I had the weirdest time today: my mother(yes, mother) kept going on and on about that MMO called The Outdoor('twas new to me, but as it turned out, it had been around for some time) and that i should play it. Well, weird as i am, i decided to check it out. Here's my review:

Well, apparently every person has his account pre-registred, which is convinient, actually. Still haven't figured out the password part tho, but the current security system seems to work(GITS, anyone?). Logging in is really easy and, well, literally unnoticable.
It uses its own connection, so you don't have to worry about ur internets getting clogged. I don't know when i got the client, but some say the d/l takes about 9months. Also, server maint is done live (that means there's no downtime). Bugs are extremely rare and I, for one, didn't really notice any...

The world is awesome. Full surround sound, ultimate graphics, super physics. It's said to run on almost any system and as far as i know, it does. The developers have put so much effort into it, that you can even smell stuff, acutally feel pain and so on..

Gameplay: "Simple when you know how" has been said to characterize this unique game. Tho it seems almost natural now, the learning curve is actually very long and lasts as long as your character lives. Basics can be learnt rather fast(compared to the whole curve that is) with only 3-5years. Apparently the classes will be chosen later in "life". There are too many distinct classes to name here. Also, multiclassing is possible and highly recommended as it gives you the flexibility needed to excell in the OD universe. The advanced, player-run society system, super graphics and the new Smell and Feel™ system makes it almost impossible to not live in to your character. The combat system also feels very comfortable and real. Unfortunately, there are haevy penalties on dying(more on that later), so the dev team doesn't really recommend it. The game has a nicely built, but sometimes really cruel enconomy system(that actually varies between continents and regions). FOR THOSE LONELY WOLVES OUT THERE: THIS IS NOT A GAME FOR YOU! Seriously, I have yet to witness a game that would require so much player2player interaction. The game seems to offer almost too much content where the support of the players in your friends list is required and often unavoidable. So, the more people you know you can rely on, the bett-- HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA WE ALL KNOW YOU FAIL IN LIFE! FAIL! MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*khm*.. So.. Dying: If you happen to die(of old age, thru someone else's hand, thru accidents(yes, your character is constantly at risk. Now, this is knon to cause paranoia among some players, but the admins don't seem to pay much attention), thru your own hand(only Admins know what emo reasons you might have had behind such an useless act)), your character will automatically deleted 20mins after the "dying" occurs. Now, there are some special items and circumstances that could bring a freshly-dead player back to life, but i wouldn't count on those. Also, there has been some GM interaction into the whole topic. Apparently GMs can resurrect even deleted characters, meaning that there is a backup system or something similar(GMs tend to be asses about this and using it as they please. Ticketing them has proven to be useless). When your character does get deleted, you are sent to a limbo menu(in game known as "Hell") where you can chat with others, create new characters or log out. Tho from what i've heard, when logged out, everything seems to be a void.

Story: As weird as it might seem, there is no story. Some events happen every now and then taht affect the people, but that can hardly be considered a part of the story. It all comes down to survival and nothing else. There are no goals for you when you start except survival.. if you're lucky, you can set your own goals and try to achieve 'em before your character dies of old age. So, the game's all about doing lingering around and trying to survive. Boring? Fuck yea. But that's the cool part: when it becomes boring, you can always create(or let others create) new goals and quests for you.. something to do, in other words.

Leveling: Apparently you gain experience from doing stuff.. the more stuff you do, the more experience you have. But since your play time is limited, you have to carefully choose what you do. But that doesn't matter much because you don't really gain any bonuses to your next char for the stuff you did on your last one =(

Long story short, here are the stats:
Graphics: 10
Sound: 10
Network: 10
Story: 2
Help & Support: 2
"Fun" rating: 4.5
Overall Rating: 6.42

Conclusion: If you like almost pointlessly detailed shiny MMOs that has no story or support whatsoever, this is the game for YOU! But if you are not demented like that, you should really consider WoW or TCoS or Fury

Yours Truly
-Steve

EDIT: I know this joke's all worn out and whadnot, but i just HAD to :D

Dear MMO developers,

write netcode that doesn't fucking disconnect you every 5 goddamn minutes.
Thanks.

Sincerely,
hax

So, just to get the obvious stuff out of the way: yes, I am aware that this looks like a blog; no, I didn't fall on my head and no, i have absolutely no clue what sort of meaningful purpose this site is going to serve in the future.

As usual, hax and Muhv also have access to this blog-like environment. For the time being I'm not totally sure if our favourite loli (aka Keemik aka ParadoxB) might also be interested in moving her bloging over here. Anybody else who might want to post something useful here will have to contact me and then we'll see what we can work out. And of course, that someone must have a user on our phorums; that's how things work. There also will be a "Talen" section with recorded phone conversations and such. I think I have permission to post some of his writings from the reasonable_demise.rar that he left on my ftp on the morning he left to join the army, but I'm sure he'd like to post some of them himself when he gets back from that silly venture. Though, I think he will be more than happy to come up with totally new stuff.

Oh, and in a couple of days, or maybe hours, hax and Muhv will probably get to it. And by "it" i mean shamelessly raping the hell out of this brand spanking new site. Not that I would mind. ^^  
And to hax: no BBCode yet, sorry. The bbcode plugin for the TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor doesn't have all the functionality i require. But eventually I also will allow bbcode, don't worry.

Er.. what else? Today, being sunday and all, is the usual "Talen's report from the army" day. He was quite happy actually on the phone and claimed to be extremely lucky. Especially because he is really light and thus making all the running exercises quite easy for him. He bragged that this week they got to shoot with live ammo and throw training grenades. I kind of remember him once saying that he prefers to be benevolent and against violence. Oh the irony. When he gets back, we can expect killing machine, an extremely sarcastic killing machine that is. Though, he said he's still trying to become medic, so not all hope is gone for the benevolent Talen. Of course, him being a medic is like something you would see in WolfET (sanitary teamkills anyone? ^^). He also mentioned they get to crawl a lot, lately more and more at night time, just when they have slept for a couple of hours. Sounds like fun.
I'm not going to tell you the best parts though. Wait for the recorded version ;)

That's it i guess. Don't have anything else on my mind that i would dare to share with you at the moment.

Ja mata
-n0nst0p