Fail.

Jagex fucked up.

Mod Craddock posted on the War of Legends forum that the Stellar Dawn Official Forums would be shut down until a time closer to the Beta.

Shitstorm ensued.

A backup forum was launched to house the community, hundreds of threads were backed up, The Combine included. Took a good 12 hours, but Mod Markg finally showed up and clarified it.

The first official Jagex moderator post on the SDOF since last year is a clarification that basically comes down to, "We fucked up and caused a shitstorm. Sorry, guys."



If you want an example of what the main section on a pre-release video game's forum is not supposed to look like, here's one:



Nice.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Maybe They're Just Naturally Dicks

Got pulled into the SDC Skype the other day. I don't usually talk to the guy who pulled me in and left the other chats he dragged me into.

I was welcomed. Then I left. Was gonna leave anyway, I get pissed by people who pull me into chats I don't care about.




Maybe they're just naturally dicks. With some minor flamewars about how the SDC have egos that rival Dubai's building projects in size and incredible shittyness. Thing is, they're a close community who don't always have a penchant for welcoming the new guys. They post their obligatory welcome and then maybe, when your post count is high enough, you'll see some respect.

Thing is, I ain't part of that close community and after this, I don't want to be. Ren and PoultryChamp are good people. If this is anything to go by, the rest are just dicks who insult each other (which is fine), because they're close and insult new people (which is not fine), because they're dumbasses who can't tell the difference between familiar and unfamiliar.

Here's a protip, motherfucker: If you're gonna open with a 'fun, joking' insult to a newcomer, you either address it as just fucking that really, really soon or don't bother until they've gotten used to your demeanor to each other. I don't care if you poo-poo each other because you're close, but dickishness to the new people ain't right.

Regards, IVIilitarus

RuneScape is Good

Playing RuneScape extremely hard for the last few days has shown me something that reading blogs or popping in once a week can never show me;

RuneScape is slightly better than when I left it.

Ambient sounds are my favourite effect. I always play with sound on. Some of the updates have been great. I see a bright future ahead of RuneScape, a tarnished one, but still bright.

I've gained far more levels than I expected. Originally, I would have thought it good to get a 1900 total.

I am now at 1912.

70 Crafting and 70 Herblore were done in half the time I thought they'd take. 70 Smithing took 2 days out of an expected 4. I took to Soul Wars and dominated the matches to obtain 4 levels of Magic in, incredibly, a single evening.



The beginning of this post mentions a bright, but tarnished future for RuneScape. Here's why:

In my previous post, I mentioned I sold my Godsword. Nothing special there. I found a way to spend that money I got, too. I split it between 3 of my best friends I've ever met on RuneScape. 2 million per person.

It was meaningful to me, because a Godsword was for a long time, a distant dream of mine. I have nothing against the fact that I paid 20 million for it and only got 6 million in return. That's fine. It was a dream, not an investment. And when I gave my friends the money, I didn't give money to them. One had 70+ in every skill. The other was a level 130 something on the way to 99 Herblore. The other marched around every day in Armadyl armour.



It wasn't charity, it was a sentiment. In essence, I had given them each a small part of my dreams and they were grateful. All of them asked if I was sure I wanted to do this. I hit 'Accept Trade' first every time and they waited to make sure it was okay. They're far better people than me, all of them, in that regard. 2 of them promised to, "never spend your dreams". I nudged them on. Told them to buy something in case of an emergency, or blow it off on a friend.

That's a pretty nice story, if you ask me.

Thing is, I'm typing this post in between waiting for my Fruit Bat's Special Move bar to recharge so I can use Fruitfall. Papayas = money.

Why would I need money anymore? I have a Third-age full helmet. I have Armadyl clothing. I got my Staff of Light and still have over 8 million to spare. It's like parking a Bugatti in front of a soup kitchen and telling the worker there you haven't eaten for 2 days.



It's because I have a dream. I have one last dream to fulfill before I can retire happily.



I don't have enough time.

I bought a Third-age helm, an Armadyl Chestplate. I have everything except one item to complete my final outfit. I need an Armadyl Chainskirt. Not cheap at 14 million, but considering the numbers I've been dropping in the last couple of days, it's pocket change. Problem is, after I gave my Godsword returns away, I only had 6 million left. I sold as much as possible and it's now up to 5.5 million. I have a week left before I consider RuneScape over. I doubt I can pull it off.

And that's why today, I feel like the worst person in the world when I asked the first of those friends to return 2 million. The other 2 aren't online. It's a sick metaphor. They've helped reach my dreams and I gave them a share of those dreams. Now I have to ask for it back, to achieve one final dream.



I'm up to 7.5 million, now. I can ask one more for 9.5, another for 11.5. The rest I'll do myself. I'm closing in, now. The papayas help.

Worst part is, if the damage to RuneScape's future had been stopped, I wouldn't be in this mess. I'd be well on my way to a happy retirement by now. Normally, I'd catch Rocktails for money. Fishing got me where I am today. Before sudden deflation, I was worth over 110 million at a certain point. It's dropped to little above 75, but it's a lot and fishing got me there. The problem is, 25 Rocktails into my planned 3500, I did a price check out of curiosity. Just to see if I would be pulling in 50k or 45k per 25 fish.

It turns out, it was closer to 35k.

I pay attention. Since playing more, I've seen the complaints about the Botstorm (I'm coining that phrase, bitch) that's overtaken RuneScape after free trade returns. I've seen them, too. Most of the time, I see players going, "Anyone who's not a botter wanna chat?" at resource areas. The bots are just water in a lake, now. They're part of life. In the strictest terms, they're not a problem for us. We don't starve. Sure, prices drop a bit, but we can just take the extra week or two to get our next partyhat.

I don't have an extra week or two.

Rocktails managed to drop over %25 in the time since Free Trade returned. There are so many bots out there, that they managed to push the price of a vital commodity down by 25% when it was once stable. Imagine if your fuel prices dropped %25 in the span of 5 months and continued dropping from there because of oversupply. Imagine how much more supply it must take.

