Grinding Netherwing faction in Wrath of the Lich King

Getting a Netherwing drake is quite a bit easier now that Northrend has appeared. It's a good job, too, because when I migrated to a new server I wasn't sure if I had the constitution to replace the two I left behind on beloved characters. The promise of an impressive mount combined with the nostalgia of the quests and temporary loss of motivation for exploring Northrend to send me back to Netherwing Ledge.

I was expecting a few weeks of daily grinding and although I don't mind the gaming grind too much there was still a lot of sustained effort facing me. What I hadn't realised at the time was how much less of a grind the daily quests have become. The fel glands and Netherwing Relics both drop with a 100% rate for their respective quests; the ravager spawns in have been much improved, so there is no longer fierce competition for the scarce few that roam the mines; and the Netherwing crystals no longer can be considered a drop but a torrent, easily being able to turn in thirty a day as a by-product of completing other quests.

There are other factors that make gaining a Netherwing drake easier now. Even though I am not 80th level, being several levels above the Netherwing content and equipped with Northrend gear makes the quests much easier to compete. Helping the Aldor defeat the Dragonmaw Skyraiders can now be completed solo without trouble, gaining an additional 500 reputation each day without having to seek assistance. With far fewer people looking to get a Netherwing drake these days, with rarer, more prestigious mounts occupying players' time, it would be difficult to find help anyway, but this also means there is little competition for mob spawns or quest items.

Then there are the eggs. These randomly spawning and occasionally dropped items grant 250 reputation each and have no daily restrictions on being delivered. It was quite the lucky occasion to find one before, each Netherwing egg being an attention grabber, but this time around I found at least two eggs a day. Admittedly, the time zones probably helped with my luck but the number of eggs I chanced upon was still incredible.

With the cost and now rarity of the materials needed to construct the soul cannon of Reth'hedron I ignore that quest, particularly as it does not lead to a repeatable daily quest. I even almost entirely ignore the flying races, as trying to judge the position of and avoid moving objects in three-dimensional space without the benefit of depth perception or other visual cues is an exercise in frustration. But being able to complete all the daily quests is more than enough to push my reputation up quickly, with found Netherwing eggs giving me helpful little boosts towards my goal, which is looking closer all the time.

I reach a point where I estimate I will have reached exalted status and have my Netherwing drake within four days. This works out quite well for my schedule, although with the weekend upon me I am tempted to use a bit of extra time to attempt the early flying races again. I managed to complete all but two of them before I should be able to boost my reputation a little this time too. I quickly get the first two races under my belt and an extra 700 reputation and it looks promising that a third race and bit of luck the next day will see my warrior earn her Netherwing drake even sooner than expected.

Before I think about the next races I want to complete all the daily quests, so I can see if it is feasible to reach exalted reputation with a race or two or whether I may as well wait for the next day's daily quests. I fly around the Ledge with a booterang and run inside the mines picking up crystals and slaying flayers and ravagers, but this time I can't help but stumble over egg after egg. My calculations for reaching exalted on this day assumed I would be lucky enough to find only another two eggs and I end up with eight. That is a huge 2,000 reputation gain that I cash in quickly, whereupon I find that not only do I not need to fly any more races but I do not even need to complete all the daily quests to reach my goal.

Two more quests later and I share my reputation ding with a fellow guild member, also on the path to a Netherwing drake. Illidan Stormrage appears, unmasks me as not being an orc really, and I get saved and whisked away to Shattrath where I am rewarded with a deferential drake of my own.

I pick the green dragon, making my choice quickly before the beast of procrastination rears its ugly head, and then I am away at a swift 280% movement speed, flying loops and figures of eight. It's wonderful to be riding a drake once more. I suppose I had now better get back to Northrend and save up for training in cold weather flying. At least the continual questing has been earning me XP, not only pushing me to 75th level but three-quarters of the way to 76th level by the end.

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Tags: mmorpg, outlands, sapphire, world of warcraft

Richard Herring: The Headmaster's Son

Not only was Richard Herring cursed by being born with freakishly small hands his father was headmaster of the school he attended during his formative years. In his latest show Herring ponders on this early life and how being the son of the headmaster may have affected his development in eschewing a standard career and becoming a comedian, all the while his tiny hands struggle to maintain a grip on the microphone.

