Snowdrop's Space

Lord of Ultima Tools Part 3: LoU BoS Tools

2011-11-20T13:13:00.001+08:00

See Part 1 for instructions on how to install LoU BoS and Part 2 for information about the Summary component of LoU BoS. The rest of this post assumes that you already have BoS installed.

BoS Tools are a series of tools that can be accessed via a drop down menu that appears when you click on the button at the top right of your Lord of Ultima game.

The first three tools are calculators. The first is a combat calculator, which calculates the results of an attack between two players. The results are not completely accurate, since they are based on the attack and defence stats that are available in-game, not on the actual calculations that the game does behind the scenes, and they don't take into account research, but it can provide a good estimation.

In order to get a good estimation, however, the first three columns (Attacker, Defender and Defences) need to be filled out with reasonable accuracy. Some information can be filled automatically using the drop down box at the bottom of the actions box. The options in this box are:

Defenders: Add troops in the current city (including supporting troops) to the Defender column
Defences: Add wall and towers in the current city to the Defences column
Defenders & Defences: Both of the above
Attackers: Add troops owned by the current city (whether they are currently in the city or not) to the Attacker column
Scout Report: All: Adds troops and wall/towers from a scout report to the Defenders and Defences columns
Scout Report: Defences: Adds wall/towers from a scout report to the Defences column

Note that the only reports that can be imported are your own scout reports. Information from shared reports or from assault/siege/plunder reports must be added manually.

Once all the data is as accurate as you can make it, select the time the attack will hit under Actions, select the attack type (assault, siege, or plunder) and then hit Calc.

Above the Actions box, the total attack and defence values per troop type will be displayed. The modifier value takes into account night protection (in the attacker column) and morale (in the defender column) Next to each troop type in the Attacker and Defenders columns will be listed the number of units that are estimated to be lost. Only damage to troops, not towers or buildings, is calculated. Click on the Substract [sic] losses button to subtract the lost units from the totals so you can calculate another round (e.g., another siege wave). If you want to calculate a brand new attack, click on Clear All to reset all values to 0.

The next calculator is a food calculator. Unlike the combat calculator, the food calculator does not draw any information from your empire; it's a stand-alone calculator. It lets you calculate how much food a given number of troops need, or how many troops a given amount of food will feed.

To calculate the amount of food that is needed for a given number of troops, just enter the number of each type of troop, then click "Units to food". The amount of food required per hour will be displayed at the bottom-right of the pop-up.

To calculate the number of troops that a given rate of food production will feed, click on "Food to units", enter the food production per hour, and then click OK. Next to each troop type, the number of that type that could be fed is displayed. Note that while the units to food calculation works with multiple troop types, the food to units assumes that only one troop type is being fed. For a mixed-troop city, you'll have to do some maths yourself.

The third calculator is a recruitment speed calculator. It tells you how long it will take to recruit each troop type given a recruitment speed, or what recruitment speed you need to get to in order to recruit your troops in a certain amount of time.

To calculate how long troops will take to recruit at a given recruitment speed, fill in the recruitment speed percentage for each building type. This information can be found under the recruitment queue, circled in red below.

Once the recruitment speed has been filled in, click on "Calculate" to update the recruitment times for each troop type.

For the reverse calculation, select the troop type you are interested in from the drop down menu, then click "Time to speed". Fill in the desired recruitment time and click on OK, and the recruitment speed for the relevant building type will be updated. Note that recruitment times are all in seconds and are by individual unit, not TS.

The "Clear" button will reset all recruitment speeds to 100%.

Below the three calculators are five Jump to... shortcuts:

Jump to coords: Switches to region view and centres the view on the given coordinates (works with and without preceding zeros, i.e., 050:050 and 50:50 will take you to the same place)
Jump to city: Opens the City Info window for the city at the given coordinates (again, works with and without preceding zeros)
Jump to player: Opens the Player Info window for the player with the given name (not case-sensitive, but spelling must be correct)
Jump to alliance: Opens the Alliance Info window for the alliance with the given name
Jump to continent: Switches to region view and centres the view on the middle of the given continent

Then there is the Extra Summary. This opens a window with four tabs, each of which provides information which is not easily gathered with in-game functionality.

The first extra summary is the Player summary.

Simply enter a player name in the text box, then click on Refresh to update the information. The actual information is the same as is available in the Player Info screen, but with the ability to export the information in two different formats (note that as with the BOS summary, the exported data often appears behind other windows) and to filter and sort the displayed information. You can filter by minimum score (that's the unlabelled box with "0" in it in the screenshot), whether cities are land-locked or on water, and whether cities contain castles and/or palaces.

The Alliance tab is less useful; there are no filtering options, so the only advantage over the in-game Alliance Info screen is the ability to export.

The My Alliance tab is more useful. It includes all the information from the Member List (but all at once, so you don't need to toggle "Show Member Status" on and off) and allows export, but most usefully it includes the exact time of last login rather than just coding with green/yellow/red, so you can track when each alliance member is due to go lawless.

The Intelligence tab lets you make your own notes on cities (your own or other people's).

To add a note, click on "Add intel", fill in the city coordinates and click "Search". The city's player and name will be shown. Add your note in the description field and click OK. Your notes will be added to the table. The table can be filtered with four drop-down menus - player name, whether the city has a castle, whether it is land-locked or on water, and which continent it is on. The information is stored locally, so it is maintained between sessions, but to move it to another computer (or browser) you will need to Export settings on the old computer and then Import settings on the new computer.

The next two selections in the BOS Tools menu, Zoom Out and Zoom In, do as their names suggest. They work in City and Region view, but not World view, and only affect the map itself (unlike using the zoom function of your browser, which will also affect the UI).

The final selection on the BOS Tools menu is Fill with resources. This is related to the Fill with... button in the BOS Summary, but has different (and in my opinion more useful) functionality.

Unlike the Fill with... option on the Summary, it can only fill one city at a time, but the city can be yours or another players, and you have more control over what gets sent.

Select the resource type you want sent from the drop-down menu. Select the city you want to send to either by typing in the coordinates and then clicking on Search (you must click on Search whenever you change the coordinates), or by clicking on Current city to choose the city that you are currently looking at (the one in the drop-down menu at the top-left of your game, not the one selected in region view).

Max resources to send is the maximum total amount of resources you want send to the city. It defaults to the amount of empty space in your current city. If you click Current city for the To field, this value will be updated (it won't be updated if you type in coordinates). The buttons on the right allow you to increase the value in increments (the amount on the button is added to the current value, it does not replace it).

Max travel time specifies from how far away the tool will send resources; by default it is 24 hours.

You have the option of sending resources from the same continent, other continents, or both (if you unstick both boxes, nothing will be sent). You can also select whether to send via Palace delivery or not.

The main purpose for which I find Fill with resources useful is sending resources to palaces. It's a much quicker method than searching through all cities for ones with spare resources and carts/ships.

I doubt there's anyone out there who uses every function that BOS provides, but hopefully somewhere in the last two of these posts there's been a few things that are useful.

Rise of Isengard: Southern Dunland

2011-11-17T12:08:00.001+08:00

Since my last post about LOTRO's most recent expansion, Rise of Isengard, I've covered most of the southern part of Dunland, that is, Starkmoor, Dunbog, Carreglyn and Gravenwood, as well as finishing the new epic quests that were released as part of the expansion (Volume III, Book 4). That earned me about 4 levels (from the start of 69 to almost 73).

Chapters 8 through 17 of the epic book primarily served as vector quests throughout Southern Dunland, in the same way that the first 7 chapters were vector quests through Northern Dunland.

I enjoyed Starkmoor (level 69) as a region, particularly since it included the first actual encounter with Saruman. My only complaint was that by this point I was really losing track of all the different clans, especially since they are sometimes referred to by their Dunlending names and sometimes by the English translations. I think the multitude of clans is a really cool part of the lore of this region as well as the overall story, but it loses a lot of its effect when I'm not sure which clan is which.

