Project: Gorgon Returns to Crowdfunding

In August of 2015 Project: Gorgon, on its third run at a Kickstarter, succeeded and raised nearly $75K to fund development of the game.

Since then a lot of changes have come to the game.  However, they are back for another crowdfunding campaign.  This time the game is going the Indiegogo route.

Three reasons were given for the new funding effort.

• Allow people interested in the game to support it using PayPal, as they only support credit cards on the game’s site.
• Cover expenses like server costs and third party development during this non-revenue time frame.
• Cover the costs of some planned and “wish list” features

The target amount of the campaign, like the previous Kickstarter, is $20,000.  As of today they are closing in on the $4,000 mark.

Indiegogo campaign

As noted in past posts, with Indiegogo you can do a “flexible goal” campaign, wherein you get all the funds pledged, even if the campaign does not reach its goal.

The campaign itself runs through the end of the month, and as part of that they have created a new trailer for the game.

While I have poked my nose in on the game from time to time, I am personally waiting for it to hit the “ready for Steam” stage before I spend any serious time with it.

If you missed the links embedded in the post above, you can find the Indiegogo campaign page here.

Pokemon Go Giving Out Extra Candy for Halloween

Nintendo and Niantic announced earlier this week that Pokemon Go would have something special for Halloween.  No doubt the record breaking run to $600 million in revenue made them feel generous… that and the tapering off of the game’s user base.  But I still play.

Not that many scary Pokemon in the first 150

From October 26 until November 1 Pokemon Go will reward you with double the candy for Halloween.  When you catch a Pokemon you will get 6 candy instead of 3 and when you transfer a Pokemon you will get 2 candy instead of just the one.  You will also earn candy with your buddy Pokemon at four times the usual rate.

Meanwhile, the following Pokemon will be more common during the duration of the event.

• Zubat
• Golbat
• Gastly
• Haunter
• Gengar
• Drowzee
• Hypno

If that is the level of “scary” in the first 150 Pokemon, I suppose I could make the case that Abra and his evolutions ought to be on the list as well.  Either way, the event is going.  There was a Drowzee on our driveway earlier and I got six candy for catching him.

In addition, if you are a Pokemon X & Y or Pokemon Alpha Sapphire & Omega Ruby player in the US, there is still time to head over to GameStop to pick up a code that lets you download a level 70 Volcanion.

Behold his volcano-ish bearing

And if you are looking for something else Pokemon related to add to your Halloween, you can head over to their site for pumpkin stencils.

The YC118.7 Update Lands in New Eden

It is patch day again in New Eden.  I was a little confused about the designation YC118.7 when it was first announced.  To me, YC118.7 looks like a data, as in a Star Trek stardate or such, and the last digit always lining up to the month so far this year seemed to confirm this in the back of my brain.

I thought that was a pretty good idea too, as at least people would remember when an update went live without having to go look it up.  That was always the problem with their monthly named updates, they sort of merged together into a blur.

But no, the last digit is just the release number.  This is the 7th release for YC118, which just happens to be coming during the 8th month of the year.  Bleh.

Like many of these updates, there isn’t much to get hugely excited about.  There are some graphics improvements.  Clouds in space will now be rendered better, so long as you aren’t still lingering back in DirectX 9.

Literally the picture from the updates page

We are also getting the physically based rendering applied to in-space modules as well as another pass at the visual damage system.

Going to need more than a bit of Nanite paste for that…

Damage will also now appear on some structures when you shoot them.

And we are also getting a bit more data on our display.  In this case, when you mouse over your cargo icon you will get a read out of just how full your cargo bay is at the moment.

This I really like

But probably the biggest “new” thing is contracts now being available within citadels.  We have had the structures since April 27th, when the Citadel expansion hit, but it has taken CCP some time to get them functioning as the surrogate stations they are apparently intended to be.  And with this, citadels are one step closer to being null sec stations… which are owned by players who can control access to them… that you can deploy just about anywhere you choose.

I expect a follow up patch soon to fix the inevitable issues that the player base finds.  We are very good at that.  And given that you’ll now have to be able to search through citadels in the contracts window and such, it feels like it might be a target rich environment for bugs.

On the fix front, there are a couple of null sec important items.  The first is the change to warp disruption bubbles, which will now only pull/drag you if you pass within 500km of them.  This change is being made specifically to stop people from camping gates using a citadel.  You can still create bubble traps, you just can’t do it on a gate with a structure now.

