Mewtwo

Pokemon who get their own entry in Wikipedia are pretty rare, there being 646 Pokemon available at this point, so Mewtwo is pretty important in the Pokemon mythos.  Nintendo says about the impending Mewtwo event:

The legend of the Genetic Pokémon Mewtwo has grown ever since it debuted in the Pokémon Red Version and Pokémon Blue Version games. The Psychic-type Pokémon has always been considered one of the most powerful Pokémon available, and also very tough to catch.

You’ll have a new opportunity to get the Legendary Mewtwo once again! Starting on February 12th, you can receive Mewtwo for your Pokémon Black Version or Pokémon White Version game. Take part in a limited-time distribution event to get this amazing Pokémon. This Mewtwo is incredibly strong and fast, and it even has an exclusive move that Mewtwo cannot normally learn!

However, while Nintendo is being coy, Siliconera is reporting that they have already done this same download event in Japan and they are unlikely to change things up for the distribution in North America.

So if you have Pokemon Black or White, be ready come February 12th for this Nintendo WiFi special offer.  I suspect the instructions will be similar to the Victini event they had at the end of December.

Yes, there was a lull for a bit in Deklein.

I spent the last week or so training up skills so that I might be able to do more than fly and wave with my alpha fleet ships.  I think I can actually shoot the guns on my tech II fit welp fleet Hurricane now.  There was a corp day where taxes were set to 100% and we all went out and ratted or mined to help the corp financial situation.  And, frankly, I spent most of my gaming time over the week playing Rift.

Our corner of null sec seemed settled. (Map from the usual source.)

The Calm in Deklein and Branch

The biggest change for us was that TNT’s tiny spot on the map changed from purple to magenta.

But this appears to be truly a lull, a bit of phoney war between engagements. The war is not over.  Jabber is lighting up calling the faithful for operations.  Alpha fleets are forming up and I have to get my Maelstrom ready again.

And the latest post from Endie, the Goonswarm minister of propaganda has been made public.  This is totally worth reading for a look at the situation from the Deklein Coalition side of things.  Titled GoonSwarm Alliance Update – Vernichtungskrieg: War of Extermination, it opens up with a bit of history.

Once every year, on average, someone tries to destroy Goonswarm. In 2006 it was Lotka Volterra and in 2007 it was Band of Brothers. In 2008 and 2009 it was BoB in various guises, Against All Authorities, Atlas and Red Overlord. In 2010 it was, well, Goonswarm. In 2011 it was basically everyone in the Assault on Precinct VFK. Now, this year’s attack has come a little early.

And then it goes on to mock our foes, their tactics, machinations and motivations.  It is humorous though perhaps not suitable for all ages.

Secret Raiden Plan Revealed

But the report wraps up with a call to arms for the Goons and their allies.  A call to have alpha fleet ships positioned.  A call to be ready to convoy back through the trail of tears if you get popped so we can continue to bring the fight to the enemy.

So far the only report I have seen is that we managed to take down a Nyx.  This happened while I was at work, as usual.  But there is already a video of the kill up on YouTube. [Addendum: Battle summary here.]

Hopefully I can get on and get into a fleet some time this weekend.

Meanwhile, I suspect that Hulkageddon V will be further delayed.

Now where did I leave that Maelstrom?

This month, it is the latter condition.  So this month we’ll start off with the grand prize and then taper off into obscure stuff so the whole post will seem like a let down by the time you get to the end.

Sorry in advance to the focus of the end story.

Where DUI Meets Home Theater

I am no stranger to the sponsored blog post offer, but this one this one seemed to deliver a new twist.

I’d like to inquire about doing a sponsored blog post – about 150-300 words that talks a little bit about DUI law and links back to our site [redacted]. We provide premier Custom Design, Engineering and Installation for home theater and I thought we might be a good fit for your readers/visitors on tagn.wordpress.com.

That’s correct, we are speaking of a post about DUI law that links back to a custom home theater which would be a perfect fit for an online gaming blog.

So is that the best breathalyzer you sell?

(Apologies to McIntosh Labs, makers of completely awesome high end audio equipment which does not in anyway endorse this blog post or, I am going to guess, the selling of home audio equipment via blog posts about DUI law.  But I am pretty sure that if they did make breathalyzers, they would be the best you could get.)

But this custom home theater site does have a budget for this sort of placement thing.

Our budget is around $15 for the post. Is this something you’d be open to?

Also we might be interested in a small banner ad if the price is right.
Our budget is $40/year

Woo hoo!  That will get me a case of Lucky Lager and some pretzels to go with!  I just love the puzzles in the cap.

I’m sorry, but at one point I was getting like $22 a month per link to put URLs in my side bar from a company trying to game Google Page Rank. (It was $30 a month when I was page rank 5, but I fell down to 4.)  Granted, they stopped returning my calls after a while, but while it lasted that fat PayPal payment spoiled me and now I won’t even get out of bed for less that $10.

Still, if this sounds like a deal to you, I can put in a good word.

Also if you have some other sites just send them over and we might be interested in doing a sponsored post on there as well!

Just drop me a note and we’ll talk!

More Press Releases!

Laura at Cision US, Inc. dropped me a note to tell me that my blog has caught their attention and they are adding it to their database.  I will be henceforth known and listed by them as:

Mr. Wilhelm Arcturus, Blogger of the Computers & Video Games Beat.

That is almost validation of my existence.  And I love to get press releases!

Thanks Laura!

I’ll have to send her a thank you note.

Treasure Awaits, My Lord!

Lord of Ultima sends me a note reminding me that I have a daily prize waiting for me if I fail to log on for a week or so.  That always prompts me to actually log on, collect my prize, check what has happened to my empire, which is generally nothing.

Still, this seems to be working for me.  I have moved from around 350th place in the rankings to about 200th place by doing nothing.  I play on world 31 which is a truncated world with extra small landmasses, so basically about three weeks into the game all available room to build on was taken.  Since then the game has been a matter of waiting for people to give up so you can take over their abandoned towns and castles.  This has been going on for somethings like six months!  Whee, a hell of a ride!  I’m sooo drunk!

Gamingo-go-go!

The Gamingo PR Team sends me lots of press releases about their browser based games.  They just aren’t all that interesting to me.  None of them would warrant a post by themselves.  But since they are so nice and persistent and no doubt live for the days when I deign to acknowledge their existence, and never use DUI laws as a troll for links, here is a list of the games they mentioned to me in January.

• Cultures Online
• UFO Online
• Jagged Alliance Online
• Bloody Bite
• Dungeon Empires

It Is So Komplex!

Ioana Buliga, a musical name if ever there was one, wanted to let me know about her company, Lucid Philosophy, and their new free to play browser based game, TwinKomplex.  Probably the coolest thing about them is that there offices are in the old Tempelhof Airport in Berlin.  I am tempted to sing “Ten Tons to Templehof” and other songs of the airlift, which I learned in my mis-spent youth.  Don’t ask.

Simply Unpronounceable

The site… or company… the email isn’t clear… named Gamelosophers wants me to be a partner in… something.  DUI legislation maybe?  All I know is that they are from Amsterdam and that they need a new name.  Really.  I once worked for a company called “Smarketing,” so I know.

Oh, and make your damn URL resolve correctly without the “www” prefix.  Amateurs, I swear!

Amplify This

Emma with Amplified Media has… well… something coherent and possibly true to say about the site that implies that she or somebody at her company might have actually visited.

We love your collection of thoughts and stories on the world of online gaming. Your insights on the gaming highs and lows of 2011 was a great end-of-year piece.

