Before I get started, I just want you all to know that I don’t have to do this. No, really. I’m about to be rich. VERY rich. I just got a VERY intriguing email….

i have a secured business proposal for you in the turn of US$85,000,000,00 and we shall share in the ratio of 60% for me and 40% for you. Should you be interested, contact me back.

I know this is on the up-and-up because it is written so horribly, and EVERYONE knows that the super-rich have no need to learn to read or write. But my mysterious benefactor had better invert that ratio. I’m holding out for 60%.

I’m happy to announce that the boys of Adventures in Monopoly are back, tanned and rested and ready to work, and they are bringing the Daily Blogroll back with them starting next month. I got burned out on MMOs for awhile….

This long holiday weekend was filled with lots of gaming goodness!

I don’t really want to burn out on Star Trek Online during its open beta. I want it to be fresh so I can enjoy my two characters when the game goes live. Here, @Longasc helps me take out an Undine who has been manipulating the Klingon Empire and the Federation into armed conflict all throughout the galaxy. after, we helped in the defense of Starbase 24. He had to go after that, but I continued on in an open group for Stop the Signal that ends up being yet ANOTHER Undine plot. I wonder if the Undine are going to be the big baddies of whatever raid content STO has?

Regardless, my sole goal in STO during beta is to explore the Klingon faction. My Starfleet ship is hanging, dead and abandoned, in space somewhere. But I know precisely where my Klingon Bird of Prey is.

It’s grounded on Qo’nos. See, the Klingons are all about the PvP. It’s not always against the Federation; Klingons are perfectly happy to make war among themselves. However, out of all the missions I could find, only one of them required leaving Qo’nos — and that was to explore a nebula where NPC Federation ships were milling about. I could barely (at the time) touch those. I tried to fly to Federation space, but was blocked.

In the end, I just returned to Qo’nos and queued up for every PvP mission I could find. On the space ones, I’d be in my space ship. On the ground ones, I’d be lugging around my disruptor cannon. And after, I’d be right back in Qo’nos.

Once I get level 11 and my ship upgrade, maybe I’ll try that nebula again. Otherwise, the PvP aspect of the Klingon faction seems very much like queuing for battlegrounds in WoW (and with EQ2, come the expansion). You just sit in the city and queue for stuff.

I very much hope Cryptic is working on fleshing out the Klingon side of things somewhat. PvP is fun and all, but there’s no CONTEXT. Don’t the Klingons care how the Undines are manipulating them?

I’m still rather undecided about the Star Trek Online business plan. Only two character slots? For a subscription game? People screamed bloody murder when EQ2 shipped with only FOUR (and it was forced to add more). On the other hand, Final Fantasy XI Online only had ONE — every other added a dollar to your monthly subscription fee. It’s clear Cryptic will be pushing the STO store as heavily as any Free to Play game does.

Why not just bite the bullet and GO free to play? I don’t know many people who wouldn’t find a spot for STO on their hard drive if it were F2P. Mark my words, in a year STO will be doing well, and it will be F2P.

Here’s another prediction: When WoW’s next expansion launches, Horde and Alliance will be able to speak to each other, group and so on. The Cataclysm will erase all the old feuds as they come together to save Azeroth itself. Crazy? Maybe. But I have been using the LFD tool to find dungeons both for my (relatively) high level characters (level 60 and 61), and for my lower level characters. And I just can’t tell the difference between them. I took my 25 Horde Tauren druid through Stormwind Stockade and Gnomeregan, and it was exactly like any Alliance group. All blood elves except one undead and a cow (me). Pally tank. Way back when, Horde groups would have orcs and trolls in them. Now, Horde is just a pale reflection of the Alliance. GJ, Alliance. You won by being more photogenic.

Sirhyl/Niiko and Noffin/Severan each made Death Knights on my server (Kirin Tor) to say hello and to prove that DKs weren’t all confused. We did a bunch of instances with me healing, and they went pretty well. We even did Hellfire Ramparts and, aside from not knowing how to get back to the instance after a wipe, we did okay.

I made level 58 (finally!) with my rogue and went immediately to the Outlands. I did a lot of the quests, got several nice upgrades, looked at my shiny new GearScore in the mirror and queued up for another dungeon. What, Dire Maul AGAIN? AGH.

Back to the Outlands. More quests. FINALLY, LEVEL 60! That gave me enough points in the Combat tree to get Killing Spree, where you jump from mob to mob, giving each one stabs of love to their waiting backs. It’s yummy. I got into a Hellfire Ramparts group, this time as a stabbity stabber, and parsed #1 on two of the bosses. I was very happy and I won a belt with space for two red gems.

Afterward I returned to the Plaguelands to continue work on my Scholomance key. With Killing Spree and my new Outlands gear, those undead looked really confused as they dropped meatily to the ground.

Thanks for all the advice on uberfying my rogue :) She is VERY fun now!

Sirhyl was getting a hankering to try EverQuest 2 again and asked if I wanted to Recruit a Friend him and come along for the fun. Sounded fantastic to me! I had a level 14 Fae berserker that I hadn’t done much with since I sneaked her into the Labs once a few years back. Sirhyl made an Inquisitor, and we headed to Timorous Deep to see how things were going.

