EverQuest

No, really, I’m sure there are millions of puns out there about “crafting” and “tradeskills”. No laws against them. They aren’t WEA-PUNS of LAUGHS INSTRUCTION, after all. So, yeah. Still shocked and awed by the coolness of the Shadow Odyssey crafting quests. No killing. NO FRIGGIN KILLING. I had a quest to rebuild a cannon for some quick ballistic travel between a couple of areas, and after gathering ore, it asked me for a wire from a sweeper bot. “Okay,” thought I, “finally some killing!” ...

The Shadow Odyssey is like a really big book… but you only have summaries for each chapter, and you’ll be having a test on it the next morning. At 7AM. At least, that’s how it feels to me. Way, way too much to digest at once. New dungeons all over the place, or re-imagined old ones. The whole plot that runs through the Moors of Ykesha. All new crafting! All new AAs! ...

What looks sillier than a very tiny fairly, with an even tinier fairy stuck to her shoulder, riding a huge, massive bear into a huge, massive bear convention with a group of gnomes in a steampunk city made out of mega-works and rusted iron? Not much, actually. That’s pretty much as silly as it gets. Or maybe the retailer support for EverQuest II’s latest expansion would be a little sillier. I went to Best Buy and two Gamestops last night hunting up the retail box. In between the hundreds of WotLK boxes, and many Hellgate: London boxes, the rows of Lord of the Rings Online boxes, the huge Warhammer Online displays (with collector editions!), were two copies of Rise of Kunark and one copy of Secrets of Faydwer, last year’s EverQuest expansion. ...

Just want to point out (I have a slightly longer expansion article scheduled for later so will be brief) that Kendricke has posted the Game Update 50 patch notes up on the Clockwork Gamer blog. Some nice changes. Nothing that makes the troubadour particularly more fun to play, but some nice stuff in there. Mostly just balancing, though.

Being a Drogorn civic planner must be the most interesting job in the world. I can just imagine the presentation at the planning meeting: “Well, Jim, what do you have for us today?” “Well, today – something really exciting – here’s the plans for the new Elementary school!” “Oh, very good. Very good. This covered walkway – very interesting, that. Protect the kids from foul weather! Quite considerate.” “Ah yes, I am very proud of that, indeed. I call it ‘The Wall of Slaughter’.” ...

The Overlord Lucan D’Lere showed up at the EverQuest II Birthday Bash last night. Awestruck? You can say that. This is the man who saved us from the Rallosian Hordes and the Green Mist. This is the man who singlehandedly defeated the Avatar of War on Lucan’s Mount in the Commonlands. This is the man who drove the orcs to their doom in Wailing Caves and sealed them there forever. ...

The plan was to go to some experience hot zone last night for Nostalgia’s weekly meet-up. But Mantis decided to just farm some of the giants in the Bastion of Thunder while waiting, and then I drifted over there – again, just while waiting for everyone else to log in. Coldheat came over after a few and, while waiting, each of us with our bots to make a full group (ranger, enchanter, two clerics, two warriors), we cleared out the water wing, killed the wing boss (grats Coldheat on some nice Defiant shoulders), stepped on the teleport pad and found that the bees – the Stormriders – were uncamped! ...

Wizard 101, why can’t I quit you? I spent most of the night last night working on my LittleBigPlanet level. Well, almost. I spent most of last night feeling like an idiot. A frustrated idiot. Since LittleBigPlanet is based around a physics engine, everything you make there has to actually work to some degree. I started working on a sorta free-floating player system as is used in the hugely popular Gradius level, and got it kinda working, but I didn’t like it. Then I decided to make a game set not in space, but underwater, and the space ship becomes a submarine – or a bathysphere, really, since the thing has to be connected by chains to a hidden, remote-controlled trolley which handles the mechanism of bringing the bathysphere through the level. ...

Yup, last night we entered Vex Thal for the first time as a guild. Aten Ha Ra, your days are numbered, etc. (I don’t have to mention that we were trying to zone off a train, right? Good!) I’ve always had a deep and abiding affection for Vex Thal. What’s not to love? A city devoted to the worship of a four-armed goddess who dresses like a Rocky Horror refugee and uses her moon as a footrest for her spike-heeled, black leather boots? ...

Wish Straha updated WTFComics, the world’s longest running EQ comic, more often, but there’s two new comics up this morning :)