If nothing else, that actually makes this email stand out from many of the others than don’t even get posted with a DUI reference.  I might have to respond to that one and find out what opportunities Amplified Media has in mind.

Always End With Namaste

Kelly Heckman, Community Manager and Cat Herder for Namaste Entertainment wants me to know beta is still coming up and that they have forums now so they can answer all of your Storybricks questions.

And, judging from the side bar, they might be at GDC or something.  I’m not sure I will make it to GDC  this year.  The usual source of Expo passes for Potshot and myself, Darren, seems to have gone off MMOs completely.  Instead he is all philosophical these days and is, if I understand it right, about to launch an offensive on the Twilight franchise.

Hey, this last entry wasn’t such a let down after all, now was it?

Anyway, until next month, respect the mail bag!

• Jollyreaper level 23 mage
• Earlthecat level 23 warrior
• Zahihawass level 23 cleric
• Gizalia level 23 mage
• Hillmar level 23 cleric

We stayed in town just long enough to admire the locals while somebody assigned their unused soul points.  Clearly, OCD is not a common group trait.

That guy again... with the hat...

Once soul points were assigned and we had sufficiently discussed how that unicorn mount looks like a paper cut-out, it was time to go.

LFG take us away!

The destination was the Darkening Deeps, which was way over in Guardian territory.  So we decided to skip the overland travel attempt.  That was probably a good thing.

More after the cut, including spoilers about certain fights.  You’ve been warned.

We were underground again.  There were no quests waiting for us, aside from the standard “kill the bosses” quest you get with every dungeon in Rift.

There was an odd palette change early on.  Standing a bit in from the start point, looking into the dungeon, I had this view.

We're headed into that nicely lit area...

And then a couple of steps forward, the way forward changed.

Maybe not so light...

I guess that was the “Darkening” part of the dungeon.  Onward to the “Deeps” aspect!

We were faced with a decision not too far beyond that point.  The first large area of the dungeon appeared to be a spiral ramp which lead both up and down from our location.  Figuring that the word “Deeps” was a clue, we headed down the ramp.

This lead to a series of running battles with groups of mobs that also included what appeared to be a series of inbound, fire based artillery strikes.  An orange circle would appear on the ground… a pretty big circle… which was the warning that the area in question was about to be consumed with fire.

Double Incoming!

This meant, in addition to pulls and adds, we had to stay on our toes all the way down the ramp.  In the picture above we were pretty much at the bottom, having just gotten through the narrow bit, where the incoming circle bled off either side of the ramp.  That sometimes meant either running away from a fight or into some additional adds.

As exciting as that was, I think we only lost one of the mages early on before we started chanting “step out of the fire” on Skype every time the circles showed up.

At the bottom of the ramp and a little ways along we ran into the first boss.

The standard first boss setup...

There was the boss, two minions, and some sort of ward on the boss making him invulnerable.  We had seen this setup before.  We marked targets, killed the minions, then killed the boss.  It was not a huge effort.

Number three... dead

We were not sure what he was wearing on his back there.  From a distance it looked like it might have been a jet pack, but turned out to be a barrel with a couple of side buckets.  Whatever it was, it did not seem to enhance his fighting ability.

Slaying him opened up the force field behind him, letting us move on.  Rift seems pretty set on the idea of you killing all the bosses.  None of this sneaking past.

Immediately behind the former force field were a couple of mobs who summoned a few more invisible mobs that surprised us so much that we wiped.  We killed the boss, but the yard trash got us.

We soul walked back away from the scene, except for Gizalia who had died on the ramp, buffed up again, and took the whole thing a bit more carefully this time.  Staying close to Earl, the tank, seemed to be a good idea, so he could pull the adds off of us.

Earl calling "bad hair day" on a mob

We moved on, slaying as we went, ending up in a big open area with light coming in from the ceiling and some people in cages around the perimeter, including one Michael Bringhurst, whose name appeared amongst the bosses on the quest tracker.

Making sure everybody was ready, I opened his cage.  He got out and walked around, reading his lines.

Out of his cage for 20 seconds and what does he do?

Yeah, the people in the other cages were warning us off, but he was on the list so we were expecting trouble.  And we got it.

Werewolf!

One boss?  A werewolf?  How bad could it be?

Bad.

It could be this bad

We had a lot of trouble with this fight.  I think we did it five times before I went to look up what was going on.

We did a straight up fight.  Then another.  Then one where the casters stood way back, but it turned out to be too far back as a forcefield shuts off the fight from the earlier parts of the dungeon (no kiting I guess) leaving most of our damage outside of the fight.  Then we came back from that one but Michael was still buffed up from the previous fight and one-shotted us.

Werewolf awaiting our next assault

Anyway, it became time for Google to help us out.

If we had been paying more attention to werewolf lore, we might have figured it out.

It turns out that the light shining down isn’t sunlight (it was day outside I thought), or chemical light, or some form of magic light.  It is moonlight.  Full moon, moonlight I guess.  This is why Michael Bringhurst turned into a werewolf. (Though crap, in how many games do werewolves just wander around no matter what the lunar conditions?)

And, as it turned out, if he stands in the moonlight he gets a damage multiplier buff that keeps incrementing up so long as he is in that fine shine.  So the key it seems, as with Carol Ann, is to keep him from going into the light.

With that bit of knowledge, we got ourselves together, stormed in, and wiped again.

And then, finally, we did it right and brought him down.  There were enough deaths that we had to leave the instance for down to have the healer restore out soul vitality, which is the Rift equivalent of WoW equipment damage.

Zahihawass suggested a group shot over the body, just in case that was the last boss we could manage.

Michae Bringhurst with the hurt brought

At this point, part of the group turned around and started heading back to the ramp, failing to notice that a small door had opened up in the back of the moonlit chamber.  There was more to do in the depths of the Darkening Deeps.  So we rounded everybody up and headed into spider town.

There was a room with spiders and spider nests.  And you had to kill the spider nests because once you engaged the spiders, the nests started spawning more spiders.  That lead to a couple of frantic fights and another death until we hit our stride with the whole thing and knocked out the last of the nests.  At that point we moved forward, rounded the corner, and found the next boss.

Big freakin' spider

And this was not going to be a stand up fight.  The big spider had some tricks of his own, which lead to more wipes.

Wrapped up in battle

Among Tegenar Deepfang’s bag of tricks is the knack of focusing on, and then webbing up, one of the party members every so often during the fight.  At which point that person is helpless until the rest of the part frees them by attacking the webs.

In the first fight, Hillmar the healer was the first webbed up, which became awkward.  Fortunately Zahihawass had some healing to keep Earl alive.  But that killed our momentum in the fight and when the second Tegenar trick came along, some summoned spiderlings which went right after the mages, it was a wipe.

We tried a couple of different tactics with little success, aside from discovering that, as with the werewolf fight, the room gets blocked off when battle begins.  So we had one wipe with the mages locked out of the room.

As it was getting late, our Google threshold was lowered, and after a couple of wipes I went searching for answers.

Unfortunately, the answers were ones we had already figured out.  Get the DPS to free the person who has been webbed up ASAP and kill the spiderling adds as fast as possible.

We did not manage to come up with the right approach and kept wiping.

Dead again

The wheels kept coming off, we were not getting any new insight as to how to deal with the fight, and it was getting late.  So we decided to call it a night.

Part of the problem is likely how we are balanced as a group and how we have our roles configured.  Both Earl and Zahihawass went off to look into revising their specs.  We also might want to put another level on the group before we go back again.

We shall see if we can come up with anything better before our next attempt.

Until then, the spider has won.

