Avalon

Sure, everyone had this figured out awhile ago, but finally it’s announced — the newest world on the Spiral is Avalon.

Professor Greyrose writes:

Avalon is the silver city, a medieval fantasy world of knights, goblins, giants, and dragons. Merle Ambrose was born here, and gained a reputation as a fierce Wizard. Merle helped the young warrior-bear Artorius become king of Avalon. However, once King Artorius fell in the final battle slaying his archrival, Malory, Merle decided it was time to leave Avalon – Merle left to found Ravenwood School of Magical Arts and teach magic to any Wizard who wanted to learn it in the Spiral.

Avalon is a large world with 15 expansive areas to explore. Young Wizards who are a minimum of level 70 and have completed the quest “Through Glass, Darkly” need to speak to Merle Ambrose who will send you off on your adventures with a quest named “This Little Light of Mine”.

I pretty much keep returning to “knights and dragons” because, YUM. Anyone who knows me knows that if there’s a dragon to be killed, I am TOTALLY THERE. That desire for dragonly death held me from TSR’s DragonStrike game, through EverQuest, World of Warcraft and the rest.

Time to get leveling!

Here’s the last puzzle piece, for completeness’ sake:

Related posts:

1. W101: A puzzle piece, wrapped in an enigma, surrounded by a mystery I had to wonder if there were any other puzzle...
2. Wizard101: A Puzzle of a Puzzler I don’t spend a LOT of time in my homes...
3. EQ2: Rise of Kunark Beta? Sign me up! Via Cuppy, the Rise of Kunark Beta application is now...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Helpless!

What I want to know is, if the Spinner of Shadows could “hold person” everyone in the party instantly, with no saving throw, for as long as she wanted, anytime she wanted — how did we win the fight?

Not to say that it wasn’t a fun fight — it was. The whole Web of Chaos arc was a lot of fun, for all that the last adventure turned into an extended advertisement for the expansion, giving some reason for the sudden merger of the world of Eberron and the world of Forgotten Realms.

The Spinner of Shadows adventure was, in particular, pretty fun. The adventure had a raid-like complexity. We split the party in two, with Gleek and Ulan keeping the Spinner busy while Spode and I raced around killing spiders for shards with which to rebuild the Spinner’s prison.

Spoiler alert, we fail, and Lolth is summoned from the Underdark into the plane of Khyber (if I am remembering this right). Well, we succeeded in the adventure, and failed.

With Lolth freed, we were treated to the trailer for the next expansion, and were then ejected back into Stormreach Harbor to report our failure to the Silver Flame guardians who did not welcome our news.

Ophiga

Fact is, I play a drow, and I’m not sure why I would not welcome Lolth into this plane of existence. We spent the entire night killing Drow, and I felt a little uncomfortable about that. Why couldn’t we have killed something that really deserved it, like gnomes?

Sometimes it’s hard playing a good drow. I guess that’s why my fellow drow and driders usually try to kill me when they see me. Still, I struggle on. Far from Vulkoor’s solace, driven from the Underdark.

At least I can meet my ex-drowfriends as a more skillful rogue. While working through the Web of Chaos arc, I reached level 17 at long last. I got a new rank of sneak attack, and Rogue Sneak Attack Training IV. I just need one more point for Rogue Sneak Attack Accuracy Training IV, and then it’s just a hop, skip and jump to level 18 and Assassin III. Then I get two levels where I can choose levels in some complementary class. Since my last lesser reincarnation, I have become a strength-based rogue, which will allow me a little more leeway in choosing other classes. I’m thinking Fighter (for the weapon skills), Ranger (for ranged skills natch) or Bard (because… just because).

The glowy weapons I am wielding in the picture above come from the Web of Chaos arc. I didn’t get all the ones I wanted, but if we run the arc twice more, I’ll be able to select from all the options available, which is rather cool. That’s something just added with the most recent update.

Exciting times. Spode and Gleek have already maxed out their experience. Ulan and I are the laggers-behind, both now at 17. I really do want to get to 20 before we leave for Diablo 3, but levels come so slowly that I am not sure that’s realistic.

