October 2003 - Dragonchasers

Ultima X: Odyssey

Posted on October 24, 2003 by Nimgimli

Back when Ultima Online first came out, I got absolutely lost in the game. For 6 months or so, real life all but ceased to exist for me. How I didn’t get fired from my job, or dumped by my girlfriend, I still don’t know. I was blissfully, gleefully addicted.

So now, six years later, Origins is getting Ultima X: Odyssey ready for launch in (as of now) Winter 2004. This is a much different game: it uses the Unreal engine (and so is 3D rather than the top down ‘pseudo-3D of UO), and claims to have fast paced combat. No crafting or housing, at least on release. How could I not put such a game on my watchlist!?

I’m intensely curious about the combat. I mean, are we talking Diablo? Or just lots of styles, spells and special attacks? Time will tell, I suppose.

Anyway, here’s some linkage about the game:
Gamespy Preview from August 24th.
Homelan Preview from August 24th.
IGN Preview from August 25th.
Gamespy Dev Diary from Oct 22nd.
Homelan Interview from Oct 22nd.

Put on your tin-foil hats!

Posted on October 24, 2003 by Nimgimli

A co-worker is…let me say “enthusiastic” about weather and she sends out a weekend weather report every Friday. Today’s held this snippet of info:

In other news, a strong geomagnetic storm is expected to hit planet Earth today, “with the potential to affect electrical grids and satellite communications,” Associated Press reports. “One of the largest sunspot clusters in years developed over the past three days and produced a coronal mass ejection, similar to a solar flare, at 3 a.m. EDT Wednesday, forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. The disturbance was expected to produce a geomagnetic storm rated G3. A G5 storm is the strongest.”

“In area, [the sunspot cluster] is 10 times larger than the surface of the Earth,” BBC notes.

A magazine for me!

Posted on October 24, 2003 by Nimgimli

Gamespy’s Fargo has proposed some ways to prop up the flagging print gaming magazine industry. And in doing so, he’s come up with an idea for a magazine targetted directly at me! “Bitter Gamer.” 🙂

Fargo’s sense of humor runs hot and cold (IMO, of course) but this time he’s cranked out a winner.

Devil Whiskey

Posted on October 14, 2003 by Nimgimli

Devil Whiskey is an old school RPG, complete with a window into the 3D world and lots of text. 🙂 There’s a demo available, and they’re pushing for an Oct. 31st release date. I d/led the demo but haven’t had a chance to try it out yet.

Fileplanet says:
In the spirit of classic RPG’s like Wizardry and Bard’s Tale comes Devil Whiskey, a graphical and text based RPG with nine races, 3D environment window, stats, monsters, adventure, and more stats!
If you’d like to use FP’s high speed servers to download the demo, here’s the link.

PS2 price drop?

Posted on October 13, 2003 by Nimgimli

IGN has an article speculating on a PS2 price drop to $99. My PS2 is a little wonky, but I’ve been waiting for the rumored “rev 2” with Progressive Scan DVD abilities before replacing it. $99 is hard to believe (as the article states) but we’ll see!

Thanks to http://games.slashdot.org/ for calling my attention to this article!

MMRPG Primer

Posted on October 10, 2003 by Nimgimli

Gamespy is running an ongoing series on Massively Multiplayer RPGs.. If you’re already an afficionado of these games, you won’t find a lot of new material (though its still an entertaining enough read) but if you’re wondering what this genre is all about, this series is a good place to get started learning about where MMRPG’s came from, and what to expect from them today, and perhaps in the future.

Robot Competition. Win $1,000,000!

Posted on October 10, 2003 by Nimgimli

The New York Times has an interesting article (free registration required) on DARPA’s Grand Challenge. This is a contest to build a vehicle that can autonomously traverse 200 miles of desert at an average speed of 20 mph. No pilot or remote control. The grand price is $1,000,000 US.

I’m wondering if my Lego Mindstorms qualify…

Back in business?

Posted on October 10, 2003 by Nimgimli

So for the past few weeks I’ve been saying to myself “I gotta get the blog going again. I need to write up Middlesex and Final Fantasy Tactics and Lord of the Isles and .. etc etc.” And then it feels like I’m too far behind and I’ll never catch up, so I just say “Ah, I’ll do it later.” and never get any farther.

So as of today, I’m going to just let the past float away and start back in with the here and now. Maybe I’ll find time to back fill a bit, but if not…better to get started than to not blog at all.