Showing posts with label 2016 at 07:15AM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2016 at 07:15AM. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

On the Edge of the Broken Isles

The boxes arrived last night, from which my daughter and I immediately extracted the code which would unlock the expansion on our respective accounts.  The included DVD was purely decorative.  And then it was straight into the game for a bit.

Unfortunately, my wife and I had other plans for the evening.  It was “Back to School” night at my daughter’s high school, so we spent most of the evening meeting teachers and hearing about their classroom plans.

Still, I managed to find a bit of time to play.

I didn’t have time to sit and think about what to do, so I did the natural thing and jumped into the game with my paladin, Vikund, who is my second oldest character and has generally been my “do all the things” vehicle.  I logged him in, accepted what I hoped was the last quest delivered by Khadgar’s Upgraded Servant for a while, and made my way to Dalaran where I got to watch Khadgar himself engage the spindizzy spell and move the whole place to the Broken Isles.

There was a bit of an introduction around the place.

Hey, they finally fixed the portals room! Been broken for ages.

Hey, they finally fixed the portals room! Been broken for ages.

But eventually the reception line led to the table where you got to choose your weapon.  Of course, as a retribution pally, there is really only one choice.

Yeah, like this is even a choice

Yeah, like this is even a choice

However, this wasn’t like some cheap hotel high school reunion where you pick the airline quality chicken entree and then they just bring it to you.  You have to go get it!  So a mild adventure ensued, at the end of which I possessed Ashbringer.

Best cinematic cue ever

Best cinematic cue ever

At that point, because I possessed the magic dingus, I had to go back to the order hall.  There I was presented to the bored crowd in the basement theater under Light’s Hope Chapel, out in the Eastern Plaguelands, which still looks like a bad neighborhood.  But I bet the rent on the place is cheap.

Hi everybody, my name is Vikund.

Hi everybody, my name is Vikund

After that I was elected Queen of the May, Man of the Year, and head of the order, something I am sure was unique to my character alone and based solely on my semi-competent performance in obtaining what is surely the one and only Asherbringer.  I accepted all of this with due solemnity.

You can tell by the way I use my walk...

You can tell by the way I use my walk…

After that they seemed to want me to do something, like these were not merely honorary or administrative offices I had been awarded.  They wanted me to go out and fight the Legion.

So I wandered back down the corridor, past the card room and the basketball court, leaving the solo phase I had been in up to that point, and thus joining a stream of other players, many of whom had a very similar weapon across their back.  Mere replicas I bet, created in envy of me and the one true Ashbringer.

Down the hallway, past the cloak room, I found my destination.  It was a map.  I had to choose where I would land in the Broken Isles to begin my one-man heroic assault on the Legion.

Where to go?

Where to go?

But I didn’t really have enough time for that.  We had to leave for “Back to School” night.  So I left Vikund there in the order hall, probably getting all Cameron’s dad about Ashbringer and sitting there polishing it with a diaper.

The actual first zone choice will have to wait until tonight.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Another Night in Rakapas

Rakapas… Shit, I’m still only in Rakapas. Every time I think I’m gonna wake up back in the Delve. I’m here a four days now… waiting for a move op… getting softer. Every minute I stay in this station, I get weaker, and every minute hostiles camp the route, they gets stronger. Each time I look around the hangar walls move in a little tighter.

-Delve-pocalypse Now 2016 Move Log, Day 4 Entry

I had hopes last night of getting closer to Sakht, our destination.  However, the capital move ops that came up were all departing from destinations two or three jumps down the line.  My Archon stayed in place for another night.

The station does seem a bit more cramped...

The station does seem a bit more cramped…

It did seem for a bit that I might get another ship down to Delve.  There was a call for a subcap move op.  I figured I could clone jump back to Saranen, join that, and at least get a doctrine combat ship down to our staging.

However, that move op was also only for ships that had made it to the incursion that was blocking our way yesterday.