And then there is this rather minimalist line item in the patch notes:

Several issues with Burst Jammers and Burst Projectors have been fixed.

There are a couple of issues I know about.  One was the question about whether or not ECM burst projectors were supposed to affect force auxiliaries when they are sieged and supposed to be immune to ECM effects.  That would make our fax machine entosis tactics more effective, as their lock will no longer be broken by ECM burst interceptors landing on them.

And then there is the fact that ECM burst attacks were being used to untether ships from citadels and give them logoff timers, an exploit that became a multi-thread issue on Reddit when PL used it to kill a GSF titan.

That doesn’t look like an Avatar

But that is just two items, and CCP wrote “several,” which is generally understood to be more than two, so I wonder what else might have been fixed.  Of course didn’t specify the two items I brought up, so we will have to see if those were really addressed or not I suppose.

That is about it from the list that interests me.  There are more fixes covered in the YC118.7 Patch Notes, but I think I mentioned everything on the updates page for once.

And, of course, there is music for the release.

 

LOTRO Headed for the Grey Havens?

Turbine is transitioning into a free-to-play, mobile development studio…

-Warner Bros. PR statement to Massively OP

Well fuck.  It has not been a good… erm… few years for Turbine.

We were so optimistic back in 2007

There was this moment of optimism a while back.  They were going to bring back Asheron’s Call 2, they were going to let you run your own Asheron’s Call server, the Lord of the Rings Online contract situation was good for a couple more years and we seemed on the way to Mordor, Dungeons & Dragons Online was chugging along, upbeat and getting new stuff, and they were going to take on the hot new MOBA market with Infinite Crisis.

And then plans started falling apart.  Infinite Crisis was cancelled, the Asheron twins were put on life support with what seemed to be a DNR notice, and the company was left with two somewhat long in the tooth free to play MMOs to carry things forward.  LOTRO has already called out raiders.  Dirty laundry was being aired.  And even LOTRO’s plans seemed subdued, with server merges and fixing long standing bugs being key part of one producer’s letter.  Even the upside bit, the upgraded servers, turned into a problem for a while.

But things seemed to be settling down.  The servers became usable, new content was being added to the game, and a new baseline routine seemed to have been reached.  And now this.

Of course, Warner is telling people to remain calm:

The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons online games will continue to operate as they do now.

But they HAVE to say that.  Those two games are the only income generating assets Turbine has now, and to say anything else might adversely impact that income stream.  And it is likely true for the short term.  But what happens next?

Warner could let the two games run on as before, with even less support and unlikely to get much in the way of substantial updates.  Given their new focus, that does not seem like sticking to the plan.

Warner could close the games down or, in the case of LOTRO, let the contact with Tolkien Enterprises run out in 2017 and not renew.  Both LOTRO and DDO, being licensed properties, likely have monthly minimum payments required to go to the rights holders, so an immediate shut down would leave Warner with bills to pay.  But at contract renewal it might be the time to walk away.

Or Warner could sell off the MMO part of Turbine to somebody like Perfect World Entertainment, where the LOTRO and DDO might each get a longer, if somewhat different, life going forward.  That would keep things going, provided that either game is a viable, money making venture that Warner can hand off to another company.  Anything with the name “Asheron” in the title seems to be doomed no matter what route Warner takes.

Anyway, it feels very much like we are waiting for the other shoe to drop on this one, that Warner has a long term decision to make… or announce if they have already made it… that will affect the fate of those two titles.

Play the games while you have the chance, as the future is more uncertain than usual and nobody is likely to make a game like LOTRO again.

Others on the topic:

• Bio Break
• Endgame Viable
• Level Up Haffle

 

Minecraft and Closing the Rail Loop

After finishing up the Prismarine Bridge and under water glass tunnel… and screwing around with that huge series of abandoned mines which I still haven’t finished clearing out… I took the rail supplies I had accumulated and started building that last stretch of rail line to cut across the north of the rail loop and bring me to the mesa biome where I could start angling to join the whole thing together.

I made one base along the way in order to have a place to hole up at night.  The day/night cycle can be a burden.  You can either commute to and from your base every time the sun goes down or you can stay in the field and fight stuff all night.  Commuting is safer, but it eats up valuable daylight hours the further you get from your base.

