Apocrypha on-line

The patch doesn't want to download to my computer for some reason. But that's okay, because patching from inside the client pegs my notebook's CPU at a constant 50%, so I grab the Apocrypha patch from the EVE Online website. I actually end up downloading the entire client again, as it is the only link that works for me, but with the patch being roughly the same size it seems like a good idea to have a clean build anyway. A couple of hours later I have the game installed and ready to be run.

The first and most obvious change is the graphics, as it is the first time the Mac client has had access to the premium graphics settings. To be honest, I didn't have a problem with the classic graphic style, probably because mostly what is being rendered are spaceships and space stations and without needing to model life-like characters at all, let alone with any complexity, there is not much that can go wrong. However, there now is a significant difference in how shiny all the ships, stations and stargates appear. Metallic cockpit screens reflect their surroundings, myriad dots of blue light glare their way out of structures and the level of detail makes everything feel bigger. I really want to find time to run a mission to see how combat looks now.

The new animation for jumping between systems is pretty neat, with a bubble 'imploding' your ship rather than having it simply dissolve. I also notice that the transition between warp and sub-warp speeds no longer shakes the screen. Whilst no fan of invasive effects the shaking screen was a useful indicator that the ship was coming out of warp, a notice to pay attention to the surroundings again, perhaps to activate a stargate or prepare for combat. Without the shaking screen I find I either have to pay more attention to my distance from the target or align the camera's view with my ship's direction, which can get a little tiring when having to change the camera orientation after every jump. Looking on the positive side, at least directing the camera to see what is ahead of me shows off the shiny new graphics of the stargates and ships surrounding it.

With Apocrypha comes the skill training queue. I know I can make good use of this. I generally only get an opportunity to log on in the evenings so any skill that takes less than eighteen hours to complete either needs to be carefully managed in several chunks or delayed to a weekend when I can start it late in the evening and have it complete when I am available in the day, which is far from convenient. The skill queue allows for any number of skills to be placed in the queue as long as they all are due to begin training within a day. This means that several skills that would take a few minutes to a few hours to learn can all be lined up to train consecutively without further interaction from the user. Training new skills up to a reasonable level will now be far easier and require much less micro-management, no longer needing to keep track of when to log on to change skills every couple of hours, or having to interrupt combat to keep skill training flowing. With the last skill in the queue able to be of any duration, as it only needs to start within the next twenty four hours, the skill queue won't require daily interaction either.

As for the interface, the skill queue looks to be quite polished already. Right-clicking on a skill can add it to the queue, or skills can be dragged-and-dropped from the character sheet directly in to the queue. The order of skills in the queue can be changed by dragging them around and removed with a couple of clicks. There is a bar at the top of the window showing how long the current cumulative skill training plan will take, clearly showing if you have room to add another skill at the end of the queue, whilst each item in the queue has a small bar underneath it showing when in the next twenty four hour period it will start training, also neatly displaying the available time in the queue. The skills display on the character sheet has been changed so that it always shows the time required to complete training to the next level, rather than only showing it on the context menu for the skill as previously, facilitating quick selection of skills for the queue and offering a better overview of training times at a glance.

Along with the skill queue there is also neural rewiring, allowing a character's attributes to be modified within certain parameters. Having been trained as military special ops, having good perception and willpower, I found myself struggling to keep up with the training for an industrial career, which requires memory and intelligence. I take advantage of the neural rewiring to balance out those four attributes, weakening my mostly unused charisma as a result. I imagine that whatever training time increases the lower charisma burdens me with will be more than made up by the gains made in training the far more prevalent skills requiring all the other attributes. With a year-long wait until I can safely rewire my brain a second time I hope my changes are not too rash.

There is no doubt much more to be explored in the Apocrypha expansion, but I still feel like a newbie floating in space. I can set myself a mid-term target of training in probes to try to find a wormhole or two in the next few months but until then I can be happy pushing myself towards making my millions from the market and working towards the more-profitable Tech II manufacture.

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Tags: eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

For the Alliance!

Even though I am enjoying my Wintergrasp escapades and other occasional PvP battles in World of Warcraft they don't offer any XP, and I am not likely to get from 75th to 80th level on the Dalaran cooking daily quests alone. Being 80th level would make me more effective in PvP, grant me access to the PvP rewards I can already buy, and mean that if I hear someone complain about a 75th level character in the Wintergrasp raid group they probably won't be referring to me. I need to do something other than PvP to gain the last remaining levels so I join the LFG channel, hoping to get my death knight in to The Old Kingdom or Voilet Hold instances, either as tank or DPS.

