Nuclear Decay and Distance from Sun

There's a fascinating post up at the physics arXiv blog detailing some research on a variation in the rate of nuclear decay, depending on the distance of the Earth from the Sun when the measurements are taken. Obviously, there are going to be knock-on effects for a lot of science fiction here; you can measure distance from stars by the changes, for one thing, but there's also the problem that your nuclear-powered spacecraft is going to behave rather oddly when the rate of decay changes.

The one thing they don't say is whether it gets slower or faster as distance increases, which is the real meat of the subject!

Posted by Drew Shiel on August 30, 2008 at 23:13 | Comments (0)

Warhammer Online News Sources

As a followup to Warhammer Online: The Very Basics, here's a list of places to keep an eye on for news concerning the game.

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Posted by Drew Shiel on August 4, 2008 at 18:11 | Comments (0)

PDF Previews

At some point in the recent past, it seems to have become standard for tabletop RPGs to do a preview release, or even an alpha release, of a PDF some time before the full game is released. I think this is a great idea, and I'd therefore like to direct your attention to the Starblazer Preview (PDF) and the Pathfinder RPG Alpha Release (which is also a PDF, but I've linked to the download page, not directly to the PDF).

These are two games I think I'll be acquiring.

Posted by Drew Shiel on July 16, 2008 at 20:21 | Comments (0)

Missions in EVE Online

Much as I love EVE Online - now that Empyrean Age has killed off the weird stargates issue that was rendering it impossible for me to play - there is one aspect of it that really bugs me: time limits on missions.

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Posted by Drew Shiel on June 19, 2008 at 12:38 | Comments (0)

Warhammer Online: The Very Basics

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) is now in Beta. There are a lot of people out there who like the look of the game, but know next to nothing about the setting or the game itself. So here are the very basics:

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Posted by Drew Shiel on May 29, 2008 at 12:29 | Comments (2)

Darkfall: Fantasy Sandbox?

The Warcry network is hosting a new developer journal concerning Darkfall. Darkfall has been in development for a long, long time, and many people think it's firmly in the realm of vapourware.

More than anything else, Darkfall is selling full freedom gameplay. The game and the technology have been designed and implemented from the ground up for to be a full sandbox PvP game.

Even if it never comes out, I'm made hopeful by the gap in the market for such a game being recognised.

Posted by Drew Shiel on May 27, 2008 at 12:05 | Comments (0)

Steven Moffat to Produce Doctor Who

A BBC press release and a Guardian article herald the long-awaited news that Steven Moffat is taking over from Russell T Davies as lead writer and executive producer of Doctor Who for the series broadcasting in 2010.

I am really, really glad to see this. Davies has done plenty of good stuff in getting the series up and running, and running well, but his writing is variable, often awful, and the level of repetition has been silly. Moffat is an excellent, excellent writer, and based on that, I'll be far happier to have the overall direction of the show in his hands.

Posted by Drew Shiel on May 21, 2008 at 09:06 | Comments (0)

Thoughts On Crafting In WoW and WAR

I've been thinking a lot about crafting lately, as Wormson chases down the last few non-bind-on-pickup tailoring recipes and has finally made his awesome frost-and-shadow robe. I'm also looking for jewelcrafting recipes for him, and seeing the number of items appearing in the auction house search for "usable items" decreasing is a great pleasure. It's becoming apparent that crafting skills have to be chosen carefully, and I'm keeping a close eye on the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning news to see what way things will play out there.

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Posted by Drew Shiel on April 28, 2008 at 12:55 | Comments (0)

WoW: Am I still casual?

I'm starting to wonder if I can call myself a casual player in World of Warcraft any more. After all, Wormson traded in his last green item on Saturday evening for an epic belt, and is now clad entirely in rare and epic items. Indeed, out of seventeen slots for items that have bonuses, his PvE outfit has epic items in thirteen. PvP drops to only eleven, as I replace epics with higher-resilience "welfare" rare items.