The light-hearted look back on his teenage years includes Jesus being awesome, philosophical insights that rival the greatest thinkers and enough wanking jokes to please any audience, all striving towards Herring trying to blame an unhappy childhood for his current situation.

Richard Herring has a wonderful delivery, presenting a positively cheery and friendly disposition even during his faux-angry arguments with the audience, making it impossible not to become enthralled by the performance. As is to be expected from a veteran comedian, Herring weaves threads of individual jokes in to a rich tapestry that comes together to create a show that is more than the sum of its parts, making it look easy in a way that only someone gifted and hard-working can achieve.

The Headmaster's Son is a wonderful and often surprisingly poignant look back at Richard Herring's teenage years, the comedian letting us share his experiences and private moments amongst a barrage of jokes and bizarre scenarios that keeps the audience laughing for the whole seventy minutes.

Posted in Audio | 1 Comment »
Tags: comedy, gig

Being productive

There is an awful lot happening for me at the moment in EVE Online. My first batch of ME research is coming to fruition, which has plenty of consequences. The direct consequences are that it frees up my limited number of research slots, allowing me to install more BPOs for ME research, and it lets me get my hands on the researched BPOs so that I can manufacture more types of modules.

Then there are the indirect consquences, the results of having plenty of options. With some slots free I need to decide what BPOs to install for ME research. I have a few sitting in my depot, having bought them a few weeks back, but I also get new ideas about what modules might be profitable to make and for what markets. For example, I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to sell both warp stabilisers and warp disruptors close to low-sec space—or even in low-sec when I get my blockade runner. With occasional musing like this my small stack of blueprints grows slightly every now and again.

My new corporation is taking good care of me in this respect. A colleague generously offered up her unused research slots for my benefit, also making use of the corporation's POS for quick turn-around times, which I could hardly refuse. I'll soon have a bundle of researched BPOs to play with in manufacturing facilities.

Manufacturing from the BPOs presents its own new consequences. When only making a few (hundred thousand) missiles here and there buying the minerals and getting them to the production plant was relatively straightforward. Now that I have a few items to make, soon to be more, my mineral needs become more extensive, both in quantities and type of mineral needed, which could end up with my buying minerals from many different stations in a couple of regions. Rather than making purchases essentially limited to the current production run I am beginning to think I should start monitoring the market for fluctuations more regularly and stockpile minerals that I need. I could keep sufficient manufacturing quantities at my manufacturing base and dip in to the market when there are bargains, making occasional trips to round up the minerals.

Stockpiling minerals would certainly be more convenient and save a considerable amount of time in most cases, making a few trips in one session to collect minerals instead of every time I want to start a production run, but it will require an initial investment in materials and that requires chunks of ISK. Whilst my wallet is healthy at the moment I cannot afford to stockpile minerals and train for and buy a Crane transport ship. I like to think my industrial endeavours will end up making me rich but for the moment I can make some quick ISK running missions for the rewards and bounties, as well as the loot and salvage. I will also be increasing my reputation so that I can install a jump clone at some point, which may come in useful.

I am getting researched BPOs delivered, buying more BPOs, buying plentiful stocks of minerals, installing production runs, setting up and monitoring sell orders, keeping track of skill training, and running missions for profit and reputation. It is all rather too much to do at once. This is good, as it means that whenever I come to New Eden I have options.

In the past I would simply run missions, now I can choose to run a mission, or check the market for gaps to fill or bargain minerals to snap up, start a new production run, or look at options for new BPOs. When I had just a couple of BPOs taking up my industry time there was a sense of urgency in making sure they were best utilised, much like ensuring a skill was training at all times, but with a few more I have enough jobs running in parallel that I always feel like I am making progress. Rather than push myself to get everything done at once I can instead look forward to every session in New Eden safe in the knowledge that I can be productive.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Square wave generator

It's another meme! Melmoth randomly generates his band's album cover, following the advice of Greenspeak, and is keen to see other examples. I am not one to refuse such a polite request, even if I almost completely lack any image manipulation skills.