I’ve said it many times — I would enjoy DDO more if I didn’t have to spend real money to form a group to play on non-group nights. On the other hand, I like playing a MMO which was intended for group play. It doesn’t make any sense, I know. I guess I could join pickup-groups, but then there’s the fear that I am a terrible player and would enrage the members of any group I joined, since I care little for having the best armor, weapons or enhancements.

Back in EverQuest, the designers had this concept of camps. When you first came to a new dungeon (or even outdoor zone), there would be the “easy” camps for people with lesser equipment, levels, or ability. As you gained confidence, you’d move through the zone to harder camps, and as you gained a reputation, increasingly you’d be asked to come to a camp. That social web thing.

Now it’s all whirlwind speeding through a dungeon with people you will never see again. WoW, EQ2, Rift, DDO — all the same.

I treasure my static group :)

Related posts:

1. DDO: How to gimp your character My first Dungeons and Dragons character, I had no idea...
2. DDO: Baby I’m A-maze-d Last night we were down two people; Ulan had real...
3. DDO: Tripping the Lailat Fantastic We’ve been on the rocks the last couple of weeks,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Whenever I get confused or overwhelmed in Wizard101, I head to Wintertusk and talk with Mother Raven. These mysterious puzzle pieces had me puzzled… I guess… so I headed over the rainbow bridge to the Wintertusk barge, threaded my way through the slow-moving vultures, worked my way up the root of Yggdrasil and asked her if she could fit these puzzle pieces together.

She said nothing. She just gave me another piece. I had a feeling from her that it would all fit together in the end, but … who can tell? Who can know the future?

Only Mother Raven. And she’s not telling.

This puzzle piece looks like it’s below and slightly to the left of the previous puzzle piece. Where that previous piece looked like something that was being held, here we’re seeing, I believe, a little bit of the person that is doing the holding.

One more piece to go!

Related posts:

1. W101: A puzzle piece, wrapped in an enigma, surrounded by a mystery I had to wonder if there were any other puzzle...
2. Wizard101: A Puzzle of a Puzzler I don’t spend a LOT of time in my homes...
3. Weekend Gaming: DDO, W101, EQ, STO In Dungeons & Dragons Online, Kasul and I finished our...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I had to wonder if there were any other puzzle pieces in any of my other character’s homes. To my shock and welcome surprise, Marissa’s wall contained a third mysterious puzzle piece.

It looks to be the right part of some sort of building or statue, which kinda implies it’s on the right side of the puzzle, but not all the way to the edge. The yellow markings could mean Myth or maybe Balance. There’s something poking up from the bottom which could be an axe or a hammer.

Which is it? I have no idea… and I can’t wait to find out!

Related posts:

1. W101: Archaeology students discover lost tomb Journeyman conjurer Tara Mythcrafter, of Myth House, is among those...
2. W101: Drake apologises for lack of new high level content Famed sociopath and brother to the villain Malistaire, Professor Drake...
3. W101: Hallowe’en in Wizard City (and October patch notes) I didn’t intend to spend all night playing Wizard 101,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The First Piece

This piece looks to be a corner piece… those are always the best pieces to start with! Definitely part of the Wizard101 logo; it kinda looks like a piece of the old Celestia art… but it couldn’t be that.

The second piece

This one’s a real mystery. It looks like sand or stone. Part of the right edge. Edge pieces are good, especially if they fit into a corner piece. These two pieces don’t go together. Maybe if I turned the second one around… and used a hammer and some tape… hmmmm….

I’ve heard rumors of other pieces in other places… There’s a mystery here!

Related posts:

1. Wizard101: Ravenwood vs Hogwarts It’s been no real secret that Wizard101′s Ravenwood Academy owes...
2. Off to Virginia, but first, a puzzle: I’m driving to Virginia today to visit my son. So...
3. Wizard101: Pet games coming to an iPhone near you? First there was Wizard101, a MMO unlike any other that...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Related posts:

1. Star Trek Online vs EVE Online, part 1 Thanks to Longasc for the use of his Sovereign class...
2. Adventures in Monopoly: Oracle, Part III — There was too much to cover for one comic,...
3. Star Trek Online vs EVE Online, Part 4 The survivors of the destruction of the USS Alvarado had...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Vorta Heerza Huo

I love MMOs. I love leveling in MMOs. Shepherding a character through her own unique path, growing in power and becoming more awesome — that’s what keeps me in a game. Once I’ve finished with the leveling, more often than not I’m done with the MMO. The max level grind can’t hold me. World of Warcraft, EverQuest, EQII, Rift, Wizard101 — once I hit the top, I was ready to move on.

