Aen’s Random Noob Thoughts

Just wanted to share that right now i am going through a divoce.  The wife and I have been together for five and a half years and things just did not work out for a few reason.  We have no kids and still get along.  Its just one thing after another lately.
I am going to be keeping my house and i am currently looking for roommates also.  If anyone wants a place to live near St Louis Missouri (Lake St Louis), let me know.  500 bucks a month.

Dont feel bad for me!  I am going to be just fine.

i hope… heh

So, its just been 3 months doing this trainer.  It has been a good expereince.  He has moved me up 5 minutes of cardio every two weeks until i hit 60 minutes.  Food has been the same.  I have now lost 66 lbs in just 3 months with this trainer.  Thanks Charles for all of your advice and motivation!!

Subtitle: Ratonga Eye for the Norathian Guy (giving credit to Ekabist for that title)

In Everquest2, a guild can purchase a Guild Hall.  Decorate it how they want and also have amenities in it.  Amenities can be a few different things.  Such as, Druid Portal, Broker, Banker, Vendor, Writ givers, and also objects such as a carpet to Sinking Sands and the spires to the overland.

I was privileged enough to get permissions to do some work on the Guild Hall.  A few weeks ago, i took a stab at the Druid Rings.  The Druid Rings is a simple “stone hedge” formation of stones with a Druid NPC that will open up portals for you.  To me it was not very “Druidy.”  Took a pond and expanded it all the way.  Took some large columns and set them all around the pond with trees around it also.  Put some Leaf Carpets in the the pond and set the Druid NPC on top of it.  Put flowers around and some leaf walkway to the top of the pond.

This is what it comes up with:

The Rikana Druid Rings 01

The Rikana Druid Rings 02

The next area i hit up was the Bank/Broker/Vendor area.  I wish i had a picture of it.  It was just three NPC’s standing behind three small tables.  I added a vault and took some cupboards that when moved around look like large sturdy columns and gave it more solid look.  Added a counter in front of them and put in some light behind them to give them some definition.  It was way to dark.  Added a couple of Flame Tapestries around it and this is what I came up with:

The Rikana Bank Area

Lastly, i wanted to make an Outdoor Cafe and a walkway to the center of the courtyard in the guild hall.  I have not seen a lot of guild halls that have done much with the courtyard.  I put in a lot of trees, stone planters, bushes, and fences to make the walk way.  Put in a lot of flowers and other things.  In the center of the Cafe, 4 fountains sit in the middle with a bar connected to it.  I am going to try to buy a bar tender to the bar for it.  It is just best if you see it for yourself:

The Rikana Outdoor Cafe 01

The Rikana Outdoor Cafe 02

The Rikana Outdoor Cafe 03

The Rikana Outdoor Cafe 04

The Rikana Outdoor Cafe 05

The Rikana Outdoor Cafe 06

The Rikana Outdoor Cafe 07
Not all the way done with the areas yet, but its a good start.  Let me know what you all think.

Last post on it was fairly short about me leaving for my DC trip.  A long time guild member and friend from EQ2 was having issues with her computer.  Martika is like a guild mother to me and some other members.  She recently had some hardware failures and had a tech come out and replace her video card and power supply and still had a lot of issues.

From troubleshooting over vent with her, it looked like she would have to do a fresh install of XP.  She already paid a lot of money for a tech and was down for almost 2 weeks.  So, my friend Dax & I talked and decided to fly out and visit her and her husband Bill.  We got tickets fairly cheap and got a plan ride the next day.  We really wanted to meet up with her for sometime now, and it was a great excuse.

Got in Dulles Airport (west side of DC) and she held up the FrostFell christmas card i made for her (I completely missed seeing her hold it at the airport).  Drove over through DC to Bowie Maryland and stayed the weekend with them.

She was so estatic to see us and I got her computer running better then it has ever ran.  I took out her drive and copied over via a IDE to USB cable.  DVD drive was also bad so we were getting corrupted files when trying to load XP.  Replaced the DVD drive and the OS went down fine.  Patched it, loaded anti virus and then the most important part, EQ2.  Gave her Profit UI (she used default before) and she was amazed on all of the features.  Plus she had a widescreen monitor but was using 1024×768 resolution on a 22 inch widescreen!  Fixed it all up and it runs so nicely now.

Also fixed her 2nd computer she runs vent on and her husband’s computer (spyware city!!).

We both got paid in Raid Brownies (long story, if you want to know.. post and i will explain it) and great food daily.  She ruined my diet while I was there, but it made her sooo happy to see us and for us to fix her problems without costing her weeks of downtime and tons of money on a service call that would not have fixed it as I did.

Martika is such a sweet lady and it was an amazing time.  Thanks for driving us around Bill!!

Say it aint so!! Wired came out with the Top 10 Vaporware List of 2008 and my beloved HJ is on the list.  Yes, i have to agree that they changed the focus to the engine revamp, but do not add it to the list!!

Do not let us down Simutronics!!

So its 5am on New Years Day, HAPPY NEW YEARS!!, and just getting ready for going to Washington DC.  Friend is having some computer issues and Daxxy and I are going to go visit her and her husband.  See you all in a few days!

