Truly Naughty Troop Newsletter – Edition 1 – 4th February 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 1 - 4th February 2004

Contents

Introduction
News
Upcoming Events
Help Wanted
Useful Links
Feedback

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Introduction

Welcome to the first TNT Newsletter. Not all of our members have web access as often as others, and for some people, the EZBoard site isn't easy to visit regularly. The aim of this newsletter is to provide a summary of what's been going on in the guild over the last week, point out any upcoming events, and post links to useful information. It isn't intended to replace the EZBoard forum, and you are still strongly encouraged to visit and sign up to the boards (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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News

Chardok Fun and Cleric Epics - TNT carried out their first raid to the Overseer King in Chardok (with the help of one or two friends). For a first raid against the King it went well, and two clerics (Orth and Serayus) are a step closer to their epics. The fighting was scrappy and there was one wipe with a long CR, but we still dropped the king twice, and we still kicked their asses. Next time we'll be more focussed (repeat that mantra!)

TNT folk have been levelling like crazy :) Every level is sweet, but some sweeter than others. Krokker hits 60 :) Congratulations to the latest TNT member to hit the 60 mark. Echinaccea hits 65 :) Congratulations to the latest TNT member to hi 65 :) Earlier in the month, Torelian made 60 (and more ....) - congrats Torelian.

Not really news, not really a useful link, so I'll drop it in here. On two of the Kael raids, towards the end, I took some screenshots of the Troop in action, you can find them all here - www.darkstorm.co.uk/galle...me=album01 and here www.darkstorm.co.uk/galle...me=album05

I did try to take some shots during the HoT raid, but there was never a good time - boring without any mobs present, and far too busy while they were there - perhaps another time when we have more folk and I can stop the DPS for short while.

Duplicate Spells - you only have until the 8th of February to claim the duplicate spells that Moonebeam has posted on the board - you can find the full list here pub21.ezboard.com/ftrulyn...=181.topic but some highlights, Improved Invisibility, Call of Earth, Tears of Druzzil, Bristlebane.s Bundle, Splurt, and many others. Head along to that posting and claim those spells before they go to a vendor. Only four days left - hurry.

Leaflighter is a new addition to the guild, but he has already worked on some nice UI changes with TNT in mind, you can check out his work here users.hcis.net/parisforge/Leaf.htm.

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Upcoming Events

Plane of Sky (PoS / Plane of Air)
Torelian has scheduled a raid on the Plane of Sky for Friday 13th February. No detailed information as yet, but Tore has said he'll be updating the post soon - here's a link to the raid posting itself - pub21.ezboard.com/ftrulyn...=144.topic

Halls of Testing (HoT)
There isn't currently a scheduled HoT raid, however, it's still very much worth your while checking out the HoT section on the guild boards and familiarising yourself with the area, because there will be more raids soon, and the more people we have the better we'll do. The board has a specific section for HoT here pub21.ezboard.com/ftrulyn...roopfrm18. It's also worth your while to improve your CoV faction (by killing giants in GD, EW, Kael) - non-KOS is enough to raid in HoT, but you need ally in order to hand in the armour which drops in ToV. Grab some guildies and go waste some giants - it's your duty :)

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Help Wanted

Krokker is looking for someone to help him put a Hole raid together. It's for part of his epic, but he's not that familiar with the hole, so is looking for a raid leader to step forward from our ranks and help him out. Full details on the board, at pub21.ezboard.com/ftrulyn...=143.topic

Let me know if you're looking for assistance - but post it on the ezboard as well - you'll get better coverage that way.

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Useful Links

Hopefully in this section we'll be able to provide one or two useful links per newsletter, providing additional background information to the game.

Firstly, a hint about eq.crgaming.com - generally this website is out of date and contains old and incorrect spell information. I would strongly urge you to be cautious when using this site for research. Some of the information is useful (for example, which ingredients are required for spells), but some information is just totally out of date (they still don't have the spell Dead Men Floating listed at all, and Strike of Solusek is described as 'causing damage to the caster as well'). The news section is usually up-to-date but can go for a while without any additions. Generally, Caster's Realm is behind the times and should be dealt with carefully.

