Dragons Blood part Duex!

So, Were well past the first session, and I haven't even covered anything. Time for recap:

The first session had five students and their teacher trekking out from Cromana (home town) to The Bronze Dragon ancestral home. Their was Ryall (myself), A blue blooded assassin in training ( Our close friend), A bronze Blooded School bully ( Pyros), and a white blooded doctor apprentice of unclear goals, Arrith. Also in the party are Nina, an NPC who is a young girl with no magical abilities (very rare); and Drakean, our NPC teacher who was carrying the purpose of our trip. He found a dragon egg in the sand, dragon eggs are almost never found outside their home. We thought it was a Bronze egg based on their close proximity and we left to return it.

After entering and meeting the ruling dragon (dragon eggs being presented are that rare), the dragons explained that they could tell it was a black egg. They can detect colour from eggs by smell apparently. The bronze dragons being very honourable and respectful of life, also took the time to berate Pryos for his rough ways. The boy promised to be a better person. After that the group left back for town and the next day, the group left for Zwarna, Home of the black dragons.

On the way to the first stopping point, we came across a man named Geb, and his caravan of traders. They were holding a green dragon in a cage and tourturing it. After a quick and relativly painless fight, The group slaughtered the caravan, and released the Dragon. He was young by dragon standards, and his nick name was "Capie." After healing him, we agreed to escort him home, then started conversation, eventually comming to the Seekers. They are a zealous religion focused mainly on dragon worship. Their big concern is finding the creator of the world (a dragon), because this dragon has sealed itself inside a child with no magic. The are currently after Nina, who is quite magicless. Arrith came to a disagrement with Capie, and the dragon flew off, to get away from him.

Then we arived in Falsten's Reach. The city created and controled by the Seekers. It was the only way to Zwarna.

More Later, as I find time.

Nodwick, Ncsoft, and Worlds.com?

The above link was sent to me from keeping up with Nodwick . Go on read it. Also, read Nodwick too.

Good.

In any case, The article above talks about NCsoft being sued for patent infringement by a company called worlds.com. Ncsoft makes multiple online games like City of Heroes, GuildWars, and Lineage. Worlds.com makes a small online 3d interactive browser. Kind of like Second Life. This looks bad since the Worlds.com patent 6,731,314 is described as:

A client computer program provides instructions for a processor to locate and retrieve rich media and HTML files over a network, such as the internet, an internet or an LAN, for running in a three-dimensional (3D) graphical user interface. The program provides instructions for the processor to generate a 3D graphical user interface on a display. Then, the processor generates a metaphorical user object for navigating and interacting in the three dimensions within the environment via navigational and interactional inputs, respectively, from a user. The processor also integrates an HTML object into the environment, and interacts the user object with the HTML object in response to an interactional input from the user.

So, Worlds is looking for roylties to boot. What would any self-respecting geek do about that? Look in the patent for loopholes. thats one thing!

Worlds.com patent is all about making a 3d mmo equivalent of the Internet. Your "avatar" (not their word) would walk around these worlds, and be able to look at sponsors websites. Which would be 3d structures with rooms. See this:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The invention relates to a computer program and system for providing a three-dimensional browser for a shared network environment, and particularly to a network-based platform which incorporates integrated markup language and rich media for multi-user interactivity, browsing and e-commerce.

Notice the last 3 terms. Not anywhere in the field of use, or scope, of the invention does this mention itself as a game. This legaliesse seems more like describing an internet browser like Firefox or IE, than anything resembling a game. I suppose I could also decribe an online casino with this set-up. But what about dates? The patent was filled August 16, 1999 and approved on May 4, 2004. That's right, its been here for 4 years and they haven't done anything wit hit yet!

One last point. City of Hero's: out in April of '04. Linneage, out in '98. So, your patent comes out after other products that use it have been on the market for a year? Are you high?

So this is a call to all the nerds out there: lets get worlds.com boycotted for this nonsense. Online games don't need this.

Fantastic Contraptions!