I like the results, I have to say, even if I've opted for an oval CD.

Get it on iTunes Music Store soon, because the digital copies will run out fast.

Posted in Personal | 1 Comment »
Tags: meme

Trying to corner the market

A capsuleer bought almost my entire stock of missiles that I had placed on the market, spending several million ISK to do so. Shortly afterwards, a huge cache of the same missiles was placed on the market in the same station but with a significant price increase.

I could kick myself for not listing the goods at that higher price to start with and raking in the profit, but it is just fine with me. I had already found the price in that station was a local maximum that allowed me to mark up my price 10% above the competition even a single jump away, which was on top of the profit I was going to make over the production costs anyway. That this capsuleer bought all my missiles simply means I sold everything for a good profit.

Best of luck to this entrepreneur, hoping to sell his new stock at a further 10% above the market value—and a fair few have sold already—but inflating the market is a risky endeavour as he is also making the goods a more lucrative prospect. Another industrialist can come along and undercut that inflated price to make his stock essentially worthless whilst still making a decent profit, another industrialist like me.

I have some more missiles coming off the production line soon and it looks like I will be quick enough to take advantage of the high prices, netting me a good profit. Either the entrepreneur will buy the missiles to increase the value of his stock or capsuleers will buy the cheaper goods. The same result follows, my stock sells.

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Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

And nothing of value was lost

My guild was hoping to get another instance run going at the weekend, at about the same time as my death knight was running around for the Wyrmrest Accord and gaining 75th level. With four players on-line with characters 75th or above we start planning, everyone keen to try a new Northrend instance. Azjol'Nerub is the obvious choice, after previous guild runs through The Nexus and Utgarde Keep, with the added benefit of experience from both my death knight and warrior having been there already, so all we need is another player and we are ready to go.

Needing one more player is all the encouragement it takes to get our resident hunter on-line, but just as it looks like we can form a group and head to Stars' Rest another guild member pops on-line. Being 60th level he is keen to finish the quests in the Scholomance he's been working hard on and with some alts dotted around, particularly one who seems determined to complete every quest in the game, interest is split between Azjol'Nerub and an Azeroth instance. This interest is not shared by many, including myself. Whilst there is a certain charm to be found in visiting the old instances I feel it needs to be done under your own terms. Healer and tank or DPS duos provide some stimulation, but whilst an overpowered group swatting every elite mob aside like gnats has some appeal I find it more a casual distraction than an evening's worth of fun.

The discussion on where to go is only causing frustration, with no one wanting to tell the others what we all are going to do. Something needs to be done, so I invite in to a group all the players who had previously agreed to venture in to Azjol'Nerub. This run was decided first and was ready to go, after all. With that effectively decided and a few directions to the instance given we are soon inside and kicking some Nerubian chitin. The run goes pretty smoothly, thanks to my excellent advice to 'avoid anything suspicious' when dealing with the bosses, although I had to add a caveat of 'except the gnome' after everyone slowly backed away from her.

The final boss drops some useful loot, a superb ring. Not only does it imbue the wearer with strength, stamina and defence, but also acts as armour. It's a fantastic tanking ring and I say as much. There is some chatter from the arms warrior in the group that it is a good ring and I can tell he desires it too. I repeat that it is a tanking ring. I am not about to say who can and cannot roll on loot that required everyone's cooperation to get, but I have no problem offering my opinion on who would get the most benefit from it.

Needless to say, I didn't win the roll on the ring, the arms DPS warrior getting it instead. I pouted for a bit, reflecting on how my tank has lost many a good tanking item to one or the other of this player's warriors, but it is a good character-building exercise for me. Better not to get the virtual item and recognise it as such than forever struggle against disappointment in a drive to accumulate fake worth. The companionship of the guild, my friends, and coming together to enjoy the challenge and excitement of battling against enemies we couldn't face alone is the real reward. I must remember to capture more of the moments that evoke memories of good times.

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Tags: azjol-nerub, death knight, gnomesblight, mmorpg, northrend, world of warcraft

MST3K 20th Anniversary box set

I am somewhat tardy in reporting this as it was a few months when ago I picked up the Mystery Science Theatre 3000: 20th Anniversary Edition DVD box set. I was only making a routine scan of on-line shops and looking at what MST3K episodes had been released in box sets, so I was really quite lucky to be doing this shortly before the release of this box set and in time to get an order placed.

