Just heard on the
He was a major icon to any guy growing up in the 80s, and he’ll be missed. Here is what I consider to be his finest moment. The “Death by Stereo” scene from Lost Boys, a movie that I have watched an embarrassingly large number of times.:
Sorry for the small size. I couldn’t find the right scene on YouTube.
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No trackbacksI’m not dead! Just in the throws of a cycle of seasonal depression, so it has been hard to drum up posting enthusiasm. Like my more famous Norfolk resident, Stephen Fry, I’m thoroughly bipolar, so these things are wont to happen. Full service shall resume presently.
In the meantime, I’ve submitted to blogger peer pressure, and decided to give EVE Online a try. Folks are not kidding when they talk about the brutal learning curve, but my days in early UO have left me fairly well-equipped for survival in such a universe, and the numbers geek in me is having a delightful time analysing everything. I’ll write more on EVE when I’m feeling a little more zestful.
The Gallente Catalyst Destroyer. Currently my mightiest vessel.
Elsewhere in deal-altering news, Alganon Online has just announced that they will be going with a subscription free model where you buy the game, but going forward there’s no fee. There will be an shop selling things for real world money in a similar way to Allods and its F2P friends.
But wait. They’ve been selling subscriptions. Presumably those are going to be refunded?
No. From the Alganon site news:
Right now we know you are thinking: “What about those of us who pre-paid? If there isn’t a subscription what did I pre-pay for?”
Well we’ve worked out a special for you. All Subscribers are being converted into Citizens and because we want to thank you for your show of support for Alganon, we have worked out a deal where what was paid will be converted to Alganon Tribute, a new in game currency system. Pre-Paid quarterly players will get 839 Tribute, semi-annual will get 1,559 Tribute and annual will get 2,878 Tribute deposited into their accounts after the April launch. We realize these numbers mean little without something to reference them against, so we will release more information on Tribute numbers as it gets closer to the Official Launch.
The Tribute Market System (TMS) will serve as the foundation of Alganons new real-dollar transactional framework. This market will support three categories of purchases: Items, Boons, and Services.
* Items include Pets, Mounts, Equipment, Access Keys, Potions, Boxed Collections, Tokens and specialty items that will be available through the Market.
* Boons are specific to studies and allow the purchase of study-time. This provides the player with options since the study system directly relates to access of advanced game content and systems. A player could purchase a year of studies right away or use the studies system in real-time; boons simply let the player accelerate that time.
* Initial Services offered will be character transfers.
So the money you paid to subscribe is getting turned into Alganon Tribute. Without asking. That is indeed “Special”!
But what if you don’t want to buy anything from the shop? Maybe you’d like to be the one who decides when it is that you buy Alganon Tribute, instead of having, in the case of an pre-paid annual subscription, a considerable amount of money converted into Tribute without you having any say on it. Once again, an MMO company is simply altering the deal.
This is not something that should be encouraged. I’m no lawyer, but it does sound like it might brush up against some sort of law or other. It certainly does not make me feel particularly good about trusting them with my credit card details.
Write a commentNo trackbacksStrange things have been afoot at Cryptic, and they bode somewhat ill.
For a time, Atari.com displayed a new offer. Star Trek Online’s price was dropped by 10 dollars, and it came with an additional 60 days of playtime, adding to the 30 days you’d normally get, for a full quarter of a year of playtime.
It was an excellent idea, in my opinion. 90 days would give Cryptic long enough to prove that they intend to do great things with STO. It would have let folks like myself pop in from time to time to see if things had improved. Unfortunately, this great deal was only for people who had not bought the game yet. As many pointed out, it punished anyone who pre-ordered, or bought the game at launch.
You don’t do that. You don’t punish loyalty. Certainly not if you want that loyalty to continue.
After the storm of annoyed players hit, Cryptic quickly realised their mistake, and the deal was pulled from Atari.com. Apparently anyone who signed up for the awesome new deal will now not be receiving the additional 60 days they were promised.
You don’t do that either. You don’t unilaterally change the conditions of a contract after it is signed.
There is only one honourable way to deal with this problem. 60 days should be given to every account, whether it signed up under the short-lived new deal, or one of the older deals. That is the only way you don’t either breach a contract, or anger your existing players. Aye, it’d be an expensive proposition, but they should have thought about that before offering it to new players.
It is clear that such a deal would not be put on the table unless Cryptic, or Atari, were seeing poor retention. A month ago, they were charging 300 dollars (on top of box price) for a lifetime membership. Now they’re willing to throw in 90 days with the box. The number of people, myself included, who have decided not to subscribe is obviously sending ripples of panic through the accounts department. When you throw your own game into the bargain bin within the first month, it is an admission that all is not proceeding according to plan.
Was the new deal the work of Cryptic, or their publisher, Atari?
Later, this pseudo-apology was posted on the Star Trek Online forums:
Hi everyone,
First, we respect the time, energy and passion the community has put into their opinions regarding the promotion that ran this weekend on Atari.com, offering 60-days of free play.Like many companies, we are actively trying to sell games we are very proud of in an extremely competitive marketplace and we are always testing new ways to get more people using our products. The weekend promotion at Atari.com was one of those experiments. In the case of a game like Star Trek, we believe a larger number of players is a benefit to the entire community.
