MMORPG

Kind of a disappointing night in DCUO, but kind of a good night as well. Subscribers get a small amount of station cash each month. I decided to spend August’s allotment on one of the new “slim” auras. Now, what I’d really like, is kind of like a boldish colored outline like you see in the Green Lantern cartoons, but when I got was a sort of puffy glow along my limbs. I already had the green aura (thanks, Sting!), so I got the slim white aura and color-swapped my costume palette to be teal-on-white. ...

Mister Miracle and his wife, Big Barda, are the only two Connecticut-based superheroes I know. When these locals needed help, well, they called on me for a little aid. When us Hartford heroes aren’t on alert for North Korean nuclear missiles (+), we’re available to help save the rest of the world, too. DCUO’s Halls of Power 1 DLC dropped yesterday, and Team Spode is already on the job. I haven’t actually done anything with it, yet – the Neverwinter contest is eating all my free time, lately – but intend to. I’d be surprised if the Intergang Operation wasn’t on our playlist this weekend. ...

This week in the Neverwinter Foundry! A short night, as Kasul and I were play testing each other’s contest entries. Mine, as you know, is “Fire Sale” (and I’m going to do a project review on it at some point). Kasul’s entry is “Of Kobolds and Cultists”, and I won’t be reviewing it. You should play it, though – AFTER it gets featured as part of the Dragon Cult contest. ...

My most popular foundry is the one that took the least time to make. When new farm-type events roll around, some people head for custom made foundries tuned specifically for farming event drops. I thought this was a great scam, so I took my favorite farm foundry (someone else’s), essentially copied it, built it into an EverQuest theme – specifically West Karana, same as my blog – and put that out there. Each time a new event rolls around, I change its name to reference the new event. ...

Rewrote the end of my quest. The player gets to see all the damage they caused, and the medics treating the people you hurt, firefighters taking care of the damage… makes me feel good that these people are being treated.

Just four days left to polish my Cult of the Dragon entry. So much scripting left to do. Here’s a portion of the script for when you finally confront the Chosen of Ghaunadaur. Still working on making the ending suitably epic. See, right after the ending, the player rates and reviews the quest. The beginning has to draw the player in, but the ending has to seal the deal. It almost doesn’t matter about anything in between.

I’ve been lax about keeping up with our foundry nights, so we have a lot to cover today! The Stolen Dragon Egg by Zachariah92 An entry into the Cult of the Dragon foundry contest. You’re sent as a guard for a caravan heading to a city in the far north. After some eventful nights guarding the caravan along the way, you and your employers make it to the city and relax in a tavern for the night, perhaps even flirting with some of the merchants. Then the Cult of the Dragon strikes, and you must earn your pay by rescuing your employers – if you can – while defeating the Cult and their traitorous leader. ...

Foundry contest update #5. FINISHED! I finished… the first pass. It can be played and finished with all three quest paths. This screen shows how complicated the final room can get when you have three storylines colliding. I wrote a conversation for my in-dungeon avatar that explains how the storylines work, and talks about my other foundries, and (naturally) begs the player to leave a review. It’s a contest, after all. No reviews, no ratings, no winning. ...

It’s another night of foundry fun! Four player quests played by our intrepid questing duo. One of which was actually really good :) Wild Man of the Wood by @Kathrian A noblewoman invites you into her home to ask you to go on a mission of utmost discretion: bring a letter to a wild man seen in the woods outside of town. Kasul and I were sure this was some sort of illicit affair, and guess what, we were right. Her hubby is a demonic chimera, her lover is a druid who has taken a vow against showering, and this quest leaves most of the actual story to the next quest in the campaign. ...

If you look in the forums for information about DCUO’s tier 5 raid, “Paradox Wave”, it makes it sound like a simple gear check. If you have the gear, you win – and that required gear is much lower than we all have now. Further, there’s an easy and a hard mode to the raid. So, why can’t we win? The basic plot is that Future Luthor actually staged the whole Brainiac invasion so that he could rule the world or something. We’ll come back to that. While the heroes and villains of Earth are trying to save the world from Brainiac, Future Luthor has opened the hellmouth beneath Gotham, and all the alternate realities are colliding. In Paradox Wave, you help alternate Batmans close the hellmouth. In Nexus, you defeat alternate Luthors once and for all. ...