So, the tally at the end of day 4 was four ships down in our staging, two frigates and two stealth bombers that somebody else put in their carrier because they had extra space… so some people are making it down to Delve.  Everything else I want to move is still in Lonetrek or Black Rise… about where we started.

I am not doing well at the move op thing.  Apparently I should at least be in Aulbres by now.  Every time I log into Rakapas though, there are a bunch of blues sitting in the station with me, so I suppose I am not alone.

It isn’t that I cannot attempt the move on my own.  I am trying to follow the standing orders which say, in large, purple, Comic Sans letters, “DO NOT MOVE YOURSELVES” right there at the top of the post.  But I am starting to think I had better move my carrier a jump or three ahead if I want to make any ops in the near future.

That means getting my alt out onto the heavily camped route south to light a cyno for a jump, something that will likely require repeated attempts, as cyno ships are easy to pop and I expect I will lose at least one on every jump.  I just hope one doesn’t get popped mid-jump, as then my carrier will end up at the sun, an easy target.

As for the subcaps still up in Saranen, I will have to wait for a move op or just strip them and ship them to Jita.  I doubt I am going to get a T2 logistics cruiser all the way down to Delve alone without getting popped.

Another day has dawned, we shall see what it brings.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Held Over in Rakapas

i hate rakapas

-Jay Amazingness

I had some hope yesterday about moving onward towards Delve.  I have Jabber on my iPad and could see pings going out about move ops, and specifically ones from Rakapas, where I am currently docked up.

Jay Amazingness was leading ops out of Rakapas and further down the route to Delve while I toiled away.  Of course, it wasn’t as though he lacked prompting on that front.  He posted a sample of the coms traffic:

When are we leaving Rakapas?

guys when is the next rakapasop?

is this the rakapas move op

what is the route from rakapas?

will there be ops in rakapas later on tonight?

any eta on ops scheduled from rakapas?

are we leaving from Rakapas ?

Dread in  Rakapas , any cyno’s up for further down the route?

are we moving to the next location after rakapas?

can we still start now from rakapas ?

Which has given Jay a new appreciation of the system.

Meanwhile, those waiting on the word of Jay to lead us to the promised land had perhaps begun to elevate him in status.  Commandments were written and images created in furtherance of our deliverance.

Destoration's awesome contribution to the cult of Jay

Destoration’s awesome contribution to the cult of Jay

Unfortunately, by the time I got home last night an incursion had spawned a couple jumps down the line towards Delve, and all move ops were suspended until it was defeated.  And I couldn’t even join in on that as I left my doctrine combat ships back in Saranen, as instructed.

So I spent another night in Rakapas.  Not quite the trail of tears… mostly because we haven’t had to do this all in one sitting.

We await our savior, Jay Amazingness.  He will deliver us to Delve.

At least I am not one of those people who only have JDC4 trained.  They are truly in a world of hurt.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Quote of the Day – Competing Against the Outside World

Meanwhile, VR devs are going, “But what about sticking blinders on people’s faces and making them stay at home?”

-Syp, on Twitter

In sudden surge, the augmented reality game Pokemon GO does seem to have gotten more press over the last few days than virtual reality has gotten over the last few months.  It has gone from the gaming press (I think half the stories at Polygon this week have been about the game) to the general press to showing up on the local news.  When your local news anchor is saying “Pokemon GO” a couple times an evening, it is a sign.  And then there was word of a movie based on the game as well.

PokemonGO_500px

Of course, this has been very much a perfect storm, an launch that managed to combine summer, when kids are off from school, have free time, and an inclination to go outside and do something, a free app for the smart phone so many people already own, and the immense popularity of Pokemon.

Meanwhile, the biggest VR news I have seen this week is that the Occulus Rift pre-orders from the beginning of the year have all finally shipped, but that the Touch motion controllers still do not have a firm date as yet.  Go team.

