Honest Game Trailers Takes On Valheim

Tired of Valheim posts yet?  Well, they’re not done.  Not yet.  But if you’re chafing about all this Valheim stuff, then Honest Game Trailers has you covered as they dig into the game to expose its many flaws.

I have to admit that a lot of what they say is true, though the measure of fun and depth will vary for people.  Stamina management though, it is very much a thing.  I am just surprised they mentioned the cart then didn’t show how you can mess up even that.  Or maybe that was just me.

Trying to push the cart is sub-optimal

But you know you’ve made it as an indie title on Steam if Honest Game Trailers features you.  Now to see if Zero Punctuation gets around to the game.

Moria Beckons

Moria, Moria, Moria, was there ever another expansion like the Mines of Moria?

The Mines of Moria

And today, should things go to plan… something of an ask for SSG given how last week played out… Mines of Moria should unlock on the LOTRO Legendary servers, Anor and Ithil.

Obligatory LOTRO Legendary graphic

A hopefully short and successful downtime is planned for today… it is supposed to be done before this post goes live… after which Moria will be unlocked.  The patch notes for the associated update give us the basics, including the bump in the level cap to 60 and such.  There will also be a special offer in the shop called the “Reclaim Moria Bundle” that includes quite a pile of items.  Honestly, I would worry about bag space on my main character on Anor were I to purchase it.

But nothing in that bundle calls to me either, so I likely spend my LOTRO Points on it.

And then there is my own relationship with the expansion.

It took me a while to get to Moria the first time around.  The expansion launched in November of 2008 but I didn’t step into the dark until nearly three years later.

Past Durin’s Door in August 2011

I blame that on… well… other games, my own laziness, and the fact that the gap between the Trollshaws and Eregion was pretty rough and very group focused back in the early days.  While I am not necessarily proud that I did the LOTRO Legendary journey almost completely solo so far, the fact that I could do as much as I did was largely due to changes made since the last time I played the game seriously.

As for making it out to the other side of Moria, that took another two years further and was done with a different character altogether.

Despite having some misgivings about the venture, I suspect that I will pick up where I left off in Eregion, equip one of the notoriously needy legendary weapons, and eventually step through the gate and into Moria.

The biggest problem will be finding the time to settle in and get it done.  As I noted in yesterday’s post, I have more games in play than I would normally consider.  Moria might have to wait for a bit.

Spring Movie League – Strangers Triumph

Only in the second week of our Spring Fantasy Movie League and there was already something of an upset.

The lineup for week two had some new titles, including A Wrinkle in Time, that was being discussed as possibly the film to take the number one weekend spot away from Black Panther.  Certainly the pricing indicated that expectation.

 A Wrinkle in Time    $641
 Black Panther        $575
 The Strangers        $126
 Red Sparrow          $121
 Peter Rabbit         $107
 Game Night           $97
 Deathwish            $85
 The Hurricane Heist  $78
 The Shape of Water   $48
 Gringo               $48
 Jumanji              $47
 Thoroughbreds        $47
 Annihilation         $44
 The Greatest Showman $29
 Fifty Shades Freed   $25

I was skeptical of the strength of A Wrinkle in Time however.  Last week I went over the hazards of taking on a beloved classic, especially one that had already been make into a film, if only of the “made for TV” variety.

I played with a lot of options over the course of the week.  I avoided Wrinkle, but thought about everything else.  Particularly sticky was that log jam of $47/$48 films in the middle when it came to filler for some test lineups.

I did, at one point, have seven screens of The Strangers with one screen of Peter Rabbit, but discarded that when Liore, resident expert on horror films, said it would be hot garbage.  So I discarded that and thought no more of The Strangers.  I lined up eight screens of Red Sparrow at one point, the lineup SynCaine took, but discarded it when my mental estimate simply didn’t add up to enough dollars given the ~$8 million estimated weekend box office for it.

Instead I went looking for what might go well with Black Panther as an anchor.  Once you spend $575 on one screen, the search is for the right mix of filler.

In the end I settled on 1x Black Panther, 3x Game Night, 1x Jumanji, and 3x Greatest Showman.

Spring Week Two – My Picks

It seemed reasonable at the time, though I might have been a bit too fixated on that $47/$48 title war.  I picked the winner in that four horse race with Jumanji, … the others had low theater counts when it came down to it… it just didn’t matter.

When the screens locked on Friday, the MCats league seemed pretty solid anchoring on Black Panther, with only Liore bucking the trend with Wrinkle and seven screens of Gringo.

