In the XOne has a new home!!!
Please redirect and feed at www.inthexone.net.
Thank you for your understanding regarding the lack of content during the transition.
-XO
Tentative move to BlogEngine.net
It’s been approximately 1 months since the launch of In the XOne. This blog originally started through the inspiration of many fellow guildmates in Casualties of WAR and the desire to share my analytical positions on my areas of expertise (MMO’s and Finance). Over the course of the last 4 weeks, I’ve found a niche, and greater desire to blog more often.
I’ve spent many hours contemplating what direction my new found hobby would take and have come to the conclusion that…
the lack of customization and other various limitations of WordPress.com has taken it’s toll. I will be moving In the XOne and hosting it on BlogEngine.net. Along with the move will come a new site name and more incentive to blog on a daily basis, rather than a couple of times per week.
BlogEngine.net is a customizable blog platform written in the C# language of ASP.net 2.0. Although, my ASP.net 2.0 is limited and mainly lies within the VB language, it will be easier for me to customize building on a foundation I’ve already started rather than using the PHP backbone of WordPress.
The hardest part of this endeavor seems to be transferring the current XML format of WordPress files to the BlogML format that BlogEngine.net uses for XML. Luckly, the fine contributors of the BlogML project have created a tool (source code) that will parse through the WordPress XML files, convert and then migrate them over to BlogEngine.net.
The logo has been designed, the host and platform have been chosen, and the migration tool has been discovered. It’s now a matter of putting it all together and blogging.
Thank you for the audience. I’ll see you on the other side.
-Xo
Mirror’s Edge
While playing with my newly found online gaming communication device, Xfire, a fairly catchy ditty playing on the flat screen caught my ear. I turned to the find what the delightfully joyous sound related to and this is what my eye caught:
The Song: Still Alive by Lisa Miskovsky
The Game:Mirror’s Edge developed by EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE).
Typically, I am not the type to woo over anything outside of the MMO genre, especially a single player first-person action/adventure game; but the mix of music and game play has stirred a tad bit of my interest.
The main character, Faith, is a ‘Runner’, a person trained to covertly relay messages between different groups in a city controlled by a totalitarian regime that monitors all forms of electronic communication amongst it’s citizens. Throughout the game Faith is on the run from the government while trying to help protect her sister who has been framed for the murder of a politician.
As seen by the video, the game has already launched for both the XBox 360 and PS3. It is slated for a Windows (PC) release in January of 2009.
Monolith Server Crash of 11/21/2008
During the evening of Friday, November 21st, T3 Empire/Chaos was in a complete state of disarray on the Monolith server!!! For a majority of the evening, Destruction and Order were see-sawing for position on StoneClaw Keep after Order’s stealthy and swift take over of the High Pass objective.
The open field RvR battle waged on for hours as numbers on both sides exponentially increased as the war raged on. On numerous occasions Destruction would push to the outer wall gate door only to be reverted all the way back to their Warcamp by solid, organized pushes from Order. In turn, Destruction was slowly wearing the keep door for every push that was thwarted.
After about an hour of relentless assault of the StoneClaw Keep gate door, it fell. A massive influx of Destruction rushed into the gates to be met by several warbands of Order.
Many bodies fell, reinforcements were re-routed, defenses were broken, and offensive maneuvers were countered. Another 20 minutes attrition by Destruction led to the collapse of the StoneClaw Keep Door.
Round 3. The take over felt eminent, as Destruction continued it’s push of reclaiming it’s lost keep. The server began having intermittent lag spikes fairly frequently. At one point, all hope seemed lost as most of the Destruction group wiped and many others CTD. A quick regrouping and burning resolve quickly drove the Destruction forces back to it’s ultimate objective: the re-capture of StoneClaw Keep at all costs! Time, nor server lag were going to get in their way. Order was to pay for it’s treacherous take over and it was going to happen this night.
Destruction slowly began a push up the keep stairs, focus firing and picking off one order at a time while routing any reinforcements that were incoming. Order’s rank and file started to slowly thin and Destruction was able to take about two Keep Lord guards that found their way to the staircase.