Of course, a phone app and VR aren’t really comparable, but it is a reminder that there hasn’t really been a killer app for VR yet that would get the average person interested in buying an expensive headset and a high end PC or console to go with it.  Right now it is still a niche product for enthusiasts.

Thursday, May 5, 2016

EVE Online Free on Steam this Weekend

In order to celebrate EVE Online’s 13th birthday tomorrow and its becoming an unruly teenager… like it hasn’t been behaving that way all this time already… you will be able to download and play the game for free on Steam.

A 1pm cut off on Sunday seems a bit chintzy...

A 1pm cut off on Sunday seems a bit chintzy…

That means, if you start today… and the whole things starts today… you could potentially get in as much as three days in New Eden to experience the furtive, achievement based tutorial, learn about skill queues and how long it will take to fly a battleship, see all the scams in Jita, and at least experience how cool the sensation of flying in space can be.

I think starting as Gallente gets you the prettiest nebulae.

Gallente rookie ship zipping about...

Gallente rookie ship zipping about…

Of course, if you REALLY wanted to try out the game… and maybe not have your account totally locked into Steam for no real good reason… you could always just go to the EVE Online web site and get a 14 Day free trial.

Or, if you were feeling especially interested and a bit generous, you could get a 21 Day free trial by clicking on my buddy link.  Exactly one person has done that in the last three years, though I admit I don’t flash it around either, keeping it hidden on the side bar of my other blog.

Okay, the three day Steam offer does say “no restrictions,” while the trial offer has some walls around it, there being some skills and such that you cannot train on trial accounts.  But you’re not going to have the ISK or a reason to train those skills in just three days, now are you?

Anyway, my cynicism aside, happy birthday to EVE Online.  Come fly around in space for a bit.  Goons won’t scam you, I promise.  You won’t have enough ISK to be worth the effort.

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Citadels Arrive in New Eden

The long awaited, anticipated, feared, speculated over, and otherwise examined Citadel expansion arrives on the Tranquility server today.  Seriously, we’ve been all over this since EVE Vegas last year.

Coming Spring 2016

Now Available

Citadels, the new structures in New Eden are here and will likely change the game in unexpected ways.  There are four citadel types:

  • Astrahus (Medium)
  • Fortizar (Large)
  • Keepstar (Extra Large)
  • Upwell Palatine Keepstar (Extra Large, Extra Special, one per New Eden)

And there are all sorts of details that players will need to sort out as time goes along.

For me, one of the more interesting items is how players will attack citadels.  In what I can only see as something of a rebuke of Fozzie Sov, players will actually shoot things rather than fly around them in circles running an entosis link module.  To my mind, shooting something is always the best option.  CCP has tried to give us a feel for shooting them in its cinematic trailer.

So a huge change there, with CCP relenting somewhat at the last minute on the whole tax thing meant to drive people to use citadels.  I expect the unexpected and for comedy to ensue.

And, if that were not enough, there are a range of capital ship changes going in today as well.  Starting off there is the introduction of the Force Auxiliary capitals, already commonly called “Fax Machines.”

Fax Machines

Fax Machines are all Vertical

They come in four flavors, one for each major NPC faction, and replace the triage role that carriers used to perform.  They are:

  • Apostle (Amarr)
  • Minokawa (Caldari)
  • Lif (Minmatar)
  • Ninazu (Gallente)

Carriers and super carriers will no longer use drones, but will restricted to fighters.  Fighters themselves will have new functionality and controls.  A lot of things will transform with the expansion drop, triage carriers into fax machines, old fighters into new, and drones into some location you may not have considered.  The transition is covered in a forum post.

I have a carrier that will still be a carrier after the update and which will be pretty empty since all the drones will get dumped out and I never bought any fighters for it.  But, then, I have only ever used it to haul around subcaps.

In addition, dreadnoughts are getting rebalanced in order to turn them into the gun platforms they ought to be.  Titans are getting a rebalance and new doomsday weapons.  Carriers are getting a rebalance too, and so are supercarriers.  There are also pirate faction capital ships and capital level escalations for anomalies and new anti-sub cap weapons for capitals and the removal of ewar immunity for supers.