From that point I kept pressing forward across plains, through a forest, into a savannah, until there, in the distance, I got my first glimpse of the mesa biome from this end of the tracks.

That bit of color there past all the sand

Seeing that put my goal in sight.  Also visible there is a desert temple, one of those naturally generated bits of the game.  When I reached it I found that it had, of course, been looted by Xydd already.  All of the hallmarks of his work were on the place.

But that was fine.  I didn’t need any more luggage, though I was happy enough to reuse the empty chests he left behind.  I sealed the place up, putting doors on the openings, lit the interior and the surroundings, and ran the rail line right up next to it, creating a station stop there.  This was to be my base at the north end of the mesa biome.

Desert temple becomes base

I needed a base because I still had to build a rail line across most of the mesa biome which, as its name implies, is made up of a lot of flat topped mountains.

There I had to make a choice as to how to proceed.  I could stay at about sea level and tunnel through mesas at need, or I could run rails up to the top of the first mesa and build bridges between them.

Tunnels would certainly let me collect plenty of colored clay, but I had already got to the top of a mesa at the south end of the biome, so going upwards seemed to be the better choice.  Plus the view is better from up there.

Also, using some extra powered golden rails was a benefit, as I have an excess of gold and redstone, while I am always looking for more iron.  I actually started laying golden rails more often as I went along.  You only need 1 every 30 iron rails to keep a mine cart up at full speed, but I cut that back to about 1 in 20 to reduce iron usage a bit and because, if you get stopped by something on the track that 1 in 30 plan won’t get you back up to full speed unless you hit a hill or a station.

I had also hauled along a lot of stone brick.  I have furnaces all along the rail line smelting cobblestone back into stone in order to make stone bricks, which is my current preferred building material.

So I pushed the rail line into the mesa biome and ran it up to the top of the first mesa that seemed to connect to a line of mesas that formed an arc along the eastern shore of the biome.

After I had gotten that side settled in, I went back down the rail line to the portal at the prismarine bridge, took the nether transit system to the portal already in the mesa biome, and came up there to start building the rail line from the other direction.  This was because there was going to be more work at that end of the line.  I had built the original rail terminus where there happened to be a portal and not with an eye to extending the line further along.  So I had to turn the terminus into a station and start building eastward to catch the southern end of that same arc of mesas.  From there I pushed northward until I got the other end in sight.

At that point I ran a bit ahead to build a last bridge on the northern end of the line so as to bring the two ends together at a point where I could build a little marker.  And so the circle was complete.

On this spot, the golden rail was laid…

So what have I wrought with all of this work?

Well, there is a great loop railroad.  Single track I am afraid, and no sidings.  But there isn’t much traffic on it, so collisions are unlikely, unless we are talking about wildlife.  I’ve run into a few pigs.

The line is horse compatible, which means the right of way, as railroad people refer to it, is two blocks wide and three blocks high.  That is the size you need to be able to ride a horse through, so it can act as a road for those in the saddle.  The only exception is the line between Skronkholm and Firenze, but there is an alternate surface path there.

There are 19 main stations along the line, spread out thus:

Stations… you may want to click to enlarge that…

The stations that are at each of those numbers:

