Diablo II Resurrected as a Group

For all my talk and nostalgia around Diablo II Resurrected, one thing I have not done in probably 18 years was play with anybody else.  Early on in the Diablo II era we played together at the office and I played with some friends from home via BNet, but since then the game has been a solo venture.

The return of the classic

Last weekend however we were a bit at loose ends with Beanpole away and were looking for something to do.  With Outland or Brewfest as options in WoW Classic, we turned to the newly released Diablo II Resurrected to occupy some time on Sunday afternoon.

All of us had played Diablo II.  Some of us had played it more recently than others however, so we got off to a bit of a slow start as everybody got settled into the 2000 era design that is the game.

Actually having somebody asking questions was good for me because I’ve certainly forgotten more about the game than I remember even if I played in beta and did a run through the game last year.  I, for whatever reason, always forget about being able to bind skills to function keys for quick swaps when you need them.

We started off by picking classes.  Ula went with the sorceress and Skronk, playing under the handle Daugrim, went with the necromancer.  I avoided my usual pattern, which is to play paladin or barbarian, and went with a druid.  I cannot recall having played a druid before, though surely at some point in the last two decades I must have at least tried one out.

And then we had to get together in a game, which is another thing I have forgotten to do over the years.  The UI at least implies that people on your friends list ought to be able to simply join a game you start, but that didn’t seem to be coming together.  I ended up going into the BNet lobby, a place I have avoided since 2001, to create a game with a password which I then said aloud on voice coms so we could all get in the game together.

I don’t mind the updated character models, but it feels like somebody decided that they all needed to be aged 20 years to go with the age of the game.  They feel a bit old and weathered compared to the original graphics… though those were so low res I am not sure how much you could really tell.  But we got the band together .

Aging rock act reunited

That accomplished, we spent some time getting oriented, wandering around the camp, getting keys setup, and grabbing that first quest.  And then it was out into the Blood Moors, the first area, to warm up.  We slayed a few things, Daugrim brought forth his first skeleton follower, and we hit a level pretty quickly.

With three of us sticking together we seemed to level on the same kill pretty consistently.

Once we got a level though it was time to look at those Diablo II skill trees.  I passed on my general philosophy of the skill tree, which is that you can screw around with points, assigning them to things that look interesting until late in Act II, at which point you will probably want to look up a usable build and then turn in you one respec to run with that.  Ula went with more damage, Daugrim more skeletons, and I started down the werewolf path.  We’ll see.

Then we managed to find our way into the Den of Evil, the first destination in the game.

Quite a well lit den… also, skeletons in motion

There we managed to mostly stick together… the tendency to wander off or away is strong, and all the more so when you have skeleton pets that run around like sugared up eight year olds… and cleared the den, returning to the surface to head back to camp for our reward.

Respec in our pockets for later, we got the next quest from Kashya, which was to go find Blood Raven in the cemetery over in the Cold Plains.  As we explored we found the road into the next zone beyond, the Stony Fields, and I led us in there in hopes of finding the next waypoint, as it is sometimes just there inside the zone, easy to grab.  That would save us a bit of walking later.

However, as we probed into the Stony Fields rather than finding the waypoint we found the cairn stones, which come into play later, and in the midst of them was the familiar mini-boss Rakanishu.  He is memorable both because the carvers shout his name every so often when attacking and because he is likely the first lightning enhanced boss that you run into in the game and that is generally when you learn that lightning enhanced means handle with care.

We were quickly in over our heads as the skeletons began beating on the boss, summoning forth waves of lightning.  We started to run away but Ula and Daugrim were down for their first deaths in the game.  I kept running and chugging health pots, dropping a town portal when I had a moment.

I managed to get safe, but when they came through the portal it was quickly obvious that it was too close to the cairn stones leading to more deaths.  At this point I tried to kite Rakanishu away from the area, which surprisingly worked.  Once I had him off in the Cold Plains… he just kept following… Ula and Daugrim came through and collected their stuff.

Kiting the lightning

I ran Rakanishu around Flavie, the rogue who guards the bridge between the Blood Moors and Stony Field… I was really on a tour with him in tow… hoping she might kill him off for us.  Flavie took some potshots, but didn’t really seem invested in the killing.  After running around her a few times, I headed back across the Cold Plains for the Stony Fields and the group.

