Over the holiday weekend I started a new Twitch channel for EndgameViable, because I like to do weird stuff like broadcast my gaming sessions for the entire world to see. Plus, all the kids are doing it. (Actually I’m not sure if I like it or not, but I like it when other people do it.) So yeah, tune in and watch me play games you’ve already seen before! Follow @endgameviable on Twitter and you’ll get an obnoxious tweet every time I go live.

I’ve always wondered something. Most of the world uses WASD for their keyboard controls, right? I’m assuming so because that’s how every game is pre-configured. I, however, use ESDF for my keyboard controls, so I have to change the defaults on every single game I play. I am not bitter about that. Mostly. I chose ESDF when I re-did my Quake keyboard binds way back in the day because it seemed like the natural choice, because my ring finger, middle finger, and index finger naturally rested on SDF anyway.

I did something odd over one weekend. I installed and played both Everquest and Asheron’s Call for a little while. Everquest is free-to-play now, if you didn’t know. You can download the client and log right on in there, and there are a surprising number of people who apparently do just that. The little newbie cave must have had a dozen people in it wandering around trying to figure out how to play.

I’ve been thinking about character names. Normally I make up new names for all my characters, but I know a lot of people carry over their names from one game to another. You always see people trying “get their names” when a new game launches. One day on a whim I decided to re-use a couple of names from Rift characters for some EQ2 alts to see what it was like, and I found it very weird.

I was moderately shocked last night to receive an email from Trion with a code to get into the Trove Alpha. I was even more shocked to discover a complete lack of an NDA. Although, if you think about it, I did actually pay $20 (or whatever it was) to see this alpha, so it would be weird for them to restrict me. There are very few options in the game right now, which I found surprising.

So you say you wish you could play an MMORPG like the ones in the old days? Something like UO maybe? Well get yourself a copy of Mortal Online and experience what MMORPG life was like in the late 1990s. Previously, I thought that Wizardry Online was a pretty old school, hardcore MMORPG. But WO is a total cake walk compared to Mortal Online. Here’s the first thing you need to know about MO: You’re going to die and lose everything.

I bought a 3-month subscription for WoW when I suddenly got interested in playing again. Now that I’m running out of interest, the subscription will be expiring in January. It’s obvious that game developers are not doing subscriptions anymore, but I have to say, it’s pretty awesome to play a game where you aren’t bothered with cash shops or gems or other alternate forms of cash-based currency. Anyway, my highest-level character in WoW is a 66 Night Elf Hunter.

Why doesn’t everyone use invert mouse? I simply cannot comprehend it. Yet informal polls show that only about 30% of people use invert mouse. I choose the invert mouse setting because I want to mimic the controls of a flight simulator, which is pretty much the de-facto standard 3D environment control scheme. In a flight simulator (and presumably a real airplane), you push the stick forward to go down, and you pull the stick back to go up.

Wow. I just read an article on Massively about the pricing for Final Fantasy XIV guild housing. It’s rather high, and it has enraged the FFXIV community. At least according to the article. For myself, I’m not into housing on a good day, but I’m definitely not into housing if it’s going to cost me a bazillion jillion gil for a starter house. Before we get to the housing, I’ve got to say, Square Enix knows how to put out some friggin’ patch notes.

Bye Warhammer! I wish I’d been able to log into you before you left, but your publisher apparently can’t manage simple things like letting people easily login and play you, even when you’re free. Gotta think that might have something to do with your departure. Anyway, you weren’t a bad game. Certainly better than EQ1 or AC which are inexplicably still running approximately fifty years later. Warhammer Online is the first MMORPG I’ve played a significant amount that shut down, and only the second MMORPG from which I’ve lost significant characters.

Tobold recently was not impressed by Assasin’s Creed 1. He expressed the same baffling opinions that I often hear about AC, which gives me a chance to be baffled in a public blog post. I’ve always like Assassin’s Creed. At the time AC1 came out, I thought it was mind-bogglingly revolutionary. It was the best mo-cap I’d ever seen, the graphics looked realistic as crap, the city landscapes were amazing, and it had so many friggin actors on the screen at once.

Fallen Earth is one of the sort-of kind-of AAA-ish quality MMORPGs that I haven’t ever played, so being generally bored with all other games, I recently started playing it. The key word there is “started.” This is actually the second time I’ve started it up. The first time I made a character and took one look at the 1990s-era graphics and promptly uninstalled it. This time I am deliberately overlooking the weird graphics so that I can evaluate the game itself.

I ducked into GW2 to check out the Christmas event. As usual, there is nothing to gain from doing the events except some cosmetic fluff, because god forbid you actually get to advance your GW2 character in any way. But I set aside my anti-horizontal-progression Scrooge-like sentiment for a bit and did the events anyway, and they’re kind of fun. Most of them, anyway. There’s a dungeon which I skipped because I didn’t want to deal with a group.

I’m at a loss to explain it, but I’m digging Mortal Online. When I’m staring at my desktop full of MMO icons trying to decide which one to play, MO is the one I usually click on. I’d be hard pressed to tell you why this game is compelling. I log in. I run out to the Graveyard and kill some undead to make some money and practice my blocking and swordfighting.

I’ve been hearing more and more about people’s WildStar beta experiences lately. Apparently they lifted some of the NDAs. They pretty much gushed about it on MMO Reporter Episode 152, and what they described sounded like a solid themepark MMO with action-oriented combat, and how can anyone not like that? No word on the endgame yet, though. I like The MMO Reporter podcast, by the way. It’s one of the best ones if you like a more “casual” style of podcast.

I hate these year-in-review kinds of posts. So what do I do? Write one, of course. Because everyone’s doing it. This is my review of 2013. 2013 began with GW2 fizzling out because of its lack of endgame progression. I still popped in now and then throughout the year to look at the Living Story but it’s just an occasional diversion. I played in one of the last betas of Defiance before it came out in April.

I hate year-end posts, so here I am writing another one to talk about MMOs I’m looking forward to in 2014. Rift 3.0. I haven’t seen a release date, but they’re talking about releasing it in stages anyway, so I expect we’ll see the bulk of it in 2014. I hope to get a month of entertainment from the new stuff, maybe not contiguously though. WildStar. I’m planning to pre-order and play at launch, because I suspect everyone and their mother will be playing it and I don’t want to miss out.