The TAGN league however was full of variety.  Sure, there picks were mostly anchored on Black Panther, but there were also Wrinkle and Red Sparrow in the mix, as well as two players in on The Strangers.  Po Huit was especially keen on The Strangers, with seven screens of that and one of Game Night.

When the Saturday morning estimates came Po’s lineup was the perfect pick.  Historically, that changes with the final results almost every week, so having the perfect pick on Saturday is almost a guarantees you won’t have what ends up really being the perfect pick.  I don’t call it the “Saturday of False Hopes” for nothing.  I’ve had that happen to me multiple times.

But the Sunday morning estimates continued to show Po with the perfect pick.  And it continued to hold right through until the final scores were released.

Spring Week Two – Perfect Pick

So Po, along with 320 other players, cashed in with $99,679,288 for the week.  That left Po well out in front of the pack for the week as the scores shook out like this:

1. Po Huit’s Sweet Movie Suite (T) – $99,679,288
2. Kraut Screens (T) – $87,518,144
3. Vigo Grimborne’s Medieval Screening Complex (T) – $73,452,542
4. Biyondios! Kabuki & Cinema (T) – $73,452,542
5. Wilhelm’s Broken Isles Bijou (T/M) – $72,892,467
6. Corr’s Carefully Curated Cineplex (M) – $72,338,433
7. I HAS BAD TASTE (T) – $71,814,131
8. Miniature Giant Space Hamsterplex (T) – $68,973,320
9. Goat Water Picture Palace (T) – $68,874,200
10. Paks’ Pancakes & Pics (T) – $68,874,200
11. Bean Movie Burrito (T) – $68,776,712
12. SynCaine’s Dark Room of Delights (T) – $68,018,104
13. Ben’s X-Wing Express (M) – $67,691,059
14. Joanie’s Joint (T) – $67,305,834
15. Skar’s Movies and Meat Pies (T) – $66,364,589
16. Dan’s Decadent Decaplex (M) – $65,654,362
17. Logan’s Luxurious Thaumatrope (M) – $64,046,761
18. Darren’s Unwatched Cineplex (T) – $63,405,826
19. DumCheese’s Cineplex (T) – $62,356,016
20. Aure’s Astonishingly Amateur Amphitheatre (M) – $59,282,466
21. JHW’s Cineplex (T) – $58,458,097
22. Dr Liore’s Evil House of Pancakes (M) – $52,180,549

The Meta League Legend:

• TAGN Movie Obsession – players from it marked with a (T)
• MCats Multiplex – players from it marked with an (M)

The perfect pick put Po way out in front, while Kraut Screens, the only other person to bet heavily on The Strangers, secured second place.  After that there is a $26 million gap between Po and the rest of the pack.

At that point we get into people who anchored on Black Panther and things sort out by how well they did in picking their filler.  I managed to get into fifth place overall, with Black Panther and 3x Game Night being the most solid mid-pack anchors.

Down towards the bottom you get into people who eschewed Game Night, bet on Gringo, or who went the full contrarian Monty.

And, in last place, for the second week running, is Liore with her Wrinkle and 7x Gringo lineup.

Needless to say, that shook up the overall Meta League rankings for the season so far.

1. Po Huit’s Sweet Movie Suite (T) – $196,695,747
2. Kraut Screens (T) – $175,839,546
3. Biyondios! Kabuki & Cinema (T) – $174,128,564
4. Wilhelm’s Broken Isles Bijou (T/M) – $173,568,489
5. I HAS BAD TASTE (T) – $172,490,153
6. Corr’s Carefully Curated Cineplex (M) – $168,520,253
7. Ben’s X-Wing Express (M) – $168,477,075
8. Goat Water Picture Palace (T) – $165,890,659
9. Paks’ Pancakes & Pics (T) – $165,890,659
10. Darren’s Unwatched Cineplex (T) – $163,874,451
11. SynCaine’s Dark Room of Delights (T) – $159,444,463
12. Dan’s Decadent Decaplex (M) – $157,435,657
13. Joanie’s Joint (T) – $155,083,369
14. Aure’s Astonishingly Amateur Amphitheatre (M) – $154,869,762
15. Miniature Giant Space Hamsterplex (T) – $154,745,128
16. Vigo Grimborne’s Medieval Screening Complex (T) – $154,668,668
17. JHW’s Cineplex (T) – $151,557,010
18. Skar’s Movies and Meat Pies (T) – $149,955,112
19. Logan’s Luxurious Thaumatrope (M) – $147,478,402
20. DumCheese’s Cineplex (T) – $146,308,332
21. Dr Liore’s Evil House of Pancakes (M) – $132,207,713
22. Bean Movie Burrito (T) – $68,776,712

Those who went with The Strangers rose to the top, though the gap between second and ninth place is less than $10 million.  And even with a $20 million lead, Po isn’t safe.  A bad week could change things and we are only two weeks in.  Corr and Ben, who battled for first place last season, are only back in sixth and seventh place respectively.

