April 2011 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Trion Fighting Spam

April 30, 2011April 29, 2011 by Belghast

Sitting on my server last night. I got this server message.

The image says it all. I have seen more work to fight gold sellers and spammers from this company than I have ever seen from another. It is unlike me to post something short and quick like this, but seriously they need credit for this. Now I am not sure if it was 500 accounts total or 500 from our server, but either way it is pretty cool.

All the work they have put into the chat spam filter, and mail spam filters are much appreciated. Keep up the great work guys.

Minecraft Update: Royal Quarters

April 29, 2011 by Belghast

I have been trying to decide what to write today. I have this post a brewing in my head regarding the moment I have pinned down that WoW ceased to be fun and became a job. Problem is, I feel it is far too introspective to end the week on. Instead I figured I would update on the progress of Belgarde in Minecraft.

This week I was happy to get back on the House Stalwart Minecraft server again. With the 1.5 patch, it broke Craftbukkit that we use to maintain our server. The number of bugs in 1.5 lead the Bukkit team to hold off updating for a bit, so we were forced to either downgrade to 1.4 or just simply stay disconnected. Personally I had other things going on so I didn’t go through the downgrade process.

The Farms Are Safe

Last time I posted about Minecraft, I said I was working on a sheltered farmland area. This has been completed and here are a few screenshots above of the area. These show the fields, 2 farm houses, condos, and the completely sheltered docks. The area is free of monster spawns and adds to the large safe zone that is contained in Belgarde city area.

Next project: Royal Quarters

In keeping with the flow of topics today, I will be highlighting Belgarde’s Royalty. Currently the dockside castle area includes a throne room, but no real living quarters. It was my intention to build these extending below the waterline in the earth. This was one of the features I started to flesh out and then never went back for. So currently being out of pressing projects, I decided to start building this area out. The above image shows the portion of the castle that extends out into the water.

There is an access shaft that leads down to the royal quarters, which is several floors below ground. The idea is, that keeping the quarters underground, would keep them safe from attack. The above image is the central nexus that breaks out into separate hallways. Included here are a number of chambers that have yet to be decorated, as well as an audience chamber with throne. My thought is this is where the majority of private business would be conducted for the city of Belgarde.

One floor below the royal quarters is the servant quarters. If the royals live below ground, so would all of the servants that take care of the castle. The idea in them being a floor below is that so visitors would never see them. Below here I have fleshed out 12 dorm rooms, a large kitchen with a small dining room, and a workroom. My plan is to continue downwards and build out additional levels. The current idea is to build out a storeroom directly below the servants quarters. Following the storeroom would be a prison to hold any criminals that have not been deemed as combatants in the arena. Below that would be the royal vault, with all manner of traps along the way.

Minecraft Song

Just because I can, I am embedding the Minecraft Song by Bobby Yarsulik. I seriously love this song, I am not sure why but to me it really fits this game. He has gone on to create many other minecraft themed songs. You can find him on facebook, or on twitter @byarsulik. Personally I think Notch should license this song for the menu in game. If you love the song too, you can pick up all his minecraft themed music over on itunes.

100th Post

So I just noticed that this is post number 100 for me. It doesn’t really feel like I have done that many, but according to WordPress I have. Just adding this in as an unimportant footnote.

On Recapturing the Magic

April 28, 2011 by Ariad

or “I’m New Here So I’m Going To Start By Disagreeing With Bel”

Bel’s post below, "Warcraft Broke Me" got me thinking. I’ve been in largely the same boat he is, having finally stopped playing World of Warcraft without getting heavily into any other MMOs. You should read the post, it’s a good one, but as a quick recap he’s rediscovering the joys of not being tied to a game and, as he’s put it to me a few times, is "living an actual life again".

I’m doing the same thing. In the last month I’ve started working out again, picked up painting, get out and hang out with my friends a lot more often, and largely don’t really see a massive lack in my MMO schedule. When I play (Rift, currently), I play because I want to and I have fun, and when I’m through having fun I stop and do something else. It’s probably terribly inconvenient for the hardcore in the group, but I actually legitimately enjoy every moment I spend in game, which is something of a surprising new feeling.

For me, though, it doesn’t feel like a whole new paradigm, or a huge shift in the way I play games from here on out. I remember the feeling when I left Everquest, and how I played a few games hyper-casually (and even not so casually), but without the devotion of scheduled playtime and other things. I played a handful of other games before sinking into Star Wars Galaxies and dropping down that rabbit hole… despite the feeling I had at the time that I would never get into a game as heavily as I had Everquest.

The Pendulum

It all feels like a pendulum to me. Back and forth, with one end being a total disconnect from MMO-playing and the other end being the depths of hardcore, scheduled raid leadership. It hovers at the edges of the swing, but it still feels like it’s swinging, and when I don’t expect it, it’ll come hurtling the other way and while I look around now at my "freedom", I’ll play something, blink, and then realize it’s three months later and I’m leading or helping lead a raid group.

