The abyss of the darkness

I was going to post an update earlier but then I remembered that perhaps putting some distance between myself and April Fools Day would be a good idea.  Yes?  Quite a few nice pranks were launched upon the world Tuesday.  Wikipedia has a list going of everything of note that happened.  Unfortunately they don't have Everquest's prank randomized-illusions.

What happened was that all servers and services went down for maintenance the morning of April 1st and in the meantime they snuck in a quick code change.  This gave everyone random illusions that would change when you zoned.  I logged in to find myself with the appearance of a Froglok and after zoning into PoK I was suddenly an enormous bald gnome!  Using any form of illusion canceled this effect.  Of course that didn't stop people from blowing a gasket and raising a big fuss on EQLive...  It was awesome seeing berserkers turned into old-world Erollisi Marr models with huge flaming axes.  I wish I'd taken some screenshots of the fun but I didn't think of it.

Also of note was littlekuriboh's prank message that he was quitting the Abridged Series - complete with a finale episode.  Of course way too many people didn't stop to think about the date or watch the video all the way to the end and thought the message was genuine.  Come on people, you have brains so use them every one in a while!

Sheesh.

So, in other news, I spent yesterday in Sanctus Seru.  I've been there before but only briefly.  Being KoS to half the city means constantly fending off attacks but I had fun anyway and made a nice wad of plat by robbing corpses then running across the street to sell to merchants who were indifferent to the rampaging Iksar.  I could even bank there ... after killing the guards outside.

My two major gripes with the zone are:

1.) THE FOG!  OMG it is horrible there.  Here's a screenshot with clip plane maxxed.





2.)  Everything summons except the captured netherbians and the arena critters.  Is it REALLY necessary that some dreg in a bar can summon me?  Half the room aggros when I walk in and all the summoning ping-ponging is aggravating coming from mobs that give me zero experience and drop little if anything of value.  I feel like I'm being punished for keeping my cloak buff up.

I also was surprised by a dwarf that rampages and hits very fast by dual-weilding.  As a 74 shadowknight self-buffed to just shy of 10,000 hitpoints he tore my ass up pretty good for a grey-con.  The first time I fought him I had to Harmtouch him before he could kill my pet with rampage.

Anyway, on with the screenshots!  I wandered all over the zone (except for the central area) and made some friends.



and went on to play around in the arena

Why yes, yes it is.  In fact it's just past the Daylight Savings Time shift.  Blarg.  I hate losing an hour's sleep on Sunday just in time to wake up stupid early for the cable guy to show up.  Oh well it couldn't be helped because our cable internet decided to do it's annual I-don't-wanna-work-well-anywhere spat and I wasn't about to let it get worse before calling customer support.  I really hate trying to play Everquest when the connection is whacky.  It usually goes like this when I'm boxing:

"Ok, time to get another mob." *Sk runs out, pulls, and comes back with mob.  Turn on auto attack.*

YOU HAVE BEEN DISCONNECTED

"*****HALFLING!!!!!****"

If I'm lucky in that situation the cleric will survive unscathed but that depends on how long it takes for the sk to die.  The server controls linkdead characters exactly like mobs except even stupider.  They won't use spells, clicks, or potions to survive but will flee at low health meaning you could log back in and wonder where the corpse went to.  If the sk survives long enough the server will drop the cleric bot unhurt because nothing is attacking her.  Then she just has to survive the log back in to rez the poor leezard.

Oh well, enough of the rant.  In other news I'm being very lazy with the Langrisser 2 walkthrough.  Scenario 2? is done and I've been condensing the stages down to the bare minimums.  Without decent video editing software I'm stuck doing hard cuts which I'm sure must be annoying but is an unfortunate necessary evil.

I've also been busy making prints for DeviantArt.  You can find my profile and gallery right here.  Progress is slow on new files and that's because I can only work in short bursts before my arm get's too tired to cooperate.  Then I sit back and enjoy some videos for awhile or go watch TV.

I watched Season one of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe dvd last week leading to this rather interesting new wallpaper.  It's not like the frame needed much help to demonstrate just how stupid Skeletor can be.

Here's the quick, fewer then 15 word summary of my NaNoWriMo planned novel:

 

 

Ahh, yes, Everquest.  An oldie, but a goodie.  Yesterday marked the kicking off point for the launch of Secrets of Faydwer with a new article on EQ PlayersSecrets of Faydwer – Unfolding the Lore: Part 1 which outlines Meldrath the Malignant's basic history.  It's a bit sappy and some of the wordplay drags on but it gets the job done.  I've never been a big fan of polarizing in Everquest like what you see in Dragons of Norrath with the two factions:  the "good" Norrath's Keepers and the "bad" Dark Reign.  That seems like oversimplification and really drains some personality from the game world.

On the subject of Meldrath there are actually two Meldraths born as identical conjoined twins.  One was abjectly good, so naturally the other was abhorrently evil.  While conjoined they balanced each other, kind of like yin and yang.  Their mother was never happy with this arrangement and one day Bristlebane, god of thieves and trickery, gave her a magical sword to separate them.  Now if you can't see how separating these two turned out to be a really bad idea then, well, what are you doing reading my rantings?

The good Meldrath immediately ascended to a higher plane and ended up making all the nifty automatons in the Plane of Innovation.  Meanwhile the evil Meldrath went into exile and began plotting The End of the World for Norrath.  Now, don't ask me why the Muramites, who were sending scouts all over Norrath and even up to Luclin, didn't hook up with Meldrath the Malignant.  Lhranc and Zordak Ragefire returned to fight and cause trouble thanks to "the power of discord" (I shuddered just having to type that).

I'm sure Meldrath is a self-absorbed asshole but so is Lhranc.  That man didn't become the first shadowknight by playing nice.

Secrets of Faydwer will also see the return of Kerafyrm but no details on where he's been or how he fits into the big picture have been released.  The expansion just entered beta and is still tentatively scheduled for a November release.