Balandar

This was sent to me from an old UO gamer. From http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issues...=ua_congressorg. Pending Draft Legislation Targeted for Spring 2005 The Draft will Start in June 2005 There is pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills: S 89 and HR 163) which will time the program's initiation so the draft can begin at early as Spring 2005 -- just after the 2004 presidential election. The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public's attention is on the elections, so our action on this is needed immediately. $28 million has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System (SSS) budget to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June 15, 2005. Selective Service must report to Bush on March 31, 2005 that the system, which has lain dormant for decades, is ready for activation. Please see website: www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html to view the sss annual performance plan - fiscal year 2004. The pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide.. Though this is an unpopular election year topic, military experts and influential members of congress are suggesting that if Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan [and a permanent state of war on "terrorism"] proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to draft. Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and HR 163 forward this year, http://www.hslda.org/legislation/na...s89/default.asp entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003, "to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18--26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." These active bills currently sit in the committee on armed services. Dodging the draft will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era. College and Canada will not be options. In December 2001, Canada and the U.S. signed a "smart border declaration," which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's minister of foreign affairs, John Manley, and U.S. Homeland Security director, Tom Ridge, the declaration involves a 30-point plan which implements, among other things, a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and departing each country. Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable along gender and class lines also eliminates higher education as a shelter. Underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of their current semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic year. Even those voters who currently support US actions abroad may still object to this move, knowing their own children or grandchildren will not have a say about whether to fight. Not that it should make a difference, but this plan, among other things, eliminates higher education as a shelter and includes women in the draft. The public has a right to air their opinions about such an important decision. Please send this on to all the friends, parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and cousins that you know. Let your children know too -- it's their future, and they can be a powerful voice for change! Please also contact your representatives to ask them why they aren't telling their constituents about these bills -- and contact newspapers and other media outlets to ask them why they're not covering this important story.

I agree with Uglutz on this 100 percent. I think the Jamaican accent detracts from the game. I cringe every time I see/hear someone speaking with that accent. The language is one of the first items we agreed on when creating SoC. As to our language and reasons, most of that is explained in our About section on the website. Thrall is a great hero, but he is not our kind of orc. We disagree with many of his methods. Even though Blizzard is making life quests on how the orcs in WoW have been in the past and where they are going in the future, we do not need to follow those exactly. We can comply by some of the history, the part about the demonic possession of the orcs for example. And, in a way, we are returning to the old shamanistic ways of the orcs, but not the same old ways. We are following our blood god whose mission is, more or less, the extermination of all of the alliance and to not follow the alliance ways. Two examples: Speaking the Alliance tongue and using guns. I doubt we will have as many restrictions as Shadowclan did in UO. After seeing the hair choices I think we will allow members to have hair since it is a part of warcraft. I will of course not have hair on Grulg (one less item for enemies to grab). The same goes with weapons and armor, anything that your orc can use (except guns). Since armor is very limited, like warlocks can only use cloth, rogues leather, etc, and many of your quests contain soul bound items that only you can use... I see no reason why warriors cannot wear chain, and the others wear what they wear. However, no guns. Warriors can learn to use guns, but it takes 300 skill points which is a lot. But, that is definitely alliance and I do not want to see our orcs using that weapon. I am sure some things in the guild will change over time as we find out more about WoW.