I think the only time things have ever really not worked out has been when I’ve tried to push the pendulum one way or the other before it’s good and ready. I tried to force myself to drop out of the raiding scene in WoW at once point, stop playing the game entirely and concentrate on some important stuff (like getting a job), and while I had the discipline to stay away until I’d accomplished what I needed to, it was less than a week after that I’d come back to the game, voraciously seeking what I’d tried to be rid of. I’ve started MMOs with the plan of having a solid group, planning on hitting max level and grouping together and even raiding, and it always seems to fall apart. It feel s forced, like I’m stopping the pendulum mid-swing and trying to make it reverse.

The Priority

I’m almost certain I’ll end up back in the hardcore scene at some point in the future, sticking to a solid schedule, showing up on time (or early!), making sure everything is in order and accepting no distractions, going through all of the trouble of recruiting, helping people improve, and dealing with drama and the other issues that come up. When that happens, it’ll almost certainly be fun, and I’ll have no idea what will trigger it. It might be tomorrow, it might be years from now. At the time I went from being an egregiously casual WoW player to a hardcore raider, I would have told anyone who asked that that switch was the least likely thing that could possibly happen, but there it went.

Right now, my priority is having fun. The pendulum swings, and I have fun. Best I can ask for, yeah?

Bonus Stage: Changes

April 28, 2011 by Belghast

There have been various sundry changes in and involving the Tales of the Aggronaut site over the last few days/weeks. Most of these have been fairly subtle and in the background, and have just been snuck in here and there by me. However, with one of these changes being pretty significant, I figured today would be a good day to do one of my “Bonus Stage” posts and catch everyone up.

Chibi Bahmi Bel

This one has been in the works for a long time, since starting to play Rift. One of the hallmarks of my website was the adorable Chibi version of ZA geared Belghast. It was given to me by a good friend of mine Audrae, who if you follow the link has a special nack for Chibis.

For the Bahmi Belghast, she went off in a new direction for her. She created it entirely in Adobe Illustrator using meshes for shading and such. I really like the results and it gives a completely different feel to it than the original had.

As attached as I am to the new Chibi, I just could not bring myself to remove the original Zul’Aman Belghast from the banner. So now you have a composite banner that includes both chibi’s back to back. I think it works, but I am biased. One thing is certain, the new Chibi looks amazing.

Website Facelift

Over the weeks since leaving WoW I have been making a series of tweaks to “unbrand” the website from being a purely WoW based one. While doing these tweaks I have tried to give it a more “Rift” feel without making it a blatantly recognizable Rift-Only website. I am not sure if I accomplished this, but I am overall fond of the tweaks.

One of the newest features is the blogroll. In the past my blogroll was always out of date with what I was actually reading on a regular basis. It was a pain to log into the dashboard and add and remove links, so it was something I did on a very irregular basis. This lead me to start searching for an easier way to let my readers see exactly what I was reading.

Thanks to some helpful information from the interwebs… I have updated the website to pull in my actual Google Reader information. Now you can see exactly what I am subscribing to and reading on a daily basis. Currently the Blog Roll is divided into three categories: Rift Leaning Blogs, WoW Leaning Blogs, and General Gaming / Geek Stuff. Of note, the last category is where I keep very obviously multi-game blogs like Spinksville or Kill Ten Rats for example.

Official Rift Fansite

You might have noticed, that I have added a logo to the bottom of the sidebar along with the Twisted Nether Blogcast ones. I was contacted by Trion and told that they were going to add me to the Rift official fansites list. I halfway expected a WoW Insider style bump, but overall there has been a slow trickle of people arriving at the blog from the list. I am guessing that the majority of Rift players simply do not know about that page.

I think it is pretty cool that the Rift community support staff has been reaching out to various websites. They definitely seem more aware of the gamer community and are making more gestures to support it than I have ever seen from another game company. I am not exactly a major blog, so the fact that they have chosen to add me shows me that they are actually out in the trenches reading what the community has to say.

Gameography

I blatantly stole this concept from the blog “We Fly Spitfires”. Over the last week a new link has appeared at the top of the blog, to my very own version of a Gameography page. This was a fun little exercise as I tried to remember all of the various MMO games I have played, characters, and approximate levels. I limited myself to only listing games that I have subscribed past the first month.

In addition to games played, I created a list of all the various Alphas and Betas I have participated in. After awhile this began to feel almost like a gaming resume. I honestly didn’t realize it had been so many different Betas until I listed them out. I knew that I had been in plenty, I am always looking for the ability to try new games as they are being developed.

Ariad The Gamer

I updated my about page, to rework it and add a significant change to this blog. Always in the past this has been solely my work, for better or worse. However I was approached by a friend of mine, who wanted to start submitting articles. I’ve know Ariad for going on seven years now, and had many a long winded discussion about gaming theory and application. I am constantly amazed by his breadth of knowledge.

This is a significant paradigm shift in my blog. No longer is Aggronaut, my personal vent platform. Now we have actual contributors. In the past we have had guest posts, but never a full contributor. I am not sure if we will be adding any more, but I think this is certainly going to be a boon for my readers.

I can’t promise that Ariad and I will always see eye to eye on issues, but I can promise that everything he posts will be as well thought as his comments always have been. I hope you will all welcome him with open arms. His first post should be arriving shortly. I know I personally am looking forward to it with great anticipation.