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Foreign Waters

[World of Warcraft] I finally picked up WoW and will be installing it tomorrow when I get back to LA. I am completely unfamiliar with the game since I learned very little in the three hours I have under my belt (which I have mostly forgotten). I have heard reports of players waiting in long lines just to get on some servers.

Are there any suggestions for which server I should play on?

– Spot

KoL Blogging

[Kingdom of Loathing] Don’t you hate it when you write something and it goes nowhere? My intro to this post became rambling contemplation on the various kinds of blogs, but I decided that it wasn’t all that good, so we’ll skip the foreplay and get to the topic of the post. (Would the world be a better place if, every time someone wrote something sub-par, he hit “delete” instead of “publish”? You could real all the best blogs in an hour or two.)

Shadow’s Light is a player of Kingdom of Loathing, and he was one of the testers for the endgame. Since then, he has been doing Hardcore speed runs, and he is a far better player than I am. He has been blogging since the end of his first run, tracking his daily KoL-ing. It is kind of like Hogit’s Story, in that we are following one specific person through a fictional world.

I have been reading his blog’s history, which provides great insight into what I could be doing better. KoL has rather little in-game to support community, except a clan system that does not seem to do a lot, especially for a Hardcore player. The community exists out-of-game, through forums, a radio show, and some web sites. (Oh, there is chat, but I have always avoided chat rooms so I cannot comment on it.) It is surprisingly robust for a little browser-based game in which the non-solo options involve trading buffs and items. In a world of forced grouping, you face the Kingdom of Loathing alone.

Now to be somewhat less specific to Shadow’s Light, I have realized how some others are getting through Kingdom of Loathing runs so quickly: they have spent a lot of money on the game. Well, not a lot compared to what most of us spend on MMOs, but they have donated $70+ to a nominally free game, in order to get donation rewards. I do not know how many people regularly donate or shop at the Mr. Store, but it is a nice little system that provides incentives to donate. I suppose that some of them did not donate money; they just exploited dupe bugs long long ago and have been trading stacks of in-game cash for others’ donation rewards. Donating $10 every month or two to support a game you enjoy is not a bad thing, and maybe I should have sent more donations (I did so once before I knew there were rewards, once after). It is just surprising to see tips that recommend using, say, 3 Mr. Accessories ($10 each), a Coffee Pixie and/or Cheshire Bat ($20 each), Wax Lips for that pet ($10), maybe a Pygmy Bugbear Shaman ($10) or an Inflatable Dodecapede ($10? $20?). That is a lot to spend on a free game.

: Zubon

Sanctioned Sabbatical

I have been away from my home for over a month now, visiting family down in Texas. Before you ask, don’t! It’s hot and hellish.

Anyway, it has been a month since I have touched an MMO. After playing MMOs almost continuously for several years, a month break was a frightening venture. It has however turned out to be quite refreshing. I have had time to ponder many things in the realm of game design and how the social implications of MMOs bounce and react to real life group behavior. I would suggest it to anyone who has not had a break in some time.

Anyway, I fly back to Los Angeles on Wednesday. I previously tried WoW and it was not my bag really. However, a good friend of mine has been playing and really likes it, so I may pick it up again and play a little with him. I never really gave it much of a chance before so I plan on playing more than three hours this time.

Four at least! :)

-Spot

Down In Flames

I tried to reactivate my Planetside account, but they appear to have lost it somehow. My account only shows Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies now (both cancelled). I cannot create a new account because my CD key was already used (by me). So, no Planetside. The online customer support will only help me if I can give them the credit card number I used when I registered that account. I don’t have that credit card so I can’t tell them. I switched banks you see.

So any way, even though I have the original CDs and the key code, and the Station name I registed the key to, they can’t help me. I think I can remember why I stopped playing Sony Online Entertainment games. They could even look up my account and see it was me, but without the credit card number I originally used, no help. Whatever, I didn’t want to play that badly.

– Ethic

10 Equals 40, Delay 20

[Dungeons & Dragons Online] Can an MMORPG live with just 20 levels, or 20 “moments of advancement”? Ken Troop at Turbine does not think so, and thus 10 will equal 40 and 20 will equal 80.

In other words, each level will be split up into ranks, of which there is four. Level one, rank one. Level one, rank two. And so on and so forth. The levels will still work the same as D&D rules, the rank will give you one enhancement from a pool (CoH anyone?). Well, the rank will give you “action points” which you can use to buy an “enhancement” which is something like a “feat”. I think.

And special bonus, at release DDO will only go up to level 10 instead of 20. So that means it goes to 40, right? Hmm. So 40 is the new 10 and 80 is the new 20 but 10 is still the old 10 and 20 is still the old 20 except 20 does not exist, at least not yet. Does any of this make sense?

Honestly, perhaps it is just me, but I just don’t get Ken Troop.

50 GOTO 10

This just in, former Turbinite, Jason Booth, comments on something that sounds kind of critical about decisions strikingly similar to this one without actually naming any names.

– Ethic

Going Planetside

[Planetside] Yep that’s right. I’m going to reactivate Planetside. I’ve been jonesing for it and with my limited free game time that is not being used by testing MMO’s being so … um, limited, I wanted something I could jump into and out of easily.

Planetside fits the bill at the moment. Anyone out there with a good squad that I can join and subsequently get us all wiped out, let me know.

I was just looking and I see they have a few expansions. I’ll have to read up and see how much they added. Looks like it is only another $9.95 to buy so not a huge deal. Perhaps someone can fill me in on the details and if they are important to have or not.

Nevermind.

– Ethic

Dark Iron

[World of Warcraft] I was going to join the great webcomic PvP battle server over the last few days, but every time I tried to connect to the server they chose (Dark Iron), I had to sit in 20-25 minute queues and didn’t bother to wait. Too many people were doing the same thing I guess.

While they (the webcomics) seem to think the server’s population will drop after summer is over, I don’t think so. August has been a traditional low activity time so I only expect populations to pick up towards winter. Oh well, it sounded like it might have been fun to be a part of something bigger, but this one got too big.

For what it is worth, the webcomics guilds participating in this is Ctrl+Alt+Del, Penny-Arcade and PvP.

I really think it was a great idea, but they turned a brand new PvP server into one of the most overpopulated servers in a few short weeks. I probably would have had some fun.

– Ethic

Yes, I have gone off the deep end.

If you are a practioner of the nerdly arts (I just recent received the rank of Grand Poobah Nerd from my local lodge) then you will appreciate this: Ninja Radio.

The intermingling of anime, J-pop and video game themes is so beautifully cobbled together into a play list that I believe I experienced an autoerotic nerdgasm.

Initial D 4th Stage theme FTW!

ringthree