New Feature: Pasting withOUT Air.

In the game update on 4/16 a new tweak mode feature was added. The option to paste with or without air. This post is to help you better understand what that means and how to use it.

There are a few different ways to use this new feature and I'll post some screen shots to show you the differences between pasting with air and without air in a couple situations. First, to access this option either use your selection tool and drag a box around the object you wish to paste and hit Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste, or choose a previously saved template. Move the object near where you'd like to paste it and hold shift and left click. This will place the item in a temporary location with a small pop up window with some tweak options.

Use the directional and rotation options in the tweak panel to place the item exactly where you'd like and click the check mark on the tweak panel to place it.

 So, assume you wanted to put a ring of some kind around an existing pillar like I have in the above photo. I want to put this outline of a square around a pillar. Leaving the "Paste Air?" check box checked this is what happens.

As you can see it cut a piece out of our pillar. The game thinks that the air in the center of the white square is voxels so it replaced our obsidian voxels in the pillar with invisible air voxels. You can go back and replace the voxels that were "removed" and it will look good as new, BUT what if our pillar wasn't just a plain old square pillar and had an intricate design that we spent hours creating. That might not be so easy to fix up. This is where the "no air" feature comes in. If we un-check the "Paste with Air?" box in the tweak mode panel we can place our white square without any damage to the black pillar.

Another use is for creating inlays. Imagine we want to make a butterfly with black circular spots on it. How would we get those spots? One way to start is to make a cube (I'll use a 3x3 for this demo)

Use the smooth tool on the entire cube until it looks like a ball

Use the selection tool to choose the middle 1 voxel section of the ball and copy it or save it as a template.

You now have a small circle you can copy and paste where you'd like. 

So we head over to our butterfly and go to add the spots.
We copy and paste it using the tweak mode to get it just right, and then this happens.

As you can see it pasted the circular spot but also added those pesky air voxels in the corners. The pasting without air will fix this right up. You will instead get nice inlaid spots like the ones below.

I'm totally in love with this new feature because it makes inlays so easy. You can create whatever design you'd like, smooth it, and copy and paste it into a surface without issue. 

Currently there is a bit of a bug with pasting without air when used with objects that have been smoothed down with the smooth tool. As you can see in the below picture the one pasted without air (on the left) has gone jagged in certain areas. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

I hope this gives people a better understanding of this new tweak mode feature. Happy creating!

Aion 3.0 Crafting changes.

According to Massively there's some nice changes coming to crafting in Aion in 3.0 which is said to come out this spring along with the Free to Play conversion. Among the changes are the ability to spend a little kinah and end your current crafting mastery so you can pick up a different one. Also furniture recipes will be added to the game for the new player housing being added in the game update. Here's the whole story.

Neriak City Festival this week in EQ2

The Neriak City Festival started at midnight and will continue until the 7th. There are some new items at the city fest this time around. Just like last month's Kelethin festival different shaped blocks and dividers have been added to match the Neriak blue marble theme. Along with the blocks there is also a new Neriak roof tile. The festival items are purchased with city tokens which can be earned in many ways. One way is available at any time by doing crafting or adventuring writs. A faster way is to wait until the festival comes around and pick up one of the repeatable quests at the festival. I find doing the crafting quest is the fastest way as I can place a portable stove and keg right at the quest giver. A final way to earn tokens is by doing the aether race. Doing these races in a certain amount of time will also give you a title. Each city has a different one. Here are some helpful links about City Festivals. Have fun.

• General City Festival Info
• Aether Race Info
• City Fest Items
• Neriak Specific Items (newest items not shown)

A Goodbye to Domino

Many players have met a wonderful lady named Emily or "Domino" as she is known to most in EQ2. Some have become very close to her over the years. I personally have only known her through forum posts, twitter updates and SOE videocasts, but I know of the wonderful work she's done.

Many years ago in EQ2 raiding was king. If you had an issue regarding house decorating or tradeskilling it was hard to get things changed and improvements made. Then along came Domino. When she became tradeskill developer, Norrath started to change for the better. She added tons of quests for tradeskillers so we no longer had to stand in front of a stove or loom from 1-90 we could now travel the world and explore like adventurers and it made the tradeskill grind a lot more tolerable. She also helped add more housing items and improve on the ones we had. From what I've heard she had a love of decorating so it was only natural she helped improve that aspect of game by getting us new and exciting items to work with like tiles and tons of other new furniture.