Meanwhile Liore was saved from being at the bottom of the overall rankings by the return of Bean Movie Burrito.  With only one week of scoring, he is behind the pack.

Which brings us to week three.  Can Liore get out of the basement?  Or is she just trolling us?  She won the summer season across both leagues even though she missed a week.  So I remain suspicious.

The lineup for week three looks like this:

Tomb Raider $407
Black Panther $391
A Wrinkle in Time $241
Love Simon $217
Game Night $82
The Strangers $78
Red Sparrow $67
Deathwish $54
I Can Only Imagine $41
7 Days in Entebbe $29
Annihilation $29
Jumanji $23
Gringo $21
The Hurricane Heist $19
Peter Rabbit $15

Gone from the list are The Greatest Showman, Fifty Shades Freed, The Shape of Water, and Thoroughbreds.  Somehow though Jumanji carries on.  It isn’t even at the bottom of the list yet.

While new this week are Tomb Raider, Love Simon, I Can Only Imagine, and 7 Days in Entebbe, with Tomb Raider in the unenviable “can it beat Black Panther” position this week.

I mean, Lara Croft has been going strong for almost 22 years now and has evolved from a character that looked like she could literally poke an eye out if you were not careful.

1996 Lara Croft wearing one of Madonna’s bras

But the new film, already out overseas, has not drawn much in the way of praise, so I am wary of it as an anchor.  I am not convinced it will beat Black Panther or that it won’t beat it by enough to offset the price difference.

Then there is A Wrinkle in Time.  I am not feeling it for that unless it seems to be holding over the week in the daily box office numbers.

Finally in the anchor price range there is Love Simon, which Liore has already endorsed, a situation that brings me back to the questions about her strategy I asked above.  Is she playing us?

And for filler… lots of choices.  Once again I will have to wait until Thursday and the theater counts to commit.  I do want to say something about 7 Days in Entebbe being the fourth movie on that subject, my personal favorite being the Charles Bronson version, which would put it on the list with Deathwish as another remake of his work.

At the moment though my gut is to go with two screens of Black Panther and fill in from there.  Then again, there is a theory out there that, as a kids movie, Wrinkle might have a slower decline than one might otherwise expect.  Wrinkle dropping 50% over last week doesn’t interest me.  Wrinkle dropping 40% or less though, that could be something.

Over Abundant Gifts in Telara

In the mix of old and new in Rift Prime, the daily gift box apparently made the cut for inclusion.

In its Rift for this is the daily rewards calendar.  You get something every day you log in.

The Daily Rewards you get Daily

I was on day six last night, which entitled me to a box of crafting materials.

Box of Materials

Previous days were fireworks or void stones or other little things.  So I claimed the box and opened it.

Oh, one of the things I didn’t bother to bring up in the last post was inventory management.  Being a new character on a new server and all that, I had only the 20 slot starter bag… World of Warcraft finally matched that… plus whatever other bags I have been able to scrounge.  That total hasn’t been much, leaving me with a grand total of 38 bag slots, which sounds like a lot, but really isn’t all that much for a packrat like myself.

I have tried to be good, vendoring things mercilessly to try and keep things from accumulating.  Still, I keep getting little things that I hate to toss, but haven’t gotten around to using.  How many stat buff scrolls can I use at once if they’re all for wisdom, right?

As I said, I opened the box, only to find it trying to dump in excess of 25 stacks of crafting materials on me.  I probably had a dozen slots free, tops.  So there I was with the clown car-like box waiting for me to clear bag space.

Inventory full and then some

Fortunately I logged off in Meridian the night before, so I only had to walk across town to the bank NPC in order to start depositing thing.  I’d hate for that to have happened if I were out in the field.

Like I said, I shouldn’t look a gift box in the… opening I suppose.  But sometimes the generosity is a bit too much.