Dunbog (level 70) was the first region where I found the extensive chaining of quests in Dunland a problem. While I do like the way it makes the story more cohesive, it meant that once I got stuck on one set of quests I was unable to get any more quests in the region. In this case, I couldn't handle the Lhan Colvarn camp on-level, mainly because in such a crowded area it was easy to pull 4 or 5 mobs when I meant to pull 1, and as a burg I have practically zero AOEs. But I have found that despite the limited number of quests at each level, it's okay to skip a couple -- it just means doing a few quests that are a level higher than my level, which so far has worked out okay.

Carreglyn (level 71) was similarly frustrating -- too many trash mobs around in Upper Barnavon that inevitably aggroed just as I entered combat with a quest mob. But again, I was able to comfortably skip the last few quests in the area and head to Gravenwood.

Gravenwood (level 72) started with a nice example of the quest-giver that follows you around so you can turn in each quest as you finished it without heading back to camp, although he did take a long time to give out new quests, forcing me to backtrack and kill a bunch of mobs that I'd already killed. Gravenwood also meant meeting Theodred, which was pretty cool, and a few moments that brought tears to my eyes that I won't spoil.

After Gravenwood, the epic quest stopped being vector quests with what I think is the biggest twist in the LOTRO story so far -- I suppose that the lack of official Tolkien story about Dunland enables them to surprise us a lot more than somewhere like Moria. I won't spoil it here, because I was really glad that I hadn't had it spoiled for me, but the second half of Volume III Book 4 (which I believe was originally intended to be a separate book) was probably my favourite part of the epic so far.

The epic quest ends there, to be continued in Book 5. I haven't read anything yet that clarifies whether Book 5 will start at level 72/73 where Book 4 left off or if it will jump to level 75, nor has a release date been announced, so in the meantime I'm heading down to the Gap of Rohan to continue levelling.

Lord of Ultima Tools Part 2: LoU BoS Summary

2011-11-12T17:42:00.000+08:00

Continued from Part 1

LoU BoS is by far the most complex of the LoU add-ons. It basically consists of lots of different tools, so you can use just one part of it without bothering about the rest of it. Some of the tools are more useful than others, and some of them are only really useful if you don't have ministers.

Unlike LoU Tweak, which adds buttons and information all over the place, LoU BoS only adds two buttons, "Summary" and "BOS Tools", and another little section, all circled in red below:

To be honest, I can't tell you what the section with the R does, because it doesn't work for me (I'm not sure if a game update has broken it or if it's something about my setup that it doesn't like). I believe it is part of the 'jump to coords' functionality, which has now been superseded by the in-game navigation rose. So that just leaves the 2 buttons at the top.

If I use Chrome, the "Summary" button causes an error which forces my game to restart. Hopefully a future update to either Chrome or BoS will fix this, but in the mean time, if you have this problem, try Firefox - I've had no problems with any add-ons in Firefox.

Clicking on "Summary" will bring up this pop-up:

Each tab across the top basically represents a different tool, although they do have some aspects in common. One of these is the Reference column. This displays the same information as the Reference section in the City Notes.

To open City Notes, click on the notepad icon to the right of your city name, circled in red below:

Which will bring up a pop-up like this:

Anything you type in the Reference box will display in the Reference column in BoS. But you can also enter codes in this box that BoS will look for in order to split your cities into groups. By default these codes are:

C = Castles
M = Moonglow Tower
W = Warehouse
B = Building
D = Defensive
G = Gold

You can also add your own codes in the options tab. When including these codes in the Reference box, put them between asterisks (e.g., *C* for a castle). You can have more than one code for a city (e.g., *WM* for a warehouse with a moonglow tower). You can also put any other information you like in the Reference box, but outside the asterisks.

Once the Reference boxes are filled in, the first tab of the BoS Summary (Cities) will look something like this:

In the drop-down boxes I've selected to only display defensive buildings (marked with *D*) on c22. In the reference column you can see that I've marked these cities as both Defensive and Building (so if I selected Building from the drop-down these would still appear, as well as some other cities). I've also noted, outside the asterisks, the troop type that each city is building.

Apart from the two drop-downs (for city type and continent), the buttons across the top are:

Refresh resources: This only seems to be present if you have a small number of cities. It updates the resource values in the summary table, although as the tooltip explains it only gets information about cities that have available carts or ships.
Refresh: This is also only present with a small number of cities. This refreshes even less information than Refresh resources. It mainly refreshes information for the city that you are currently viewing.
Fetch cities: This completely updates all the information in the table. It takes 0.5 seconds for each city, so for large empires it can take a couple of minutes, but it's the only way of getting completely up-to-date information.
Fill with: This is a dangerous buttons. It will attempt to fill all of the displayed cities with the selected resource. An example use would be to select Castles in the first drop-down menu and then Fill with Food. The dangerous part is that if you are displaying all of your cities, it will just shuffle resources back and forth between cities, using up all of your carts and ships.
Export Csv: Produces a text version of the table that you can copy and paste into another program (note that it may show up behind the summary page)
Help: Lists the city type codes (again, may show up behind the summary page)

The summary table itself has a large number of columns, the names of which are pretty much self-explanatory. Columns can be added and removed by clicking on the picture of the table with the down arrow, circled in red below. You can sort by any column by clicking on the column title.

The next tab is Military. The buttons are a subset of the ones on the Cities tab and serve the same functions. The table shows the number and types of troops in each city (in the screen shot below I've removed some of the troop types so you can see the summary columns). This table shows the troops that belong to the city, regardless of where they actually are at the time.

The next tab, Defenders, is similar to the Military tab, but it shows the troops that are currently in a city, rather than the ones that belong in the city. In other words, it includes troops that have been sent to the city on support, but not troops that are out on raids or on support to other cities.e

The next tab, Castles, only shows information about your castles (as marked with *C* in the reference; it doesn't matter whether they have actually been castled or not), but it shows some information that is not available in the other tabs.

The names of these columns are not quite as clear as those in the Cities tab. The column labelled Food is the percentage that the storage is full (i.e., here it is 94% full), while the Units column is the percentage of barracks slots that have been filled. The three storage capacity columns (for Food, Wood and Iron) show how much free space is available for these resources. Food empty in shows 'food positive' here, meaning that the castle is self-feeding. If it relies on food from other cities, this column will show when the food will run out. Units queue is the time currently left in the unit queue. Orders is the number of command counts that have been used. Not raiding is the number of troops belonging to the city that are not busy. Defenders is identical to the Summary column on the Defenders tab.

Unlike the first four tabs, which just display information, the Purify tab actually lets you do something, namely, purify resources. It requires a bit of setup, which is explained if you press the Help button. First of all, all cities that you want to purify in should have *M* in their reference in order to be displayed on this tab. Then, you can either go through each city in turn and click Mark Moonglow Tower, or click on Mark All MTs to mark all the cities with moonglow towers (it will mark cities even if they don't have *M* in the reference, that just determines if they are displayed in the table). Once set up, the summary will look something like this:

There are also some options for this tab. If you click on the Options button, this window will open:

The four numbers set the amount of resources that should remain after using the Purify All button. This may be displayed as an absolute amount, as in the above screenshot, or as a percentage (I'm not sure what determines what format it appears in). The boxes are labelled with the name of the purified resource, but the value actually refers to the unpurified resource (e.g., Wood, not Darkwood). If the Include castles box is ticked, resources in castles will be purified, although food will only be purified if you have a Building Minister; if you have a Building Minister only excess food will be purified. If Uses Recruitment tab data is ticked, it won't purify resources that are needed to recruit troops as specified in the Recruitment tab (see below).

Once all of that is set-up, there are two ways you can use the summary to purify resources. The first is to click the numbers in blue to purify all of that resource in that city (the Purify Options are not taken into account if you use this method). However, this method only works if you have a Trade Minister (in which case you could be using the Trade Minister to purify, so I don't think it's that useful). The other method is to click Purify All, which will purify resources in cities with marked Moonglow Towers according to the options you have set.