All her amazing work as tradeskill dev paid off as she was eventually promoted to a producer's position. As associate producer she continued to help EQ2 improve on an even larger scale.

This morning I was shocked to see facebook and twitter posts announcing that she has left the EQ2 team. It's a very sad day. As far as I know there's no official word on if she left SOE altogether but because of that I fear the worst. Hopefully we haven't seen the last of Domino.

Domino, Thanks for everything you've done in making Norrath a better place. We love you even if we might not have known you.
-Twinklin

PUG TV features one of my homes... Little Dahling's Carnival

PUG TV features a different Free to play game each night of the week Mon-Fri. Thursdays are EQ2 night. During their online show they tour player decorated homes and player created dungeons. They also have been offering challenges where they give a theme and restrictions to 2 decorators who then go head to head and do their best to complete the task. Players can then vote on which home they think best filled the requirements of the challenge.

Jaedrian does a great job narrating the tours with a little background help from his wife. They used to cram several things into each episode like a dungeon run and a house tour for example. They recently started splitting their episodes up to feature individual homes and dungeons. I saw Jaedrian post on the Homeshow forum not too long ago that he was looking for homes to tour. When I contacted him he informed me that they had been through my botanical garden home on a previous episode. You can see that tour HERE. The garden tour is towards the end of the video around the 1:10:00 mark. I invited them to tour any of my other homes if they wanted to and they chose to do a run through the carnival. You can watch the recorded video HERE. 

Thanks to PUG TV for taking the time to make these videos. They've been very enjoyable to watch. Follow Jaedrian on Twitter @Jaedrian01 or visit their website http://jaedrian.enjin.com/ and TwitchTV channel. 

Aion NA going F2P as well as 3.0 News!!

Aion Europe switched over to the F2P model not too long ago which left some North American players wondering if we'd be so lucky. Well the announcement has been made and coming with the release of 3.0 is the implementation of a F2P model for the NA servers. Here's the Linky Link to the F2P info website. Here also is the letter from NCSoft making the announcement that this spring we will not only be level 60, decorating player housing and running around on mounts but it will be FREE...

Aion: Ascension Debuts with Innovative Truly Free Business Model and Epic 3.0 Content Update
North American Players to Experience Full Game Features and 3.0 Content Free of Charge this Spring

Seattle, WA – February 21, 2012 – NCsoft®, the world's premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), today announces Aion: Ascension, the Truly Free evolution of Aion, the award–winning fantasy MMO that rivals other MMOs with its stunning graphics, fierce PvP and customization. Aion: Ascension brings players unrestricted access to a world filled with deep lore, exploration and epic faction battles free of charge. Coupled with the change in business model coming this Spring, players will experience everything in the highly anticipated 3.0 content update, including housing, mounts, increased level cap (60), new zones and instances.

Aion: Ascension's Truly Free business model gives players access to the entire game, including the two major expansions, 3,000+ quests, 30+ instances, 18 zones, three instanced PvP games, pets, classes and key social features like the auction house, chat, trade, crafting, gathering and forums. And with new content from the 3.0 update, which provide several new gameplay systems that Aion fans have been asking for, Aion: Ascension will be one of the most compelling MMOs on the market.

Players experiencing the world of Atreia for the first time will be welcomed into the game with a refined starting area with ample content engaging players from the beginning of their journey with guides designed to assist their current efforts and advise them on where to go next. Returning and current players will not only be able to jump back into the game for free, but will find the new content coming in Aion 3.0 a great addition to the already strong offering.

For players wanting a head start, NCsoft is hosting a "Rallying the Troops" event which will give new players an extended no time limit trial with an increased level cap to 40, whilst returning veterans will have their accounts reactivated free for 14 days. In addition, everyone will enjoy permanent increased XP as well as other boosts to help level and gear up to experience the new content faster.

A sample of features coming in the Aion 3.0 content update include:
Housing System – Everyone gets a home. Decorate and party in your new home.
Mount System – A new gameplay system which lets Daevas speed around the world of Atreia in style.
New Instances – Six new instances including a challenging 24-player raid.
New Zones – Two stunning new zones in the Balaur homeland.
New Level Cap – Five new levels bringing the max level to 60.