Of the episodes in the set, First Spaceship on Venus is a fairly standard affair. The film was made before modern standards of film-making and thus has a voice-over explaining most of the plot. Once the bulk of this exposition is out of the way the MST3K episode comes alive and is an entertainingly poor romp about flying to Venus and accidentally destroying alien technology, returning to Earth with a morality tale.

Laserblast follows a teenager who finds an alien laser gun and then goes on some sort of rampage, maybe because he is picked on by nerds pretending to be the Cool Kids. The alien weapon attracts attention from the authorities and he is hunted down by what might be a federal agent, I'm not entirely sure, and 'hunted down' is awfully strong for the ambling around town that occurs. The aliens also come looking to get their weapon back, although as they could have simply picked it up at the start of the film but were scared back in to space by the mighty sight of a Cessna maybe it wasn't theirs to start with. The budget for the film was probably wasted on the fiery explosions, because it wasn't spent on a screenplay.

I found the Laserblast episode particularly interesting to watch because it is the last MST3K episode produced for the Comedy Central channel and marks the end of Dr Clayton Forrestor's control over the Satellite of Love. Having only seen episodes shown completely out of order from widely varying series of the programme I never knew how or why the Satellite of Love ended up in deep space being chased by Pearl in a camper van, but now I do. The episode also sees Mike perform a disturbing impression of Captain Janeway and ends with an excellent pastiche of 2001, as Dr Forrester finds himself reborn.

Zoso might appreciate the abuse of archaeological finds seen in Werewolf. A baffling skeleton is dug up and the rough-tough team get in to a fist-fight because someone probably thought it would look good on film. The skeleton survives, but its skull is casually used to bludgeon someone in a fight later on. The apparently priceless relic is not treated with much care or respect, particularly considering it is the skeleton of a werewolf and turns other people in to werewolves. The director doggedly sticks to the lore of werewolves changing under the light of a full moon and bypasses any inconvenient logistics by ignoring the lore of a full moon only appearing once a month. A week of full moons means less plot required between attacks!

It's not the future and there is no war in Future War, but there is a Jean-Claude Van Damme-a-like punching tiny rubber dinosaurs made huge with forced perspective. There is not much more I can say about this obviously low-budget film, which makes it a good thing that the MST3K chaps find plenty to poke fun at.

Extras in the set include postcards of the individual DVD covers, as well as an informative retrospective on the programme in three parts, presented by all the cast and crew. There is also the San Diego Comic Con panel of the MST3K 20th Anniversary Reunion where cast and crew answer questions about the programme. Although most of the information has already been presented in the retrospective the presence of an audience encourages the panel to riff on the questions and each other and is delightfully entertaining.

The real prize, of course, is the small figurine of Crow T. Robot, capturing his sardonic grin perfectly. I hope I don't have to wait for the 30th Anniversary Edition before I can also get my Tom Servo figure.

Posted in Video | 2 Comments »
Tags: dvd, mst3k

Will grind for dragon mount

I haven't kept it much of a secret that I have found the level-based restrictions and pointless content-unlocking quest chains rather frustrating, to the point where I am enjoying my own corner of nostalgic glee in grinding for the Netherwing Drake. Melmoth heeds my disatisfaction, 'Lo, if you want to fly a dragon, get thyself to the Temple of the Wyrmrest Accord.' That certainly sounds like a plan and I like a good grind to get my teeth in to, particularly one with a goal.

Heading out to Dragonblight to start my quest the cryptic aspects of the expansion show up again before I even get started. Riding to the Wyrmrest Temple presents me with an innkeeper and flight point, but nothing more that is obvious. There aren't even any yellow exclamation marks on the mini-map to indicate available quests. If I hadn't been brought here before by a guild member—when I was too low-level for the quest givers to consider wanting to talk to me, naturally—I might have dismissed the temple as nothing more than a waypoint, not realising that I have to talk to an arbitrary figure standing outside to be flown to the top of the temple to find the quest givers. I don't know why the game is suddenly so opaque about the simplest of mechanics, picking up quests, which it managed to do so well right from the start.