As the group finally made their way to the second floor of the keep…
*Crash to Character Select Screen*
Crash to character select screen??? Within moments ventrilo went crazy with numerous amounts of rated R language. It wasn’t me. I did not CTD! The entire server went on a frenzy and shut down!!!
Numerous attempts to relog were unsuccessful, until finally the Monolith server was no longer an option on the server select screen.
Wow and Kudos!!! A battle like no other I’ve experienced in any MMO. Still excited from the level of play I had experienced, I had no time to be upset about the crash. I wanted more and so did the rest of the CoW members that were with me that night.
Sismic Six Questing
Seismic Six Group Pic
The Aftermath
Wanting more WAR, a small group of us decided to roll Order characters on the Averheim server, CoW’s Order server. We agreed on rolling Dwarves and that evening the Seismic Six (Barach, Patchum, Indica, Zigster, Golddigger, and Cleava) was born! Thanks to everyone that participated in the events of the evening. It was by far the most fun I’ve had in a long time in any MMO.
Heavy Metal: Harbinger Cloak Reward
Warhammer Online’s current live event, Heavy Metal, awards three rewards; one per influence achievement level. The trophy reward, awarded at the Basic mark, is simply for aesthetics. Of course, the Elite level reward awards the advance week of KoTBS and Blackguard play. What I found most interesting was the Advanced level cloak reward.
Unlike most of the purely aesthetic tome unlock cloaks, the Harbinger Cloak reward actually has stats attached to it. Once you have obtained enough Heavy Metal PQ influence to reach the Advanced level, you have the option of choosing 1 of the following 4 Harbinger Cloak awards as a Destruction player:
Destruction Harbinger Cloak Rank 5
[/caption]
Destruction Harbinger Cloak Rank 25
[/caption]Granted the resists are not the greatest per level of each cloak it doesn’t matter a whole lot due to the current ’state’ of resists not scaling to magic critical hits. Meaning, if you have a 20% resist to the corporeal damage type and a Bright Wizard hits you with a 100 damage DoT you will mitigate 20 damage of that 100, but if that Bright Wizard’s DoT were to crit you for let’s say…350 damage, you will still only mitigate 20 damage.
The interesting part is the reduction to be critically hit, the decent armor boost, and the ‘on use’ function of completely negating a hex, curse, and ailment. This could prove to be quite useful in place of the current resist mechanic and make an actual difference when in the process of being multi-insta dotted.
More to come when I have enough Heavy Metal influence to grab the reward and use it in a live environment. In the meantime, get out there and pick up one for yourself!
-Xo
Stay Tuned!!!
In the XOne is going through some template and overall design changes. In the interim I will be posting about my experience during the Heavy Metal live event, an interesting Talabec Dam Scenario exp experience, and the Monolith crash of 11/21/2008.
Please stay tuned…
-Xo
Casualties of WAR: Guild of the Week
WOW…I meant to post this last week!
The guild that I’ve proudly joined during my tenure with WAR, Casualties of WAR, was featured on Ten Ton Hammer as ‘Guild of the Week’ for the week of November 10th. You can find the full article here.
It’s a great read! 
Warhammer Online: Heavy Metal Event
IT’S BEGUN…the second Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning live event, Heavy Metal (November 18th – December 1st).
Following the Halloween live event, The Witching Night, Heavy Metal, aka patch 1.0.5, brings a plethora of changes ranging from a few Combat & Career revisions to the introdution of the Blackguard (Destruction, Dark Elf Tank) and Knight of the Blazing Sun (Order, Empire Tank) classes.
During live events in WAR, a new “Live Event” tab is added to the Tome of Knowledge, when the tab is clicked, a page for the live event will display. For the Heavy Metal event, the Tome of Knowledge will display a daily event that the player will have to complete to earn reputation (called influence or inf) for the Heavy Metal event. Much like a PQ (public quest), the influence you earn by completing the Heavy Metal daily tasks will raise your influence bar marking rewards as you reach the Basic, Advanced and Elite levels. Reaching Elite status during the Heavy Metal event will allow the player to don the two new classes, Blackguard and Knight of the Blazing Sun, a week in advance of their official launch. Mythic has noted that one way a player can ensure they reach the Elite status for Heavy Metal reputation is by logging in daily and participating int he daily events.