And that's why I'm taking my chances with papayas, rather than go back to the caves for Rocktail. It might not be worth it. One of the best foods in RuneScape, that takes over 95 in a skill to catch, catches at less than 200 per hour and is situated in a cave of level 120 monsters isn't even worth catching anymore.

Fruit bat's gone. 180k in 45 minutes. Very, very slightly ahead of 170k in an hour at Rocktails.

One final dream.

I've been wearing my helmet non-stop. I deserve the ego-boost; the break. I'm effectively retired. I can walk around and show off. I've been drawing a lot of beggars, too. They can't be bothered to make money, but they can identify valuable equipment in a large crowd. One even came up to me and asked me for 100k in a Soul Wars match.

My response is the same, "Go work your ass off like I did. Maybe you'll get money that way."

I'm going to work my ass off, like I used to. Maybe I'll get money that way.

Years of work have culminated in this last week.

Botters are ruining it.

Shower.

Sleep.

Thought.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Like, Why?

Why does writer's block happen?

I mean, I had a stroke of genius. And nearly had a stroke, too, but mostly the genius, not the fatal kind. I'd suddenly plotted out the entire story end-to-end. I knew exactly where the characters would go, how the story ends, what happens to who. I even had a half other chapters plotted out, down to who would be doing what.

So why is it an hour after all of that, I slam into a wall and suddenly, can't put a single word down? I know exactly what's supposed to happen, so how can it all stop now? Moros' writer's block was justifiable. I had no story, I just had explosions and violence, but this time, I've got something that might work and I've still been screwed over.

Well, that felt better. Time to write.

Regards, IVIilitarus

inb4alpha

So some employee at Jagex did an interview and let it slip that Stellar Dawn was now in the internal alpha-testing phase.

http://www.thealistdaily.com/news/feature-jagex-finds-a-hero/

They visiting moderators will either keep it quiet or vehemently deny it and point to The Vaunted Plan again. (Hint: The latter ain't worth shit.)

My return-to-EVE plan is coming along nicely and if Stellar Dawn doesn't get anything really, really soon, I'm hitting EVE Online seriously. I miss that Rattlesnake I lost a whole lot and Jagex isn't exactly doing much.

One thing I always find laughable is when employees make excuses like, "Less time spent chatting to you means more time in the office."

This gets particularly impressive when it comes from a community team member. Not talking Jagex, though they've done this before. Just in general. As the community manager, your paycheck rests on sitting at your comfy chair in the office and typing messages to the players. It's not hard to keep a window open on the side to tell people that the game is in progress and you're at your desk, working on it.

Better yet, you're the only link between community and designers, which means it's up to you to take into consideration the last 7 months or so of complaints about your company doing jack shit to someone who cares and making sure they realise that they're making a negative impact on people. Negative impact on people, not a substantial amount of customers. The few dozen or so of us complaining don't matter on the income graphs, but it isn't that hard to have enough empathy to realise that your plan sucks ass.

Regards, IVIilitarus

I Don't Give a Shit About Either of You

http://www.stellardawncentral.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17474

http://services.stellardawn.com/m=forum_fo/c=CNYru3Kscpg/forums.ws?86,87,658,97268

Really, I just want my game.

Exams are coming up. I'm probably gonna go get back into EVE Online. The friend I gave my stuff and money to helped me work out a plan. The new Buddy System lets the 21 day invite be redeemed with a PLEX to the inviter. She'll invite me for a 21 Day trial. At the end of the trial, I'll use the PLEX she is given to add 30 Days. Then she'll sell all of my old stuff and send most of the money over, enough for a startup fund and another PLEX. That's 81 days in total, should be enough to get me started.

Which might work, if I hadn't suddenly gotten into Battlefield 2142. It was one of the first 5 video games I ever brought, and my first real FPS. I was about 13 at the time, and had no clue how to work the account, registration, patching and multiplayer element. In fact, the singleplayer was above me, too because I still had my old computer which couldn't even run the game. It collected dust for years and I got my new PC last year, so I installed it, but still had capped internet, so the multiplayer and patching. Battlefield singleplayer is notoriously shitty, with no more than 16 players per map and most of the maps locked.

Exams are coming up.

Battlefield 2142 is coming up.

This can't end well.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Great Games Revisited 'n' Stuff

I don't feel like writing a long, winded bitching post today, so I'll keep it short; break from school is over. Minecraft was a lot of fun, and I'm looking into doing more, just need a bit of extra time. Exams are an route, ain't that a kick in the head?

Got some distance in Fallout: New Vegas. Very, very good game. Lots of fun stuff to do and quests to complete. Second chapter of Moros is coming along nicely. I really took my sweet time with that one, future chapters will be quicker. Probably. Maybe.

The Combine reform is pretty much dead on account of one person not doing their job: Me. I'm considering relegating the remains of the reform to everyone else. No input from me. They work between themselves to do what's left to do and present it to me for editing and review. This is to:

A. Kick their asses into gear.
B. Make them realise that I won't be here forever, and they better be able to work on their own if they want the Combine to get anywhere.
C. Make them realise I am fucking lazy and I'm the leader. If I don't want to do something, I don't have to and they're stuck picking up the slack in my stead.

Jagex is being stupid about their marketing for Stellar Dawn, which hasn't really changed in the last 5 months or so. In fact, their marketing strategy for Stellar Dawn is dumber than a particularly unintelligent sack of hammers.

Whoops. I said I wasn't gonna write a bitching post.

Well, it was only 25% bitching, right?

Regards, IVIilitarus

I Always Wanted to be a Jedi

I tucked into Knights of the Old Republic 2 recently, because I really, really wanted to see what happens a few years after KotOR, which I'd bought and played years ago.