Note that the information in the table won't update after you purify. The only way I've found to update the information is to refresh the whole game.

The next tab is Recruitment. This tab only works if you have a Building Minister and a War Minister, and it becomes fairly redundant if you have a Defence Minister, so the number of people for whom this is useful is probably pretty small (it was useful at one point, but the functionality of the Defence Minister has since been expanded). To set it up, you need to go to each city you want to use it in and click on Enable, bringing up the following screen.

The troop types in bold are the ones that can currently be recruited. The number of each type that have been currently been recruited are listed at the bottom, and can be transferred to the boxes above by clicking Add city units. Or you can manually set a target number of troops by filling in the numbers. Hitting max will increase that troop type until all of the numbers add up to the current available barrack space (i.e., so that the number at the bottom right would read 9000 / 9000 TS). The form won't allow you to select more troops than you have room for, so you can't set targets that will be filled once barrack space is available, like you can with the Defence Minister. Once the target numbers are set up, hit OK and the summary screen will look something like this. As in other tabs you can filter the cities displayed with drop-down menus, but for this tab the only city types that can be selected are Castles and Defensive, and you can't filter by continent. Instead, the second drop-down menu lets you filter by the number of Missing troops (i.e., the number that still need to be recruited), although the >0 doesn't work properly (it displays all cities, even ones that don't have any Missing troops).

Under City/Orders you can see the name of the city and the target numbers for each troop type (if you have more than one city, you can expand and contract each city by clicking on the little arrow to the left of the folder icon). Under Action, there will be a Recruit button for each troop type where the target number is more than the current number. Clicking on Recruit will attempt to start recruitment of those troops, and display the results in the Status column (for a key to the codes, click on the Help button on this tab).

The rest of the table is for information purposes. Missing displays the number of troops required to meet the target number (after any recruitment currently in the queue is taken into account). Resources for displays how many troops of that type you have enough resources to recruit. Recruiting is the number of troops that are currently in the recruitment queue. Available is the number of troops that you currently have. In other words Available + Recruiting + Missing will always add up to the target number you have set. Recruitment Time is the time it will take to recruit one unit of that troop type.

This tab can also be used for mass recruitment. Clicking on Recruit All will try to recruit all troops in all cities that have been selected using the drop-down menus. If you want to remove a city from the table, click on Disable while view that city. You can also click Export settings to produce a pop-up (may display behind the summary table) with text that you can copy to another computer and then import with Import settings, to avoid the need to re-enter the target troop numbers. The button marked btnDefenceMinisterSetTargetArmy (I assume this will be fixed in a future update) will copy the target numbers to the Defence Ministers Target Army settings for all cities (not just the ones that are currently displayed).

The Carts tab is purely for information purposes, and displays all current movements of your carts and ships.

The entries can be filtered in four ways:

By Type (Trade or transfer). Trade are sales made on the trade market. Transfer are trades that have been initiated manually or using BoS. In the table, ??? 4 means a minister-initiated trade, but this is not one of the options in the drop-down.
By State (transport or Returns). Transport are carts/ships that currently have goods on them. Returns are carts/ships that are returning to their source city.
By Transport (Carts or tnf:ships). Carts are carts. tnf:ships are ships.
By Target player (You or Someone else). You are trades between your cities. Someone else are trades to other players.

The rest of the table is fairly self-explanatory, except to point out that Position is the co-ordinates of the target city, not the source city.

The Trade Routes tab lets you set up transfers of resources that you carry out frequently (e.g., sending resources from a resource city to a warehouse or from a food city to a castle).

To set-up a new route, click on Add Route to bring up this window:

Select the From and To city for the route, and the default amount you want to transfer of each resource. The Transport drop-down lets you choose whether you want to transport with carts or ships. The selection above, Carts then ships, will send by carts if they are available, otherwise it will send by ships. You also assign the trade route to a group (for example, putting all of the transfers from food cities to castles in one group). Unfortunately you can't name the groups, only assign them a letter. The note at the bottom indicates how it will interpret numbers in the resource fields -- 10000 means 10,000, but 9000 means 9000k, i.e., 9,000,000. Make sure you understand exactly what number you are putting in. Hitting the Max button will set all of the resource values to the storage capacity of the From city (in other words, it will send all available resources).

Once a trade route is set up, the Trade Routes tab will look like this:

The drop-down menu lets you filter by the group letter. The table then displays the routes that have set up. The two options in the Edit column (on the right) let you Edit or Delete that trade route. The Land/Sea column theoretically displays the number of carts and ships available, but since it uses the Request Resources command to check these, it is also affected by the number of resources in the source city (e.g., if you only have 50k of each resource in the source city, these numbers will display as 50 and 5 even if you actually have more carts and ships than that).

Before you send anything, you need to click Refresh Resources so that BoS updates how many carts and ships it thinks are available (again, this may not be completely accurate). Once that's done, in the Action column, two options are available. Send will send the amount that is set up in the trade route (10,000 wood in the screenshot above). Send max will send as many resources as possible, ignoring the number set in the trade route (although it will only send resources that a number is set for -- in this example it will only send wood, but it will send all the wood available). Only the carts/ships it thinks are available will be used, so if these numbers are inaccurate (as described above), it may not send the full amount. If it cannot send the full amount, it will send resources in the proportion set in the trade route (e.g., if it is trying to send 100k wood and 200k stone but there are only 30 carts, it will send 10k wood and 20k stone).

You can also click the Send all or Send all max buttons, which have the same effect as clicking Send or Send max respectively for all of the cities displayed. As in the Recruitment tab, you can Export and Import the trade routes via a text file. There is a Help button for this tab, but some of the information in it appears to be out of date (for example, this feature does not require a Building Minister to use).

The next tab, Orders, is another information-only tab, this one displaying an overview of the current commands of all your cities.

This table can be filtered by 4 drop-down menus:

Order Type: The type of command (e.g., raid, settle, plunder, etc.)
Order State: What the troops are currently doing (e.g. To (travelling to the target), Returns (travelling back to the source city), On Support, etc.)
Source Continent
Destination Continent

You can also decide whether to Show fake attacks. Unticking this box will filter out plunders, assaults and sieges with a TS of less than 4000.

The table will then summarise all orders based on the filter. The Last visited column displays how long ago that city was last viewed (I believe that the information in the table can only be updated when the city is visited), although this and other information is only updated when you click the Refresh button.

The final summary tab is Incoming attacks. This tab theoretically displays pretty much the same information as the in-game report of the same name, but it doesn't display any information for me, so I would recommend using the in-game report instead.

The last tab is the Options tab, which contains settings that affect multiple tabs as well as some that don't relate to the summaries.

The Table settings let you save and load settings such as which columns are displayed on each tab. The settings are saved within the browser, so this is to allow such settings to persist between sessions, not to transfer them between computers. You can save settings for three tabs - Cities, Military and Purify, and either load them manually or select the checkbox to load them when the game loads.

The Saving cities data section will save information about the cities (e.g., resource levels) between sessions so that the summary tables are already filled out when you log into the game. Most of this information is likely to be out of date and need refreshing to be of use, but it at least gives you somewhere to start with (it's particularly useful if you need to refresh the game, in which case the information will still be up to date). Tick both checkboxes for a completely automatic process, or use the buttons to do it manually.

Custom City Types let you add additional codes that can be placed in the city Reference section. You can't modify the names of the existing groups or delete them, only add new letters. Click on Add, then type the new letter, and then the name of the group. Examples of groups you could add are cities that can produce barons, resource cities, food cities, palaces, and so on. To delete a group you've added, select it from the drop down menu and then click Remove.

The city types to groups copier lets you set up groups in the new in-game functionality based on the groups you have already set up in BoS. You need to first set up the in-game groups under options. Then for each group, select the BoS group in the left drop-down menu and the in-game group in the right drop-down menu and then click Assign to copy over that group. You will need to do this for each BoS group.

