Little House on the Plains

Having defeated Moder in somewhat less time than we might have anticipated, Crowbar and I immediately set out to scout some plains biomes for a potential base.  I was ready for this, having spent some time out and scouting for a plains biomes for that very purpose.

Spying out the plains

While I had a few candidates, the best bet still seemed to be the base we had built up as a staging point to tackle Bonemass.  It had the advantage of being in a nice open meadows area… which I had since planted with trees for a wood supply… not too far from plain both north and south, connected to a mountain biome for stone, and a short sail from the swamp Bonemass was in, which also happened to have a select of crypts for iron scraps.

My camp across the straights from Bonemass

We would need to haul resources to this new base because of the whole “no metal through portals” thing and because the plants… barley and flax… we would need to cultivate only grow in the plains.  So we would have to commit to a full base/farm complex to get things done.

The first thing I had done after the boss fight was bring some Moder’s tears through to that staging base and build a blast furnace, mostly just to see it, but also to process some of the metal scraps we had collected from furlings.

The first blast furnace

I had thought for a bit that maybe we could just base in the meadows and simply farm in the plains, but the base was a bit of a hike from the plains in either direction, so it felt like we would have to at least move the base closer.  Fortunately it wasn’t much of a base, just a building, a portal, a smelter (for Bonemass iron), and that blast furnace.

So Crowbar and I set out to scout for a good site for a base, encountering some of the local wildlife almost as soon as we hit the line between meadows and plains.

Some more lox meat for the table

We’re still working on the best way to tackle a lox, but kiting them with bows seems to be pretty effective.  You just have to watch out for other things while you’re running around.

Deathsquitos no longer elicit the terror they once did, back when when we were younger and had just defeated The Elder and ended up having to die multiple times on a corpse run.  I still keep a sharp eye out for them to take them down at range with a bow, but my armor is good enough now and my hit points high enough from food that I can survive that first hit and turn to smack one as it comes in for another run.

A bugged bug

I shot that particular deathsquito about a dozen times before I was satisfied that it wasn’t actually there or active.  But I kept an eye on it all the same.

The furlings though, I can still get in over my head there.  A normal furling on the plains is no problem.

This guy? No problem

But you can take a shot at one and suddenly find out he had 3-5 friends and things can get out of hand very quickly.  And the one star and two star versions hit considerably harder than you might expect.  A miss-timed block against a two star furling is an invite to being one-shotted.

We’ll work on that.

We ran across a set of ruins on the edge of the meadows that had some base potential.  It even had the rune stone that revealed the location of the next boss, Yagluth.  So we had that marked down.

The ruins on the edge of meadows

But we kept on scouting until we found a little island not too far into the plains, just on the coast, which seemed a likely spot for a base.  It would be secure from the wandering residents and on the water so we could ship in metal that couldn’t come by portal.

The island spotted

So we walked back to the staging base and collected up some essentials… wood and stone and some iron and so on… so we could make workbenches and a stone cutter and a portal, piled it all into a Karve I had handy, and set sail back up the coast to the island.  The Moder power came in handy as the wind was straight against us so I was able to fix that.

We landed and got out hoes and picks and set about scraping out a level area.  Crowbar put up a small building and I built the connecting portal to the staging base.  We were then able to jump back and pull in more supplies.  The staging base also had a portal to a mountain base I had built.  I broke down that portal, brought the materials through to the new base, and set it up there so we could start hauling in stone for walls around the place.

We ended up working away for a few hours and then again the next day, until we had a nice little base built.  We built a causeway to the mainland once we were feeling secure.

Plains island base

I planted those trees because I had some beech seeds on me.  They were going to be a wood supply, but they actually make the base easier to spot when sailing by, so they will probably remain as they are.  The also look nice.

I then reworked the portals so that there was a direct connection from our main base at the spawn point to this new base, and from there you could jump to the staging base or the mountain base.

