With Halas, and a bunch of probably rather easy new quests imminent, now would be a good time to take a look at the Extreme Questing Leaderboard! When we last checked in back in February, it looked like this:
Maltheas was on 8th, with stiff competition coming from all directions. I’ve not been playing too heavily since then, but Maltheas has put on another 170 quests, and also had the unexpected horror of accidentally levelling twice in a day. He has also respecced to Carpenter, mostly for reasons other than quests, but has yet to actually do much with that.
Lets have a peek at the new table. Like last time, we’re only looking at characters of level 59 and below, because this is primarily about me seeing how Maltheas compares with folks of a similar level, and a table filled with level-capped folks would not do much for that!
The 30-somethings have failed to get onto the table, even with me extending its size a bit, with Maltheas being the lowest level representative, at 40. There seems to be a lot more people trying this playstyle these days, or other quest-count related ones, putting the squeeze on. He’s still lurking at 8th, but given that he’s the lowest level, I’m pretty satisfied with that. The Extreme Team of Annyya and Kirskax, his nearest in level, are still a sizeable distance ahead, as ever inspiring Maltheas to greater effort!
Halas will certainly give a little boost to all currently active extreme questers and other quest-chasers. Maltheas will be chronomancing down to level 5, and will try to get as much done like that as he can. Extreme questing is not just about quest-count. It’s about trying to do quests at the very lowest level you can. I’ll try to check in again in a couple of weeks once the tables have been updated with the results of the Halasian questing frenzy.
Araneus diadematus, the European garden spider, has been busy in my garden. I spotted this group of bouncing babies having fun on my wheeliebin and thought I’d share!
The focus isn’t perfect, but I think it’s the best my little camera is going to manage as close as I had to get. These spiderlings are little more than a millimetre across each. Click the picture to get a larger version.
Araneus diadematus - Baby European Garden Spiders
I hope you enjoy this International Day for Biological Diversity. Why not have a rummage around your own garden or street, and see what you can find! I’d love to see pictures, especially those of you in distant lands.
I have dubbed these the Copykats, on account of them turning up almost exactly a month after WoW brought in RMT mounts, for the exact same price. It may seem, to the ignorant, that this is a flagrant attempt to repeat Blizzards success with the Sparkle Pony. It turns out it’s just a spooky coincidence!
Corvic:
1. I actually concepted this mount a year ago and have been waiting to make it, just have not had the time due to making all the cool stuff we make for the game allready that is not station cash. So we are not following anybody on this one.
2. Price is a tough one to decide, I think the price is good because it gives some exclusivity to the mount. At 5 bucks everyone would have it and it would no longer be special.
Anyhows, I find the idea that the reason the mount is priced at $25 instead of $5 to make it “exclusive” to be highly objectionable. To deliberately exclude players based on their disposable income does not seem right to me. If it would have worked at $5, they should have gone with that to maximise the number of people that could enjoy it. Naturally, being the unpleasantly cynical creature that I am, I am far more inclined to think that the real reason they’re charging $25 is that WoW has shown them that they can get away with it, and it will maximise profits.
These three mounts will be around for about a month, we are told, before being replaced on the market by new mounts. A sort of Mount-of-the-month club. Could get rather expensive. Things like this must be so difficult for parents who have multiple children who play.
Honestly I’m tired about raging about RMT in EQ2. There has been a long pattern of SOE saying they’ve gone as far as they want *, and will not go further. Some segments of the playerbase, and the popular EQ2 bloggers, accept it and shout down those of us who see where it is leading, and then once folks are used to it, the boundaries are pushed further again. We get the MMOs we deserve, and if the players are not willing to stand up to being treated as an exploitable resource, that’s how it’ll be. It’s tiring and probably pointless, shouting like Canute against the unstoppable tide of corporate greed. I love EQ2, and I am not angry with it. Just disappointed. And I do not think EQ2 loves me; just my money. It is not a relationship that will end well.
* For instance, when the Exchange servers (which allow players to buy and sell items and characters with real money) were implemented, players were concerned it was another slidey step down a slippery slope. This is what we were told:
22nd of December, 2007.
We aren’t going to be allowing RMT in any way, shape or form on the non-exchange enabled EQ II servers. Period. End of statement. If we catch people, we ban them and have been for a long time now. The truth of the matter is it’s very difficult to combat them, but we have people at SOE who fight the good fight each and every day. In the near future you’re going to see us becoming a lot more public about this then we ever have been. I think we’ve done a bad job at communicating just how seriously we take this fight.
We’re interested in working with LiveGamer because they are unique in the RMT world due to the fact that they are pledging (and are putting technology behind it) to not buy from farmers. Farmers are the bane of our existence at SOE. They cause us endless amounts of grief and do real financial damage in a meaningful way.
What do I mean by that?
Many of them use stolen credit cards, obtained by unsuspecting users who give them credit card #’s to purchase in-game gold. I’m not saying all of the RMT shops out there use stolen credit cards, but a LOT of them do. Your credit card is absolutely not safe in their hands.
In addition we recieve large scale (over $500k so far) fines for chargebacks that these scumbag farmers routinely do. They purchase a new account.. use it for a month and then call the credit card company to say “I never paid for this”. Over time, as the # of these incidents rise we get fined by the credit card companies. And it’s not just us, other large MMO companies are seeing exactly the same problem.
In any event, I wanted to stop in and at least set the record straight – you aren’t going to be seeing RMT allowed on the non-exchange enabled servers.
