G&H, ROM, and Station Access

I don't often do posts of random odds and ends, but that's what I've got today.

• I got some comments from the Gods and Heroes Team on my post about my brief visit to the game's beta.  I chose to play the game as a level one player would experience it at that point in the beta.  Massively's Beau Hindman went the opposite route, accepting a higher level character so he could get a better sense of the game's high end potential.  It hadn't occurred to me that you could get non-human minions, and that does indeed sound amusing.  In a few short weeks, we'll find out whether players are prepared to accept the possibly rough-around-the-edges experience in order to get at the more interesting potential at higher levels. 
  
  
• It was another bonus weekend in Runes of Magic - triple exp AND TP this time - and I got in a few levels on my Druid (who is now 52 Druid/43 Rogue).  I've cleared out the solo quests of Dust Devil and I'm part of the way through Ravenfell.  I'm also slowly working on getting the Rogue side up to 45 so I can add the 45/45 Elite skill to my spellbook, since it has a marginally useful passive benefit.  (The 50/50 requires a questline that I am unlikely to complete anytime soon.) 
  
  
• Sony also announced a cut in the price of the Station Pass, which now costs $20/month.  One can only speculate that relatively few players are actually using the service at the old price (and it's possible that many are/were EQ2 players who are only paying for the upgrade to rent extra character slots back when you could not purchase them). For me, that means $5/month for any second game in addition to EQ2, which makes some of the other options in the SOE stable more interesting. 
  
  I wanted to play DCUO on the PS3, but the PC version is so much cheaper - $40 for the box to start with and then effectively $5/month with this Station deal compared to $50 for the PS3 box and the full $15/month on the PSN - that PC version is starting to look like a no-brainer by comparison. 
  
  There's also the curiously en vogue Vanguard.  I've been feeling under-challenged by solo games of late, so it's possible that a game that's aimed more at small groups would actually be refreshing.  I would definitely play Vanguard differently than other MMO's - I don't think the game is going anywhere, but you can't be certain given how much population has dwindled, so my willingness to tolerate any less-fun segments of the game as an "investment" to get at more interesting high level content would be basically nil.  That said, for a low enough price point and some bonus blog topics, it might be worthwhile.  (Incidentally, does anyone know whether Station Access holders need to pay for an account key, or can you just download the client and go?) 
  

 And that's today in odds and ends here at PVD.