MMORPG

It was a night of crime and pun-ishment in Dungeons & Dragons Online last night. The crime was courtesy of the bandit crew we ousted from their little underground hole last night. The pun-ishment, alas, we inflicted upon ourselves. It’s just not Team Spode until Spode logs in, so the Spode-less crew milled about, uncertain and with no purpose in life. Ulan, I think, had found a quick quest we could do for House Jorasco while waiting for the rest of the group. New cleric Shananana(sp?) wasn’t online, so, heck, why not? And then Spode logged in and we were good to go. Now, Spode’s also been grinding a quest he found in a tavern in the Marketplace, and we’d been talking about doing that one on elite. So we did them both! ...

Saturday, I linked to a raid force taking down some old Kunark and Velious mobs. That got me into the game to try and see if I could find any of those same bosses - Cazic Thule, Faydedar, Trakanon and Velketor the Sorceror - up. As far as I know, CT and Faydedar, in their original forms, are no longer in the game. Trakanon had been killed just moments before I got to his lair. Velketor was up, though, and I’ve embedded a video of our meeting at the end. ...

I was grinding my way through the Howling Fjord quests in World of Warcraft today, just minding my own business, keeping an eye out for stray turkeys to kill (I don’t know why, @Longasc hinted that I should kill them). I’ve been staging a one-gnome assault on a nearby village of giants; I’ve fought their champions in the arena, stolen artifacts from beneath the noses of a hundred million undead, freed prisoners and in all ways made myself something of a pest. ...

I’m actually sitting in Star Trek Online right now, hovering above the Deferi Mining Outpost 3, waiting for the Breen capital ship “Desna” to show up. So I can kill it. So, what it is with Black Friday? When did that become some sort of holiday in and of itself? Now we’re apparently exporting it to the rest of the world. Rumor Control: Elder Scrolls V to be an MMO? ...

It’s been a busy day at my Wizard101 garden, on the test server. I was tending my plants and harvesting when, after a 5xp harvest from a Honeysickle, I unexpectedly leveled to rank 2. That meant I could train up in the advanced bug be-gone spell and get rid of the persistent insect infestation that had sprung up around one of my Dandelions. The gnomes seemed please to be done with all the buzzing; they need quiet for their work. Not that the Boomshrooms let anything get any rest. ...

It’s Turkey Day in the USA, the day when we all gather together with our families and other loved ones and try not to talk about gaming. I kinda failed at this this afternoon when I was talking to my daughter and she wanted to talk about the new gnome starting quests in World of Warcraft… Time to start talking turkey. ...

It has not been a happy day for the Boomshrooms in my Wizard101 garden on the test server. Rank 2 bugs have moved in, and are buzzing around it, disturbing its rest. The Boomshroom is a difficulty 2 plant, even though it is only rank 1. I guess that means the bugs it gets can’t be driven away by the rank 1 spells. ...

Yesterday, I played in Wizard101’s test server for a time, hoping to figure out Gardening’s strange attraction. That, and to figure just how you got experience in gardening! Well, I wasn’t able to make any progress – I remain one bubble into Rank 1, precisely where I started after talking to Farley, the Golem Court mole who teaches the skill. Nonetheless, I pulled on my work gloves and got to digging. I bought two medium pots from Farley in which to grow Honeysickles – the spell to prepare medium-sized plots of land is rank 2, but you can buy a medium pot at any level. ...

Last week, Spinks mused a bit over on her blog about the tendency of WoW players to distill every activity down to its most efficient execution, even if some of the players would like things to go more casually. She suggested using some social engineering to gather like-minded players together: Maybe some kind of social scoring scheme based on (useful and grammatically correct) forum posts and votes from previous groupees, and some extra cosmetic rewards and titles … ...

Q. Why is that farmer so famous? A. Because he is out standing in his field! KingsIsle today dropped a little bit of dirt, some seeds, a bit of warm rain and a little sun into Wizard City today. On the Test Realm, Life professor Moolinda Wu is just udderly bursting with good news! Gardening has come to the Spiral, and it is the job of good wizards everywhere to plant a flower to replace every lotus blossom they pick. It’s part of the “Ravenwood Gives Back” program. ...