Unlike the open-ended Witching Night event, the Heavy Metal daily events are more structured and designed to take no longer than an hour to complete and will have a 24hr time frame on them, starting and ending around Noon EST daily.
A couple of other items that can be reaped will include a faction trophy:
Destruction Trophy
Order Trophy
and new faction cloaks:
Order Cloak
Destruction Cloak
Finally, a Heavy Metal Live Event only scenario, Reikland Factory, will be added to the fray. Reikland Factory is a control point scenario, where each faction fights for specific areas of the factory for points. The scenario will give 10% more renown than the current scenarios and will play a role in earning influence for the event. Reikland Factory can be played across all 4 tiers.
It’s time to jump in and get your hands dirty…WAR is everywhere!!!
-Xo
Playing with fire and getting burned!
A lot of the time I will use music as my vehicle of focus. Recently, I’ve been digging out the cobwebs of the processing factory and started to search for some favorites of my past. One of the songs I came upon was not only used a a medium of focus, but also as inspiration for this post.
A Prayer for the Dying
To all Bright Wizards…be fearless, for your careless use of needling multiple insta-DoT’s has not diminished with patch 1.0.5. It’s only their ability to critically devastate a health pool in mere seconds that may prove to be waning.
As many of your victims, I’m crossing this bridge with lessons I’ve learned. I’ve been playing with fire and getting very burned.
I may not know what you’re going through, but time happens to be the space between me and you. See… you and I are not that different, except for the fact that I have a single target at a time and have to be amongst your ranks to be effective. You can not have expected Mythic to leave your class in the state it’s currently in. No other class in the game could scale with the ease in which you pull of your massive amounts of damage. It’s not asking for too much, it’s simply asking for balance.
Yes, it’s comfty in your back lines spamming four buttons on every red target you see within a 100yr radius while your pocket healer keeps you fully combusted for that guaranteed damage output, I get it. Fortunately for some of you it may be time to move on; or you can be one of those that embraces the change and says “yes” while other cry “no”. For you may now be able to distinguish yourself in the rank and file. There’s always the case that the change may not be that significant, if that’s so, expect more to be coming soon. Either way WAR will go on.
There shall be a great rejoicing that we’ll know when we will no longer lose our entire life bar in the matter of seconds en masse due to the insatiable critical hits of your multiple insta-cast damage over time spells. No longer shall we flail around spamming “help me, I’m fading!!!”.
At this point, in my mind, your class might as well be able to walk across water; although, I don’t believe you should be “nerfed” to oblivion. If the changes do not make a dramatic difference we shall carry on. For this is nothing more than a prayer for the dying.
-Xo
Witching Witch Elves: The Misconception Pt. 3
A continuation of “Witching Witch Elves: The Misconception Pt.2″
The Dynamics of Tier Progression:
WAR takes the standard character progression model, starting a character at level 1 to work it’s way up to level “x”, and mixes it with a tier system. Due to the player vs player, coined RvR, nature of WAR the tier system is designed to group players within 4 brackets of 11 levels at an attempt to level the playing field for a player no matter what level he/she may be. As a player increases his/her level they will slowly advance tiers. Each tier provides new challenges to the player as new abilities become available for not only the player but also the enemy.
In Tier 1, levels 1-11, the Witch Elf has very limited access to her career mastery tree. She’s a shell of an archetype and has a handful of moves, including a silence. During this first phase of her career progression it seems as if her sole purpose is to stealth behind the back lines to attack the enemy healers with hope of a possible escape. Why wouldn’t she! She has high burst DPS, stealth and a silence. Also, most healers at this stage in the game have very little defense against her tactics. Truly new players will have not an idea of what to make of the Witch Elf when she pops out of stealth and can only hope that his/her teammates will be there to slide in to the rescue.
