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Hey, hey, magical sleigh. I didn’t get this last year because I was saving up for the Frost Mimic. It’s been a full day since I released Crushbone’s Revenge into the world. I’ve gotten a little feedback, most of it good, some with stuff I need to address. I was kinda hoping, of course, that it would catch on fire, but it didn’t. Probably because the average playtime is creeping up toward AN HOUR. It was supposed to be a HALF HOUR QUEST. Holy crap. I am UNABLE to make a quick foundry with story and action good for the daily foundry quest. ...

Google sent me my year in photos :) Didn’t expect this! Bridges, bikes, and my grandson. Sounds about right.Year in Photos 2014.m4v This was posted on Google+

I thought I would just dive into Gauntlet in “Normal” mode. I was okay at this, in the arcades, thirty years ago. Nothing much has changed, right? The original game was a co-op quarter gobbler. I never saw the end until I bought the home version for the Atari ST and just kept at it until I got to the bottom. Infinite quarters, yo. This new version of Gauntlet is pretty much different from the original in every possible way. It’s still an arcade game, but now it has challenges and stuff you can buy and a coliseum mode and whatever. ...

Haven’t beaten this one yet. The five Fiery Hounds don’t do much damage and one tank (this is my other tank now) can easily hold them with the standard two clerics keeping him up, and the druid healing the raid. Burninator was the only one of my wizards who showed up at raid time, so he got a spot, but in his typical AFK-ness, refused to stop nuking the wrong targets. Similarly, Magetaur kept doing AE nukes even though I told her to hold off until they were nearly all dead, since you have to kill them all within a few rounds or they self-rez. ...

At level 10, I chose Occultist as my second class, and thus became a Nightblade/Occultist AKA Witch Hunter, which sounded pretty nice. I put enough points into that to get a raven familiar, then went back to leveling up the Nightblade stuff. I have two “blue” items, but I need to level my physique stat up quite a bit before I can wear them. “Blue” items have extra effects. I think they’re analogous to “orange” items in Diablo 3. The game is definitely in the Action RPG mode, like Diablo, and not really a Party RPG, like Baldur’s Gate, as I thought it might be. I don’t really pay attention to games in development. Still, Action RPGs are fun and I play lots of them and I like this one. I’m not sure if it’s going to turn out to be player expandable, as Torchlight and Torchlight 2 are. ...

I am officially done with my Christmas shopping! But look what I found at Toys “R” Us… Retro consoles pre-loaded with loads of the kind of arcade games I played when I was a lot younger. It doesn’t look like the Colecovision one has any place to put my old Colecovision cartridges.  This was posted on Google+

It’s a Wipe! Orc raid, final boss. Here you can see all my wizards in the raid, and my rogue protege. I’ve recently hired a third rogue. The two guards are tank and spanked. The Draconic Advisor has some minor group nukes, but the druid is able to keep them up easily while the two clerics focus on the tank. Konan is tanking again – Sir Killzalot is fuming in the guild hall. ...

It’s a Wipe! strategy update: Troll City. For this fight, all three of these mobs can rez the other two, so it’s important to kill all three mobs at around the same time. I put ranged DPS on the High Tiger Priest, and melee DPS on the friar and then the bishop, and then rely upon the mage to take them all out with her group nukes. I have two of my three wizards here for this fight, but they don’t get along well with each other, and they are all having time outs in my current raid group. One of them has asked to raid again, so he’ll be coming back. I’ve found out from the forums that wizards are temperamental and will rage quit if you don’t coddle them enough. I think the smart move, going forward, would be to play a wizard (I play here a rogue) so that you’ll always have at least one who can’t quit. ...

Just started playing Grim Dawn, an old school-style RPG I kickstarted sometime in the distant past. I’ve been looking forward to this game for quite a long time, and so far – having played about half an hour of it so far – it’s a return to form. My dual-wielding nightblade kicks butt. Nightblades get an aura that debuffs and confuses nearby mobs (at the cost of a constant mana drain). There’s way more additional abilities on which to spend points, and knowing how and when to spend these points is part of the larger game. I don’t know if it’s possible to respec if you want to go in a different direction at some point. ...

Welp, time to pull the trigger on Crushbone’s Revenge. You’ve heard me talking about this quest for months. It’s finally in a playable state. If any Neverwinter players want to give it a spin and let me know how they like it, I’d really appreciate it. It’s part of my EverQuest-in-Neverwinter campaign, but no knowledge of EverQuest is required to play. Crushbone’s Revenge (NW-DQY8XAH9D) by @Tipa It’s still in the For Review tab at the moment, but, I hope, will be in the “New” tab real soon. Need just one more review to get it out of Review Hell. ...