Teknogrebo

@Lewa Yeah, Urgoz and The Deep both need 12 people, not 8, so taking a 7 hero party only might be very tricky indeed.

Why is that as soon as people see articles written that encourage kids to play computer games they instantly post up about wanting kids to "go outside and play". I dunno where they live, but where I am it's not always suitable to go outside and play, it get's dark, it rains and snows (sometimes) and it gets cold. Kids don't want to run around outside all the time. I'm all for them getting exercise and playing sports, my kids do all these things, but there is always time for some computer gaming as well, and if we can make something that appeals to them and encourages youth-full things like learning, adventuring and how to be rounded individuals then that's fine with me. I would rather have my children play an MMO geared for kids than have them play Call of Duty X, which is what a lot of parents let their kids play...

I play Order and Chaos a bit on my Android. Having said that, I haven't logged in for a while. It's a good little game though and fun to play if I don't have access to my computer or the TV. I play MMO's to be sociable though and typing in chat on a phone is so slow and invasive that I don't tend to bother, which reduces O&C down to a single player game - of which there are better

I'm not going to say that Rift is the best game ever, but the constant updates have kept me playing, and I've been looking forward to this update for a few weeks now. I love exploring, so a whole new island with loads of quests will be great. I dipped my toe in earlier today and took part in a zone invasion which had me running all over the island. The end encounter was a bit predictable being another tank and spank, but it was still fun joining in with all the other players experiencing it for the first time.

Thanks for resurrecting this column. I look forward to seeing what discussions are raised on the topic in the future.

@Marchosias Cynical much? I think it's more that she loved it so much that she spent nearly 20 hours a day 7 days a week playing it. If you sit at a computer that long, something is going to give medically speaking!

Would it be possible to add what regions these games are for? I've registered with a fair few games, and downloaded the clients only to be told that I cannot play as I'm in Europe not US (in fact, it would be good if this information was included in all previews etc as well). Just a thought.

I think a lot of people here need to read up on what addiction really is, there are many different types and they can be very destructive.

@Azules: Would you say that gambling can be addictive? No chemicals involved by your definition. OTH, look up gambling, endorphins and adrenalin (both chemicals produced by your body). Now tell me you don't get adrenalin boosts when playing games...

I found this article a bit late, but tried Splashtop on my Desire HD with Rift running on my PC - although it streamed very nicely, I couldn't find the onscreen controller thing so couldn't move my character around (this may just be a feature for iPad, or the new HD version of Splashtop, which my phone can't run - there also seems to be a cursor offset problem when Splashtop resizes the desktop, so nothing is selectable. I then tried running the client on my daughters ancient dell laptop, which worked better in terms of screen resolution, but there was some noticeable lag over our wifi - I may try again with a wired connection, but all in all I think this is only really suitable for some geeky tinkering. Maybe if I had a decent tablet it would be better :)

In Rift the mount can take a while to load in as well, but instead of appearing mounted you just get the speed boost - so you can run around meridian with a 100% speed boost.