Portal routes to the new base

I should probably bring the Bonemass portal through to the plains base as well, as we’ll likely need to hop over there to harvest some iron scraps from the crypts the haul back.

I also did some scouting to get a sense of how much plains biome we have to work with.  In my journey I ended up circling our area and spotting quite a few furling camps.  We will need to assault those to find barely and flax.

Our plains area

You can also see the spot where I died to a two star furling while doing a scouting run around the mountain biome to see how big that was.  I ended up having to run back naked across the whole biome to grab my stuff, wolves chasing me.  Fortunately I ate a serpent stew, lox meat, and some sausage so I had a lot of hit points and stamina.  Then, at my corpse, a deathsquito latched onto me and chased me back.  Fortunately they cannot hit naked fleeing people.  Also, it decided to fight with the wolves once they caught up, so I was able to keep running and eventually put my gear back on.

So we have a lot of area to explore.  The furling camps feel like a group exercise.  Once we get some flax, which is suppose to be rare, and start growing it, we can begin upgrading our gear.

Life on the plains.

The Altar of Zul and Jintha’alor

After Uldaman, the next instance on the list for us was Zul’Farrak.  But before we could wander down to Tanaris and start in on that there was some prep work to be done.  ZF is an instance with a group of lead-in quests so we got together to get those done first.  Our group for the venture was:

• Moronae – level 46 night elf druid
• Viniki – level 45 gnome warrior
• Ula – level 44 gnome mage
• Skronk – level 44 dwarf priest

Moronae had been out working on gold to get his mount, which got him a couple of levels along the way.  The rest of us were about where we left off after Uldaman.

Our destination was the Hinterlands.

Map of the Hinterlands

In the Hinterlands is the hammer that one must transform into the Mallet of Zul’Farrak, which is needed to summon Gahz’rilla, one of the bosses in the instance.  We all still recall the time we went in and forgot to bring the mallet with us.

Otherwise though memories of the Hinterlands aspect of this were vague.  But we would just follow the quests and see where we ended up.

The line starts with the quest Withbark Cages, available in the cave just behind the flight point… the flight point which we all had after I got lost that one time… which was a quick out and back as a group.

Back to get the next quest already

That leads into the quest that sends you out to investigate Altar of Zul.  At the top of the structure, at the Altar of Zul itself, is Qiaga the Keeper, who drops the sacred mallet that becomes the Mallet of Zul’Farrak.  So we headed out to the Altar of Zul to see what we could see.

The steps up to the Altar of Zul

The mobs on the way up, were starting to creep up in levels compared to our group.  They were also a bit close to each other, so we ended up with our share of proximity aggro and pulls.  But they were all non-elite.  However, at the top, Qiaga and Morta’gya were both elites and level 50.

Red level is a warning

However, we met up with Discostuart, a level 47 priest, who was also there for the Altar of Zul.  We joined up with him and went after the elites.  It was a bit of a muddle… Discostuart decided to mind control Qiaga but didn’t mention that up front, which led to some confusion, and we managed to get all the non-elites in the area on us as well… but we managed in the end.  We all got the quest update for investigating the altar and we all got the sacred mallet.

Mallet in hand, it was time to move on to Jintha’alor to find the altar in order to create the Mallet of Zul’Farrak.

Behold Jintha’alor

Jintha’alor is something of an open air dungeon.  Most of the mobs are elite and you have a path to follow up the various walled tiers of the complex.  The altar, from my readings, was somewhere between the two ponds at the back of the complex.

Blue X, Us – Red X, Destination

It started off fairly manageable, with elite mobs being around levels 46-47 and spaced out enough that we were not getting too many accidental adds.  There were even some gaps that allowed us to slip on by some mobs now and then.

Running up the sideline

But that soon started ramping up a bit, and as mobs got to be 48 and 49, our abilities became much less reliable.  That was to be expected, and we have run into that before, but it seemed to get a bit more critical this time around.  Moronae, who has been able to just unleash his DPS so far in our group ended up dying because my taunt, on an 8 second cool down, was hitting maybe 1 in 4 times.