On the one hand, aside from news and insight into Blizzard’s games and process, there isn’t much at BlizzCon for me.  At this point the dance contest is the same old dances… and sometimes the same old contestants… every year.  And the costume contest is neat but… well… if you are into it, cos-play pictures are half the reason to put Kotaku in your RSS reader.

But that is just my view.  I try not to be one of those self-absorbed people who thinks that if Blizzard doesn’t have a big BlizzCon announcement to entertain me, they should just fold up their tents and go home.

BlizzCon is more than just a vehicle for announcements.  It is a community event.  And it is a hugely popular event.  Tickets sell out like it was Madonna… or somebody popular if Madonna no longer fits that bill.  25,000 fans gather together in Anaheim, California and celebrate all things Blizzard.  Or most things Blizzard.  I heard that the Lost Vikings fan base finally gave up on their revival hopes.

And in that way, as a community event, it is on par with SOE’s Fan Faire and CCP’s  Fanfest.  It is a chance to bring your biggest fans together to geek out on the minutia of the game and let them interact with the teams that bring them the games they love.  It can be an important and memorable experience for everybody involved.

But it is an expensive event, both in time and money.  And while Blizzard has money, time is clearly something on which they are running a deficit.  They have been quiet on Titan for how long?  When did they last release a Diablo game?  Can they afford to keep WoW on an 18-24 month expansion cycle?

And getting teams together to give presentations as well as just having a critical mass of your teams available to interact with fans can take big chunks out of your already mythical man months of development and testing.

I suppose we might be able to gauge whether time is their real issue by how far overboard they go with their April Fools jokes this year.  Not that the such things directly impact the same people, but part of saying you’re too busy for something is showing that you mean it.

Why do you think Blizzard is blowing off BlizzCon this year?  Are they really too busy with all their projects or is this a subtle sign that the next Modern Warfare title is already slipping and Bobby Kotick needs Blizzard to make up even more of a revenue shortfall on the Activision side of the house?

Turbine announced the next point of expansion for Lord of the Rings Online.  Players will be headed through the gap and into the fields of Rohan.

So far, Syp over at Massively has the best write up about the expansion I have seen so far.

Despite LOTRO not being in my currently play rotation, I am a lifetime subscriber (which seems like the best deal ever nearly five years down the line) and do peek in now and again.

And because Turbine always offers some pretty nifty pre-order incentives, I am sure I will buy the expansion despite the fact that my highest level character is still in the Mines of Moria, having only arrived there this past August.  That just leaves the Mirkwood and Isengard expansions between me and Rohan.

It seems unlikely that I will catch up, but I am still excited about the new expansion.  I look forward to more details.

Let’s just hope Turbine can stay away from the crazy mounts addiction that SOE has.  It turns out that 25% of EQ2′s revenue is from mounts, so they are never going to slow down.

EverQuest turned up 755 items, though you get anything related to EverQuest II as well, including one odd item on the first page, an EverQuest Players cocktail shaker.

Makes the elixir that'll fix yer problems...

You can see the auction here while it lasts.

My first question… as when I saw EverQuest Zippo lighters or that Free Realms suggie thing (one company’s April Fools is another’s reality)… was “Why?”

Why can't I get one in game?

Who would make an EverQuest Players cocktail shaker?  Was it created in celebration of something?  A game milestone? An expansion launch? An admission that most of the community team had fallen off the wagon yet again? (Which I am pretty sure was when that snuggie idea came up.)

Unfortunately, the description on eBay is not very forthcoming.

Everquest Cocktail Shaker Set.

Items are made of metal – the Shaker says “EverQust Players” on it.

No other writing can be found on any of the items – no paperwork is included neither (I do not think it had any).

Item comes in a black box with foam molded to support and protect it.

CONDITION – New, but Box has Damage.   Please see pictures. The items are in excellent shape, they were never used and were for the most part kept inside the box and protected.  The bottom of the box is in good shape, but I do see the box has a very small dent near a corner, but the top part of the box is the worst of it, it has a blown out corner.  Otherwise, this lot is a good one, the metal cocktail set is in unused, new condition.. it’s just the box that is questionable.

Glad to know it is made of metal I suppose, but I wonder what the story behind this particular metal vessel really is.

Anyway, if you are a real EverQuest die hard, you have six more days to bid!

(And shiny though this item is, the listing appears mercifully free of reflecto-porn.)

But indirectly Google tells me things via the search results that get directed here.

Sometimes that can be viewed as just a message about the search terms in which this site ranks highly.  Often those are the very obvious.  Variations of the name of the blog tend to send people here.

And odd mash-ups of past topics also show up from which I am sure I could build my own version of The Road to Popehat. (Which I sort of do in my monthly summary most months.)  I think searches like “Tom of Finland Harry Potter” would certainly get me started, as does “one does not simply cat tank into mordor.”

Some of these searches can be oddly specific, such as “swtor email in use,” which I am sure is somehow related to account creation.

But sometimes my site ends up not only ranking high in a search, but that search is apparently at least mildly popular.  And from those I can derive different, more specific messages from Google.  Currently Google is sending my three such messages.  They are:

When is Hulkageddon V Already?

Easily the most popular search terms bringing people here revolve around Hulkageddon V.

People want to know when!

Hulkageddon is a player event in EVE Online when some players get together and blow up the ships of other players who, for the most part, would rather their ships not be blown up.

I put up a post about this right after the event was announced back in early November.  At the time it contained all the information available and a link to the forum thread where future information would be posted.   Two and a half months later, the post still has all the information available, and people seem to be getting impatient about it.

Of course I cannot tell if the people searching seek to actively participate in Hulkageddon V or if they just want a heads up so they can take an in-station skills break while it goes on, but there is clearly some desire out there for more information.

People Still Want to Play Star Wars Galaxies

Search terms around SWG emulation started showing up regularly the day after SWG went dark.

Connection to SWG Lost... Forever

These terms bring people to a post I did about SWG emulators that are out there.

All I can really say is that there is clearly some interest out there.  The fact that such searches have been going up noticeably as the first month of SWTOR draws to a close might be a message, but the sample size is so small that any conclusions would be unsupported.

Civilization II is Still Popular

I do not appear to be alone in my love of Civilization II.

A simpler time...

Back in October I finished up my tale about getting Civilization II to run on 64-bit Windows 7.  Things were quiet after that, but around mid-December there was a spike in searches on the subject, and Google has been delivering people here based on Civ and Windows 7 based search terms ever since.

Does This Mean Anything?

Probably only that there are a few people out there interested in a couple of topics about which I have written.  Google sends between 600 and 1000 people to the site based on search results.  These three just stand out in that variations on these terms have topped this list for the last month or more, and have kept those three posts on the Top Posts list on the side bar.  That list is usually just the home of what I wrote over the last week, that post about the guild name generator, and various Pokemon related posts.  People love their Pokemon.

Anyway, that is my read on what Google has been telling me of late.

That first means finding them all… and all their various parts.  That gets tougher every year.

Laying out the minifigures

I tend to leave the minifigures in their initial forms.  My daughter and a few of her friends however, like to take them apart to mix and match.  And then loose pieces go missing, largely thanks to one of our cats who also loves LEGO.

Still, I think I got a lot of them back together.

Indiana Jones minifigures

Star Wars minifigures

Harry Potter, Speed Racer, and more...

So they are… mostly… back together and into their various storage drawers waiting to be taken out and rearranged again over the course of the year.

I have such a long history of bemusement with SOE on that front.  I have literally been complaining since the Desert of Flames expansion… the very first expansion… introduced lying carpets as a mount.  I have posts more than five years old on the subject at this point.

So many things wrong with this picture...

And while the flying carpets still bug me a bit, I have gotten over them for the most part.  Though the reason I have gotten over them is because much worse has come since.

