At the Start of Act II Our Barbarian was missing again this week, leaving us a Gang of Three as we moved into Act II, Inferno, Diablo 3. You may remember that we’d flown through Hell mode in Monster Level 10, which made the game just a little more difficult, while adding loads and loads more loot and cash to the monster drops. This being Diablo 3, the vast majority of the loot was trash, differing really only in the background color (clear, blue, yellow) that determined how much it would sell for to its only buyer, the merchant at the camp. ...

Scatterfall at 95/95/318 Dinged 95 Berserker on Scatterfall today. That’s the max level with the Chains of Eternity expansion. She’s also a 95 Carpenter, and has 318 Alternate Advancement (AA) points – two short of the max. Though she was boosted from 190-something to 280 when she hit level 90 and used one of the special potions that came with the expansion, so I DID cut some corners, there. I really wanted to finish with her leveling today; tomorrow starts the New Year’s double experience rush, and her having max adventure and crafting levels will give an additional 20% leveling bonus to every character on the account. ...

I hope Santa Glug brought you everything you wanted!

Docked in Munar orbit It’s not that there’s not a lot to do in Kerbal Space Program; it’s that it takes so long to do. Just like real space flight. I’ve been doing work on my heavy lifter, the Munar Exploder. My goal here is to get into Kerbin orbit with a full stage of fuel left. I was hoping to ease the need for fuel by skipping the Kerbin orbit and just burning straight for Mun, but the necessary burn took too long and pushed me past the apoapsis, sending me on an inescapable trip back to the ground, strapped to a hundred ton bomb. ...

Player made Heroic Ornate Chest I’ve been told that the item designers set their own target price for these items. So… that changes this article somewhat. SOE has been touting an initiative to let third party item designers design items for their games – they’re calling it a Player Foundry. Designers submit fully textured 3D models of items to be sold in the SOE cash shop, and if accepted, they designer gets a cut of the proceeds; 40%, I believe. ...

Rescue! There’s this movie that used to come on TV occasionally when I was a kid called “Marooned” – stars Richard Crenna, Gene Hackman and other famous people. Three Apollo astronauts are trapped in orbit with air running out. A desperate rescue mission on a military rocket that is in no way ready for launch is proposed. It’s a really great movie. I didn’t set out to remake this movie in Kerbal Space Program…. ...

Moon shot It’s a tense day for the Kerbal Space Program. Three intrepid explorers have been strapped into the Super Booster 3, charitably described in the Kerb press as a “flying bomb”. In actuality, there’s an excellent chance it will explode right on the launch pad, like the regular kind of bomb. That’s all in the past, though. The mess has been cleared away. Again. The space program has nearly run out of Kerbonauts, though – these are the last three. It is more important than ever, that they not die. ...

Back to back in a healing circle, enemies all around Gamepot’s Wizardry Online (published in North America by Sony Online Entertainment) wants you to know that it is a hardcore MMO. With permadeath. If you play this, you will die. In real life. Really. Unless you’re hardcore enough. Permadeath. This might intrigue you. They aren’t lying. This is a hardcore game. There is permadeath. But the game is also somewhat… annoying. Still, it may be your cup of mead, if you long for the days of another hardcore MMO, one called EverQuest. ...

The Fab Four and the 70,000,000 hit point trash mobs We’ve been trundling forward with Monster Level set to 10 for awhile now. This gives the most monsters with the most hit points, but it was doable, and so much loot dropped that we were skipping picking up blues and only picked up yellows, and were still forced to return to the Bastion to sell every few minutes. Even at the maximum power, neither Azmodan nor Diablo gave us much trouble, though with our paragon levels, monster power and max stacks of Nephalem Valor, you’d have expected one of us would see a legendary or set item, but no. Diablo 3 was tuned to give you piles and piles and piles of useless loot. D2 would give you the occasional set item, but I am absolutely unsure how so many set items and legendaries can be on the auction house when we have been playing throughout the entire game, normal, nightmare, hell and now inferno, and not one has dropped during our regular sessions over the past six months or so. ...