Three Wolf Moon cloak

Lore text: This cloak will make you more desirable! Also has the property of featherfall.

And why it’s particularly funny…

The whole “Three Wolf Moon” phenomenon started with this comment on Amazon.com, and from there took on a life of its own (and spawned hundreds of imitators):

This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that’s when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to ‘howl at the moon’ from time to time (if you catch my drift!). The women that approached me wanted to know if I would be their boyfriend and/or give them money for something they called mehth. I told them no, because they didn’t have enough teeth, and frankly a man with a wolf-shirt shouldn’t settle for the first thing that comes to him.

I arrived at Wal-mart, mounted my courtesy-scooter (walking is such a drag!) sitting side saddle so that my wolves would show. While I was browsing tube socks, I could hear aroused asthmatic breathing behind me. I turned around to see a slightly sweaty dream in sweatpants and flip-flops standing there. She told me she liked the wolves on my shirt, I told her I wanted to howl at her moon. She offered me a swig from her mountain dew, and I drove my scooter, with her shuffling along side out the door and into the rest of our lives. Thank you wolf shirt.

Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women
Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the ‘guns’), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark.

Oh, wicked, bad, naughty Zoot! She has been setting alight our beacon, which, I just remembered, is grail-shaped. It’s not the first time we’ve had this problem.

– Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Is Fortune League a social game? The “fantasy raid party” game is on Facebook, after all, but just putting a game on Facebook doesn’t make it social — not by itself. It seems to me that social games require other people to play. When this came up on Twitter a few days back, I thought that the whole reason why they were called social is that, by definition, they couldn’t be played alone.

By that definition, Fortune League is not a social game, but it is social in an entirely larger way. The value of each hero in your six member party changes both on how well their race/class combination does in the actual game, and on the demand (or lack of demand) for that race/class combo within Fortune League itself, which varies with the needs of the particular adventure and the daily opportunities.

It’s also social in the way almost any Facebook game is, in that you get talking to the other players. I’m in the Antonia Bayle Champions league, a “guild” for those of us who play on the Antonia Bayle server. Through that I’ve met Zack, who is stationed in Afghanistan for another month and plays Fortune League because he cannot play EQ2 where he is. He is one of the top ranked players globally. And then there’s a bunch of us lesser lights who struggle through.

Small Wings of the League

Inspired by Stargrace’s victory in the first adventure, I was spurred on to see if I could figure out how to play the game and to win at it. Four(!) spreadsheets, two Python scripts and three weeks later, I’d made it not only into the top 20% (to earn the wings), but the top 40 players for the adventure to win the Fortune League cup, the glowy trophy in the first picture.

You can spend money in the game, but money won’t move you in the ranks. All money buys you is the ability to trade out characters more often than free players. I did buy a couple of trades to catch up — while I was learning the game, I made some disastrous missteps. Once I’d sunk money into the game, though, I was determined not to leave without getting the cup.

Sure, it’s just going to sit in Scatter’s room in Kelethin, but there’s that thrill of progression, you know? I started out really sucking at the game, through my own study I managed to find a winning strategy, and I bet real money that it would be good enough to win the one lasting reward from the game.

Stats of the Wings of the League

The wings themselves aren’t too bad. They are a fabled back item with passive featherfall, and a clicky “sky glide” which, I think, gives you the gliding powers of a Fae for 30 seconds. Perfect thing to keep in your appearance slot to easily swap into your main back slot when you need a glide more than you need stats.

We’re into the third adventure now; I don’t plan to spend any money this time around, and I’m not doing as well. I wouldn’t play it at all anymore, except I like chatting with the other AB players and congratulating each other on good moves, or sympathizing with runs of bad luck.

So, maybe Fortune League is a social game after all.

Plushies, Appearance Items and Housing

Since the times when the local post office is open correspond almost exactly to the times I am at work, I won’t be able to pick up my Rift Collector’s Edition until later today… and I couldn’t play last night at all. My headstart amnesty was up.

So I turned to EQ2 for a little fun.

I’ve always kinda felt EQ2 was done with me. It’s one of those games that I feel you have to get some momentum going to carry you through the grindier bits. Once you’ve lost that momentum, it takes a significant effort and desire to get it back.

Most know that I’ve given up my halfling troubadour and have been working for some time on a new character, Scatterfall, a now level 53 Fae berserker. The recipient of all my Fortune League rewards, I log Scatterfall in each week to claim the AA XP scroll and ding four or five AAs all at once.