Tier 2, levels 10-21, the Witch Elf begins to dabble more into masteries. She can begin to make a decision as to where she wants to specialize; healer, ranged dps, or melee/tank. Her priority opponents from T1, healers and ranged DPS now have knockbacks. Enemy tanks have knockdowns and enemy melee dps can now chase her down faster than she can flee. The Witch Elf’s only form of CC comes in her opener-Enfeebling Strike, a CC mechanism by choice of her opponent. Enemy groups are becoming more organized dramatically decreasing her chances of survival on the enemies back line; that’s if she can make it past the front line due to the infancy of stealth and the ability for it to be seen through easily.
Tier 3, levels 20-31, at this point the the Witch Elf has enough mastery points to have made her way through most of the Carnage mastery tree. T2 has taught her that stealth is no longer a guarantee, and that dropping the back lines for a healer or ranged DPS only guarantees death. She starts to understand that the suicide missions of old will no longer work and that she will spend most of her time resurrecting in doing so. The Carnage mastery tree has fleshed out quite a few anti-melee DPS and anti-tank options. Knockbacks and knockdowns are so common that changing a target in mid battle is not uncommon. She can completely negate enemy armor if necessary, she can completely disable her enemy from attacking, and she can completely shut down an enemy from healing. She’s found that she has options and has to acclimate to the conditions of the field.
Tier 4, levels 30-40, the Witch Elf completely fleshes out. Her ability to take down another player solo is only in the form of isolated skirmishes. She’s no longer the stealth in, stealth out archeytpe of T1 and T2. She’s now become an enabler. That is, to enable the highest amount of damage to a single target in the shortest amount of time possible. She does this by precisely picking her targets and working against their weaknesses to allow her team to finish her opponent off, or to finish off an opponent that has already been well worked. Ideally, she plays more of a support role than that of an assassin.
The point is the Witch Elf class initially seems as if it serves the sole purpose of healer and ranged DPS disruption. Appropriately so as this is where the class thrives in the lower tiers, but as the class progresses it become more of a robust blend of a tactical support class; leading to my third and final misconception diffusion…
playing a Witch Elf is not for the feint of heart.
The Witch Elf class requires a lot of patience and dedication. A good Witch Elf takes her time to survey the field before attacking. Different situations call for different tactics. Sometimes it’s more beneficial to take out the tanks disrupting her lines. Other times it’s more appropriate to stay near the back of her lines protecting healers, which in turn are hopefully keeping the other DPS classes alive. Then, there are the times when she decides it’s necessary for her to make a sacrifice and sneak to the enemies back lines in hope to take out that cruical healer or ranged DPS that before she’s gibbed to death with no hopes of receiving a resurrection. The enablement of single target high burst melee DPS is her job, a good Witch Elf decides what that target is based on a quick decision from the information she has gathered through analysis, not because she’s expected to attack a specific archetype or prime target.
-Xo
Witching Witch Elves: The Misconception Pt.2
A continuation of “Witching Witch Elves: The Misconception Pt. 1″
Understanding the With Elf:
Contrary to popular belief, Witch Elves can not take out multiple targets within a matter of seconds without an opener. Truth be told, they do not have the AP to sustain continous damage. The WE class is an AP intensive class with a small AP pool. It’s very plausible to completely run out of AP within 5-6 key strokes, without an opener. 5-6 keystrokes is usually enough to take out one opponent if the appropriate specials are used for that specific opponents archetype. If a Witch Elf is able to pull off an opener they can theoretically double their sustained damage. Openers are key to the class; the drawback to openers… they can only be used while in stealth.
Witch Elves are NOT WoW rogues!!!! They can NOT stay stealthed forever, they can NOT stun lock and they can NOT completely dissolve all damage dealt to them with the click of a button.