We will continue to look at the best ways to add new users to our game in a competitive marketplace while keeping our current players happy. Your feedback – good, bad and ugly – is extremely helpful and appreciated.
We won’t always get it right, but we’re always trying to do the right thing by you.
We do apologize and we appreciate your patience as we continue to do our best to make Star Trek Online the best game possible.
Thank you.
Philip Dean
Director of Customer Support
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Episode 12 – Showdown
In the airless void around Uranus, Jack and his companions have finally discovered a weapon that might defeat the Qaxorian invaders. But as they prepare for take off it seems that Mordred has intercepted them once more, maybe for the final time.
Alas, for we have come to the end of Season 2. Never fear though, for you can listen to all twelve episodes of Jack Steel and the Starblade through the player below!
Write a commentNo trackbacksIt all went a bit pear shaped up at EQ2’s end-game today.
Battlegrounds went live. I’m quite excited about this addition to the game, as I discussed here. Unfortunately, as it turns out, anyone who went into a Battleground with over 200 AA points had their points set back down to 200 when they left the zone.
For folks who don’t play EQ2, Alternate Advancement points are something you gain through a separate system to levelling, that you can spend on various extra powers and improvements. They’re not something you want to be losing. Until the launch of Sentinel’s Fate the cap was 200, which then went up to 250. So people were only really losing the points they had gained in the last week. However, as a lot of them would have been gained through doing non-repeatable quests, it was a bit of a big deal.
Battlegrounds are now back up after some quick fixing work, and any player affected by the bug should be able to contact customer services to get their AA returned in full. Hopefully no harm done (except to the CSR’s nerves), once everyone is fixed.
None of this affected Maltheas, of course. Battlegrounds are only for folks of level 80 upwards at the moment. Still, he has his own problems. Kaladim was supposed to have been retiered down to t4 in GU55, but it seems that many of the quests, and even some monsters in the dungeon, are still level 60ish. The bugfixing attention is unsurprisingly focused on the high level content of Sentinel’s Fate at the moment, but hopefully Kaladim will receive some love soon.
There is also a problem with quest drops as of today’s patch. In any quest that drops a physical item that you have to loot for a quest update, the chests are completely empty. This should be getting hotfixed tomorrow.
For a Ratonga, Qeynos can be an emotional Battleground.
BATTLEGROUNDS
* Battlegrounds are now live in EverQuest II! To access them, simply hit Alt+Z.
GENERAL
* Guard levels in Freeport have been slightly adjusted: many level 95 guards remain, but they are no longer blocking access to quest updates for good-aligned players of high level.
* Obelisk of Lost Souls: Characters who are high enough level to gray-out the access quests now automatically gain the power to open the doors.
* Sata, the Quel’ule faction merchant, now also sells scholar type fuel (candles, coal, and incense).ITEMS
* Elemental Barrier (a unique proc on some PvP gear) has been improved as a proc and now stacks with itself
* The PvP proc Mutilation has been changed. Instead of reducing the effectiveness of your target’s heals (thus making it only effective vs healers), it now reduces the effectiveness of all heals on your current target (making it effective vs anyone who is being healed)
* Those that completed the quest “The Fleshbound Tome Speaks Again” can now buy the “Flesh Bound Tome” from the city sages in Freeport and Qeynos.
* Those that completed the quest “A Crusade to Faydwer” can now buy “The Missing Pages of the Sword Heist Journal – Rebound” from the city sages in Freeport and Qeynos.
* Those that completed the quest “Hadden’s Earring” can now buy “Hrath’s Journal” from the city sages in Freeport and Qeynos.
* Sentinel’s Fate (and scaled-to-90 TSO dungeons) heroic legendary gear should all have resists now.
* Roger Goldie’s Straw Hat should no longer have the “Hooluk in a Hat” effect on it.QUESTS
* Players that decline or delete the quest “Geobot” after completing “Conflict Among the Kobolds” can now regain it by speaking with Watchman Plarg in Steamfont.
* Players are no longer being misdirected to search within “The Hole: Outer Vault” for Dartain’s Fortress, while on the quest “The Footsteps of Dartain: Emergence.”
* Players on the quest “The Footsteps of Dartain: Experimentation” only need to speak with the spirit once in order to advance the quest.
* “Infiltrating the Sanctum: Emissary Kvikz” now recognizes when the player defeats “Sslan’yiz the Animator”.
* Alim Dabir in Sundered Frontier now responds for the quest ”Further Research Required” even if you have previously deleted it after completing other quests.
* “Justice for Jojo” now updates more reliably at the final stage, and correctly removes quest items from inventory when they are no longer needed.TRADESKILLS
* Incorrect recipe costs on a number of crafted Mark of Manaar equipment items have been corrected.
NEKTULOS
* The “guardian mist grinnin” have a higher chance of carrying the kneespikes required for the quest “Ashland Kneespikes.”
VASTY DEEP
* Xilaxis the Explorer’s item tables have been corrected and he should always drop loot on both normal and challenge-mode.
