Delving those MMO Pool Labyrinths

There was a viral Twitter post I saw yesterday that kind of sparked something inside me late last night.

Looks awesome, doesn't it?

So I did some digging and looked up a couple of magical places like this.  There's something called the Y-40, which is located inside a Hotel swimming pool in Italy? I found more details at poolinsider.com.

"The Y-40 is really a labyrinth of spaces designed for different underwater swimming, diving and viewing activities. The pool features various depths for divers of all levels and some cool interactive features. It has four artificial underwater caves that simulate what you might run into in the ocean, a cylindrical area with extreme depths for experiences divers looking to push their limits, various ledges, underwater glass viewing panels for spectators and even a 43 foot transparent tunnel for visitors who don't want to get wet."

There's also a deep dive pool called Nemo 33 in Belgium. It sounds like a scuba diver's playground! 

"Nemo 33 features numerous structures meant to simulate the experience of deep-sea diving, including intricate passageways and underwater caves submerged in 660,000 gallons (2.5 million liters) of water. Endowed with surreal vastness and astonishing architecture, visitors can participate in aquatic activities like swimming, scuba diving, and freediving."

Those places sound amazing but are way out of my budget. hehe. And that's why my mind naturally went to video games and particularly to a couple of weird MMO zones. 

~~

First, in Everquest on the continent of Velious, there's a little underwater dungeon called Siren's Grotto. Gimme a shout if you remember this spot! 

I actually downloaded Everquest, logged in, and went to Siren's Grotto last night.  It took me a few minutes to remember how handy some of the map tools were in the game and before I knew it, I had a glowing trail leading me to exactly where I needed to go to get there.

You just need to kill a few sirens and head on into the underwater cave in Cobalt Scar.

When I was spending a lot of time in this zone, oh . . . what 17 or 18 years ago? It was because I needed a quest item from a rare mob for my Beastlord epic weapon quest. I remember I spent quite a long time at the entrance of the zone killing the same mob over and over again. I think boredom eventually caused me to branch out and start hunting in other areas of the zone, but this place was a bit of a nightmare and it was easy to aggro multiple mobs and not even know it because, just like Dory, you just keep swimming.

Well Goo Goo G'Joob to you too, Mr. Walrus.

Before I knew it, I was killing mermaids. These old school mermaids man . . . they were the best!

Red tails and green hair . . . it's an unusual breed of mermaid . . .

I remember one time I came to this zone with an actual group and we were killing things for experience and loot, which was odd because it wasn't a popular spot to go because of it's maze like nature and because the risk vs. reward just wasn't there, but yeah . . . it's all a distant memory now.

This place definitely feels like a virtual crazy pool maze, and those swimming pool pictures got me thinking about this place hard.

Apparently that lady in the middle is a boss for an Enchanter epic quest?

~~

Second, in Wizard101 there's a zone called "The Grotto" in Celestia.  While this place isn't as much as a maze as Siren's Grotto in Everquest, it really does have some of those same watery corridors that feel like a maze.

How exactly does an underwater pool work inside an underwater dome work? Magic!

It's too bad you don't stay in this zone for too long. I really like it.

Swimming underwater in the grotto in Wizard101! Yes!

Everything in this zone has a nice muted sound to it and you really feel underwater. It even features a fun giant shark/eel/monster head tunnel that you can swim through and a castle made out of coral.

An Icy crab man named Governor Nereus lives inside

Going inside the giant eel's mouth was always one of my favorite moments in Celestia.

If there's a great questing spot in Celestia, this is definitely on the top of the list for me.

~~

. . . and of course there are other areas in other MMOs that are underwater. Most recently I've visited Atlantis in DCUO where you can even transform into a seahorse and race through the seaweed. That race would qualify as a maze for sure! 

Project Gorgon also recently added a few underwater caves to Sun Vale. From what I remember it was a seaweed crafting reagent paradise.

As for other MMOs, I've read about them, but I can't really remember running the underwater Aquatic Ruins fractal in GW2, I don't think I've ever seen Vashj'r in World of Warcraft, and I've never found the secret underwater cave in Sea of Thieves. but those are all underwater "mazes" I wouldn't mind visiting in the future.

What do you think? You got any good underwater game spots? Lemme know in the comments below.

