ebaying kills

WTF is wrong with people?

clearly, online games cause people to go nuts and should be banned by a constitutional amendment.

my old clan is going multi game

so it looks like i have retired another clan. technically i am not part of the clan anymore, but it's still kind of sad to see them leave AC.

i never really talked about why i left AC suddenly. it pretty much came down to the fact that i ran out of characters who were interesting. i would roll a new character to explore some facet of character development, level him or her up a bit, and then once he or she was template completei sort of lost interest.

my highest level guy, moy, was like almost 60th, and was going to be a life/sword hybrid. all he needed was a CS sword and he would have been a real monster. i had other templates too, 4 tanks (two of them 3 schoolers), 2 griefs, 4 mages (2 ogs). i also played every melee weapon there was for at least a little while, and every missile weapon except thrown. i also played a mage with no war magic, who fought using life magic. just after converting my OG spear to an OG axer i contemplated making a meleeD spec'd mage. it was then that i realized that i had lost my mind.

also, i never got into the whole social thing... it would have been nice to play support for someone, but i was never high enough level to do much more than PL new characters, which i just wasn't into. i wasn't much into PLing my own characters so i was always lower leveled and played alone. i refused to use buffbots for anything other than corpse recovery since i always died in bad places when i did.

i got used to playing alone, and i picked up a number of tricks for recovering corpses and ducking mobs. people told me i was crazy for playing the way that i did, but i was more into the challenge of playing and not powering up.

so after a while, my new exciting characters got into their 40's and 50's, where you are pretty much just grinding thru creatures trying to earn XP for those next 60 levels. that was when AC got to be boring.

i discovered dagger and that was a nice addition. it was nice having extra skill credits to make more rounded characters. i had a 3 school tank with lockpick, and a life spec tank with lockpick. they were fun as well, until the the 40's happened to them as well.

my friend nom started playing, and hunting with him was fun until he soared past me in levels. he only had two characters and one was a tank, so they were very easy to level up compared to my 12 gimps. he also took help from our monarch. that was fine for him, he plays his way and i played my way. he is now one of the survivors honorguard.

nom was the only person that i really played with. pandy and i did for a bit, and that was loads of fun, but she was pretty well done with AC at that point. i didn't have anyone else that i was buddies with, most of the people that i ran across were jerks, so i didn't meet anyone new. the standing joke with me was that i hated anyone who wasn't in my monarchy, and about half of the people who were.

after all of that, i stopped playing pretty suddenly, and now i kind of miss it, but not really. i entertain the thought of returning for like a minute, then i stop. i would like to find a new game that pandy and i can play together, but thus far it has not happened.

there is hope for new games. pandy has talked about playing AC2 again, a friend of mine is playing ultima online and has invited me, and wels and pandy are also talking about guildwars. i suppose i could pick AC up again on a different server, but i don't know. i am still cautious about my hopes for MEO and DDO, but not really. i suppose i should play at least one other MMO besides AC1 before i pass judgement on the genre.

EQ endorsing real world trades

you gettin' yours, i wanna get mine too

so EQ (everquest) is "facilitating" realworld trades. this means that any jerk with money to spend can trade pretty much anything. this is supposedly a $20 million a year business.

this heppened in AC from time to time, but i didn't really care. it is important to note that in AC, this activity was against the code of conduct and would get you banned.

it is also important to note that codes of conduct are treated pretty much like software EULAs, drinking age requirements, and highway speed limits.

for me, trading doesn't matter because i don't do it. what it does do, is create a trend where the company finally authorizes and even encourages activities that were at one time considered violations.

of particular concern to me is using third part tools to run your character when you are not at the console. in AC this was called macroing, or an "unattended combat macro" (UCM).

the problem with macroing your character up was that many people did it, outgrew the games contnet and complained that it was no fun anymore, and turbine increased the difficulty of content in the game landscape.

the result was that new players to an established game (like me) who didn't want to be helped or powerleveled, get killed repeatedly by monsters as they make their way to a section or dungeon that is appropriate to their level. that makes levelling up legitimately very difficult.

i have stopped playing AC, and when it is released i would like to play Dungeons and Dragons Online, and Middle Earth Online. if those two games suck, i think i will have to give up MMORPGs all together.