My little rant over, I pick up all the quests and scatter myself to the four corners of Dragonblight, discovering pockets of beauty and devastation in the frozen wasteland I hadn't wandered in to yet. Meeting my future self was interesting, thinking I had wandered in to Ragefire Chasm was curious, and seeing the birds reincarnate before my eyes was glorious. More importantly, I was back in Northrend, questing and enjoying myself. After the quagmire of world events and apathy towards funnelled adventuring had sucked the fun out of Wrath of the Lich King it is invigorating to see the new continent afresh. Thanks, Melmoth!

My death knight is running around improving her reputation with the Wyrmrest Accord, picking up Dalaran cooking awards most days and heading in to the chaotic and thrilling skirmishes of Wintergrasp whenever she can. My warrior is moving up the ranks of the Dragonmaw with considerable speed, being almost revered by the Netherwing already, whilst also trying to get some Dalaran cooking awards. The daily quests are really helping to keep my interest. Not only that, with a new focus on both characters level progression is now a side-effect rather than an aim, XP the exhaust of my fun-jets. It was actually a surprise when they both reached 75th level recently, after stagnating so long at 74th. This is how I like playing, where my actions are my progress and I don't feel I am mechanistically performing rote tasks. The World of Warcraft is my oyster again.

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

Arbitrary snapshot of history

Those charming fellows with the British accents over at Killed in a Smiling Accident tagged me to post the sixth picture in my screen grabs folder.

I was hoping for an interesting and stimulating trip down memory lane as I worked my way to the sixth image in my World of Warcraft image folder, fully expecting not being able to stop just there and instead running through the hundreds of images I have collected. I started taking grabs right from the start of the game, almost documenting my progress by logging every significant kill or role-playing event, being happy with the key bound to the screen grab function.

Unfortunately, it seems that my World of Warcraft screenshot archive has been obliterated during a reinstallation at some point, for whatever reason. I have no image from when Melmoth made his hunter's pet jump backwards in to lava in Ragefire Chasm in the beta, or of dancing in front of PvP-flagged Horde in the Barrens when getting my Succubus, or the first glorious victory over Morbent Fel. They are all gone, if not forgotten. Even if the early magic of a new game is lost there is still plenty that continues to inspire me to capture the moment and I have a new folder with a few dozen images already. Working down from the top I present the sixth image.

That is Faust, my warlock and very first character, sitting on his Netherwing Drake swift flying mount in Shadowmoon Valley getting a good look at a rare elite mob spawn. I was wondering if really good DPS would make up for not having a tank or healer. A mage friend and I endeavoured to find out. Sadly, there is no following image of our burnt and broken corpses being laughed over by a barely scratched rare elite mob spawn.

Despite losing my early screen grabs from the game I remember that World of Warcraft is actually the second game in which I took extensive screen grabs, the first being Unreal Tournament 2004. Although not an MMORPG it was still an on-line, multi-player experience for me. More to the point, all my screen grabs have survived whatever circumstances lost the World of Warcraft ones—perhaps because the UT2k4 grabs are stored under ~/Application Support/ and not outside of the user data area like World of Warcraft's were—and are still sitting on my drive, allowing me to find a true point in my gaming history.

To save posting a boring image of a melting power core I have counted multiple grabs of the same moment but from slightly different angles as a single grab. Counting from the top I find a gem, bringing back lots of memories.

Zoso found a badger model for UT2k4, which we both ended up using almost exclusively. There is something about a badger in a tank, or wielding a rocket launcher, that tickles me considerably. Despite not seeing my own model, except when killed, I greatly enjoyed running around Onslaught or Deathmatch arenas as a badger, even provoking some amused chatter on occasions from others in the fight.

It looks like we have loaded an Onslaught map additional to the game's default maps and are trying it out, perhaps on a personal server. Even though I think we are all on the same team it appears that Melmoth has launched a missile at me and Zoso's badger is aiming quite accurately at my groin. I probably fired first, though.