Thing I've noticed is that KotOR 2 is a lot like KotOR, but better in every way. It's the same, but better. I dunno how they pulled it off. The missions and characters are more interesting. The story is more engaging. It intertwines perfectly. The first game was my first RPG and awesome, and this one is just whoa.

However, Kreia is a sanctimonious bitch.

This also got me interested in Star Wars: The Old Republic. For those of you living under a rock or just not interested in the latest gaming news, The Old Republic is an upcoming MMORPG set a few years after KotOR 2. All part of that era. Once done with the game, I went over to The Old Republic's website to find some more stuff about it.

So the bitching starts here. When I got there and began staring in awe at how well updated the website was and how active and large the community is, I realised that Jagex is so terrible at marketing MMORPGs, that they've dulled me to good MMORPG marketing. I got the same feeling I got from Empire at War before release, of seeing a very filled website full of detail on game mechanics, classes, units, story and location. I was stunned, and then realised that this is what a pre-release site for a game should look like. Too many months spent on Stellar Dawn means I've forgotten just what a good game looked like.

I still have no idea why Jagex would do this to their game. They're a company running games on an obscure platform without the gigantic budget Bioware has, so that means they should be doing everything they can to build support for their game. Bioware doesn't have to do a thing. It's Star Wars and it's Bioware. Those 2 things alone would make me buy it. Jagex is doing a homebrewed universe with half the recognition and they're doing jack shit to promote their big title.

It's understandable that they wouldn't care about a few of their players like me complaining before release. They'll get enough publicity to get it going even if the people on the forums now dropped dead. What I don't understand is why they're going to jeopardise their into game's future for their vaunted, bullshit 'Plan'. The moderators think its funny when they say the first rule of the plan is, 'Do not talk about the plan.' They haven't been sitting around for years, waiting for something that's already died once.

Is it the company's execs who are too stupid to market what could be a great title? Does player support have a good reason for sitting on their collective ass? The employees aren't allowed to discuss their game on their own website. Recently, the BETA application system saw downtime and was changed slightly and threads started cropping up about it. When a bug in the system, followed by one extra field you're supposed to fill in a 3 field application causes a spike in activity, you know something's wrong with your game.

Stellar Dawn is slated for a 2011 release. No details given.

The Old Republic is slated for a 2011 release. No details given.

Compare these two websites:

http://www.stellardawn.com/

http://www.swtor.com/

And tell me which upcoming sci-fi MMORPG is more likely to make their 2011 release date.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Also, Waiting Gets More Harderer

In a coupla hours, my parents are dragging me off on another vacation I don't care about (shit). For 10 days. Of my 20 day school holiday.

Also, today, I quit EVE. I got what I came for and left because I didn't feel like selling one of my nice ships to pay for membership renewal, so I handed all of my stuff to a friend and told her not to get it blown up.

EVE's real nice and all, but I don't think I'm part of the niche that it fills out for. I want internet spaceships, not Serious Business Internet Spaceships. EVE's stressful and this frees up a lot of time in my schedule.

Today, I was on the verge of leaving on this vacation and I had 6 days of gametime left just before a 10 day vacation, so I asked around if someone could hand me 10 million (100k or so in Runescape terms) and I'd pay them later. I even offered collateral. Everybody accused me of scamming. EVE's just too paranoid and mean, even for me. One more reason I'm leaving.

I'll still be working on the reform whilst on vacation, but I won't have internet access.


Now, onto my rant.

Today's topic is: JAGEX DOESN'T KNOW WHAT MAKING ITEMS BETTER IS.

See, Jagex seems to think that stronger = better. They've spent so much time adding new and more horrendously overpriced/-powered items to the Runescape that they've lost contact with making the game better. The time they're spending on stupidly overpowered and rare stuff that fewer than a thousand people see should be better spent on making the experience better for a majority.

Take Torva, Pernix and Virtus' Crap. Those are armour sets dropped by Runescape's (latest) most powerful monster, Nex. Nex being the one who takes teams of dozens to kill, for a relatively small chance at a single expensive piece of crap. A full set of said crap, most of us will see less than once a month.

This crap also happens to be the best in its class and is another layer of whining and dreaming veterans have to dispel. Swarms of kiddies fresh out of Lumbridge who want something valuable as their 5-years-down-the-road goal. Problem between this and the original dream of a party hat set is that this is actually good for something, which makes crushing their dreams through use of common sense and realism that much harder.


Now, what every single player will see in an ordinary month of varied play is rune stuff.

Thing is, most of the rune stuff is for mid-level players. And we see it everywhere. Thing is, it's still biased toward the scimitar and 2hander. The huge array of other weapons don't see much use. Jagex releases tons of weapons and never spends time rebalancing them unless strictly needed.

It's common items like those that need updates and rebalancing. We don't need another Bestest, Rarest Item Ever. We need Good, Affordable, Accessible Items.

They're in the boat that thinks Expensive + Rare = Good.

Abyssal Whips aren't extremely expensive or rare and they're good. Dragon longswords are reliable weapons. The rune scimitar/2hander combo is a valuable PvP tool used by thousands of players.

Any drop specific to Nex is a crock of shit.

These items dropped by Nex are a mix of ego boost and hopeless dream.

Only the richest players will ever receive the full set, who use it to fuel their already enormous egos. Impressionable new people get caught up in that wake left by the ego and they want a set of that, too. Those new players are then caught in a horribly, horribly boring grind for money to buy a few pieces of armour. Time spent dong much more productive things.

Happened to me, too. My first major, boring grind was for a whip. That grind was the first time I ever felt like dropping Runescape, was how boring it was. Then came my grind for the 'V' on my banner carrier. That was what, 3 months of killing the pointless monsters for a number on a flag. I've effectively quit combat training after that champion's binge. I can count how many levels I've gained in combat skills in the last 2 years on 1 hand.

Jagex hasn't worked it out.

Last year was their year for the newbs and they messed it up. Freeplay didn't get any useful new weapons or bosses. Even pay-to-players only got quests and minor training areas. We don't need one-time quests or static training areas. We carry and use our items every single day. Balance and update those.

