And So Went The Azeroth Advisor February 4, 2010
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, World of Warcraft.Tags: 38 Studios, Azeroth Advisor
9 comments
I’ve meant to do a quick post on this cool thing called the Azeroth Advisor for a while now.
When I first tried it my main characters were level 80 and its value was somewhat dubious. But then we re-rolled horde and its guide to where to adventure and annotated maps became useful.
But this morning I found this in my mail box:
Thank you for being a subscriber to the Azeroth Advisor.
We are writing to inform you that as of February 17, 2010, the Azeroth Advisor service will be discontinued. Over the past two years, we’ve really enjoyed providing personalized guidance for new and experienced players of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. However, we’ve decided to focus on the development of our own entertainment products, including our upcoming MMO codenamed Copernicus.
For the next 2 weeks, please continue to use the Advisor services, and take the time to save your maps and newsletters offline for future reference. After February 17, we recommend removing the Advisor add-on from your WoW AddOns directory and deleting the service from your launch items (instructions for doing so can be found below).
If you’ve enjoyed the Azeroth Advisor, we encourage you to sign up for the 38 Studios newsletter to ensure that you’ll be among the first to hear news about Copernicus and other products. You can also follow our feeds on Facebook and Twitter, or visit our official website. (Please note that this will be the only email you receive from 38 Studios unless you opt-in to receive the 38 Studios newsletter.)
Look forward to exciting news from 38 Studios in the coming months. We’ve sincerely appreciated being able to contribute to your enjoyment of World of Warcraft, and we wish you all the best.
Thanks!
The Azeroth Advisor Team at 38 Studios
So that is one more post I waited long enough on for it to be moot. Yay for efficiency.
38 Studios, which sounds like they are a bit on the edge when it comes to money, or at least when it comes to Curt’s money, bought this little site, tinkered with it a bit, then threw it away.
Buh-bye Azeroth Advisor.
What else do you say at that point?
We’ll never know how Azeroth Advisor might have done if 38 Studios hadn’t bought it. It was a pay-to-play service before 38 Studios acquired them, which might have fit in better with some site like FilePlanet or Curse. I was never clear on why 38 Studios did buy it, not that I expect them to explain such things to me personally. There was some tech there they wanted I would guess. But they did buy it, I hope they got what they wanted, because now they’ve killed it.
If you were using the tool because you played WoW and found it useful, you might be excused for not jumping for joy and running off to sign up for the 38 Studios newsletter.
STO – Special Space Junk Edition! February 3, 2010
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, Star Trek Online.Tags: Del Taco, Pre-orders
8 comments
Despite the Star Trek line about boldly going where no on has gone before (which is right there on the back of the box), we’re now talking about an MMO and so anything I do will be more like boldly going where many, many people have gone before.
Which isn’t always a bad thing.
For example, I did not have to worry too much about figuring out how to claim my pre-order items. By the time I was ready for that, Potshot already had a post up with instructions.
That lead me to the C-Store where I had four items to redeem in the “special unlocks” tab.
The USS Enterprise (which isn’t actually what it is called when you get it, and you can change even that name) was my GameStop pre-order bonus.
The not-so-unique Red Matter Capacitor is from the Collectors edition.
The title “Ambassador” marks me as a lifetime subscriber; either a proud badge of honor or a great big “L” on my forehead, depending on how you view that subscription option.
[Edit: Per the comments section, "Ambassador" is apparently not for lifetime subs, it is for people who made STO forum accounts before a certain date. The either/or aspect of what that means probably still applies though!]
And then yes, Virginia, there is a Del Taco shuttle. Apparently a single code will get you that in-game item.
Not that I am sure as to how useful it is. So far all I’ve seen it do is follow me around in space.
Shuttle in tow
Plus it takes up a slot on your ship that could otherwise be used for… say… a unique red matter capacitor.
Still, it is mine! I have one! And should the next patch make is suddenly start spewing out gold-pressed latinum, I’ll be set… though I might have to unlock the Ferengi playable race to spend it.
The big item though is the ship, the Constitution class cruiser.
What decade is it now?
This ship is more cool than I thought it would be. Flying around in it puts me far more in the “Trek” mood that the standard starter ship. It is going to be tough to let this ship go when it comes time to upgrade.
Even combat seems a bit more fun with that ship.
Fire all phasers!