What’s different about Star Trek Online? The customization, to be sure — you can build nearly any alien ever seen in the Star Trek universe, and mix and match the hundreds of parts to make your own unique creature.

My first character was a regular Andorian, though light-skinned so she might be an Aenar (who live in relationship with ethnic Andorians similar to ethnic Japanese with the Hokkaido Ainu). My second character was a Klingon — but not a modern Klingon. I went old school. I had pictures of the Klingons from the original series as models and went back to the 60s with my Klingon. Sometimes I see other old schoolers around…

My third character, standard Vulcan. She flew the “Star Trek Enterprise” version of the Enterprise, and unlike Enterprise’s T’pol, T’pral wore a uniform. She’s currently on detachment to the Bajoran militia for the duration of the Dominion crisis.

Heerza in happier times

In the center of that crisis is my fourth character, Heerza, a Vorta. Put in charge of a squadron of Alpha Jem’Hadar during the last days of the Dominion War, Heerza led many attacks against entrenched Alliance positions both on ground and in space, until finally crashing on an unexplored Class L planet. Though the ship was damaged beyond repair, Heerza and her surviving Jem’Hadar were able to rig stasis pods and survive until a Federation exploration ship discovered them while on a mapping mission.

Knowing that she faced certain euthanation should she return to the Gamma quadrant (her successor clone would certainly see to that), Heerza elected to stay in the Alpha quadrant, making a living as an adviser on Dominion affairs and staying below the radar, hoping not to attract the attention of her masters.

The return of the 2800 has changed all that forever. Now she must confront the Dominion and stop a war, even if it should cost her her life.

And that’s why I’m still with Star Trek Online, you see. It’s that rare, non-sandbox MMO where I can tell my own story.

Heerza's first ship

Also, seriously? Heerza’s first ship in the game was a refurbished Constitution-class starship, a sister to the Enterprise itself! Just can’t get cooler than that. Well, it would be cooler if Cryptic would let me buy a Dominion ship… Maybe someday.

Related posts:

1. Star Trek Online vs EVE Online, Part 2 In Part 1, the largely Andorian crew of the USS...
2. Star Trek Online vs EVE Online: Part 3 When last we met the crew of the USS Alvarado,...
3. Star Trek Online: Foundry Challenge Longasc and I were playing around on Tribble, Star Trek...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Related posts:

1. Star Trek Online vs EVE Online, part 1 Thanks to Longasc for the use of his Sovereign class...
2. Wizard 101 Comic Contest Isaiah Spelldust of Defenders of the Spiral is having a...
3. Order of the Stick’s tribute to Gary Gygax “Order of the Stick”, the web comic about characters living...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Cardassia is MINE!

Okay, no, this isn’t MY Galor, but that of my good friend Longash. I’m not quite sure on all the details, but I believe he borrowed money from an honest looking Ferengi to get the ship. Anyway, like the holiday Jem’Hadar Bugship, the Cardassian Galor cruiser has a custom bridge, along with some uniquely Dominion design features such as no chairs. Except for the captain.

Bortas and Galor

The slippery thing moves like a FISH. Long got consoles and doff powers and whatnot to give the ship an incredible 21 degrees/second (366 radians/kilosecond metric) turn rate. That’s a tighter radius than most escorts. Combined with unique weapons and all the powers normally reserved for big, massive ships like the Bortas I’m flying here, this is one heck of a ship.

Narad@Heretic, Krontar@Tipa, and Longash on the bridge of the Pandora

Special enough that a dev — Heretic — came by to visit. He was getting a bridge officer trained by Longash. Because (as Heretic pointed out) even devs need their bridge officers trained. Yeah, but how much did he pay for his ship? His Galor is running with a complete Cardassian crew, from captain down to ensign.

Prices for the Galor have fallen from 800 million energy credits to about a tenth that today. Soon everyone who wants one will have one.