Almost every weapon in the range is underused. Halberds were meant to be a warrior's answer to a ranger behind the table. Spears are supposed to be a perfectly balanced for weapon for general use. They're underused because they need a buff. Put a bit more strength behind the Halberd and an armour piercing gimmick. Make spear poisons available to non-members and buff their strength. Give weapons a gimmick so there is no longer a best. Right now, the weapon with the highest slash bonus + highest strength + highest speed is almost always the best. Rectify that. Make battles unpredictable.

What Runescape really needs is an addition to the useful stuff. There's no need for junk like that dropped by Nex. It's to expensive to risk in major combat events and too overpowered for most everyday uses. It's only point is to show off. I know what it's like to show off rare stuff and get compliments (Lord Marshal's stuff, 4 99's, 5 Champions, Godsword, Armadyl Armour and Dragonfire Shield, bitches). It's a nice feeling, but not everyone is a multi-year veteran.

Most players are on the ground, slugging it out with Dragon Longswords and their first whips. Give them a chance to advance. The people whose asses you're kissing with top-of-the-line gear are individual established players. The grind-weary masses with their rune scimitars and first dragon plateskirts are the one's you're supposed to pander to. They're the subscribers you need to convince to stick around.

Don't encourage mindless rote learning and grinding. Encourage innovative thought and cost effectiveness (see previous post for where grinding for a nice, expensive item gets you)

Regards, IVIilitarus

With Regards to the Idiots Who Try to Save Money

I got a bit into Runescape again more recently, what with Jagex effectively abandoning the Stellar Dawn Official Forums, their new leadership change and teaming up with Hasbro to develop an MMORPG based on the Transformers franchise.

Guess what that means for Stellar Dawn?

I hope Transformers Online fucking burns.




So like I said, I got back into Runescape a bit and went Castle Warring (my all-time favourite minigame). Whilst in the waiting room, I got into a discussion of why I was rich, had a Dragonfire Shield, Godsword, Armadyl Armour, but still used my Barrow's armour over a set of Bandos armour.

I did the math myself more than a year ago, when on a my shark killing fest and came to a groundbreaking conclusion;

Bandos items are collected, cost ineffective pieces of shit.

It's been a year down the road and prices have changed, but the conclusion doesn't.

I'll do the math again just for you.

As of this posting, the Bandos Chestplate sells for a hefty 19.2 million and the Plateskirt runs for 21.4 million.

Guthan's Platebody is 604k and Torag's Platelegs are 849k. Guthan's is the cheapest and all Barrows Platebodies have equal stats.

So Barrows armour is well over 20 times more expensive than Bandos Armour. Logic dictates that such a discrepancy in price would mean Bandos was far superior.

So we do a stats comparison.

Bandos Chestplate Statistics

Attack Bonuses:

Stabbing: 0
Slashing: 0
Crushing: 0
Magic: -15
Ranged: -10

Defence Bonuses

Stabbing: 98
Slashing: 93
Crushing: 105
Magic: -6
Ranged: 133
Summoning: 52

Damage Absorption

4% Melee
0% Magic
9% Ranged

Other Bonuses

Strength: 4
Ranged Strength: 0
Prayer: 1
Magic Damage: 0%


Guthan's Platebody Statistics

Attack Bonuses:

Stabbing: 0
Slashing: 0
Crushing: 0
Magic: -30
Ranged: -10

Defence Bonuses

Stabbing: 122
Slashing: 120
Crushing: 107
Magic: -6
Ranged: 132
Summoning: 60

Damage Absorption

5% Melee
0% Magic
10% Ranged

Other Bonuses

Strength: 0
Ranged Strength: 0
Prayer: 0
Magic Damage: 0%


So when compared side by side...

Guthan's Platebody has;

-15 Magic Attack below Bandos.
+24 Stab Defence above Bandos
+27 Slash Defence above Bandos.
+2 Crush Defence above Bandos.
-1 Ranged Defence below Bandos.
+8 Summoning Defence above Bandos.

+1% more Melee Absorption above Bandos.
+1% Ranged Absorption above Bandos.

-4 Strength Bonus below Bandos.
-1 Prayer Bonus below Bandos.


Which means even though you're paying 30 times the price of Guthan's Platebody, Bandos is consistently worse. -15 Magic Attack is meaningless, as no sane person mages in a Barrows Platebody. -1 Ranged Defence is a 0.77% difference.

-4 Strength Bonus means a difference of 10 lifepoints in damage.
-1 Prayer Bonus is really, really tiny. Especially if you are in grave need of a Prayer Bonus, you will wear something with a better boost. Like Verac's.

So you're paying 30 times the price of Guthan's Platebody for an item that is consistently worse.

Let's see if the Tassets fare better compared to Platebody and Chestplate issue.

Bandos Tassets Statistics

Attack Bonuses:

Stabbing: 0
Slashing: 0
Crushing: 0
Magic: -21
Ranged: -7

Defence Bonuses

Stabbing: 71
Slashing: 73
Crushing: 66
Magic: -4
Ranged: 93
Summoning: 25

Damage Absorption

3% Melee
0% Magic
6% Ranged

Other Bonuses

Strength: 2
Ranged Strength: 0
Prayer: 1
Magic Damage: 0%


Torag's Platelegs Statistics

Attack Bonuses:

Stabbing: 0
Slashing: 0
Crushing: 0
Magic: -21
Ranged: -7

Defence Bonuses

Stabbing: 85
Slashing: 82
Crushing: 83
Magic: -4
Ranged: 92
Summoning: 30

Damage Absorption

3% Melee
0% Magic
7% Ranged

Other Bonuses

Strength: 0
Ranged Strength: 0
Prayer: 0
Magic Damage: 0%

So when compared side by side...