Reviving Moronae after a fight

At our level things are getting a little more serious.  He started using cower, a skill that dumps a bit of aggro, more frequently.  This helped me as I had been blowing all of my aggression on offense that built up aggro.  Now I had a bit more room for damage mitigation.  Things were still close to going off the rails now and then, but we had a bit of luck go our way.

A level 60 player rode past us at one point and on up towards the altar.  I gather they were looking to gain faction with the Wildhammer Clan.  But they cleared a lot of the stuff ahead of us.

Skronk attempting to Mind Vision ahead to check the path

We were able to get pretty far along in the wake of the level 60, though once up at the top we were in among level 50-52 elites.  Those were mobs we could handle one at a time, but there wasn’t a lot of room for error.  A lot of resists meant mobs might go after anybody.  We took out a few of the level 50 wolves up there, but the way in to where ever we needed to be… we were not quite sure beyond the “between the ponds” landmark… was guarded by level 51 mobs that were clearly going to be coming at us in pairs.

About then the level 60, Bootsncats, showed up and asked what we were up to.  I told him we were up here for the altar.

I am for simple explanations

Since I wasn’t sure where it was, and it seemed like we might need to go into the cave just over the way, I added that.

You can see the cave and some targeted mobs

Bootsncats ran ahead and killed a couple mobs, though we chased after and almost managed to get in over our head with a couple of adds.

A level 51 resisting away

But as they went into the cave with us in tow, I started to feel that maybe the cave was too far past our mark.  The altar seemed to be out in the open, there just wasn’t anything to indicate what we had to do.

While Bootsncats was clearing the cave, we went back to the altar and sat around for a bit.

At the altar

One of us clicked on the sacred mallet they had collected and found that would upgrade it to the Mallet of Zul’Farrak.  Objective complete.

We left Bootsncats to his slaying.  As I noted, I think they were up there for the rep grind anyway.  We turned around to play our escape.  The ride out of Jintha’alor is traditionally done by just trying to blow past and out run all the mobs, jumping off terraces and running down wall tops to avoid fall damage.  So we all mounted up and rode off.

There was some confusion as to where we ought to turn.  I just rode down stairs then straight over the next ledge and so on.  Ula fell off the wrong side of a wall at one point and ended up going the wrong way.  Skronk and I were riding all out when we got to the base of the complex.

Nearly there!

However, both Skronk and I got swarmed by mobs at the bottom, dismounted, and killed.  Only Moronae made it out safely.  Skronk and I were close enough to safety that Moronae went to use his combat ress, the one with the 30 minute cool down, to revive Skronk so he could then revive me.  But Moronae mis-clicked and revived me instead.

Oh no, wrong corpse! Skronk was just behind me

There was a quick discussion as to whether or not if I declined it the cool down would go away, but it already seemed to be running.  So I took the ress, Skronk released and came back, and Ula somehow got herself back to us, though I am not sure where she ended up.

We were out and done.  We took a side trip to Skulk Rock to slay some oozes for a quest we picked up.  If Jintha’alor was any guide, we were probably going to need some more levels before we could expect to successfully assault Zul’Farrak.  I figure we probably need be 47 minimum across the board to finish it all.  So something to work on.  But the groundwork has been laid.

Brisc Rubal Removed from CSM13 and Banned from EVE Online

I thought the CSM might be past the whole “somebody gets kicked every year” routine, but here we are again, only well beyond the usual removal scenario.

Never far from drama

Earlier today an EVE Online Dev Blog by CCP Dopamine was posted announcing the following:

Brisc Rubal has been found to be sharing confidential information with a member of his alliance that was later used by another alliance member to conduct illicit in-game transactions.

The results of this finding were reported to be:

• Brisc Rubal has been removed from his role as a CSM 13 representative effective immediately and will not be able to run in any future CSM elections.
• All his in-game accounts have been permanently banned from the game.
• Two other players involved in this incident have received a one-year ban.
• All the illicit assets and ISK gained from this incident have been confiscated.