In the Chat section, you can select to Tweak chat at start, or press the button to tweak it just for this session. As far as I'm aware, the only change this makes is to make the text entry box in All Chat red to reduce the chance you will accidentally type here instead of in Alliance chat.

The final option is Save summary position, which will save the position of the summary pop-up so it will display in the that place the next time you open it, rather than in the default position.

In the next part of this guide I'll discuss the Bos Tools button.

Lord of Ultima Tools Part 1: Script Installation and LoU Tweak

2011-10-28T12:32:00.001+08:00

There are lots of tools out there to help with Lord of Ultima, and some of them become almost indispensable as your empire grows. But some of the most useful of them are quite complex to use. So here is a guide to the basics.

First of all, there are the Greasemonkey scripts. These modify the game to add a bunch of shortcuts and summaries. To run the scripts, you need to be playing the game in either Chrome or Firefox. Chrome supports Greasemonkey scripts natively; in Firefox you will need to begin by installing Greasemonkey. Here's a Greasemonkey guide if you have any trouble with the installation.

These are the scripts that I'm aware of:

In addition, the TDK Extension runs without Greasemonkey. You will need to restart Firefox to install the extension. The scripts should just require a refresh of the game page, but if they don't work immediately, restarting your browser is always a good first troubleshooting step.

Here's what the game looks like without any add-ons:

And with all 5 add-ons installed:

In this post I'm going to talk about LoU Tweak, the most important of the add-ons. I'll go through the other add-ons is subsequent posts.

Circled in red below are the new buttons and information added by LoU Tweak:

At the top left of the map is the queue info. BQ = Building Queue and UQ = Unit Queue. For each queue, it shows the time the queue will finish (my building queue will finish at 20:14), the amount of time the queue will take (there are 6 hours and 44 minutes worth of buildings in my queue), and how many items are in the queue (my building queue has 6 items out of a possible maximum of 6).

At the top right, below the navigation area, is the mini-map link. This functionality is now available using the in-game world map, so you can ignore this button.

Above the building queue is the Incoming resources overview. This shows you the resources that are currently on their way to your city (for this city there are no incoming resources, so all values are 0). Below that it shows the Total Resources (TR) that will be present once all the resources have arrived (taking into account the resources that the city will produce in the mean time) and how much Free Space (FS) will be available once the resources have arrived.

Straight under the Building Queue heading there are two buttons marked "P" and "L". "P" is a shortcut to the Purify Resources page (instead of clicking on Trade and then the Purify Resources tab). "L" will take you to the Layout screen, which I'll come back to in a little while.

In the queue itself you'll see "T" and "B" buttons - these move a building to the Top or Bottom of the queue.

Above the chat window there are 4 buttons - City, Player, Alliance and Link. These will add the appropriate linking codes to the chat (i.e., '[city][/city]', '[player][/player]', '[alliance][/alliance]' and '[url][/url]'). Since these codes are part of the game functionality, not the add-on, I won't comment further except to point out that the [city] tags require coordinates (e.g., 133:148), not a city name, since city names are not unique.

Down the bottom, the "O" button will take you to the LoU Tweak options.

Now let's go back to that "L" button. Clicking on it (note that it is only enabled in the City map, not the Region or World maps) will open a pop-up like this:

This gives you three different representations of the resource nodes and buildings already in your city, as well as links to open these layouts in 2 different planner sites. I'll come back to how to use these sites in a later part of this guide. If you click on the Overlay layout tab, you'll see something like this (although unless you've already been playing around, the text box will be empty):

While the ShareString on the first tab showed the current layout of my city, this one shows the planned layout of my city. If you look back at the full screenshot, you can see some buildings with yellow squares (for example, the iron mine that I circled in red). This building doesn't actually exist in my city yet, I've just entered it in the Overlay layout tab. LoU Tweak remembers where I want to put the building so I can add it later.

Probably the most important functionality of LoU Tweak is one that is not apparent in the screenshots - the keyboard shortcuts. The LoU Tweak installation page lists all of the available shortcuts, but the most important one you need to know is "l" (that's a lowercase "L"). Hitting "l" will add an upgrade of the lowest level building to your building queue, saving a lot of searching for building to upgrade. You can be more specific about which buildings to upgrade by using different shortcuts (e.g., "c" will upgrade the lowest level cottage) or by going to Tweak's options. Tip: if pressing "l" or the other shortcuts does nothing, try clicking anywhere in the building queue first.

The last part of LoU Tweak you need to know about are the options. Clicking on the "O" button at the bottom of the screen will show this pop-up:

Here are some notes on some of the options.

"Hide 'Get & Use' buttons" will hide the buttons under the building queue that let you buy artefacts. Ticking this box will add an "A" button under the Building Queue heading that will toggle the buttons on and off (so if the box is ticked and the buttons are still there, you need to click on the "A")

"Show queue info window" turns the queue info section (the bit with BQ and UQ) on and off.

"Save overlay layout Sharestring in city notes" does pretty much what it says - when you change the sharestring in Overlay layout, it saves a copy to city notes. I'd suggest turning this on - it means your layouts will be retained if you change browsers or computers.

"Limit requested resources to city free space" - if this is ticked, you won't be able to request more resources than the city can fit (i.e., it won't let FS in the Incoming resources section go negative). It can be useful to make sure you don't waste resources, but sometimes you want to request more than the free space because you are planning to use the existing resources before the new ones get there. You can change this option on an individual trade by ticking the "Limit" box in the bottom left of the Request Resources tab, so I'd recommend leaving the overall option ticked.

"Enable MiniMap" can be turned off, since as I mentioned earlier the functionality has been replaced by the World map.

At the bottom of this tab, you will see the options for the "l" key. Only building types that are ticked will be upgraded when you press "l" (this doesn't affect the other shortcuts, so "e" will upgrade any resource building, even if only some are selected in options). I would suggest unticking City Wall, since it seems to be buggy (i.e., the city wall upgrades even when it isn't the lowest level building).

The Hotkeys tab lets you change some, although not all, of the keyboard shortcuts. The Colors tab lets you change the colours of some parts of the interface.

I'll come back to Tweak's layout functionality when I talk about the city planners, but that's a basic overview of what you can do with LoU Tweak.

Continue to Part 2

Countdown to NaNoWriMo: Resources

2011-10-24T21:25:00.001+08:00

NaNoWriMo can be done with nothing more than a pen and a big stack of paper (although unless you're planning to sit there and count 50k words by hand you probably want to use a computer, and to officially win you'll need a computer with an internet connection at the very end). But there are a multitude of other resources out there that can help you along the way.

The place to start is at the NaNoWriMo official site. As well as all the official rules, the site features a pretty comprehensive set of forums (although the trick can be to spend as much time writing your novel as you spend on the forums). There is also a NaNoWriMo Facebook page and NaNoWriMo on Twitter.

There's a lot of writing software out there. Previously I've always just used reliable old TextEdit (combined with the odd bit of handwriting and typing into emails on lunch breaks), but since that has yet to get me over the 50k mark (plus, for some reason it doesn't have a full-screen mode on Lion), I thought I'd mix it up a bit this year. The Official Offers page has a nice sampling of what's out there.

Personally I'm not fond of the whole writing in the browser, saving to the cloud idea. I'd rather rely on my own computer than someone else's, and if I want an offsite backup it takes a few seconds to email a copy to myself or upload it somewhere. I can see the appeal of web solutions if you are writing from multiple computers though. The official sponsors in this category are Yarny and Pangurpad. The functionality is a little basic compared to the offline options, but it's still an upgrade on TextEdit.

There are three official downloadable software options. All three have demo versions that will last all of November and then discounts if you decide to buy. WriteWay is Windows-only, so I can't comment on that, which leaves Scrivener and Storyist. After looking at both, I've decided to use Scrivener for NaNoWriMo.

