MMORPG

WoW Invaders in Darklight Woods The mood in EverQuest 2 is one of quiet anticipation as the world waits for Game Update 66 on April 30, which brings with it the modern rethinkings of the original EverQuest zones of Cobalt Scar and Siren’s Grotto. Cobalt Scar will be an open-world adventure zone with a strong story line, while Siren’s Grotto appears to be a series of instanced dungeons, likely in the quest/solo/heroic/raid variations we’ve come to expect. ...

Beating up the Bats After last week’s very narrow defeat by the Scion of Fear in the STAR Labs Research Facility, we were all kinda hoping that STAR Labs would be, again, the daily double. Spode and Sting have in the last week both ascended to Tier Threedom and are sporting new armors and higher combat ratings, while Kaptain KY and I still suffer in Tier 2. No such luck; last night’s daily double was Batcave: Outer Caverns. A bit of a backstory – bat-story? Batman, distrusting the godlike powers of meta-humans, created the semi-sentient satellite Brother Eye to collect data on all Earth’s superhumans, and their weaknesses. What could possibly go wrong? Well, pretty much everything. Now, Brother Eye is devoted to turning supers and civilians both into cyborg-like OMACs and using them to destroy all humans. ...

Brainiac dailies Didn’t take any good screen shots in our Sunday game of DC Universe Online, which was kind of a downer, because it was a really good night. Kaptain KY said he was going to be a little late, so instead of starting with missions, we went to the Brainiac Incursion zone in Gotham City to try and find some Sub-Avatars to kill. I think Spode or Sting hadn’t yet done the dailies, so we just started killing everything we saw. ...

Team Spode vs Sub-Avatar Although last night was a wildly successful night for Team Spode in DC Universe Online, it turns out I took only two screenshots last night, and both were of the same thing: killing a sub-avatar. When I logged in, Lord Spode was finishing up the Brainiac dailies. I joined his group and headed to Gotham to help. See, Brainiac is slowly bottling and digitizing the buildings of Metropolis and Gotham City; once these cities are entirely digitized and stored, Brainiac will destroy the Earth. Preventing this is the role of the player heroes and villains. ...

Camp Check! First step in spawning the Ancient Cyclops in EverQuest 2 is to go back in time about thirteen years and log in to the original EverQuest. Journeyman’s Boots, one of the most highly prized items in the game, would give characters a decent instant speed boost in a game where most characters could not get anywhere quickly. JBoots, combined with a snare spell or ability, could allow most classes to solo in a game focused on groups. ...

Chemo Patrolmen. We can deal with violent experiments that survive on toxic waste. Special security patrols, giant, venom-infused hounds and their masters, no problem. But if you want to see Team Spode start to panic, send in an Ace Patrolman with his Flamethrower of One Hit Doom. Last night was Team Spode’s first try at a Tier 1 group mission, the beginning of DC Universe Online’s end-game. Having leveled to 30, the game now ignores your level and bases every encounter on your “combat rating”, the game’s version of World of Warcraft’s gear score. During the past week, we’ve been separately working on our gear. The Tier 1 solo missions give some Marks of Triumph – the Tier 1 gear currency – some faction, and usually a piece of very decent gear on their own. Additionally, there are a set of three related missions in Gotham City that give fifteen marks per day, and the daily Vault lotto mission that occasionally gives 25 marks. ...

Incorruptible Hadleyburg It’s more than a little unfair to complain so much when I couldn’t play SimCity 2013, and then say nothing once I was able to play it. So here’s this post. I can play it and do enjoy it when I do; I’m playing in a corner of a region started by friends who fled to another server, so it’s as close to a single player game as it possibly can be. I’ve started two cities and a Great Work – an arcology. I’ve lost sleep just doing one… more… thing. ...

I am the egg man What does it take to defeat the Tornado Tyrant in Oolong Island? Three weeks and nine levels. But that’s done. After an impromptu mid-week play through some mission arcs, we all started our assault on Oolong Island Sunday at level 28 or 29. We flew through the early fights, which have become so familiar that we could just joke around and fly casual and have pterosaur barbecue, as much as we liked. Prehistoric drumsticks for everyone. ...

This is my life. Paused at the loading screen. During work today, I’d log into Google+ and read about the adventures my friends who were stuck at home were having in SimCity. Weather is cruddy here tonight, and the thing I was going to go to tonight has been moved to next Thursday, and I looked forward to some SimCity time! But nope. There was a patch, a restart, and then —– nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. I thought the contest to send in your “best cities!!!!!” was hilarious, but… here’s mine. ...

The SimCity "Ha Ha!" screen I’m pretty sure that, sitting on my old Mac SE/30 in the living room, is an old copy of the first SimCity. Or if not on the hard drive, on a floppy drive somewhere. Assuming I could find it, and the computer could still read it, that I could play that original SimCity and have as much fun as I wanted. I could type in “FUNDS” if I got in a bind and get some extra money. I could save my game and then have Godzilla stomp it to rubble, then restore it and all these little SimCity people would be going “Whaaaa? I just had a feeling that we were all stomped to rubble… Oh well!” ...