take off every lawdriod for infinite justice

CBS News | GameSpeak: Jack Thompson evil lawdroid esquire

wow. this guy seems to be for real.

well, no he doesn't. he sees that the video game industry is worth billions a year and he wants his cut. i am sure he really is concerned about t3h children and the gullible white people who work so hard to raise them... and not the steaming piles of fundage that could be excreted by an industry that is litterally pregnant with income and lacking a landmark case (and precendent) where someone failed to cash out rich.

check out his website. it sounds like the ads i see on TV for ambulance chasers.

this sounds like the opening to a dead kennedy's song:

we came home and found out son lying dead on hid bed from a gunshot wound. he had his headphones on and there was an ozzy record on the turntable. so we called our lawyers.

if you really want to stop video game crime, here are some real crimes that need to be stopped:

1. jerks and wankers in online games: dudes that macro, or peekay. they need to be sued, or at least given the death penalty.


2. fanboys for games that aren't released yet: dudes that crowd game forums with talk about a game that isn't even in beta. one dude in particular polluted our asheron's call forums with hype about horizons. he talked about how great it was and whatever, how it could restore your virginity and elminate erectile dysfunction. then HZ goes retail and he's already talking about World of Warcraft and how it restored his grandmother's eyesight before it even went beta.


3. server downtime: whomever causes that needs to be sued back to the stone age.


4. dudes with retarded handles: guys with racist screen names, or ones that were composed of a random synonym for death or suffering and a random foodstuff (names like deathcheese, agonyfries, or pizzacide) unless it also makes a pun, like coma-toast, because that's just *so* bloody clever.


5. trolls in gaming forums: or any forum for that manner. trolls love to argue, so a lawyer might make a good match for them.

my AC vacation

nom is without internet access for the time being, and my desire to grind levels has waned, so i am going to take a break from AC for a bit, once i figure out how to cancel my accounts.

my hope is that some of my friends will come back for the expansion pack, and i will be able to play with them. as it stands, i am the only person i know who plays regularly, and most of the people i run into in game are jerks, so meeting new buddies in game is not likely.

in the meantime, i'm going to play console games, i got GTA san andreas a while back, and i just got an xbox, so i am going to be playing those for a bit before i try to give AC another try.

my hope is that another game is on the horizon and i can play it with pandy and wels and nom and we can all play together and maybe start our own guild.

i am cautiously hopeful about Middle Earth Online. my hope is that MEO won't suck and that it won't be populated by the same wankers that dominate AC and [probably] the other games out there. i realize that there is a good chance that the game will be beautifully designes, but poorly engineered, and that being the flavor of the week MOG will mean it is overrun by the same jerks that bounce into and out of AC.

janus and n'eko and the BSD

janus was in need of a new hunting ground. after taking on and pwning the tuskers at the end of the gredaline consulate, i figured that the time had come to move up to the famous black spawn den.

janus is a martyr mage. she is a highly specialized mage with no war magic. this means that she is a great support mage, especially when supporting melees. she is however, very hard to hunt solo. she needs to hunt in dungeons where her enemies will be predictible, as opposed to in the open where everything is a surprise. so i have taken her to hunt tuskers. normally i *hate* tuskies, becuase they hit hard. but janus is a deeply troubled little girl who is in love with pain, so the place works out great for her.

so i was going to take nom's battle mage there. like all things involving nom and me, the easy way just didn't work. for some reason janus could not summon the BSD portal. the spell didn't fizzle, she just couldn't summon it. so i buffed n'eko, and janus, and we set out from AB to make the run to the BSD. and like all of our adventures, nom's toon died on the run. i play alone so much that i have acceted running as a legitimate tactic. if you are getting pounded on, you down a stamina potion and run like hell. this has saved my bacon so often, that all of my toons, including my slow mages, can outrun just about every monster in dereth.

nom does not subscribe to this school of thought. he fights everything to the death. when i am leading the way, it is most often to his death. this is not new to either of us, and i consider myself to be a master of corpse recovery. here are just a few of chris's tips for corpse recovery:

1) never use buffbots except to recover bods. the extra power and duration of those buffbot spells should be enough to power you thru any difficulties the mobs around your corpse will give you.

