Ark's Ark

Dragon Age Patch 1.01a released

Arkenor — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:22:10 +0000

Aye indeed. I’ve picked up Dragon Age: Origins, and am hoping to do a spot of modding for it if it turns out to be within my abilities. I never really got into Oblivion, but I greatly enjoyed the Morrowind and Baldur’s Gate 2 modding scenes. Bioware have just set loose their first post-release bug fix, [...]

DDO: Grazing Hits, or why even small amounts of DR matter a lot.

Arkenor — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:15:16 +0000

DDO, for the most part, follows D&D’s paper rules quite closely, but there are a few glaring exceptions that can catch folks out. Such is the case of grazing hits. Grazing hits occur when you have not managed to roll high enough to beat your opponents AC, but have still rolled fairly high. Players do grazing [...]

Richard Heene – The Singing (Science) Detective

Arkenor — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:49:34 +0000

When not pretending to send his children off in UFO-shaped balloons or having his trousers dry-cleaned, Richard Heene likes to write theme songs for his science adventures. This one is getting slated across the internet, but I find it rather catchy. Tune into the show that’s really effective: Watch Richard Heene…. Science Detective! Unfortunately for [...]

Profits and Prophecies: DDO and EQ2, and their money-making schemes.

Arkenor — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:25:57 +0000

By all accounts Free to Play (F2P) Dungeons and Dragons Online has been a roaring success. In my own investigations I have found multiple packed low level instances filled to the brim with folks asking foolish newbie questions. Counter-intuitively, DDO subscriptions are up 40%, presumably because the F2P model allowed players enough time and content [...]

Avast! Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Arkenor — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:28:40 +0000

Yarr! In honour o’ this day, here be one o’ me favourite nautical songs. Broadside Electric, wi’ “The Royal Oak”.

Champions Online Early Access Begins

Arkenor — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:38:20 +0000

Wheee! Still struggling with the character creator, I’ve had another try at Spelling Bee. Mostly working on his body shape, to make him somewhat less hideous to the eye, and fiddling with his haircut, I finally came up with something reasonably decent to be getting on with. There was something about his face though. It was [...]

The Mighty Spelling Bee: Champions Online

Arkenor — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:42:27 +0000

I’m gearing up for the Champions Online Early Access on Friday. The Beta server is still open, and so I’m beavering away at trying to convert my old City of Heroes characters. Spelling Bee in City of Heroes. Spelling Bee in Champions Online. I have a little work to do before I fully recapture his beelike majesty. OK, [...]

MEP Daniel Hannan is not the only Tory politician who wants to destroy the NHS. Meet MP Peter Bone.

Arkenor — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 23:59:28 +0000

Daniel Hannan was of course the first chap to get me riled up about this, but now I’ve been looking about, in spite of David Cameron’s protestations, turns out there are a whole lot of Conservatives who have it in for the NHS. We have a centralised health service that is run by the Government from Whitehall. [...]

Captain Kirk is climbing a mountain. Why is he climbing a mountain?

Arkenor — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:50:08 +0000

Well, I suppose he answered that question, but it raises a few others! Captain Kirk, the primary erosion threat to the mountains of the future.

MEP Daniel Hannan lies about the UK on US Television for money.

Arkenor — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 04:42:45 +0000

While socialised medicine is considered with great mistrust in the US, here in the UK, no political party would dare to suggest that the dear old NHS should be replaced. Unless, of course, they didn’t think anyone from Britain would notice. In this clip, UK Conservative, MEP Daniel Hannan, holds court with the crown prince of [...]

Warhammer Online Test Patch 1.3.0b : Massive AOE changes.

Arkenor — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:54:10 +0000

Massive changes to how AOE is treated in Warhammer Online hit the test server today. Across the board it is being reduced in range and damage, with great consequence for many classes. As an Engineer, I’m a bit concerned, but on the other hand I’ll probably stay alive a fair bit better, so until I [...]

Warhammer Online’s Welcome Back Quests

Arkenor — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:39:02 +0000

As I mentioned in the post declaring my glorious return to the Warhammer battlefield, players coming back under the returning players scheme have access to some extra quests. So far as I can tell, on the Order side we have three such quests, and I assume Destruction has analogues. Welcome Back: Secrets of Battle This quest starts with [...]