I’m still holding out for the bugship.

Related posts:

1. STO: Red Gift Box, v2. Now with more cash needed! At the winter holiday event. Cryptic dangled a Jem’Hadar starship...
2. STO wants to sell you a bridge Actually, STO wants to sell you bridge PACKS. 120 Cryptic...
3. Star Trek Online: Cold Case (spoilers) I’ve just been informed that Episode 5 of the Breen...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

We have been waiting for the new Featured Episode arc for a year. The fleet — Federation News Service, supplier of embedded journalists to Starfleet — was logging in more and more, getting ready to do whatever would be asked of us. Fleet mates were watching the relevant Deep Space 9 episodes. We were totally there.

We even specified uniforms of the day (four variations) so we’d be dressed appropriately. Because while the poor, doomed residents of Deep Space 9 didn’t know what was going to happen — we did.

I shouldn’t say that. I think the current Deep Space 9 commander knew, because he got out alive, leaving his XO to die. But we’ll get to that.

We gathered outside Deep Space 9 — I, Talyn, Azz, Galo, and Kermoon. Well, I shouldn’t say “together”, since we were in three of the many instances outside DS9. And we weren’t ready to start, even though we all had “Start Second Wave” buttons, because you get those whenever anyone has gotten the quest. One of us had gone to the Episodes screen and gotten it, we all had the button, but only one of us was going to get the end rewards. ANYWAY. We all entered the mission — and found ourselves on Deep Space 9.

Well, most of us. Talyn got his own instance.

We were called up to Operations, where the station XO greeted us and apologized for the commander being away, making preparations for the quadrant-wide conference on the Borg invasion. Perhaps if we could go find the delegates and tell them there was some delay…

I was reading (this is sort of parenthetical) recently that Star Trek was a futuristic depiction not of our society, but of Victorian society — tall ships, a love of old books, a complete absence of social technologies — a future where our present had never happened. Not surprising, since the tall ships of the Horatio Hornblower Sail Age stories were an explicit inspiration for Star Trek.

Anyway, the point I’m making here is, why can’t they just use their comm badges to inform everyone of the delay? Or send an ensign? I’m a VICE ADMIRAL. I should be ATTENDING this conference. Which eventually does happen. I’m foreshadowing again.

Well, we could have just chatted with the delegates and continued on the quest, but each delegate also had a task to perform. The Cardassian ambassador wanted some Bajor slave wine from the occupation. The Deferan ambassador wanted to get his freak on in a holosuite. The Andorian ambassador wanted some ship repairs (completed as Duty Officer missions) if you were a Federation captain. If you were a KDF captain, the Klingon ambassador (a Gorn) wants your crew to help with some espionage (again as Duty Officer missions). Many of those missions have sub-missions. Basically, you run around and complete meaningless tasks.

I’m really not sure what the point of those was. With a full group running around, it was hard to keep track of who was doing what to which quest. This portion was clearly better for one or two people — Bryn and I did it over as a duo and it worked well.

Anyway, mini quests done and delegates notified, we took the turbolift to the conference room and took a seat at the table.

The conference started immediately. The Klingon ambassador (who was a Gorn) trumpeted that that Klingon empire was strong and would never accept defeat (the Gorn, remember, are a conquered race. Talk about your textbook Stockholm Syndrome). The Deferans proposed to do nothing and let everyone else help them because that has worked so well with the Breen and the Borg. The Cardassians aren’t big fans of anyone else. The Federation ambassador promises to keep the entire quadrant safe, eventually. They’re really working hard. A solution is just around the corner. Your words may be assimilated by then but help is on the way.

This discussion isn’t going anywhere. The station commander asks for our input. If your diplomacy skill is high enough, you get the decisive arguments and can select them. Otherwise you have to drill down into a conversation tree. Your arguments are either persuasive or miss the mark. I think you get an accolade if you sway all of them to your side.

That’s when the wormhole opens and a Dominion fleet streams through. They quickly strike through DS9′s defenses and beam Jem’Hadar troops into the promenade. The delegates must be brought to safety, by us!