Allakhazam on the other hand (everquest.allakhazam.com) is much more up-to-date and is being updated constantly. Sometimes the information is buried deep on Allakhazam and is hard to get to, but when you do find it, it is mostly accurate and very useful. Unfortunately the most useful information on Allakhazam is for premium members only, but the cost is very small and well worth it if you want to be able to search on items and other information. Allakhazam's spell list is up-to-date and accurate (although it's still not 100% accurate).

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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 Gnomtrix if I'm on.

Fine morning

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Another fine, sunny September morning – yay global warming.

I’ve never been so popular, getting loads and loads of e-mail. I admit, 99% of it is virus infected garbage, but I’ll take anything I can to boost my ego 😉

So it’s been a while (again)

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We’re moving house – our Landlady wants her house back, so we’re buying a place. Things are moving along, mortgage offer accepted, written confirmation ‘with us soon’, solicitors engaged, insurance in place. Staying in the same general area (house is within a couple of miles of our current one), nice and tidy inside. If we didn’t hate moving so much it’d be exciting 😉

Computers and Me

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(I know I wrote this in 2003, but not when in 2003)

I’ve had a computer since I got my Atari 400, Easter, sometime early in the 1980’s (1982 or perhaps 1983?), I was around 11 or 12 years old. That was followed quickly (only now do I wonder how spoiled I was as a child) by a 48K ZX Spectrum, either the same year, or the year after. My memory is terrible.

I played games on the Atari, and wrote software on the Spectrum, until eventually, the Atari fell by the wayside, and I used the Spectrum more and more (for both games and writing stuff).

I discovered BASIC very quickly, and while much of my time was spent playing games on the Speccy, I learned a massive amount about writing software using that thing. I wrote several database style programs for storing roleplaying information on (for example, all the monsters from the Basic and Expert Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks), a hugely complex slot machine game type-thing, and a bunch of other weird and wacky stuff (much of it roleplaying oriented).

On both machines, I remember a particular game which I played to death. On the Atari, it was Defender, which I remember playing for many hours without a break as I got better at it. On the Speccy, it was Bards Tale, which wasted what felt like an entire summer, mapping and writing details of the places in the game. I don’t think I ever finished it.

As school progressed, I got to play with BBC B machines, and I distinctly remember playing Grog, and listening to bad versions of Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics. The computer was used by our school’s new fledgling Business Studies class, and I wrote a pretty basic share purchasing application which allowed you to play at being a stock broker. It wasn’t very good. I also discovered Shades on Micronet.

I was still messing with the Speccy up until 1989 when I went to University. The Speccy stayed at home. I’d been at uni, doing a Computer Studies degree for about a month or so, playing with these new fangled PC’s, when it became apparent I needed one. It wasn’t long before I got my Amstrad 1512 (with a 21MB hardcard no less), a mate purchased a 1640. And that was it, F19 Stealth Bomber and Links Golf for the rest of the first year. More software development, now using Turbo Pascal to write more roleplaying and database related applications. More messing with machine code (I’d done bits on the speccy and on the BBC B). By the end of the second year at uni (1991), I needed a better machine. I took out a special loan that Barclay’s were providing at the time, and purchased a 386, with 2MB of memory and an 80MB hard disk.

That machine warped over the following years, gaining motherboard upgrades, case replacement, memory upgrades, sound cards, modems, tape drives, hard disk, etc. I still have the floppy drive, it’s the only bit left from the original. The keyboard died in 2000. More pascal programming, the discovery of Bulletin Boards, and then finally, the discovery of the Internet, for me, sometime around 1995.

I got on-line with Demon at first, using their DOS software and quickly moving to Trumpet Winsock and Windows 3.1 based stuff. That changed, and I remember the first time I configured internet access in Windows 95, compared to getting stuff going with Trumpet Winsock it was a dream.

In parallel to that, I left Uni with a first class honours degree in Computer Studies, and got a job initially writing software, although I moved into first line support quickly afterwards, and I now work in third line support, for a different company.