In addition to the new business model and Aion 3.0 content, NCsoft will implement new RMT countermeasures to ensure a safe and secure gaming experience for all of its players. These highly effective, proprietary methods will specifically target fraudulent transactions, bots and spammers and the confiscation of goods that have been acquired through RMT activities so that players can experience a no hassle/no harassment MMO experience.

Aion: Ascension with the innovative and improved Truly Free business model along with the 3.0 content update is scheduled to launch this Spring. More information can be found at na.aiononline.com.

EQ2 New Marketplace Items- High Elf Heritage Armor, Pretty Mirror and an Epee

3 new items on the EQ2 marketplace today.

High Elf Heritage Armor- 1750 SC

Vengeance (epee style sword)- 400 SC

Mahogany Vanity Set- 400 SC

EQ2 New Marketplace Items- Misty Unicorn, Emerald Lichslayer sword and another home weapon display crate.

3 New Marketplace items came out today. Here they are...

Misty Unicorn- 1950 SC

Emerald Lichslayer- 500 SC

Stormcatcher's Weapon Home Display Crate- 100 SC

For more info on all 3 hop on over to the Everquest2 site.

Kristin's Adventures in MMOLand Episode 4

So I had a decision to make this week. Do I, 1. Buy Skyrim, 2. Get SWTOR, 3. Resubscribe to WoW for 4.3 or 4. Get the new EQ2 expansion Age of Discovery. Since like most of America I'm poor I had to choose one and only one for right now. So I made a pros and cons list. It basically came down to which had the most options for me.

Skyrim looks pretty fun but there's a lot of talking to NPCs which isn't really my thing. I have heard so many great things about the game though. I have a friend with the game so I can just play theirs though I won't get my own Steam achievements. Plus it's single player and I love MMOs.

SWTOR ended up being really fun when I played it last weekend. A lot of the questions that I had early on were answered as I played more. But only playing to level 20 I couldn't get a full grasp on how soloable it is. Since my raiding and grouping is minimal I need a game that can keep me busy for a long time. Many games lose me once I hit max level because there's nothing to do beyond that except raid. I fear SWTOR will be like this so I would rather wait until my friends get to max level and see what they say about non raiding end game content. It also comes out only a few days before I take a holiday and so I wouldn't be able to play much until I got back.

WoW 4.3 has some fun stuff like Transmogrification and the new Darkmoon fair but DMF is only 1 week a month and since I solo most of the 4.3 content does me no good.

EQ2 Age of Discovery has a ton of new stuff like the new and improved Freeport, Tradeskill Apprentices, and Dungeon Maker. I listened to the Design your own dungeon podcast for a bit the other day and it seems that since you run the player created dungeons using avatars you can do some of them solo which is perfect for me. Plus it's more decorating. I also "know" EQ2. I know it can hold my interest long term being as there's a bazillion quests and has the best player housing available in any game. It's going free to play with the release of the new expansion which I hope brings me new friends. There's the new mercenary system coming with the expansion which will hopefully help me complete some of the not so soloable content. Plus there's always an in game event going on. Currently the New Halas City Festival is going on plus with the new expansion they're starting FROSTFELL!!!!

So looking at the pros from each game it ended up being a pretty easy decision. I went with Age of Discovery. It releases Dec 6th. I'm currently playing one of my very few evil characters so I can fully enjoy the new Freeport Revamp.

Moonlight Enchantments EQ2

Moonlight Enchantments: November 20-21, 2011

 It's that time of the month again. Time to grind rootbeer all day and all night for that creepy faun elder so you can get all the super awesome house items. If you don't know what I'm talking about you're probably better off. But if you REALLY want to know head on over to ZAM where they always have the great guides to in game events. 

 

Aion 3.0 will have seasons.

In the 3.0 trailer some people noticed snowy weather in the new housing zones. Aion will have 4 seasons just like in the real world and they will correspond to certain in game months.