Happy Dueling!

Putting the Elf on the Shelf in Overwatch

I love the Overwatch events that give you a couple free sprays and a new skin for winning 9 games. 

ended up getting those last three wins late last night -- Woot!

That carrot on a stick is all the motivation I need to log on and play several games, and there will be three of these types of events running through the Holiday season. The first of which was to earn the green elf Junkrat skin

Oh man, could totally be my new favorite Junkrat skin!

If you're interested, you only have the rest of this weekend to earn him and then it'll cycle to the next event, which happens to be Gingerbread Ana (too bad she doesn't actually look like Ana made out of gingerbread), and finally the last event will have us hunting after Frosty the Roadhog, which you also get a nice preview of on the start menu.

Of course Junkrat steals all the cookies while flanked by Frosty the Roadhog!

Outside of those skins there are the typical smattering of purchasable skins including Penguin Mei, Toybot Zenyatta, Conductor Reinhardt, Ice Empress Moira, and Lumberjack Torbjorn. 

Sadly, I like ALL those characters and there's no way I'm going to be able to get them all.  My favorites out of the bunch are for Zen, Rein, and Torb. Who knows!? Maybe I'll get lucky and win at least one of them before it's too late and the event goes away. I mean, the game did give me an old event skin last night in a loot box.

Sigma Rime skin, eh? I never play him, but I'll take a free Mr. Cold Miser!

Anyway . . . I've got some time off work for the holidays . . . it's possible! GET THEM SKINS!

Happy Dueling!

Crafting my first VR Dream

You may vaguely remember that the family got me Dreams for the PS4 VR back for my birthday. After letting the kids play it for a bit, what I found was the most intensive set of tutorials in any game, ever.  Why?  Well, to be honest, there certainly are enough Dreams Content Creators out there that I could be perfectly happy just playing other people's levels, but that's not me. I need to create! I can't be content to just wander haunted houses built by players for hours on end.

Just one of the many spooky floors from All Hallows' Dreams

 Ok, gotta admit, I could just wander haunted houses built by players for hours on end.

But I love creating things!

The game comes with a pretty nice pack of "ancient stone" default building items for you to play around with, and I ended up making a pretty pleasing scene where you talk to a frog and grab a Sonic-esque ring that changes day to night.

This seemingly simple scene took an amazing amount of time to build

I've played through a few hours worth of tutorials and I still have more to do believe it or not. 

The creations I'm finding in Dreams VR are all very strange and simple, and it very much feels like I'm living and walking around inside a puppet show, which is a pretty cool aesthetic.

I'd love to build a maze game filled with scenes. One of my favorite books was called "Maze" by Christopher Manson. The only problem with maze games is that they're more fun to make than to play generally . . . that was one of the problems with the maze game I made in Roblox.

I'd also like to make a poetry reading experience with a few of my poems.

Part of the problem is that it's just so darn complicated to make automated, programmed elements in these games, that most of the games just turn out to be obstacle jumping courses (much like 90% of the games on Roblox).

There's tons you could do . . . it's just challenging to do it. Thus why you have hours and hours of tutorials in the game. Mad props to those who create for sure.

Happy Dueling!

CR 327 -- Bring out the TOYS!

 At this point for me in DCUO, it's a slow grind up the CR ladder. Basically, I'm logging on for two reasons: 

    1- Team Spode's Sunday Night games (yay!)

    2- Trying to earn Quintile crystals to build up an epic item (I need to epic-out them there shnazzy goggles in Long Live the Legion!)

To those ends, I'm also hitting up the dailies and "legion bounties" over and over while waiting for whatever new expansion they might throw our way in . . . maybe a few months?  Who knows how long it will be until the next update.

And if you're really crazy, you'll do all that for all your alts as well . . . I may or may not have logged on to Death Unicorn, my old Fire Tank . . . ok, I totally logged on Death Unicorn. I have no idea how to play him anymore, but chucking meteors around is super fun.

Long Live the Death Unicorn!

Because I've also been hitting up those Legion bounty raids, I've also been bringing out my old toys in my storage while waiting for the raid to start.

I've got the Riddler Ball, the Superman Ball, and a piece of 2nd anniversary cake.

YAY! IT'S TOY TIME!!