It is not too long before I get an invitation to a group without warning. The last time I was invited to a group without even an introduction it didn't end well, waiting for half-an-hour before watching the group disintegrate without even getting to the instance entrance, but I give the benefit of the doubt and accept the invitation. I get quizzed about whether I can tank and I say that I can, being frosty and capable, at which point someone mentions that I don't have enough health to be a tank. That person then leaves the group.

I wonder aloud in group chat if there really are still players who don't understand that many characters carry at least two sets of equipment in their bags, ready to change as circumstance dictates. As it happens, I am questing in Dragonblight as I get invited to the group so I am wearing my DPS gear, full of +str and +crit. Within a couple of seconds I can switch to my +sta and +def gear, boosting my health by a few thousand points. The anti-social invitation again looks to be heading nowhere as the leader asks us to find another group member as he goes AFK. But that's okay because I notice a call come up about raiding the Horde cities to assassinate their leaders, so I quit the group with no further explanation and join the raid group instead.

The raid slowly fills up to thirty five members and we all get summoned by friendly warlocks to a mountain in The Barrens, near Orgrimmar. The first target is Thrall, chief of the Orcs. Once everyone is accounted for and ready we ride north, heading for the side entrance to Orgrimmar. We are to ride directly to Thrall's chamber, taking care not to engage the guards or opposition players on the way. Thrall's guards are to be taken care of first, then his advisor, then all focus will fall on Thrall. Being only 75th level my attacks miss the boss-level mobs more often than is efficient but I still apply a good amount of damage to the targets and spend some time picking off the occasional Horde player who thinks he can throw a spanner in the works. It takes some time but Thrall is defeated!

A portal is summoned to whisk everyone back to the safety of Ironforge, but it is a short reprieve as we all catch gryphons up to Chillwind Point. Our second destination is Undercity. Like Orgrimmar there is a second entrance to Undercity, one that is probably even more underutilised, and that is through the sewers, which also leads us wonderfully close to the chamber of Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, Banshee Queen of the Forsaken. Again, we clear the royal chamber of extraneous guards before concentrating on the boss and thwart any attempt by players to intercede. It is only a matter of time before we prevail over Lady Windrunner to claim our second victory of the day.

Returning to the safety of Stormwind is only an intermediate stop, with a fresh portal to Theramore opened quickly. From Theramore we ride through Dustwallow Marsh, cross the Barrens briefly and head north through Mulgore to gather near Thunderbluff, where Cairne Bloodhoof awaits. Or, at least, that's where he should be, but on riding up the rear lift in to Thunder Bluff we find that a second Alliance group has already visited and defeated the leader of the Tauren. With the understanding that this second group has also recently gone to Silvermoon City, and a two-hour respawn time, the raid group disbands until another day.

It is a shame that only two of the four Horde leaders were battled but the two fights were suitably epic and thoroughly satisfying. With any luck I will be able to find a group to continue the conquest of the Horde soon. In the mean time, I can continue questing and trying to get in to instances to get some XP and increase my levels, something still not accomplished with the excellent time raiding Horde cities.

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Tags: death knight, gnomesblight, mmorpg, world of warcraft

Getting ready for Apocrypha

The EVE Online servers should be down now, being upgraded with the Apocrypha expansion. When the universe comes back there will be wormholes leading to unknown space, vastly improved graphics for everyone, skill training queues, Tech III hardware and probably some other changes I've not been paying attention to. With the planned extended down-time I go in to New Eden and prepare myself.

Sadly, my preparations have nothing to do with learning about scanning anomalies, mining even more exotic minerals, or researching Tech III ship building but are quite mundane. It might be possible for a newbie like me to blunder in to w-space for some exploration but I need to keep some modicum of focus in my skill training rather than bouncing like a gnome in a minefield from one aspect of the game to another.

I have only fairly recently shifted in to an industrial rôle, pushing my skill training towards that end, after coming out of a PvP corporation and trying to learn some of those relevant skills. I would still quite like to get involved with PvP at some point, although the technical issues of voice-chat may prevent that still, so it's not like the learnt skills are wasted and as appealing as exploration and wormholes sound I would prefer to get the fundamental skills of industry trained first.