1. Desert Temple Station – North end of the mesa biome, lodging and storage only.
2. Mesa Biome Station – Former terminus of the rail line, has a portal and the beginnings of a mine. (screen shot when it was just the terminus)
3. Bridge Portal Station – A quick tower to spend the night in and a portal.
4. Horse Fields Station – A prismarine rest stop with a stable and a portal.
5. Farm Station – A large base of mine with a portal, a large series of mines, and a farm.  Additional building projects and a town nearby. (screen shot)
6. Schloss Adler Station – A base I made in a mountain, with a mine and a portal.
7. The Kremlin Station – A sprawling, walled base at the end of my second major rail line.  Has a portal, a farm, livestock, a mine, and paths off to a town and other structures.  Has several experiments in tower building and an ender portal off one of the mine shafts.
8. Aaron & Xydd Station – The stop that leads off to both of their bases.  There is a rail line to either, though Aaron’s has grown such that it has crossed over the main line.  Portals and all sorts of buildings and machinery there. (screen shot of the vicinity)
9. Spawn Point North Station – The stop at my first castle north of the spawn point.  A portal, a mine, and a farm are nearby.
10. Spawn Point South Station – The stop south of the spawn point that used to be the end of the rail line to Skronk’s holdings.  Our first base in the game is nearby.
11. Skronkholm Station – Skonk’s first works.  Includes a farm, a portal, and mining.
12. Firenze Station – Skronk and Enadli’s elaborate base that has about everything.  Voted a world historical site by unanimous acclaim. (screen shot)
13. Southwest Station – A minor base on the southern end of the west line, a quick place to sleep.
14. West Plains Station – A small base located near a portal with a mine.  Food is available. (screen shot)
15. Stone Mountain Station – A more elaborate base near a portal, with a mine and a small farm.
16. Fire Town Station – A station I built adjacent to an NPC town, which I then walled in, expanded, and added a portal and a mine to.  So called because I built a two story red building that looks a bit like a fire station.  Horses are nearby as well. (screen shot before I built the fire station)
17. Desert Town Station – A convenient stopping place during the build. Only lightly improved with an unfinished wall, no portal and no mine.
18. Prismarine Bridge Station – A long time resting point for me, with a portal, small farm, dock, and a mine that leads down to a series of abandoned mines that were a source for much of my iron rail in the last push.
19. North Point Station – The last station built on the line, used primarily as an overnight spot so I did not have to roll all the way back to the bridge.  Has a stable, as I rode a horse up there to use to scout the way.

Of course, that isn’t nearly obsessive enough.  After finishing off the line I had to go and travel the whole thing.  I decided to go from station to station and chart the distance between each, noting my odometer setting in the statistics panel as I hit each station.

• Desert Temple to Mesa Biome – 1.58km
• Mesa Biome to Bridge Portal – 1.12km
• Bridge Portal to Horse Fields – 1.71km
• Horse Fields to Farm – 1.70km
• Farm to Schloss Adler – 1.43km
• Schloss Adler to The Kremlin – 1.03km
• The Kremlin to Aaron & Xydd – 0.50km
• Aaron & Xydd to Spawn Point North – 0.41km
• Spawn Point North to Spawn Point South – 0.36km
• Spawn Point South to Skronkholm – 0.53km
• Skronkholm to Firenze – 0.59km
• Firenze to Southwest – 1.31km
• Southwest to West Plains – 0.46km
• West Plains to Stone Mountain – 2.52km
• Stone Mountain to Fire Town – 1.61km
• Fire Town to Desert Town – 1.57km
• Desert Town to Prismarine Bridge – 1.67km
• Prismarine Bridge to North Point – 1.30km
• North Point to Desert Temple – 1.07km

That ends up totally to a 22.47km rail loop.  Of course, I opened up Excel and put that data into a two dimensional grid so I can expand it out to have a table that shows the distance along the rail line between any two stations.

I also timed the runs between each station, though that was a bit more problematic.  That required me to start and stop a stopwatch, which introduces some error.  Then I ran into animals at a couple points, which put off the time.  And then there are a couple of stretches of the line where I need to go back and inject a few more golden rails to keep mine carts at full speed.  I was stingy with those rails early on.

The times were off, but they seemed to indicate that a minecart, kept at top speed, moves about a half a km a minute.  That jibes with the wiki, which says the top speed is 8 blocks a second, and blocks in the game are a meter on each side.

So that is a rail line that is 22,470 meters long… or, if you prefer, 22,470 sections of track… which, if you kept at top speed, would take 2,808.75 seconds to travel, or a bit more than 45 minutes.  I was considering how to showcase the rail line and thought about taking a video of a trip around the loop, but I don’t think a 45 minute video would be a big winner.  I’d have to speed it up.

And, as one additional bit of semi-related trivia, the explored area of our world… which admittedly still has some holes in it… is about 15km by 8km, which makes it about the same as the estimated size of the Kalimdor continent, as measured by somebody who attempted to apply some science to the topic.

So that is a major project completed in Minecraft.  I still want to go back and spruce up the bridges I build in the mesa biome.  I was in a bit of a hurry towards the end, so they are mostly just flat platforms between mesas.

So what was The Great Northern Road back in October, finished up in November, which later became the Great Northern Railroad ,and then plans for the great loop were hatched, which I did not post about until early May, when I was already pretty far along (14 of 19 stations in place by that point), is finished.  And that brings us to the eternal Minecraft question, “What next?”

