I received the last issue of Dragon Magazine yesterday. I should be happy that they are moving on and going digital, but mostly I feel like someone died. I have been reading it for most of my life. As if to help underline the end of the world, Wizards of the Coast announced the 4th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons yesterday.
: Zubon
What is with having the Clockwork King in a level 50 task force? The Clockwork go away at level 20, when you defeat the Clockwork King at the end of Synapse’s task force. It makes perfect sense for him to come for Penny, but not as a level 50.
The Psychic Clockwork King everyone knows and loves is from another dimension where he realized his full potential. That is not our Clockwork King; he lost. I think someone missed that when writing the task force. Also, if he achieves his full potential, he conquers the world and wipes out the human race. I guess we can look forward to that.
They play with portals a lot in the task force, but that explanation does not work because this is not a trans-dimensional Clockwork King entering via portal. This is our Clockwork King, and he kicks in the door. After having leveled 30 times while no one was looking.
Maybe he paid for powerleveling.
: Zubon
My City of Heroes account expired last week. I have not renewed it yet. I seem to enjoy continuous rock ’em sock ’em action for about ten weeks before needing a break. Alas, more unsubscribed time will lie between me and my decorative pet. This, along with my badge-whoring, is why I have half as many level-capped characters as my guildmates.
Issue 10 failed to bring much new in terms of gameplay. New story arcs are interesting, but they do not play differently from the old ones. The parts that are new are annoying: more enemies with crowd control, rescue hostage pets who attack at random for little damage. The task force has some interesting new thoughts, namely mini-Hami and the Four Horsemen (new in terms of gameplay; every game has some kind of Four Horsemen). Most of the new content can be consumed quickly: do a lap of the revamped zone (where safe), check out the new art, see the new archvillains.
New things yet to do: fight the Vanguard; finish the Vanguard story arcs (or read the mission text somewhere); play more hero-villain cooperative teams; 2 badges for doing that raid 25 times.
I am rediscovering how little fun the Rikti are to fight. I mostly play squishy characters, and the Rikti have plenty of crowd control, particularly the revamped Rikti Magi. Their drones counter stealth, and they have enough psychic and toxic damage to annoy tanks. I was excited to see the game getting back to the original story, but the main benefit of fighting them is that Communications Officers summon Portals for big experience.
: Zubon
I occasionally see the Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword ad with Lincoln on it, but I keep forgetting to save a copy. Can anyone link me? Because I swear they cribbed it from this.
: Zubon
For those of you who have not visited Kingdom of Loathing in a long while, you might want to. The Naughty Sorceress has been moved back to level 13, with new quests for levels 11 and 12. Many things have been revamped and rebalanced. If you have never visited, hey, better-balanced browser-based game for you.
: Zubon
We haven’t had a song in a while. This one speaks for itself, so there will be no extended allegory for gaming.
: Zubon
I have just added The Chronicles of Spellborn to our list of MMOs on the side. (They’re hiring, by the way, if you want to head to The Netherlands.) I have had some interest in the game, especially since reading that they planned to deal with weapons by giving you the stats and letting you pick the weapon appearance you want (i.e. Warrior 20 does 50 DPS; do you want that to be a blue sword, a green spear, a red club, whatever). Or maybe I have that wrong. Rather than display further ignorance (or do any research when I am already running on caffeine tonight), I thought I would punt this one to our readers. Have any of you been following the game and wish to introduce it to the rest of us in the comments? Heck, if the developers have a 1000-2000 word intro that they would like us to post, we can do that.
: Zubon
I think I have something new for you, but Raph has covered similar territory. At the very least you get a new word.
The digger wasp (Genus: sphex) is the unheralded mascot of the grind. When laying eggs, it makes a nest, finds a bug, paralyzes the bug, drags it home, makes sure the nest is okay, drags the bug in, lays eggs on it, and buries the whole thing. When the eggs hatch, the bug will still be there for baby wasps to eat.
The interesting part is that this is all mindless, genetically determined behavior. The sphex has no idea what it is doing. If you were to move the bug while the sphex was double-checking the nest, it would come out, see no bug, and reset its mental programming to go find a bug. Coming upon the paralyzed bug three inches away, it would drag it back to the nest, make sure the nest is okay, and come back out to discover that you have moved its paralyzed bug three inches away again. Reset, go find a bug, hey here’s one! Drag it home, go inside to make sure the next is okay, and come back out to discover…
Wow, you’re a jerk. You just keep moving its objective a few inches away and laughing as it keeps doing the same thing.
Josh the Stampede seems to be winning for “best comment on Legends of Norrath“:
I mean, seriously, an MMO with a full CCG inside of it? That’s like wrapping cocaine in bacon.
Any competitors for the title?
: Zubon
Today, you get a bit of short fiction from Eliezer Yudkowsky. Enjoy.
: Zubon