Maybe Flavie helped more than it seemed, because once I got back and kited Rakanishu past the rest of the group a couple of times we were able to take him down.  A warm up for when we have to get him next time.

After some extended searching, the waypoint was found.  We were then able to hop back to the Cold Plains to look for Blood Raven.

After some wandering about I went back to my usual pattern, which is to follow the paths in the zones, they are generally there for a reason.  The one towards Stony Fields was obvious, so I figured that the branch off from that would take us to the cemetery, and I was correct.

Having some ranged attacks with skeleton and werewolf druid melee, we were able to chase down Blood Raven and dispatch her without straying too far.

Going after Blood Raven

After that we took a turn in one of the crypts before returning to camp.

That was about all we had in us for one session.  But there was some learning and warm up along the way.  All in all, it was fun and a good change from my usual solo mode.  We’ll keep these characters as group characters and see if we can get back together again for the next round, which includes rescuing Deckard Cain.

Loot drops were a bit stingy on our run, even considering splitting three ways.  But on another BNet character I rolled… a necro because the skeleton thing seemed like a lot of fun… it was practically raining gems, jewels, charms, and gold level gear.  But I can always put that in the shared stash.

Blizzard Delays Shadowlands Expansion

I speculated just yesterday that, with the clock running down on the WoW team, the Shadowlands expansion might end up being delayed as rather large changes were still being made late in the beta.

And today we have this from the WoW team:

To the WoW community,

I wanted to let you know that we’re delaying the release of Shadowlands to later this year—and while we’re still in the process of determining the right new date to launch, we felt it was important to let you know about this change in plans as soon as we could. This was an incredibly difficult decision for the team, as we’re as eager to get the expansion into your hands as you are to play it—but ultimately, we feel it’s the right decision for the game—and for our players.

Over the past several months of testing, we’ve made significant progress iterating on and polishing the core features and gameplay of Shadowlands. We’re at a point where the zones, the campaign, the level-up questing experience, and the story we have to tell are essentially ready to share. We’re excited by the Covenants at the heart of the expansion, and it’s been a thrill to see Torghast take shape into a fun new kind of WoW experience, thanks in no small part to your input.

However, as everything started coming together and we’ve been listening to and building upon your feedback, it’s become clear we need a little more time for additional polish, and to balance and iterate on some interlocking pieces—particularly those related to the endgame. Shadowlands is one of the most intricate expansions we’ve yet created, and while we’ve made great progress, the challenge of tuning the endgame was compounded by the team having to work from home.

Blizzard has a commitment to quality. We believe Shadowlands will be something special, and we’ve heard from many of you who feel the same. We need this extra time to ensure that Shadowlands lives up to its full potential.

In the meantime, we’re excited to announce that beginning October 13 we will be releasing the Shadowlands pre-patch, which lays a lot of the groundwork for the expansion and includes our revamped character leveling, new-player experience on Exile’s Reach, and a host of new character customization options. And once we get closer to Shadowlands’ release, you’ll be called upon to defend Azeroth against a resurgence of the Scourge during our pre-launch event.

Thanks for your support and passion, and for your continued help and feedback as we head toward the finish line.

We’ll see you in the Shadowlands soon,

John Hight, Executive Producer of World of Warcraft

The original promise from Blizzard was that we would get the expansion in the fall of this year, a season that runs until December 21st, so they still have enough runway left to make that target.

We shall see how this rolls I suppose.

In the mean time, we did get a date for the pre-patch.  We now have until October 13, 2020 to finish up what we’re doing before that hits.  Then we can start wrestling what the level squish really means.

The August MER and the Second Month of World War Bee

We got the August Monthly Economic Report for EVE Online last week and I finally had some time to take a look.  I cannot even blame CCP this time for my slipping into another month.

EVE Online nerds harder

And since there is a war on, I might as well look into destruction first.  A CCP tallied a total of 38.4 trillion ISK in destroyed ships and structures for August, up 2 trillion from July.

The top ten regions for destruction in August were:

1. Fountain – 2.70 trillion (Imperium)
2. The Forge – 2.69 trillion (High Sec)
3. Domain – 2.18 trillion (High Sec)
4. Heimatar – 1.91 trillion (High Sec)
5. Lonetrek – 1.86 trillion (High Sec)
6. The Citadel – 1.83 trillion (High Sec)
7. Delve – 1.69 trillion (Imperium)
8. Catch – 1.36 trillion (Legacy)
9. Metropolis – 1.24 trillion (High Sec)
10. Sinq Laison – 1.31 trillion (High Sec)

For once The Forge region is not at the top of the chart.  Fountain, where much of the fighting was focused in August and PandaFam pushed into the region, made it to the top.  Though, to be fair, it is only there because there was almost a trillion less ISK destroyed in The Forge in August.  The July number was 3.6 trillion.

