Ethic

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Dungeons & Dragon

DDO [Dungeons & Dragons Online] Turbine has just announced that they will be adding a dragon to the game in April, thus making the name of the game almost true. They will need to add one more dragon unless they plan to change the name to what I called it up above.

I’m giving thoughts to buying this now, as I may have a few friends interested in a regular gaming night just for this. Scary to think of it, because I pretty much swore off Turbine not that long ago.

Anyway, it’s a free add-on to the game – which they are claiming is the “fastest growing MMOG in North America”. Um, right. Whatever.

– Ethic

World of Warcraft: The Text Adventure

wow [World of Warcraft] Disclaimer: I did not write this.

You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. There is an elf with an exclamation point above her head here.

>Talk elf

“Alas,” she says. “There is a great darkness upon the land. Fifty years ago the Dwarf Lord Al’ham’bra came upon the Dragon Locket in the Miremuck Caverns. He immediately recognized the …”

> Click Accept

“Hey,” the elf protests. “This is important expository. Azeroth is a rich and storied land, with a tapestry of interwoven …”

> Click Accept

“OK, fine. Bring me six kobold tails.”

Read the rest at WIRED.

Making Some ISK

[EVE Online] I was hanging out in one of our stations in Alliance space when someone asked for help hauling some scrap parts and modules over to another station we have in order to be refined down to minerals. I answered the call and loaded up my industrial-class ship with about 10,000 cubic meters of junk. Away we went.

On the way, the corpmate flying with me asked if I wanted to follow them around afterwards while they blew up some Sansha’s Nation ships in the nearby ‘roid fields. My job would be to collect anything left after the explosions so we could refine it (or sell it in Empire space if it’s valuable).

Continue reading Making Some ISK

Bust the Cap

DDO [Dungeons & Dragons Online] D&D Online is open for the pre-order players, and it should be on the store shelves shortly. In honor of this fact, go find out what D&D player you are here. I’m a Chaotic Good Half-Elf Bard. Yeah, right.

In other news, people are already hitting the level cap (which is 10) before the game is officially available to the general public. Ouch.

Reached level 10!, (now what else is there to do???)

Ciryadin Aklabeth
Sanctum Infinitas Guild Leader
Bored Level 10 Rogue

UPDATE: More level 10’s showing up, some with screenshots to prove it.

– Ethic

The Power of 2

[EVE Online] I pretty much decided to turn my current EVE character into a full-time production and refining guru, so I started thinking about starting another character with a combat focus. Problem is, if I start the 2nd character on the same account, I cannot train them both at the same time. But to purchase a second account? Me? Never.

Enter the EVE Dev Blog. They are bringing back “The Power of 2” promotion at the perfect time for this decision. Basically, I can buy a second account for $49.95. Seems like a lot of money, right? Actually, the account comes with 6 months of game time which amounts to $8.33 per month. I guess we have a deal on my hands, and I’ll have two accounts by the end of the week. Perfect time to try out the new bloodlines.

I imagine that this will increase the number of active accounts by a few thousand. Or even more, who knows?

– Ethic

Data Mining

[EVE Online] The latest EVE devblog has some interesting information about the skillpoint totals of the currently active players. I will share this information below.

Here is the breakdown of skillpoints of active characters on Tranquility:

between 0 and 1 million skillpoints: 358353
between 1 and 2 million skillpoints: 14035
between 2 and 3 million skillpoints: 8149
between 3 and 4 million skillpoints: 5826
between 4 and 5 million skillpoints: 4696
between 5 and 10 million skillpoints: 14859 (avg 2972)
between 10 and 15 million skillpoints: 9875 (avg 1975)
between 15 and 20 million skillpoints: 7861 (avg 1572)
between 20 and 25 million skillpoints: 6194 (avg 1239)
between 25 and 30 million skillpoints: 4373 (avg 875)
between 30 and 35 million skillpoints: 2568 (avg 514)
between 35 and 40 million skillpoints: 1313 (avg 263)
between 40 and 45 million skillpoints: 257 (avg 51)
between 45 and 50 million skillpoints: 4 (avg 0.8)
between 50 and 55 million skillpoints: 7 (avg 1.4)
between 55 and 60 million skillpoints: 1 (avg 0.2)

They also mention that the average EVE player sticks around for 7 months. As reference, I’m just over 6 million skillpoints and I started playing in May 2005.

– Ethic

Tough But Not Too Tough

[EVE Online] Not that long ago I posted about CCP getting tough on people that trade in-game currency for real money.

I was happy to see them turning the screws, with them going so far as writing: “This issue is not up for discussion. Buying your way ahead in EVE is cheating, pure and simple.” Sounds great, right?

Well I have recently become aware that CCP sells Game Time Cards. Basically, these are codes that you can use to pay for your account, a pre-paid credit as you will. Here comes the fun part.

CCP specifically ALLOWS people to resell these cards for in-game ISK. They even allow it on their very own forums. So it’s against the rules to buy ISK with real money, but if you just buy one of these cards with real money you can in turn sell the card for ISK. Why is this OK? The end result of this allowed ISK purchasing scheme is the same. People are buying their way ahead.

Sounds lame to me.

– Ethic

Lost

[EVE Online] I’m going through one of those times in EVE where not being guided by the game leaves me lost. I’ve got some things I want to do out in 0.0 space but I don’t have the money to do it. Every thing that I do in 0.0 is not earning me any money. Therefore I am running out.

I just end up sitting in a station looking at my skills and chatting with corp members. Last night I logged in too late to join a group of people doing a patrol. I just sat there and listened to the action over the voice comm. I bought a skill and trained it to level 1 during this process. That took 40 minutes. Yawn.

Continue reading Lost

EQ2 and Fileplanet, Sitting in a Tree…

eq2 [Everquest 2] … K I S S I N G!

Anyway, as much as I don’t care for fileplanet, I worked my “Hey bro can I borrow your FP login?” magic and got myself a free EQ2 trial key. Just need to download it tonight (wonder if I can just add the key to my current Trial of the Isle account). So I guess I’ll be hitting the “real” EQ2 a little sooner than I had expected, and just when EVE Online really has me hooked.

If you want to try EQ2 for free too, it’s here.

17 hour download? Hmm. Not so interested any more…

UPDATE: I tried it again, and it only took 2 hours to download. Wonder what changed.

– Ethic

Research & Development

[EVE Online] The R&D agent I have been using for the last month or two was cranking out a massive 4 research points per day. The research points (RP) are like tickets to a lottery. If you win, you get a nice BPO which can often make you rich. I think I was up to around 200 points counting the few missions I ran for her.

I found another R&D agent closer to my latest mission area and he has a better rating towards me. I had to buy a new skill (4 million ISK!) to get him as my new R&D agent, but he is now giving me 36 RP per day. I had no idea how badly the other agent was screwing me over. Perhaps 36 per day isn’t that great either, but it certainly beats 4.

If I win the lottery through this guy, I may have to start up a savings and loan. I’d be loaded.

Regardless, with the next-gen R&D changes coming up in KALI, I don’t have any idea if this will even matter by then.

P.S. send ISK, I’m running out! Heh.

– Ethic