It is not as if there is some rush for me to start finding wormholes, the cosmic anomalies will still be there in a few months' time. Once I have established myself as an industrialist I can perhaps work towards Tech II manufacture and exploration together. It may not be as exciting as all the pioneering capsuleers heading out in to the unknown first, but it will be my personal journey.

So my preparations for Apocrypha are quite plain. I make sure any science and industry jobs that are ready are delivered and I am using all my research slots. I set up a slew of manufacturing jobs, trying a new module or two and starting new runs of the modules that are selling quickly. The production runs require more minerals, so I hunt down the best prices on the market and collect the ore, replenishing my stock. I ensure that I am training a skill that will take me at least a day beyond the planned down-time.

There is one final task that needs to be done, one that I hadn't expected. It seems that I have amassed over ten million skill points, although I apparently wasn't around to hear the fanfare. This leaves my clone somewhat stupider than me, so to mark the occasion I visit a medical station to upgrade my clone with a bigger skull to hold all the brain I've been growing.

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Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Watchmen IMAX

Despite London Transport deciding that both the Underground and Overground lines convenient for me should have their service suspended on the same day I am able to make the journey in to London to see Watchmen at the IMAX, as arranged by Limited Edition. After some reintroductions with people first met at Eurogamer Expo 2008 we enjoy a bracing walk in the freezing rain to a Wagamama's in more-or-less the opposite direction to, well, anything, drying out and warming up with some delicious noodles. After the late lunch we have time to browse around Gosh Comics and Forbidden Planet before the film.

We make it to the IMAX cinema in good time and find our seats. The screen is huge, the largest in Britain, and when the trailer for Star Trek is played I wonder how well I'll be able to follow the feature, as the trailer is full of quick cuts and chaotic action. I need not have worried, as watching Watchmen IMAX is like watching a film at a normal cineman, only bigger and with amazing detail.

I read the Watchmen graphic novel at least a decade ago and again when given the book as a gift for Christmas last year, so I am quite familiar with the material. It is a marvellous and complex story that would be difficult to translate completely to the big screen, so I am not surprised that there are omissions and changes, nor am I upset by them. The sub-plot of the pirate story was never likely to be included, despite its allegory to the times in the alternative 1980s as well as its link to the missing artists, which leads to a major change in the story that I can accept as necessary. The smaller changes that are also noticable probably don't suffer from not being explained as much as offer more depth to the viewer who was read the source material.

The casting is immaculate, every character apparently being genetically created for their rôle. Nite Owl, Rorschach, The Comedian, Dr Manhattan, Silk Spectre and Ozymandias all seem lifted straight from the pages of the book. Not only are the characters given voices but their actions are presented in wonderful sequences that are fluidly choreographed, not relying on a shaky camera to mask cuts or mediocre stunts but revelling in showing the superheroes' abilities.

The only narrative voice is that of Rorschach dictating his diary entries, so I never get the feeling that the graphic novel is being read to me as the panels are being flashed before my eyes, a problem I have had with other adaptations. Instead I am treated to the book being brought vividly alive, people and places becoming whole. With such a dense story, crammed with seamless flashbacks for character development, there is an awful lot to follow and having knowledge of the book must clearly help. But even with the amount of material and long running time the film doesn't seem long, always keeping a good pace and steady flow towards the conclusion.

Having only read the book recently it is difficult to gauge how well the story comes across in film, as I am sure I was filling in little pieces here and there as well as simply marvelling at the level of detail that has clearly gone in to creating the Watchmen world. I may need to see Watchmen again to be more objective, but I left the IMAX cinema positively thrilled by what has been accomplished, amazed at how far superhero films have come. The Watchmen film is a perfect companion to the graphic novel, showing just how capable and real the Watchmen are, hopefully encouraging reading of the the book to discover the greater depth of the whole story.

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Tags: comics, film, imax, watchmen

The Bluetones at ULU

Blue emergency service-style lights start flashing on the stage, The Prodigy's Poison is playing on the PA system and The Bluetones walk out to rapturous applause. If I didn't know any better I'd think it was 1995. But even though there is someone wearing a Suede t-shirt in the audience something's not quite right. Everyone is in their mid-30s and there are a startling number of beards. But it turns out to be okay, because the same is true of the band.

