This just in from Korean Central News agency of DPRK:
Pyongyang, April 13 (KCNA) — Preparatory committees were inaugurated in many countries to commemorate the Day of the Sun, the birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung. Since the Ugandan National Preparatory Committee for Commemorating April 15 and Celebrating February 16 was formed in Kampala on December 23 last year for the first time, preparatory committees have been organized in 40 odd countries under various names such as “preparatory committee for commemorating the birthday of Generalissimo Kim Il Sung who is the great leader of the Korean people, the Day of the Sun” and “preparatory committee for commemoration of the Day of the Sun and a ‘meeting praising the great persons of Mt. Paektu'”. Among those countries are Russia, Romania, Ecuador, Poland, Nepal, Mexico, Cambodia and South Africa.
High-ranking officials of governments, political parties and organizations and chiefs of friendship and solidarity groups were elected honorary chairmen and chairmen of the preparatory committees. Among them were Kong Sam Ol, deputy prime minister for Royal Palace of Cambodia, Miroslav Stepan, general secretary of the C.C., the Czechoslovak Communist Party, Rashed Khan Menon, chairman of the C.C., the Workers’ Party of Bangladesh, Christopher Coleman, spokesman (leader) of the C.C., the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), Muhammed Inuwa Rabaran, national organizational secretary of the People’s Democratic Party of Nigeria, Muhammad al Husseini al Akad, vice-minister of Agriculture of Egypt, the president of the Social Development Coordinating Centre of Thailand, Ramon Jimenez Lopez, president of the Mexican Committee for the Study of Kimilsungism, and P. Shiv Shankar, chairman of the All India Indo-Korean Friendship Association.
The preparatory committees decided to organize on a wide scale such colorful functions as national seminar, meeting, film show, photo exhibition, lecture and round-table talks and widely introduce the revolutionary life of Kim Il Sung, who performed undying feats for the human cause of independence through media so as to significantly commemorate the Day of the Sun.
It’s a world celebration! He may have been dead for a decade, but he’s still the life of the party. Look for a Day of the Sun celebration near you.
The KCNA website is quite fascinating. Though many national news services suffer from sharing a somewhat inaccurate worldview with their government, KCNA is a window into the mass-hallucination that is North Korean culture.
Fresh in:
I was the fansite admin who was running this interview with Moorgard. And I can assure you that he said it…He said that the frogocks were in game and unlockable…And that when someone will find how to unlock them, everyone will know because of server scripted events and so on.
– FitzChevalerie of Mondes Persistants. A less than happy journalist.
Because significant changes to combat will be arriving on the Test server with our next update, we have decided to delay Priest balancing and changes to Summoner pets until we are confident the combat system is where we want it to be. – Moorgard
The news just gets worse. The Guk-gate scandal, and now some of the worst afflicted classes are going to have to wait at least another month for the fixes that have been promised, well, quite a long time now. At first sight, it might look as if Moorgard is trying to annoy as many people as possible today, but I have another theory, that makes far more sense.
Yes, it’s Opposites Day at SOE, when you say exactly the opposite of what you mean. Coming up next, a free advertising brochure for every Station-Access account filled with useful information for anyone who doesn’t have access to the internet.
Hopefully sanity will return over there presently, and I can get back to getting called a “fanboi”.
This was posted today by Moorgard:
We know that many of you have been anxiously awaiting the chance to play a froglok character. As we announced before launch, we decided to tie the availability of the frogloks into a major game-changing event. Since some of you have been searching for clues about how to unlock the froglok race, we wanted to provide an update on their availability and pass along a bit of insider info on what’s about to come.
After making the decision to hold back the frogloks at launch, we gave our art team some extra time to enhance their animations and armor appearances. Since frogloks are the most distinct race from a physical perspective, they require handcrafted animations to take full advantage of their unique characteristics. To accomplish this, we decided to delay them a bit longer so we could release them in the most polished manner possible.
This also gave our Live Events team the chance to plan something really cool for their unveiling. I’m pleased to report that the live event for May is going to be the unleashing of the frogloks!
Players will be able to complete solo quests that allow them to play froglok characters on their own EverQuest II account. Unlocking the race for the whole server will involve the completion of an elaborate series of quests that culminate in an epic raid zone event that will challenge even the most seasoned adventurers. This is your chance to defeat the evil force that has kept the froglok spirit imprisoned for so long.
As part of Live Update #8, scheduled to hit the live servers the week of May 2, players will be receiving new animation files for the frogloks. This will kickoff the beginning of the froglok live event.