• Spring from March to May
• Summer from June to August
• Autumn from September to November
• Winter from December to February

No word yet on if these seasons will be limited to only the housing zones or if they will effect other areas of the game. Along with the snow or changing of leaves and blooming of flowers, at the beginning of each in-game month, there is a chance that special seasonal mobs will spawn in Elyos and Asmo housing zones. It seems these will be huge tree creatures which players can kill. I believe you can only do white damage in the housing zones so killing one of these mobs will take a long time or a lot of people. Killing them will rewards players with a random drop of a whale mount, packs of house decorations, as well as crystals and leaves needed for the quests for eternal wings.

Furthermore if these mobs spawn at a specific location (like near a certain lake) it will also drop additional rare items like eternal quality leaves needed to produce the Bike mount or other aether fragments which can be exchanged for rewards. As you can see because of its rarity, long spawn time, and huge demand, materials (leaves) needed for the Bike vehicle are very expensive…

It seems that, more season-related mini-events will be introduced in near future!  Thanks as always to Daeva's Report for having the awesome Aion info.

EQ2 New Marketplace Items, Personal Planetarium and Another Kilt!

A few new items were added to the EQ2 Station Cash store. Firstly the new Planetarium prestige home. The home's base item count is 500 (800 with max expanders). It can be purchased for 700 SC.

Next we have the Glowing Maj'dul light. This is that floating balloon light we all love so much. It's finally ours for 200 SC. The floating movement can be turned off and on too!

And we have another kilt, because you know there can never be too many kilts. The Clan McDowell set. The set includes the Clan McDowell Helm, Kilt, Sleeves, Tunic, Boots, and Gauntlets. It's available in the Marketplace for "a wee 800 Station Cash" (SOE's phrasing stolen for cuteness).

Next up is the Flametouched armwraps for 300 SC. When examined you can determine to have them appear on the left or right arm or BOTH!

Lastly another Petamorph wand, Naga guardian. Petamorph wands are used to change your combat pet into something fancy. This one can be purchased for 100 SC.

Here's the original article on Everquest2.com. Enjoy!

EQ2 Age of Discovery Pre-Order Now Available! Gifts Galore!

EQ2 has made their next expansion, Age of Discovery, available for pre-order. The expansion is expected to release late Nov. or early Dec. so you don't have much time but pre-ordering the game and the collectors edition will give you tons of fancy gifts. (saving up my dollars as fast as possible). ZAM has the full write-up. Here's the stuff you'll get with your pre-order.

Unique Beastlord Warder Pet

Cloak of the Truespirit

Lavastorm Prestige Home

Armored Flying Pegasus Mount

Robe of the Truespirit

Aion 3.0 teasers

There's been a lot of stuff floating around about what will come with Aion 3.0. I'm seeing all kinds of great stuff. Aion players will finally be getting mounts, including flying ones (though the flyers seem to still be limited in flight time like the current ability to fly). Player housing is also a big new addition to the game. There's new instances and armor to go with it. Here's the official trailer.

Daeva's Report has been getting a ton of info from the Korean test server where the 3.0 update is available. They have a bunch of videos on their YouTube channel of the new mounts and some new wings that are coming with 3.0. All beautiful stuff.

Aion is by far my favorite game but my least played. I haven't found a super casual legion like the one I would need. I have mentioned my playtime is easily and frequently interrupted which makes PvP and grouping mostly impossible. I have tried to get a few friends to play so I wouldn't be so lonely in game but they don't stick around long as it's a bit more complicated of a game then say WoW.  I do tend to go back and run around solo until I get sick of being lonely LOL. If you know of a super casual Aion legion who won't expect me to group or do raids let me know. Thanks :)

EQ2's 7 year Anniversary.

This info is a few days old but since I just started this blog yesterday I'm going to be playing catch up for a while. Everquest 2 is celebrating it's 7 year anniversary! This offers a few things for the players in honor of the occasion. One being a Lucan D'Lere statue house item which you can claim by visiting the station marketplace and purchasing it for 0 station cash.

You can purchase as many as you want. The anniversary also adds a new veteran reward for when the people who started on day 1 hit 8 years. The new 8 year reward includes.

• "Veteran Revival" : A spell that allows you to rez your group once a day. It is not usable while dead.
• Your choice of an elemental hover disc mount (flyable if you are 85 or above, ground mount otherwise).
• "Vision of the Thulosian" : A green particle effect on your eyes, like the Thulosians have in the Moors of Ykesha.
• Six XP potions (+110% xp, 1-hour duration (go alts go!)
• A new title: "The Veteran"