Via Twitter from Ysharros. It really IS cold. This is a NASA satellite image from today.
The British Big Freeze 2010
Truly epic.
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It’s the nothingness. The Mighty Boosh – Tundra Rap And that was pretty much the story of my walk into town today. Except with less dancing, and more nervous shuffling over icy surfaces. While the Return to Ostagar paid add-on is still delayed for the time-being, Bioware has just announced the first full expansion for Dragon Age. In Dragon Age Awakenings you are tasked with rebuilding the Grey Wardens. Me, I’ll see if I can get them to have a little bit more respect for life, as I’m pretty sure murdering anyone who decides not to drink their foul poison or asks too many questions is not doing them any favours in the long-term. It appears to be an all new campaign to play through, though you can import your character from Origins. It remains to be seen how big it actually is. According to Gamestop’s pre-order page, the expected release date is the middle of March.
 The Spectral Dragon from Dragon Age: Origins - Awakenings No, seriously. This isn’t a come-on. If you go out there you’ll either freeze to death or be devoured by hungry yeti. The five day weather forecast for Norwich doesn’t hold a single day where it gets above freezing, so everything is continuing to mount up. Our current weather is taking me back to when I lived in Indiana, USA, where winter meant a lot more than the usual British grey skies with drizzle, and the occasional short-lived snowday. My main concern is that I live at the top of one of Norfolk’s few hills, and while I am all too sure I can get to the bottom of it, I’m not so certain of my ability to get back up again if we get any more ice and snow. Compared with many parts of the country, we’re getting off pretty lightly too.  I just don't want to end up like this guy! Maltheas’ splendid week of questing has continued with a final victory over Octagorgon in the Cove of Decay.  Maltheas faces the Octagorgon in Everquest 2 It’s hard to get a sense of scale in that picture. Octagorgon is still a good safe distance away, sitting in his favourite comfy sunken galleon. He is quite ridiculously large. A famous undercon, he sits there looking all green and heroic level, luring in the unwise. As soon as you attack him, however, he’ll call in a bunch of skeletons to back him up, and he’ll keep calling more the longer you let him live. I’ve been trying to sort him out for a few levels now, but today was the charm. Let us not weep for all the previous attempts that resulted in Maltheas being cruelly devoured, for such is life of the extreme quester! Defeating Octagorgon allowed Mal to finish the Polished Granite Tomahawk heritage quest, “An Axe from the Past”, and move to the next stage of the Manastone heritage quest “Stiletto’s Orders Intercepted.”. Unfortunately, like so many quests lying undone in his questbook, to finish Manastone is going to involve killing Varsoon the Undying, who is liable to render the Extreme Rat extremely dead. I won’t be able to put off the confrontation for very much longer though. While I’m here, I’d like to welcome Syp, of the blog Biobreak, to Everquest 2, and to my server, Lucan D’Lere. It’s always great to see new players, especially ones who might encourage others to give EQ2 a try! After my last post, not having a proper leaderboard to show niggled away at me, so I’ve cobbled this together. Seeing as EQ2 Players no longer has the functionality to let you set your own level ranges for the leaderboards, and all:  A combination of the top questers from the 30-39, 40-49, and 50-59 ranges leaves Maltheas in a respectable 8th place. The 50-59 range puts in a surprisingly poor show, but perhaps folks who get to that level are more likely to power on to the higher tiers. Brew some Maj’dul coffee, Mal. We’ve got a lot of work to do. When last we checked in on Maltheas, extremiest of all extreme Everquest 2 questers, the leaderboard looked something like this:  He was doing pretty well, the highest placed 30-something in the world, with only 3 people of 50 or less ahead of him. Sadly, the new and “improved” EQ2 Players website will now only allow me to create leaderboards within my own level tier, instead of choosing the level range for myself. This makes it almost entirely useless for my purposes. I truly hope that it eventually regains the functionality of the old system, because I am hugely unimpressed by the changes to the EQ2 Players website. You *can* also make a leaderboard with no level restrictions, but level 36 Maltheas, while doing great for his level, does not appear on a board which allows level 80s onto it. Anyhows, here is the current leaderboard for the 30-39 range:
What sorcery is this??? In spite of Maltheas completing a couple of hundred quests since last time, Annyya and Kirskax have come from nowhere, toppling Maltheas from his rightful place at the top! Admittedly, they’re both three levels higher, but nevertheless it seems Mal has some serious competition again. A little research shows them both to be part of the same guild, so they’re either a questing team, or a multi-boxer, either of which would have a bit of an advantage over a soloing rat. The Legion of Apathy show themselves to be anything but apathetic, and Maltheas will have to quest hard to catch up with them. But he will. The Gods of Norrath have shown him a sign this very evening.  Maltheas finally completes the Everquest 2 quest, Lion Mane Helm. Lion Mane Helm, finally completed. After years of smashing the Tortured Maid every time he rode past Zarvonn’s Tower, she finally dropped the quest starter “an unfinished helm”. Mal has had quite a lot of luck clearing up low level item-dropped quests recently. Maybe the stars were aligned correctly, or maybe the drop-rate got upped, but either way every time one of those starters dropped it felt like finding a dragonhoard. I *might* even celebrate by letting him level tonight! Update: I knocked together a more useful and informative leaderboard. |
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