Partial map of the Chamber of Raiyun If the Chamber of Raiyun were a module for the tabletop version of Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast would be sending lawyers all over the country, the world even, explaining to judges and juries why the dead dungeon master found floating in the river, perhaps slowly colliding with even more dead dungeon masters, wasn’t a justifiable homicide. Or why it was, depending on which side brought in WotC. ...
Not social enough for Rift? Rift was my main game this year, the one I would play before any other. The only real way, I feel, to really enjoy a MMO is to go all-in, completely devote yourself to it. Otherwise you remain an outsider or a dabbler. I love MMOs, so if I followed my natural inclination, I’d just play a dozen at a time but never really get to know any of them. ...
Alison Goldtalon notices something THE CONTEST HAS ENDED! SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM FOR THE LIST OF WINNERS! The answer was Greyson Chance, and the silver chest was in the Library. Woot! West Karana is proud to announce that we are giving away 15 Balance Houses to anyone that can solve Alison Goldtalon’s puzzle! Since everyone says my puzzles have been too easy, I’ve made this one (I hope) a little more challenging! ...
Mythology 101! I spent a few nights last week getting my Myth wizard, Tara Mythcrafter, through Grizzleheim so she could enter Wintertusk. She was already max level when Grizzleheim came out, and it just made more sense to put my alt team through, as they could use the experience and loot. When Wintertusk was released and I found it required Grizzleheim, I was at a loss. Nothing for it but to rush through from showing my bravery to bears to destroying the coven – twice. I’d missed a necessary update the first time through. It wasn’t tough, though – a level 60 balance wizard and a level 60 life wizard have little to fear from some old crows. ...
Entering Earth Spacedock Cryptic has a friend in Netflix. The Internet movie streaming giant recently obtained a two year license to offer every episode of every incarnation of Star Trek (aside from the animated series) for instant viewing by folks in the United States. There’s not one Trek fan who isn’t gonna watch a few episodes and not want to get into the bridge of a starship of their own and mix it up with some Klinks and Rommies. Star Trek Online absolutely delivers on that. With their Foundry, you can even potentially create some episodes of your own. I was watching a Voyager episode, “Message in a Bottle”, which features a fight where a Nebula-class starship is chasing a stolen experimental assault ship when Romulan battleships decloak and start firing and then Federation starships catch up and then there’s a grand old battle. If STO wasn’t down for maintenance right now, I could have whipped up that exact encounter in about half an hour. ...
The AE86 in my garage Super Mario Kart on the SNES was a racing gateway drug in our household in the 90s. We liked SMK. We LOVED SMK. All of us, me, my daughter and my son, mastered SMK. And we had a Playstation, so we turned to Need For Speed and many of its sequels to get that same joy of racing each other, togetherness as a family, etc. ...
Behold! So I knew this going in, there’s nobody that hates us Drow more than your average beholder. There could be two paladins bashing away on it, a favored soul doing whatever it is they do, a sorcerer baking it in magical flames, and me plinking away at it from fifty meters away, trying to get a good holy arrow or two in its mad, unblinking eye, when it roars, “I SMELL BLUESKIN!” and zaps me with a death beam, TOTALLY IGNORING all the mayhem at its feet. If it had feet. ...
For all those old EverQuesties who remember the glory of Freeport before it was ruined and destroyed in the Prophecy of Ro expansion, Utenan1 has recreated West and North Freeport in Minecraft. They are so dead-on that even more than a decade in, I could still find my way around blindfolded. (Can anyone claim that with new Freeport?) West Freeport North Freeport
Raid rift in Shimmersands All I want out of a fantasy game is dragons and the tools to kill them. DDO (more on that in another post) is a disappointment there. They should just rename that game “Dungeons and ????? Online”. But Rift… Rift is just lousy with the big lizards. The whole rift concept seems tailor made for them as well. A dragon pushes a bit of its own reality into Telara; it comes with buildings, henchmen, swirling, floaty rocks and storm winds, and we push it back. ...
White to play I believe the only way to do anything is “all in”. When I started getting into anime in the 80s, I took Japanese lessons to better understand. When I watched the street racing anime Initial D recently, I learned for the first time how cars were tuned for specific road conditions (and watched a lot of Top Gear with a new appreciation). I’m now working my way through Hikaru no Go, a cartoon about a middle school-er who is taught the game of Go by the ghost of a medieval Go master (go with it, it’s a kid’s cartoon) and rises to become a pro. So I am learning Go, and after a couple of weeks, am proud to report that a fifth grader placing stones randomly would only beat me 80% of the time. After years of study and constant play, I could perhaps come to challenge a Japanese middle schooler. ...