Nick's blog

The Rooke Covenant has received our server assignment to Shien, as have all 3 of our allies/adversaries guilds. If you were registered as a guild member on the Guild HQ, you should get a prompt when you log in that points you toward Shien. If not, then just look for it in the list and hop on vent and ask for an invite when one of the officers is on (Jason_S, Lesli_L, Shado_W, or Michael_M; I'll be travelling this week, but will be back Monday).

Trying to connect up with some of you folks on FB, here's me in case you're looking: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=23908601

http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20110924

20 December 2011, and sometime before that for early access.

So, I've been mostly out of touch around here for a while now, so I thought I'd offer some news. First, I successfully defended my dissertation, just a bit of paperwork shuffling by the bureaucrats and I'll officially be Dr. Nelson in December. We have also moved to Virginia, where my wife will be starting grad school herself at the end of the month. This move has been the hardest I've experienced, mostly because I sprained my ankle just 2 days before we had to load the truck and start driving (nurse practioner said it was the single worst sprain she'd ever seen, too). So all in all, an adventurous couple of weeks just passed.

http://www.swtor.com/preorder/

The Collector's Edition is danged expensive. I'd really rather they have left the Darth Malgu statue out, cause the other stuff is pretty cool (I'm especially liking the included security fob in there). Pre-ordering and registering a code gets you in queue for early access to the game, and if our guild has 4 preorders it will be auto reserved/created for us on launch. Other info at the page.

Hey gang,

SWTOR just launched a Guild Pre-Launch Program. I'll be looking into details of this tonight. Right now, I wanted to let y'all know that I'd like to coordinate Guild Avatar with House of Rooke (and a few other folk) to form guild together for SWTOR. More details as they come.

So, my Sunday afternoon Pathfinder group has had trouble being able to meet regularly due to schedule conflicts, and we've decided a little online gaming on days without a quorum would be a good idea. Looking at the Free-to-Play games, we've settled on Pirates of the Burning Sea for now. A couple of us played it at launch, and it was fun, but not worth paying for long term at the time. The terms of a 'Premium' account are pretty good these days, and we plan to play pretty casually. Your all welcome to join our society, if you'd like to try it out, but there's not going to be a regular game night or anything for this one.

I was offered some free game time, and since it coincided with the end of a semester, I've been trying out Age of Conan again. It's fun. It hasn't changed a lot on the surface, but my highest characters are still only level 50. It is still the prettiest looking game I've played. I'm enjoying it that I've payed for some game time again. It looks like no one else from TSG has been online in a very long time (they seem to be playing EVE these days), so I'm considering looking for a different guild depending on how bad the PvP is when trying to level.

Anyone giving this a try? I'm considering it. On the one hand, I don't really need another MMO before I finish this degree. On the other, I'm pretty interested in capital ship scale space combat.

Don't know if you guys heard about the Siege of Mirkwood Expansion and the pricing system (or if you're likely to care or not). Here's the link: http://www.lotro.com/news/pressreleases/488-siege-of-mirkwood-launch-offers

By the way, we've moved all our active characters to Landroval, and founded a new Kin, House of Rooke.

They are now taking applications for their closed beta. Just head on over, it's easy to figure out. Be sure you're signed in, and be patient. There's been a rush today and the site has been down  alot.

Cool video material.

http://www.swtor.com/news/news-article/20090819_001?sourceid=ea4784

Very well developed for being so far from beta. I'm really excited about this game.

I will try to coordinate a server come launch time between lots of the folks I know. Looks like a lot of House of Rooke is in, so we should have lots of folks to play with.

Uforia is publishing Three Kingdoms in North America. The website is less than partially functional so it is really hard to get any kind of feel for it, but there is an open beta today through 1 March. I suspect is a Korean style MMO, but that's really just a guess from the 5 screens I looked at. If you want to have a look: http://threekingdoms.uforia.com/ . I don't have time at the moment to try this out, but if someone else tries it, let us know what you think.

So after a bit of a break (to play LotRO with my fiancee), I went back and played alot of FO3 yesterday and finished it. The main quest is really pretty short. It's a pretty good story line, though and Liam Neeson as the voice of Dad is pretty awesome. There is plenty to explore and some of the side quests are pretty lengthy and involved. There are some mods out there that already make it a better game such as a level-cap extender, RobCo Certified Perk (for repairing robots), Better Power Armor (you can find these at http://www.fallout3nexus.com/ and makes it worth getting on the PC rather than a console). I expect more good mods soon since Bethesda will release the CS sometime in December.

Lots of classic Fallout elements appear. There are mention of Waterchips. The G.E.C.K. is an important plot device. The Enclave is present, with their unique MK II power armor (and you can blow up Vertibirds!). The Brotherhood of Steel appears and their dialogue includes continuity with Fallout 2 and Fallout: Tactics.

Some early impressions. But first some general comments:

I've gotten my fiancee to finally try this game, and I think she's hooked (which is an awesome thing). There are some system changes, but they are pretty invisible in terms of gameplay. They are more about the math of the system, so you really only see them when you are choosing equipment or traits and such. I started a new character to play alonside my new convers. I've been playing a Rune-keeper and I rather like it after a couple of evenings. The attunement system (combat or healing) is really pretty easy to understand. There are two spells you can always cast, one healing and one damaging. Casting a spell of either the healing or damaging type shifts your attunement in either a direction (the number of steps it shifts are based on what skill/spell you used).

So far, I can only complain about 3 things:

1) there is a level cap of 20 (not there yet, but give me a full weekend with it)
2) no Trait at character creation
3) Tag skills don't get the 2-for-1 increase when leveling up

Really, though, it's wonderful. It's a revision of the engine Oblivion was built on, but it really has the Fallout feel. The first "bad thing" I encountered was a Radroach, then mostly humans, until I saw a Molerat (very classic), and Supermutants (which really look pretty cool). I was surprised when I was attacked by a security robot, wearing classis U.S. army markings (white star and numbering on an OD Green paint job).

Some of the beat up old homes could have a more realistic layout, but the rows of beat-down, burned, once-identical houses is pretty impressive in places where part of a subdivision semi-survived. Encumbrance is a issue you have to deal with constantly, which is pretty true to previous Fallout games. There are companion characters, but the only one I've met won't join me because my Karma score is too high (oh, you can view your Karmic title, but not your actual Karma number).

Sep 29, 2008 19:00 EST

Today, I am sitting down with the Alpha 3 rules for the Pathfinder RPG. I'm almost through the character section, and so far I like it a lot. I'm getting ready to resume my Iron Kingdoms RPG campaign, and thought this would be a good time to look at the future of 3.x d20. I've pretty much decided already to adjust the characters, and make the rest of the campaign a playtest of the Pathfinder rules. A lot of folks here aren't very happy about the 4e rules, and I'm not prepared to try to 'convert' (read "reinvent the gaming 'wheel' of") Iron Kingdoms material. But neither will I abandon the IK or the Witchfire Trilogy campaign, as they are probably the best game world and best 'boxed' campaign I've ever seen.

So far, I'm going to keep the 3.5 version of the XP chart (because I know it a bit better and can manipulate it to suit my needs) and I'm going to use the 3.5 spell progressions for Clerics and Druids and keep the 3.5 Domain rules for clerics. Other than that, I'm taking the character chapter from the Pathfinder system

A novel by Patrick Rothfuss. I think the subtitle is something like "The King-Killer Chronicles: Day One". The blurb on the back cover of the paperback:

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me.