According to the Dev Blog, the information that led up to these actions came from CSM members concerned about the integrity of the institution.

As is customary with this sort of situation, CCP has declined to include any details as to what actually transpired.  Brisc Rubal responded on Twitter stating that he did not know why he had been banned:

For those asking, I do not know why I was banned from EVE and removed from the CSM. I have asked for clarification and have received none. I categorically deny any wrongdoing and look forward to clearing my name and having my reputation restored.

Being a politician in real life, there was no shortage of quips in response to his statement.

Brisc Rubal also appeared on an impromptu episode of Talking in Stations with several current and former CSM members to talk about the situation.  When the recording for that is posted you can listed to the discussion that came about.

While people being removed from the CSM has not been an uncommon occurrence in the past, and even insider trading has come up before, but seeing a CSM member removed from the council and having their accounts permanently banned from the game might be a new low for the institution.

I suspect that we won’t hear anything further from CCP on the topic unless they uncover compelling evidence that causes them to change their decision.  CCP isn’t a civil government and you sign away all your rights when you accept the end user license agreement and terms of service, and probably all the more so when you sign the NDA as a member of the CSM.

Still, there is an odd mention near the end of the Dev Blog:

Some additional steps to help prevent similar conduct in future will be implemented. Starting from the next summit, we will impose a rule that prohibits electronics during CSM sessions and will take extra time to educate everyone about confidentiality, insider trading and general do’s and don’ts when it comes to operating under NDA.

I don’t know how electronic devices enter into this affair, and likely never will, but it is interesting that it is brought up specifically.

And then there is the question of a replacement.  Often when a CSM member is removed the next person in votes from the election is tapped to join the council.  However, the Dev Blog notes at the end that the CSM14 elections are “approaching fast.”  Though there hasn’t been an official announcement yet or a timeline laid out, I suspect that this means that it is too late in the CSM13 term to bother bringing somebody new on board.  The summits have happened already and a new election is in the offing.

Finally, in a moment of either good or bad timing, depending on how you look at it, MMORPG.com published a long post about the CSM this morning that goes into some of the ups and downs of the council.  The post has since had today’s events appended.

Pet Battle Catching Rodeo

As I mentioned last week, with the pet battle experience boost running through today in World of Warcraft, it was time to get out and level up some pets.

Time for pet battles!

My problem was that I was running out of low level pets to run through my level up routine and, as I realized, catching new pets out in Zandalar and Kul Tiras was just adding in more level 23 pets as opposed to giving me some level 1 pets to run with.

So I started working on things that would get me level 1 pets.

The auction house is always an option, though I am a bit of cheapskate, in part because I have never been one to accumulate gold in any serious fashion.  So in the current price meta at the auction house, literally everything seems expensive to me.  Still, I buckled down and bought a few of the cheaper pets I did not have.

Another way forwards was via achievements.  As it turned out I was just a few pets short on several of the collection achievements.  So I headed out into the world to do a bit more catching.

First up was Battle for Azeroth, where I was out doing world quests on Zandalar.  There lived the last few pets I needed.  So I went around the zone and scooped them up as I could, finding the last one

Battle for Azeroth achievement complete

That gave me a new rare level 1, the Dreadtick Leecher.

Next up on the list was the Legion collection achievement.

I was a bit surprised that I didn’t have that completed as I remembered working on it specifically at one point during a past pet battle bonus event.  But I still had a couple on the list, so it was off to the Broken Isles to pick up a few more pets and another achievement.

Broken Isles done

That left me with one more collection achievement, one that had eluded me before.  I needed the restless shadeling from near Karazhan.  I make the same mistake every time.  I go to WoW Head, look it up, read the top comment, which says that it spawns only at midnight server time.  Since Eldre’Thalas is a US east coast server, so I happily get in there and hang around at 9 pm Pacific time thinking it should spawn.