Meanwhile, the Domain region jumped considerably.  In July it was under 1 trillion, but for August it jumped past the 2 trillion ISK mark.  I have no doubt that this was due to the Triglavian take over of Niarja and the fighting that provoked.

Delve, ostensibly the target of the war, remained at a modest 1.69 trillion ISK, on par with July, while Catch, home to some of Legacy Coalition, saw destruction nearly double, hitting 1.36 trillion ISK in August, up from shy of 800 billion in July.

Overall amount of destruction is down since the start of the war.  When I looked at the numbers in June, a total of 45 trillion ISK had been destroyed and over 2 trillion ISK had been destroyed in Delve.  I’m not sure that was how things were supposed to trend.

Then there is trade.  I was wondering if the change to Niarja would have an impact on trade in Domain and its Amarr trade hub.  It is probably too early to tell, but I can always plot the numbers and see how they change over time.

So for August these were the top ten regions for trade value:

1. The Forge – 433 trillion (Jita)
2. Domain – 43.5 trillion (Amarr)
3. Sinq Laison – 18.5 trillion (Dodixie)
4. Delve – 17 trillion (Imperium)
5. Lonetrek – 15 trillion (Caldari High Sec)
6. Heimatar – 9 trillion (Rens)
7. Metropolis – 8.5 trillion (Hek)
8. Essence – 5.8 trillion (Gallente High Sec)
9. The Citadel – 4.8 trillion (Caldari High Sec)
10. The Kalevala Expanse – 4.4 trillion (PandaFam)

The Forge was down a bit, though was still 10x second place.  Amarr remained in second and was up 7 trillion ISK in trade, no doubt due to its proximity to the Niarja fighting.  So maybe we’re seeing some impact already, though only time will tell.

On the money making front NPC bounties, the primary ISK faucet in New Eden, the tap was still open in several regions.

Aug 2020 – Top Sinks and Faucets Over Time

While still down from the highs of the past, and even the peaks of earlier in the year, there was still 52.6 trillion in bounties paid out, compared to 57.7 trillion ISK in July and 54.2 trillion in June.

The top regions in August were:

1. Oasa – 6.31 trillion (PandaFam)
2. Cobalt Edge – 3.40 trillion (PandaFam)
3. Branch – 3.08 trillion (PandaFam)
4. Perrigen Falls – 2.89 trillion (PandaFam)
5. The Kalevala Expanse – 2.79 trillion (PandaFam)
6. Deklein – 2.15 trillion (PandaFam)
7. Insmother – 2.14 trillion (Legacy)
8. Delve – 2.03 trillion (Imperium)
9. Vale of the Silent – 1.96 trillion (mixed small groups)
10. Detorid – 1.82 trillion (Legacy)

PandaFam may be doing the heavy lifting when it comes to the invasion, but they also appear to be benefiting from the focus on the southwest of null sec as they purge the NPC menace in their regions for fun and profit… or at least profit.

And, finally, there is mining.  Mining value is based on the market price, so we must always keep the market price in mind.  And, for August, the market price dipped just a bit.

Aug 2020 – Economic Indices

So when we tally up the mining values for August and come up with 30.6 trillion ISK in value, and then compare it to July, where the count was 29 trillion ISK, we can surmise that more ore was harvested in August.  The top regions were:

1. The Forge – 1.59 trillion (High Sec)
2. Domain – 1.34 trillion (High Sec)
3. Sinq Laison – 1.27 trillion (High Sec)
4. Metropolis – 1.27 trillion (High Sec)
5. Lonetrek 1.23 trillion (High Sec)
6. Oasa – 1.19 trillion (PandaFam)
7. Perrigen Falls – 930 billion (PandaFam)
8. The Citadel – 924 billion (High Sec)
9. Insmother – 913 billion (Legacy)
10. Tash-Murkon – 862 billion (High Sec)

High sec remains the focus of most of the mining in New Eden, though three null sec regions are on the list.  Once again, the invaders benefit as the focus of the war is away from their regions.