We realize some of you froglok fans out there would have preferred to receive this information sooner, but we decided to stay quiet until the Live Events team had finished their planning. We think the wait will be worth it, and players will have a lot of fun participating in this major event.
??? I don’t believe it! They did it to us again!
Races and Race/Class Combinations FAQ
Will all races be playable at launch?
At launch you can choose from 15 races to create your characters. The last race, the froglok, must be unlocked via a server-wide quest before it is playable as a character race.
Of course, playing with semantics, they never stated that quest was in game. In fact SOE has been very quiet on Frogloks all round. My exhaustive search for devs using the F-word turned up 3 entries, all of which were Moorgard, 2 of which are above. (The other one just mentioned that Froglok characters have to start in Qeynos.)
It would have been the easiest thing in the world to tell the public that the Froglok-unlocking quest was not in-game yet. Sphinxlike they sat, as the requests for clarification were proffered. Countless folks have been wasting their time trying to find something that was not there, and the theories and efforts have been getting increasingly crazy. Fortunately I wasn’t one of them :)
In spite of playing SWG, I’m basically pretty benign towards the EQ2 devs, but this has been giving me nasty jedi-related flashbacks. But more, I just don’t understand why this deception was necessary.
Were there really that many people who would only buy EQ2 if they could play a anthropomorphic frog?
The suspense must have been killing the poor lass. Five months of anguish.
Theres also this, from Moorgard’s trip to La Belle France, and an interview with Mondes Persistants, who asked him directly, whether the unlocking method was implemented.:
Personne n’a encore découvert le moyen de les delocker, mais quand cela arrivera, on le saura rapidement, car cela déclenchera toute une série d’events scriptés entre autre.
Which, translated as best I can states “No-one has yet discovered the method of unlocking, but when they do, a series of scripted events will occur, amongst other things.”
Today, the outdoor zones have had a lot of their heroic encounters replaced with solo ones. I am glad of this, but not for the reasons supposed by the devs. Any of my characters were more than capable of defeating a green heroic encounter, and higher than green in some cases. I also enjoy grouping outdoors, and am most surprised to be told this is rare. Simply, at the moment, the heroic opponents are not worth my time.
Well, obviously the extra xp for a heroic is nice, if you’re into that sort of thing, but instead of that heroic green you could just as easily go slay a solo orange critter.
Since the loot table changes to the outdoor zones, solo creatures have become the sensible prey for anyone not rabidly concerned with xp gain. The heroic encounters did not gain any of the new drops, which is of a quality that, at least in the case of Antonica, is vastly better than most of what even the named foes possess. Holly Windstalker drops a Runed Bramblewood Rod (DR 6.2, +7 health, +4 power. Masters at level 17). The second snake outside Qeynos gates I breath on gives me a Snake Hoop: (+2 int, +2 agi, +2 sta, +4 power, +20vs cold. Masters at 14th.). An extreme example, as Holly may well drop better items sometimes, but enough to show the point.
To change the loot of a whole zone in such a piecemeal way turned risk vs reward upon its head, and in such a topsy-turvy world, those seeking fortune should seek the easy targets. I wonder if the decline in outdoors grouping began with the solo loot update.
Another Fine Example!
“It’s important that the new government be attentive to the competence of the people in the ministries and that they avoid unnecessary turbulence,”
“We have an opportunity to continue to make progress politically, economically… anything that would delay that or disrupt that as a result of turbulence, or lack of confidence or corruption in government, would be unfortunate.” – Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary
Wise words indeed. Unfortunately, he was talking about Iraq where US concerns are mounting, regarding the loyalty and effectiveness of the Iraqi security forces.
The recent declaration by 64 Sunni leaders, that their followers should join the army and police, is extremely encouraging for inter-ethnic stability within Iraq, but has sent alarm bells ringing in Washington, who are concerned that a truly democratic Iraq, which represents the desires of the indigenous population, will not necessarily be in the best interests of US strategy in the Middle-East.
As it’s been a while since I wrote about Iraq, I suppose I ought to take this chance to admit that the invasion has worked out less catastrophic than I had feared. Which does not mean I think it was legal, or a good idea, but it does look like the result might eventually be pretty good. For those who didn’t die, get tortured, or lose their family or home, at any rate.
From the good ol’ BBC. Looks like our old friend the Straw Man has not only come out for the election, but gone back to school:
“At the moment, you could be fantastic at algebra, but not really able to calculate the area of a room. And clearly we’ve got to change that,” says Education Secretary Ruth Kelly.
If Ms Kelly is able to find and display one such person I shall be most surprised.
area = length * depth
Looks a lot like algebra to me. Very, very simple algebra. Stop making people up, Ms Kelly! You have enough problems with the real students.
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