And then there is the usual round of fixes and updates and changes to various aspects of the game, most of which (but never all) are summed in the patch notes and on the updates page.

There are enough things going on with this expansion that if it were the old days I would have started training a long skill.  Even CCP is running long on just the deployment.

But, since my skill queue already goes out past 500 days right now, I am not so worried about that.  Still, I suspect there will be issues and some patches coming pretty quickly given the scale of things.

Wait, there it is, the announcement… the expansion is live and the server is up… for now.

But even if the server goes down we will at least have a new theme song to listen to.

Monday, April 25, 2016

Deklein Falls, Goon Splinter Groups Double

The last system in the Deklein region, homeland of the Goonswarm Federation for more than five years fell during the wee hours of the morning.

Deklein - April 25, 2016

Deklein – April 25, 2016

Deklein joins Branch, Tenal, and Tribute as regions completely lost by The Imperium.  Fighting continues is Fade, Pure Blind, and Vale of the Silent.

Meanwhile, Darius JOHNSON, former Goon leader, former CCP dev, and former TMC contributor, has announced his return to the game, decrying ally alienating decisions made by the current GSF/TMC leadership and heaping scorn on the pubbies that make up the coalition as a whole, and the alliance specifically.  He says he doesn’t want to fight The Imperium, but he doesn’t want to associate with it either.  He just wants to make a home for “true Goons,” of which he estimates there are about 200 in the whole coalition.  Getting those 200 to flock to his banner would boost the numbers in his new corporation, Ten Dollar Bond, to nearly 250 pilots.  With that he says he has a plan to rescue their assets in Deklein.

Ten Dollar Bond

Ten Dollar Bond

I am told that idea doesn’t sit well with another Something Awful splinter group in New Eden, The Greater Goon, part of the Clockwork Pineapple alliance, which joined forces with the Moneybadger Coalition to attack The Imperium.

The Greater Goon

The Greater Goon

We shall see how well they and their 80 members do against Darius JOHNSON’s handpicked 46 to win the hearts and minds of “true Goons” in New Eden.  Not being a “true Goon” (though I paid my $10 to SA back in 2008) neither side is likely to see me as anything but a target.

Friday, April 1, 2016

April Fools at Blizzard – 2016

The day has come again.  April Fools is a thing down in Anaheim.

Past years fun, for those who want to catch up:

However, this year all the humor at Blizzard seems to be focused on the World of Warcraft side of things.  Heroes of the Storm is in the midst of a tournament, Hearthstone announced a new ranked play season, StarCraft II is pushing mission packs, Diablo III only mentions that Season 5 is ending soon, and Overwatch is focused on its upcoming launch.

I am sure some conspiracy theory can be thrown together that this indicates that somehow Blizzard may not be serious about WoW any more, at least relative to its other titles.  Or maybe the other jokes just haven’t been published as yet.  Anyway, we go with what we have to hand:

World of Warcraft

In Azeroth, there was the introduction of the Frostdoge Clan.

Such Faction! Very Expansion!

Such Faction! Very Expansion!

There was concern from flight masters around Azeroth as a new service called Flyt arrived.

Because we couldn't figure out anything with Uber

Because we couldn’t figure out anything with Uber

Then there was Azeroth TV, featuring shows like Void Storage Wars and Keeping Up with the Barovs.

As with real life, nobody can explain why we watch, we just do...

As with real life, nobody can explain why we watch, we just do…

This was on the WoW page, but is focused on the collectible card game front; the announcement of Hearthstone: The MMO in a video.

And no April Fools day would be complete without some release note fun, so here are the latest updates for the WoW Legion Alpha.

And that is all I have seen so far, though I am sure I missed something.  The forums are often a source as well.  I will update this post if I find anything new.

Meanwhile, what other games have something good for April Fools?