I've actually had a couple fun games of catch with people while waiting for the raid to begin because of this.  The cake is way easier to play catch with btw, the balls move too fast and have too much roll-y/bouncy physics to them to be easily picked up.

I was super happy when another guy joined in this morning and summoned up his dice to throw around as well.

Batman look-a-like gonna roll a nat 20!

TOY FEST!  So if you're reading this post and happen to also have toys in the bank . . . make a friendly necromancer happy and join in the fun. It's Christmas time after all. 

(You know . . . I should go play the toyland instance in DCUO again . . .that's a good time!)

Happy Dueling

CR 325 and Holding in DCUO's Long Live the Legion

Long Live the Legion released just 20 days ago, and since that time I've been hitting up the futuristic roads of this 31st century version of Metropolis and helping out a "unique" legion of superheroes, which I know nothing about. Um, I totally missed the boat here on this group of DC heroes. I had no idea there was a comic book series and even a 2006 animated series about a legion of future heroes.

I may have to watch a few episodes now!

~~

To describe what it's been like to run this new DCUO content for the past 20 days, it's all about running the morning MMO treadmill:

1- Fly around the hub gathering all the exclamation point quests that refresh daily.  Usually there's just a free "talk to me" quest to get a free source mark and a free solar credit and four other quests.

There's a lot of hub bub going down in the town hub!

2- The first dialy has you hunting down "sources of magic."  These typically take the shape of enchanted weapons floating around in a purple circle.

There's a  sword trying to stick itself in my back.

3- The next daily has you destroying / deactivating rogue robots that are possessed by magic.

No one's quite sure why the probteks are attack futuristic garbage cans, but *shrug*

4- The next daily has you helping students of the Legion while magic demons try to harass them (they ALWAYS try to harass them).

Crazy kids from all over the galaxy come here to learn superhero moves!

5- And then the final daily has you just go around hunting down big groups of magic demons.

Down with demons!

6- At the start of the week you also get a quest to repair signs and antennas around town that's worth a hefty 8 solar credits and source marks.

7- At the start of the week you also get a quest to defeat the open world bosses of the expansion, which are also worth another hefty 8 credits.

Validus is a big boy. A very big mean boy.

If anything has changed in my time of playing DCUO, it's this.  Hanging out and killing world bosses over and over is the new pink in DCUO. You do this over and over and earn a secondary currency to the content you're in while killing time in game. If you're lucky, other things will drop for you as well . . . like rare furniture or cool trinkets.

Gotta Love a Loot Shot! Yay for Time Beacons, Might Mods, and Housing Furniture!

8- There is a new, short (2 bosses) 4-player instance you can play every day.  There's three versions of this instance: easy "event" mode, basic mode, and elite.  If you do the easy mode you only get solar credits. If you do the basic mode, you get solar credits and source marks.  If you do the elite? I don't know . . . it's above my skill level. 

9- There's also a new 8-player raid (3 bosses) you can play once a week with the same three difficulty levels.  It's pretty epic. You basically get to help the legion take down Mordru and trap him in Amber. 

~~

And that's it. That's the expansion! You'll be doing this content over and over and over for a few months while the DCUO team puts together something new for you to play. 

I've got just enough upgrades now to reach my first big wall while playing since my return to DCUO. It's going to take a lot to move the needle into higher CR ratings while waiting for the next update.  That's fine.  

The good news for me this week is that it's double source marks from 26 November to 2 December. I need so many source marks, it's not even funny. I guess it's not a problem for people that haven't just returned to the game like me.  I'm just happy it's a thing.

Happy Dueling!

The Sweet Satisfaction of Karamelle in Wizard101

 Oh this world, my friends. Can you believe this world?

It's like Disneyland and Willy Wonka got together with Swiss Miss and held a party.

First, a little backstory. It all started back in 2009 when (as I foggily remember it being recounted to me) Kiersten Samwell wandered into the Wizard101 writers and after a little quick brainstorming, Professor Greyrose had a new bit of lore to share with the fans of Wizard101 through answering a question on an interview I was doing with her for this blog.  From that time, players of Wizard101 were always listing "Candy World" as a possible world of the Spiral they would someday visit.