The Witch Elf stealth(Shadow Prowler) is on a timer while in use. When the time is up they automatically pop out of stealth and have to wait for a 30s cooldown before restealthing. Shadow Prowler has a 2s cast time and can be disrupted upon damage taken, excluding DoT’s. While in stealth the Witch Elf is plagued by a continuous AP drain. Granted, they do move at normal movement speed while stealthed, they can not use any abilities except for ONE of three openers; meaning if the oponent flees while a Witch Elf is prowling them, that Witch Elf will have to pop stealth to catch the fleeing opponent. In many regards, stealth is situational and must be used at the appropriate time to be effective.
The boon of Shadow Prowler is that all of their abilities will have a 50% AP reduction for 10 seconds. They will also gain 2 blood lust (points for the finisher/execution mechanic) rather than the normal 1 they receive from non openers. Finally, they will drop a situational proc on the opponent based on which opener is used.
Openers
- Vehemet Blades (anti-melee/tank) – Target will take (X) damage over the next 15s for every attack they make.
- Enfeebling Strike (anti-ranged) – Target will take (X) damage over the next 15s for every time they move.
- Treacherous Assualt (anti-healer/caster) – Target will take (X) damage over the next 15s for ever spell they use.
Witch Elf Fan Art
Career Masteries
As all other classes, Witch Elves have three career masteries in which they can dabble to help diversify the class to completing its role based on individual playstyle.
Path of Carnage – This is the strength and mitigation nullification line. It also happens to be the line that most Witch Elves, according to the Warhammer Alliance forums, place most of their mastery points. It gives Elixir of Insane Power, allows 7 seconds of complete armor penetration for all attacks; Pierce Armor, a high dmg armor ignoring attack that also reduces up to 1000 armor on the opponent for 20s; Sharpened Edge, a tactic that allows all Frenzies to reduce opponents armor by 75% for 3s; Broad Severing, a tactic that allows Sever Limb (disarm) to affect all enemies in a 20ft frontal cone; Swift Blades, a tactic that increases parry chance by 10% (Sever Limb, our disarm ability, can only be triggered after a parry); and On Your Knees, a damage dealing 2s knockdown that can attack up to 6 opponents at once. While knocked down your opponent can not parry or block. Finally, this is the line that buffs the Vehemet Blades opener.
Doesn’t take much of a genius to figure out what archetype this line is designed to take down.
The other two options: Path of Suffering and Path of Treachery both have a mix of abilities and tactics that are desined to either increase damage output through DPS boons, inhibit healing done or given, and reduce opponents or increase the Witch Elf’s AP. Treachery has more of a debuff/buff focus; whereas, Suffering focuses on ailments such as DoT’s and proc’s. Also, Treachery buffs the Treacherous Assault opener and Suffering buffs the Enfeebling Strike opener.
My 2nd point of misconception diffusion: the most pivotal class ability, the opener, gives it one of three options each designed for a specific archetype; furthermore, one of the three career mastery trees for a Witch Elf is completely desined as an anti-tank/melee DPS tree; whereas, the other two are a mix that leans toward supporting the previously stated tree.
Continue to “Witching Witch Elves: The Misconception Pt. 3″
Witching Witch Elves: The Misconception Pt.1
There is a common misconception amongst the Warhammer Online player base that the Witch Elf, Dark Elf Melee DPS class, serves the sole purpose of attacking the enemies healers. Often, I will read negative comments on the Warhammer Alliance forums from both Order and Destruction making mention as to why WE’s are attacking tanks and other DPS classes rather than the healers.
Witch Elves
Classes in Warhammer Online are dynamic; meaning, the way they perform their roles and functions may change over time. Often players will find that what was working for their class in T1/T2 is not nearly as effective in T3/T4. Witch Elves are no exception to this game dynamic. For ease of readability I will break down the rebuttal of the misconception into the following categories: The With Elf’s role, Understanding the Witch Elf, and The Dymanics of Tier Progression.
The With Elf’s role:
First and foremost, it’s important to understand that Witch Elves use daggers. No guns, no slingshots, no magical fireballs of doom…just daggers. Witch Elves have to be within 5 yrds of you to do any significant amount of dmg…PERIOD!!! They can not pull of their Frenzies(finishers) as you run, they cannot pop you from distance with an opener. A Witch Elf pretty much has to be hugging you at all points in time during their interaction to be successful.