Maltheas’ sleep had been troubled of late. In his dreams he flew across icy vista, as if in search for something, but what? At first, he chose to believe it was just his tail telling him he needed to stop buying gnome-sized blankets for the cool cog designs on them. Yes, every tinker loves cogs, but every priest of Nife knows the importance of wrapping up snug and warm! However, even after investing in a rather more sensible dwarf-sized quilt (with hammers on, so bedtime tinker-cred was still assured) he awoke shivering and perplexed.
“Bahs!”, he squeaked, knowing full well that it was clearly a vision. Maltheas is no stranger to visions. Indeed, he owes his very sanity, if not life, to the one that brought him to Qeynos, where Seeress Ealaynya Ithis was waiting for him. This, though, was an altogether less useful sort of vision that just made his toes cold without giving him any sort of instructions. Still chilled to the bone, he decided to pop down to the kitchen for a hot drink. But he was not the first one there. There was a small meeting already in progress, and they were a sorry and miserable sight indeed. Zoltoon had somehow managed to put every single one of his robes on at once, and Muldoon the Lurikeen was sitting on top of a hot-water bottle almost as big as himself. As Maltheas entered they looked at him glumly, and handed him a steaming mug of cocoa.
“It won’t help much, me furry pal, but it’s better than nothing. We’ll be catching our deaths o’ cold if we don’t get this fixed! Be telling him yon theory, Zolt.”
“It would appear, after discussion with our colleagues, that rather than being a vision for a specific person, like all experienced adventurers are used to, it is in fact some sort of psychic leakage. I would surmise that a being of great power, probably a god, is looking for something, somewhere rather cold, and getting overly emotional about it. Quite inconsiderately, I might add. From what you’ve told us about your dealings with him, I believe the culpable entity to be Mithaniel Marr.”
“Oohs! I hopes he findings it soons!”
“If only we knew an expert on gods, and getting them to behave properly.”, Zoltoon remarked, giving Maltheas an extremely hard stare.
And so it was that Maltheas was sent out into the Qeynosian morning, with a heatstone in each pocket, and a determination to ensure that the toes of Norrath would be safe from overnight frosting.
You too can investigate this perilous event! From now until the launch of GU56 there is a special prelude quest, Vision of Valor, which you can pick up from a Priest of Marr at the Temple of Life in Qeynos, or any of these other locations. It is the continuation of the Marr plotline that has been going on for a couple of years now, and shouldn’t be missed by any lover of Norrathian lore.
Maltheas has been in the presence of Mithaniel Marr before, during the investigation into the vanishing of Erollisi Marr, but never his manifested avatar. He is one of the better behaved of the gods Maltheas has met, neither asking to be brought booze, or playing childish pranks.
Maltheas learns of the coming of New Halas from Mithaniel Marr
Though players have known it was coming for a while, this is the first that the folks of Norrath have heard about the coming of New Halas. Sales of warm clothing, already high from the chilly dreams, are likely to skyrocket as adventurers prepare to investigate this new land unveiled to us by Mithaniel Marr. Maltheas will meet you there!
Update: I forgot to show the quest rewards! You receive a book called “Journal of a Disciple of Marr” which recaps some of the Marr plotline, and a Valorian Bloom. The book is sitting on the table in front of Maltheas.
A Casual Stroll to Mordor has some interesting news regarding Lord of the Rings Online’s next expansion.
Adam Mersky is shown, in an until now overlooked video, to have said “… our next big region will be Enedwaith later this year.â€.
There is speculation around the web that this is the next paid expansion, but I have my doubts.
For a paid expansion you’d want somewhere that people have heard of. I’d never heard of Enedwaith, for the excellent reason that very little happens there in the books. So I think that what Enedwaith will be is an area added by one of LotRO’s free updates. Interestingly though, Enedwaith would lead us right up to the Gap of Rohan.
The Mirkwood expansion has already brought us near to the Northern border of Rohan , but how much better to enter through the Gap of Rohan!
Enedwaith: The Road to Rohan?
My best guess, then, would be that the next full expansion will cover Rohan, Isengard, Fangorn Forest, the lands along Anduin the Great River (where Boromir will have his unfortunate accident), and perhaps beyond, whereas Enedwaith will be a free update this year.
There is a new entity in charge of the UK’s Ship of Government. Enter Cleggeron the Unexpected!!! After a tumultuous struggle with arch-nemesis Gordzilla, Cleggeron has emerged as the King of Monster Island, ah, I mean Westminster.
Cleggeron! Coming soon to a Parliament near you.
Will good Clegg head manage to stop the middle boss head from taking the evil Murdoch head’s advice? Anything could happen in the next five years!
Update: December 2010.
The answer to my final question turned out to be no. I’m not entirely certain the Clegg head was all that good after all. When Cleggeron has finished devouring the educational chances of a generation, where will it turn its hungry eyes next? This film has gone from being a creature feature to true horror.
The observant amongst you may have noticed another button mysteriously appear in my overcrowded sidebar. It’s a Flattr button, and with any luck you’ll start seeing such buttons pop up all around the internet. It’s something of an experiment, but it is a rather innovative way for folks to reward content creators such as bloggers, musicians, and podcasters for their work without having to fiddle about with rewarding them individually. It also neatly avoids the creator feeling awkward or embarrassed about asking for donations. Invites to the beta version of Flattr just started going out, and I was lucky enough to be in the first few, so I figured I might as well give it a try and see how it goes. Here’s how it works:
To receive cake, you also have to be willing to share some cake with others. I’m looking forward to being able to give a little slice of cake to any of my fellow bloggers who makes me smile or think.