Torag's Platelegs have;

+14 Stab Defence above Bandos
+19 Slash Defence above Bandos.
+17 Crush Defence above Bandos.
-1 Ranged Defence below Bandos.
+5 Summoning Defence above Bandos.

+1% Ranged Absorption above Bandos.

-2 Strength Bonus below Bandos.
-1 Prayer Bonus below Bandos.

Once again, you're paying 25 times more money for an item that has consistently lower stats. -1 Ranged Defence in this case is only less than a 1.5% difference. The Strength and Prayer Bonuses still don't justify 25 times the price or use of armour that is worse in 2 thirds of categories.

Combined, the difference is quite dramatic.

When comparing Guthan's Chestplate worn with Torag's Platelegs to the Bandos Chestplate worn with the Bandos Tassets, the Barrow's equipment has...

-15 Magic Attack below Bandos.

+38 Stab Defence above Bandos.
+46 Slash Defence above Bandos.
+19 Crush Defence above Bandos.
-2 Ranged Defence below Bandos.
+13 Summoning Defence Bonus

+1% Melee Absorption above Bandos.
+2% Ranged Absorption above Bandos.

-6 Strength Bonus below Bandos.
-2 Prayer Bonus below Bandos.

A Rune Full Helm has less Stab, Slash and Summoning Defence compared to the difference. Meaning if you wear Bandos over Barrows, you've given up the equivalent of a Rune Full Helm in Stab, Slash and Summoning Defence without using a single extra slot and saving over 20 times the money.


"But we save so much money on repairs!"

That's the best reason people have for paying exorbitant prices.

Okay. Fine. Let's stack the repair costs of Barrows against the buying price of Bandos armour.

We'll start with some stats. Let's assume the character repairing the Barrows uses an NPC repair, not an armour stand at home, so must pay full price for repairs. You know, because his skills suck.

That means a total of 85850 is spent on repairs for Barrows armour every 15 hours.

85850 x 250 = 21.46 million.

Meaning that you can repair both Barrows items fully for 250 times before it matches up to the cost of a single set of Bandos Tassets.

85850 x 223 = 19.1 million.

Meaning you can repair both Barrows items fully another 223 times before it matches the cost of the Bandos Chestplate.

The total number of times (at today's prices) you can repair your Guthan's Platebody and Torag's Platelegs 473 times, before it is equal to buying the Bandos Chestplate and Platelegs.

So 473 full repairs meant the items fully degraded 473 times.

473 x 15 = 7095 hours

That's 7095 hours of combat without a break, before Barrows items can degrade enough to make up the cost of Bandos items.

7095 ÷ 24 = 295 days.

So you have to spend 295 days fighting without a single break for eating, sleep or even repairs to make up for the Bandos items' price.

My total level is 1882. I have 4 skills at level 99.

I have spent 172 days on Runescape in real time, spread over half a decade.


So somehow, you need to spend over 50% more time fighting with Barrows armour than I have spent training every skill on my character 1882 levels, before you save enough money on repairs to make Bandos items cost effective.

The Bandos items still have consistently worse stats.

Does that answer the question to which one is better?

Is that a lesson to the people who spent over 20 times what they could have for a worse item under the guise of saving money in the long term?

Once again, my groundbreaking conclusion: Bandos items are collected, cost ineffective pieces of shit.

The only reason to buy Bandos is for giant spikes and looking rich*.

Regards, IVIilitarus

*looking rich does not equate to being intelligent.

I don't Code in Python

So school started and that can really, really cut into your video gaming and blogging habit.

Which is okay, because I have a Rattlesnake.

The Rattlesnake is one of the kings of PvE. A faction battleship (6 times as expensive, twice as useful) that is a dedicated, over-the-top drone boat. It has some of the nastiest tank of anything sub-capital, one of the largest drone bays of anything sub-capital, and rather decent direct damage.

AND I AM NEVER FUCKING SHOOTING A PLAYER'S DESTROYER IN A FIT OF RAGE EVER AGAIN!

http://killboard.eveuniversity.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=8969885

It was like that other ship I lost. Provoked the wrong people and got my ass kicked.

Except this time, it was about a month's worth of income gone. =P

Regards, IVIilitarus

Stupid...Stupid...Stupid...Stupid...

Well, see, this post was originally to be a good look at where a new player in EVE Online can go to for help and just how organised and useful the truly good players in EVE are, but school started and I saved a draft for later.

See, school started in down here in South Africa, you're allowed to pick which major subjects you take with you to your future career (to emphasise these paths and let people be more specialised in one area). You have 2 subjects to take from a total of 4. You may take on extras on the side.

The options are Physics/Economics AND Accounting/Life Sciences

So you can pick one from the left and one from the right. End of story.

We also have options for maths, here. You can take Mathematical Literacy or Core Maths. Core Maths is the standard mathematics including trigonometry and such people take to great careers. In fact, Core Maths in our high schools is just plain maths for the rest of you.

Mathematical Literacy is a shitty excuse made by an incompetent Department of Education to make their nation's mathematical literacy rates look better on the pie charts. Mostly because that our moronic Ministers of Education want to keep their jobs all the time. At one point, the minimal percentage required for a pass in a single subject was 40% fuckin' percent. For a lot of subjects, it still is.

Let me quote a little gem from this piece.

"In 2008, the pass rate for maths sat at 44.11 percent. It has jumped to 47 percent in 2010."

Hah.

They blame Apartheid, of course. They blame 'the evil and strife this country has faced' in the past.

Guess what? This ain't your fucking Apartheid. I'm the next generation. I was born months after the nation went free. Hell, I am one of the minorities. I'm a part of the generation that will lead this nation long after your segregation is relegated to the history books where they belong.

Thing is, our idiotic Department of Education is too concerned with damage control, saving face and, too a greater extent, their jobs to worry about us. South Africa poured 165 billion Rands into the educational system. Approximately 24.0396 billion US Dollars.

20% of state expenditure goes to educate the masses and we have trouble getting beyond 50% in mathematics.