Trying to Remember Starsiege Tribes

The launch of Overwatch got me thinking about first person shooters that I have enjoyed over the years, a list that is pretty short relative the number of titles in the genre.  In fact, I can only really come up with four titles that I was ever really into in any significant way.

At the far end of the list is Marathon, the classic from Bungie, now more than 20 years old, which we used to play on the network at the office after hours… back when companies let you play video games after hours and issued employees machines capable of running them.

Maybe I just work for the wrong company these days.

At the near end is the Desert Combat, which isn’t even a game, just a mod for Battlefield 1942, which is more than a decade away in time.  Yet it was a hell of a mod.  Just listening to the music from the opening credits brings back memories.  That is not the last FPS I played, but the last one I really enjoyed.

And then there were two just about in the middle of that range.  One was Nova Logic’s Delta Force, which I have written about already.

And the other was Starsiege: Tribes.

Tribes

The problem is that Tribes came out during a time when I was playing a lot of memorable games.  Diablo and Civilization II were still hot properties, while their successors were being actively discussed.  I loved me some Total Annihilation back then.  We were playing StarCraft and Age of Empires at the office a lot.  Sojourn MUD had become TorilMUD and was about at its peak.  The aforementioned Delta Force was on the scene and we were trying to play that using Roger Wilco, and early gaming voice coms package.  And, of course, EverQuest was looming, soon to launch and steal away all my play time for a year or two.

And in the midst of all of this, I played Tribes.

I cannot considering buying it or having somebody suggest it to me.  Some part of me thinks I must have read about it over at Firing Squad, the gaming site of Dennis Fong, who later went on the create XFire and then Raptr, but only because I used to read the site regularly.  I could have heard about it on GameSpot for all I know.

I cannot even remember if I actually bought the game.  I don’t have the box any more, but I have tossed most of my game boxes over the years.  I have an old Memorex CD-R with “Starsiege Tribes” written on it in Sharpie, so I suppose I could have pirated it.  But that would have been unlike me at the time as I had a good job and the mortgage on my soon-to-be wife’s condo was what one would call laughably cheap these days, so I wasn’t skimping on expenses.  That would come later when my wife stopped working and we bought a house in a good school district.

Besides which, I used to make backup copies of most of my game CDs back then.  I still have copies for StarCraft and Diablo II along with the original disks still in the jewel cases.

And I can barely remember the game itself.  On the list of things I don’t have left from the game is any screen shots.  Looking at the Wikipedia linked article above yielded several, “Oh yeah, I remember that moments.”

At one point I was convinced that Tribes was the reason that I bought that Voodoo2 3D graphics acceleration card for my computer.  I had the card when I bought EverQuest at Fry’s back on March 16, 1999 (that disk I still have, along with the receipt) so something prompted me to buy it.

But then I found the specs online and saw that it didn’t actually require that.  Plus the name “3dfx” sparked a memory about Blizzard’s early announcements about Diablo II saying that to get the full graphical experience, players would need a card that supported 3dfx’s Glide API.  I am pretty sure that is the reason I got the Voodoo2 card, though by the time Diablo II came out 3dfx had ceased to be the dominate player in the 3D accelerated video card market and Blizz was obliged to support a more universal API. (Open GL if I recall right.)  That is all pretty fuzzy though, and I could have bought the card to speed up Delta Force, only to find out that its voxel based engine could not/would not take advantage of 3D acceleration.  Maybe.  Or maybe that was something that annoyed me later, when Delta Force 2 came out.  Getting old and the persistent march of time sucks.

So what the hell do I remember then?

I remember the rattle of the Gatling gun as it spun up when you tapped the trigger.

I remember the 3D terrain with low res texture mapping, though that memory starts to bleed in with EverQuest memories a bit.  Am I imagining Tribes or West Karana in my mind?

I remember shooting the disk launcher into the fog where I had just seen somebody disappear, hoping for a lucky hit.

I remember the idea of “skiing” as a scout, using your jet pack to essentially glide at very high speed if done right.

I remember that map with the bridge overhead between the two bases, the distance being shrouded in mist.  Though, if I concentrate, I can’t really tell you if that was Tribes or Tribes 2, which I remember even less of, aside from the vague sense that I owned and played that as well.