To be honest, I didn't spend that long looking at Storyist, because the first couple of minutes confused the hell out of me, and NaNoWriMo is not the time you want to start using software with a steep learning curve. But the real turnoff came when I realised that although Storyist has a plot outline feature, it's completely unconnected to the manuscript. So in the end, it has the same functionality as having TextEdit open and a pile of index cards on my desk.

I was leaning towards Scrivener before I downloaded either program because it comes with a recommendation from Holly Lisle, and I've been trusting Holly Lisle on writing advice since I was thirteen. It's got way more functionality than I think I can use at this point, partly because I've already done all my pre-writing in plain old text files, but it was pretty easy to get into (especially with the most comprehensive tutorial I've ever seen) and if I decide to fork out the money for it once November's over I'll have plenty of time to learn more. It has slick integration between the plot outline, notes and the text itself and a clean full-screen mode. I'm sure I'll have more to say about it in a month, but for now I'm all set up and ready to go.

For software that just gives you a much-needed kick up the bum, I don't think you can go past Write or Die. Available online or as downloadable software, it annoys you when you stop writing, and even threatens to start deleting what you've already written if you slack off too much.

For inspiration and tips, Zette has a new version of her free e-book NaNo for the New and the Insane out, and Lynn Viehl is offering her e-book Way of the Cheetah for free. Both are ultra-prolific writers for whom NaNo is a slow month, so they have some useful things to say about getting the word count. Chris Baty's official book, No Plot? No Problem!, is also a good source, although I find it's tailored more for people who want to write a bunch of crap for fun rather than people who actually want to write a novel.

One of the key parts of NaNoWriMo is tracking your word count. Although the official site has a nice looking graph (or at least, it did last year), if you want a more permanent record try Simon Haynes's low-tech NaNo progress forms (including the 7500-words-in-one-day catchup form) or the more sophisticated NaNoWriMo report card (hosted and updated this year by S.M. Worth, originally be Erik Benson).

Other key resources are of course chocolate, coffee, and an understanding household (preferably including someone who will bring you the aforementioned chocolate and coffee). You'll have to find your own source for those.

But most importantly, you need the determination to write 50k words in a month, and the willpower to sit down for a couple of hours a day and just write. Good luck!

Countdown to NaNoWriMo: Looking Backward, Looking Forward

2011-10-22T16:08:00.000+08:00

It's now just 9 days until NaNoWriMo begins for 2011. For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month. The national part is a bit of a misnomer, since it's been international for a long time, but the rest of it is pretty self-explanatory - it involves writing a novel in a month, specifically in November.

I've been doing NaNo since back in 2003, when there were only around 25 thousand participants (now the numbers are about 10 times that), with varying degrees of success (or more accurately, varying degrees of failure).

In 2003 my project was a traditional fantasy called Inflight Entertainment (a working title based on the piece Inflight Entertainment by Graeme Koehne, which inspired the story). I reached a total of 14k words in November, which I never expanded on.

In 2005, I worked on Seeking Honour, Finding Destiny, a traditional/military fantasy. I wrote 25k words in November, which I later expanded to 43k words, but I haven't worked on it in a while (it was a decent story which I'd love to get back to, but I have a lot of other projects).

In 2006, I wrote Millennium Child, my first YA contemporary fantasy. I wrote 39k words in November, and finished the first draft of around 45k early the next year. The main reason I didn't finish in November is that I went away at the end of the month so I missed out on the final push - although if I had continued I bet I would have been pretty annoyed at reaching the end of the book 5k short of winning. I haven't done much with this story since I finished it, although revising it has been constantly on my todo list for almost 5 years.

In 2007, I worked on Reading the Rosaries, a contemporary fantasy. But balancing writing with full-time work and hard-core LOTRO playing didn't work out so well, and I gave up halfway through November with less than 5k words. Over the following few months I added another 3k to the word count, but balancing writing with full-time study and CFS worked out even less well, and I gave up on it.

Undiscouraged, in 2008 I started Subtle Magic, a traditional fantasy. I wrote 1 scene the first day before I realised the futility of the effort and dumped the whole thing.

By 2009 I was working on Blood Rails my How to Think Sideways project, but having learnt from the previous two years I didn't bother attempting NaNo. In 2010 I probably had the time for NaNo, but I didn't really have the motivation, and I was put off by more poor shows in 2007 and 2008.

This year, I was going to skip it again, not so much because of poor motivation, but because I've realised that starting yet another project when I have a pile of half-finished projects that I don't particularly hate is a bad idea.

But now I've decided to be a NaNoWriMo rebel and instead of writing a brand new book, try to finish the first draft of Blood Rails (since it's a YA and I have a tendency to write short in first draft, I'm not sure I have 50k left to write). Over the last week, I've tightened up my concept, resulting in a new Sentence ('An unloved daughter and a blood mage king must put aside the values they thought they believed in and join forces to save the people they care about most'), and a corresponding revised synopsis and line-per-scene outline. Next up is to look at some of the resources and tools available (which I'll talk about in my next post) and make a plan for November.

Rise of Isengard: Northern Dunland

2011-10-20T13:57:00.000+08:00

Rise of Isengard has been out for a few weeks now so I thought I'd share my thoughts on it so far.

First, a bit of background. I've been playing Lord of the Rings Online since launch and I played regularly for the first couple of years. I moved to Sydney around the time I hit the original level cap of 50, and since most of my kinmates were also on the east coast it was easy for me to group up for end-game content. Around the time Siege of Mirkwood came out I moved back to Perth, which made the timezones more difficult. And a large chunk of the kin moved to a more raid-oriented kin, which didn't really interest me. So while I still played regularly, it was mostly solo.

Last year I was in the beta for Free to Play, and I tested a lot. I ran a few characters through the new introduction. I did every new solo quest in Enedwaith, as well as grinding out rep and deeds. It was a lot of fun, but by the time the content launched on live I didn't feel like doing it all again, so I pretty much just ran through the epic on my main. Since then, I've played intermittently, mainly on my alts. But I've decided to return to regular play with Rise of Isengard.

I'm not rushing things; I think one of the reasons I stopped playing regularly is that I like levelling, and my main had been stuck at the level cap. I'm still not playing as much as I did at my peak, since I'm still playing Lord of Ultima and Glitch and if I played all three I would have no time for anything else. I'm still dipping into my alts every so often, but I'm mainly concentrating on Snowdrop.

So far I've covered Northern Dunland, that is, Trum Dreng, Bonevales, Pren Gwydh/Galtrev and Tal Methedras, and that's taken me from the start of level 65 to the start of level 69 (I had rest XP the whole time).

The epic quest so far pretty much feels like a series of vector quests through Dunland. So Chapter 2 takes you to either Trum Dreng or Bonevales (depending on the choice you make in Chapter 1), Chapter 3 takes you to Pren Gwydh/Galtrev, and Chapter 6 takes you to Tal Methedras. For the most part you have a choice in each area of how many side quests you do before you move on, although Chapter 7 required doing 10 side quests. I don't think it was made clear enough, though, that in places like Trum Dreng you can move on with the epic quest and then come back to the side quests later.

Trum Dreng had a nice series of quests (mostly level 66) that really took advantage of the new phasing technology (so the appearance of the village and the villagers changed significantly based on where in the story I was up to), and introduced two of the Dunland clans.

I didn't enjoy Bonevales (also level 66) quite as much. Part of that's because I'm not that fond of wights, but I also found the large number of low impassables in this area a pain, and the story line didn't seem related to the rest of Dunland as far as I can tell (although I suppose it's more connected to the Lich Bluffs in Enedwaith).

Galtrev and Pren Gwydh (mostly level 67) had a couple of nice quest lines - I particularly enjoyed the story of Rook, who attempts to be like Saruman and fails miserably - and introduced another two clans. Overall it wasn't as cohesive as the other areas though, making me much more aware that the actual quests were the same old kill x of these, collect y of those.