Write a commentNo trackbacksAnd he’s not bad.
Sadly, he was ganked by the right honourable Senator for Darkfall shortly after making this speech.
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Bitey the Armoured Highland Stalker mount from EQ2's Sentinel's Fate
This is Bitey, Maltheas’ new Armoured Highland Stalker mount that came with the Sentinel’s Fate collector’s edition that I won. It’s very nice, with a 65% speed boost, and a realistic feline run animation that is so bouncy that if I use it for too long I get motion sickness. For looking cool, though, it’s top of the heap of EQ2 mounts at the moment.
EQ2 has a fair variety of mounts. There’s a vast range of horses, bears, and rhinos. Even some flying carpets and magical platforms. As there is a definite progression of mount speeds and buffs, often you outgrow them, but recently we gained the ability to turn unused mounts into house items, so we can still take care of our loyal friends. Here is a family photo of Maltheas’ mounts.
The Many Mounts of Maltheas
From the left, we have a pack unicorn which grants bonuses to harvesting. The Armoured Pinto, which gives bonuses to xp gained while mentored. The Armoured Highland Stalker is my fastest steed at the moment, but has no other bonuses. Finally the Ykeshan bear, who came with Shadow Odyssey. The bear is a bit of an oddball, as it grows with you as you level, starting off as just a pet that follows you, then becoming an ever faster mount. At the moment he’s the slowest of the gang, but one day he’ll outstrip most of them.
They’re all great members of Team Shadowsqueak, but deep down, Maltheas wants another mount entirely. This one:
Flying 2 feet above the ground is the only way to travel!
Curse you, Free Realms, for having the most awesome mounts ever!!! Sure, they cost 500 Station Cash each, but who would be able to resist their own flying dragon mount, in six delicious colours? I wonder if there is any way they could be reused (with a less cartoony skin) over in EQ2?
Write a commentNo trackbacksJust a few pictures from Maltheas’ adventures in Everquest 2’s new Sentinel’s Fate expansion. Click the pic for a full screen version.
Maltheas only gets to play with the crafting content at his level, but it has been a lot of fun exploring new areas, especially ones I was familiar with in EQ1.
Toxxulia Forest seen from Kerra Isle
Flying in to Paineel.
The Hua'Mein practise Tai Chi in their hidden village.
The Hua’Mein are an awesome addition to the game. They are extremely tranquil in nature, and set a fine example to all the crafters and adventurers found rushing about their once secret village in such a hurry. I look forward to them becoming playable. Also, I need to learn their Tai Chi emotes!
I’ve experienced both school and workplace bullying, and I have no time for people who behave in such a way. I’ve even called a supportline or two in the past. So don’t take what follows as in any way diminishing the anguish that bullying can cause.
I have two points to make on the current scandal, which involves Christine Pratt, the head of the National Bullying Helpline, going public with claims that staff at Number 10 had called her support line about the Prime Minister’s behaviour.
1. These things are supposed to be confidential. By breaching this, she has made it much harder for people to pluck up the courage to call support lines. Not to mention that I strongly doubt that staff at Downing Street will thank her for damaging the government for which they work. They have been betrayed, and used to score political points.
2. That is, of course, assuming that these staff even exist. How does she actually know that the people that called really worked at Number 10? She obviously does not run background checks on people who call, so what is stopping random idiots, and/or the Tory dirty tricks department, calling in and making all sorts of outrageous claims? Unless a real, solid, person comes forward and states that they were bullied by Gordon Brown, this whole business should be considered inadmissible.
We’re supposed to believe that a number of different individuals all chose to call the same helpline, and more than that, that they unnecessarily divulged the sensitive information that they worked at Number 10.
The National Bullying Helpline has this to say about itself on its website:
The National Bullying Helpline is the brainchild of Christine Pratt and her husband David. Christine first set up HR & Diversity Management Ltd in 2002 and realised the enormity of the problem caused to industry by bullying at work, so launched a bullying Helpline. The Helpline was awarded Charity status early 2007 and is the only UK workplace Bullying Helpline Charity in the UK run by qualified CIPD professionals. The Charity is the only Helpline in the UK that addresses bullying in all corners of society.
I’m sorry to say, but The National Bullying Helpline should lose it’s charitable status for its confidence-breaching and naked politicising. There are many other similar helplines that do respect confidentiality, and do so without funnelling money to their husband’s Human Resources company.
The whole thing stinks like a political hit-job just a few weeks before a General Election. Journalists were sent by Conservative operatives to Mrs Pratt makes it obvious that there is a link, and the way that the opposition parties are making hay out of this is distasteful. They’re now calling for an in-depth enquiry, which is clearly an excuse for a fishing expedition to rummage through the inner workings of Downing Street. Gordon Brown is now caught in an intolerable position, having to deny ever-escalating accusations from ghosts, who can have whatever words put into their mouths that Brown’s enemies choose. You can’t defend yourself if you don’t know your accuser.
Disclosure: I’m a Liberal Democrat voter, not a Labour one, and I am far from happy with the way Nick Clegg is handling this.
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