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Posted by Drew Shiel on April 28, 2008 at 12:44 | Comments (1)

Multiple Group Membership in MMOs

The World of Warcraft guild I'm in is part of a larger group of three guilds, the Hillsbrad Pact, in-character, and ARCORB, out of character. Between us, we can muster a decent raiding group, a good chat channel, and a fair chance that you can find someone to help you with group quests. This isn't something any of the guilds could manage on its own. The trouble is that there is no mechanical way in WoW to support this concept.

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Posted by Drew Shiel on April 25, 2008 at 12:44 | Comments (0)

State of the Games

I'm currently playing two MMOs, and running two tabletop games. I'm soon (all going to plan) going to be playing in another tabletop.

World of Warcraft: The Shattered Sun dailies are still entertaining, and I fully expect Argent Dawn to go to Phase 3 tonight, if it hasn't already. Wormson is levelling fishing (now at 295, and with the Master level book bought and used), and I'm enjoying it greatly. The raid group that my guild belongs to has Karazhan on farm, has had an attempt at Magtheridon, and is going hunting in the Serpentshrine Caverns this week. I have 11 epics, and am starting to work on getting hold of enchantments, good gems, and possibly even dedicated sets of PvP and raiding gear. My bank is pretty nearly full, due in large part to my obstinate tendency to hang onto RP-oriented clothing.

EVE Online: I'm training long skills in EVE, and logging in occasionally to do some trading or manufacturing. The weird bug that makes the game freeze on me for 30-90 seconds every time I go near a jump gate makes it essentially impossible to run missions - a mission that happens two systems away will involve between four and fifteen minutes of looking at a frozen screen, and that's just for the mission-running battleship. By the time I get the salvage destroyer out and back, it's a complete waste of time. Missioning will have to wait until I have a new machine (or a new videocard, or some other upgrade or update), or until a fix appears in the game itself. This is annoying, but the pleasure I'm getting from WoW makes up for it.

Tabletop: My two tabletop games are going well. I can't really say much more without giving away details that I don't want the players to see, but all of them seem to be enjoying themselves, and that's really the main aim of the games.

I'm doing a good bit of world-building (a lot of it purely in my head) at the moment, and narrowing down possibilities for future events and games. There are, I think, too many possibilities for one world, especially since about six of the ideas I have would amount to full setting reboots, or singularities. There's an inherent problem in being a simulationist who likes huge, epic narratives - they leave the world in tatters, and two or more in a row would get very, very messy.

I'm looking forward to the release of D&D's 4th Edition, even if I won't be playing it for some time, and am also following with interest the appearance of the Pathfinder game from Paizo, commonly known as 3.75. This is a splintering in D&D that might actually amount to something on both sides.

Posted by Drew Shiel on April 7, 2008 at 14:25 | Comments (1)

Doctor Who: Partners In Crime

I've had some time to mull over the first episode of the new season of Doctor Who, Partners in Crime, and I've come to the careful and considered conclusion that my initial impression was entirely correct: it was crap.

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Posted by Drew Shiel on April 7, 2008 at 14:00 | Comments (0)

WoW: Sunwell Isle and the Power to Change

The new Sunwell Isle daily quests have a compelling aspect like none I've seen in an MMO before. I'm usually ambivalent about dailies in World of Warcraft. On the one hand, they allow me to do something productive in a short amount of time, which is useful when I have a limited period online. On the other, they're the ultimate in repetitive tasks, which I abhor. But the Shattered Sun Offensive quests are making me consider putting dailies on my calendar.

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Posted by Drew Shiel on April 3, 2008 at 09:44 | Comments (1)

First Time in Karazhan

I've never done much raiding before - a few times into Zul'Gurub, back in the pre-TBC days. Saturday evening last, though, the raid group my guild works with were arranging runs into the new, no-attunement Karazhan. We had enough people to run three simultaneous raids, each with ten people. For me, at least, it was a momentous success.

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Posted by Drew Shiel on March 31, 2008 at 09:31 | Comments (0)