Where the fuck does that money go?

Back to me, because I shouldn't be spewing the same statistics my Department of Education is spewing. They've done enough damage. There's more to this than statistics.

There's an individual story here. While those idiot higher-ups are too busy working up another excuse for indescribable stupidity, we're losing down here.

In this case, the individual is me.

I picked Life Sciences and Economics. Planning to go into law. The joke is that half of my cases are someone getting hurt (link) and the other half is someone getting money stolen. That's the joke.

It is a joke. The first time I told the class, they laughed at the absurdity and common sense involved.

I'm dropping Economics ASAP and going Physics. Life Sciences + Physics = Profit.

It opens up a slew of opportunities and I can still carry on a possibly lawyering deal in peace. If I screw up my lawyering, I can run screaming to Engineering without stopping.

It's taken me far too long to work it out. This is my life. I'm in control. Not those idiots on the Executive Board. The Department of Education of South Africa is meaningless to me. I'm the only thing left in my life that can pull me together.

I am the next generation and I kindly request a more competent leadership.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Why EVE Online is Special

A friend of mine started a petition to turn EVE Online into a singleplayer game.

Here's my response:

You know what makes EVE special?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGplrpWvz0I&feature=related

The fact that it's player driven. All of the T2 and T3 (the good stuff) is player made. ALL of it. For the first few weeks, blueprints are spawned at random out in the universe. Players use those to make the newly released stuff. After those few weeks, the players have to copy and make new blueprints themselves.

How does that make it great? The fact that players start wars over blueprints for a spaceship. Trade routes are blockaded, people hold Dreadnaughts for ransom to get a new blueprint.

EVE Online is a game the players make great. You don't buy ships and weapons from shops. You get it from another player on the market or blow the shit out of some poor bastard in an escorted hauler and steal his stuff.

This is a game where player politics in Corporations (clans) and Alliances (really, really fuckin' big clans) go to hell and back. Read this: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/65475

This game is serious business. Pussies who're too afraid of 'politics' and 'thinking' and 'complexity' don't play this game. You want action. You know how EVE Online battles go? They go like this: http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/10/30/the-largest-battle-ever-held-in-eve-online-is-going-on-right-now/

In EVE Combat works out as; You right click on target. You click 'lock target'. You wait while it locks on. Then you click on your weapons, once to fire them. Then you wait for the target to die. There's no fancy flying. If you get out of formation to do stupid things, the commander yells at you.

How do real battles work? The captain orders an attack. Some minimal wage bastard pushes a few buttons. They wait while target lock happens as the ship tries to fight past Electronic Warfare. Then some guy pushes buttons and guns go boom. That's how battles in real navies go. That's how battles in EVE navies go. If you fell out of formation in real life, the commander yells at you. It's accurate down to the fact that in both cases, the commanders says, "STAY IN THE FUCKING FORMATION, COCKSHIT!"

Go through these articles: http://www.tentonhammer.com/features/mittani

Those are all written by a former player in one of the largest alliances ingame. Just click on the ones you like most, there's lots. Also, click on a few that sound like politics. Politics are serious business. EVE Online is a game where in order to blow up some guy's internet spaceship, there were plans to cut power to the guy's house so he'd log out and the ship couldn't defend itself.

The game is influenced so much by players that there was a corruption scandal earlier on. A company employee spawned some T2 blueprints (people start wars over these) for his corp. We found out. You know what happened? Each year, certain players are picked to go to the EVE headquarters in Iceland to represent players. These guys are basically like those town council kids at school (but these guys work with space battleships carrying 1400mm cannons, so they're infinitely more awesome). This committee pitches ideas because the company itself now has corruption issues. No player trusts the company. We trust the committee.

In contrast, what you want is Freelancer with better graphics. You wanna throw on your joystick and whip around, swamping battleships and beating on the trigger to squeeze a few more shots out. You go to a station to buy nicer stuff to stick on your ship. You don't go to the station to play the market and become a multi-billionnaire. You don't go there to dispatch messages to your corpmates so people across the galaxy hop into their battleships and blow the shit out of some poor hauler.

EVE Online is deep. You couldn't stand X3 because it was too complicated (neither could I. I uninstalled it a week ago because I still didn't work out how to sell stuff). You won't handle EVE because it's too slow. The battles are always boring You vs Some Other Guy or so fuckin' laggy that you're watching a movie on the side as the battle happens. Big battles in EVE aren't laggy. They're not slow. They're not slideshows. They're laggy, slow slideshows. That's what the framerate is like. You saw the screenshots. You take those pretty spaceships and stuff a thousand in once place and throw in voice chat from a thousand teenagers into it and see if your computer still works.

EVE is so player-driven that the company is surprised. Surprised to the point that one of their latest trailers is based on the players themselves. This one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDVEHE10nHc

That's how battles work, but less actiony. Carrier begs for repairs and reinforcements so he can keep his own hide intact. Covert ops ship shows up and lights up a beacon. ENTIRE FLEET OF ANGRY NERDS JUMPS THROUGH THE BEACON. War starts. One side's busy forming up and holding at a gate. The other is getting shot to little bits.

The attacker's commander is busy calling primary target for the entire fleet to focus fire on. Ever get shot at by 150 battleships? That's what EVE is like. Let's see your Freelancer pull that off. Some idiot disobeys orders and jumps. Get killed. Fleet commander doesn't care. Reinforcements show up (too late) and start shooting. Attacker's reinforcements aren't seen. Russians kick everyone's ass. Yes. We even have codenames.

What? You've managed to read this far? Nice.

This trailer is one of the few trailers to stay true to the game itself. Only a few things are wrong.

1. There's no lag. That's bullshit. EVE Online lags.

2. The fleets are too competent and awesome sounding. Real fleets are run by angry American college guys alternating between, "Fleet, shut the fuck up! I'm talking!" and "Kill that fuckin' dreadnaught! Now!"

