisingly, global was pretty troll-free most of the evening.

Not surprisingly, there were lots of female characters suddenly riding around topless, which made me LOL. (Frankly, what AoC *really* needs is more guys in kilts... Just my opinion...)

SOE doesn't owe me anything. I know that any time I use my personal information on the internet, I'm putting it at risk of being swiped. I'm not happy that it was compromised, but it's a risk I take for doing business online. I haven't had active EQ2 or Vanguard subs since last fall, but SOE has credited both with 45 days of game time, and I'm quite happy with that.

Discworld is STILL a pretty amazing game, and I've spent far too many hours (days? weeks?) of my life there over the years.

Ahh... This whole series makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. And old.

My other favorite MUD hangout was Lost Souls - http://lostsouls.org/ - Very creative, complex game, still being continuously developed by some awesome folks.

In Warhammer, my stealth would break if someone sneezed in my direction, so I'm not sure stealth was much of a game changer... unless they've fixed it since then.

I like stealth classes, but I think issues arise when stealth is combined with overdone stuns. There's nothing quite as annoying as getting jumped, repeatedly stunned and burned down before you can react. Stealth should provide the initial advantage of surprise, but allowing stealth classes to stun repeatedly is problematic.

You outdid yourself this time, Syp. Brilliant! #8 and 9 are my favorites.

The only stereotype that REALLY irritates me is that women aren't good players. There's quite a bit of discrimination against women in some hardcore raid guilds.

According to my Bartle test profile, I'm a killer socializer, and I love PvP. I'm also a 30-something mom who indulges in the occasional smack-talking... just occasional. ;)

But my real guilty pleasure is dyes and appearance armor. I spend a stupid amount of time messing with my character's appearance, and if I have to pick between a slight stat upgrade and better looking armor, I'll almost always go for the looks. It's like paper dolls for grown-ups.

Hmm.... Bear shaman won the poll, huh? I'll have to roll something from scratch so I can jump in and play with you all occasionally. :) I just don't know what yet. The only two classes I've never started are bear shaman and PoM. I thought maybe I'd use my insta-50 for a BS, but I was never sure enough to go ahead and create it. I'm looking forward to reading about your leveling experiences, Jef!

I agree that AoC is the best looking MMO out there. (It has the best music too!) When my husband built me a my new rig last week for my birthday, AoC was the first game I fired up so I could swoon over the new hardware.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the new community driven plan pans out!