Highlights from Interview With Jeff Kaplan : Blizzard Insider Exclusive As far as what other games have done in the past, I don't want to point anybody out specifically, but we found that other games made questing too cryptic. Often, in other MMOs, when you wanted to engage in quests you spent the majority of your time on the spoiler sites. You never knew which NPC to talk to, and when you finally found that out, you seldom understood what he wanted exactly. It was such a difficult and arcane process, that in certain MMOs, only the 'hardcore' were actually questing. These players prided themselves on discovering new quests and completing them. The problem with this hardcore approach to questing, though, is:if you make it all a mystery that someone has to solve and then put on a spoiler site, you are designing a tremendous amount of content in the game for only a small group of people. It creates a cycle where the majority of players that want to finish quests are just following a series of steps exactly as they appear on the spoiler site without having any real idea of what they are doing or why. Insider: Since quests are such an important part of playing World of Warcraft, will players get most of their experience from quests or from camping out and killing creatures? Jeff Kaplan: Quests are definitely the path of least resistance for gaining levels. Right now the majority of our quests are non-repeatable. The reason we decided to do this is because we want to move people through the world and not have bottlenecks where the majority of players hang around while there are vast stretches of empty areas open to exploration. We noticed in other MMOs, the quickest way to level up would be to find an area with an easy-to-kill monster with a fast respawn time. You find a good camp and you just farm it until the experience greens out [meaning you no longer get experience from the monsters]. We didn't want to do that. Also, part of the way we want to entice people to accomplish quests in our game is through an experience reward. In an MMO, where everything boils down to time, the best reward you can give players is experience. Because the quests are non-repeatable, we can make the experience reward a very nice one. We don't have to worry about someone farming it over and over again and exploiting the quest. It's a one-time deal, so we can give that huge chunk of experience. It keeps people moving and it also makes it easier to level. If you never want to play a quest and level up to level 60, you can do that, but you are not going to be most efficient by taking that route. The fastest method [to level] is to engage in questing. This system is good for a number of reasons: it keeps people moving, it keeps players out of each other's hair, and it also keeps directing them toward areas that they might not have discovered otherwise and that might be level appropriate for them. So it is a win-win scenario in our opinion. Another interesting way we are bringing a personal experience to players in World of Warcraft is life quests. We have not started to implement these yet. We're going to completely fill the world with the standard quests we have planned first, and then we'll create the life quests. Each of these special missions tells the story of its respective race and what their purpose in the world is. We set a lot of this up in the smaller quests. The Undead, for instance, are trying to develop a new plague, an important effort for their ultimate survival. Lady Sylvanus is seeking the formula to create a different version of the horrible disease from Warcraft III to combat Arthas, as well as destroy the humans. On the other hand, players get a taste during the Orc life quest of the demonic influence from their past - and must combat it. Insider: Are there going to be special event quests or quests that only occur once a month? Jeff Kaplan: I don't think we will have quests that only show up once a month, but we will definitely have world events. There is one that will actually occur in the Barrens. The Alliance armies roll up onto the beach on Northwatch Keep, and they will attack the Tauren outpost, the Orc outpost, and the Crossroads. These are all small cities in the Barrens, which is a zone in-between the Orc and Tauren lands. If you decide to band together with the Horde and defend those towns, you will have certain quests and quest items available to you that otherwise would not be. You might have to get the head of the Alliance raiding party leader, and take that to the lieutenant in the Crossroads. This would yield a quest reward that you would only get if you took part in the world event. Insider: Will there be guild-specific quests? Jeff Kaplan: There will definitely be content that requires large raiding parties. Party size is limited to five right now, which we think is a solid number because it makes each individual's role within the group critical. Having said this, we are working on the possibility of implementing 'supergroups' - large raig parties formed from smaller fellowships - so that several parties of five can get together to tackle larger quests. You won't have to belong to a guild to embark on large raiding party quests. These scenarios are not restricted to guilds, but are designed so that they can only be accomplished if you have say 30 people or so. I tend to think of that as a guild quest in a way, but it is perfectly possible that 30 people, non-guilded, could do it as well. Insider: Is there anything else interesting about quests that we haven't talked about yet? Jeff Kaplan: Nothing really high level, but I'd like to talk about an example of a quest that I think is a lot of fun in the game. In this scene, there is a race about to occur between the goblins and the gnomes. In Warcraft, the goblins and gnomes are the two races that are known for their skills in technology and engineering. So both the goblins and gnomes are trying to make rocket cars to race each other. There is a whole host of quest givers, both on the gnome side and the goblin side. You can accept quests from the gnomes that require you to sabotage the goblins or quests for the goblins to sabotage the gnomes. You can engage in quests for the gnomes to buff up their cars to make them better, or quests for the goblins to make their car superior. At the same time, you can also bet on the races through the quest system. The way this whole scenario is designed, you can bet on the race, then try to fix it. If the race starts without any interference whatsoever, there is a 50-50 chance every time that one or the other will win. With this setup, there are quite a few ways that things could pan out differently. All the players in the area could jump on a bandwagon, fix the race significantly for one side or the other, and then bet on that side to win. If a competitive situation results, though, and players are taking different sides, it could become a complex affair where every quest might swing the race in one group's favor or the other's. Finally, watching these little rascals race one another is just hilarious all by itself. Insider: Does the race just occur periodically? Jeff Kaplan: Yes, the race starts at set times. I forget exactly how often, but I believe it is approximately every 30 minutes or so. Also, because of the nature of this scenario - the fact that you can do various quests and fix the outcome of the race - players will not receive spectacular rewards in terms of experience or powerful items. The rewards are more fun in nature. One of the items you can potentially receive is the party grenade, which when thrown into a group of players will cause them to randomly start emoting - dance, do the chicken, cheer, that sort of stuff.

Lol. Heh, funny. I bought 3 tickets and won two of the prizes!! Looks like you won the grand prize.

Highlights from an Interview with Andy Kirton. by: Tucker Smedes Ascension Gaming Network If you plan on playing a Dwarf Paladin with your second character being a Tauren Shaman, you'll be playing them on two different servers. It was explained that you would not be able to have characters from both factions on the same server; which in all honesty makes perfect sense seeing as you will be fighting against your opposing faction. You will however be able to have different faction characters on different servers of your account. Andy was able to clarify that, "currently you can have 10 characters per server and can play on any number of servers that you want. So, say if we have 10 servers at launch, you can have up to 100 characters (at 10 per server)." So you will be able to play every race and class combo you want...just not on the same server. Bots or macros have plagued many games like RO or AC; characters run by scripts and programs. I questioned whether people would be banned, suspended, or what consequences would be given to those who were found using bots and macros. "While banning is definitely an option, we would much rather not have any bots in the first place. We feel partially responsible when they show up due to the fact that we had to 'let' them in," Andy went on to say. A similar stance was being taken on that of selling items for cash. I'm sure all of you are aware things like this have happened in past games such as EQ or even Diablo 2. It will be easier to track in WoW, and there will definitely be measures taken to prevent it or punish those who can't abide by the rules. For all of those people wondering when the game will hit open beta or when the final launch would be, I believe the quote Andy gave was one that fits quite well. He told me, "It's my philosophy that the launch will make or break you." And he went on to add that there's no reason to release an unfinished product on the market. Just think if car manufacturers released an awesome looking new car, but it only came with three wheels. If you're familiar with Blizzard, you'll know they strive for perfection and won't release a game until it's ready. However I was once again told that they definitely do plan on releasing this year. Written by: Tucker Smedes