Seriously. Half of the stuff the commander says in real battles is telling us to shut up. The other half is screaming primary target into comms like a little girl.

3. It's too actiony. Real EVE is like every other MMO. You click on things and wait. The battles are a laggy mess.


You want EVE Online offline because you can't handle the players themselves. It's far too serious. You wanna take on your little AI's, replace your expensive battleship (you lost it because you suck, by the way) with a console command and jump back in. You want it offline because if you marched into EVE, you'd be on the bottom. You like being in control. Unstoppable ships, swearing into comms over the little guy you just beat up. In EVE, you're target practice for everyone else in a spaceship.

Or maybe you're gonna break out the "I like the universe and story." excuse.

Then great! I have DUST 514 for you.

It's an upcoming console FPS in the EVE universe. Here's how it works, in EVE, players can build colonies on planets (what? You think those planets were decoration?) When DUST 514 is released, corporations will be allowed to fight over these colonies. How do we fight?

We use you fanboys with your XBox's and PS3's.

The idea is that when a battle starts on a colony in the EVE universe, a server opens up on your XBox. You're a mercenary. You go with your mercenary clan buddies to fight the other mercs on this colony. If you win, the colony becomes the attacker's in EVE Online. If you lose, you lose standings, reputation and the colony.

You hear that? Us EVE Online MMO nerds will be pushing you FPS Console fanboys around to do our bidding. If we want you do to something, you do it because the servers are our colonies. Without our colonies, you'd be out of a game.

So here's your choice: work up the balls to take on real people face to face in the MMO rather than a mindless AI or roast in DUST 514 with the other 11 year olds in headsets whilst getting pushed around by us guys in the spaceships. DUST 514 is just Modern Warfare 2 in space. Sit around in lobbies and swear at 12 year olds who can swear better than you. Get noobtubed halfway across the map like all the other losers.

Or play a smart game. Play the game where a message in Windows Live can bring an alliance of thousands to it's knees. Play the game where you get to be part of a fleet where you cost some idiot $12000 because he sucked and his Titan blew up. Be part of the game where the frigate is just as much of a target as the largest cruiser*

*That's an exaggeration. Frigates get shot before cruisers. They're more of a threat.

If you're done whining about taking on other people as equals instead of a sever admin, and you're interested in EVE Online, the Massively MULTIPLAYER Online Roleplaying Game, call me up. I can get you a 21 day trial instead of the standard 14 day trial.

If you're still stubborn and want dogfighting in space with WASD and mouse, look up Jumpgate Evolution. It's like EVE Online for pussies.

Regards, IVIilitarus

I Got Butchered Again

And this time, it's serious.

See, this game is like Runescape in progression. It's not that hard until about halfway through.

For instance, in my 2 weeks of playing, I worked my way past the Frigate class, the Destroyer class and the Cruiser class. My corporation delivered to me my first Battlecruiser, the Drake. At this point, the only practical ship a player can expect to fly is Battleship or one of the Strategic Cruisers/Advanced Mining Vessels. Up from that are Capitals, which are mostly pipe dreams.

The Drake is a ship type which kinda has a love/hate following. Like Torag's armour. It's dirt cheap, all the new kids run for it as soon as possible, it's freakishly tough. I have minimum skills (yes, even EVE Online has skills) and I was able to use the Drake to take on over a dozen other Battlecruisers at the same time and win on my own. It's that kind of vessel.

The ship's main strength is its shield. The Drake can fit an obscenely powerful passive shield tank, which basically means your shields are so outrageously tough that they can shrug off most damage and recharge so quickly on their own that you never have to worry about that particular bar. The Runescape equivalent would be your character's health naturally regenerating so quickly that multiple enemies constantly damaging you can't keep up. The Drake has more defensive bonuses than many battleships and can still mount a good amount of damage alongside that.

So yesterday (or today, it's the 25th here already), I learned two things;

1. Fighting a powerful passive shield tank is hard. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to every unfortunate NPC crewman, pilot or captain and their next of kin/families. Today, I went one-on-one with my first battleship. I'm in a shield-tanked Drake, so I'm pretty much unstoppable one-on-one. Thing is, I learned how obnoxious it was to fight someone just like me.

I was putting 7 Heavy Missiles into that stupid thing per salvo. One salvo every 13 seconds. That's over 28 gigantic missiles per minute into a single target. The bastard's shields kept recharging. Every time I pulled a piece off the shield bar, it recharged in the time I took to launch another salvo. I even dropped 8 million (the ship itself cost me 26 million) on upgrading the missile launchers and a control system and this bastard still didn't go down.

In the end, I gave up and lost the launchers, equipped salvagers and looted the battlefield. The battleship had lots of escorts, but I murdered them all before moving and failing against it, so I looted everyone whilst waiting for a corpmate to bail me out.


2. Losing a ship sucks. It's EVE Online, you expect death wherever you are, but somehow, my death was one of the most humiliating ever. Thing about the Drake is, I have 11k effective HP on me. That's 11k damage someone has to do to me to kill me in a single blow (excluding recharge/repairs). Approximately 5k of that was armour and hull, which were the second and third layers of defence. If I lost my shield, I still had enough of a window to run away.

So the only way to effectively kill me was to prevent my escape. Now, the most common way of escape is a Warp. When you go into Warp, it's over. They've lost, they can't possibly catch you. Problem is, warp requires that you be aligned to a destination AND be at 75% of your top speed. This can be troublesome for a slow ship with low acceleration, but they can usually take damage long enough to survive. Warp Scramblers prevent warp at all, thus preventing escape. Simple.

Problem is, I never got warp scrambled. The bastards who got me did so because when I aligned to my destination and started accelerating, I accelerated into a piece of the environment (a small station array and a floating warehouse). So I couldn't get speed and I was trapped between these two, while taking a pounding. The crappy AI tried to keep lining up but it's crappy, so my ship spun around on the spot hopelessly for several seconds before exploding. I lost most of my equipped modules and cargo contents (including the expensive upgrades).