I expect the mining numbers to change somewhat radically over the next few MER cycles.

CCP’s next big nerf to mining, which I mentioned on Tuesday, is set to take effect in October, but the effects were already being felt from the moment it came up.  Mineral prices jumped up significantly and a lot of people undocked their Orcas to try and scoop up as much ore as possible before the big hit, after which I expect prices will rise even further and the CCP induced shortage impacts the market.

High sec mining bots tripping over each other to get to the belts

So I expect a big shakeup in the mining numbers with that.  We shall see.

As always, all the raw data for the MER is available to download as part of the dev blog post.

Other coverage:

• The Nosy Gamer

 

Skilling Spree Returns to EVE Online

1. Stop the bleeding
2. Fix the stupid
3. Excite and teach
4. Incentivize return

-CCP Burger on CCP’s focus, CSM summit minutes page 6

I cannot tell if this announcement falls under items one or four, but it isn’t much of a stretch to guess that it is a reaction to the fact that the concurrent user count started to take a dive over the summer as soon as CCP stopped handing out skill points.  CCP pretty much says that in the CSM summit minutes linked above.

So today CCP has declared the return of the Skilling Spree event.

… to kill an NPC once a day for however long

As of down time today the event is back meaning that when you log in you will be given a daily task to blow up 1, 5, or 10 NPC ships which will earn you 10,000, 25,000, or 50,000 skill points respectively.

Only 10K for you today

Then you log in the next day to do it all again.

I am reminded once more about how CCP did something like this back in 2016 and then decided it wasn’t worth it.  But I am going to guess that at the time CCP wasn’t being held to any sort of daily or monthly active user metric the way they apparently are now.  You don’t keep mentioning DAU and MAU unless they mean something to you, right?

There is no end date currently announced for the event… as with the blackout when it went live, its duration appears to be indefinite… so I guess the skills will continue on a spree until morale improves.

There is also a forum thread for the resurrected event where people even more cynical than I are leaving comments.

A Massive Move Op Gets Me Home from the War

The peace of the north, where the Imperium agreed to withdraw forces back to Delve and not bother the north of null sec for a month and GotG for a full six months, came into effect on Saturday.  And with that began the first big move operation.  It was planned for 18:00 UTC, 11:00am for me, on that Saturday.

The first call to form up came at seven minutes before the hour in a ping and I was ready for it.

The whole operation had been announced almost a week in advance, so I had plenty of time to prepare.  As usual during a deployment, I managed to acquire a range of subcaps in my hangar.  Actually, in both of my hangars, the one in the Keepstar in 6RCQ-V and the one in the station in ROIR-Y in Pure Blind, where Reavers had been based for almost a year.

Usually the accumulation of ships means flying my main and my alt together in multiple move ops and maybe finding somebody with a bit of space in the ship maintenance bay of their capital ship to carry a couple of bombers or such.

This time however, one of the ships I managed to accumulate was a Naglfar dreadnought, a prize from the race that Ranger Gamma ran back in late December.  It was supposed to be a suicide dread, something expendable to drop on a valuable target like a titan   I only managed to use it one, during the first Keepstar battle at X47L-Q, and it survived so I had it to move back.

That turned out to be a bit of a boon.

With almost a week’s notice I was able to pack my ships into the Naglfar and jump it from ROIR-Y to the Keepstar at 6RCQ-V.  There I was able to stuff almost all of my remaining ships into the the ship maintenance bay along with the assorted modules and other stuff that ends up rattling around the corners of your station hangar when you stay in any one place for more than a week or two.  So much nanite repair paste mocking me because I forget to overheat most of the time.

The only ships that did not fit were a couple of travel interceptors, which are easy enough to jump clone to and fly out, and a Megathron battleship for the Baltec doctrine that I think I flew exactly once. (But that was one more time than the Ferox I had there as well.)

The Megathron was problematic.  A Battleship is big and takes up a lot of space in a ship maintenance bay, so I was reluctant to try to foist it off on another cap pilot.  But tech I battleships insure nicely and I wouldn’t miss it if it was gone, so I decided to just fly it home on its own.  I figure, best case, I might scatter a small gate camp and get a kill, while the worst case would be to lose it, collect the insurance, and not have to worry about it anymore.

