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Double dev chat goodness for LotRO Book 12
Two Lord of the Rings Online dev chats within one week? It's like Christmas came early for LotRO players. But it looks like some players are getting presents and others are getting coal. German website, Lotro-Welten, held its monthly LotRO dev chat for European players last week. And last night US players got their own dev chat at MMORPG. Strangely, the EU dev chat held a wealth of new information while the US chat had very little new or interesting. Here are the highlights from Lotro-Welten's chat, mostly applying to the upcoming Book 12 content patch: Fishing is being introduced as a new profession category called Hobbies Hobbies are professions that anyone can level up in regardless of their other tradeskill choices The barber in Book 12 will offer new hairstyles The new cosmetic system allowing you to display different clothing will not extend to hand held items and will be entirely disabled in PvMP zones More solo content is a big priority for the dev team and Angmar is getting a pass in Book 12 to become more solo friendly
Azeroth Interrupted: It really is ok to play WoW
Each week, Robin Torres contributes Azeroth Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with WoW. I've noticed that there are a lot of commenters each week whose solution to every problem is "ZOMG! Get your priorities straight! Stop playing WoW!", particularly when I answer Reader Mail.At the same time, the general public (including non-gamer significant others and parents) may not buy into the media hype that video games are the root of all evil, but the best they believe about gaming is that it is a juvenile waste of time.So the non-gaming majority and some sympathizing WoW Insider readers (who presumably play WoW themselves) are working together to try to make us feel guilty about any time we spend playing our current favorite MMO.Who really cares what strangers think about our leisure time? The problem comes when the people we know get in on the act.Should we feel bad about playing WoW?
U-Boat Worx set to release CQ1 personal submarine
With all the great underwater nature documentaries available in high definition these days, we have no real interest in actually getting out of our chairs to go exploring among sharks, fish, and seaweed, but it's nice to know that there will soon be a non-self-powered personal submarine on the market in case we ever do decide to take the plunge. After three years of furious design, development, and testing, a Dutch company called U-Boat Worx is finally ready to release its battery-powered C-Quester 1 to aquatic enthusiasts worldwide, which will allow them to cruise down to depths of 50 meters at a maximum speed of 3 knots for up to two-and-a-half hours. The main advantage of this craft over traditional scuba diving is the fact that its cabin maintains a constant pressure of one atmosphere, meaning that you can surface immediately without having to sit through those boring decompression periods -- and if for some reason you can't surface, the on-board oxygen tanks and CO2 scrubbers will keep you alive for 36 hours or until help arrives, whichever comes first. Scheduled to ship sometime this month, the CQ1 is conspicuously missing a pricetag on the company's website; you have to call or write if you're interested, which probably means that pricing falls somewhere between a Sea-doo and a 7-series BMW.[Thanks, Sytse S.]