Howsabout some perspective;

When I got my Drake, I had 60 million. I dropped 26 million into it (saved 2 million because the corp made it for me and didn't need much profit). I drained another 16 million to buy the fittings and kit it out for battle.

So I'm down to 28 million in my wallet. I dropped half of my entire cash pool one one vessel. Thankfully, I made a fair portion of it back. It was yesterday that I hit 32 million odd again, even after many, many expensive spare parts and upgrades. I was left at 26 million after selling some stuff and buying ship upgrades against that bastard Battleship.

Then it exploded. The stuff I salvaged was worth all of 5 million.

However, I insured the ship and the insurance payout was a solid 22 million and after corpmates killed everything at the mission, I looted the wrecks and made some cash. The corp leader generously handed everyone 10 million (Christmas gift <3).

In the end, I was left with 65 million.

Short version? These last 2 days of work have been worth exactly nothing. I'm back to the Cruiser I abandoned in my hangar. I'm back to leeching offa my corp mates in missions for income (missions are divided into levels. Higher levels = more payment and more difficulty. My Drake could perform most level 3's without much trouble. Level 4 is the highest). So for the first time ever, I was effectively independent and could make a steady, reasonable income without asking the corp for help every 10 minutes.

Then it blew up. Really. EVE Online is generous to the dedicated, strong player but it sucks ass when you lose.

There's my Christmas Eve (when typing that, I nearly typed 'Christmas EVE'. Signs I need a break). I wonder what joys Christmas day will bring me.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Thoughts on EVE Online

Absent because EVE Online worked!

Me complying with the title of my blog, I dove straight for the Caldari (the railgun and missile guys who are non-nonsense practical types <3) and kitted out a railgun Destroyer ASAP. I'm actually doing better in a railgun equipped ship than I did in the recommended ship using missiles.

Also, Stellar Dawn Forums being saturated in new, stupid people who revive dead threads, start dumb discussions, post stupid things and in general, don't know how to type.

Jagex nowhere to be found. It's one week away from being a month since they appeared to have dropped us.



Regards, IVIilitarus

Stupid EVE Online. Stupid CCP

Reason I haven't been posting is that I've been trying to get EVE Online working.

Problem is, those idiots at CCP can't put out a useful client if Iceland's economy was threatened by even worse things. More than 5 failed downloads so far, on most available methods. It kinda sucks.

During that mess, I've been mostly reading up on EVE and waiting. What a waste.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Common Sense

http://services.stellardawn.com/m=forum_fo/c=goZZO68v45c/forums.ws?84,85,327,84434

It's kind of like that.

Fuck. He's Back.

The Stellar Dawn forums, being relatively small and unknown, don't see a lot of trolls. A few mildly immature people, some who can't spell, some who say stupid/do things occasionally (that last one would be me), but no obnoxious little pricks running around, actively trying to be jerkasses.

Today also sees the launch of 3 new tags which are sure to see additional use in the future.

See, somewhere early on, some guy named Quiet Plea posted a bit and left. Nothing amazing. Get a lot of people excited by the news of a new MMO, post a bit on the forums and disappear. Figured it was one of those happening.

He came back some bit over a month later a total asshat.

Started roaming about, mild wannabe moderator. I didn't really notice, this was back before the Headquarters forum, so us losers who dove into the clan-making business to sate our enormous egos left our threads to stew on the Stellar Dawn section. It got so bad that eventually, the first page of the Stellar Dawn section was 1 third Jagex stickies and the rest were the clans in a bump war (Combine included, the rule was stay in the top 5 on the front page or someone gets booted. Yeah, I'm an ass.)

See, the Titans and Borg were having a few minor issues between them, usually one guy poking fun or accidentally derailing the thread onto their discussion or something and then someone would settle it. Pretty soon, the clans basically made peace over the issue and more-or-less let their members have some discussions in the threads. Not like anything else was happening, this was before Jagex started dropping their characters on us to keep the ball rolling.

He shows up and starts telling everyone on the threads to quit screwing around, even joined the Titans for a bit, just to do stupid things at the Borg. Both sides told him to shut the fuck up (in nicer terms, natch, they're good people) and he starts calling it 'abuse' and 'life threats'.

[reasonable opinion]What a whiny little bitch.[/reasonable opinion]

I noticed, but didn't join in. Passive observer, until he either got onto one of my threads or did something really stupid. So I told him to fuck off (in nicer terms, natch, I'm a good person). Flame wars erupt, troll accusations are flung, I think he got 2 threads made telling to get the fuck offa the Stellar Dawn forum? He just kept pulling the 'abuse', 'you're a troll' and fake moderator when he was being a fuckin' dipshit.

So Jagex banned his ass, shot all of this posts out and locked the threads.

Another happy ending.

So we did the clever thing and forgot about that twat, carrying on with our lives. At some or other point, someone named 'It Is Truth' showed up and started posting. Some of his stuff was a little useless to the discussion, but no worse than anyone who showed up before, so we let him keep it. Even made some slightly useless posts on my threads, but I just ignored him. Didn't really take notice.

A coupla days ago, he posted some or other thing a little to close to Quiet Plea's stuff and someone took notice, called him out. I just noticed that post and dug a bit deeper into Truth's posts. Got that same 'I'm better than you, if I'm wrong, you're a troll' attitude as Plea.

The title of this post echoed in my head as I dug a bit deeper.

He's definitely back.

Not much different. He's a little more anti-religious and jackassey than before, but not much else.

Give this little shitter 2 weeks before he gets banned again.


Something like this.


He dropped this on the Remembrance Day thread (Veteran's Day for the Americans).

It's kind of like that.

This post illustrates one of the smaller reasons I started this blog: to say things I'm not allowed to say on Jagex-run forums. My personal soapbox and screaming booth. really.

What an obnoxious little fuck. Want to be rid of him for good. Had enough the last time he showed up.

Regards, IVIilitarus