The Bluetones are at the ULU for a special gig, to play their debut album, Expecting to Fly in its entirety. To make it an even more emotional affair the band has a full chorus for the first part of the set, as what sounds like the whole audience sings along with every word to the album, from Talking to Clarry to Time and Again. It is not just the huge hit singles that gets everyone singing and bouncing along, even forgotten favourites like The Fountainhead and Putting Out Fires provoke a huge response. 'Thanks for your enthusiasm', singer Mark Morriss says at one point, with his charmingly disarming grin, 'it's quite whelming'.

Morriss also shares a secret about the band's influences, trying to explain why watching lots of TV means Carn't Be Trusted sounds a bit like the theme to The Sweeney. As if we don't believe him he sings the theme over the introduction to the song and it is uncannily similar. Then comes the signature chord, something the band always hoped to achieve, the D-major that strummed in a certain way is unmistakable as belonging to anyone but The Bluetones as perennial crowd-pleaser Slight Return begins.

Finishing the first part of the set with Time and Again, the final track of the album and set-closer back in the day, The Bluetones take a short interval. They are soon back to play a second half, consisting of more songs from the same era and a few they simply like playing. Marblehead Johnson, Colorado Beetle and Are You Blue, Or Are You Blind? all sound as fresh played today as they did over a decade ago, a reminder of how powerful a force The Bluetones were in the early Britpop scene.

Early in the set Mark Morriss introduces Cut Some Rug as 'another one of our many hits', reflecting on where it all went wrong. As everyone in the venue triumphantly sings along to the infectiously catchy 'na na na's of set finale If... you have to share Mark's wonder. 'The charts got smaller' he opines, and he must be right. The Bluetones continue to craft pure pop hits and even if The Kids aren't listening tonight's gig proves that the band will always have an audience.

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Tags: gig, the bluetones, ulu

Chains of Ice in Warsong Gulch

Chains of Ice is an excellent death knight spell in PvP combat. It is a ranged spell that roots the target and although any damage to the target breaks the rooting Chains of Ice has a secondary slowing effect once broken, preventing rapid escape of the target. In my adventures in Wintergrasp it is the secondary effect of Chains of Ice that has proved useful. The initial root is broken quickly enough, normally by myself, but slowing down an opposing player is an enormous boost in PvP.

Enjoying Wintergrasp so much gives me the PvP itch to enter other battlegrounds too, as Wintergrasp only occurs every few hours unlike the constant queues of battlegrounds. It is in Warsong Gulch where I realise the full potential of Chains of Ice.

My memories of Warsong Gulch take me back several years to my warlock, when I had little to do between raids and the only choice of battlegrounds was queueing for eight hours for Alterac Valley, only to suffer ping death on loading the instance, or being ganked by rogues in the gulch. I chose Warsong Gulch if only because it gave me something to do, even if that something happened to be watching my warlock get stun-locked and then waiting to be rezzed. The Horde were always more organised and competent, steamrolling their way over almost every Alliance PuG. A few visits since those days have relived the experience of massive losses, with some Alliance players still perpetuating the idea of an inevitable Horde victory and pathetically deciding not even to try.

After a chaotic and excellent Wintergrasp battle I am close to an achievement milestone with Gnomesblight, my death knight, so I take her in to a battleground or two to reach it. An attempt to gather resources in Arathi Basin is disastrous, although joining the match at 1,800 points to 900 doesn't help, so afterwards I join the queue for Warsong Gulch as well as Arathi Basin. If I am going to lose I may as well take the opportunity to get the few honour kills I am after.

The Warsong Gulch instance opens first and it is a fresh game. I stay in unholy presence, with the quick GCD and increased running speed, and get ready for the combat. As soon as the gates open everyone rushes out. I mount up and head towards picking up the enemy flag. I am still only 75th level and probably easy fodder for 80th level players wanting to recover the flag, but I still like the idea of capturing it one day. All my previous experience means that I know the battleground like the back of my hand and I know a few sneaky ways around the zone, which gets me in and out of the Horde compound with the unguarded flag. To my delight I even make it back to the Alliance compound with a small entourage protecting me. I tentatively hide and wait for the Alliance flag to be recovered from the Horde before I try to capture the flag I am bearing, but in my excitement of hearing the flag return I drop down in to a party of Horde ready to pick the Alliance flag back up and I am defeated in the ruckus, the Horde flag returned.