Second important point! Witch Elves are squishy like a Hershey’s bar that was left in the car on an Indiana summer day! Even with Enchanting Beauty applied, 50% dmg reduction from all enemies within a 30yrd radius, they still drop about as fast as a poorly made pinata.
In return for their deficiency in range and survivability, Witch Elves are able to dish out high amounts of single target damage in a very short amount of time. Think of a Witch Elf as a Bright Wizard/Sorceress with no AoE, no knockback, and no root, that can only attack in melee range. Furthermore, because the Witch Elf is a melee class the enemies armor mitigation, blocks, and parries all play a factor during an attack. Magic ignores armor and uses resist ratings for mitigation.
So, what is a Witch Elves role? It’s not to necessarily go to the back lines and get gibbed while attempting to take out a healer, or assist train a tank, or even protect it’s healers while the healers try to keep the tanks up.
The true role of a Witch Elf, also my 1st point of misconeption diffusion, is simply single target melee DPS. That’s it!!!
Just as a Bright Wizard/Sorceresses role is to deal multiple target ranged DPS. Witch Elves are a pure damage dealing class and primarily deal it in the following three ways: DoT’s/Procs, negation of armor mitigation, and disruption of attacks (silence/disarm). The idea behind the Witch Elf class is to dish out or enable the highest amount of damage possible to a single opponent within a very short amount of time. Only when they are able to string together the correct combination of attacks for the archetype they are fighting do they become successful at fulfilling their role.
Continue to “Witching Witch Elves: Pt. 2″
GO VOTE!!!
I NEED NOT SAY MORE!
Monolith or Bust!
On October 30th at 10pm EST, a few select Thorgrim Server community members held a roundtable discussion regarding the recent server transfer service announced by Mythic. The roundtable was hosted by the Order guild Fallout and consisted of representatives from the following: Bad Guys (O), Serenity (O), Toxian Order (O), Clan of Shadows (O), Alestorm (O), Brain Damage (O), Casualties of WAR (D), Stormbringers (D), Catalyst (D), Calamitous Intent (D), Dark Haven (D), Sacrilicious (D), Osmethne (D), Order of Chaos (D) and a few other lower level guilds from both sides of the coin.
After brief discussion, there was a non-contested majority decision to move as a unified unit to our new home…the Monolith Server!
Monolith, look out! Here comes Thorgrim…coming like a zerg of the likes of which you have never seen.
-Xo
Monolith Server vs Ungrim Server
Okay, these are my thoughts and my thoughts only! I am not speaking for my guild, Casualties of WAR, nor the Thorgrim server as a whole.
Monolith
Currently my top choice!
- The server balance is 1.2:1 (destruction to order), theoretically causing a more enjoyable game play for both sides of the war.
- After trolling the Monolith forum boards on WarhammerAlliance, it seems that the group there is more in synch with the attitude and behaviors of the Thorgrim community.
- Granted that the population is about 2,000 shy of Ungrim, there are other servers attempting to move in unison over to Monolith. Even with the WotLK coming out soon, the numbers should still stay relatively high.
- Open RvR seems to be a staple of the server.
Ungrim
- The destruction to order server balance is approximately 1.4:1, a favorably comparable mirror to the 1.3:1 ratio that Thorgrim represents.
- High population, near 10,000. Should hold steady even with the introduction of WotLK
- On par with Thorgrim’s current leveling progression. Most of the server is in T3 and starting to trickle into T4. Theoretically, this should allow the move to feel very non-imposing. Residence of Thorgrim should be able to jump right into the action as it’s moving along without worries of heavy establishment from the current residences of Ungrim.
- Open RvR seems to be very light, according to the forums, mainly due to Orders lack of participation. There is a possibility that the server transfers will spur the momentum needed to pick up Open RvR on the server.