I always forget to read down the comments to the point where it says that Blizzard changed this so that restless shadelings start to spawn at midnight Pacific time, so I am usually hanging around there for nothing three hours early.  And I did that again.

Hanging around yet again

This time however, when 9pm came and went I looked the whole thing up again and decided I was just going to stay up and catch it.  Staying up until midnight doesn’t sound like a big deal, but my life is currently skewed towards getting up at 5am, so I am usually quite drowsy past 10pm these days.  Getting old is no fun.  But my patience was rewarded.

The shadeling appears

I was actually a bit annoyed because the first one I spotted at midnight was positioned in such a way that I could not open a battle with it.  But there were more down the way and, being just level 17, they show up solo rather than getting two partners, so they are easy enough to catch.

I got one, and the double achievements for finally bringing that guy home.

Mine at last

That got me lined up with some fresh pets to work with.  But at that point I noticed I was closing in on yet another achievement, the one for collecting 800 pets… which, of course gets you another pet.

I wasn’t far off and, as it turned out there were three new pets to buy at Darkmoon Faire, added with the recent 8.1.5 patch, so when Sunday rolled around I immediately found the vendor… they are balloon pets, so the balloon vendor has them… and bought all three.  I have a stock of prize tickets for just this sort of thing.

Hey, balloons

The balloon pets are fun as they do, in fact, appear around you as though you are holding a balloon.

Me and my wolf balloon pet

That left me just a few pets shy of 800, so I got out an alt that had some gold on them and bought up some more from the auction house.  That was enough to get me over the top.

Pet Emporium achievement

The count in the Rematch addon was off by a bit, so I actually bought a few more battle pets than I needed to.  At least that gets me closer to the next achievement, which is for 1,000.  As of now my count stands at 806, which seems like a long way from 1,000.  But then again, 800 seemed a long way away when I made it to 600, and Blizz keeps adding pets to the game.

Anyway, that was what I did with my gaming time this weekend.

Honest Game Trailers – Sea of Thieves

I had Sea of Thieves on my outlook list for 2017, where I rather aptly felt adrift.  Of course it, like almost every other title on that list, did not ship in 2017, so I made a new list for 2018 with a different theme and went on my way.

But Sea of Thieves did ship this year and what I’ve read about it has been… mixed.  And so here is the Honest Game Trailers take on the game.

That seems to align with what I’ve read, but since I haven’t played it I cannot confirm how legit it is.  And, of course, nothing here makes me at all keen to go give it a try.

EVE Vegas 2017 coming October 6-8

One of the final announcements at EVE Fanfest in Iceland was the dates for this year’s EVE Vegas.  The EVE Vegas site has been updated with details and tickets are now available. (Though the super-early bird tickets are already sold out.)

Vegas Baby!

The dates are October 6th through 8th and the venue this year will be the Linq Hotel, one of the Caesar’s family of establishments.

The Linq on the strip

It is on the strip across from Caesar’s and not too far from other fine establishments and attractions/distractions.

Where on the strip

Last year EVE Vegas was on Halloween weekend at Planet Hollywood.  The venue was fine, but the dates meant flights and rooms were in-demand and pricey.  This year, at the other end of October, room rates look to be more modest and discount airfares are available.

So the question is, will you be able to make it to Vegas?

Blizzard, Nostalrius, and the Classic Server Question

I spent yesterday hiking in Muir Woods where, among the giant redwoods, there is no WiFi service.  I didn’t bring my iPad with me in any case, but it was a day away from the internet.

Still, the last story I saw in Feedly before my wife and I headed out stuck with me.  As you may have guessed from the title, it was about Blizzard sending its legal team after Nostalrius.

Nostalrius is/was hosting a private/pirate World of Warcraft server that was offering a classic/vanilla WoW experience, along with a classic Burning Crusade focused experience.