I've been spending some of my lunch time build these gizmos instead of doing my homework. Shame on me. Still, this is a pretty fun game! Woo!

Walkies!

Conve-o-Tank!

Saturn V!

Tank-a-Mat!

Mole-a-mat!

Dispose-a-Mat!

Odd!

Pull-a-Mat!
>I didn't do this one, But man do I wish I had!

Awesome!


edit: I think I am going to make this post an exhaustive list of my contraptions, though I will add new ones in their own post when I want to show them off.

Warcraft time - The Great Tank Debate!*

So, Ive respeced to feral, specifically Dire Bear, when the new patch came out. Since I am planning on doing this throughout the leveling stages of Wrath, now was my first opportunity to try out how druids tank, and to a lesser extent, how tank has changed all of a sudden. One big talent change for bears is how they gain rage. They still gain rage as normal, however they also gain rage by dodging. So it works out to if you hit me, I get angry and smack you. If you try to hit me I also get angry and smack you anyway. It really lets druids tank things with a greater disregard for others gear level.

My friends and I were doing a 3-man instance in ramparts, one of the easier instances. The healer was Tier 6 and the DPS was halfway between tiers 5 and 6 as far as gear goes. My tanking gear is mostly blue quality, with some greens. In Burning Crusade, If I had attempted to tank this same instance with the same group,we would have lost people, wiped out, and generally taken allot of repair bill damage - to our banks. It would not matter how good or bad I am, The difference in gear level is high enough that there is way for me to hold threat from those two. In wrath, or at least the in game patch to ready the game for the expansion. I was holding aggro. From a Warlock and a Shaman healer, both at black temple raids in gear level. My gear level for feral is still early Karazhan. Some might say, well that's their job to let you hold aggro.

Not this warlock. His personal victory is being second highest on the threat meters. And stealing aggro from tanks. I have play DPS throughout most of my Burning Crusade experience, and let me say this: DPS's are not supposed to be doing this. So all you clothie DPS out there: Aggro equals bad, really bad, worse than anything else that could happen. Its a DPS'ers responsibility to keep their aggro under the tanks. When the tank is under geared, you need to lower your DPS itself to follow that, but it is rule #1. Period. The End. and for recap.

DPS Rules:

1. Don't grab aggro from tanks.
2. Don't grab aggro from tanks.

There are more but that is for another time. Suffice to say, I still kept aggro from the Aggro lovin' 'lock and I am amazed at the AOE tanking that Druids get now. Which I hear everyone gets now. Which makes me think that the tanks will be hit by wave after wave of lots of elites in the next patch. Give all classes more opportunity for CC, give all tanks the ability to AOE tank.

I smell being outnumbered 10 to one in wrath. And I'm still excited... Somehow?

*Greatness neither required nor guaranteed. Debating also not promised at this time. Tanking not necessarily mentioned.

Epic Flyign Mounts!

So on wow, Di, KC and I are all trying to get our epic flying mounts before the expansion hits. We have until November 13th to get it done, and we are hoping it will be sooner than that. First we set up a joint bank for all of us to use. Next, we threw all of our money together to see how much we had as a group. Now, we have enough for Di's mount. She has it and loves it. And we are half-way towards getting Kacey's. Last is mine, by my own suggestion. We need right now about 7000 Gold pieces to get the last of them. So we should have Kacey's by the end of next week and Mine hopefully before Halloween. It looks like the people who have already gotten theirs are acquiring gold faster than the others already. It might not even take that long

I can hope. - Oh and one last Haiku:

For five thousand gold,
I would get an epic flight form.
This is expensive.

WAR, Not Wow I

So, I have been thinking on the whole Wow vs War thing. I find I don't have the time or money for both, and I find that I don't have the energy for both. Strictly speaking, it is not a compossible thing for me.