Warhammer Online: Server Transfers
Today, Mythic announced the Destination, servers that can be transfered to, and Source, servers that can be tranfered from, selections for the highly anticipated and so longly awaited server transfers:
Destination Servers:
- Monolith
- Ungrim
- Magnus
- Gorfang
Destination Servers:
- Tower of Doom
- Heldenhammer
- Thorgrim
- Sea of Malice
- Kragg
- Sea of Claws
- Mordheim
- Grimnir
- Be’lakor
- Kislev
- Middenheim
- Rakarth
- Saphery
- Tor Achere
- Reikland
- Marienburg
That’s right! 16 Source servers, 4 Destination servers. My current home of Thorgrim being one of the Sources.
It seems that many Source servers are attempting to unify, both Destruction and Order sides, to a single Destination server. This should cause quite an influx to the Destinations and improve overall gameplay experience for both server groups.
The idea expressed above is no different for the residences of Thorgrim. Since the announcement, many of the active Warhammeralliance Thorgrim board members have been buzzing, trolling, and analyzing the four Destination options. As of 2:00pm the choices have been narrowed down to either Monolith, due to it’s 1.2:1 destruction/order ratio and Ungrim, due to it’s high population.
The Magnus server serves many issues, such as the fact that it’s a Volkmar clone and has no point of statistical data. Gorfang has a huge imbalance issue of 1.7:1, destruction/order ratio. Playing with an almost 2 to 1 imbalance would not seem like a lot of fun for either side. Granted, the balance could always shape it’s way out after the transfer wave settles.
Hopes are to bring at least all of the big Order: Serenity, Fallout, Clan of Shadows, Alestrom, Bad Gusy, Toxian Order and the Destruction big 3: Casualties of WAR, Catalyst, and Stormbringers to the same server in tandem.
I will post the decision as soon as it’s made. Until then, I will qualify both of the two main choices Monolith and Ungrim from what I’ve been able to gather thus far.
Apathetic Enfeebling
Simply a question; feel free to answer without discretion:
Is it vital that we be in a position of enablement to enable ourselves?
-Xo
PNC to purchase National City Bank
Back on October 9th the Pittsburgh Business Times launched the following article, regarding Cleveland based National City Bank’s (NYSE: NCC) potential buyout by Pittsburgh based PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC). The article was regarded as nothing more than insider speculation and as most publicly traded companies would do, National City made no comments regarding the rumor.
Fresh off the press:
Do to the inprobablility of being able to participate in any of the Government’s recent market stabilization plans and the current volatility of the U.S. financial market. It has been announced that PNC will buy ailing National City bank for $5.6 billion dollars (Reuters).
Reports state that the buyout will form the 5th largest national bank in deposits and top 5 in assets and number of branches.
The Cost of the Right
To the people of America…
Please explain to me why the RNC’s expenditure of more than $150,000 on vice presidential nominee’s, Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), wardrobe and accessories has become such a political debacle with only 13 days left until the United States general election?
Why should we care? The governor is in the national eye on a consistent basis. She speaks in front of crowds that range in the thousands and is running for the second largest “figure head” position in our country. Her appearance is important! We are culturally biased to believe so. The more “attractive” she is portrayed the easier it is for her to open the minds of her audience; to captivate and hold their attention. It’s no surprise or even out of the realm of necessity to believe that she has the best of the best in attire.
May I digress…
I feel it’s important to define the formal constitutional role of the Vice President.
It is to replace the President, if necessary, to stand ready under the constitution and to provide a tie-breaking role in the Senate.
On October 20th, Governor Palin conducted an interview with an affiliate network of NBC Colorado. In her response to a question by a third grader at a local elementary school regarding what the Vice President does, Palin stated the Vice President is “in charge of the United States Senate”:
NBC affiliate: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”
PALIN: That’s something that Piper [her youngest daughter] would ask me as a second grader also! … They’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom…
According to the Constitution of the United States of America, the “job” of the Vice President of the United States has absolutely nothing to do with policy making or being “in charge of the United States Senate” as stated by Governor Palin. Again, the United States Vice President has absolutely no authority outside of breaking ties in the U.S. Senate.
Is it no longer important for us to understand the role of a “job” that we are seeking? Have we really lost our way?