The setup to a "frog in a blender" joke

And while ugly mounts pre-date the Station Cash store, the whole drive of mount mania… mounts with stats, hideously ugly mounts, hovering mounts, flying mounts, leaping mounts, gliding mounts, and now wings as mounts… seems to have been accelerating ever since the store went live.

As Raph Koster pointed out in his recent post on the free to play model, the ongoing process of buying decisions by the free to play players acts as a safety valve to keep the company from doing anything the comes across as too greedy.

The flip side though is that the cash shop, being an essential part of the revenue model, will have a sales quota to meet because people won’t buy your RMT currency if they cannot buy anything cool with it.  You need a plan for every month, every quarter, and every year that lays out your sales goals and how you plan to get there.

It is nice if you can sell consumables, things that boost experience or faction gain.  But if you’ve already drastically softened the leveling curve and handed out dozens of experience boost potions as veteran rewards in you game (I have even more unused potions sitting around now that all my characters are six year vets) that might not be enough.  I am sure SOE sells some of those potions (though they seem a bit pricey for a consumable), but I am far more likely to buy a deed accelerator in LOTRO since deed are still grind-tastic and I do not have a pile of them already.

An expansion is nice to have, though I bet the cash shop only gets partial credit on those sales.

You can always juice things up a bit by having a sale on your RMT currency.  The thought of everything in the store essentially being half off will get some people to buy, but only if there is something they want in the first place.

And on the flip side, you can always put things on the store on sale as well.  We all read that splash screen that comes up with the latest sale items in detail every time we log in, right?  Okay, maybe not.  And most people won’t buy something they didn’t already want even if it goes on deep discount.

All of which has to lead the cash shop planners to focus on what people have bought in the past.  What was a success before?  Just looking around on the Freeport server, I am going to have to say that mounts have sold well in the past.

And if mounts were a success in the past, that is a big incentive to make more.  And while there are no doubt people out there who will buy any new mount just to collect them all… and I speak as somebody whose main in WoW has 87 mounts… a lot more people will buy in if the latest mount is cooler than, or at least different from, anything that has gone before.

And so, as tough as it is for me to admit, wings on your character as a flying mount do seem cooler than just a flying mount.  I am sure that sales will be brisk, and not just with people who name their characters something like “Stabzudead.”

So that will cover some part of sales quota.  But eventually sales will slow and, to repeat that success, SOE will have to top the whole wings thing.  And so the chain of events that lead us to wings goes on, and something new and more outrageous will likely replace it.

And so it is.  Due to its success, we will likely see something in World of Tanks that will top the Type 59.  And, if they sell well, I am sure that LOTRO will offer us more gear with stats.

Raph Koster was certainly correct in the summary at the end of his post in saying, “Free to play is not evil, it’s just different.”

It is just different, and one of the differences is who and what matters when a cash shop is part of the plan.  If goofy stuff sells in your game, be prepared to see a lot more of it.

Meanwhile, I wonder what will come after those wings in the Station Cash store.

So when Saturday came around, it found Potshot, Earl, and I online in the afternoon, so we had some time to talk about the transfer.

We decided to go with Shatterbone, if only because the “saved you a spot” message gave us a glimmer of hope that there would be less likelihood of issues.  And if there were issues, I would at least get a blog post out of “what do they mean when they say they have ‘saved you a spot?’”

I changed the guild message of the day announcing where we were going and then, because we had time and wanted to face any issues early on, Potshot, whose character Zahihawass is the guild leader, transferred his character and the guild over to Shatterbone.

And it worked.  Only, we suddenly found that those of us remaining on Alsbeth lacked a guild channel.  And the guild MotD went with the guild as well.  Kind of a “well duh” moment, but now we were committed.

At this point, 4 out of 5 of us had the news where we were going, so we started transferring characters over.  The transfer worked, and when we logged into Shatterbone, we were reunited with the guild.  We kept our progress with the current guild quest and, aside from the fact that we all had to have our ranks restored to their previous level, there was little to do once we were over.

The Guild Log Shows Transfers

I left Hillmar behind on Alsbeth to watch for Jollyreaper when he showed up.  When he did, I gave him the quick run down and we were both over on Shatterbone in a couple of minutes.

I did end up having to leave a character behind.  I had one level 7 alt who did not meet the minimum level requirements for a transfer.  I will probably just delete him, as I understand that the Trial Server conversion will leave him stuck in Meridian unable to do anything.

Anyway, we all ended up together on Shatterbone on Saturday night.  Potshot decided to swap out his rogue, Hakawati, for his DPS cleric, Zahihawass in the group mix.  I suspect this was because we had finally learned how to spell and pronounce “Hakawati.”  So the line up for the night was:

• Jollyreaper level 22 mage
• Earlthecat level 22 warrior
• Zahihawass level 22 cleric
• Gizalia level 22 mage
• Hillmar level 21 cleric

Potshot had proposed a master plan for the group to help us see more of the world.  We were going to try to travel overland to enter dungeons going forward, unless we were unable to get to them at out level.  So, for example, last week’s trip to the Iron Tomb was overland.  But before that, the Realm of the Fae was way over on the guardian side of the world and there was no way we were going to be able to get there without a serious, and probably all night, effort.

In furtherance of that, and because we were right at the lowest level for the next instance, we decided to make the night a travel and explore night.

The goals were modest.  Travel to the main encampment in Stonefield, Granite Falls, which would put us in the general area of our next overland dungeon trip, the Deepstrike Mine, and then run around, close a couple of rifts and do a few quests as a group to get us all another level before we attempted Darkening Deeps, the next instance on the list, though one to which travel probably won’t be an option.

The travel portion was not a big deal.  Most of us had been there before, though I hadn’t been back since they added in the new travel portal.

Travel into Stonefield

We got to Granite Falls, grabbed the travel point and the local quests for closing rifts and killing rift creatures and then began to look around.

Welcome to Granite Falls

Rifts turned out to be few and far between.  It was one of those nights when we really could have used a zone event, but the planar creatures seemed to be otherwise occupied.  We knocked out one rift we found, but spent more time fighting the local flora and fauna that beings from other planes.

Dude, don't feed the trolls!

Finding the planar population rather lacking, we headed back to Granite Falls and picked up the quest chain that takes you through the graveyard and crypt just outside of town.

I’ve been through that quest line twice already, once solo and once as a duo with Potshot on other alts, and it is really one of those areas where being grouped is better than solo.

A group of five might have been major overkill, but there is no shortage of undead to slay down there.  Getting everybody their last bit of grave moss was the only challenge.  But we wanted to do something to maybe get us all another level and maybe a bit of fresh gear.

It is never a mystery when you level in Rift

After that, we dropped the quest line, popped another rift that showed up on the edge of town, then started talking about gear and currencies.  It started with the planar gear vendor in Granite Falls and what to buy and where to get more planarite and the special stones for the purple gear.  I think after that four out of five of us are now using the Rift Mobile app on our iOS devices to gather more planarite during the week.  I know I do my scratchers before I go to work and when I get home every day.

Then we moved on to what to do with all those damn unique snowflakes in our bags, which lead us back to Meridian and the World Even Merchant.

Turn in Unique Snowflakes here

After which we were feeling about done for the evening.  There was more discussions about gear and crafting and who was working on what and how much it was going to cost for a guild bank, but the actual adventuring portion of the evening was over.

So we should be leveled up, geared up, and lined up for another instance this coming weekend.

Fleets still form up.  A few systems appear to be in contention.

Raiden still poses some sort of threat, while White Noise remains a farce.

