Learning Lessons at Fort Locke

Another Saturday night found us with a small group, just the three of us from last week.  That meant a chance to continue our look at Neverwinter Nights 2 and the original campaign that came with the game.

In anticipation of this, I actually ran Sigwerd, my rogue, through the tutorial again to pick up the bits I forgot, like how to use a ranged weapon.  It seems as simple as equipping both the weapon AND the ammo, something I somehow missed on the first pass through.

I also went and remapped some of the default keys.  I moved PAUSE from the space bar, since my trained reaction in any such game is to hit the space bar to jump, leading to an annoying number of awkwardly timed pauses for everybody in game.  I also changed the movement keys so that they were the same for all of the character modes.  I am not sure who thought it would be a good plan for them to be different by default.

As the grouping hour approached, the next big test came.  Could we resume a saved game as a group.  One would assume “yes” I suppose.  But NWN2 is really a single player game that your friends can join you in, so Potshot, who was hosting the game, was the one to save it.  I wasn’t not completely confident that we could simply carry on from where we left off.

My concerns were unfounded though.  Potshot was able to restore the game for himself, and then the two of us were able to join as well (port forwarding continued to work for me).  I think the implication here is that other people could join or we could sit out a session.  He isn’t dependent on us showing up, though we are dependent on him running the game.  We were together again where we left off, at the Inn.

Companions reunited

Once there, it was time for some warm ups and then back to the story in progress.  All of which appears after the cut because I go on for pages as usual, plus there are some actual spoilers for the campaign.  If you choose to continue from this point, you have been warned.

End of an EON – Another Gaming Magazine Bites the Dust

The CCP Dev Blog reports that EON, the official EVE Online magazine, will be no more.

Another victim of the digital age.

Tier 3 Battlecruiser Issue

Editor in Chief Richie “Zapatero” Shoemaker wrote, in part:

Issue #030 of EON magazine, which we released as a digital publication in January, is going to be the last issue ever. In spite of continued efforts to reverse a trend of dwindling interest in our little publication, there just weren’t enough copies flying off the shelves. We can debate the whys and wherefores until the end of time, but the simple truth is that after eight years of going where no magazine has been before, the adventure has come to an end. All good things, and all that…

30 issues, sent out at about four issues a year, isn’t a huge legacy to leave behind.  I have nearly half of the total output of the publication, having subscribed on and off over the last few years.

I actually resubscribed last year at about the time they were separating the sales of EON from the EVE Online store in order to give MMM, the publisher, more flexibility in doing sales and promotions.  The subscription was half price to celebrate the change.

Half Off Sale

A little less that a year ago, EON announced that they were finally going to issue a digital version of the magazine, no doubt in hope of goosing sales some.

Now, however, the time has come.  Another gaming magazine calls it quits.  I seem to have a collection of dead magazines around the house, including the official World of Warcraft Magazine, which died after five issues, a couple of false starts from SOE attempting to create a print magazine, EQuinox and some other one I forget the name of at the moment, Massive Magazine, which made it to two issues, and probably a few more.

So making it to 30 issues around something of a niche game seems to be doing pretty well, especially when compared to other similar ventures.

You can argue about whether the content was good or timely or reflected enough of the community and whether it was worthwhile for an EVE Online player to subscribe.  Was there anything there that you couldn’t get online quicker and for free?

But I will say this.  The magazine always looked damn good.  It was a glossy, bound on heavy paper, attractively laid out physical manifestation of the game that you could hand to a non-player and say, “Oh, here is that game I was talking about.”

EON, you looked marvelous!

And the old issues, which are probably more valuable as an archival history of the game at this point, will continue to look good even as the magazine passes, as Zapatero wrote in his closing:

In years to come, may you pull an issue from the shelf, blow away the cobwebs and remember what EVE was once like. Until then, fly safe.

Zapatero

Editor, EON (ret.)

Meanwhile, the EON Store is having an “Everything Must Go!” sale between now and March 31st.  You can get the whole EON Magazine collection for $50 plus shipping.  So act now if you want to have a shiny reminder in you old age of what EVE Online once was.

I will have to see how many issues of the magazine I am missing.  And I’ll keep watching their blog, just to see if there are any last updates.