Looking Forward… July 9, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in Diablo II, Diablo III, entertainment, Instance Group, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft.14 comments
Saturday night found me sitting in Central Park in the city of Santa Clara watching a fine Independence Day fireworks display. It was probably the best display finale I have ever seen, the sky ablaze with overlapping bursts of colors all set to the 1812 Overture, a magnificent piece of music if not one I would necessarily associate with the United States or the independence thereof. But it does have cannons.
We arrived home in time for me to peek into Azeroth and catch the fireworks over Stormwind.
Oooh, ahhh...
I also saw Skronk, Ula, and Earl online, representing the Saturday night group in Northrend. They were running some quests to pick up experience.
But as we gain more experience, the whole group is now level 77 with the exception of Earl who is closing in on that, we also get closer to our tradition of being… well… done when we hit level cap.
When we hit 70 before Wrath of the Lich King, that was the end of instance runs. We finished up Escape from Durnhold Keep then the group stopped showing up in WoW on Saturday night.
Now we’re closing in on 80 with no new expansion in the offing from Blizzard for a long time to come and we’re starting to think about what to do when we hit the level cap.
It is possible that achievements might hold our attention for a while. Some of us in the group are more addicted to them than others though. We might also explore the path of the Death Knight as a group of five… a death squad if you will.
But the time will come where we’ll be done with Azeroth until the next expansion and we’ll be looking for something else to do.
There are, of course, plenty of MMO options. I am just not sure if a break from WoW would be best used playing a similar game. If there was an MMO that would accommodate our play style, which is focused primarily on the five of us playing one night a week, and if that MMO were different enough from WoW to seem fresh, that might be an option. But I’m not sure such a bird exists. Our run at Warhammer Online lasted six weeks before we decided it wasn’t for us, and our time in Middle-earth was hampered by the fact that a group needs six people in LOTRO, and we only had four at the time.
Or we could kick the MMO habit for a time and look for a game that can accommodate five players. Potshot and I have already experimented with Age of Empires II: Age of Kings and found a way to get ourselves connected reliably. And there are certainly other RTS games to look at.
An adventure or RPG might be more our speed though. It is a shame that Diablo II only seats 4 players, that might be an interesting retro experience. I actually played through the original Diablo in a group a couple of times, but did most of Diablo II solo. Too bad as well that Diablo III is still over the horizon.
Then again, maybe we ought to lighten it up and look for a shooter to occupy the time. Something like Team Fortress 2 (if I can get over my grudge against Steam) or Battlefield Heroes might be a refreshing diversion.
So I am looking for game ideas for a regular group of five players. You don’t have to sell me on MMOs, but something that can handle our group and can be fun and rewarding on our limited weekly play budget.
Fleeting Fabulousness July 8, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, EVE Online.Tags: Reynaldo Fabulous
12 comments
The sixty day timer ran out on my box-on-the-shelf version of EVE Online. So I had to make the decision whether to keep Reynaldo Fabulous in space or not.
Keep me in coach!
I had intended him to be my Iteron V hauler pilot when I started him off. However, an odd turn of events with the new player “double speed” skill training meant I had to delay one of the big skills or throw away 500K of double speed training.
So I started him on one of the other critical paths for any industrial character. I got him working towards flying a Hulk. He got within five days of flying the prime mining ship in the game.
And then I had to make the decision on whether to keep him going or not. I decided not to renew him for the time being.
It is not so much that he isn’t useful. He has a retriever mining barge and I got him out with the rest of the group on a couple of occasions to mine. He helped clear out the huge veldspar field that is present in the mission Recon – Part 1.
My little fleet at work
And his contribution was not inconsiderable. He could bring in ore at about 35% the rate of my main mining character who flies a Hulk and has all the related skills at level V.
But I am in a bit of an EVE slump currently. I have not fired a missile in anger nor burned an asteroid with a mining laser in nearly a month. My characters are all on long skills. Things have been very quiet.
So with that being the state of affairs, I let Reynaldo’s account lapse. Should I need a Hulk pilot, I know I one that is just five days away. Until then he will be resting in the station, waiting for his time.
And so another tale of Reynaldo Fabulous gets cut short.
