Category Archives: Games

Hillbillie’s b0rked computer

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One of the things that I love about games like EverQuest is the sense of community. It was there in IRC and FidoNet and it’s there in some MMORPG’s like EQ. You have to work at it, it doesn’t just happen, and you have to want it otherwise it may as well be just another video game. But there can be a sense of community, a feeling of knowing people you’ve never met.

Perhaps a lot of it is illusion – perhaps people you think you know are in fact totally different. But I suspect it’s similar to making pen-pals before the age of global communication via computer, and that often your impression of people you deal with on-line a lot is pretty accurate.

When I play EQ, it’s to socialise as well as play a game, some people will scoff about socialising with people you can’t see or actually hear, but I don’t mind, feel free, we enjoy it.

And so when one member of the community has PC problems, and can’t get them sorted for whatever reason, it’s usually frustrating for their friends, wanting them to get back on-line. Hillbillie’s computer is b0rked and there’s no sign of it being fixed quickly. However, I wanted to help, and I wanted to offer you the chance to help (not you the random reader who just wandered by, but you, a friend of Hillbillie, I don’t expect random Joe public to help!).

There’s a button on the right side of the page, Make a Donation, which uses Pay Pal to send Hillbillie some cash, so that hopefully he can get his computer fixed and get his ass back in the game.

Progress?

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Well, yesterday and today I’ve still had the anxiety symptoms, but no-where near as pronounced as they were before hand. The facial/neck pain almost totally gone (although there’s a twinge or two this morning), the heart thing subdued and the cough/breathing stuff not as nasty, although they all come back pretty strongly just before I go to bed, as usual.

I guess the question is, can I cope with the anxiety and get it under control outside of work, in a way which helps me maintain control inside work. We’ll see.

The ‘eating less’ thing isn’t going too well, but hey, we knew that for the last 34 years why would the last 4 weeks be any different. Going to be tough to change the habits I have around food, I have a strong dislike for anything which prevents me enjoying food, and I’m not good at self discipline.

EverQuest is down again for another five hour patch. Not the most successful expansion launch for EQ. 11 Hour patch to launch, 3 hour patch on the day after, 5 hour patch on the day after that and today another 5 hours. So a total of 24 hours of downtime so far to launch it, time will tell if it ruins the experience for some people. Certainly those who did not buy it will be pretty annoyed considering they’re suffering for content they can’t see.

Monster missions are a total blast, radically new in EQ, playing Nagafen and defending his cave from the hoards of crazy ‘players’ was some of the best fun I’ve had in EQ for a long time. Hopefully it’s a sign of some rich content further in the expansion, if we get a good enough run to be able to go and see any of it.

EverQuest

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EverQuest patch day today, releasing a new expansion (Depths of DarkHollow), servers are expected to be down for about 11 hours. So, all around the world, EQ players are trying to remember what they did before they played EQ, that filled 11 hours.

I suspect many of them will either,

  1. Haunt the various EQ web sites
  2. Play another MMORPG they used to play before EQ took over their lives
  3. Get sucked into random games on yahoo.com
  4. Talk to their spouse for the first time since the last patch
  5. Drink Beer

For me and my good wife (who also thankfully plays EQ) it’ll be an evening on the sofa with some good food and hopefully a good film.

eq

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Was really tired when I got in yesterday, so decided to just mooch about on EQ, start my epic 1.5 bypass quest and chat to friends. So, started the quest, found out the first fight is in PoTactics on a loot-dropping mob which is probably perma-farmed. Oh well, so complete change of plan, grouped with some friends in a DoN mission or 2, made another 10-12% on my way to 70. Only 64% left 😉

ding 69!

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another day another dollar at work, less tired today, although i got to bed much later than i should have. still, managed to make level 69 on my warrior in EQ, i know in know, you’re all thinking wow awesome well done. oh? you’re not? oh well ok, it was awesome though 😉 and couldn’t have happened without the excellent bunch of guildies i play with.

it’s an oddly positive mood at work in between the periods of complete blackness. we’re just sort of hanging on for the announcement about involuntary redundancies and/or moving all of our workload off-shore and how that affects our roles. i think we’ve just decided that there’s nothing we can, so we just stick it out, grin and see what happens.

and today, too lazy for the shift key

A New Dawn

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And here we are again, another attempt at blogging, another promise to keep my website up-to-date, will I manage this time? Who knows, certainly not me.