Mostly though I just have this feeling that it was a really good game for its time.  But then EverQuest came out and eclipsed it.  Was it as good as I remember it, as good for the time?

I suppose I could grab the game and find out.  Hi-Rez Studio made it and its companion games available for free on their Tribes Universe site.

However, I suspect that doing so would burst the bubble.  It is difficult to bring your 2016 sensibilities back in time to look at an older game.

Elves Unchained in TorilMUD

I have not written about TorilMUD in ages.  Honestly, I haven’t even logged in to check up on the place in a long time.

But the old world of text that I started playing more than 22 years ago lives on and gets updated from time to time.  The last time I mentioned it was when they announced the end of their harsh death penalty, which was the model that EverQuest used back in the good/bad old days.  That was about a year back.

That have had a couple of other updates posted to their Tumblr news site since then, but last night one showed up that I had to mention.

The main topic of the update was the introduction of a new class of spells called “cantrips,” which my brain immediately parsed as “can trip.”  Hrmmm…

But what caught my eye about the update was this item listed under “other changes”

Elves can now start in Baldurs Gate and Silverymoon. They can also use the Leuthilspar elfgate as early as level 1. Free the elves!

Free the elves indeed.

For those unfamiliar with the game… which is probably everybody reading this… one of the quirks of TorilMUD up until this change was that elves had a single home town in which they could start.  That was Leuthilspar, on the island of Evermeet, a location those familiar with the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms campaign setting might recall.

But elves were not just required to start in Leuthilspar, they were required to stay on the island of Evermeet until they hit level 20… because… well… level 20 was a special level back in the day.  It was the “coming of age” level.   You could petition for a last name.  You were finally allowed to see your stats as numbers rather than possible ranges.

Do I take Heroic strength?

And, if you were an elf… or a half-elf that chose to start in Leuthilspar out of some sense of masochism… you were finally allowed to use the elf gate at the east end of town and leave Evermeet for the big city, Waterdeep.

This was a significant moment in the life of any elven character because, back in the day, Evermeet was a bit of a dump.  There was the town itself, where the guards would slaughter you if they caught you fighting… and remember that whole harsh death penalty thing.  So, for adventures you had to head out to Kobold Village, which was fun but contained its own perils, the Faerie Forest, a place to get lost in, and the Elemental Glades, which had its own issues.

Short of starting in one of the evil race home towns, which were designed to be a challenge for experienced players, Evermeet was the worst of the home towns.  This wasn’t because its local area was bad.  Starting as a gnome, a halfling, a dwarf, or a barbarian meant having absolute crap content to hand.  But they could all head to Waterdeep, around which there was ample content for leveling up, content with plenty of drops that groups could tackle from levels 1 through to about 40.

Leuthilspar Locations

Elves had to make do with what they had, and while the zones were not bad, they lacked in equipment drops.  You could always spot a newly arrived elf in Waterdeep because of the paucity of their gear.  They might have a bronze sword, a pearl earring, a bit of string tied around their finger, and the inevitable cloak of forest shadows.  And, of course, these elves would be gawking a the locals, amazed at all the gear they had.  Good gear.  With actual bonus stats and such.

Of course, the newly arrived elf couldn’t afford to buy any of that gear, because they had likely left Evermeet with only a few coins in their pocket and not much of value to sell or trade.  And it was always some work to get into groups because you couldn’t compete with the well geared locals.  But if you persevered, you could close the gear gap and catch up with the rest of the world.

And you were a member of a special club.  You had made it through the privations of the elf homeland.  You would, of course, help any new elf you saw standing at the gates of Waterdeep, trying to unlock them after they had closed for the night saying the word “peace” over and over. (That unlocked the gates of Leuthilspar at night, but for Waterdeep you needed the key that Lord Piergeiron carried on his person or a rogue with a high lockpick skill.)

And, as an elf, you might never go back home.  If you were a cleric or a druid, so your word of recall spell would bring you back to Leuthilspar, you might frequent the place after level 20.  But other classes had to take a ship to the Moonshaes and travel quite a ways in order to find the elf gate that would return them to their original home.  It generally wasn’t worth the effort.

Because I started most of my main characters on Evermeet, getting through those first 20 levels is very much a part of my memories of the game, much more so than any of the early zones in the main world.  I even wrote a series of posts about them under the tag Leuthilspar tales.

