Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
How does your gaming setup look? Check out these home photos of what people's rigs look like.
One poster's point is well taken -- it might cost a bit to purchase all the computer equipment and accounts some people have, but when compared to other entertainment choices, video gaming is still a bargain.
Discover the upcoming Curse of the Bloodmoon in the Loping Plains in this edition of SOE's lore series for the Secrets of Faydwer expansion, due out in November.
Werewolves and other more malevolent forces stalk the Loping Plains (EQII players will be quite familiar with the future Loping Plains and it's strange inhabitants!). This expansion appears to be bringing back some of the horror elements to the game:
"Curse of the Bloodmoon
The Loping Plains occupy the central area of Faydwer. Once a healthy habitat for a large variety of Tunare's creations, the Loping Plains has become cursed and twisted by the influence of dark powers. From the south, the dark forces of the Bloodmoon tribe creep out from Bloodmoon Keep threatening to consume the land, while the curse of an angry god pulses from the northern coast and the Hills of Shade.
Little is known about this new tribe of orcs, but they are believed to be a splinter group from the Crushbone clan led by Ralkor Bloodmoon also known as, "The Prophet". Several rumors that these orcs are lycanthropic have drawn Norrath's most famous werewolf hunters, the Fangbreakers, to the Plains. Larquin Fangbreaker and his band of hunters have come in hopes of whipping out this new curse before it can spread beyond the plains. An unlikely ally has also emerged from the depths of Darkhallow to combat this new curse, but their ultimate goal is as yet unknown.
Along the north coast lies the Hills of Shade, a once lush landscape cursed by the fury of an angry goddess. Damned spirits of Humans and Elves roam through the ruins of their once beautiful cities, cursed to replay the fateful actions of their final days for eternity. The powerful energy of the curse has drawn several visitors to the hills. A holy order of paladins hopes to cleans the curse and free the damned spirits from their torment. Nearby, a conclave of necromancers hopes to harness the power of the curse and use it for their own malicious plans.
Meanwhile, in a dark crypt beneath the hills, the Soulbleeder continues to amass the power of thousands of souls and an army of undead. Soon the Soulbleeder will run out of spirits to consume in the Hills of Shade and certainly head south to begin the culling of the living. "
Sends shivers down the spine! Check the link above for zone screenies.
Legends of Norrath Tournaments Testing Begins this weekend - 9/19/07
Join us this Saturday and Sunday (September 22nd - 23rd) for the first ever Legends of Norrath tournaments! We will be loading up the tournament queues this weekend and would appreciate your help. We'll be giving out rewards to those that place well and some even for just participating. Please join us at the two following times this weekend!
Saturday, September 22nd
Legends of Norrath Constructed Test Tournament
12: 00 noon PDT (server time)
Entry Fee: FREE
Create your best deck using the cards in your collection and bring it to the tournament
1st place wins a loot card of their choice
2nd � 4th place will each receive 3 booster packs
5th � 16th place will each receive 1 booster pack
One random participant out of every ten participants who complete the tournament will also receive a Legends of Norrath booster pack.
Sunday, September 23rd
Legends of Norrath Constructed Test Tournament
12:00 noon PDT (server time)
Entry Fee: FREE
Create your best deck using the cards in your collection and bring it to the tournament
1st place wins a loot card of their choice
2nd � 4th place will each receive 3 booster packs
5th � 16th place will each receive 1 booster pack
One random participant out of every ten participants who complete the tournament will also receive a Legends of Norrath booster pack.
The players have a discussion going on about using Microsoft Vista with EverQuest on the EQPlayers boards.
It can be done, but needs some workarounds. Player Nedrom posted:
"Vista runs your whole UI off your video card which leaves less video ram for EQ to play with.
The best way to speed up EQ in Visa is to right click on eqgame.exe and on one of the tabs you can turn off "desktop composition" this disables the Aero interface and stops the GUI from running on your video card.
I found this was a huge performance increaser for running EQ in Vista.
Vista isn't officially supported either so it's really try it, like it, go back to XP, like a lot of folks."