But the trend seems to be away from conflict and towards consolidation. The Mittani declared victory.  Sections of territory have been handed out to alliances allied with the Goons. (Which has caused a bit of internal friction... oh, hey, all the details about that out in the open now.)  The diretorbot on Jabber, which announces fleet operations, has been popping up more fun fleets and fewer fleets for vital defensive or offensive ops.

Todays map from the usual source.

State of the Game - Jan 18, 2012

Our corner of space has returned to normal.  The TNT alliance, of which I am a part, has convoyed ships back from the front lines and our base of operations is now at its pre-war location.

Gaff has started asteroid mining again, which is a big money maker.  I have to get the Hulk out at some point and join in if I want to be space rich.  And what is the point of null sec if you can’t be space rich?

Meanwhile I have restored my fortunes to their start point of approximately 1.4 billion ISK, mostly by running a Guristas Forsaken Hub every night.  That is worth about 25 million ISK in bounties, and with my Noctis now in null sec and fitted out, loot and salvage can add millions on top of that.

And in addition to cash reserves, my asset count is up as well.  I am starting to collect ships in null sec.  Gaff gave me a Drake when I came out.  I purchased two more Drakes, one of which I lost, the fittings for 3 more PvP Drakes, a Maelstrom battleship with tech I guns, and a Hurricane fitted with tech II guns that I will be able to actually shoot in a few days.

(I am going to be bummed when they nerf Drakes, since I have invested so many skill points in their operation, but that appears to be one of the things on which CCP and the CSM agreed.)

So I am clearly “up” when it comes to cash and assets and I have a training program in progress focused on guns and Minmatar ships.  I just need to find some time to do more actual null sec “stuff.”

Running an anomaly like a Foresaken Hub every night is rather like running a level 4 mission every night.  The prime difference is that there is really no plot except “kill Guristas until they stop spawning.”  Neither is there a reward, aside from bounties and drops.   Plus I have to keep a close eye on the local and regional intelligence channels to make sure nobody is out there ready to turn my Tengu into scrap.  But even that habit wasn’t hard to acquire.

And while the corp collects a 10% tax on bounties, I do not feel like I am actually helping out that much.

Such is the state of things for me in null sec at the moment.

Our corp is having a cruiser tournament this weekend.  It is even at a time slot I can manage.  Maybe I’ll give that a try.  While I am level V across the board for a Caracal, I am not sure that will be my best option.  And I have to find the hull and fit it out.  We shall see.

The site here is clearly not blacked out.  Call it laziness or anxiety that nobody would notice.

Instead of going dark, I thought I would reprint for posterity the Motion Picture Association of America’s press release regarding the SOPA blackout protest. (I like this picture, as it reminds you who the MPAA really are.)

So here we have the words of FORMER Senator Chris Dodd, the Chairman and CEO of the MPAA, who is clearly now into the final cash-in stage of his political career (looking at his profile, it appears he might have been cashing in early and often), the MPAA view on the blackout protest.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 17, 2012

WASHINGTON —The following is a statement by Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) on the so-called “Blackout Day” protesting anti-piracy legislation:

“Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the major concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together, some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.

It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.

A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals. It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.”

link to the original PDF here.

Such heavily loaded phraseology to use against internet sites that are, against interest (no ad revenues for a day), going to bring their sites down in order to protest this legislation.  Hardly a dangerous gimmick, this is an act of protest, something steeped in the traditions of this country.  These are not the rogue websites (a pretty loose term that could apply to a lot of places depending on your point of view) that the MPAA claims are the only target of the SOPA legislation, but sites that know and fear that once government regulation has a foot in the door, original intent is forgotten and whatever is in black and white gets used with a heavy hand.

If the above MPAA statement is “TL;DR” for you, Rupert Murdoch has provided a shortened form via Twitter.

Seems blogosphere has succeeded in terrorizing many senators and congressmen who previously committed. Politicians all the same.—
Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) January 18, 2012

When you are with Rupert, you are clearly on the side of the angles.  And when Rupert buys a politician, he expects them to stay bought!

(And the RIAA slimes its way onto the scene, showing its contempt for any who oppose it.)

And so it is that I salute the sites going dark in protest.  Hopefully this will raise awareness and make a difference.  Rupert seems to think it will.

We will see all these sites and more again on the 19th.

(Screen shots of some dark sites and sites with supportive messages after the break.)

(To be updated throughout the day because I am not staying up all night waiting for you people to black out your sites.)

Hold on a second, I am almost ready...

Tycho and Gabe at Penny Arcade seem quite enthused with the SWTOR experience.

The esteemed Edward Castronova calls it Star Wars: The Dead Republic and says that Skyrim feels more like a real populated world that the massively multiplayer SWTOR.

Dr. Richard Bartle won’t go into a detailed discussion of the game for a couple of reasons, but does write of self-actualization and the opportunity BioWare has if they truly believe that story is the value they bring to the genre.

And then there is Tarnsman who wins the prize for the angriest screed I have yet seen about the game. But for all his anger, he does have some interesting points, especially about the discongruity of the setting.

And those are just a few of the many opinions out there.

Naturally, some of this controversy was predestined.

Anything that involves Star Wars comes with controversy as part of the package.  As well, anything about MMOs and MMO design, especially with a big budget MMO project, is guaranteed to start a war between the various player “tribes.” (PvPers, raiders, solo player, role players, old schoolers, etc.)  Even BioWare itself brings division to the table.  People who like BioWare games seem to REALLY like them, and those who do not tend to not get the whole BioWare mystique.

Add in the undercurrents caused by the threat SWTOR seems to represent (correctly or not) to those who fear it may steal players from their own favorite game or jeopardize the success of a game yet to launch, and we start to see a rich a roiling pot of emotions boiling over in a metaphor which threatens to escape my grasp.

The question is, of course, whether all of this useful.  Does all of this debate and controversy have value?  Does it at least serve as a measure of how far we have come?

Value is, of course, relative.  One person’s junk may be treasure to another.

As I said, I like it.  But I like to read opinions that disagree with my own, if for no other reason than to test how strongly held those opinions are and how they are balanced by emotional versus logic.  And with SWTOR, about which I do not think I hold any strong opinions, it is all the more interesting because I can mentally “try on” the viewpoints presented.  I can feel Gabe’s excitement and understand his desire for a simple brown robe as well as getting the lore-twisting illogical decision to make Sith ships look like early Imperial ships when the Empire is actually a child of the Republic.

So it is all great fun for me.  How about you?

The array of ebook readers out there was not foreign to me.  Both of my parents have an Amazon Kindle.  My daughter has a Nook Color.  A friend of ours has a Kindle Fire.

But being something of a Luddite at times, I clung to books in their physical form.

Until this past summer when middle age struck again, and I ceased to be able to focus on anything within “book range” of my face without a pair of 1.25 diopter reading glasses.  Getting old sucks.

Oddly, I do not have problems with text on the computer screen and am able to read the default teeny-eyestrain-o-vision font used in EVE Online without having to blow it up into human proportions

Glasses are a pain.  I have not built up a lifetime of eyewear management like many of my family and friends.  I have to have multiple pairs of sunglasses just to ensure I can find one pair when I need them.  And even that isn’t always doable.

So an ebook reader, where one can increase the size of the type to read, seemed like an idea whose time had come for me.  But I wanted something backlit, light for reading being a rare commodity in our home, which left the standard Kindle devices off the list.  As for the Nook Color and Kindle Fire, those 7″ screens seemed a bit wee.  I like to get more than a short paragraph read per “page.”

Which left me with a muddle of Android based tablets and the iPad.

