MMORPG

I’ve been very, very many places in Spellborn. I’ve reached level 11 and am closing in on level 12, working on Quarterstone quests while I gain more levels with which to attempt the Trials of the Vault again – the spiders with the poison AE, they were the ones that got me, but I have some new spells now. I thought it would probably be pretty boring having to EXPLAIN everything about the game, so I just made a comic. The quest in the comic is not a real quest, but goes to the same places as an actual House Rune quest (the actual quest deals with a lab experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong, and increasing tensions between House Rune and House Maul). I hope it gives a feeling for the world of Spellborn, both how it looks and the sort of things you do there. It is very much a story-based world, and the game is a heaven for roleplayers. ...

In Spellborn, The Enclave is the collective name for the good, law-abiding survivors of the destruction of their planet that followed the defeat of their alien oppressors. Since they are good people, they punish evil doers and other criminal sorts only with exile, where they have set up an outcast faction called the Ousted. Once your family is Ousted, you never, ever get back in. Not your children, not their children, innocents suffer forever for the crimes of their ancestors. ...

Erisa, a spellcaster. Her name is an inside joke :) I said this morning that you almost need to be an artist to make a character in Spellborn. I’ve played with the character creator for an hour or so and a little longer in the game itself, and I believe that is true – but with a catch. You almost need to be an artist to make a character in Spellborn… that looks good in the character selection screen. ...

Kinda ragged… spent all night backing up my blog, then I decided to make the new blog really snazzy, then I REALLY fouled things up so that I couldn’t get email any more, and don’t even ASK me how that happened, because I SWEAR I don’t know… I was thinking of sleep, when I thought, hey, company is gone, I have the use of my computer back, maybe I could install Spellborn and, you know, PLAY IT? ...

2008 has been an absolutely amazing year for MMOs, and my personal progress through them. Last year at this time, I’d just found the absolutely most perfect EQ2 guild – they were great raiders, loved grouping, and were fantastic people besides. With Clan of Shadows, I managed to do every flagging raid for Ruins of Kunark and was ready to step in and do my best to help the guild as they conquered Veeshan’s Peak. It wasn’t to be; I didn’t make the full membership vote. It wasn’t even close. That disappointment, along with other things to fill my evenings, eventually led to the end of raiding. Without raiding, though, I didn’t have much incentive to log in anymore. I tried to make things work with another guild, Delusions of Grandeur, but it just wasn’t CoS. I guess if I couldn’t make it in CoS, I didn’t want to settle for a lesser guild. ...

You don’t lose xp when you die in one of Dream of Mirror Online’s missions, which is very nice of the devs, because, who’d do them then? We died A LOT. It was mission night in the “Deadly Gods” guild, and we went all over the Mirror Worlds, advancing the plot lines that take you through the game. First, though… I got my alchemy to 10 (FINALLY! And with plenty of powders left over, too!), and made my Hunting Knife. It took two tries, but I had enough blue powder for three, so I wasn’t worried. I had to level up the dagger in order to upgrade it, and that was just about the time I got invited to a Male Bird of Paradise group in the Phoenix Tower. There was a lower level thief in the team, so I figured I’d get to use my AE abilities. ...

… if you live in North America, South America, United Kingdom, Albania, Andorra, Australia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia & Montenegro, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain or Turkey, anyway. The art book is pretty :) Comes with a map and a flyer for the soundtrack CD, too. The art book is in English, the manual is in German, but both are written in a type that is too small for me to read, so I hope neither contained important info. ...

Ripped right from the refrigerator door, Crayon Physics Deluxe answers the age-old question, “What if those drawings I made in kindergarten were REAL? And I had to guide a ball around them to collide with stars for points?” The developer has just released the beta/demo, so it’s only the first two worlds and a partially functional level editor, but it’s cool to think of inventive ways to bring your drawings to life as incredible, crudely-drawn, machines. ...

Taking on the Giant Butterfly outside the bandit camp in Copperhorn Mountain Nobody is as impatient at my slow progress through Dream of Mirror Online as I am. I wanted this weekend to be all about the Alchemy. I lost my Alchemy levels (as well as Thief level 24) in the Great Rollback Disaster, and I wanted to make that all back, but mostly the Alchemy. I have this grand design for my weapon upgrades. I REALLY want to make my own level 20 weapon. The bonuses for a crafted Hunting Knife made with Excellent-grade materials make it a FAR better bargain than the one you can buy from a vendor. Plus, its Earth bonus damage would make it a great companion to my level 23 Damp Knife, which carries a Water bonus. ...

High level players gathered at the duel masters Wizard 101’s surprise announcement of a full PvP Arena system to accompany the PvE-focused excitement of the next world, Dragonspyre, early next year shocked and electrified the community. It’s one thing to beat easy and predictable computer opponents in the W101 game of magical cards. Battling human players is a whole different story. You can’t truly say you’re a master wizard until you can beat human opponents. ...