With the mentoring bonus, the 200% recruit a friend bonus and the 40% holiday weekend bonus, it didn’t take long for Sirhyl to catch up and rocket past my level 14. At the end of the run, I was level 31 and he was level 30, and we finally finished a long, LONG haul in Splitpaw, getting the glowing azure shard that lets us return there anytime. Now we can do the instances.

The Arena and even the Trials of Harclave were kinda tough at 30 when you’re dressed in level 12 armor and weapons, by the way. It was a lot of fun when we were able to do the final instance together.

My Hobbesian cleric and the rest of the Sunday night crew met in Dungeons & Dragons Online again to do all the instances over once more in Hard and Elite. We all wanted to go to Stormreach, but none of us wanted to head over before we’d wrung all the loot favor points adventure we could from Korsha Island.

The henchmen hirelings were a huge help. Each of us brought one along on the elite missions, and we all figured out how to get hirelings to rez and rest at shrines, and all of us had fun being dead. Those adventures are NOT EASY.

There was a bit of fun, though, when a group of mobs knocked me unconscious. They would considerately stand around me while I would bleed away closer to death, then miraculously start struggling back to health, heal to 1 hit point, stand up, get knocked down, bleed, start healing, stand up, etc. This went on three times before they finally just up and killed me, all while the rest of the group was trying to fight their way back to me.

At the end, some of us had enough points to buy the Son-To-Kor expansion (whatever the correct name), but I didn’t. I hope to earn enough doing normal-level missions in Stormreach. I was considering buying the Drow race and restarting as a less grim-looking cleric, but she’s level 3 and I don’t feel like leveling all that up again. I’ll just have to make do with her looks. I SWEAR there’s more than a little orc in her.

I got some EVE time in there, too! But more on that later.

Have a great day!

Earth Eternal’s Sylvan have to put up with this every day….

First off, responding to parental concerns that their children would be gambling away their RMT currency for minimal rewards, KingsIsle has announced that the “wishing well” cash slot machine will NOT be making it out of test. Thanks to Fallon of Diary of a Wizard for the scoop!

Kaozz of EC Tunnel has compiled a list of a lot of Octember All Hallow’s Eve events for all the major MMOs — including Maple Story, big props for including even the MMOs that are way more popular than WoW — so there’s your to-do list for fall fun.

Gordon of We Fly Spitfires is so excited by Quake Live that he wonders — why can’t “EverQuest Next” be more like “Quake Live” — fully in the browser, zero downloading, etc? And also, more pewpewpew…

Well, maybe, but if you read between the lines, it’s almost certain that EverQuest Next will be a PS3/PSP release. A browser-based EQ would compete with Free Realms, and they’ve learned the lesson about competing with themselves….

Dalayan Diary’s Ramon writes about using the Shards of Dalaya web-based item marketplace to buy some new swords for his happy haffer. Web-based marketplace? Yes, please! Talk about bringing some pretty meaty gameplay to the web.

Scopique has an epiphany and realizes that most recent high-profile MMO releases are essentially identical. I commented on his post and will repeat it here — DON’T support MMO clones. If you want WoW’s gameplay, PLAY WOW. If you want something different, PLAY A GAME THAT DOES SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

Is fighting other players too scary? That’s okay, Darkfall is adding boars, wolves, bears, lynxes and annoying little birds that follow you around adding into fights and just wasting your time to make quest grinding even more tedious. Oops, sorry. LotRO flashback.

Budding stalkerazzi have a friend in Luna Online — now you can choose from a list of matches randomly chosen by the game based on your player profile and go to a special, two-person instance for the purposes of LURV. And you can have some hot coffee afterward!

And finally, Syp really, really wants you to stay away from hit-indie MMO, Fallen Earth. Seriously. Your 80 Night Elf Hunter misses you. Nothing in Fallen Earth for you.

I’ve been playing a bit of Earth Eternal since it went into open-closed beta yesterday. Since I think we’re still unable to actually show the game, here’s a picture of the upcoming stop motion/cgi film, Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Now, I don’t KNOW that Sparkplay’s gonna close down to go to the premiere, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Should kids gamble on the Internet? Evil Theurgists wonders why KingsIsle is encouraging kids to blow their parent’s moolah spinning the virtual wheels of Wizard101’s new slot machine — where you spend 15 (and up) Crowns to win the usual prize of 20 gold. You get 15 twirls a day and the rewards are minuscule so… let’s hope this is one feature that doesn’t make it out of testing.

How long must you play an MMO before you can honestly review it? Tobold thinks 5000 hours should be just about enough to give World of Warcraft a good looking-at. His conclusion? It just might stick around awhile.

Come back in 2014 for Tobold’s take on Champions Online and Fallen Earth :)

And in a similar vein, Anton is wondering if anyone has heard about this new game, “Aion”. Any good?

Dear Anton: Flavor of the month. In a year, they’ll all be playing WoW: Cataclysm and Aion will just be a footnote. Bank on it. Nobody leaves WoW alive.