That is not a new thing.  A simple Google search will turn up some alternatives offering various WoW experiences.  Such servers come and go.  I spent a bit of time poking about on the now defunct Emerald Dream server.  Posts from that interlude can be found by following the right tag.

You no take catch phrase! Also, a metaphor!

It has been a while since Blizzard has bothered to go after such a server.  The last I recall was the case against Alyson Reeves and Scape Gaming.  However, that case was special because the Scape Gaming server was bringing in real money from players, to the tune of 3 million dollars.

That one appeared to be about the money, with Blizzard getting a life-ruining 88.6 million dollar judgement at the end of the trial.

If Nostalrius was in it for the money, then this is probably about that.  Running some alternative experience for free is one thing, but making money off of a Blizzard trademark won’t stand.

Nostalrius, on their site and in their open letter/petition at Change.org, doesn’t mention money.

So let us assume for the moment that money wasn’t the issue, if only because the whole thing isn’t very interesting unless money was not a factor.

Why go after Nostalrius if they are not making money off of Blizzards works?

While it may not be about money, I imagine it is still about numbers.  Nostalrius claims to have had over 800,000 registered users and as many as 150,000 active users on its classic experience servers.

150K, if true, is a pretty respectable user count, and doubly so for such a server that must, by necessity, keep a low profile.  That is a big enough number to attract attention.  I’d bet there are some live MMORPGs out there that wouldn’t mind being able to claim 150K active users.

In that scenario, if it isn’t about the money, is Blizzard flexing its legal muscles just to smack down somebody who has gotten a bit too popular, a bit too brazen?  Is this like being the most popular speakeasy in town during prohibition, something that expanded to far to allow the authorities to pretend isn’t there?

Or is this more of a reaction to the discontent many players… or many former players… feel for World of Warcraft these days?  Because you cannot deny that there is some level of discontent.  Having nearly half your player base unsubscribe… and maybe more than half by now, but we’ll never know because the news was so bad that Blizzard stopped reporting it… is not an endorsement for staying the current course.

And, if it is a reaction, will there be any upside?

Because there is a sliver of hope that this might mean Blizzard has seen the light when it comes to the retro experience.  With multiple classic servers having popped up over the years, with 150K users on the one they just effectively shut down, and with the success of retro servers for EverQuest, EverQuest II, and RuneScape, that maybe, just maybe, somewhere down in Anaheim the ball may have started rolling that will eventually give players some sort of official vanilla WoW experience despite past statements that they would never go that route.

Blizzard has the money, they have the staff, and they have a huge number of former players who would resubscribed just to try something like that out, enough that costs would likely be covered very quickly, leading to profits.

I know it isn’t as easy as just pulling some old code out of source control and throwing it out there.  To do this right, and Blizzard couldn’t bring themselves to do this in a half-assed way I am sure, it would likely have to be played as a separate game with its own version of the client.  No transfers from current WoW, no cash shop, no flying mounts, no WoW Tokens… basically a bunch of the extra-cost addons that Blizzard has attached to the game over the years to boost revenue.  So an official WoW classic server done right would not have the same revenue potential as any of the current servers.

However, the cynic in me doesn’t think that even enters into it.  That part of me doesn’t believe for a second that Blizzard even sees the distinction between a WoW classic server and the current state of the game.  That part of me strongly suspects that somebody down in Anaheim thinks that 150K… or maybe 800K… people were playing WoW for free and that they needed to put a stop to that right now.  If people want to play WoW, they can pay the $15 a month like everybody else.

Which is fully within Blizzard’s rights.  They can, and one might argue must, step in and defend their intellectual property.

But in that scenario, there is no official WoW classic server, or even an acknowledgement that such a thing could even be.  Unfortunately, the cynic in me is right more often than not.

So what is the real reason and the view towards the future with WoW?

Others on this topic:

• Priest with a Cause
• Keen and Graev
• The Light Falls Gracefully
• MMO Fallout
• Massively Overpowered