Megathron in Cloud Ring

So on Wednesday night I undocked it and headed towards Delve.  I knew the risks. The coalition had pinged multiple times “Don’t move yourself!”  But I was going to go for it.  I already knew the route home.  Many trips over the years through the area hes left me with the lay of space.  You get into Fountain, you take the jump bridge to the mid-point of the region, you take the gate that cover the mid-region gap, you take the jump bridge to the gate to Delve, and in Delve you take a jump bridge to where you want to be.

Megathron on its way

The trip went off without incident.  It was even relatively quick.  With the revisions to jump fatigue I only had to wait for a timer to cool down a bit before hitting the next jump bridge.

My small op was done.  The big op was coming.  I was on and ready to go before the first ping came.

The first ping was for four capital fleets, divided up by type, and an overflow fleet.  Those quickly filled up and a second overflow fleet was called.  Then two subcap fleets were called.  If I recall right there was also an overflow fleet for subcaps eventually, and then a final fleet for people who could fly Apostles to help get the strategic force auxiliary reserves home.  I got my alt in for that, so had two accounts running for the move op.

If I had know that was going to be a thing I could have shoved the Megathron in the Apostle to carry it home.  Oh well, it was done already.

Move ops can be long and exasperating affairs, as demonstrated by the classic Endie “trail of tears” graphic memorializing an all day move to Delve from the north.

The Trail of Tears move op

That was back when capitals were rare and the pilots alleged to be the elite.  Now almost any scrub who rats in Delve has at least one capital ship and many of them have supers or titans.

And now, on a Saturday morning I was going to move to Delve with more than 1,800 other capital ships and a couple of fleets of subcaps, all of us sharing the same voice coms channel. (For those interested, there were about 1,400 actual people in the voice coms channel for the ~2,000 ships being moved, so less than a 2:1 ratio of accounts to people.)

There was a non-zero chance of this becoming a nightmare.

Instead, it all ran surprisingly smoothly.  People used all the advance notice we had to get ready, so a fleet of capital ships jumped to the first cyno just a little bit after 18:00.  The dreadnought fleet went at 18:17, while the Apostle fleet, the last to go, was cleared to jump at 18:25, landing on a Fortizar.

About 1,800 capitals tethered

Our first jump was a few gates shy of critical gate to Fountain, but we had jump fatigue to burn off, so we were sent by fleet forward to the last system in Cloud Ring, then gated again by fleets in order to keep time dilation from going crazy.  We held up together on a Fortizar in B-DBYQ, the last system in Cloud Ring, and the jumping off point for the Fountain War five years back.

Aligned in B-DBYQ

Again we were sent through the gate by fleets.  That put is in J5A-IX at the top of Fountain, where we regrouped on the Keepstar there, docking up.

At 19:34 we got the call to undock and, in a moment of hubris, the command was given for all fleets to jump.  That cranks up the tidi to 10% and ended with some disconnects, but for the most part it was just slow.  We got through, landing on the Keepstar in C-N4OD to dock up.

By 19:50, once people got through and things settled down, we were again called by fleets to undock and take the gate to KVN-36, the place where we were ambushed on another move op back in 2015. It ended up looking like a stream of titans being fired from the Keepstar.

You could walk back to the Keepstar on those titans

There we aligned to the Keepstar, then were sent by fleets to dock up, the Apostles going last to avoid bumping.

Apostles aligned and waiting

That put us in the southern half of the region.  We were told that for the next jump, which would bring us to the Delve gate in Y-2ANO, our arrival on the Keepstar would be recorded for use as a propaganda video, so we were all going to jump at once again, but this time we were not to dock up because that wouldn’t look as cool as all the ships arriving and just hanging on the citadel.

Again, lots of time dilation due to all of us going at once, but most people got through okay.  Traffic control was up for a lot of people and was even giving positions in the queue to jump.

412th position in the queue

My dreadnought went through, but the jump by the Apostle was cancelled by the delay.  I set it to jump again and it went through fine on the second go.

A batch of caps arriving in Y-2

I will be interested to see what the footage of us coming in looked like.

After that we all aligned to the ZXB-VC and waited for cynos to get in place in 1DQ1-A.   Another chain of titans was then fired at the gate.

Once through we were cleared to jump to the Keepstar in 1DQ1-A.  The cyno in the Apostle fleet disconnected, but by 20:41 the cyno was up again and I was docked in the Keepstar contracting the Apostle back to the person who handed them out.