Nothing Left but the Blossoms… July 7, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, World of Warcraft.Tags: Brewfest, Midsummer Fire Festival
5 comments
The World of Warcraft Midsummer Fire Festival finished up this past weekend leaving behind a couple stacks of burning blossoms in my bag.
To each season...
Fortunately my bag appears to be constructed out of something that can handle a few hundred burning blossoms. Netherweave must be the Nomex of Azeroth. Or the asbestos.
I am a bit bummed that I have that many blossoms left over. You can’t do anything with them now. The vendors have packed up and the bonfires have been taken down. At least after Noblegarden you could still eat the leftover eggs. At least until they went bad.
I was going to spend the remaining blossoms on items, but I was fooled by the calendar.
The calendar showed the festival going on through Sunday, July 5th, so I figured I had all weekend to get rid of the darn things. I did not bother to mouse over the calendar until after the whole thing packed up and moved on.
Closing time: 4am Sunday
There was a tool tip too late.
Now if I were running the show, I might have shown the festival ending on Saturday and ignored the slosh over into Sunday morning. After all, 4 am Sunday morning has counted as Saturday night enough times in my life.
Still, I can’t be mad. The festival was good to me. While I had to restrain the main character, lest he bolt too far ahead in experience, chasing Flamewardens and bonfires was worth a dozen levels or more spread amongst my alts.
I got the silly outfit.
Shoulder pads are in this Summer!
I bought the flame pet.
More smoke than fire, really
And I got the flame dancer thing.
Gonna mount this on my dashboard
And I even got a few of the achievements, though I did not go for the Flamewarden title. I was too busy running my alts around Azeroth collecting experience, cash, and flight points. I managed to sneak some level 40-ish characters into places pretty dangerous for them, but having those flight points will pay off later I hope.
And so we bid farewell to the Midsummer Fire Festival.
As with real life, August is somewhat bare, but in September we get Brewfest!
By then Vikund will likely be level 80, so won’t have to worry about getting too much xp from the festivities.
For Want of a Horse… July 6, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, Misc MMOs, Runes of Magic, World of Warcraft.Tags: RMT
39 comments
Darren’s post about the Runes of Magic $10 horse certainly echoed through the local blogesphere.
RMT is still controversial. It still seems like cheating to some. But then I came from a time when posting quest details to a public forum was considered cheating, so times change.
Comments ran from Keen’s call for more people to “join the anti-RMT/microtransaction initiative” to Andrew’s post on Of Teeth and Claws stating that this is “an example of RMT implemented correctly.”
Darren thinks there is a simple answer, which runs along the lines of “if you buy the horse, you’re an idiot.” (The horse is a lie!)
Tobold’s response somewhat echoes my own sentiments on the topic, which was pretty much “Everything is relative.” I’m with Potshot, I’d plunk down cash for an epic flyer in WoW for my alt, but I couldn’t tell you what my price point is. I can tell you that the epic flyer, in and of itself, is a lot of fun as well as being a heck of a time saver.
Meanwhile Beau jumped on a single sentence in this discussion and built a post around people needing to play item store financed games before they say such things. (Though he only used the term “e-peen” once.)
How about you? Would you consider buying that $10 permanent horse?
(I will add any “other” answers to the comments. Figured out how to see them finally.)
How Much is that Horsie in the Window? July 3, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Misc MMOs, Runes of Magic, Sony Online Entertainment, World of Warcraft.Tags: RMT
15 comments
Darren has gone back to give Runes of Magic another try and seems to be more disposed to like it than he was the first time around.
But then he hit a snag. He started looking at the Real Money Transaction, or RMT, aspect of the game and did not like what he saw.
Specifically, he saw that a permanent horse in the game was going for about $10 after translation from cash to virtual currency to actual Equus ferus magicus.
His response was rage and shock. And I have to admit, my initial gut reaction was right there with him.
$10 for a virtual horse? You must be mad!
And from both of our perspectives as people who have not made any real commitment to the game, it is a pretty reasonably point of view. Plonking down $10 for a game I might stop playing tomorrow seems like a bad investment.
Then I thought back to the pre-expansion days of World of Warcraft and the pain of scraping together the gold for an epic mount and the riding skill. If, back then, there had been a $10 package from Blizzard to get the riding skill and your mount, I would have gotten in line like a lot of other people and snapped that puppy up.