I make a couple more attempts at picking up the flag but it is guarded both times. It is during these attempts that Chains of Ice really shows its value. My chances of defeating an 80th level PvP Horde character toe-to-toe are slim but getting away from them is made much easier with a ranged rooting spell that doesn't require the target to be in front of me. The cost of Chains of Ice is only one frost rune, so no runic power needs to be built up first either. Escaping from someone is the perfect use for the spell, as the full rooting effect occurs when you don't damage the opponent and the slowing effect just makes it more difficult for them to catch up. Even if they try, I simply keep them targeted and watch my action bar to see when they come in range, casting the spell again with a newly refreshed frost rune as soon as they are within twenty yards of me. Chains of Ice was made for running with the flag.

The Horde remain powerful and coordinated so I don't manage to return the flag successfully, but the battle for Warsong Gulch is still going well. After all, just getting the Horde flag back to base is a positive effort and recovering our own flag is an achievement in itself. Our efforts are concentrated in the right areas and we are able to repel the opposition, with some measure of competence. I may not be able to capture the flag personally but our combined force lets the Alliance team capture the flag twice without losing our own. For once in a long while the Alliance are putting up a decent fight in Warsong Gulch and I am thrilled to be contributing. I even get the achivement I was after, 1,000 honourable kills.

With the score at two-nil I once again head to the Horde compound and find the flag unguarded. I pick it up quickly and head out a side-route that takes me away from the ghostly eyes of the Horde graveyard and run as obscured as I can back to the Alliance compound, again with a couple of players in tow to deflect Horde attention. I manage to avoid the bulk of the Horde forces and my entourage performs wonderfully in protecting me from the few Horde that try to stop me, and I find myself running smartly up the tunnel to the Alliance flag room. A call comes up that a lone Horde is after the Alliance flag and as I get in to the room he has just picked it up.

There are a couple more Alliance in the flag room and they quickly try to recover our flag. I join in with the fight but am careful to keep my distance, not wanting to drop the flag needlessly, instead working from range and using Chains of Ice to slow the Horde player's escape. When it looks like the situation is under control I take position on the flag base, waiting for the Alliance flag to be returned. A few seconds later I get the final flag capture of that battleground and earn three simultaneous achivements! It was a tremendously exciting battle.

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Tags: death knight, gnomesblight, mmorpg, pvp, warsong gulch, world of warcraft

Weapon skill and PvP

My death knight has been heading in to Wintergrasp a often as she can recently, enjoying the open PvP zone with vehicles and buildings and the accompanying chaotic combats, whilst being able to return to the comfort of PvE at the end. Despite only 75th level and being up against predominantly 80th level opponents I still feel like I can contribute, although wanting to be on equal footing is a splendid motivation to reach the level cap.

Essentially a world zone Wintergrasp hosts node spawns for gathered materials and being an 80th level zone it is there I find my first titanium vein, which I harvest with a bit too much glee. I also manage to get some crystallised fire from the vein, which is just what I need to put my blacksmith skills to use to make a new two-handed axe for myself. The only problem now is that I haven't wielded a two-handed axe before, only swords and maces, so my weapon skill is lingering at 270 where my current skills are over 100 points higher.

I know that I cannot go to a target dummy in a city to improve my weapon skills so rather than being entirely ineffective in Wintergrasp I switch back to my sword. However, spending most of my time getting Sapphire's drake means that I don't get any opportunity to practice with my axe in-between Wintergrasp escapades so I decide to wield the axe anyway and do what damage I can.

It is a little surprising to come out of the massed combat and see that my weapon skill has not improved a single point, as I am sure I hit quite a few Horde during the battles. The conclusion I reach is that PvP, like a target dummy, does not increase weapon skills. A guild member confirms this, also adding duels to the list of combat activities that do not increase a character's weapon skill.

I can understand why these choices have been made, from the point-of-view of the game mechanics. It would be easy to stand next to a target dummy, or get a friendly player from the opposite faction, and go AFK with auto-attack engaged to level up a new weapon skill. This would bypass the mechanics of gaining weapon skill actively through combat and negate its purpose. However, it seems to me that by preventing weapon skill gains through such methods Blizzard is not so much solving the problem as completely missing the point. If players would rather walk away from the computer for half-an-hour whilst their character mindlessly pounds another inanimate object solely to improve their weapon skill then there is clearly a problem with that skill in the first place.

