Always Go Right

Always Go Right is a new project that I am working on. It is the endeavor of four geeks on a common quest; Aggro Me, Bandit, Anski, and myself.

We will be sharing the geekier side of things we come across in our lives, be it online, out in the real world, or elsewhere. Together, we are adventurers working towards a common goal; we are on a journey to reclaim our Geekhood.

We hope that you will join us in our quest. We want people to share their stories, ideas and adventures in order to get in touch with all that defines our geek culture.

Where do we go now?

Hello again.

It's been a while, no? Truth be told, I am at fault for not updating this site when I started my Tumblog this year, and for that I am sorry. I'd like to invite you to head over there if you are interested in checking out the cool and crazy things I come across on the vast internet time suck.

The Tumblog is also named 'i am karnatos', sharing the same branding as here for cohesiveness (actually, it is more likely due to laziness). Just know that the format is completely different... but I don't think that matters anymore, I don't update this place like I used to.

If you were wondering, I consider this place on indefinite hiatus. If I do ever come back to it, I'll make mention where I am posting the most at the time.

You'll also notice that the top-most post talks about my most recent project, Always Go Right... if you really want to see what I am up to these days, that is truly the spot to check out. I hope to see you there!

Level 70 and Dead PC

I am writing this post from my rebuilt box. Okay, it is not completely rebuilt, but I did have to buy a new hard drive and re-install the world (still in progress as I type)... this really irks me, but this is why we are told over and over to perform backups.

My main drive died Friday night. Luck would have it that I FINALLY ding'd 70 with Mylene in EQII Thursday night (I'm just noticing it has been a very long time since I posted... yikes!). I wanted to play Friday night, but my machine just went ker-plunk. After me digging and kicking at my PC I narrowed it down to it being my primary hard drive. Soooo, to make a long story short I hope to be back up and running tomorrow night (gah! EQII's patcher just crashed on me!).

And The Winner Is...

... "Zombie Freakshow!"

Zombie Freakshow won another costume contest in City of Villain’s Liberty server this past weekend. I never thought of this character as being a well-designed character, but twice now I've come away winning a grand sum of cash based on her costume's design; first I won 100K, and this past weekend I won 300K.

I really like the ideas of in-game contests being run by the players rather than the game's Administrators... and I'm not saying this because I've won twice in 2 weeks. I really enjoy the idea of people creating extra curricular activities in-game, it really adds to the game's apppeal.

To me it is a type of 'player-created content', something I really enjoy talking about. It reminds me of an article I read in PC Gamer's magazine about players in Star Wars Galaxies and Guild Wars creating professions that were outside of the ones provided by the game. The example I remember from SWG, as I sit here and type, is the one of taxi cab drivers; people were selling time in their land speeders to get across Tatooine faster. In Guild wars people were taking payment as escorts to lower-level players seeking safe passage through dangerous territory. I really enjoy hearing about people coming up with such ideas, I adds an extra depth of immersion to the games and it shows that players are learning the provided game mechanics to create their own content.

Its small steps like these that I hope will eventually lead to games that give players the ability to create intricate content for the games we play. Until then I'll keep hitting the costume contests in CoV... there's some serious coin to be made!

Return to Villainy

I’ve jumped back into City of Villains again, and it feels good to be back. The game has more missions than I remember, and I’ve only reached level 10 with my newest villain.

My new ‘main’ is Zombie Freakshow; she’s a Mastermind Bubbler that commands a legion of zombies. So far this legion consists of only two zombies, whom I have lovingly named Barnum and Bailey. They do whatever I command them to do… and they do it without complaints!

I entered Zombie Freakshow into a costume contest over the weekend, there were some really good costumes. The contest was being run by the Super Group named T.U.F.T., and Zombie Freakshow won for a prize of 100K! Hell Yeah!