This last week has been all Rift, all the time, and when I logged into EQ2 to finish up the Lavastorm Sootfoot line, I felt really … weak. Since I couldn’t heal myself, I had to choose my fights carefully, and still died a lot if I got too many adds. Since there were no other people of my level in the zone, soloing was my only option. Since there was no public content at my level (there is for level 90s in the new expansion) I just hacked away at goblins and drakes and colossi, finished my quests, got my rewards — a really nice blade I can wield at 55, a weird hat which will prevent me from being mind-controlled by Void-touched creatures (maybe), and access to a lot of housing items and appearance armor.

Lunar Wolves guild hall... in 3D

Oh yeah.

Rift knows nothing about those things.

Rift does a very good job at taking elements from World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online and melding them into an exciting game that feels fresh. The soul system and the rifts themselves — game changers.

It’s jarring, a little, that they stopped there. My Fae has a home among the branches of Kelethin. It’s basically a two story acorn. Downstairs is decorated for guests; upstairs, I am building a hedge maze from Night of the Dead rewards. It’s spooky.

I belong to a fairly inactive guild on Antonia Bayle called Lunar Wolves. They have a huge guild hall in New Halas, ornately decorated and lavishly appointed — the 3D picture is from the theater (very similar to the one Stargrace made for me years ago). Even EverQuest has housing and guild halls. Even Dungeons & Dragons Online has guild airships.

I can see the issues about having housing and guild halls in the game. Lots of new art assets, where will you put these things, now you have to make a ton of new stuff in order to give players ways to make their homes and guild halls unique… I can see that.

But, where is the appearance armor? You already have the art assets — the armor and weapons that are already in the game. You even have armor dyes, though why someone would use dyes when the armor is being continually replaced is confusing to me. In games like Spellborn and Star Trek Online, your item stats and the look of your gear are entirely disconnected.

Spellborn had this really innovative idea — one of many, really — that you should always look as badass as you wanted. You were, after all, a hero. Leveling could earn you even better looks, but the concept of starting out a poor orphan in tattered armor was never a concept that made any sense in Spellborn. The very first thing you did in the game was save a shardship from an invasion of void creatures. You’re a hero from day 1, hour 1. You should look like it!

Likewise, in Rift, we’re the Ascended! Resurrected heroes (in the case of the Guardians, anyway) who should be able to choose their own appearance from the gear they earn. Some of my weapons I’ve been sad to see runebreaked, they looked so cool, but their stats were off that critical 5% from the newer stuff.

I’m happy Rift has done such a good job of lifting ideas from WoW and Warhammer that I have no desire whatsoever to play any of those last generation games. Isn’t it time Rift turned around and started getting a little inspiration from EQ2?

(Thanks for the Anaglyph GIMP plugin!)

A portrait of a nerd

CCP has been sending me “come back to EVE” e-mails for awhile now, touting variously their refund of learning skills, the new character creator, soon the “captain’s quarters” where capsuleers can get out of the pod and stretch their legs.

So, what the heck, I took them up on their latest offer. I made a character portrait that looks vaguely like me, except my skin is worse and I look way older.

Anyway, my nullsec fleet had kicked me out, and I was back in highsec somehow, only about six jumps from my home base in Aunia. I’m going to have to figure out how to contract back the Domi they lent me, and I’m going to have to do it pretty fast. I just don’t think I can ever go back to EVE.

Inertia is the inclination of moving objects to keep moving, and for stationary objects to stay put. Once you get going in EVE, it’s easy to keep going. The skill queue charts your course, you have your market ops and your research and the ongoing political situation with your allies and enemies, and it’s just easy to keep moving in that space.

But should you stop — your skill queue empties out and you forget what you were training to do, nobody in game remembers you anymore, your research seems pointless and you are no longer connected to the game. News of a griefer olympics makes space seem even colder.

It’s inertia, and it would take a powerful shove to keep things moving again.

Scatterfall of Antonia Bayle

I’m in a weird spot with MMOs at the moment. Since I didn’t want to play in any of the recent Rift betas, I’ve been floating between games. Lucent Heart, DDO, even EverQuest II.

My adventures in Fortune League, the EQ2-themed fantasy adventurer trader game on Facebook, have led directly to sparking my interest in its parent game once again. As much as I love my troubadour, her time has passed. But my berserker …

First of all, she looks really cute. The latest gear and skill changes have made it far easier to gear her up. I had some issues with her AA, but redeeming a Fortune League AA scroll made me five AA points last night. I also redeemed one of the XP potions I won and ground minotaurs in Steamfont for writs until I made two levels (in one hour) and dinged 52, where I can get the Mastercrafted stuff.

I’m not sure anyone particularly needs a midlevel faerie fighter, but who needs groups, anyway?

While EvE is still stuck in one place, Fortune League has given EQ2 a little bit of a push and set it in motion.

Which is, as I mentioned, too bad, since Rift starts Thursday.