Thanks Nedrom for the tips! You can see what other people have experienced with the thread link above.
The folks over at Online Gaming Radio have published a couple of written reports and and show podcasts of their coverage of Legends of Norrath:
"If you�re one of the many who tune into EQ2�s-day, you�ve been able to experience the colorful commentary brought to you by Dellmon and Zanadi as they talk about their experiences with Legends of Norrath 3 weeks in a row.
The game has now launched within EverQuest and EverQuest 2. Zanadi has written her take on the game from the perspective of one who has not very close and snuggly with previously created games of similar gameplay style.
In addition to Zanadi�s review, we were able to poke and prod �Monte - The Geek� into writing a bit about his experience. Now, the thing to remember is that whenever Monte agrees to do something, he doesn�t just do it halfway, he doesn�t do the minimum or just a smidge more than the minimum� he goes full out and runs with the new project. So not only is his article a review, it�s somewhat also a guide to LoN."
EverQuest has been the benchmark for many cutting edge ideas in video gaming, but has only been called controversial for it's "addictive qualities."
Yahoo.com has posted a list of ten games that are a bit more controversial in nature, mostly because of their violent themes. Can you guess what some of them are? Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a giveaway, so guess again!
Avast! - Stop and give attention. It can be used in a sense of surprise, "Whoa! Get a load of that!" which today makes it more of a "Check it out" or "No way!" or "Get off!"
Aye! - "Why yes, I agree most heartily with everything you just said or did."
Aye aye! - "I'll get right on that sir, as soon as my break is over."
Arrr! - This one is often confused with arrrgh, which is of course the sound you make when you sit on a belaying pin. "Arrr!" can mean, variously, "yes," "I agree," "I'm happy," "I'm enjoying this beer," "My team is going to win it all," "I saw that television show, it sucked!" and "That was a clever remark you or I just made." And those are just a few of the myriad possibilities of Arrr!
Check out the site for more advanced parlay, and smartly, me hearties! Time's a wastin'!
Boot Camp Guild on the Bertoxx server is a casual guild looking for members:
"Boot Camp is a laidback guild with a goal of just having fun playing the game, we are for the casual player or the player who's not in to always having to do big group functions.
We have no requirements. All are welcome."
Contacts: Snowkitty, Eidlog, Shadowflirt on the Bertoxxulus server.
SOE has posted this announcement on the EQII player news:
"Important Message For Subscribers Impacted By Hurricane Katrina!
In the summer of 2005 Hurricane Katrina left an incredible wake of destruction across the Gulf Coast of the United States. The damage done by the hurricane was unprecedented and impacted countless lives. In response to the hurricane, SOE suspended billing for over 13,000 players living in the affected areas to give them the time they needed to recover.
For the two years that have followed, the accounts of the affected SOE gamers have not been billed but have been preserved. Beginning on Monday, September 17th, the accounts for these 13,000 SOE gamers will resume the normal billing processes. If you lived in an area affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 please check your account information before September 17th to ensure that everything is accurate and there is no disruption in your ability to play.
Our best wishes go out to all those who were affected by the disaster and we'd like to thank our SOE players for their continued patronage. "
I had completely forgotten that SOE had suspended billing for these players (or perhaps I never knew!). Two years seems like a decent interval to let people recover, doesn't it?
"During my trip to the Austin Game Developers Conference last week, I had occasion to learn a bit about a project that has drawn the support of quite a few well known figures from that area, the Videogame Archive of the University of Texas at Austin's Center for American History, which "facilitates, sponsors, and supports teaching, research, and public education". In this instance, its worthy goal is to collect materials that will help those who wish to know about the history of the industry before they are lost forever.
Two notable individuals involved are Warren Spector and Richard Garriott, who are said to have pledged most of their personal collections. They were among four co-chairs of a fundraiser hosted by the latter the evening prior to the conference. It brought in $75,000, which would seem to represent a solid initial step toward establishing ongoing funding for the endeavor. The first goal is apparently twice that, with the next target being a $3 million endowment."
