Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Usernames and character names

Trivia on naming: 
  A user name can be the same as a character name.

Test:
Created (by mistake) a character named after my account.

Question:
Can you have the same character name in two different servers?
 
 
Additional info for computer scientists (all others please don't read):
Accounts and characters are probably stored in different database tables. Do you think the character name is the primary key? Alternatively, there might be some kind of surrogate key, e.g. a sequence number. It is an MS SQL Server, isn't it? About a year ago Sofia deleted a character named oytis and she has now re-created a new one with the same name. Thus either the character name is not a primary key, or the characters are indeed deleted and not de-activated.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

X-mas agathions

One of the possible Santa presents is this plush-looking agathion. It is the cutest little creature!





I do not know the actual chance of getting this present, but it seems very slim. Some people suggest that hitting an NPC overnight helps (force-attack, make sure you are outside a peace zone).

Lady Equistrius (who I do not know) was my model for the pictures, and a kind dark elf named Introspect demonstrated the agathion skill. Soooo cute (the agathion, not the dark elf)!


The description of this event, and the design of the agathion, make me think that there are new people in NC Soft's Lineage II team!


PS Chryssa had told me that the agathions (try to) sing x-mas carols, but I guess she was pulling my leg!

l2wh is free for x-mas

The well-known http://www.l2wh.com site has all functions freely available for Christmas!!! Go on, try it - if you havent already. Pasting their message:


For Christmas, Advanced features are enabled for everybody !!
Discover and enjoy all advanced features !

Merry Christmas !

Himred.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Disappearance of "walker" site for few days

During the past few days there were some problems concerning the company which sells the software program named walker.

Walker is a botting program for L2, probably the one with the largest number of users. It requires a monthly fee of 4-5 euros that you can pay online in order to receive a "walker code" which you use to unlock the software.

The site selling the codes went allegedly offline for few days - although inner pages of the site, and alternative urls, were still available to buy the necessary codes. Users who had already bought their codes, continued to play normally.

According to South Korea media, NC Soft asked the police to investigate the companies involved in botting for multiple NC games - walker being just one of them (chinease article, translated version).

A detailed discussion started at l2blah@guru - as expected :)

We will not publish the url of the walker site in our blog for obvious reasons.
However we tested it, and it seems to be fully functional.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

screenshot about GMs

We were sent this screenshot link - someone was shouting at Giran about GMs not banning (him) for using walker.


Monday, December 15, 2008

Bug Rumors!

Recent rumors suggest that there was (is?) a bug with the cubics!

The players, who have found a way to exploit the bug, were able to re-use the cubic continuously, without having to wait the regular 24 hour interval, producing a plethora of enchant scrolls!

Results:

=> More enchant scrolls available in the market.

=> Lower prices for enchant scrolls.

=> Lots of overenchanting trials.

=> Lots of broken weapons/armors.

=> Lots of crystals available in the market.

=> Lower prices for crystals (especially S and A).

=> Lower prices for shots (especially S and A).


Time to go shopping :)

Friday, December 12, 2008

Rioting dragons



That's a Chris Riddell's (British illustrator of children's literature and a political cartoonist for The Observer) illustration, as a comment for the current events in Athens.

Monday, December 8, 2008

E.U.L.A Humor

It is also worth reading the Santa Event description in the latest L2 newsletter. I wish I knew who wrote it, he/she definitely has a sense of humor. Well done.

Comic from http://www.xkcd.com/ 
Excellent (geeky?) humor

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Darkfall and theNoobComic

Have you heard of a MMORPG called Darkfall Online, currently in closed beta but announced a long time ago? We have waited and waited and waited, but it' s not ready yet.

The game is expected to feature unrestricted PvP with no peace zones, full (i mean *full*) looting, a huge, dynamic game world that evolves in response to player actions. The majority of player capabilities are determined by the possession of skills, which improve in response to in-game use. Cities can be built, sieged, captured and destroyed by players; all items are craftable; the weather (including directorion winds!) influences the play, and there are many more advanced features.

Gianna Masseti, the author of TheNoobComic.com, was invited to preview the beta. I guess writing one of the best web comics .. has its advantages after all :-) Gianna is an experienced RPG player with a witty pen, so her comments are interesting to read:
In 3rd person view the camera is pretty close to your character and it’s fixed, so you can’t mousewheel back until your character is tiny and you can see for twenty yards behind you. Your chance to spot other people is to actually turn and look. Period.

This is not all, though. If you happen to be a tall guy, like my ork, and you’re fighting someone shorter, like a goblin, you have to aim DOWN at the little fucker while he runs figure eights around you, which means that you have even less awareness of your surroundings.

You don’t get a big ass name on your head, so it’s quite possible to hide behind trees and rocks (not like in other games where some poor sap is trying to ambush you from behind a tree and you can see the end bits of his tag sticking on the sides.
Darkfall seems interesting, it seemed interesting from the first moment Pavlos told me about it. Make sure to check the site, they have a wonderful dragon and lots of impressive artwork.

Note: Aventurine SA, the producing company, is norwegian/greek (!), situated in Athens (!!), with job openings (!!!).

In June, Aventurine confirmed they had signed with Greek company AudioVisual Enterprises to distribute Darkfall in Europe. On October 16th, 2008, Darkfall was publicly presented at Athens Digital Week (i still cannt believe I missed that) and it was mentioned on TV.

OK Aventurine guys, where are you? Please please please invite us for a short visit to your HQ!!