• Getting to Kobold Village
• Exciting Ways to Die in Kobold Village
• The Kobold Temple of the Unholy
• Lost in the Faerie Forest
• A Visit with the Tako Demon
• Fox Tails, Goblins, and Bandor’s Flagon
• The Age of the Discriminating Vendor

Over the years the lot of the elves was improved.  One of the players Xyd and I started playing with way, way back in the day, Rylandir, went on to become one of the game admins for a while and created a number of zones for Evermeet.  The first in, the Eldar Forest, was especially helpful, had some good quests, and dropped some gear.  Level 20 elves eventually stopped showing up in Waterdeep looking like beggars.

And now… well, elves can run straight to Waterdeep… which is probably a good thing.  The population of TorilMUD has dwindled over the years.  No longer can you log in on a Friday night and find more than 100 players online.  But there does seem to be 20 or more around whenever I take a moment to check in.

But there was a time, long ago, when the life of an elf of Evermeet was desperate and poor.  Somehow we survived.

Now that I look at my list of Leuthilspar Tales, I think I need to go back and finish it up by writing something about the Elemental Glades, the third… and strangest… zone of Evermeet from back in the day.

And, if all of this talk about the old days of TorilMUD has you in a nostalgia reverie, here are a few other choice posts about the good old days:

• 15 Years of TorilMUD
• How Information Access has Changed
• The Black Hole of Vendor Trash
• Dartan’s Portable Hole
• The End of a Trigger, The Expansion of Information
• The Salesman of Waterdeep
• The Way Questing Used to Be
• On Greater Challenges
• Echoes of a Crashing MUD
• Hauling Bronze Through Forgotten Realms
• Great Moments in Exploits – The Resurrection
• Nineteen Years Without Raising the Level Cap
• 20 Years of TorilMUD

Or you can just look at the whole TorilMUD category.  There are only 56 posts total.

Some of those posts are old enough at this point that I am even feeling a bit of nostalgia for the point of time when I was able to remember that much about the game.  Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.

And, of course, if you are interesting in the game… because it is still up and running… you can find out more about it at their web site.

Two Books about EVE Online

Recently two books about EVE Online have become available for purchase, so I thought I would take a moment to gesticulate in their general direction.

Empires of EVE

The first is Andrew Groen’s opus about the Great War in New Eden, Empires of EVE.

How much more black could it be?

The product of a Kickstarter campaign almost two years back that funded almost immediately and went on to exceed all expectations, the result is a wonder.  It is a compelling read, a story well told that doesn’t require knowledge of EVE Online to enjoy. The only way to surpass the book is to hear to Andrew Groen talk about it (as I got to at EVE Vegas), as his passion for the topic clearly comes through.  And there are even a couple of screen shots I took as illustration, including one of my favorites on page 145.

Burning to the titan

The screen shot was from the DBRB fleet to attack Raiden capital ships in BWF-ZZ back in 2012.  Unfortunately, in the book, it is mis-captioned as a Machariel fleet when it is a Hurricane fleet.  But who am I to complain about minor errors?  I make more than my share.

Anyway, now that the Kickstarter backers have received their copies, you can get your own copy of the book.  There is a site setup that lets you purchase the book through Amazon.  I assume there is some benefit to Andrew in the purchase being referred from his site, so I would use that if only to encourage him to work on a volume II, because if there is a single problem with the book, it is that it leaves you wanting more.

There is also a video to go along with the release of the book about the siege of C-J6MT.

The book is available in hardcover, softcover, and Kindle format.

So we have that.  But wait, there is more.

Internet Spaceships are Serious Business

Launched a bit more quietly than Empires of EVE, this is a more academic look at EVE Online.

Serious business indeed

If Empires of EVE is the tale of a war, Internet Spaceships are Serious Business is a guide to what the game is about and the motivations of people who put enough into the game to make something like the Great War come about.

I grabbed the Kindle version over the weekend and started in on it.  It is welcoming to those uninitiated to New Eden and doesn’t assume you know much as it builds, chapter on chapter, about the game.

As with Empires of EVE, it is available in hardcover, softcover, and Kindle format over at Amazon.

So if you don’t necessarily want to play EVE Online but enjoy reading about it, here are a couple of chances to get immersed in the topic without even having to download the game.