The home network is getting silly. When Grete moved in, we shared a single PC. We coped. When we moved into our own house, we realised we wouldn’t cope 😉 And so we bought one for her. We networked them using thin ethernet, and used various apps to share the ‘net connection out over the two machines. Eventually the two machines got upgraded to PII 400’s. A couple of old 486’s got added to the list, and eventually a Cable Modem connection, with a linux-based firewall. Then, recently, the two PII’s got two slow, and we’re now both using P4’s of various speeds, and the home network consists currently, of around 6 machines.

Computers and me? We go back a long way. I’ve been ‘doing’ computers since I was 12. Not professionally, but I’ve been looking at a screen with text on it, and typing stuff at keyboards, and using mice (yes, I bought a mouse for my Speccy), for nearly 20 years. Every day that I have been employed, my job has been about computing, not just using them to get something done, but doing computing, a job about computers.

I’m comfortable with computers. I think we know why.

CD Changers

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So, we were in Meadowhall doing our Christmas Shopping, and we found one of the Sony 300 CD Changers in the Sony Store. So we bought it. Even though we bought an 80GB hard disk and a CD a week ago to making ripping our CD’s easier, and then ripped all of them. So now we need to put them all into the changer and think about entering 15 character descriptions for them all! And it’s HUGE!

CD Player

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I wanted this 300 CD Changer from Sony, but it appears to have been discontinued. Which is a shame. They do a 400 CD one, but it’s £100-200 more, although it does play MP3’s.

So we’ve looked at some 5 tray ones, but at £40 less than the 300 CD changer was going to be, we feel shortchanged.

In the meantime, because our CD player isn’t working properly, we’ve been playing MP3’s. And it’s not bad.

So, I’ve got this Linux box running Debian. PII-400 which holds together our mail, news, web stuff here. And it’s got a 40 Speed CD ROM in it, and a reasonable sound card. A plan is hatched, convert it into a CD Jukebox so that we don’t need a new cd player.

Quick check on freshmeat and I have some candidates for web-controllable jukebox software.

Got home, whacked a CD into the drive, lots of clicking but no action. So, cd drive is dead. Ack! Spend an hour convincing myself of this fact by trying lots of things, including moving the drive from slave to master, etc. Also, since it’s Linux and I can’t remember when I last played anything in the cd drive, I play with modules and configs for a bit. No joy.

Luckily I have spares, drag out a 24 speed drive, rip the linux box apart, whack in the new drive, test out some CD’s, looks fine. Bundle the thing back together, take the time to do a bit of recabling I’ve been meaning to do for ages, and stick it back onto the shelf.

Then it’s a software hunt. Debian has jack (manager), cdparanoia (cd ripper) and mpg321 (player) available as packages. I found a debian package of bladeenc knocking around (encoder), and I’ve downloaded gronk (jukebox type web app). Currently ripping our copy of Puddle of Mud’s album.

Haven’t got the jukebox stuff in yet.

So, need to install that software, or choose another one, and then consider relocating the speakers and amp.

IBM

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So, it’s signed, it’s a done deal. As of November 1st I work for IBM, and not my present employer anymore. All change is scary, but I’m pretty ok with this at the moment.

Haze

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So I’ve wandered out of my Everquest induced haze. Being offline for three weeks while moving house and waiting for ADSL has sort of made me go Everquest cold turkey. And while I’ve played a couple of times since getting connected, I don’t feel obliged/the need to play all the time, so I’m doing more and more of the ‘net stuff I used to. Hence this diary entry.

New house is nice, much nicer than the old place. Feels more like a home already.

Spending most of today writing procmail scripts to bin the latest virus/worm/e-mail infection, looks pretty virulent, had a few hundred in a short period (few hours). Probably because the e-mail looks pretty legit and convincing.

Thinking of a revamp for the web pages, perhaps changing to a new domain to move away from my spam-filled darkstorm.co.uk e-mail addresses, or perhaps just moving more stuff to the darkstorm.co.uk site, dunno yet.

Tired?

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Tried sleeping at 11pm, didn’t work, too many distractions. Why do people feel it’s ok to shout at each other, rev their car engines and beep their horns at 11pm?

So here I am, playing EQ at midnight.