A lot of people spent more than $10 buying gold from illicit gold sellers to buy that mount. If there had been a legitimate method I am sure they would have taken it.
But then, when were talking about people in WoW buying their epic mount, we are talking about people who have made a real commitment to the game. $10 in the scope of that commitment is not such a big deal. Many of those who would have thrown in the $10 without thinking twice at level 60 might not have been so eager on their first day to part with cash for a virtual horse.
This is something we will have to come to grips with as RMT financing of MMOs becomes more common. The value of virtual items is all a matter of perspective. To a player committed to a game, who has invested time and effort, something like $10 for a permanent horse might seem trivial, and all the more so in a game that is otherwise free to play. But to somebody there on day one, week one, or even month one, $10 for a horse may seem like an excess, a squandering of cash on a trivial item.
I am sure we will see this play out again and again.
We saw it when SOE started offering RMT in EQ and EQ2 via their Station Cash program. I personally found some of the items they were offering for $10 to be over-priced fluff being just appearance items. Darren thought they lacked substance, but wasn’t as up in arms as he has been about the ROM horse, but I suspect that is because he actually wants the horse. But some people bought them I am sure.
And I am sure we will see if for the next big title that finances itself either partially or wholly through RMT.
Has anybody analyzed the RMT offerings of Battelfield Heroes or Dungeons and Dragons Online yet?
Dalaran, Violet Hold, and The Amphitheater July 2, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, Instance Group, World of Warcraft.Tags: Amphitheater of Anguish, Dalaran, Violet Hold
9 comments
Saturday night and we were all in Dalaran making our way to Violet Hold.
Actually, only four of us were in Dalaran. I was waiting somewhere else. WoW still crashes on my machine when ever I get too close to Dalaran despite having installed a variety of drivers, swapped video cards, shut down every extraneous system process I could find, updated the BIOS on the motherboard, tinkered with the clock settings on the video card (turning them down seemed to give me an extra minute or two at one point, but it may have just been situational), and installed WoW again fresh. And the more people in Dalaran, the quicker the crash happens, so prime time on a Saturday night is Dalaran crash central time for me.
So the other four went into Dalaran, got the quest for the Violet Hold key, picked up the key, and then got an instance for us. I had already gotten the key and the quest lined up on our iMac earlier in the day. Once they were in the instance and set I used my hearthstone to recall to A Hero’s Welcome, one of the Inns, and attempted the run roughly a quarter of the way across the city to the instance.
And I crashed in about 30 steps. Bugger.
And when my system crashes in Dalaran I have to reboot. Something… the video card, the drivers, the OS… something in the system needs to be refreshed after one of my Dalaran crashes.
After the reboot I managed to make it the rest of the way and into the instance. I asked to be added to the Skype conference call (no point in asking before I got safely into the instance) and we got ourselves ready. Our group was:
75 Warrior – Earlthecat
76 Priest – Skronk
76 Warlock – Bungholio
77 Mage – Ula
77 Paladin – Vikund
As is usual, and despite some warnings in past comments, we went into Violet Hold without any research into the instance. All I really knew was what what people mentioned in comments along with the warnings to read up on the instance in advance.
We were there, and it seemed a bit busy even as we arrived. There was a bit of an NPC battle going on right there on the steps in front of us.
We join the action in progress...
A Lieutenant Sinclari was standing there facing us. Ula went to talk to her. She went a little too far in the dialog and suddenly the good Lieutenant (not Harvey Keitel) was announcing in a yell that her team was pulling out. I read her yell aloud over Skype, “We’re pulling out….”
Ula Heard me and thought we were leaving the room so trotted along after Sinclari and her team just in time to be on the other side of the doors when they closed and sealed. A familiar counter popped up on the screen.
Yes, just like last week in Black Morass.
A portal opened up with a portal guardian standing at it. Mobs began showing up from the portal to attack us at the top of the stairs before the door. We killed them while trying to figure out what to do about Ula. Bung tried to summon her to us which took him off of offense. Meanwhile another portal opened. Then another. Soon we were swamped and slain. Oops.
Round 1 to the bad guys.
Fortunately, running through Dalaran as a ghost does not seem to bother my video card. We ran back to the instance, got to the locked door at just about the time the bad guys broke through. Seeing a mass of them running straight at us I thought we were in for another wipe. As they hit Vikund let off a consecrate hoping to take some down, but they just ran past us.