Think higher level players should (at the very least) be able to speak English well (if on an English server)? Spinks thinks players should have to apply for more powerful characters as they level. And why not? MMOs these days are MUCH more like jobs than games, right?

Now that Cryptic has launched Champions Online to great acclaim, Syp hopes the lessons learned from the Champions launch can ease the way for their next MMO, Star Trek Online. Most importantly, when players complain of the smoke, their might possibly be a fire.

I have to confess to being a total STO newb. Assuming Star Trek Online doesn’t limit ship names to sailing ships of the 17th and 18th centuries, I’ll be captaining the science vessel “Newton” on an archaeological mission to learn more of the Progenitors, the ancient forebears of most humanoid races in the galaxy. Oh, not named after the famed scientist, ISAAC Newton. No, named after the suburb of Boston. Always loved that place.

MMO commentator Petter has a single word for those who buy gold: asshat. It’s going on your permanent record.

Well, I guess that’s enough for this morning. Too much Earth Eternal, not enough writing! I leave you with Dr. Horrible’s Neil Patrick Harris as he sings Batman to death…

Awwww, over-protective mommy ship takes cute baby alt-ship out for the first time! Yes, I’ve joined the ranks of EVE pilots with two accounts; the lure of EVE’s Power of 2 promotion and the savings in time by having a second account for salvaging, hauling, and extra drones was just too much to ignore.

If you think THAT picture is just too twee, check THIS one out.

So there you have it. Another alt is born.

—

Hey, Aion’s out? Already? Wow, how’s it doing? Gold sellers everywhere? Let’s get some economics going. You are spending real money, that you earned, that could go for food or rent or gas on … nothing. NCsoft can always make more gold. They make it by the infinities every day. A resource that has an infinite supply that costs the producer absolutely nothing to produce has NO WORTH. So when you buy gold, you might as well be handing out dollar bills on the street. Anyway, Rer of (Insert Awesome Aion Name) says it a little better. Not only are you pissing away wealth on nothing, you’re ruining the game for everyone else.

Way to go, uber dude.

Stropp has some good ideas to combat gold spam. Simple economics, though, suggest the only real way to combat gold spam is to make NCsoft’s cost to produce more gold non-zero. To, like, make them adhere to the gold standard… So to speak. What if NCsoft had to give a dollar to charity for every thousand gold kinah they added to Aion?

Are you a MMO connoisseur who only plays the BEST, TRIPLE-A titles, like WoW and, um, WoW? Because the other SUB-AAA titles aren’t as good, so you’d be wasting your time on games like Maple Story, Wizard101, Chronicles of Spellborn, et al? Beau Turkey politely asks that you re-think what AAA means with regard to MMOs. Just because it’s a major studio sitting around in executive money chairs doesn’t mean they are the only ones who can make a fun, quality, game.

Gordon of We Fly Spitfires asks how it came to be that raiding is the end-game for MMOs? Why not something else — ANYTHING else? Well, Gordon, it all began with a little game called EverQuest. The EQ devs set their level cap so impossibly high that they never expected many people to ever reach it in the year and a half that they expected the game to run. They had a couple of dragons in the game as impossible challenges. But lots of people DID hit 50, and they found that if they got a hundred of their closest friends together and keep rushing at the dragons that they could eventually kill these beasts. So why is there raiding? Because MMO players INVENTED it. Since then, MMO devs have just been giving players what they ASKED for.

Maybe we should all get together and ask for something else?

If you’ve been stuck on Chaos MUD’s Wolfe Island for the last decade, the zone’s creator has come forth with a walkthrough, so you can finally move on with your life, maybe take a crack at the Telescope Room in Myst :) Seriously, I love reading the stories from the old MUD communities that more than anything else, set the stage for our MMO hobby.

Krystalle at Massively has been playing around in the Eskil Steenberg’s Love MMO’s paid alpha. You’ll remember Love as the game based on procedurally generated content — a world generated by algorithms as opposed to the more usual method of having artists and level developers plan them out. This makes it possible for a single developer to to make an entire world (and is how big-world MMOs like Dawn and Dark&Light intended to make worlds too large to ever be explored). Full featured MMO or glorified tech demo? Check out the videos, or play the game and decide for yourself.

Pete of Dragonchasers has been waxing rhapsodic about Bioware’s forthcoming Dragon Age for awhile, and why not? Looks like a great game, but I personally find it boring to play video games by myself these days. Just having people around makes it more special. Doesn’t mean I won’t play it, though.

Pro tip: Use phrases like “waxing rhapsodic” to confuse your non-English-as-a-first-language friends. It’s fun!

Syp never understood the appeal of sandbox MMOs like EVE Online and Star Wars: Galaxies before, but since he’s been playing Fallen Earth, he’s become a convert. So, I assume we’ll be seeing you in highsec pretty soon? :)

Ramon of Dalayan Diary LIKES grouping in Shards of Dalaya, but dislikes HAVING to group in order to see all the best stuff. Yup. It’s nice to have the choice — but given a choice, people always choose the easiest path. The only way to have a game with a really quality group experience is to make that the best and most obvious choice, alas.

And lastly, the Ultimate Beer Run: