The lines that currently exist in _ProfitUI_Market_Favorites6.txt are included, so just copy all of this code, then highlight the last two lines in the /txt file and paste over them.


<Data ItemName="Vitality Breach" ItemEffect=" " ItemType="22" MaxLvl="100" MinLvl="0" SellerName=" " Text="-Vitality Breach" Tier="0"/>

I have wanted to post a few of them for quite some time, but I wanted five or more, and although I have written about 15 parodies since the last minstrel cycle, these 6 are the ones for which I could find instrumental tracks.

So, without further ado, I give you Minstrel Cycle 10:

The most recently written one (and coincidentally the one related to the picture above) is:
I’m Gonna Decorate It which parodies “I Wanna Be Sedated” by The Ramones.

The rest are as follows:

I’m Not a Fae – Parody of “I’m Not Afraid” by Eminem
Class Balance – Parody of “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga
My Mystic – Parody of “Milkshake” by Kelis
Profallia – Parody of “Lola” by The Kinks
and finally, Get My Epic – Parody of “Like a G6″ by Far East Movement

These people get up in arms when a game company has the gall to attempt to make a profit. Some even quit the game because they don’t support it.

I personally don’t understand the problem that people have with it. I play EQ2 and even though I don’t play the F2P version (EQ2X), I do spend a fair amount of money in the Station Marketplace. Granted, I usually restrict my purchases to appearance gear/furniture or services (I’ve used the server switch service to move one of my higher level characters to Antonia Bayle to assist my other character that is there,) but I have even been known, a time or two, to purchase the AAxp and the XP potions. (I have around 30 toons; at some point one just gets tired of grinding the same content repeatedly.)

Therefore, I don’t really have a problem with RMT. However, as I mentioned above, some people are almost militant in their opposition to it.

For those, I suggest a little mental exercise. Imagine that you have decided to make some lemonade. You decide that you will provide the lemonade (and the cup that it is in) free of charge, but that you will charge a small amount for sweetener (suppose that you have both sugar and artificial sweetener.) A customer could decide that they prefer not to pay the charge for the sweetener, so they get a free (albeit quite sour) cup of lemonade. Other customers prefer to add sweetener to their free lemonade, thus increasing their enjoyment of it.

This is essentially the choice that a player in EQ2X faces: Buy items from the Station Marketplace to increase your enjoyment of the game, or don’t, and still be able to enjoy the game, just not quite as much as the one that does purchase items. Nobody is forcing the player that prefers the latter option to choose the former. If one wishes to maintain parity, one generally chooses the former, but this is their choice.

Allow me to make another analogy. Say, hypothetically, that you win a free car in a sweepstakes and the dealership hosting it even pays all TT&L. It is a nice car; a sedan perhaps; it is not a luxury car, but still it gets you from one location to another in comfort. The next week, your neighbor buys a luxury car, from the same dealership, which looks nicer and gets slightly better gas mileage. The dealership which gave you the free car is under no obligation to offer you a free upgrade to the luxury car just to maintain parity.

Yet this is essentially what the detractors of RMT in a F2P game claim to detest. They seem to think that being offered a free game entitles them to upgrades that help them maintain parity without paying a premium for that service.

As for RMT in the subscription based version of the game, the same applies. Nowhere within the EULA does it state that payment of the subcription fee entitles one to all aspects of the game for no additional charge. One can play fine without the RMT aspects. In effect, reusing the lemonade analogy from above, SOE charges $0.10 for their lemonade, plus an additional $0.05 for their sweetener.

The above is merely my opinion, and people are welcome to disagree with me, but understand that largely, I believe these opposing opinions to be without merit. Having said that, if you can figure out a way to convince me that you are entitled to enhancements to the the game free of charge, by all means, I welcome you to try.

That is about all I have to say of the matter for now.

Until next time,
Necrotherian Facepalmer

When the merges were first announced, I was against them. I have since resigned myself to the fact that it is going to happen. Now the latest word from Amnerys is that the first ones are starting next week. I’ve included a link for those that want to read it straight from a red name, but for those that are too lazy to scroll down 5 posts, here is the direct quote from Amnerys:

Amnerys said:

Update: No new updates at this point. We’ll be aiming for sometime next week. Enjoy your weekend in Norrath!

Well, that is about all I have for now.

Until next time,
Necrotherian Facepalmer

Some of them, frankly, aren’t that great on the vocals, as I had a cold when I recorded them. For that, I apologize. Some of them, though, even make me laugh, and that is hard to do when you already know the words.

So, without further ado, I bring you Minstrel Cycle Nine:

Cure Pots – A parody of “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha

Guild Hemorrhage – A parody of “Hemorrhage” by Fuel (Note: This song is about my previous guild, not my current guild.)

I Pwn Like A Necro – A parody of “I Lean Like A Cholo” by Down

I was sitting AFK – A parody of “Sorry, Blame It On Me” by Akon

I went and bought it – A parody of “I Can’t Believe It” by T-Pain feat. Lil’ Wayne

Mobs I’ve Pwned – A parody of “What I’ve Done” by Linkin Park

Slayin’ Names – A parody of “Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child

Tank For You – A parody of “Wait For You” by Elliot Yamin

Well, that is all for now.

Until next time,
Necrotherian Facepalmer

(Warning: This post is image heavy, so don’t click on more unless you are sure you have a decent video card.)

We all know that the Destiny of Velious is the next expansion, albeit presumably one without a level cap increase. Whatever the next one after that is going to be called, it will, without a doubt, be a milestone.

What I mean is that the level cap on the expansion after next will, I assume, be raised to 100. Tradeskilling, Adventuring, and Guild levels will all have the caps raised to the century mark. With this being an important milestone, it may be time to make some changes to the game to allow us to “take things to the next level”.

Although I am sure that many of you may not agree with me, that is fine. You have your opinions; I have mine. (Hey, that rhymed… O.o ) These are some ideas that I had to take things higher:

Tradeskilling –

At level 100, allow a tradeskiller to specialize further. A carpenter can currently make furniture, wooden containers, repair kits, and altars. Specialization could allow a house item and altar carpenter to make items (which use double the amount of fuel) with twice the amount of rent status reduction. A kit and container carpenter could make containers with more capacity than a non-specialized carpenter; likewise, the kits could use less components to make and allow a wider range of usage percentages. Each tradeskill has at least two types of items that it can make:

Carpenters – Furniture, containers, repair kits and altars.
Provisioners – Food and Drink.
Woodworkers – Ranged weapons, wooden shields, wooden weapons, totems and harvesting tools.
Weaponsmiths – Crushing metal weapons, piercing metal weapons, and slashing metal weapons.
Armorers – Metal armor and metal shields.
Tailors – Cloth armor, leather armor, leather storage items, cloaks, and hex dolls.
Alchemists – Potions, poisons, and Fighter CA upgrades.
Jewelers – Jewelry and Scout CA upgrades.
Sage – Mage and Priest spell upgrades.

Therefore, each specialization could effect at least two areas of each tradeskill class. Admittedly, with the spell/CA upgrades, I am not really sure how they would implement that, unless they came up with a spell/CA tier between Master and Grandmaster (but more on that later.)

Adventuring –

Before now, I wouldn’t have considered this, but with the upcoming server merges, this would be a possibility:

x8 raids.

Before people sit and say that it would be impossible, think about this – there is already a zone within the game that allows 48 players to be present: Smuggler’s Den in the BGs. Since there is already a framework, all that would be necessary is to populate a given x8 zone with mobs. To reduce lag, they could have 2 zone in points at opposite sides of the zone. Half of the raid (basically a normal raid) would be at each point and would be responsible for completing tasks that would allow the final x8 area to be accessed.

Each of the mobs leading up to the final area would be x4 mobs and have the standard x4 loot tables, but the x8 mobs would need to have a possibility of dropping better armor: Mythical armor. In addition, they would also have a chance to drop NO-TRADE or HEIRLOOM Grandmaster spells/CAs. This way, the only way to get those CAs or spells would be to run through the content (on your main or an alt). This would help bring some people back to the game that left with the advent of research assistants.

Guilds –

With guilds hitting the century mark, there should be T4 Guild Halls. These would be approximately the size of Qeynos/Freeport and essentially have all the amenities of a city. In addition to the current amenities, each hall could have a Golden Path quest giver which allows a character to get on the golden path anywhere within +- 5 levels (In other words, each stage on the golden path takes place at a certain tier; the GP quest giver would give the quest which begins the questline closest to that characters level – so a lvl 30 dirge would get the beginning of the questline closest to lvl 30.)

Additionally, T4 guild halls could have Holiday representatives which would become targetable during any holiday event and then give and receive the appropriate quests. Some might argue that this is making it too easy, but essentially all this does is remove some of the time-sink aspects of those quests.

With the T4 Karan and D’Lere guild halls, each secondary city should get a T3 guild hall (as well as T2 guild halls where they do not already exist). That would mean GFay, TD, and DLW guild halls. The neutral cities, Maj’Dul and Haven, should (at a minimum) get T1 and T2 guild halls.

The great part is that the architecture for these halls already largely exists. Maj’Dul halls could borrow from the layout of the Golden Scepter, and Haven from the Splitpaw Saga caves. The T3 for GFay could draw architecture from Felwi – er I mean New Tunaria, the Timorous Deep T3 from the existing Gorowyn layout, and DLW could primarily draw from parts of Neriak, specifically the architecture of Darklight Palace. See screenshots at the end of the post.

Well, that is about all I have for now.

Until next time,
Necrotherian Facepalmer

In the battlegrounds, colloquially known as the BGs, invariably one will find oneself faced with premade groups. These groups tend to be geared exceptionally well. They also know how each member of the team will act in a given situation. To word it another way, perhaps a bit melodramatically, they are a well-oiled, face-rolling machine.

To their opponents, this can seem rather oppressive. Gandhi dealt with oppression by instituting Satyagraha. In the battlegrounds, in a manner which, although not identical to Satyagraha, has some similarities, the best way to deal with this is to get it over with in the speediest manner possible. The accepted way of doing this is to stand there and let them kill you.

However, it rankles me that these premade groups might think that their win is due to their own prowess instead of a conscious decision on the part of their opponents. Therefore, I propose that if you do choose to die in the BGs, do so in a manner that practically screams that you are throwing the match just to get it over with and find a, perhaps, more evenly matched battleground instance.

In Gears of Klakanon, this can be accomplished by kneeling and waiting for them to slaughter you.

In Battlefield of Ganak, take the entire raid to the side, completely clearing the way for them to get the flag. Kill anyone that gets near the raid, but make it obvious that you are letting them win.

In Smuggler’s Den, bring everyone to your team’s base and defend that, but allow the opponents to capture all the towers.

It might hurt your pride, but it will take less time, and you can eventually amass enough tokens to purchase the better gear.

So without further ado, I bring you Minstrel Cycle 8:

Kerra – A parody of “Blurry” by Puddle of Mudd.

Pwnin’ Gnolls – A parody of “Southern Hospitality” by Ludacris.

Peein’ In A Bottle – A parody of “Genie in a Bottle” by Christina Aguilerra.

Jethal’s Fans A parody of “Jesse’s Girl” by Rick Springfield. This one talks about Jethal Silverwing for Legion of Kithicor over on AB server.

And finally:

Hunted by Werewolves – A parody of “Hungry Like the Wolf” by Duran Duran.

I also re-recorded the next song into MP3 format, and fixed some things about it that bugged me.

Always LFG – A parody of “Say It Right” by Nelly Furtado.

Well, that is all I have for now.

Until next time,
Necrotherian Facepalmer

Copyright 2010 Sony Online Entertainment

Sorry, no witty title today.

There are two things I would like to talk about.

1) F2P – I understand the debate. I can foresee the inevitable server merges that might result after some people decide to move over to the F2P servers. What I would like to state, and granted, this is my own opinion, is that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The only bad part about server mergers is that other people, with better stats, might be able to supplant those in the top spots on the server that doesn’t move.
Back when I used to play the first EQ, my server, Bristlebane, merged with Solusek Ro. There were several other mergers that occured. However, if you take a look, they are still releasing expansions. That suggests to me that server mergers don’t necessarily spell the end for a game.

2) The other bit I would like to talk about is Velious. Apparently, there was enough of an outcry of disappointment when it was released that Sentinel’s Fate would feature Odus. The next expansion, targeted for levels 85+, will be Velious. We know this because they released the title, Destiny of Velious.

Zam in this post gave a list of the current features, all of which may change before release:

•Hundreds of new weapons, including Velium weapons
•300+ quests
•10 instances
•1 massive contested dungeon
•4 Heritage Quests including the Coldain Prayer Shawl
•6 Raids
•2 Overland Zones

There are more takes on this info at Massively, TTH, and EQ2 Wire.

Well…that is about all for now…

Until next time,

Necrotherian Facepalmer

I’m issuing a general casting call to folks on the Najena Server. I plan on shooting the video to “I’m Punting Gnomes” this weekend. I need about 20 gnomes, with featherfall and some means of FD. I also need 10-20 characters of other races, with the dance moves from the Nights of the Dead quest (see above picture).

Shooting will occur around noon (US CST), and will take place (primarily) in Paineel.

If you fit that criteria, and are interested, please send an in-game mail to Necrotherian on Najena server.

(Addendum: Received no response, so I ended up filming it by myself.)