Back at the Delve Keepstar

So from the time of the first ping at 17:53 to my being done and able to log off was just about three hours, which is amazing for a move op of this size and complexity.  Pilots new and old managed to make it down.

I think we’ve gotten a bit better as a coalition, but also the leadership has gotten better at keeping these sorts of operations moving.  For one thing, there were markers called at various points, that if you hadn’t reached a certain objective you were too far behind and told to log off and wait for the next move op.  The whole move op didn’t stop people one person disconnected or didn’t follow instructions.

Of course, citadels have made this sort of thing easier as well.  At every jump or gate there was a citadel waiting for us, usually a Keepstar, letting us tether up or dock.

And so it goes.  I am back in Delve for the first time since November of last year.  When I go back to put together all the posts for this deployment, this ought to be the final one.

A gallery of my screen shots from the op:

Amazon’s New World

Amazon’s new game studio announced three games that they are working on at TwitchCon yesterday.  (Amazon owns Twitch, so there is that connection… and you can now get some Twitch bennies for being an Amazon Prime customer.)

Of the three, the one garnering interest in this corner of the internet is New World, because they used our three favorite letters, M, M, and O.  Or, at least they said “Massively Multiplayer,” but the “online” part is more that implied at this point.

New World is the one for us though.  I think.  I hope.  I guess.

Just how new and how worldly?

It was hard not to roll my eyes a bit, mostly because the acronym “MMO” has been so stretched and otherwise abused by now that I don’t trust my gut when people use it.  Everything that can get a dozen players online at once seems to feel entitled to that tag these days.

Yes, yes, cynicism is my thing here, but after the last decade of MMOs I think anybody trying to use the designation has to earn our trust.  I am a product of my environment.

Old man yells at cloud base gaming… and AWS…

We have a description of sorts, right there on the store page over at Amazon.

New World is a massively multiplayer, open-ended sandbox game that allows you to carve your own destiny with other players in a living, hostile, cursed land. How you play, what you do, and whom you work with or against is up to you. Live on your own amidst the supernatural terrors or join with others to build thriving civilizations. In this evolving world that transforms with the changing of the seasons, weather, and time of day, the only limit is your own ambition.

And for those who don’t like their information in paragraph format, there are bullet points as well.

• New World is a massively multiplayer, open-ended sandbox game that allows you to carve your own destiny with other players in a living, hostile, cursed land.
• How you play, what you do, and whom you work with or against is up to you.
• Live on your own amidst the supernatural terrors or join with others to build thriving civilizations.
• In this evolving world that transforms with the changing of the seasons, weather, and time of day, the only limit is your own ambition.
• A release date for New World has not been set.

Of course, tossing in the word “sandbox” got an audible sigh from me as well, as it is also a favored term of late and seems to mean something like, “We’re not going to completely copy World of Warcraft.”

At least we know it will be released on Windows.

Minimum System Requirements:

• Processor:   TBD
• RAM:   TBD
• Hard Disk:   TBD
• Video Card:   TBD
• Supported OS:   Windows

However pricing, business model, and whatever have yet to be announced.

I like the price so far… unless that means F2P cash shop hell

And given how long it can take to get a real MMO together… if it is a “real” MMO, by which I mean a worldly, persistent, shared experience, multiplayer RPG… I suspect it will be some time before we get enough details to begin projecting even our most optimistic fantasies on it.

But it has been announced, so I figured I had best take note.  And, of course, because it is already listed over at Amazon, it has reviews.

Only 4 stars for a non-existent game

The other two titles that were announced:

• Breakaway – Breakaway is a 4 vs. 4 mythological sport brawler built for fast action, teamwork, and live-streaming.
• Crucible – Crucible is a battle to the last survivor on a hostile alien world. Players choose and customize heroes, making alliances and betraying allies on their path to victory. An additional player heightens the drama by triggering events, live-streaming the battles, and interacting with viewers

So that sounds like a streaming optimized MOBA and something that might be Overwatch meets The Hunger Games maybe?  I don’t know.  Not MMORPGs.

New World is the title that fits here, though I have to say that all three of the titles chosen seem likely to have problems standing out from other uses of those words.

As I noted above, others in our little internet tribe are talking about it as well.  They might even be less cynical than I.

• Bio Break
• Endgame Viable
• Inventory Full
• Just For Crits
• MMO Gypsy