2) keep a robe to use as backup armor. a full set of level 7's on a robe won't make up for your normal armor, but should your death items fail you, and you arrive at the lifestone naked, a robe is light enough, and not likely to drop, so a robe may be what gets you to your corpse.

3) log off! sometimes if you are mobbed by half a dungeon, or the surrounding area, log off right there, wait a minute, and log back in. the critters that are not from the immediate vicinity will back off, and you will just have the immediate threat to deal with.

4) use another character to clear the spawn even if you don't have two accounts, you can use a different character, perhaps more powerful, better suited to face the threat around your corpses, or just with less vitae, to clear the spawn. as in tip #3, get to the corpse and log off, log the other toon in and run to the corpses and clear the spawn. as soon as the spawn is clear, log that toon off and log the other toon in. it's like drop muling, only with corpses.

4) use a shield to loot my life mage, naihanchi, carries a high AL buckler and a high meleeD katar to use while recovering his corpse. a set of buffs on the shield help his ability to survive melee attacks nicely. he also has helaing, but i will be doing away with it someday.

so typical of nom and me, i lead the way, he gets killed, and we have to set about picking up corpses. i made one pass and got killed, then another. the spawn was all high level grievers and olthoi, two things that janus is worthless against. since fighting was out of the question, i needed to run for it. she didn't have healing, so i couldn't do the shield thing and continue looting.

after two tries nom panicked, and called mom (opti silmara, our monarch). so opti and tahlisa helped us recover our corpses in a fellowship called "gilrs rescue the guys". i was not impressed seeing as how i can count the number of times i have needed someone's help getting a corpse back on one hand. but nom was pretty distressed, so i accepted the help. like with all corpse recoveries, the extra help got us the bods back in a matter of minutes and we got n'eko tied to the portal and i went to bed.

mr. moy on monkey island

it is no secret that i hate tuskers. i don't understand how people can say they are great for mages to fight because they hit *so* hard. nom's main, ki'lin has made 65th and he wants his patron to catch up with him (moy, the patron, is only 57th). i am eager for moy to make 60th since he will convert to sword, and be my life spec'd sword. that will put the count as follows:

3 mages (one life/manaC, one martyr and one opal mage)
2 swords (one lifespec, one grief tank)
2 axers (one tank and one OG)
1 archer (tank)
2 daggers (one 3school tank and one lifespec, both with lockpick)
1 macer (3school tank)
1 trade mule (quad spec)

so i decided to visit alphus lassel with opti, my monarch. i am not big on being helped to level, but i figure opti and nom will bug me about it until i give in. besides it will be a good opportunity to loot those freaking scrolls i need.

now that moy has gained some levels, i can re-adjust his starting stats. like with hwa, his OG cousin, i favored quickness and coordination over strength. now is the time to make them more extreme in their starting stats, by pulling points out of quickness and coordination and pulling them into strength.

moy and hwa are supposed to be subtly different. moy is a melee first, and a mage second while hwa is a mage first and a melee second. right now, both of them are axers, tho i am not exactly sure if i want hwa to remain such. if hunting hwa without meleeD proves to be too difficult, i may move him back to spear.

hwa relies on debuffs and vulns to take things down. he also uses drains to keep himself going while he tosses his imps/debuffs/vulns around. i am hoping that high life magic will make up for his lack of meleeD. the hope is that life protects and drains will keep him alive while he casts his laundry list of spells to knock something down to size. hwa fights like a mage, taking on one or two big things out in the open, while moy fights mobs in dungeons.

moy is a bit sturdier, thanks to meleeD mostly, though his life magic is weaker than hwa's. he tends to fight more like a melee, taking on mobs, and tossing imperils around to soften things up. he uses drains while casting, but then puts the shield up and never looks back.

both guys have the option of using life bolts to take targets down, should the need arise, or can play the role of healer/revitalizer as well.

taking the hit on quickness for moy will cause him to rely on his life magic more since his meleeD will go down a little. i still have the life/dagger project on the back burner. she will trade the damage that moy inflicts, for defensive ability, having a higher meleeD thanks to dagger being more stat friendly. she will be a more defensive version of the melee/mage hybrid.