But with the holidays and money being tight, I didn’t want to face another $500 on the already potentially scary credit card bill.  So my wife managed to piece together an array of gift cards that were all redeemable at one local Target that also happened to be in a Westfield Shoppingtown mall.  I only had to pay the tax out of cash in my wallet.

So that was my post-Christmas present, a base model iPad 2.

I immediately downloaded the Amazon Kindle app for the iPad.  I have a nearly 15 year relationship with Amazon, so that seemed the best place to start.

A couple of books in, I have to say that the iPad works find as an ebook reader.

I also grabbed the Barnes & Noble app, which lets me download any books my daughter has on her Color Nook.  While all of those Warrior Cats books are not so interesting, I have been reading The Hunger Games trilogy with her.

I haven’t done anything with iBooks yet, though I see that a number of publishers have an option to buy ebooks directly that can be imported into iBooks.

Of course, with this brand new tablet, I could not just read books.  I had to get some apps.

And there are apps out there for everyone.

Everyone in the house has played with my iPad

There are lots of apps in the Apple store.  But as with iTunes… and frankly almost all online shopping… browsing is a pain.  If you know exactly what you want, you can get it, but just sifting through the lists of apps… not so much.

I refused to get Angry Birds, since I think we have that on enough devices already.  I did indulge my daughter and let her get Fruit Ninja, a game at which I am comically bad.

And there was, of course, the Games for Cats app pictured above.  A simulated laser pointed works as well as the real thing, though sometimes Trixie starts digging under the iPad when it goes off screen.

I also grabbed a few reference apps, such as the ones for NPR, BBC, PBS, WordPress, and the Internet Movie Database.  I am semi-disappointed in the lot of them, as none seem to improve much (or at all) on just using their web sites with a browser.

There was a nice EVE Online app, EVE Universe, which I grabbed.  It just shows information based on your API Key, but it looks good.

On the science front, among the many astronomy choices, I bought Celestron’s SkyQ app.  I can stand in the family room now, waving a 10″ diagonal window around, showing my daughter the sky we would be able to see if the city lights were not so bright that they blot out pretty much anything dimmer than the moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Sirius, Polaris, and Orion’s Belt.

But so far the most entertaining app I have downloaded has been the iPad version of the board game Ticket to Ride.  I actually own the physical game, but the iPad version is so good that I may never use that again.  It translate the game to the tablet very well, picks up all the minor administrative tasks, and offers solo play against bots, local play via hot swap or wireless connection, and online play against strangers. (Though, par for the course, people still disconnect the moment they are going to lose. I hate that.)  More games like this please, as opposed to the EA games which, if I read the reviews correctly, you pay for and then they pop up ads during play that obscure the game.  Nice.

I also grabbed the Rift Mobile app, which is somewhat limited in functionality, but which does give me palanarite lotto scratcher every hour, up to a maximum of six queued up, that have been helping to feed my planarite needs in the game.

And, finally, I resubscribed to NetFlix stream and have streamed some movies and TV shows to the iPad with very good success.  I have used it ala the Syp method, allowing me to watch a show and play EVE Online.

All in all, I quite like the iPad.  I have to take it away from my daughter now and again, who will sit in her room and stream Futurama if I don’t keep an eye on her.  Mostly it gets used for reading and playing Ticket to Ride.  I have hit something of a wall when it comes to apps though.  Not that I need a lot more.  But every time I use the iTunes app store, I just feel in my bones that there has to be a better way to organize and display apps.

And as I ran through Meridian for various reasons, I noticed that now-lonely corner at the front of the city where the NPCs for any given world event seem to hang out.

No daily quest for me?

I have only seen two world events, but I assume that is where the world event NPCs always go.  Like a lot of places, there is really only big empty patch of land where the circus can setup when it comes to town.

And, in my missing Rift world events, I guess that I am confirming that I like daily quests.

I suppose that is no surprise after I did those daily fishing quests to get exalted reputation with the Kalu’ak so I could buy their special fishing pole and the pet penguin.  Likewise the whole cooking daily routine and the Argent Tournament thing.

Faction-riffic

The key, for me, is having limited goals.

For example, I never spent much time doing the daily quests that they put in at the end of the Burning Crusade expansion.  There was something of an open-ended goal with that as I recall.  Maybe.  I cannot even remember the name of the place where those quests were… way up at the north end of the Eastern Kingdoms.

And world events in Rift fit that limited niche.  They are limited in duration and there are generally only a couple of items I want from the event vendor.

So while there are, in fact, daily quests in every zone in the game, generally setting me to the task of closing so many rifts or slaying so many rift creatures, they do not fill that same slot in my mind.  I will pick those up when I go out to adventure in a zone, but I never go out to a zone just to do those, even when our guild quest is related.

So I am waiting for the next Rift world event.

Type 59 on vacation at the Great Wall

The official word from Wargaming.net is:

We will soon be updating the World of Tanks in-game store. As of January 16, 2012, the Type 59 premium tank will be removed from the in-game store after the server restart, which will take place at 6:00-6:30AM EST (11:00-11:30 UTC). While the tank will not be available for purchase, all existing Type 59 owners will keep their tank intact.

This decision has been made to ensure a healthy gameplay balance at higher tiers, and also to encourage a wider variety of tier 8 medium tank usage. If the Type 59 becomes available for purchase again during special events in the future, we will be sure to provide ample notice.

Again, the Type 59 will be removed from the in-game store on January 16, 2012 after the server downtime scheduled for 6:00-6:30AM EST (11:00-11:30 UTC). If you are considering purchasing the tank, we encourage you to do so before this point, as it will not be available for purchase as of January 16, 2012.

So the official line is game balance at higher tiers.  And certainly one of the complaints about the tank is that a lot of them show up in those battles, relative to other models.

However, a suspicious mind might see something different at work here.  After all, the Type 59 has been in the game for a while now, and it was controversial from day one.  Why change now?  Maybe sales of the tank have finally slowed?  If everybody who really wanted one already has one, what better way to prod those on the fence about the tank than announce that it is going away?

I have one in my garage.

Ready for Battle

And it quickly became my favorite tank.

As an extremely casual player… I play 3 or 4 rounds every couple of nights… it has allowed me to play in the higher tiers, where the skilled players seem to be and where the battles are thus more exciting.  And the fact that it is a money making machine has allowed me to pursue SP gun ambitions. (There are no gold SP guns.)

I expect that there will be a flurry of Type 59 purchases this weekend, and that we will see it dangled as a special limited time store item in the future.

And our server, Alsbeth, the instance group server, is on the list for PvE shards.

Transferring Shard: –> Receiving Shard:
PVE

• Belmont –> Millrush
• Galena –> Millrush
• Atrophinius –> Greenscale
• Crucia –> Greenscale
• Alsbeth –> Shatterbone

PVE – RP

• Estrael –> Faeblight
• Shadefallen –> Faeblight

PVP

• Sunrest(PVP-RP) –> Deepstrike
• Freeholme –> Deepstrike
• Dayblind –> Deepstrike
• Faemist –> Briarcliff

Not surprisingly, Trion isn’t calling it a server merge.  They have said that they are flagging more trial servers.  That is what they tell you in game.

They don’t tell you what a trial shard is, only that for the “best Rift experience” (and unless somebody can prove that Rift is an acronym, I am not putting it in all caps) you should get the hell off the server on which you currently play.

So it looks like The Batsmen of the Calamari will have to pick a new home.

On the plus side, it looks like you can move a whole guild intact to a new server.  I think the guild master has to do that, and Potshot holds the reigns of power.  The server transfer interface looks simple enough.

Server Transfers

And while they say we should go from Alsbeth to Shatterbone, it is not clear to me if this is our only choice… or if that is the only choice we get for free.   Shatterbone isn’t even one of the recommended choices on the server list.  Score one for inconsistency!

