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EVE Online exploration video tutorial
EVE Online blogger Morphisat recently unearthed a good video tutorial on the profession of exploration, by a player called SRRAE. In a vast, open galaxy like EVE Online's setting of New Eden, the option of becoming an explorer is an appealing one. However, despite the name 'exploration,' players cannot actually discover new solar systems. They can, however, find hidden content throughout space, both in highsec and lowsec. This can include hidden asteroid belts (presumably with rarer ores to mine), hacking and archaeology sites, harvestable gas clouds used in drug production, and numerous combat encounters. Admittedly, exploration is not an easy profession to pick up for beginners, but with enough skills related to scanning and covert ops, paired with a decent understanding of game mechanics and the value of a cloaking device, exploration can be lucrative -- particularly in 0.0 space. Of course, there will inevitably be times where an explorer is simply burning off scan probes in the futile hope of finding something new. Perhaps SRRAE has become a victim of his own success, as he recently lamented the downside of exploration's growing popularity among New Eden's capsuleers.[Via CrazyKinux]
MMOGology: Exploiting the matrix
You can't deny it; there's something exciting about seeing something you aren't supposed to see. It may have happened to you before, perhaps accidentally. You were minding your own business, just jumping down a flight of stairs in the Sunken Temple instance. And then ... BAM! Suddenly you're staring into a sea of light blue. "Am I dead?" you ask yourself. "What happened?" You rotate your camera angle and notice you can see three floors below you. You rotate it a little more and suddenly the grand design of the mighty level developer is revealed to you. You can see the entire dungeon stretching into the distance of ethereal blue. You've accidentally crossed over to the other side. You've entered the matrix!OK, so maybe it's not always quite that dramatic, but it's definitely interesting when you accidentally or accidentally-on-purpose stumble upon these little tears in the fabric of MMOspace. Many of us enjoy the exploration components of MMOGs. We love to find the hidden nooks and crannies of the world, the small places not often visited by our fellow gamers because they're in remote locations. Sometimes in our desire to see absolutely everything in the game, we stumble across these glitches that let us see a bit more than we're supposed to see. I think it's only natural to want to pull back the veil on our unrealities and see the "Wizard behind the curtain", so to speak. But of course anytime you begin participating in things that go slightly beyond the boundary of what you're "supposed" to be doing in a game, it starts to bring up questions about exploits and cheating. Viewing the underbelly of an MMOG hardly seems like a crime, but at what point exactly do you cross the threshold that will get you into trouble? At what point are we talking about account bans?
All the World's a Stage: Raiding and RP don't mix, or do they? -- A question of continuity.
All the World's a Stage is brought to you by David Bowers every Sunday evening, investigating the mysterious art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.The Warcraft storyline is part of a great tradition of fantasy literature, and, as with any form of storytelling, the entire span of WoW lore involves a series of events and changes. Arthas wasn't always the Lich King, Illidan used to be able to wear shoes, and your character was once a little child, with no spells or epic weapons at all. All these things fit together in a single story universe, in which the progressive changes taking place in the story made the world what it is today.But what is it today? Is Illidan now dead or alive? Is VanCleef dead or alive, for that matter? As a gaming environment, any boss you kill today has to be there for me to kill tomorrow. The WoW game world needs to remain basically unchangeable -- but over time this can stifle a roleplayer's sense of immersion in its narrative. To illustrate the impact this sort of immutability has on storytelling, let us take a page from a certain fantasy story you might have read, and see how it might work as a WoW raid instance.Welcome to Mines of Moria! This raid instance will reset in 6 days, 10 hours and 41 minutes.[Raidleader] [Gandalf]: Beware! There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world. Follow my glowing staff! [Raidleader] [Gandalf]: ... and um... get ready to pull that first group of orcs. Kill order is skull, x, circle... Gimli, can you offtank that cave troll?
LotRO landmarks: Ost Guruth
The environments that Turbine have created for Lord of the Rings Online are obviously crafted with love, always including intricate little details for the fans, so we don't blame them for wanting to show them off. The official LotRO website is running a series called "Exploring Middle Earth" where different landmarks in the game are showcased and described for aspiring travelers. If you've been occupied with the flood of brand spanking new content, this is a nice way of revisiting the roots of the game. The most recent episode features the fortress-ruins of Ost Guruth.Ost Guruth is situated in the Lone-lands, and is a questing hub for levels 20-30, featuring portions of the game's Epic storyline -- but it's more than that too. Exploring Middle Earth hopes to give players an understanding of the lore and history of their favorite zones, and to that end, we learn that the ruins you see now at Ost Guruth belie a mighty past. They were in fact a castle that ended up being a casualty of war... but we won't spoil the details here. You can enjoy the full article via the related story link.Oh, and since we're just now catching up on Exploring Middle Earth (and the earlier entries were from prior to Massively's launch), check out others in the series such as Barad Gúlaran and The Eavespires.
Google Earth goes skyward
Our sister blog Download Squad pointed to the updated Google Earth today dubbed 'Google Earth Sky', because in the newest version you can look up. Not content to cover everyone on the ground, our Google overlords have turned their eye to the sky, and you can now search through galaxies, nebulas, and stars to your heart's content.And you can do it all on the Mac from day one, which is pretty nice (you couldn't say the same about the original Google Earth). In terms of functionality, the program seems really similar to Celestia, also available on the Mac, just in case your astronomical needs aren't met by "Google Sky." And don't forget-- if your mapping needs run a little closer to home than, you know, light years away, moon.google.com is still open for business in the browser of your choice. Wonder why they didn't add that to the iPhone as well...
Britain's Isis ROV set to trawl the depths of Antarctica
We've seen mechanical devices creep through the inside of intestines, huge mounds of dirt, and even through the San Francisco Bay, but now a British deep-diving remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is getting set to probe the depths of Antarctica. In hopes of uncovering more about the effects of glaciers on the ocean floor, as well as details about the living creatures that inhabit said areas, UK scientists are carting the machine aboard the RSS James Clark Ross as they head for the Marguerite Bay area on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula. The robot, dubbed Isis, will spend time on its inaugural January mission combing the seabed and channeling live video and pictures back to its captains via the built-in cameras, lights, sonars for acoustic navigation / imaging, and two remotely-controlled manipulator arms. Once the bot gets dried off (and thawed out) from its arctic expedition, the next tour of duty is already lined up, as Isis will head off to the Portuguese coast to do a bit more sightseeing. Of course, if you're interested in taking the £4.5 million ($8.81 million) creature out for a mission you deem worthwhile, it should be available for deep-pocketed renters soon after.
Disk Order - an advanced Finder replacement
Disk Order is another app that takes a stab at replacing the Finder, but doesn't seem to take things quite as overboard as PathFinder. With tabbed file browser windows, built-in FTP client, command line tools and more, Disk Order should have a few things to offer anyone who feels like the Finder is the ugly duckling of Mac OS X.A full-featured demo of Disk Order is available, while a license costs $22.57.[via MacMerc]
