We were hacking a Serpentis radar site in EVE last night, and it was a good site, too. A bunch of Gallentean Starship Engineering datacores that will come in handy, a skill book that Toldain needed, and other stuff which is now cooking on the market… but Tranquility shut down to prepare for the Dominion expansion going live today, so I headed to EQ2 for some fun. ...
I bought just one thing for myself on “Black Friday”, the advertiser-created consumer holiday that kicks off the Christmas shopping season the day following Thanksgiving. That one thing was a $20 Wizard101 Crowns card from a Rite-Aid my sister and I stopped by. So if you’re looking for W101 cards, the Rite-Aid in the White Plains part of the Bronx, just past the zoo, has them. The picture above shows Allison with the ninja pig pet that came with the card. The pig gives one Infection card that makes enemy heals half as effective, and the pig will occasionally bow to passers-by. ...
I was fooling around on Antonia Bayle server last night when I saw a raid looking for people to fill up its two group Kurns Tower run. They wanted a mythical weapon and preferably T4 armor – the very best and most uber raid gear. It’s this kind of achiever-based thinking that keeps casual players away from EverQuest EQ2, and it tears me up. There’s so much to do in these games, but if you listen to the chat channels, you’d think that unless you have max EVERYTHING, you might as well not even show up. Raids used to make allowances for my relatively poor gear because all a bard needs to do in a raid is play a couple of buffs, but I’ve gone roleplay so people can’t see my class. I’m tired of explaining that I don’t have T3+ armor and I can’t play their UT song. Soon, one bard will be enough for a whole raid, and that sort of opportunistic ninja-inviting will be done with forever. ...
The dynamic duo was on the prowl in Grizzleheim once more. The wolves of Mirkholm Keep, once at peace with the bears, have had their trust betrayed by raven lies, courtesy of the evil Munin. Munin was one of two ravens that the All-Father, Odin, used to keep tabs on the world. Even though he only had one eye, he managed to still keep the whole All-Seeing title by sending Munin and his brother, Hugin – Memory and Thought – around the world every night so they could report back all the things they’d seen. ...
Since we started flying Wednesday Ops Nights with Holowan Industrials, the phrase “usually, it goes better than this” has become as legendary as “I have a bad feeling about this” and “at least it’s not raining”. (I was riding my bike home from work a couple of weeks ago and it was raining so heavily I could barely see, and the gusty winds seemed to be against me the entire way. I couldn’t help thinking, “well, at least it isn’t SNOWING.”) ...
EQ2’s “Nights of the Dead” Halloween event ended last night. I’ve been meaning for weeks, ever since I fixed my second computer, to get back into the game now that I could two-box again. I really wanted to try the new hedge maze adventure! This guy on the Nektulos docks was making all sorts of waa waa woe is me sounds with a lot of dry heaving. I thought he looked like a faker. Dera thought I said he looked like a fakir, and demanded that the guy start walking barefoot over some hot coals and be smart about it. So then I thought that Dera wanted him to be smarter and I was totally confused, until she explained she was using “smart” in its meaning of being prompt. ...
It’s probably too early to be calling Warhammer’s time of death, even though Electronic Arts has reportedly laid off 40% of the Mythic staff, including 90% of the development talent. Mythic is responsible for Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer, and has an advisory role with Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic. The inset picture is of the rock star programmers of EA’s biggest early hits. ...
I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to play Dragon Age: Origins until I’d finished Torchlight all the way through. Not that this was a huge burden, but I do hate leaving good games unplayed just because another game found its way into my computer. I knew I was getting to the end of my quest to thwart the power of Alric, Ordrak and the power of Dark Ember when I hit the Black Castle far, far below the shaken inhabitants of Torchlight. You want epic loot? EVERYTHING is epic in the Black Castle. Epic Common Sword. Epic Worn Shoulderpads. Epic Broken Dagger. Epic Clump of Kitty Litter :) All the valueless, vendor-trash loot was epic! The final battle against the awakened Ordrak was satisfyingly, er, epic. ...
In 1958, noted science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon wrote that 90% of science fiction was crud, which was generalized and explained that 90% of EVERYTHING is crud. I loved doing the Daily Blogroll, but the loss of a couple hours out of each day are only one reason I have put them on hold for now. It’s mostly because I came to understand that MMOs aren’t immune from Sturgeon’s Law, and that for every good, original MMO, there are nine that are crap. Writing about those nine crappy MMOs as if they were good and fun was exhausting. I’m not gonna name names; I vote for which goes in the fun pile and which goes in the crap pile by how I spend my time online, and it should be pretty obvious how that goes with me. And my definition of crap vs crumpets probably isn’t yours. ...
Reader Kinolyen pointed out, correctly, that running Minmatar missions wouldn’t do much to improve my standings with Amarr and Caldari, who hate me. Since my standings for both are below -2.0, I can’t get ANY missions for either faction, and both are just on the verge of sending bullets (of love, no doubt, in the Amarr case) at me whenever I accidentally fly through their space. ...