I played with the idea of using Blogger, but decided since I had other stuff on this site I wanted to keep I’d try again here, and at least it keeps it all in one place. I’m going to try and put something in here every day, mainly for myself, but also to keep friends up-to-date with what’s going on. Lots of friends just left work, and I don’t want to lose complete touch with them – so this is my attempt at that.

car and bens

As usual, it starts with cars 😉 This time, failed the MOT but only on front-lamp (no pattern) and break lights (always on) which is damn good news for us, considering our luck with cars. Oh the breaks need looking at and the engine has an oil leak (our drive is clear evidence of that), but the MOT will be fine on Friday once we get the lights done. Major good news. Grete’s appeal against her benefit decision came through a little while back, some of you already know, and was found in our favour. Mixed feelings, it’s odd being told you are officially ill after all, but at least they’ll pay the benefit going forward, and Grete got it back paid since last year, which helped buy some glasses for us both (more later), and a few other nice things.

eq

So, still playing EQ. Not quite as aggressivley as I was while in the raiding guild, but still pretty much all our spare time is spent playing or dealing with the game. The guild is moving forward, we run regular raids on weekends now (myself and another member co-lead them), and they’re fun but a strong committment. Got some WoW accounts, and played a bit, but it’s socially void even though it’s technically excellent, so struggling to get into it, and at around the same time, EQ really picked up again socially, which didn’t help.

vision

It’s been on the cards for a while, but I finally went for an eye test, and yes, I’m short sighted. After spending my teens and 20’s with perfect vision, it’s frustrating to find it’s no longer so. I’m still legal to drive apparently (although not owning a license might be an issue), but I’m definately getting short sighted. Got a couple of pairs of glasses which I should use when doing long-sight work, although I’ve not started doing them yet.

work

I used to work in a team of around 11 people, some two years ago. Now, the team is down to 5, with 3 covering the same work that I do. Down from a 1 in 5 24/7 rota to a 1 in 2 24/7 rota. Four of those people left last week while I was on holiday, due to some unforseen timing, and an offer of voluntary redundancy. Several other friends in other teams left at the same time, and more are still planning to go. So, very different place this morning to the one I left 10 days ago. Uncertain times, unhappy times, we’ll have to see how long I can stick it out.

the web

I’m a total slacker with the gemmell mania website. Haven’t updated the news on the front page in 18-20 months, and rarely read the forums on there. I really need to decide what to do with that site, either ignore it, close it, or hand it over to someone else. Having fun with the Truly Naughty Troop website though. And the guild members seem to like it.

Sunday slowdown

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Played a bit of EQ, mainly to do some raiding. Helped a friend run a raid for TNT, went really well, enjoyed it greatly. The game can be fun if there’s some specific focus.

EQ2 goes live tomorrow, but I won’t be playing, performance on my machine wasn’t good enough to make it enjoyable long term for one thing (sad considering my machine spec), and to be honest, if I started a new MMORPG I’d want to do it with a bunch of people I knew, at the same time, who played in my timezone, so we could keep one character in the right range to play together. That’s the mistake I made in EQ.

Slowly getting the websites sorted out, stuck a discussion forum onto the Gemmell Mania site, should have more time to keep up with it than lats time, hopefully it’ll generate some interest. Need to consider revamping the front-end, perhaps using PostNuke or something of that ilk, or just moving the entire sit into the BB section, with admin only forums for news / content / etc.

Progress

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Moved Grete’s pages across to the .co.uk. domain, Grete’s promised to update the content at some stage.

The less said about work the better.

Thought I’d be tempted to play EQ, but not even remotely interested, it’s probably a phase, and I’ll feel like playing soon, but we’ll see how that turns out.

OMG!

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Over a year since I wrote a diary entry? An entire year has passed without comment. Time flies when your job sucks eh?

It’s just possible I might be over my everquest addiction, time will tell, but I got quite excited about the prospect of getting back to some web development stuff, we’ll have to see if my black moods get in the way of that, but I can always fall back on Age of Mythology – destroying the gods of other pantheons is always a good way to relieve stress.

Moved the diary to the .co.uk pages, almost a year after I promised to do it, I’ve nearly shut down the .org stuff, I will click that button soon and do it. Need to work on moving Grete’s pages across as well, and getting those sorted out for her.

Feels good to be back.

Truly Naughty Troop Newsletter – Edition 25 – 21st July 2004

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These posts are archives of forum / blog entries I made on my EverQuest guild website. The website won’t be around forever, and I wanted the posts all in one place so I didn’t lose them, this blog seemed like as good a place as any.

Truly Naughty Troop Newsletter - Edition 25 - 21st July 2004

Contents

1. Introduction
2. News
3. Upcoming Events
4. Zone-mania
5. Help Wanted
6. Help Offered
7. Useful Links
8. Acronym Buster
9. Messages
10. Feedback

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1. Introduction

So there were three patches in the end, but things have settled down, and we're left with zoning pets, sellable LDON gear and a whole bunch of funky new stuff.

So, who's up for a bunch of Veeshan Peak keying, and some elemental toughness XP'ing?

The newsletter is not a replacement for the board, and more often than not will just summarise something and provide a link - so, go sign up and take part - pub21.ezboard.com/btrulynaughtytroop

You've already signed up to get the newsletter, obviously ;) , but I'd like to encourage you to get your guild-mates to sign up as well. The more folk signed up the better. E-mail addresses will be kept private, and will only be used to send out this newsletter on a weekly basis, so it's safe to sign up. Spread the word!