So, please understand my dismay when a country, as remarkable as ours, has focused on such asinine issues as the dollar amount of garments worn by the Republican vice presidential nominee rather than the deeper symptoms residing underneath them.
-Xo
Insta-Ear Gib!
About 8 years ago I started to notice a small nodule developing inside my left earlobe. It was painless, had no cosmetic affects, and could only be noticed by touch. I’m slightly prone to the devlopement of small keloids and most of my doctors figured I had developed one in my ear due to my piercings.
Over time the small nodule began to grow. It grew to the point that it started to lift my earlobe up because it was pushing against my neck. Still painless; although uncomfortable, and amazingly enough fairly unnoticeable, I decided to take the plunge and have it removed.
A couple of weeks ago I planned to part ways with my day of finance and sit in the surgeons chair. To my surprise the surgery went fairly quickly and quite smoothly. The entire procedure took around 45 minutes. The surgeon and his assistant were fantastic! I was awake for the entire ordeal, although; numbed with lidocaine I could still hear the eviserating of the large nodule that was once slowly plaguing me like an uncurable DoT.
Further to my surprise, and relief, the nodule in my ear was found to be a semi-solid cyst, rather than a keloid. The reason for my relief is due to the fact that keloid removal is a lot riskier than a general cyst removal, at least according to my surgeon.
To this point it has all worked out fine and I’m glad that I finally decided to go through with the surgery, but now I’m stuck with an insta-gibbed ear and 3-4 weeks of painstaking recovery ahead of me.
Wish me well!
-Xo
SWG: Reinvented?
“Welcome to a world where you shape the epic sagas that will be told by future generations. Welcome to a world where the fate of millions hangs in the balance as player clans struggle for supremacy. Do you have what it takes to become legend?”
This is the theme to Aventurine SA’s, a game development company based in Athens, Greece, highly anticipated massive multiplayer online (MMO) fantasy roleplaying game titled Darkfall Online.
Races of Darkfall
It seems that Aventurine SA is trying to differentiate itself from many MMO’s that are currently on the market by creating a more realistic and intensive combat system through use of what they term “real-time combat”, as opposed to the “click and wait” combat that currently permeates the MMO genre. Approximately 5 years ago, there was a moderately popular MMO that launched with very similar concepts to what Darkfall Online is attempting to emulate, it went by the name of Star Wars Galaxies (SWG).
A great game ahead of it’s time; Star Wars Galaxies quickly lost it’s steam mainly due to the introduction of World of Warcraft (WoW). World of Warcraft introduced very basic combat game play; allowing for a multitude of people across the globe to easily integrate themselves into the MMO genre. It can be argued that it solidified the foundation of which most MMO’s now use as a template for their combat styles. Jumping on the bandwagon, Sony Online Entertianment, producer/publisher of Star Wars Galaxies, quickly began making combat game changes to simplify the games combat use. In the end, Sony Online Entertainment disenfranchised it’s core player base causing the rapid decline of the games popularity and demand.
Darkfall
Fast forward five years, Aventurine SA begins to make it’s way onto the MMO scene which is quickly becoming a staple of PC based gaming. Outside of “real-time combat” Darkfall Online seems to share many similarities to that of which Star Wars Galaxies used to be such as : a seamless and zoneless game world; the lack of a leveling system; a skill system based on skill practice, rather than skill purchase; flexible character development, no need to re-roll a character because your main character can switch rolls at will; the freedom to align yourself to either “bad” or “good” from a starting neutral alignment;and the ability to interact with and shape the world. Yes, the game will have player, guild housing!
A city in Darkfall
If you were a fan of what Star Wars Galaxies used to be than I highly encourage you to give Darkfall Online a serious look.
Darkfall Online is currently in development and is scheduled for a simulataneous 50 country release, including the US, late this year. The game has a tentative Beta set for the end of November 2008.
You can sign up for the Beta here.
It will be interesting to see the impact of the re-introduced concepts of Darkfall Online and how they will affect the future of the quickly budding MMO genre.
-Xo