Tal Methedras was unlike the other areas in that the 'side quests' (level 68) were required in order to progress in the epic storyline. There was a decent variety of quests here, including the amusing plight of the rangers who have been recruited for the same kind of tasks as the players, and an intriguing set of footprints that make me think Gollum has been this way...

Overall it's been a solid set of quests so far. I'm a little worried about how few quests there are for the number of levels they need to span. I've been doing every quest available and by the time I hit level 69, the only level 68 quest I had left was the epic, even with rest XP giving me a bit of a boost. If I'd known it was going to be this tight I might have spent a level doing quests I'd skipped in Enedwaith and Mirkwood. I think the intent is that you don't go to Dunland until level 66, since there are only a couple of level 65 quests in the mix, and I'm sure for new characters coming up it will work out that way. But since it's been almost 2 years since a boost in the level cap, there were a lot of people who were at level cap and up to date with their epics. Though, when I think back, at launch there weren't enough quests to get from 1 to 50 solo, so I guess it's just something we're expected to deal with.

As far as class changes go, burg seems much the same for soloing as it did a couple of years ago. As I approach max level I'll probably need to do some research into the best gear balance and brush up on some of the skills, but I don't think there's anything either particularly exciting or concerning.

Minis, on the other hand, have had some major changes. It will take me a bit to get my head around the new system of ballads and anthems, but I never really invested a lot of time in learning to play a mini in the past, and never did any end-game content as a mini, so I'm happy to do a bit of learning.

The new crafting tier is going along nicely so far. I've reached proficiency in Tier 7 Prospector but not yet Tier 7 Jeweller, so I don't know yet what the critted gear will look like, but the level 70 Dunland rep recipes and the level 75 guild recipes look nice even without crits.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the next 6 levels pan out.

Pottermore

2011-10-09T19:16:00.000+08:00

Pottermore has been in Beta for a while now, but public opening is fast approaching, so here are some of my thoughts on the experience.

Like many other Potter fans, on the 31st of July I sat hitting refresh on the Pottermore site until my chance to find the magical quill came. I was lucky enough to only have to wait a week or so before I was allowed access to the site.

I initially tried it out on my iPad, which was a bit of a disaster. Parts of the site require you to use the keyboard, which I couldn't do, while others required a distinction between hovering and pointing, which totally doesn't work on an iPad either. Points off for accessibility, dudes.

I didn't like the limited choice of usernames. I ended up with ErisedSnidget149, which although it has a certain cuteness factor to it

Some parts of the experience were awesome. The highlights for me were definitely choosing my wand (or rather, having my wand choose me) and getting sorted. There was also some nice new information, such as the biographies of McGonagall and the Dursleys.

But on the whole I felt a little let down. There wasn't nearly as much of the new information as I'd expected. I realise that a lot of it has to be saved for future books (both in terms of needing stuff to release with those and to avoid spoilers for people who are looking at the site on their first read-through). But still, the actual process of going through all the chapters only took a couple of hours - for all the buildup it was really quite a small site.

Once I'd finished all the chapters, the only thing left to do was brew potions. I found this too frustrating to really be fun. A lot of the ingredients were too difficult to control with the mouse, so it was too hard to pour the correct amount out of a bottle or avoid dropping things in the cauldron while trying to put them in the mortar. Plus you have to let the potion sit for about an hour and a half, which meant I had to be really careful about when I started them. I imagine it would be even more limiting for kids that have limited time on the internet.

There is also a wizarding duel activity that sounds exciting, but it was down for maintenance by the time I got around to trying it, and as far as I'm aware it hasn't been back up since. I assume that it will be up in time for the official launch, but it doesn't look like there's going to be much opportunity to test it.

Overall it was an interesting concept and I enjoyed trying it out. But it didn't really live up to the hype.

CFS Diagnostic Criteria and Me

2011-09-10T15:11:00.002+08:00

For the last couple of years I've been working on the assumption that I have chronic fatigue syndrome, and I thought my doctor was too. But this week I found out that my doctor has just been stringing me along, and she actually thinks my primary diagnosis is depression.

So, do I actually have chronic fatigue syndrome according to the official criteria? Well that question is made much more complex by the fact that there is no one agreed upon set of criteria, and in fact the major criteria in use are vastly different. The three major sets of criteria used currently are the Oxford criteria, the Fukuda (or CDC) definition and the Canadian guidelines.

The Oxford criteria are the simplest:

fatigue as the main symptom

CHECK

definite onset

CHECK (3:30pm, 31st December 2007)

fatigue is severe, disabling and affects physical and mental function

I suppose it depends how you define severe, but it certainly feels pretty bad to me. Definitely disabling, in the sense that it stops me doing things that I could do before I got sick. While my symptoms are predominantly physical, I do get brain fog on bad days. So, CHECK

fatigue should be persist for 6 months or more and be present 50% of the time

CHECK (over 3 and a half years now, and it's present all the time)

other symptoms, especially myalgia, sleep and mood disturbances

CHECK (all three, plus some others)

So, I don't think there's any doubt that I meet the Oxford criteria, but they have been widely criticised for how vague they are (they really only define chronic fatigue, not chronic fatigue syndrome, and you could meet them just with depression), so I'll move on.

The Fukuda criteria (CDC definition) are intended for research use, not diagnosis, but they do get used a lot for diagnosis. So...

Clinically evaluated, unexplained, persistent or relapsing fatigue persistent for six months or more

CHECK. I think "clinically evaluated" refers to the every-blood-test-known-to-man experience. And as above, I'm well over the 6 month mark.

of new or definite onset

CHECK (as above)

not the result of ongoing exertion

I wake up feeling like crap even I've done nothing the previous day. CHECK

not substantially alleviated by rest

Similarly, CHECK

results in substantial reduction in previous levels of occupational, educational, social or personal activities

Before I got sick, I was working full-time. Now I dream of being able to work school hours. CHECK

Plus 4 or more of the following, persistent for six months or more:

impaired short-term memory or concentration

As I said before, my symptoms are primarily physical. But I do have mild cognitive issues as well. I'll completely lose track of where I'm up to in the middle of a conversation. When I'm having a bad day, I can't even bear to do something like a read book. So CHECK.

sore throat

I would have to say no to this one. I have more sore throats than I did before (because I get more colds), but it's not constant. I think my pain in the general neck region falls better into the next couple of categories

tender cervical or axillary lymph nodes

I really suck at finding my lymph nodes, since they aren't enlarged, just sore, but I'm pretty sure my cervical lymph nodes are a source of pain. CHECK.

muscle pain

Definitely CHECK. Moreover, muscle pain that correlates very well with my fatigue level and not at all with which muscles I've actually been using.

multi-joint pain without arthritis

This started as a major symptom for me about two weeks into my illness and then significantly improved over the following year. It's no longer a particularly disabling symptom, but I still feel it in my fingers if I've been doing a lot of writing or typing and in my toes if I've been walking. CHECK.

headaches of a new type, pattern or severity

Not sure about this one. I had random unexplained headaches before I got sick, and it's hard to say whether my current headaches are different or even more frequent.

unrefreshing sleep

Refer to earlier comment about waking up feeling like crap. In fact I usually feel worse when I get up than when I went to bed. CHECK.

post-exertional malaise lasting more than 24 hours

CHECK. I know my limits well enough now that most of the time I can avoid a crash that long, but when I work two fullish days in a row I feel it for days afterwards.

6 out of 8 is enough to meet the cut-off of 4, so by the Fukuda criteria, yes I have chronic fatigue syndrome.

Finally, the Canadian criteria. These are the most comprehensive, and are supposed to be the best for actual diagnosis, so how do I compare?

Post-exertional Malaise and Fatigue (all of these):

marked degree of new onset, unexplained, persistent, or recurrent physical and mental fatigue that substantially reduces activity level

This is pretty much the entire Oxford criteria in one line. CHECK

post-exertional fatigue, malaise and/or pain, and a delayed recovery period (> 24 hours)

As in the Fukuda criteria, CHECK

symptoms can be exacerbated by exertion or stress of any kind

CHECK. Although my mental symptoms are minor compared to my physical ones, both mental and physical exertion/stress have a huge impact on the severity of my symptoms.

