I used to play all the Final Fantasy series games, but when I got all caught up in a MUD called Astaria, I got distracted. The last FF game I played was FFX. MUDs were nice because one could role play and interact with real people, making friends, or enemies if you prefer, at the same time. And the role play is much more flexible since you get to chose different options for your character, not only at the outset, but as you go. Choices, choices, choices, I love choices. However, when I started coding on a MUD called Arazrose, I quit playing them. Eventually, I left Arazrose with a small group of people and started my own MUD called Telynor. Telynor, Arazrose, and Astaria were all LP Muds, using the TMI2 MUDlib. Telynor never officially opened, but it was a lot of fun and I learned plenty about managing people in the process, even if it was just a hobby. Then, when I got a job working at a cell phone game company, I quit coding my MUD. I guess now that my job fulfills both my desire to code and my desire to work on games, I don't feel the need to do it in my free time. Now, in my free time, I'm back to playing games. Some of these endeavors have included Diablo II, Dark Ages of Camelot, Tribes Vengeance, Monkey Island 3, Battlefield 1942, Neverwinter Nights, Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, and Battlefield 2, among others. I have been playing BF2 quite a lot since it was released. Although I've purchased all the expansions, my favorite maps remain the original release city maps (Karkand, Sharqi, and Mashtuur) and I play those the most. I particularly like the Band of Brothers 24/7 City Maps server. I went through a few different accounts, but finally settled on [vsf]Schmick, which I continue to play as. I have also been playing WoW off and on since it was released. Over the years, I've had the characters Arfirel on Darkspear, Morigan on Kil'Jaeden, Taquil on Garithos, and Bulworth on Kil'Jaeden, my first and main character. However, the only ones I've put any real time into are Bulworth, who got moved to Bulwyrth on Cho'gall when my clan, VSF, got tired of the over population, and Morigan, who also made her way to Morrygan on Cho'gall after Bulwyrth hit 60.

I also wanted to include a quick homage to the Final Fantasy series. It is arguably one of the best game series ever. It revolutionized the role playing game, and each game in the series sells more copies than the last. My first exposure to the series was Final Fantasy II, but I really got into it when I played Final Fantasy III in stolen minutes of free time here and there while I was at Rice in a feeble attempt to cling to my sanity under the stress of having no time for a social life. I was definitely hooked and wanted more! However, I learned that they had stopped releasing Final Fantasy games in the States. I was forlorn until I learned that they were finally releasing Final Fantasy VII in the States. They did, and I played it, with my friend Bryan. It took us a ridiculously long amount of time to finish as we only had time to get together and work on it on the weekends and we were also trying to play a couple of Tomb Raider and Resident Evil games at the same time. After that, we tackled Final Fantasy VIII, and finished it right on schedule, about a year after Final Fantasy IX came out in the States and probably six months before the release of Final Fantasy X. I was advised by friends that have played Final Fantasy IX not to bother. The style is more in line with the older games, which were not as enjoyable. It is harder to feel a connection with characters that look and act like they are ten years old. So, Bryan and I blew off IX and moved right on to X, spending hours and hours playing Blitzball, which I adored. This was the last FF game I played.

Incidentally, Gamespot has an amazing history of the Final Fantasy series that is a delightful read. I highly recommend at least skimming it.

Archives

Update 04/11/02: It's not an RPG, but I felt I had to put in a tribute to one of the best, most simple, and yet most addictive puzzle games ever, Chu Chu Rocket. Check out the following link! The review could not more perfectly sum up what is so great about this game.

Dreamcast Review

Update 04/11/02: I have been an administrator on a new MUD, Telynor for a long time now. Telynor is a fantasy type role-playing MUD using a derivative of the TMI2 MUDlib on top of the MudOS driver v22.2b11. I am the head MUDlib coder and recently started dabbling in being the sole driver coder. Before that we had a copy of the driver binaries that we got from elsewhere and never messed with. However, we recently switched to a new box with a new platform and had to get the source and do a fresh compile. In the process we decided to upgrade the driver, which involved messing with the code on both the driver and MUDlib sides to keep anything from breaking. After that I just decided started diving into it anytime issues arose. My character's name is Morrigan if you ever want to contact me through the Telynor webpage linked above. If you are interested in joining our staff, please email us. Oh, and, of course, we did finish FF7 and FF8. We skipped FF9 on the advice of a friend, and went straight to FF10, which we are still working on and therein wasting many hours just playing Blitzball. I'd have to say it's definitely the best mini-game they've ever incorporated.

Update 8/24/99: I resigned from the MUD I was working on for a myraid of personal and professional reasons. One being that doing some renovations on my new house is sure taking up a lot of time. I have already had several offers to code for people on their MUDs. I will probably take it up again at some point, but in what context and where remains to be seen. For now, I just wanna get this blasted house stuff finished. We are on disk 2 of FF7 now, just as I am starting to hear rumors that FF8 will be out by the end of the year. Guess we better get a move on.

Update 5/19/99: Alpha testing on the mud is going along nicely. We hope to open for beta testing in another month or two. I finally got all my SNES games finished. I will probably get rid of the thing now. My friend's Playstation is permanently parked at my house at the moment. After we conquered all the Tomb Raiders, I ended up buying Tekken 3, even though I don't actually own a Playstation. Now we are working on FF7, finally.

Update 5/14/98: I am now admin on a new mud. We hope to start beta-testing in July; if you are interested email me. It is so much fun coding it.

Update 11/12/97: Lately I’ve started playing a MUD called Astaria. Haven’t really touched the Nintendo lately, even though I still haven’t solved FF3, and have Illusion of Gaia and FF:Mystic Quest sitting in there waiting to be started. I’m kind of sad because I don’t have a PlayStation, so all I’ve seen of FF7 is the commercials... Oh well.

Update 9/12/96:I love playing my SNES, although not as much as I used to. After solving all of the Mario games (even for the GameBoy), I got bored. Then I discovered RPGs. And I mean the kind for game systems, not Dungeons and Dragons or something. I found The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening for the GameBoy quite entertaining, so I decided to try out a Zelda game for the SNES. And lo and behold, I rather enjoyed the Legend of Zelda III: A Link to the Past. Then I moved on to Final Fantasy II. Now I’m working on FF3. And that’s how it all started.