So, War is brand new, it is pretty awesome as far as beta's went. I had a Warrior priest who kicked more ass than was handy even. One would even say he could vaticinate the end of his enemies. But, I still need to purchase the new game. and all the people I tend to dislike on MMO's are all flooding to War, from wow because its a new game and the new Wow expansion isn't coming out for another month and a half. So I think right now, I'm going to play some Wow, and get all of those things I never could before the next expansion hits. Like my epic flight form. and level all of my secondary skills. and the like.

So, when the expansion hits I can just grind out 70 to 80 with just the new skill points and I don't have to worry about any new mounts or anything. then maybe a Death-knight. Its a shame I cannot play a game I like as much or more because no one else does though. Anyway, I hope I'm not Embrangling anyone with my confusing new vocabulary. (just FYI it is all real words! Woo!)

To WoW the WaR, Of personal choice

I've been spending more time on World of Warcraft than I strictly should. I just recently got back into it as far as an active interest. I had been taking a break, though not as much of a break as much as not enough time to play to do anything on it. Where I am currently is, I have one level 70 main on my main server. She ( yes, she. I'll explain later) is a Balance specced Druid. I'm leaving behind the beginning sections of the endgame and starting to move into the middle ones. These sections are Raiding instances, specifically Tier 5 content and Zula'man. Its a place about only 20 to 30 percent of any server get to, But most servers are large enough that it translates to several thousands of players on each.

Balance druids are kind of rare at this level. Mostly it is because Blizzard has designed the class to be not as effective as others with the same role. The big Range DPS's are mages, warlocks, and hunters. the lower range DPS classes are priests and shamans The lowest Range DPS are druids. That blizzard did this is perfectly fine. If one class gets to powerful the other classes will never get played. Hunters, Mages and Warlocks All do one thing: damage, and allot of it. They also can crowd control. Priests and shamans are more healing classes; they lose damage powers for healing powers. But if Specced out right, they are still pretty good. They also have area benefits to those who are in their group. Finally, we get to Druids. They have about half the dps of any of the top tier. Even specced balance they can do fairly decent off healing, they have a unique in battle Resurrection, that no other class has. They have a fairly good area affect for those around them.

So why the rarity. Mostly, because people cannot go to big raids as a balance druid. Reasons why:
1. They don't put out the DPS.
2. They don't have an effective crowd control.
3. They are under geared for the raid.

Well, this looks like 1 and 2 are blizzards doing. which is true. Blizzard has decided to "fix number 2" by giving an ability the druids already have that is related though unusable inside, the ability to be used indoors. So one down, two to go. The first one, Blizzard looks like they are possibly changing. Not sure right now, as they are adding a new expansion, we do not know yet how much extra damage each will be able to do.

So, number 3. Low gear. This at first looks like a player problem. "If your gear is low-leveled then you need to fix it". that is not actually the case. You see, most pieces of armor regardless of type (cloth, leather, mail, plate) can be firmly attached to one class for who it goes best with. Arguably the best magic dps classes are mages and warlocks, both of which use cloth. Balance druids can use leather. Simply put, Blizzard does not put out enough leather magic damage gear to let druids have leather as an option. So, balance druids need to take mage and warlock gear.

Now we are taking not only their spots but the gear from the ones who are left. As well as having no crowd control and low dps to boot. And we wonder why no one wants to take us to raids. Now, most raid groups hand out new gear on a system called DKP. It works out so that the main raiders get the first choice on any gear they can use. Its a good system, unless you are unable to do many raids within a group, or worse (like a druid) you are not allowed to go often. So you finally go, because they happen to have an extra slot. You get no gear because the main raiders still have priority. Your priority goes up slowly yes, but every week you don't raid you lose a percentage of it. If they don't let you go on raid because of those 3 points, then any priority you gained by luck goes away. Fast. So not enough gear means no entrance to raids, which means no gear. lovely circular logic.

Now this was going to be my thought between two games I am interested in playing right now, though I don't have much time. I was going to make this a post on my thoughts on 2 games I want to play and come to a decision on which one. Make this a two-part thing and I think I can do it.

Next up: Warhammer, Age of Reckoning and the pros and cons of that. plus hopefully my choice on the matter.