The turbolift drops us onto a promenade in ruins. Jem’Hadar troops are everywhere. Tactical officers can take a gun from a fallen security officer and give it to the Gorn. Engineering officers can unjam a bulkhead and free a security officer. Science officers can heal a security officer. Doing all three gets you an accolade. It’s a running fight down to the ship docks, and we needed both energy and melee weapons to take the Jem’Hadar down. Several Cardassian Lock Boxes dropped, and quite a lot of Ketracel White.

I, as a fabrication engineer, was a little depowered because I could not make most of my devices, like turrets and stuff. Fab engineers are not allowed to make their devices on DS9 because they are considered spammy. Fine, but I felt underpowered on our trip to the docks. I was able to call down some Orbital Bombardments now and then. I don’t know from where, or how it hit without blowing a hole straight through the station, but there you go.

We eventually made it to the docks, cleared the area of enemies and boarded our ships, splitting the delegates between us, apparently.

(I just realized I took no screenshots of the space battle… sigh… well, it was kind of busy).

The space around DS9 was sick with Jem’Hadar fighter ships and boarding parties. The station shuttle fleet was hemmed in. We made short work of those ships — there must have been twenty, easy. But we were up for it.

From the wormhole came a new Dominion battle group — several battleships, a squadron of support ships and heavy escorts, and an enormous Dreadnaught. We were going to need help. Four Federation starships were in the area, dealing with portions of the attacking fleet. We had to go help each of those ships with their battles so they could be free to help repel the battle group, while also opening a path for the refugee shuttles to escape to Bajor.

Just as we finished that, the vanguard of the Dominion battle group reached DS9.

My name is Loriss, and I speak for the trees. Er, Dominion.

Cutscene as a Jem’Hadar beams in to DS9 Operations and kills the XO, leaving the station commander (who escaped on the Defiant) squawking on comm about what was happening. A Vorta woman beams in and announces that she is Loriss, and is claiming Deep Space 9 on behalf of the Dominion.

You can either warp to Bajor at this point, or stay behind and kill the battle group. There doesn’t seem to be any reward for sticking it out. Plot-wise, the battle group made it to the station, after all.

Warping out brings you to Bajor orbit, where you release the delegates to their delegations and receive your reward (if you remembered to get the mission before starting it. I had to go back and do it again.)

Loot is one of two weapons, some Jem’Hadar pistols or a Jem’Hadar rifle. The rifle is part of a set, the set which will clearly be completed by other episodes in this arc. So get that. Do it again for the pistols if you like. The other rewards are consumable weapon power-ups. Presumably future episodes will need these weapons, so look for more ground missions in this arc.

Krontar! Of House Krondor!

Here’s my Klingon captain modeling the rifle. Look at his spindly legs and laugh! Laugh! Ask him about his smooth forehead! See how he cowers in fear! He is no true warrior! Hahaha!

Anyway.

Having now done the episode four times (twice for T’pral, once for Tipa, once for Krontar), I can say it works best with one other person. One person has to run around a lot in the meaningless task portion (which is optional, I have to point out). Two people can do it far more effectively, and are also sufficient to clear the promenade and take on the battle groups outside the station. Five — a full group — is too many for the pre-conference stuff (which should be skipped in a group that size). I guess three captains, one of each specialty, would be best in order to pick up the accolade in the promenade. High diplomacy is helpful, too.

We know the plot going forward; the summaries for all the remaining episodes have been posted. What we don’t know is — are any of the episodes going to require a full group? Previous feature episodes — the Breen arc, especially — have taken great advantage of full groups. Some, the Devidian Arc, have been balanced between the two.

I would really like to know ahead of time what sort of group we should be bringing to these things. Knowing what I know now, with our full group today, I’d have skipped the subquests, but we really had no idea if they were important to the plot or eventual reward in some way. I’m still not sure.

But whatever. I do know now, and now so do you.

See you next week!

This has been T’pral Zarek reporting for the Federation News Service.

Related posts:

1. Star Trek Online: The 2800 Return this weekend Who are “the 2800″? They are the 2,800 ships in...
2. The Episode of the Beast Yesterday was June 6th, 2006 – 6/6/6 – and naturally,...
3. Daily Blogroll 5/28 — No funny name episode I’ve been staying away from talking about Darkfall and Free...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.