The Site
I got another WordPress.com achievement. Go me.
A New Record!
I think I hit that largely based on the impending death of Raptr, which is a bit sad when you consider it. Still, go me.
Also, I got quite a spike in traffic this month from the Warzone event in EVE Online and from being linked in a post over at PC Gamer about the Circle of Two heist/betrayal. The latter used my LOL Keepstar screen shot and nicely linked me as the source.
LOL bubbles at the Keepstar in 68FT-6
The Warzone event traffic, no doubt representing people trying to figure out how the event worked, seems indicative of CCP perhaps not thinking things through. Or at least not communicating sufficient information about the event, especially in light of how past events under The Agency banner have been run. (And how easy they were relative to Warzone.)
Anyway, one of my search terms of the month below is dedicated to CCP.
One Year Ago
It was the tenth anniversary of the blog.
I was looking back at day/night cycles and full zone respawns of yore.
My wife’s Pokemon Go account was hacked, but I recovered it pretty quickly. That post brings in a lot of search engine traffic looking for ways to hack Pokemon Go accounts. So many bad people.
Daybreak announced that both EverQuest and EverQuest II would be launching Kunark focused expansions, with Empires of Kunark slated for the former and Kunark Ascending for the latter.
Smed was taking his Hero’s Song project back to the crowdfunding arena again, this time via Indiegogo which, unlike Kickstarter, lets you keep the money even if you don’t meet your goal.
I was going on about problems EVE Online has getting new players to stick with the game… again. We also had the YC118.8 Update which revamped a the look of mining barges and some frigates, among other thing. It also launched the Purity of the Throne event that had me chasing white skins for Amarr ships.
There was also the ascension of Caitiz of House Tash-Murkon to the Amarr throne. All those ships are still lined up in Amarr for some reason. Did they have to wait a year for the first Jubilee?
And Alpha Clones would soon be a thing, so I was wondering what you could do with one.
In post-Casino War events the Imperium finished conquering Delve and a state of normalcy was starting to come to pass. I also got my last ship out of Deklein.
And then there was World of Warcraft where the Legion expansion was off and running. There was even an app for it. I started off slowly as I figured things out and moved clockwise around the Broken Isles. That didn’t stop me from checking up on my Draenor garrison though.
And then in one of those bullet point posts that I always hate a year later when it comes time to do the summary I covered Star Trek Online going to consoles, Legends of Norrath card packs, rewards for Omega players in EVE Online, and the then upcoming EVE Vegas.
Finally, No Man’s Sky launched, capping off yet another dismal episode of fan behavior. After getting death threats for delaying the launch, Hello Games finally shipped the game only to have the fan base explode even more so when it was discovered that features that were straight up said to be in the product… multiplayer being the prime suspect… were not. Still, it made a lot of money and features have since been added and it got its own Honest Game Trailers video. There is, no doubt, lessons to be learned here.
Five Years Ago
The World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria launched, adding a panda race to Azeroth, right on Ultima Online’s 15th anniversary. I think the shark jumping trope jumped the shark that day.
I was falling out of WoW myself, though still not allowed to unsubscribe. Being locked out of the Theremore event due to item level helped kill any enthusiasm I had for staying with the game.
Torchlight II showed up. I was still waiting for the Mac OS version so I could play with my daughter.
In the land of EverQuest, the Rain of Fear expansion was announced, while EverQuest II went straight to truth in advertising and revealed an expansion called Chains of Eternity.
On the Fippy Darkpaw server, Omens of War went live and was finished.
SOE was talking about some form of Wizardry that was online. PlanetSide 2 was planned for the end of the year… sort of. And then there was Player Studio and all that implied.
The next chapter in the Darkfall saga was announced. And they had a new game/expansion or some such.
In EVE Online, the CSM was looking for a way to… well… screw most of the people who actually vote for the CSM. I stranded my null sec Drake in Jita and I compared Traffic Control to a hostile FC.
In a more serious vein, the real world reached into our game took a fellow player. Even tragedy cannot displace idiocy though.
My goal to get my fourth class in Rift, a mage, to level cap before Storm Legion had me in Stonefield.
BioWare, not done with their trend of announcing public metrics they eventually failed to meet, committed themselves to a new content schedule for SWTOR. Later we found out that “adding items to the cash shop” counts as new content. Meanwhile, I pondered the SWTOR lore choice.
The Lord British saga continued as he opted to jump in bed with Zynga! He, of course, expressed great fondness for Zynga, while I wondered what his sith name would be, since he was clearly going the Anakin Skywalker route.
I remembered Spaceship Warlock.
Free to play was still under discussion. An article in Game Developer Magazine included the warning to not assume profitability just because people are going on about revenues. And yet all I hear about are revenues when it comes to free to play.
The people at Stormpowered Studios started in against marriage.
And the blog turned six and felt very clever about it.
Ten Years Ago
I summed up my first year of blogging. I also participated in a meme… back when that wasn’t an picture thing… about the power of four.
Auto Assault was gone, another NCsoft title shut down. I was wondering if Tabula Rasa might follow suit.
I started thinking about what an expansion would look like for Lord of the Rings Online. I was also browsing in Othrikar. But I was more curious as to why the game just wasn’t as much fun as, say, World of Warcraft.
On the Wii it was Mario Party 8 and the Virtual Console.
In EVE Online I finally fixed the sound driver issue that was making the game crash. Hah, I used to run EVE with the sound on!
In other New Eden events, I was flying the Mammoth as a hauler to support mining ops in my Retriever. Jet can mining and training up to Mining Barge V and salvaging. I was also getting lost with the corp and station interface. Another wish list there. At least I found the “warp to 0” options quickly. I still wasn’t quite sure what people meant by “tank” in the game though.
I was still running missions and had advanced to cruisers on that front. And I was losing them as well. I also had to queue to log in because there were 21K people in the game. Traffic control was coming up as well. CCP was working on the issue.
Our summer vacation from Azeroth was over with the return of Earl. We were back to running instances, starting with Zul’Farrak. Of course, then we realized nobody had the mallet, so we had to go get that. I still have it in the bank. I was also out searching for mithril.
SOE announced that their combined Station Launcher would be available for beta soon. I don’t think it ever left beta before it was finally scrapped.
I was reminiscing about the Thundering Steppes in EverQuest II, a zone I was playing in less than three years before. Early onset nostalgia I guess.
There was the loaded question about who counts as “press” in a world where blogs exist. People seem determined to embrace arbitrary rules on that front, something that always leads to suppression of opinions with which they disagree.
And finally there were naked zones and wondering how to make PvP (and PvE) better.
Twenty Years Ago
Ultima Online launched. Raph Koster has some accumulated memories of the game from over the years and a link to a video… and then he wrote some more about the game as it came about, what influenced it and what it influenced.
A little title called Total Annihilation also launched 20 years ago today. With a real three dimensional environment and line of site constraints, it was ahead of its time and remains an underrated title to my mind. Cave Dog, the developer, went bust ages ago and, through the twists and turns of the video game business, Wargaming.net of World of Tanks fame now owns the rights to the title.
Most Viewed Posts in September
- At the Camp in 68FT-6
- From Alola Pokedex to National Pokedex in Pokemon Sun
- The Agency Warzone Extraction Event in EVE Online
- Running some Warzone Extraction Event Sites
- Where the Hell is that EverQuest Successor Already?
- Alpha Strike in New Eden
- Alamo teechs u 2 play DURID!
- The Imperium Buys a Keepstar
- EQ2 Wire to Shut Down after Nine Years
- Top 25 EVE Online Corporations Graph – The End Number
- Missions and Content on Demand
- Quests, Missions, and Return on Investment
Search Terms of the Month
mallet of zul’farrak
[Still in my bank somewhere]
eve learning curve
[It is still a thing]
how to get to scarlet monastery
[Do people still walk there?]
torchlight 2 updates 2017
[That seems unlikely]
do you need to play pvp in mmorpg
[Only in the good ones]
future everquest game
[Maybe some day]
i’m thinking of resubbing to wow 2017
[Me too…]
eve online warzone extraction wtf?
[A question asked by many]
EVE Online
Well, after the CO2 betrayal caper things got sort of quiet. I tinkered with alts and did some of the Warzone Extraction event sites, but there wasn’t a lot to draw me to New Eden after the camp at 68FT-6 drew down.
Guild Wars 2
There is a new expansion and people I know are playing which makes me sort of thing about maybe trying it some more. I patched up at least. My highest level character is 41 and hanging about in Harathi Hinterlands, which has to be the most Azeroth sounding zone in the game. Otherwise, not a lot to report.
Lord of the Rings Online
I managed to get through another month of avoiding Mordor. Seriously, I bought the expansion, have the character boost, but have not stepped foot into that dark land. Then again, I hear it is brutal solo. I did try to carry on with a character I boosted to level 95 previously. However, the first place he was sent out of Rohan was the paths of the dead, which was also pretty tough for somebody still getting back into the swing of the game.
Minecraft
One of the members of our server built some giant monuments in the game, something I have been meaning to do a post about. However my own efforts there have been somewhat desultory. I log in, I work for a bit on the rail line I have going to the north mansion, then I log off. Also, Minecraft Overviewer still hasn’t been updated for Windows, and I miss being able to update my map of the world. The pain of open source and waiting for somebody to step up and do a build for you. (I’d give it a shot if you need a full version of Visual Studio.)
Pokemon Go
No big changes as the game carries on. I still make sure to catch a Pokemon and hit a PokeStop every day. There are rumors of third generation Pokemon showing up some day, but nothing concrete yet.
- Level: 29 (+0, though I am closing in on 30)
- Pokedex status: 189 (+1) caught, 222 (+3) seen
- Pokemon I want: Gyrados, since the new legendaries are nigh on impossible
- Current buddy: Magikarp… only 80km more to get enough candies for a Gyrados
Also, after months of saying she really wanted a Snorlax my wife finally had one hatch. One evening she was reading a game message aloud, “Snorlax has battled hard…” and I was all, “When did you get a Snorlax?” It had come from an egg earlier in the week and she hadn’t even noticed. She just started putting it in gyms as soon as it showed up.
Pokemon Gold & Silver
I picked up a copy of Pokemon Silver from the Nintendo Store and started off on that adventure. We’ll see how Pokemon from 1999 compares with Pokemon from 1996 and 2016.
Coming Up
Well, as I mentioned earlier in the month, there will be no more Raptr tomorrow.
Potshot had been tinkering with Medieval Engineers and, since it was on sale (and had been on my wishlist for a while), so I picked up a copy as well. A post about it seems likely should I be able to engineer anything.
After the decapitation of Circle of Two in EVE Online we seem to be in another consolidation stage in the south end of null sec as former members of the alliance settle in with new groups. Things will likely remain quiet for a bit on that front.
Still, we have the Life Blood expansion to look forward to as well as EVE Vegas, which I will be attending.
We’re likely to get more details about the upcoming EverQuest and EverQuest II expansions.
And, while BlizzCon itself isn’t until the first week of November, speculation as to what Blizzard will be talking about will no doubt be a hot topic in October.
I am sure something else will show up next month, but I can’t think of anything else at the moment.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 