Sleep Disorder:

Unrefreshing sleep or altered sleep pattern (including circadian rhythm disturbance)

CHECK. The unrefreshing sleep part is in the Fukuda definition, but the altered sleep pattern is a major symptom for me. I have insomnia, hypersomnia, periodic limb movement syndrome, delayed sleep phase syndrome and night terrors. For the most part these existed before I got sick, but they are now much more severe and disabling.

Pain:

Arthralgia and/or myalgia without clinical evidence of joint swelling or redness, and/or significant headaches of new type, pattern or severity

This combines a few of the points from the Fukuda criteria. I definitely have arthralgia and myalgia, with the headaches possibly being comorbid rather than a symptom. CHECK

Neurological/Cognitive Manifestations (2 or more):

Impairment of concentration and short-term memory

As above, while it's relatively mild, I do have it. CHECK

Difficulty with information processing, categorising, and word retrieval, including intermittent dyslexia

None that I've noticed

Overload phenomena: information, cognitive, and sensory overload (e.g., photophobia and hypersensitivity to noise) and/or emotional overload which may lead to relapses and/or anxiety

CHECK. This is most significant of my cognitive symptoms, I think. If I've been in a conversation too long, I just can't cope any more and have to leave the room. Certainly have hypersensitivity to noise, too, especially on bad days, to the point that I have to ask people to talk softer because regular voice volume bothers me. And strong emotions tend to freak me out.

Perceptual/sensory disturbances

Not apart from ones related to orthostatic intolerance

Disorientation or confusion

Ataxia

Nothing more than my premorbid clumsiness :)

2 out of 6 is enough to just meet the criteria.

Autonomic/Neuroendocrine/Immune Manifestations (at least one symptom from at least two of the categories below):

Autonomic Manifestations:

Orthostatic Intolerance

Not officially diagnosed, but I definitely experience symptoms (lightheadedness and loss of vision) regularly (at least once a day) when I stand up from sitting or lying down. I did have this a bit before I got sick, but it's much worse since. CHECK.

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome

Not that I'm aware of

Vertigo and/or light-headedness

CHECK. This is usually the symptom that first tells me I'm having a bad day and/or crash

Extreme pallor

Depends on your definition of extreme, I suppose, but on bad days my Mum nearly always tells me that I look pale. CHECK

Intestinal or bladder disturbances

Thankfully, no

Palpitations

Vasomotor instability

Didn't know before reading this list that this could be a symptom. But no.

Respiratory irregularities

Not that I'm aware of

So three symptoms from this category.

Neuroendocrine Manifestations:

Loss of thermostatic stability

Tentative CHECK. I'm not sure that my symptoms in this area are new or even particularly abnormal. I do know though, that there is a very fine line for me between too hot and too cold.

Heat/cold intolerance

Though I do get hot/cold quite easily, I think that fits into the previous point rather than this one, so no.

Anorexia or abnormal appetite, weight change

Hypoglycaemia

When I've had blood tests done my sugar readings have always been normal. Some of my symptoms could be symptoms of hypoglycaemia, but without a diagnosis I'm going to say no.

Loss of adaptability and tolerance for stress, worsening of symptoms with stress and slow recovery, and emotional lability

Not really sure how this differs from previous points like 'symptoms being exacerbated by stress', but CHECK. Stress is a bit of a problem for me - just thinking about doing something that might be stressful has a tendency to send me into a crash. I've never considered emotional lability before - I'm wondering now if I'm sometimes mistaking lability for depression...

One, maybe two symptoms from this category.

Immune Manifestations:

Tender lymph nodes

CHECK

Recurrent sore throat

Apart from the lymph nodes, no.

Flu-like symptoms and/or general malaise

CHECK. It's hard to objectively separate the malaise feeling from the fatigue feeling, but I do constantly feel like I'm coming down with something.

Development of new allergies or changes in status of old ones

Not that I've noticed

Hypersensitivity to medications and/or chemicals

Again, not that I've noticed.

Two symptoms from this category.

So overall the Autonomic/Neuroendocrine/Immune Manifestations criterion is met, as I have symptoms in all three categories.

And finally:

The illness persists for at least 6 months

CHECK

So even using the stricter Canadian guidelines I meet the criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome. So why won't my doctor believe it?

Lord of Ultima: The Path to Earldom

2011-08-13T14:19:00.001+08:00

I have a bit of an obsession with starting on new worlds on LoU, so I thought I'd recount my first week on my newest server, World 40. This is a quasi-guide to the first week, although I make no claims that my technique is the best.

Update: I did have graphs in this post, but I seem to have lost them at some point. I don't the text is quite as interesting without the graphs, but I'll leave it up anyway.

Day 1

I started pretty much as soon as the server opened. I used LoU Optimiser to design the city. I didn't get a great setup of initial nodes so I had to tweak the balance a little to end up with a layout that gave me 18.8k/hr wood, 24.3/hr stone, 13.7/hr iron, 11.2/hr food, 7.6/hr gold and 2000% CS. Then I followed the tutorial, placing buildings according to my layout. In total that took about 20 minutes, at the end of which I had a score of 50 and was ranked 12th in the world.

I then concentrated on increasing my wood and stone production, construction speed and storage capacity, placing as many of those buildings as I could according to my layout, then using LoU Tweak to upgrade them equally. When I ran out of resources I demolished a resource node that needed to go for my final layout and then went back to upgrading after 2 hours.

8 hours in, I'd dropped back to 36th place, but I was ready to upgrade my town hall to level 5 and within an hour I was back up to 12th place. After another 5 hours of levelling woodcutters huts, quarries and cottages, I'd moved up to 8th place, but I was ready to go to bed, so I queued up a bunch of resource node destructions and left the game for the night.

Day 2

I dropped back to 26th place overnight, but I had a nice pool of resources to keep me upgrading. I was able to upgrade my town hall to level 7 during the day, and by the time I called it a night I was up to 11th place and was able to queue my moonglow tower up to level 6 overnight.

Day 3

Because I'd had a decent queue to start the night off, I only dropped back to 16th place while I was asleep. I spent the day concentrating on resources and then queued my moonglow tower up to level 8 overnight. At around 2pm I used the medallions that I'd built up from quests, since I was doing well resource-wise.

Day 4

I dropped back again to 24th place overnight, and only managed to claw back a few places during the day. Today was another resource-focused day. Because of the free building minister, I was able to queue up not only the rest of my moonglow tower overnight, but a full night's worth of queue.

Day 5

The building minister kept me steady at 21st place overnight. I had to go out during the day, so I queued up my level 8 town hall as well as some resource buildings -- at this point I started working on iron, food and gold so that I would be able to do some research. The town hall upgrade and the large number of low level upgrades brought me up to 12th place by the time I went to bed.

Day 6

With the resources I earned overnight I was able to upgrade my town hall to level 9. I continued to work on resources for purification, and worked my way up to 7th place.

Day 7

Today was another resource-focused day, with my ranking hovering around 12th place.

Day 8

By the time I woke up, I had enough resources for my first title advancement research. Almost exactly a week in, it was congratulations Earl Snowdrop!

Rise of Isengard

2011-07-31T14:37:00.001+08:00

It's now less than 2 months until LOTRO's next expansion, Rise of Isengard comes out, as announced back in June. I've tried to gather as much information as I can about what we can expect.

Three new regions will be added in the expansion -- Dunland, Gap of Rohan and Nan Curunir (which will include Isengard). Dunland will be located directly south of Enedwaith, with the other two areas accessible from Dunland. TheKhazadGuard has a nice map of the areas the new regions may cover.

There will be over 300 quests in the new areas, including new epic quests. The epic quests will allow you to choose between two paths to get from Enedwaith to Dunland, which will then join up again in Dunland.

There will also be a new 24-man raid which involves fighting a dragon called Draigoch.

