Want a Free Game?

Yes, I'm alive.  And for those who found my posts interesting, I apologize for my inactivity the last few months, been very busy with a few things plus real life has been quite hectic.

First among those would be raiding in WoW.  We raced to finish Heroic Sha of Fear in time and literally killed him about 5 hours before the servers went down for the 5.2 patch.  Cut it very close there.  Throne of Thunder has been interesting so far, lots of trash at times, 1/13H and will kill Heroic Ji-Kun this week at a minimum.  Going to be tricky trying to deal with a 12 boss raid with plenty of trash on a two night schedule.

I've also been busy fighting the good fight on the Blizzard forums regarding the new item upgrade plan and how it impacts (or rather doesn't) your off set, which causes problems since Blizzard is expecting everyone to pretty easily upgrade every item (their words, not mine).

Prior to that, I've also been working on a project of my own in what little free time I had.  You see, in addition to WoW I'm quite fond of a game called Neverwinter Nights.  It's an RPG that came out a few years before WoW which is completely amazing because it is immensely customizable.  You can play solo campaigns, you can play multiplayer campaigns, and you can play online on what are effectively MMOs (abet with playerbases in the dozens to hundreds instead of tens of thousands).

It has a complete toolset that can be used to tweak almost every mechanic and create custom content - the original "official" Bioware campaigns make up like 0.1% of what's available for the game, and a ton of the user made content blows the original campaigns out of the water.  Users can also add new content in the form of ".hak" files, which add new creature models, new tilesets, new weapons, new feats (like talents), etc.

And all of this is free except for the original purchase.  It's available to buy on a site called Good Old Games for $9.99 normally - which includes the original campaign, both expansions (so two more campaigns), and an additional "premium" module - but it's on sale right now for $5.99.

Except I'll sweeten the pot even further - if you send me an email at balkothwarcraft at gmail dot com within the next three days, I'll buy the game for you and send it to you as a gift.  Absolutely free.  Because I think the game deserves to be promoted.

On top of that, if 10 people haven't requested a copy of the game by the end of the sale, I'll still send a free copy of the game until 10 people total have gotten one.

Now, earlier I mentioned a project of my own.  There was a "building challenge" where participants had one month to create a module (the game is separated into modules, which can range from being a single testing zone to a MMO-like Persistent World which spans hundreds of areas and offers hundreds of hours of playtime - you just load the module you want to play or join it if it's already being hosted).  I created a solo adventure for max level characters called Siege of the Heavens, which is an action adventure focused on scripted boss fights, similar to what you'd find in WoW raids and dungeons (or Brawler's Guild if you've done that).  The Heavens are under attack by devils and demons and the celestials enlist the help of mortals heroes like yourself to help lift the siege.

It's not something you should immediately play - you'll want to familiarize yourself with the basic mechanics of the game before trying my module.  It's also only technically halfway finished since I only had a month to build it - which is still 3 or so hours of playtime, and once it's done you'll be able to pick up where you left off and play the remaining 3-4 hours that are planned.

Speaking of familiarizing yourself with the game, I would be happy to play through the official campaigns (or some custom campaigns, I'd strongly recommend the Aielund Saga at a minimum - among many other custom campaigns - which is much better than the official campaigns but again somewhat expects a familiarity with the game) with anyone interested, provided we can arrange suitable times.  The first official campaign probably takes about 40 hours to play through, the second two both take about 20 hours each.

IMPORTANT NOTE
You will need to request a unique multiplayer key once you claim your game or else you will be unable to sign into some multiplayer modules for security reasons.  There are instructions on how to do so on the GOG site.

Also, some of the old multiplayer services (like game listings provided by Gamespy) are no longer active - but members of the community have recreated replacements that are just as good (or better in some cases) as the originals.  More information can be found here.  Feel free to contact me (via email or private message on the boards - this is my profile there) or post on those boards for help if you need it.

Again, email me at balkothwarcraft at gmail dot com if you want a copy of the game, want to find out more about the game, want to try to play the game with me, or just want me to shut up about NWN and get back to focusing on WoW.

My goal is to try to get at least a post per week and I will try to analyze some of the results from the poll to the right next.  Expect some graphs and probably some whining from me.