I am sure we will find some way to mess this up.  It is part of the guild tradition.

So that will be the first task on this weekend’s instance group agenda, move to a new server.  We will see if that leaves us enough time to do anything else.

But here in the new year we were finally able to form up.  Our group was:

• Jollyreaper level 21 mage
• Earlthecat level 21 warrior
• Hakawati level 21 rogue
• Hillmar level 20 cleric
• Gizalia level 20 mage

And our target was the Iron Tomb, which is located just walking distance from the Defiant capital, Meridian.  There was no need to mess around with the looking for group tool and any of the class, role, soul point, or weight requirements which it might impose.

We went straight in.

Entry to the Iron Tomb

Iron Tomb is a real dungeon.  The outdoor aspects of The Realm of the Fae were not a bad thing, and it was nice to be able to mount up and ride, but a real dungeon crawl requires a real dungeon.

We got the “being there” quest, the one you get just by entering the dungeon, the one that tells you that you have completed the dungeon.  In this case it was defeat Caor Ashstone, the three kings, and Ragnos Ragnoth the Despoiler.

Simple enough, right.

And then there were a couple of quests along the way, including one there at the entrance from the shiny guy in the first picture.

But first it was time to see if we could still fight as a team.  Jollyreaper didn’t do well in the first fight… he actually died a bit more than the rest of us… but after a couple of fights, we started to remember the basics at least.

Crowd control in action... note squirrel

Caor Ashstone showed up so quickly in the instance that we didn’t even notice we had the first boss on the hook until well into the fight.  It was sort of, “Hey isn’t that the guy we need to kill?” “Yes.” “Well, let’s keep killing him then!”

As though there is any other choice of interaction with hostiles.

We moved on.

The Iron Tomb is linear without seeming too much like the box canyon of lore.  It seems like you might be able to make a wrong turn, but all false paths end pretty abruptly not too far off the main path.  Killer completionist will have mobs to kill down these side ventures.  For the rest of us, it is the sweet smell of avoidable confrontation.

The instance, which has that World of Warcraft “plenty of room to move about and position your camera” feel to it (as opposed to some EverQuest II dungeons, which remind me of the Three Stooges trying to all go through a doorway at once) without having the cartoon color tones.

A tomb with room!

That lead us around and down to the area of the three kings, which we ended up having to fight twice.

Three Kings show up here... repeatedly

The first time around, they all were summoned individually and defeated in quick order.  That was for one of the quests we picked up in the dungeon.

Then there was a separate battle for dungeon progress, which also unlocked the door behind them, opening up the remainder of the dungeon.  This time around all three of the kings showed up together, and it turned into a long battle… until we figured out what was going on.

The three kings, in what is no doubt a prod at the mechanics of these games, represent tank, healer, and ranged DPS.  And we, at the start, acted like typical dungeon mobs and fought the tank.

Well, the tank did run right at us, so he seemed like a good starting place.

After a bit of making very little progress, we started to figure out what was going on.  Hakawati was the first to change tactics, as he turned his attention to the DPS and took him out in relatively short order.

Then we killed the healer and, finally, the tank.  They wiped… in a way that we have in the past.

That finished off one quest and got us the second set of bosses for the overall dungeon achievement as well as opening up one of the more difficult quests of the night for us.

The quest we picked up involved breaking three shards.  Each shard was protected by a few standard mobs who stood around like they were waiting for a bus or some such until we attacked them.  No issues there.

But once the area was clear and we started attacking the shard itself, a host of mobs were summoned with annoying stun attacks.  More and more of them showed up as time passed.

At first we fought them.  But while they were non-elite, their ever increasing numbers and their stun attacks made us think that we ought to kill the shard first.  Maybe that would also kill off the defenders.

Alas no.  We killed the shard, but wiped to the mass ravager attack.

Swamped at a shard

When we got back and set, we had to kill off the remains of the summoned group.  Killing the shard did not dismiss them.

Of three shards, we wiped on two.  We always managed to kill the shard, but the defenders were too much.  And on the one we survived, Jolly died and the rest of us barely squeaked through.

I am sure there is a “how to” for those battles on a Wiki somewhere, but we did it the old fashioned way.

This put us on the home stretch to the last area of the instance.  There was an interesting area where orbs placed throughout on section of floor would kill mobs attacking us if we stood next to them.  The area itself was littered with mobs, and they respawned quickly, so we figured that out in a hurry.  Moving from one little island of safety to another, we moved through the area first to knock off that last shard (and wipe) then up some steps to the main boss.

Peeking in on Ragnoth

There were no helpers, no obvious tricks, no barriers or other obstructions visible.  It looked like it might be a good clean boss fight.  So in we went.

Pounding on Ragnoth

The fight looked to be going very well.  We were hitting him hard.  His health was dropping visibly.  Meanwhile, I was able to keep up with healing and nobody was getting interrupted or otherwise troubled.

And then, suddenly, we were all dead.

Wait, what?

Some nasty area attack killed us all in one fell swoop.

A look back at what was going on showed us that Eliam’s ghost, one of the quest related mobs, had materialized mid-fight and told us to crowd around him in order to be protected from this special attack.  (See big red arrow in the picture above.)

None of us noticed this during the fight, Elim having popped in on the far side of Ragnoth.

The second time around, the fight went as before.  Eliam’s ghost showed up right in the middle of the party this time… he seemed to have a random spawn point in the area… we crowded around, survived the attack, and defeated Rangnoth.

Dungeon complete.

We had one more quest to wrap up, then remembered the final screen shot.  However, by then Ragnoth’s body was gone, so we just posted around the tomb.

Very rust red in the Iron Tomb

And that was about it for the Iron Tomb.

We ran back to Meridian, turned in a couple of quests to the Faceless Man and looked into where to go next week.

All in all, it was not a bad return to the game after nearly a month off for most of us.  In a sign that the game is becoming our home, Earl actually played quite a bit over the holidays on his alt.  Of the group, he was the one person who has remained subscribed and playing WoW for the last 5+ years.  So the fact that his high-teens alt was already level 42 seemed to be a good indication that he likes the game.

And it looks like we are all about the right level for the next instance, the Darkening Deeps.

We will see how that goes.

The latest flying mount to be introduced to EverQuest II consists of a pair of wings on your back.

Flying Iksar… and Ratonga… enough to give you nightmares.  And if what I saw was right, Fae and Arasai lose their regular wings when they put these wings on?  Odd.

Here Raph Koster just posted about the free to play business model and we now have a perfect example of more whale food.

Some people will just have to have a pair of wings today, while others groan in despair.

Remember, those who buy the wings are helping fund the game!

Best response so far:

It's like someone just said "to hell with making sense, let's just give people whatever they are willing to pay for" #EQ2—
Vanja Utne (@CheesePirateEq2) January 11, 2012

What about you?  Would you like a pair of wings with your free to play?

Massively even has an amusing question about the EQII wing thing.

This is Mark.  Our wives are pals, which means I occasionally see him at a child’s birthday party or when he is really stuck for somebody to help him with a computer issue.

He just won the Vicks NyQuil Most Dedicated Fan contest.

Mark's Moment of Glory

Mark is a very dedicated San Francisco 49ers fan.  He has season tickets.  He travels to an away games now and again.  He even went to the exhibition game the team played in the UK a couple years back.

He is really, really into football.  Read his contest page.

And he is my go-to guy when I need to demonstrate that my online gaming and blogging hobby is, if not normal, at least relatively inexpensive.  Season tickets to the 49ers cost more than I spent on games and computer hardware in the last five years.