Still, if I remember to claim every day and get to Day 21 before it resets a mount is waiting for me.

Trove of mounts at Day 21

We’ll see if I can wait that long for a mount.  Freemarch is a tight zone, but when you’re in an invasion event group and everybody mounts up and rides off while you’re trotting along behind, it can try a player’s will.

YC119.3 Update Brings Rorqual Nerfs and Bubble Decay to New Eden

This month’s update for EVE Online, YC119.3, brings some significant changes to New Eden.

I am once again content to use CCP’s logo for the update

The Rorqual and its capabilities are once again in the sights of CCPs nerf gun.  The industrial capital ship, which long languished in POSes across low and null sec space as an AFK booster for mining ops, was given a serious boost of its own with the Ascension expansion back in November.  Suddenly its new mining drones were the path to wealth in null sec.  Even after the previous nerf to mining yields, Rorquals from Delve to Cobalt Edge were still out making bank according to the February economic report.

February 2017 report mining value by region

This was bringing down mineral prices thus, according to Dinsdale Pirannah, who I am going to troll on this front (“Trolling Detected” tag deployed), depriving high sec miners their inalienable right to grown rich by mining veldspar two jumps out of Jita. (Note the mining value of the high sec regions around Jita, Lonetrek and The Forge, on that chart.)

So, despite the likely overall net benefit of making production cheaper and lowering prices for all (plus the insane nearly 103 trillion ISK negative trade balance Delve, the mining capital of New Eden, was running on that report, which means that ISK was likely enriching high sec, not impoverishing it) that had to be fixed!

Okay, the Rorqual has been too much of a money printing machine of late, but I wanted to point out that the economics aren’t as simple as “high sec loses.”  So now the billion ISK mining drones that Rorquals use (which will also now provide kill mails) will have higher skill requirements to get tech II benefits, while a change to spread out the asteroids in mining belts and anoms means that drone round trip time will effectively reduce yield.  This will reduce overall productivity of the Rorqual by an estimated 25%.

High sec has been protected from belt spread by having the lock ranges of mining barges increased proportional to the change.

Meanwhile, the invulnerable PANIC jump hictor usage of the Rorqual has been curtailed a bit, as the ship now needs to have an asteroid locked in order to activate its PANIC module.  So long as Jay can keep his super carriers out of asteroid belts, this should improve his quality of life.

Also on the null sec nerf parade is carrier ratting, likely the greatest source of individual null sec wealth.  (If CCP is controlled by Goons, how come they can’t stop this?)  Fighter signature radii are being increased and NPCs will view them as more threatening, thus making fighters both easier to hit and more likely to be targeted in the first place.  The range of responses I have seen to this change have gone from “carrier ratting is dead” to “no big deal if you pay attention.”

Since I haven’t mined in ages and still rat in an Ishtar, neither of these changes make a difference to me personally, but the drama around the changes has been mildly entertaining.  And fighters are getting a UI pass as well, so maybe I’ll figure out how to use them properly some day.

Another big change coming up for null sec relates to mobile warp disruptors, or anchorable bubbles as I generally hear them called. (I love when player terminology deviates from the official terminology.)  Up until today, these things lasted forever once you dropped them, were a pain to shoot, had enough passive regen to make them somewhat proof against solo attacks, and after all that work didn’t even provide a freakin’ kill mail.  Each of these items has been addressed in some way.

The biggest deal is that bubbles will die of their own accord when left in space.  The timers are:

• Two days for all T1 bubbles
• One week for all T2 bubbles
• Two weeks for all Syndicate bubbles

Meanwhile, hit points have been reduced, regen has been toned down, and they now provide kill mails.  Let the bubble holocaust begin!  Also, the updates entry for these changes uses a screen shot I took at 319 station in Delve back in 2012.

319 Station, Many Bubbles Ago

Then there is a great big change to scanners and probes and that interface.  That has really been a work in progress since I started player, but maybe this time for sure!  I will have to see it in action to see if it makes any difference to my own indifferent scanning skills.

I mentioned the change to the Caldari Cormorant destroyer in a post last week, but the Caldari Chimera carrier is also getting a new look.  We will see how the former sits with me once it is live in space.  The latter… well the old model always looked like some sort of amphibian life that was trying to wade ashore, so I suppose it couldn’t get much worse… could it?

Those are what I think are the big items coming with today’s update, which has been deployed.  For further details the patch notes and updates page are both available.  And, as always, it isn’t an EVE Online release/update without another music track to go with it.