The encounter reset. Lieutenant Sinclari was waiting for us again. We decided to read up a little about the encounter.
Slightly more informed, though we had already guessed a good portion of the basics of the event, we spoke to Lieutenant Sinclari, this time with everybody on the correct side of the door. When her team pulled out, we moved to the middle of the main floor and waited for a portal to open. One did to the immediate right of the stairs, behind us as we stood.
We turned to face it and when the portal guardian showed up, Earl hit him with such a mighty charge that he disappeared. I thought perhaps Earl had knocked him back into the portal.
Instead the guardian actually fell through the floor. We were able to coax him up a bit so that he was visible, but he was bugged at that point.
Invincible Portal Guardian
We could hit him once in a while, but then he would start evading and reset. Meanwhile his portal kept spewing mobs and other portals opened while we tried to get him unstuck. Again we fell under a sea of hostile forces.
Dead All Over
Round 2 to the bad guys.
Back again in time to wave at the ravening pack as they broke down the door and ran past us and into nothing. We joined Lieutenant Sinclari at the top of the steps yet again.
This time around we started the event and were a bit careful about pulling portal guardians. No more charges. Call it paranoia.
And, paranoid or not, we went through the first five portal groups just fine and hit the sixth, which meant the first boss fight.
We drew Xevozz.
Xevozz Cometh
We fought him like we would fight any boss the first time around, straight up tank and spank and don’t spare the DPS. He ate us alive.
Round 3 to the bad guys.
Back again with the ever patient Lieutenant Sinclari, we read up a bit on Xevozz, just in case we drew him again, then started the encounter up for another run.
Again, we got through the first five portals just fine and when the sixth came up it was Xevozz! The recommend tactic with him was to kite him around to keep him away from his ethereal spheres. If he stays by them they rev up his damage and a wipe ensures. We managed to keep him in motion, though line of sight issues plagued Skronk as he tried to keep everybody alive. Still we managed. One boss down and a short break.
Xevozz was good enough to drop the Riot Shield which turned out to be a big upgrade for Earl, so we all passed and he strapped on that barn door.
Second verse, same as the first; we tore through the next five portals and got to the next boss, Lavanthor, and enormous core hound.
Lavanthor must mean "big" in some language
Vikund put up the his fire resist aura and we went after him, bringing him down without much drama. Lavanthor left us the Prison Warden’s Shotgun as a drop, another upgrade for Earl, being the only gun user in the group, and making a nice companion for the Riot Shield.
Which left just five more portals and then the main event, Cyanigosa!
Cyanigosa appeared to be a pretty standard dragon fight with the expected breath and tail sweep action. We lost Bung part way into the fight on a random shot, which caused a bit of anxiety, but we managed to power through and bring her down.
She ended up dying in a rather awkward position, head buried in the allegedly solid floor.
Cyanigosa face plant!
And, as a drop, we got the Plate Claws of the Dragon which went to Earl, giving him a trifecta. But in a group like this, when the tank wins, we all win.
As we left, Lieutenant Sinclari gave us a pat on the head and told us her team would be able to take over.
Wow, thanks! Don’t get your uniform dirty or anything!
And so we finished up in Violet Hold. We didn’t get any of the additional achievements, but the run is short enough that we might go back for another try. There are other bosses to play with.
Maybe next time Moragg...
The run was short enough, in fact, that we decided to run out and give the Amphitheater of Anguish a try. (I think I saw The Ramones play there back in ’84.)
Running around Dalaran to the flight point caused my video to lock up again, but only after I got on the bird out to Zul’Drak. The funny thing is, the game is quite clearly still going. I could hear the wings of the bird flapping and the sound of coins when we passed flight points, but to see anything I had to reboot.
Once back, we found the Amphitheater, stopping along the way to hit the Midsummer quest points for alliance and horde.
There was a horde group already doing the Amphitheater when we arrived, so we got to watch a couple of the battles. We couldn’t communicate with them, but when they had a wipe (druid tank, not much healing) we jumped in to try it out, then alternated with them. Or tried to, in any case. They tagged one of our bosses before we did at one point, but I couldn’t tell if they were trying to help, trying to hurry us along, or just trying to be annoying.