Fast forward to 2012, after getting hired at KingsIsle as Pirate101's community manager, I came up with an idea to make these really cool "Rogue's Gallery" spotlights. To get them done, I worked with Sam Johnson of the writing team and Damon Brown, our video production guru. Sam would get me the text, I would grab the video footage, and Damon would put them all together with some voice over. We ended up making 29 of these videos.  It was a huge effort to put these together every month.

Eventually, we hired on Leala Ulrich and she took up the mantle to make professor spotlight videos for all the Wizard101 professors in kind of a "Rogue's Gallery" style production called the "Ravenwood Roll Call." The hardest of these to make seemed to be the spotlight for Professor Greyrose. In 2015 Leala went to all kinds of lengths to get the video and assets she needed to make this video. In addition Leala worked with the writers for the lore and story in the video, and this is really when the rough lore idea for "Candy World" then solidified into the world of The Spiral known as "Karamelle."

And here we are now in 2020, and the amazing Wizard101 team has unleashed a cheerful bunch of joyful content known as Karamelle, Wizard101's latest world of the Spiral . . . and I'm playing through it with my wife in its fully realized state. The Wizard101 team has really outdone itself!

Riding around in our cookie cars is the sweetest way to experience Karamelle together.

We're only a few hours in at this point, and it's been super fun.  We've fought marshmallows, gummy worms, gobblers, witches, gummy bears, and even cotton candy rams with candy cane horns. "Candy World" is everything I dreamed it would be and more.

The actually growl like a Tiger. Hilarious.

I really love this world so far and can't wait to play through it over this week with my wife.  If you see us in game, please say hello! 

Hope you all are enjoying "Candy World" as much as I am.

Happy dueling!

CR 313 -- Out with the Wonderverse, in with the Legion in DCUO?

 Behold the wonders of the Wonderverse!

How did I shoot a lighting bolt from the back of my head into Athena anyway?

As of this weekend, I was able to finally raise my CR up to what I'd call "current and casual" on DCUO at a respectable 313.  I mean, for the big raids in DCUO right now, you're going to want 318 and above on your teams, but (according to Lord Spode of Team Spode) I'm probably right where I want to be for when the next big expansion hits DCUO.

That's right! I said I'm current and casual! You gotta problem with that?

The big reason I was able to hit 313 was because of the "double splintered coins" promotion going on in DCUO right now.  Splintered Coins are the main currency you earn from running Wonderverse content, and the same currency used to buy all the Wonderverse gear.  Having Double Splintered Coins meant I could pay to reset all the raids, and my once hefty balance of 2,000 reset tokens has been whittled down to 500.

When I say "reset the raids," I'm talking about the amazing circuit of open world raid bosses in Wonderverse that just continue to cycle every 30 minutes.  It's really quite ingenious, and you could spend night after night grinding this raid boss circuit for hours on end and fill up on mods and oddities, but what you're really going for (at least when you're my level) is to complete three weekly quests that are worth 8 splintered coins and a large loot box EACH:

• Hydra Havok
• Conquerer Counterstrike
• Circe's Panthemonium

Paying to reset those is a whopping 87 badges each, but during double splintered coins that means I can get 48 splintered coins for 30 minutes of lazy open world raid stuff.  Easy.

Anyway, I think it's probably best to sit on that balance of reset tokens for the next big expansion, which was actually just recently teased on a Twitch stream: Long Live the Legion! From the sounds of it, we'll be traveling 1000 years into the future where a legion of superheroes is banding together and Mordru just wants to end it all.

Screengrab from the Twitch Stream preview of Long Live the Legion. Pretty!

In the meantime I'm trying my best to find how the heck to spec my sorcery character with 200 feat points, and it sounds like the pendulum has swung away from precision and weapon-based builds and more towards might and super-power based builds.  I don't know . . . I'm going to have to figure it out.

I SAID I HAVE TO FIGURE IT OUT! *cough* sorry, got emotional there . . .

It's times like these that I wish I had 2 more armory stations so I could really play a strange DPS build and save it so I can easily compare my builds, you know?  They cost 500 station cash each . . . hmmmmm . . . maybe.

Anyway, I'm just happy to be playing with Team Spode again on Sunday nights. It's an absolute pleasure listening to these peeps talk again over Discord. Good times. Good times.

Happy Dueling!