Although many games are preserved and played today through emulators, having an archive of materials, actual games, and consoles is an important preservation project.
Along the same lines as Austin's project, I have heard of an initiative to preserve some of the original code base of games such as EverQuest, so it could be seen in its original form.
I would hope that the archive could sponsor exhibits once it gets off the ground so the public can see the evolution of computer gaming.
With the help of our new staff member Beej, who worked so fast I could hardly keep up with her, the guild lists are now updated! Even Luclin is now back up! All guilds listed on the server lists are currently in game and active.
Thanks to everyone who sent in some updates to their guild listings this week. You should all be added.
The next phase is to update the guild information, and add more guilds that may not be listed.
Meldrath has certainly been busy ....read the text below, and check out the link for pics. As far as game play, sounds like there are going to be some interesting tunnel crawls!
I would like to extend a warm welcome to Beej, officer in Crimson Fist from the Bertox server, who has kindly offered her help in updating the guild listings for EQVault!
Beej and I will be working on updating links and making sure the guilds listed for each server are currently active.
Is your guild on the server list? If not, shoot me an email to get it added!
Here is what's going into Thursday morning's Hotfix:
There were a few technical issues that we addressed today that require a server update and some downtime. We are sure for those affected they will welcome the fixes and for everyone else, thank you for your understanding.
Legends of Norrath crash related to the 8000 series NVidia cards
- This has been addressed and now the crash and gameplay problems should be addressed and working as intended.
Legends of Norrath Global Loot Drop
- The loot drop percentage has been fixed and now you will be able to obtain LoN loot from NPC's in game.
Custom UI's being scrambled when tabbed out to other windows
- We are aware of the problems players are having with custom UI's and we are looking into the issue. In the meantime on of our developers has started a post called UI Problems and Workarounds and it is sticky'd on the forums. Please refer to that post while we do some work on our end.
New human NPCs loading into global memory
- This has been addressed and the standard Human models have replaced the models from the Test server.
Procs not working correctly
- This has been addressed and procs that were affected are now working as intended.
LEGENDS OF NORRATH� NOW AVAILABLE FOR ALL EVERQUEST� AND EVERQUEST� II PLAYERS
New Online Trading Card Game Playable Within and Across Online RPG�s
Subscribers to Receive Free Starter Deck
Legends of Norrath� Oathbound, the online trading card game based on the rich fantasy worlds of EverQuest� and EverQuest� II, is now live and available for all EQ and EQII subscribers. Playable from within either of the two online games, players can take on challengers in casual gameplay or test their skills against AI opponents, across all servers, within both live games.
Oathbound is the first release in the Legends of Norrath storyline, featuring more than 375 digital cards, available in both 55 card digital starter decks for $9.99 (plus applicable taxes) and 15 card digital booster packs for $2.99 (plus applicable taxes). In the three-part Oathbound storyline, players become part of a secret war between the forces of Order and Chaos, preventing the realm of Norrath from the brunt of a bloody and eternal war.
In addition to player vs. player combat, Legends of Norrath provides the complete online card gaming experience, featuring a sophisticated, re-playable AI system for single player campaigns, easy to use management tools and numerous Casual and Tournament game lobbies. Victory can be achieved by completing quests or reducing your opponent�s health, enabling players to employ their own unique strategies for victory. The game also features a robust loot system; more than 30 loot items each for EQ and EQII will be available, including player mounts, potions, clothing, weapon adornments and spells.
To get started on the fun, EQ and EQII players will receive a free starter deck and game client to play. Non-subscribers will also get a chance to compete against the EQ and EQII community on September 12, when a free stand alone version of the game is scheduled to be available.
For more information on Legends of Norrath, visit the website at www.legendsofnorrath.com.
Most adventurers are usually far from home, and what's a person to do to make sure not to get a case of "Sarnak's Revenge?" It's so inconvenient when the entire raid has to pause for your bio again.
Here's a guide on Eating Safely in Norrath. Your deadly adventure should not be your meal choice!
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