Other than that, the opening night seemed to be… smooth. A lot of the things that I complained about during open beta and the head start weekend were not present last night. I didn’t spend a lot of time online, but enough to do a few missions, fly around, and say hello to Tipa. I missed her inaugural day bridge party and the accompanying games of smear the Klingon and whatever they were doing with those tribbles.
Then again, it was a Tuesday night. Friday is likely to bring a much heavier load.
At least Cryptic knows and is admitting that capacity will be an issue.
We shall see what the weekend brings.
STO, Engage! February 3, 2010
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, Star Trek Online.5 comments
All codes activated. Nerdiness set to warp factor 11.
Now to see what else got turned on in-game. Make it so!
STO – That Was the Head Start That Was February 2, 2010
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, Star Trek Online.Tags: Lifetime Subscription, Pre-orders
5 comments
And I spent most of that head start not being able to log into Star Trek Online for various reasons, not always the fault of the game.
Sure, at one point I spent long time looking at this message.
Then there was the case of the message in the launcher explaining that the server was down when the server status indicator said the server was up. And it was up. The danger of using the news feed on the launcher for transitory messages I suppose.
I was certainly not alone in having trouble getting into space.
And then there was a point on Saturday when the server was up, but my daughter wanted to go do some quests in the Outlands to get her Deathknight another level. We did that and we watched a movie. (Shanghai Knights, because we like Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson and enjoyed Shanghai Noon the weekend before.) And then I had to let her play with the character creator. I went and read a book while that went on.
But eventually things seemed to settle down. There were a couple more updates. And by late Sunday afternoon I was able to spend a decent stretch of time concentrating on the game and… well… figuring out what was going on.
It would have helped if I had done the “go talk to the so-and-so at Earth Spacedock” missions (quests) first. But there was Commander Sulu (no, not that one… some relative I’d guess) ready with a patrol mission to go oppress miners again, so I put off, yet again, learning that I could just open a hailing frequency to Starfleet to finish a mission.
Were I designing, I might have put those guys in the same room with the Admiral and perhaps had Commander Sulu stand somewhere else.
And yes, I spent so little time in-game during the open beta that I hadn’t figured that out yet. There are all sorts of things to find.
I went about looking into skills, filling out my bridge crew, and running some missions.
I’m going to have to figure out how to get a group shot with my bridge crew. While I am mildly adverse to playing a female character myself (if only to avoid retribution for the metric tons of crap I’ve given others for doing that) I have no problem setting up a bridge crew that looks like an outer space episode of Charlie’s Angels, complete with a Vulcan Bosley carrying the medical tricorder.
And you should see them kick butt on away team missions.
Once things had settled down I found the game enjoyable. Ship combat works for me, and the ground combat went from something I wanted to avoid to something I started to enjoy. I did feel like perhaps I wasn’t inline with the spirit of the prime directive when I found that success on the ground often lay in shooting first and rifling the corpses for loot. But those Klingons… and Orions… were not really sociable when I tried introducing myself before shooting.
I also found Potshot (and Mrs. Potshot) in game where we continued our downtime obsession of figuring out the perfect fleet name. There have been many amusing ideas, but no clear winner as yet.
All in all, enjoyable once I could get into the game.
Was it like that very first weekend of EverQuest? Or even EverQuest II?
No, I did not feel compelled to play every possible second.
Things have changed since 1999. There are other options when the server is down.
And I am not as OCD about games as I once was.
Okay, that last bit is probably a lie. I just haven’t figured out what to obsess about yet in STO.
But I know I’ll be playing this game for a while. Adventurer Historian spotted the liberated Borg headset in my previous head start weekend post.
Happy early birthday to me from my wife. Thank you sweet heart!
And GameStop’s automated system called me up to let me know my pre-order will be available for pickup tomorrow. It appears that none of my local stores are among the ten that will be opening up at midnight for the big launch.
I’m Pretty Sure This Wasn’t From Scott Jennings… February 1, 2010
Posted by Wilhelm Arcturus in entertainment, Humor, Misc MMOs.Tags: Aion, NCsoft, Phishing
11 comments
His style is usually a bit more… coherent.
When you receive this message at the same time means that you have a routine account of our recent examination, was checking your account we have the evidence to prove that involved in the controversial game currency transaction so we had to take the necessary measures.
Please visit our web site https:[bogus URL] as soon as possible to activate your account or we will suspend your account.
The NCsoft Team
Worst phishing attempt so far this year. Not only is the grammar attempting to work under extreme duress, but I don’t even have an Aion account.
Oh, and this may be my first Aion related post ever.