If you feel like contributing something to the newsletter, or have any feedback on it, please drop me a mail at tnt-newsletter@darkstorm.co.uk and I'll see what I can do.

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2. News

PoF - Torelian bravely led the troop north from the Fear zone in. Yes, north ;) Still, after a wipe and a recovery, the troop broke in fully (going west), and proceeded to wipe the floor of Fear with the trash. Sadly, no mini's or bosses up, but still, breaking in is an experience and a useful tool.

Shawl Walk - Daiggo's shawl walk went very well, thanks to everyone who made it. It was successful and Daiggo is the proud new owner of the 8th shawl.

[Know someone who dinged something significant? Let me know - I'm not always on (no, honestly) so sometimes don't get to see dingage]

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3. Upcoming Events

PoJ Trials - Sunday July 25th - Meeting time: 10am ADT/11am PDT/2pm EDT/6pm GMT - Meeting Place: PoJ GY - full details can be found in this thread, p087.ezboard.com/ftrulyna...=218.topic

HoT Raid - Saturday, July 24th - Meeting time: 7am ADT/8am PDT/11AM EDT/3pm GMT - Meeting Place: ToV (Temple of Veeshan)
- full details can be found in this thread, p087.ezboard.com/ftrulyna...=216.topic

As a general reminder - include the time/day of raids in the subject heading of your post, and always start a new post when talking about a new raid or event. People often don't go back to check modified threads, and they will miss posts which don't include dates/times in the subejct headings.

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4. Zone-mania

From Moonebeam,

Favorite zone: Tower of Frozen Shadow
This zone has something for nearly everyone, and as a bonus, is often empty. (No KSing! YAY!) At the moment, it is the "hot spot" for levels 30 to 40, so has a very large experience bonus for those levels (not certain of the exact numbers here).

Each floor of the zone requires a key to proceed, but also has a place to zone completely out of the Tower. Only one person in a group needs to be keyed for each floor, and if you get a key to a higher floor, all lower floor keys are automatically added to your keyring.

All floors have undead on them, so Necros, Paladins, Clerics, and Shadowknights are very useful here. The "trash" mobs drop up to 8 plat each, as well as various other drops that sell for decent cash. Once you get to the 3rd floor, some very nice mid-level gear drops from several different mobs. The fifth and seventh floors drop velium commonly, from small pieces all the way up to blocks.

All in all, this is a great mid-level experience zone, and a great high-level farm zone.


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5. Help Wanted

From Muldian,
I need to see if someone can help me set up a raid for posky. I need to kill the Essence tamer for epic drop (Swirling Sphere of Color). I dont have much raid exp. and not sure if i can lead a raid so please anyone willing to help me send me a tell in game pls.

From Moonebeam,
Tradeskill items Moonebeam is in need of:
Spiderling Silk
Velium (made into studs if you have the skill, otherwise any will be welcome)
Arctic Wyvern Hides
Vials of Clear Mana (Will pay the cost - 300p per stack, or supply the emeralds and poison vials)


Send me stuff to include in this section omg!

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6. Help Offered

I am once again offering up Moonebeam's tradeskill prowess to assist the guild. If you would like something made, simply bring me the bits and I will attempt the combine for no charge. If you do not have the bits, I will have to charge bazaar (or merchant, if the bits are vendor bought) prices for the bits. Again, there is no fee for the combine attempt.

Skill levels are as follows:
Baking - 250
Brewing - 200
Pottery - 239
Fletching - 200
Blacksmithing - 200
Tailoring - 204
Jewelcraft - 200

Please note, for Jewelcrafted items to have any stats, the metal must be enchanted by an enchanter. I am working on leveling up a toon for this purpose, but as of yet, can enchant ONLY silver. Also, if you need an imbued gem, make sure you have the imbued version and not the plain version. I can imbue Emeralds, but no other gem.

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7. Useful Links

Want to find out what's going on with EQ spells? Want to see what the items really do? Check out Lucy, the most comphrehensive and up-to-date item database on the web - lucy.allakhazam.com

Missed the previous edition of this newsletter? Deleted it and want to read it again (to assist with getting to sleep perhaps?), check out the previous editions here pub21.ezboard.com/ftrulyn...troopfrm19 thanks to the Keeper of the Boards.

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8. Acronym Buster

Bah send some in you lazy good for nothing toons :p

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9. Messages

You have no mail.

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10. Feedback

Please feel free to send all feedback about this newsletter to tnt-newsletter@darkstorm.co.uk.

Let me know if you'd like to see any additional sections or content, and if you have any content to contribute. The best way to get content into the newsletter, is to post it to the boards, and I'll pick it up. If you like, send me a pointer requesting it be added, but the board is the first place you should stick it :)

If you would like to stop receiving the newsletter, or would like to change your e-mail address, or any other administrative mail should also be sent to tnt-newsletter@darkstorm.co.uk - please remember to include your character name and e-mail address.

You can also send me a tell in game as Eviltrix if I'm on, but you should be prepared for vitriol :p

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