A couple of online friends I’ve made over the past year have joined up with me on the Liberty server, we’ve been having a real blast. It looks like we’ll erect a base soon and slap a huge AGGROCULTURE neon-sign on the roof to invoke fear in all that oppose us. That’s right, we’re expanding from EQ2’s Nagafen server to CoV’s Liberty server. Perhaps the Brownies from EQ2Daily will create a Goodie Super Group and meet up with us in the PvP zones some day… but I doubt they’d have the nerve to take us on!

Motivation

A couple posters I made for Aggro Me's blog got a bit of notice lately. It is nice to sometime have work you've done get noticed, no matter how serious (or not, in this case). A couple other sites linked to his post that comprised of several reader's submissions, and the whole idea, although a rehashed one done to several other themes, really caught on and became really catchy and truely a blast to check out.
In the official Aggro Me Forums we'd started a thread to post ideas for posters that eventually got included in the blog post... but soonafter other people started posting some of their hilarity there... you truely have to pop by and check out the gems that have been posted. I have to admit that I found most of them more entertaining than mine, so go on and rush over to have a looksee for yourself.

EQII: Player vs. Player on Nagafen

I've signed up for Everquest II yet again, however this time it is to start a new character up on Nagafen, the new Player vs. Player server.

I've not logged in to my main characters (Mylene and Karnatos on Crushbone) really; I've been mostly playing my Evil Gnome Brigand named Karnatos. Now, I've never really played a scout class before, at least not very far. I've surpassed the level 16 of Auratus, my to-be-assassin on Crushbone, and am now level 18 as of this posting.

So far I've enjoyed my time on the Nagafen server, and I am really enjoying my choice of Brigand. I've not personally raked up many PvP kills, however... I've only been killed by players a handful of times so far. I supposed I really need to put my neck out there more in order to get my PvP counts up.

I've joined a guild named Aggroculture that's been started by the gang on the Aggro Me Forums. The guild is an Evil guild based in Freeport, and we’re just getting things going really.

We’ve also got a rival guild with the gang over at
EQ2 Daily, the Goodies reside in Qeynos (wherelse?) and their guild’s name is Brownie Troop 187 – yes, that’s right, a Brownie Troop. Their name alone lets you know these guys are out to just have some good fun… and so far the mostly verbal rivalry has been overly humorous.

I’ve noticed some interesting things, and others are noticing too.

Scout classes seem to be over abundant on Nagafen, likely because they can both do tracking and go somewhat invisible. As a result it is difficult for us scouts to find good gear to wear. Apparently other classes are having similar problems, however when I check the broker and just do a quick check for wizzie or healer gear, there’s a good deal more to choose from than for us scouts.

However this is good news to crafters! If you are wise to this trend, and the trend continues, you could stand to make a great deal of coin from making gear for scouts. Figure out what the good armour-types are for them, figure out which poisons they like, and figure out what types of weapons they tend to use… and you could become rich beyond your wildest dr… OK, maybe that’s exaggerating a little/lot, but I do think coin is to be made for crafters that cater to those archetypes.

I’ll chime in with an update to me Goodie experiences soon (sooner than next month I hope), for now… I’m off to get some writs done, Aggroculture is not even level 5 yet!

Lates!

Monthly Check-In

Seems I've been busy. What have I been doing? I've been working, mostly... but I've had time to get some gaming in.

I've been playing City of Villains mostly; my main focus has been on playing as Radioactive Decay... and right now she's level 17.

I've created a few other ALTs lately too - my favorites so far are Biomass Energy and Mad in Plaid.

I'm also going to be returning to Everquest II, likely this weekend, to prepare for the introduction of Player vs. Player (PvP) to the game. I'll be joining the ranks of Freeport to be a member of a guild named Aggroculture.

Aggroculture is a guild that readers of the popular EQII blog named Aggro Me are starting. We've been organizing it in the official Aggro Me Forums... and we've already gained an official nemesis guild named Brownie Troop 187... a silly bunch of listeners/readers from the fantastic EQII Daily podcast/website/forums will be making up the majority of their ranks.

This whole PvP game play has me excited to return to the world of Norrath... I just hope the game play holds up to the hype!