And I almost never paint my body the colors of any in-game faction and the extent of my gaming apparel is limited to a Meridian 59 T-shirt and that Warp Drive Active polo shirt I won ages ago, which I almost never wear because the comic on the front gets a disturbing 3D effect when laid over my somewhat expanded middle-age waistline.

But today is Mark’s day.  All that dedication and painting his body red has paid off.

He won the Most Dedicated Fan contest, which means he gets an all expenses paid trip to the Superbowl, a loaded VISA gift card with which to do some shopping, and a bunch of other swag I am sure.

And the 49ers even have a shot at being in the game.  How lucky can you get?

How can my hobby even begin to match that?

The closest I can come up with is getting elected to the EVE Council of Stellar Management for a free trip to Iceland.

I hear Reykjavík is nicer than Indianapolis… at least during the months where there is daylight.

This pretty animated .GIF from the Something Awful forums tells the tale, showing progression from Dec. 20th to Jan. 8th.

White Noise in Branch

White Noise got squished, with the Deklein Coalition pushing in hard from the west, while White Noise ally Raiden was handed to some systems on the east.  WN only owns KMC-WI in Branch at this time.

As they put it over at EVE 24, Mission Accomplished.  And I was able to help in my own small way at the start and the very end.  They also serve, who only x-up and wait.

The question now is what comes next?

The situation map now looks like this. (Map source, as usual.)

State of the Game - Jan 10, 2012

There are still some cards in White Noise preaching the “Deklein Free of Goons” line.  They claim, among other things, to have canned all their carebears and other slackers, to be building a fighting force of extraordinary magnitude, to be forging their spirits in the traditions of their ancestors, to be the vanguard of a new war because the whole game is going to come to their aid because it is solid 100% fact that everybody hates the Goons, and yadda yadda yadda so on and so forth.

White Noise has been playing the WWII metaphor game, trying to paint themselves as the Soviet Union when the Germans attacked in 1941.  Unfortunately for them, Poland in 1939 seemed closer to the mark, or maybe this pre-Barbarossa quote came to pass for them, “We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”

We are in a “deeds not words” time for White Noise, the credibility of their rhetoric being pretty low at this point.

So, barring a magical White Noise resurgence, what else can happen?

The Deklein Coalition could keep rolling on and go after Raiden, which holds a lucrative corner of null sec.  They were, after all, involved in the war, coming to help their ally White Noise before helping themselves to some of the WN systems.  There has been some speculation and analysis about the Goonswarm long term plans in that regard. [Addendum: EVE News 24 also has a look at the remaining power blocs in null sec.]

Or there could be a cessation of hostilities allowing everybody to consolidate their gains and figure out what to do next.  My read on this could be totally wrong, but Raiden does not appear keen to launch their own campaign into Branch yet, and there is a theory running around that the Goon offensive might come to an end just because everybody is done with their holiday break at this point and cannot stay up around the clock to prosecute another intense war.

This would allow Hulkageddon V to go forward.  It was announced that the Goons would be sponsoring this round of Hulkageddon, but with the war in Branch that had to be put off.

The Mittani and Helicity Together

Things seem quiet enough in Deklein and Branch now that I think we might be coming to a period of consolidation and planning.  Certainly on the Deklein Coalition side of things, consolidation would allow the upgrading of systems and the installation of infrastructure, like jump bridges, which would make a continuation of the fight later more viable.  Right now, travel from Deklein to the front line of Raiden systems is a long series of jumps, with plenty of gates to camp in order to interdict reinforcements and supplies.

To turn to another WWII metaphor, like Rommel at El Alamein, The Mittani has long and exposed supply lines, while his potential opponent is sitting on their home turf, fleets ready.

Meanwhile, Raiden does not seem to be running ops into Branch.  The intel channels are quiet, except for the usual chatter about some neutral in system or some third party setting up a gate camp for kicks.

So it seems like we might be headed for a lull, perhaps a phoney war, perhaps a consolidation and adjustment to a new status quo.  But what I do not know about the situation could fill a very large book.

What do you think is going to happen?

We are seeing some amazing growth in EQ2. 40% increase in daily logins since going f2p. 300% increase in new players.—
John Smedley (@j_smedley) January 10, 2012

And 200% increase in Item sales. Plus we have added a lot of new subs. All during the time that some really good competition hit the market—
John Smedley (@j_smedley) January 10, 2012

Summary:

• 40% boost in daily logins
• 300% increase in players [accounts]
• 200% increase in item sales

Of course, that last might be tied to them having three Station Cash sales in December and there being a new expansion to buy.  But still good stuff.

And good competition might be things like… Star Wars: The Old Republic?

Anyway, it appears that EverQuest II and its customers are adapting to the new way of business.

Okay, it was not a White Noise tower… but it was not one of ours, so down it went.

There was an announcement on one of the Deklein channels that an impromptu POS shoot was going on and inviting people to come and help out.

I clone jumped to my Maelstrom in Mittaningrad, and headed out alone for BKG.  This turned out to be a clear run from Deklein into Branch.  Hostile activity in the region is clearly winding down.

I showed up, maybe the 4th or 5th person in the fleet to do so and opened fire.

First shots fired in anger from my Maelstrom

And fired, and reloaded, and fired… it was a small fleet and so was slow work.  People showed up slowly over time, though there were only 11 of us hitting the tower at our peak.

Dominix adding its weight

Eventually though, we broke down the defenses and brought down the tower and then the other pieces of the outpost.

Burger King cleared

Naturally, this all took so long that I had time to set up Fraps and take a video of the station’s demise.  I am sure you are totally excited to see it. *cough* (Audio may be BSCL people talking about mining until YouTube catches up and lays music over the sound track.  No actual EVE sounds were recorded as EVE is still refusing to make noise.)

My next goal is to actually get on the winning side of a kill mail against an actual ship.

Right now my PvP victories are all over structures.  But at least my return to Burger King was a success.

For a while there sentry drones were… well… boring.

Due to some screw up during some update in the dark past of EVE Online, the firing animations for sentry drones were lost.

And so they just sat there.

Garde drones... maybe firing, maybe asleep...

Then, as part of the Incarna expansion plans, it was announced that sentry drones would be fixed.  As part of the new turret effects system, sentry drones would again go *pew* *pew*.

And then Incarna launched, and on top of all of the other indignities, some sentry drones, the Garde drones in particular, ended up barely getting any *pew* *pew* at all!

It was a metaphor for the whole release.  As the Garde drone animation was mostly build up and little bang, so was Incarna.  This was the build up quote:

Sentry drones such as Garde, Curator and Warden were missing their firing animations. Thanks to the new turret system we can now witness their destructive power.

And this is what we got.

This? This is not *pew*!

Apparently other sentry drones did get full animations, but the Garde just got a warm-up glow.  It didn’t not appear so much to be shooting as oozing.

Since then, the Crucible expansion has launched with a focus on making the current game better rather than adding on new extensions to it.  Among the items on the list was to fix the Garde sentry drone firing animation.  And this past weekend, I finally got a chance to try it out.

And it works!

Garde animation redeemed

The Garde drone actually shoots… and you can see it shoot.  In fact, the animation is cool enough that I made a couple of very short videos.

Here is the Garde drone rotating a bit then firing.  My Dominix is in the background taking fire.

But better still is how it looks when firing down range.

The way the beam moves… it looks like a burst of tracer rounds arcing towards a target… and the green coloring… which is a very Star Wars flavor of laser… looks really cool.

Sorry that the videos have no audio.  The sound in EVE Online is messed up on my system and the game makes no sound whatsoever now, which is annoying.  Sometimes I like sound.

Ah well, at least my sentry drones look cool now.