I also use Norton Personal Firewall since it came with my AV package about 9 months ago. The only problem with Norton is that you have to buy a yearly license to keep getting updates. There are several free ones out there, such as Zone Alarm. There is also a free antivirus program called AVG. As to which firewall, dunno. You may want to ask at madonion.com (now called http://www.futuremark.com/). I ask almost all of my computer hardware/software questions on there if it's about gaming. If you have a router, you won't need a firewall. As long as you do not have any ports open on your router, you won't need to worry about someone compromising your system. I only open ports that I need for gaming. Like Counter Strike, Warcraft 3, and my Teamspeak server, and my Linux box as well.

Check out Blizzard's press photos here.

looks like it worked to me

For beta only. Kat has said countless times that you will only be able to master 3 tradeskills. For right now in beta, there is no limit. It's easier for them to just do 300xp = 1sp and not worry about limiting them per level or total limit.

http://www.funnies.com/lifeisnot.htm

You need to use the link to the image, and not the link to the webpage. E.G. http://www.imagedump.com/pics/74620.jpg However, they may have it setup so you cannot link to the image from other webpages. When that happens it will usually come up with a different image or no image at all.

A Diplomat would learn the Alliance language and work with them, but only on a very limited basis. As for the other positions, I am sure some of those will develop over time. Certain people will want to setup events or do specific activities with their character, if they do so often and regularly they will either get awards, promoted to a new rank, or a new title within the clan. As to merchants, everyone in the guild can master three trade skills. I know I will be getting blacksmithing and mining and either first aid or survival or wolf ridding. Morgh will have fishing and cooking (food helps a lot in this game when you sit down to rest, just pop in a morsel and watch your hit points fly by) Uglutz will be alchemy and herbalism. Grawulf will be leatherworking and skinning.

Heh, do you think a troll can handle Glurk?

There is a raffle that you can join for an italic name (grand prize) and soon I'll install a lottery option so people can make more gold

None right now. There are not enough members to warrant a different job for every member. It looks like in the next push we can add our own guild ranks and permissions. If that is the case then we can add more ranks within the guild, such as certain sub-grunt ranks, etc.

I doubt we will have any bounty hunter type “jobs” in the guild. Bounty hunters are paid to go out and kill someone. You should be willing to do so for free. However, we may have an infiltrator team that will go in before a battle and attempt to assassinate the enemy leaders. Also, if an alliance guild tries to “hire” us to kill someone, we may accept it... but only so we can backstab the employers when we go out for battle.

Since I just watched the hobbit last night on cartoon network, I am not going to answer those riddles. heheh. I would be cheating I think I'll give a hint though. F and E.

Uglutz and I have spoken about your character. If you decide to learn the Alliance language you can be a translator for the guild. However, you must always speak orcish around orcs, Nub humie blah! When you speak the Alliance language, use only small words that are similar to the orcish language, but still reflect your stay with the Skullcrusher Orc Clan. Good Example: Me sleepy, where can me sleep? And me hungry! Bad Example: Tell me good sir, where is your nearest inn and tavern?

Enter today to win an Italic name worth 125 Gold! 1st prize 50 Gold. 2nd prize 25 Gold. Only 99 tickets left! You can buy up to 5 tickets! Click the link in the Nav bar, upper right of forums. The Raffle ends on the 22nd!

I have added a forum store. You can now buy new effects for your name and title changes. It's not cheap!! So start saving those pennies or drop it in the bank to get some interest. Note that name effects only show up in I.E.

Everyone say a Happy Birthday to The Honor Empire's graphics artist!

Please note that the forums have been updated. I moved all of the avatars into sub-folders for ease of use. However, you will need to update your avatar if you were using one from the old forums. Also, you can now add your character's name, guild, race, and class in your profile settings. These will appear under your avatar when you make posts. New features: Store to buy Name and Title effects. Raffle Lottery Army Battle System Portal Page

Whi lat blah "yu"? Lat nub gruk lat? Lat nub hurd. Jus blah lat. lat lat lat lat lat lat lat lat. Cee?

Wow, didn't know you were back Jas. It's been what... 10 months? heheh.

I remember there being one when I played the beta. Upper right corner. Not easy to figure out. Hope you have fun with it, I sure didn't.