EverQuest2

EverQuest2 has been the longest I ever played an MMO.  It has the best PVE experience ever.  It has such a wide array of things to do and its great.  For some reason I keep quitting the game to try another game, but I always come back.  Some say WoW does that for them, but WoW is just a grind.  Do X task 100 times to get something cool, while EQ2 just has nothing that is very repetitive like that.

Why I came back this time?  I was playing Warhammer Online and I was loving the PVP/RVR aspect of the game.  I am a PVE’r at heart and the game had very little for PvE.  That was not the reason why I quit though.  The reason is because the game is crashing on me over and over.  I take a step and the game crashes to desktop.

I am currently playing a Ratonga Ranger which just got to 80 a week ago.  Ratonga’s are my favorite race.  They are small, got a HOT tail and ears.  I like playing them because they are just not the norm of Human, dwarves, elves, halfings and the such.  I am playing a fantasy game and I just want to be something that I am not, a rat!

I have 12 characters in EQ2 and each one is a Ratonga.

Why did I pick a Ranger? I have always played Rogue type of characters in all of the MMO’s and I played in.  EQ2 i decided to pick the Scout Archetype and I ended up as a  Wood Elf Ranger.  That was my first character.  Taevil.  I played him all the way to lvl 57, and I decided I wanted to make a different toon.  The first character was a great blast, but i wanted to try the assassin.  It goes back to the roguish types of stealth and just backstabbing the enemy and running away.  I went through the races and I could not find a race I really wanted.  I got tired of the Wood Elves, and the dark elves were everywhere.  I ran across the Ratonga.  He was small and I wanted my assassin to be really small.  he was not football shaped like the Gnomes and Halfings were, yay no punting me! and I just wanted to be something different.  No one else played them really.

After that, I fell in love with the Ratonga race.  Got my assassin to lvl 60 before KoS came out and eventually got him to 80.  Next character was Warlock which I just loved.  Mass Damage in a wide area and out of a lil ‘Tonga.

Not to long after i got my assassin to 80, I started to have naustalgia for my Ranger.  I decided to make another one.  Started out as an Assassin Tonga and betrayed over to Kelethin and became a Ranger!  Now its been a bit and I am a lvl 80 Ranger.

The only complaint I have about the Ratonga is this.  THE WHISKERS!!!  When creating a Ratonga the only way to get whiskers is go through the “accessories” and pick what Glasses, Eye Patch, earrings and such.  In a few of those, they have whiskers.  The only whiskers you can get will require you to have an eye patch or glasses which are just horrible looking.  Why does a Ratonga have to be missing an eye or poor eye sight to have whiskers?  I asked a Guide once and the response I got was “a Ratonga has to ear their whiskers, and you obviously have not earned them.  You earn them by losing an eye! o.X”

The Ratongas are uniting right now and trying to petition to get a separate whisker option when creating a character.  Petition can be found here.

Everquest2 is my current game and I am enjoying it.  I will be posting more on this again.  Hopefully after the new year, I will have more time to post!

One game i have been reading about and waiting forever to be released is Hero’s Journey.  It has been delayed and delayed because of retooling the engine to be a toolset that other companies can use to make their own game.  They have made a lot of major sales of the engine and one being Star Wars: The Old Republic.  SWTOR is being developed by Bioware.  You can check it out here.

But back to Hero’s Journey.  Its going to be a midevil fantasy MMORPG.  the biggest feature of this MMO is the game engine.  Hero Engine is simply amazing.  The world can be built real time with other world builders.  They will have an army of GameMasters that are just that, game masters.  Not CSR people like in WoW or EQ2, they will be there changing the world and running events.

I have been browsing the game engine website: www.heroengine.com and watching the videos of it in the works.  They have a Real-Time Collaborative World Building video that is 20 minutes long.  It shows 3 different world builders making a zone with a dungeon.  Shows you how fast the tool set can create and detail a world.  This all can be done real time with other world builders.

They have been very quiet on the details of Hero’s Journey and no one knows when it will be out, but I am still looking forward to it.

So, i havent posted lately.  I wanted to give an update on this.  Only thing that has changed in my diet, is that i only use 2 pieces of 100% whole wheat bread instead of 3.  Exercise was increased to 45 minutes a day and i can do up to 7 days a week.  I have been at it every day now.

52lbs so far.

Turkey day was hell for me because of the inlaws.  I could not eat everything i wanted and limited myself greatly.  General stuck with my meal schedule throughout the inlaw visit.  It was really tough.
I should be going back to the trainer either tonight or tomorrow to find out how well i am doing.

Sorry for not writing lately.  I had the In Laws from Belgium and just did not have much time to sit at a computer and write.  We did the whole tourist thing in St Louis, which i hate being a tourist in the town i live in.

Other things going on,  The D&D game has been put on hold so Mind of a Thief is on hold till the new year.  I will also be starting the end of the year, mad rush to get my goals done at work.

Currently Playing EQ2, which i will be writing more on that.

Again, sorry for not saying i will not be updating the site, been a little bit busy.  Look for more posts in the coming days.