The problem is that weapon skill doesn't actually have a necessary function. There are game mechanics, certainly, but as soon as any player reaches the level cap—and World of Warcraft seems more centred around the level cap than ever before—the player's weapon skill also reaches its cap and the mechanic becomes meaningless, it cannot improve nor can it deteriorate. There is nothing that weapon skill accomplishes apart from wasting the time of a character whenever they equip a different weapon.

Weapon skill is not like other skills. No one trains a profession, like blacksmithing or jewelcrafting, just to get it to its maximum level, there are gains to be made once that level has been reached, uses to put your high-level skill towards. Even secondary professions, including fishing, have tangible benefits for improving your skill. But the only 'benefit' of improving your weapon skill is that you can be functional. Weapon skill gives drawbacks if you lack it, but offers no actual benefits if you don't. It is time to scrap this pointless time sink and assume that all characters can use any weapon they are trained in equally well.

Posted in Gaming | 4 Comments »
Tags: gnomesblight, mmorpg, weapon skill, wintergrasp, world of warcraft

I'm gonna need a bigger boat

My plan to stockpile minerals looks to be working at the moment. I have bought a fair quantity of most minerals at good prices and getting them back to my industrial base lets me run several production lines without running out of materiel. Of course, I will need to keep on buying more minerals to keep my stocks replenished but it is little trouble to scan the market every so often. I may even be able to buy minerals from my corporation's miners, which is probably a good source to consider. What is quickly becoming trouble is collecting the minerals. I can spend a couple of hours collecting the minerals I buy, because even though I am keeping my focus within a moderate number of jumps I have to make several trips.

I may be missing something about ship options. Early on, I bought myself a Badger to make it easier to haul a small amount of freight around. The Badger is cheap to buy, quick to train to fly and suited my needs. However, it wasn't long before I could have easily used a ship with a bigger cargo hold to transport loot and other items back and forth between systems. Now that I am manufacturing and selling my own goods my need for cargo space is more pressing and even the increased capacity of a Badger Mark II isn't enough, with it filling up quickly with bought minerals. I have been looking for something bigger to reduce the number of trips I need to make and therefore improve my time efficiency.

I suspect that in order to pilot a bigger industrial ship or freighter I would need to advance a skill or learn a new one and be prepared to pay perhaps an order of magnitude more than the Badger. I poke around the market looking for something suitable, but I can't find anything. There are the standard industrial ships, with capacities of around 5,000 m³, and then there are the freighters, with capacities in the order of 750,000 m³. That's quite a gap between the two, which is also reflected in the cost of the ships. I don't quite have a billion ISK lying around at the moment. There are some ships with moderately sized capacities, but these are capital ships—carriers and the like—with highly specialised roles that require months of training and would be woefully underused as mere transport vessels.

I can't afford the ISK cost of the freighters nor the training cost of the alternatives, leaving me wondering where the mid-sized hauler is that sits comfortably between a standard industrial ship and a freighter. Surely there must be a market for such a ship, so I hope I am missing something.

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Tags: badger, eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Holiday events make for poor achievements, and a couple of neat quests

I've been rather scathing of World of Warcraft's Northrend content recently, although it was partly owing to trudging through the quagmire of achievement-orientated and otherwise-pointless holiday events. Just as Winter Veil ends the Lunar Festival turns up, swiftly followed by Valentine's weekend. With so many holidays I need a, well, hmm, let's call it a break.

The achievement system is an interesting addition to the game, most of the time motivating players to complete tasks that enrich the gaming experience, and holiday events are an amusing distraction to complement other activities. But combining the two puts too much emphasis on the holiday events, giving the illusion of accomplishment and progress instead of the random chance against a deadline that they are. Dark Legacy Comics once again manages to capture the absurd side of World of Warcraft, which it does so well, in showing how holiday events and achievements make for meaningless encounters.

Moving out of the abundance of holiday events I was rightfully encouraged to persevere through the Northrend doldrums and pointed towards an interesting goal by Melmoth. My quests with the Wyrmrest Accord send me out to the four corners of Dragonblight and my excitement for discovering the world is reinvigorated. It is not only the different landscapes and creatures I encounter that thrills me but the quests, and a couple in particular are worthy of mention.