We got through the six battles, though not without a caster casualty now and again. We lost Ula and Bung on one fight. But in the end we got to collect on each victory, which amounted to a decent pile of experience, 19-20 gold, and, for the last fight, a nice weapon. Vikund picked up the De-Raged Waraxe as his new main weapon.
After that I called it a night, thinking that my wife would be in bed. The rest of the group went off looking for some more experience while I logged off. Then I found that scrapbook and martini night was still going on with my wife and a couple of her friends sitting out in our back yard still chatting. A late night for that group, but it was still hot out and we had no plans for Sunday.
The next instance on the list is Gundrak, but this coming Saturday is Independence Day, so I am not sure if we will have a full group, or any group for that matter. We shall see.
I am Already a Winner July 1, 2009
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in Blizzard, entertainment, World of Warcraft.Tags: Mountain Dew, Mtn Dew
5 comments
I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.
-Some U.S. Senator
Last week I decided I the Mountain Mtn Dew Game Fuel promotion was not really worth any more of my time.
I had my Battlebot, another companion pet in furtherance of my WoW achievement goals.
I had collected a pile of fuel for said Battlebot, but it was largely going unused. Blizzard might have a nice gallery of pictures, but I’ve only ever seen three Battlebots out at a time, and only once were all three actually fueled up.
The fuel is part of the problem. I have been asked a number of times in-game where to get the fuel. You have to go back to the Game Fuel site the day after you get the Battlebot and click on the button for some fuel.
You only get five units of fuel per daily visit to the site. Five is not much, especially when you lose it if your Battlebot goes away for any reason, so I am sure people don’t want to waste it on the off chance of a battle.
And then, just to make things a bit more annoying, the fuel only stacks in units of 20, so if you start hoarding the stuff, it starts taking up valuable inventory slots. Why Blizzard, why?
Bot fuel in my bag
I had been stockpiling fuel, but I gave it up last week.
But while I was doing my daily fuel run, I also took a minute to accumulate some prize tokens, which you can enter in the many daily drawings. You get 25 for each daily visit and you can earn more through various other actions. The easiest is to watch videos. You get 25 tokens each time you watch a video, though you get the tokens about 2 seconds into the video and sticking around seems purely optional, and there are 15 videos up currently, so you can get 400 tokens a day.
The first couple of days I threw my tokens after any prize that looked like it was lightly camped. You can see how many tokens have been spent against any given drawing. Then I saw there was a trip to BlizzCon as one of the prizes, so I saved up my tokens and put them all on that.
I heard nothing. Tokens into the wind.
That was amusing for a couple more days after which I couldn’t be bothered. I collected some more tokens, put them up against some prizes and then stopped showing up.
But on Monday there was a package in the mail for me. In it there was a note.
CONGRATULATIONS!
You have been drawn as a winner in the Mountain Dew Game Fuel “Choose Your Side” World of Warcraft Promotion.
Your prize is enclosed.
On behalf of the Pepsi-Cola Company, we thank you for your participation in this sweepstakes.
Young America Corporation
They don’t notify you if you win a small prize, they just send it to you.
Or they tell Young America Corperation to send it to you, since they appear to be the prize clearing house that Pepsi is using.
Oh, and also enclosed was a Mtn Dew Game Fuel T-shirt.
I went back and checked through the winners list and found that I was a winner the day after my original post on the subject.
I'm on that list
The shirt itself is… well… it is okay I guess. I tend towards white T-shirts when I have a choice. The graphic on it is good enough I suppose, in a cheap concert-shirt sort of way. I’ll wear it around the house on the weekends I’m sure.
Rock on Alliance! Rock on Horde!
The graphic itself is awkwardly placed on the lower right side of the shirt, wrapping around from front to back, as if placed to protect the stomach under my sword arm. Since I tend to tuck in my shirt, you lose a good third of the graphic. The shirt does have a nice Blizzard logo on the back of the collar.
So I am a winner!
And, while checking out the winners on the site, I noticed that the BlizzCon trip is still listed as “pending verification.” They might be trying to get in touch! Any messages for me?
Well, I can dream.
Anyway, this all inspiried me to go back to the site and watch some more videos. I think I’ll save up my tokens are try for a pair of the Razer Carcharias headsets that they are giving away.