To contine the meme I shall tag Kinless, Kirith Kodachi, Saresa (if she ever gets her internet connection back), Kename Fin and Runycat, all interesting and spirited bloggers.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: badger, faust, fps, meme, mmorpg, unreal tournament, world of warcraft

I sometimes feel like a non-profit organisation

Currently in EVE Online I have a plan. Yea, it is a good plan, as it has a short-term goal that not only doesn't encroach on my previous aims but encourages me to spend more time in New Eden, in order to make enough profit to afford the new ship.

So it is that I log in with the intent to run a mission or two and rake the rewards and bounties in to my wallet, plumping up my ISK. Before I get started, particularly as I am in my Badger Mk II away from my mission base station, I check my science and industry interface to check on my running jobs. I'm not expecting much to turn up beyond mostly 'pending' jobs and maybe a couple that are 'in progress', so it is surprising and a little exciting that a blueprint (BPO) has come out of material efficiency (ME) research, ready to be manufactured with a significant reduction in waste. I can't quite have a job running for so long and then ignore it in favour of mission-running as soon as it becomes available, that would be bordering on irresponsibility.

My Badger undocks and I start the journey of a couple of jumps to collect my freshly researched BPO. As I am warping through space I check my open orders idly, wondering if another chunk of bargain missiles has sold yet so that my newer batch of missiles can sell for a good profit, only to find that my missiles never reached the market and are still sitting in the station's hanger. I must have got distracted or mis-clicked just when I had set my price. Regardless of the error involved I shall have to put them on the market during this session. Whilst it is true that I cannot make the missiles as quickly as I can sell them, it is far from a remedy to that problem not to sell them in the first place.

With my Hornet I BPO picked up I look at the bill of materials required to manufacture the drone, happy to see my level is not far from the 'perfect' level, which will be improved further once I pull my finger out and finish learning Production Efficiency V. Now it is simply a matter of getting enough minerals to make a good quantity of drones and get everything installed in to a manufacturing slot. I still have some minerals stockpiled back at my home base, which will help defray some of the production costs this time and the journey there will also let me check the prices of minerals across two regions instead of one, an effort I should probably make more often.

I pick the best priced minerals in suitable quantities across the two regions, not even stumbling when jumping in to Jita, and end up making two trips to haul everything back to my manufacturing station, stopping off to set up a sale order for the misplaced missiles. The production line offers me a suitable quote for the manufacture of the drones, which I accept, and I also throw in another batch of expanded cargoholds to be made whilst I am there. The cargoholds sell steadily and being cheap as chips to manufacture makes this extra job almost risk-free. In a few days I'll be able to pick up drones, missiles and cargoholds fresh for the market.

Having got the manufacturing jobs out of the way I am just left with one more opportunity. As the BPO came out of ME research I have a newly freed research slot open. Whilst I am aiming to get my research performed in a low-sec station—the very basis of my new plan—a quick check of ME research availability shows that, in this case, it will be quicker, and perhaps ultimately more profitable, to install another BPO for ME research in a high-sec station whilst I am training to pilot the Crane blockade runner. Whilst I will be zooming through space in the Crane before this new ME research finishes, if I install it today it will be ready sooner than if I wait to install it in the low-sec station, which is risky to get to and thus less utilised.

My decision is made to install the Salvager I BPO for ME research. After hauling tonnes of minerals all over the place I switch from the Badger Mk II to a more agile and swifter shuttle to deliver the BPO to the research station to save a little time. Okay, my researched BPO has been picked up, minerals bought and collected and the BPO is now in for manufacturing; the missiles that accidentally weren't put up for sale are now on the market; another BPO has been selected and put in the queue for ME research, making use of my maximum allowed research job slots. It looks like it's time to start running missions for profit!

Sadly, my current time in New Eden has expired. Instead of causing huge explosions and collecting ISK rewards to boost my wallet I end up getting involved in all my industry jobs and have a wallet a fair bit lighter than when I started. However, it is all progress! I am quite happy that I can get so involved in industry operations, it bodes well for my future concerns. I can catch up with some missions soon to start saving for the Crane.

Posted in Gaming | 2 Comments »
Tags: crane, eve online, industry, jita, mmorpg, penny ibramovic