My wanderings through Dragonblight for the Wyrmrest Accord let me stumble on a small group of humans unrelated to the faction. I apparently picked up a quest a little while back to find them so I take a bit of time to see what they would like me to do. One of the quests is to find and eliminate the leader of some kobolds. The leader can be found, I am told, by flushing out the kobolds in a valley and chase them until they reach the leader. I mount up and ride to the valley, at which point a couple of kobolds are spotted and they start running away from me. Rather than try to fight them I remember the instructions and give chase, whereupon more kobolds appear from twists and turns and soon I am chasing a dozen or so of them, right to the point where I come face to face with their leader.

This is such a simple idea but the execution is brilliant! The leader is a simple mob wandering the valley but the kobolds are all specially scripted for the quest. Even though the player is essentially passive in the chase the way the kobolds appear and flee directly away from the PC gives it an interactive feel. And, of course, once the leader is engaged the running kobolds are forgotten about and can despawn out of sight. The clever bit is that the player doesn't need to find the quest mob, he is led to it.

It isn't nifty scripting that impresses me about the other notable quest, but the thought that went in to it. In a grove to the south of Dragonblight I meet up with a druid who despairs at the corruption of the once-beautiful birds in the area. Typically, my heroic quest is to slaughter a number of these birds to bring balance to nature again. Having a druid ask me to kill wildlife has long ago stopped amazing me, but the nifty aspect is what happens to the birds once killed: they reincarnate. Some of the birds return as similar birds cleansed of corruption and some come back as spirits. But it was when a bird I had just killed returned to life as a bunny rabbit hopping around that I sat back from my keyboard and simply enjoyed the virtual world for a minute.

World of Warcraft still has some secrets to share with me, it seems.

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Tags: achievements, gnomesblight, mmorpg, northrend, world of warcraft

Keeping busy

My desire to get a flying dragon, a different kind of Drake that I'll call a Tech II mount for this post, means I haven't been in New Eden terribly much recently, but that's not to say I haven't kept myself busy. I have a few more BPOs to play around with, as another of my ME research jobs finished and two that a coproration colleague generously queued for me in the POS completed. I have also been given some access to the laboratories in the POS and I install a cruise missile BPO for ME research, which should be ready soon.

I start buying a stockpile of minerals, so that I hopefully don't have to worry too much about picking up raw materials every time I want to start a production run. Apart from the initial set-up cost the drawback is that if the price of a mineral drops after I have bought a significant amount my profits could suffer. Luckily, there is the option to view the trends of costs for each item on the market. Before I buy anything I see whether the price is on the increase or decrease. If the price is rising I buy as much as I can at the lowest price I can find; if the price is dropping I only buy more-or-less what I need for my current jobs. Hopefully this will let me take advantage of good market prices and build up a stockpile of useful minerals with less risk of sitting on rapidly devaluing goods.

Of course, once I have the minerals I need to do something with them, which means setting up production runs. I now have more than a handful of BPOs from which to produce modules and ammunition, which is unsurprisingly more complicated to manage than the two I had before. I may need to create a table to show what modules need which minerals and the quantities involved before I can confidently buy a big enough spread of minerals to cover production for everything. Until then, I will limit myself to a couple of production jobs at a time, if only so that I can keep track of everything.

My previous production runs have completed and I am able to pick them up. I have more Scourge missiles and expanded cargoholds as well as some Hornet drones come off the production line ready for the market. The station where I previously sold my goods was still doing brisk trade, although all the Scourge missiles someone bought and relisted are being viciously undercut every day, but I notice that another station with a level three agent strangely bereft of these necessary items. I list my goods at this station, at a higher price than I would have risked otherwise, trading on the convenience of not needing to travel to get the goods.

I still need to pick up the minerals I recently bought and install new manufacturing jobs, to keep my production lines running. I will keep an eye on the market prices of minerals and keep myself supplied for continuing production, as well as monitor how well my current run of modules sells. I have perhaps got enough BPOs for the moment so maybe I can cut down on the ME research jobs, although with some help it looks like I might be able to start planning a more lucrative enterprise in producing a Tech II module or two. There is certainly enough going on to keep me entertained, with huge amounts of potential to be tapped.

Posted in Gaming | Comments Off on Keeping busy
Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic