Month: March 2005

Turbine News

[Middle-Earth Online] Turbine has announced that it

…has finalized a deal with Tolkien Enterprises and Vivendi Universal Games (VU Games) that grants Turbine the exclusive right to develop and publish massively multiplayer online worlds based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit literary works.

It is interesting to me that they have the rights to The Hobbit as well. While they claim to not have any plans to incorporate it into the current MMO under development, they did mention that they had a reason for buying the rights.

I also see they have pushed back the release of MEO to 2006. I think that is a wise move. Hopefully they can take their time to get this one right. I could very easily see it being a big failure.

In a recent Computer Games interview, a bold prediction was made by Turbine’s Vijay Lakshman; “I will go on the record as saying that Middle Earth Online will be one of the best MMOs ever made.”

Consider it noted.

Enter The Matrix?

[The Matrix Online]

Thank you for playing and participating in The Matrix Online Beta Test. We appreciate all of your efforts and cannot wait to see you online when the game goes live!

This email is being sent to you to let you know that you can activate your The Matrix Online Beta Game Account to use it as your The Matrix Online Live Game Account.

Well it seems I don’t have to buy a box unless I’m reading this wrong. Even if that was true, as a Matrix fan and former beta tester, it’s still not enough to get me to play.

Patching Blues … Or Not?

[World of Warcraft] It’s patching time which has been a rough situation for Blizzard and I in the past. It has been possibly the biggest gripe I have with them. Thankfully, they don’t patch very often so I don’t deal with it much. (Boy isn’t that sad.)

I logged in and found myself stuck on “Authentication”. Same thing three more times. Fourth try is a charm and I connect to start the patching process.

60.52 MB patch
Start time – 8:18 PM
Finish time – 8:30 PM
Download rate: ~80 KB/s
Upload rate: ~40 KB/s

Hey, not too shabby!

Update: I patched my second machine on March 24 during the day and was downloading the patch at ~500 KB/s. Nice!

Land Carp

My brother was over a few days ago and I was showing him some of the Everquest 2 free trial. I wandered out into a lake and attacked a fish, which caused a whole school to attack me. Retreating to the safety of land, I turned to see the school of fish following me. I ran through the gate into the courtyard, fish are still behind me. Finally a crowd gathers and we kill them all off.

We are laughing our heads off at the stupidity of this. I had to try it again to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.

Fish that fight on land, oh yeah nice work there.

Escape Plans

[World of Warcraft] Playing a rogue you would think I would be used to using the various tools of escape available to me. I think all my years of playing a tank has left me with a “fight to the death” mentality. I’m not used to running away.

Last night I was doing a quest that involved killing two farmers near Tarren Mill. I found and eliminated one of them right away, but the other farmer was in the middle of an orchard and surrounded by three or more farmhands.

I tried to pull him and kill him before I died to the swarm of farmers. I almost had him and then he ran off. I took chase and got killed by the group. On my second try, I remembered this new “vanish” skill I had. It allowed me to enter stealth mode during a battle.

Pulled again, three more followed and started pounding on me so I vanished and they all turned and went back to farming. Sweet. I tried another spot to pull, same situation. Vanish, how I love thee.

I found an angle that I thought would only bring the farmer and perhaps one other. I shot an arrow and luck was on my side as only Farmer Getz came after me. Slice, dice, goodbye Getz. Quest completed.

Headed back to Tarren Mill and noted that, yes, the Alliance level 60 goon squad was attacking the level 50 guards again. I really have to wonder at the motivations for them. That looks boring to me, but whatever floats their boat I guess.

I still have about 10 badges to pickpocket from the Durnholde dudes so I’ll head back there next time. Should have no problem hitting level 26 on my next session.

Aggro Magnet

[World of Warcraft] Last night, instead of working on the Ravenholdt Manor quest I decided to stick around Tarren Mill and do some of the quests available there. Two of them were to collect parts dropped off creatures nearby; bear tongues, spider ichor and mountain lion blood.

The Alliance had a large group of level 60’s running around picking on the level 50 guards so it made for some crowded landscapes at times. Are they having fun or are they bored?

During my hunt, I spotted some level 40 Griffons or something like that across a field. For some reason, they came all the way across the field to kill me. I was not anywhere close to them. Since they would probably kill me again, I chose to use the Spirit Healer for the first time.

After paying for repairs on my equipment, I went hunting again. I started fighting a bear and was having a real tough time. Little did I realize that I had a 10 minute penalty on me from using the Spirit Healer. I almost had the bear killed when a spider ran from across the field to finish me off. Two deaths in five minutes, new record for me. I swear I was an aggro magnet last night.

After sitting out the rest of the penalty, I finished up the two quests and hit level 25. That’s three levels in the past four days of gaming (and one was only for 30 minutes). Not bad at all.