The new areas will use phasing (the system where what you see in the world changes based on what quests you have completed). There will also be mobile quest givers that travel with you throughout a quest chain so you don't have to go back to town between each quest.

The level cap will be increased from 65 to 75. There will be new skills, and classic dungeons which currently scale to 65 will scale to 75. The virtue cap will be raised from 10 to 12, a change which has been long awaited.

All classes are being revised. Elderban's list of links points to several posts by Orion about proposed changes to PvE and MP classes.

A lot of changes are being made to stats. The caps on primary characteristics (Might, Agility, etc.) are being removed completely. The caps on secondary characteristics are being raised to 25% (for stats where the cap is currently 15%) and 50% (for stats where the cap is currently 25%), starting at level 50. But there will be diminishing returns so as stats get higher they will have to be increased more for the same effect.

A new primary stat called Finesse is being introduce. This stat will reduce the enemy's resistance and BPE stats.

The number of secondary stats is being reduced, with all resistance stats being combined into one, all tactical mitigation stats combined into one, and all crit stats being combined into one. This is aimed to make stat bonuses on gear/deeds useful to more classes.

Offence ratings are being changed to use a classes primary stat rather than always might for melee and agility for range. LMs, minis and RKs will use will for their melee offence; hunters and burgs will use agility for both melee and ranged offence; and guards, champs and wards will use might for both melee and ranged offence.

There have also been changes to the stats that appear on gear. All stats can now appear on all types of gear (rather than there being a subset of stats that can appear on helms, for example). There will be bigger steps between different levels of gear, so we are more likely to be able to improve our stats with a new piece of gear. From level 66 on, yellow items will be more powerful (although still not as powerful as purple items, so I suspect most will still be vendor junk). These changes are intended to allow players to make more meaningful decisions about the items they choose.

Gear will now drop in skirmishes as well as marks. There will be a new raid set from the Draigoch raid -- 4 out of 6 pieces will also be available with skirmish marks, but the final 2 will be available only in the raid.

There will be a new tier of crafting, and corresponding new resource nodes. Some recipes will drop in the Draigoch raid, but they will be tradable.

There will be some changes to PvMP, including the availability of monster play to F2P players. The store will now be available for both sides in the moors.

The beta opened on the 27th of July. Priority will be given to those who pre-order the expansion. There will be no open beta and no application process -- you just have to wait for an invite. I've been in previous expansion betas (due to being a founder) but so far have not been invited to this one (I haven't pre-ordered and haven't been playing much recently, so I'm not surprised). Fingers crossed for more spots opening up closer to the release date, in which case I'll be posting more info once the NDA is lifted.

The expansion is available now for preorder until the 26th of September (the day before release). It can only be pre-ordered with cash. It will be available to buy with TP but not until the game has been released.

There are 3 pre-order versions available. The base edition costs $30. The heroic edition costs $40 and includes 1000 TP. The legendary edition costs $50 and includes some earlier quest packs (Trollshaws, Eregion, Lothlorien, Moria and Mirkwood -- although not the full Moria/Mirkwood expansions) as well as the 1000 TP. All versions give an in-game title as well as new mounts and cosmetics (with the more expensive versions giving more mounts and cosmetics).

The lorebook has a nice FAQ about the pre-order with lots of information about the ordering process.

Two trailers have been released for the expansion, shown below.

Hope to see you in Dunland in September!

Lion

2011-07-23T19:49:00.000+08:00

So Wednesday was the big day for the release of OS X Lion. Along with (I'm sure) many other people, I haunted twitter for word that it was out, then spent a couple of frustrating minutes hitting reload on the App store, then the Up-to-date page, then the Apple online store, before I could get my code and start downloading (that was just me being impatient though; if I'd just waited five minutes everything would have gone perfectly smoothly). The download only took about an hour and a half, much less than I'd anticipated, so I was able to install before I went to bed on Wednesday night, although not much else. Everything went nicely on top of my existing Snow Leopard install.

There are a bunch of changes to the visual appearance of the operating system and key applications, but none of them have really jumped out at me. I'm not getting excited about them, but I'm not upset about them either.

I'm liking the new gestures in Lion and I'm glad now that I went for the Magic Trackpad. I have all the options turned on except tap to click, which has always annoyed me, since I have a tendency to hit the trackpad and then change my mind, resulting in a lot of accidental clicks. I love three finger drag though, saves a lot of the wear on my finger that concerned me initially about the trackpad. Discovered also that you can start the drag with three fingers and then reduce to only one finger to take advantage of the whole width of the trackpad. I still mess up occasionally with the natural scroll direction, but I'm adjusting to it very quickly and in the long term I think it will reduce the number of mistakes when switching between the computer and the iPad. The thumb and three finger gestures sounded awkward, but actually doing them seems pretty natural. My only complaint is that 4 finger swipe switches between full-screen apps but not between spaces.

On that note, it's taking me a bit to adjust to the new Mission Control and I'm not sure that it's an improvement over the old Expose + Spaces system. On earlier OSes I tended to have a lot of spaces and not many windows in each space, so I mainly used the Spaces functionality and not the Expose functionality. Combining them into Mission Control makes it more difficult to switch between spaces and remember which space a particular window is in because the spaces are now in a straight line. I'm wondering whether it's worth reorganising my system to better suit Mission Control, especially since I'm now on a bigger screen so the motivation to reduce the amount of stuff in one space is reduced.

My favourite feature of Lion is definitely the autosave. Combined with a new backup drive that is actually big enough to backup my whole hard-drive, I feel much more confident about my data (I'm pretty bad about remembering to save). It also reduces the number of dialog boxes I have to deal with if I need to restart for an update.

I was a bit sceptical about the auto-correct features being brought over from the iPad and the iPhone because of the notoriously bad corrects that it makes there, but it seems much better on the computer. I suspect it's due to the kind of typos that I make on the computer compared to the ones I make on the iPad - when I'm using a regular keyboard I'm more likely to transpose the order of letters, which auto-correct does a good job of fixing, whereas on the iPad I'm more likely to hit the wrong letter, or skip a letter all together, which generally makes it less obvious what word I was aiming for.

Overall I feel like Lion offers more for a new computer user, or at least a new Mac user, than it does for someone upgrading from Snow Leopard, since it requires some changes to the way you use your computer in order to fully utilise all the new features. If I'd had to pay for the upgrade, I might not have bothered, except that I'm sure future versions of some apps will have Lion as a minimum requirement.

Dance with Dragons

2011-07-18T20:32:00.002+08:00

After a busy week, I finally got around to finishing reading A Dance with Dragons this weekend.

After all the anticipation, I was a little disappointed. The printed book was over 1000 pages, but not a great deal actually happened. In that way it reminded me a little of Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix (maybe it's something about the fifth book in a series of seven?). While the questions left hanging from A Feast for Crows regarding who was dead and who was alive were answered, nothing else was really answered or resolved. Things started to move right at the end of the book, but it seemed to be only so that there could be a new set of cliffhangers. I guess I just have to hope that the next book is better (and doesn't take too long to come out).

The rest of this post is going to be chock full of spoilers so stay away if you haven't read the book.

I'm going to run through all the characters in the same manner as my pre-book cheat sheet, with a brief round-up of what we saw of each character in this book and my thoughts on it.

Starks

Catelyn: Didn't actually appear, although spared Brienne from death and sent her after Jaime. Not fussed about this, not a big dead-Catelyn fan.
Sansa: No word from her. I knew she wasn't POV, but at least a little progress in her storyline would have been nice.
Arya (The Blind Girl, The Ugly Little Girl): Blindness turned out not to be permanent (yay!). Had her first face-changing. I don't think this was really explained very well - is her face actually cut off and replaced with someone else's? If so why can't she feel that it's different? That makes me think that it's all some kind of magic, although potentially using actual faces. She also kills her first man as part of her new role. The explanation of this was even worse - she gave a coin to the guy and he died? What the? On the whole a confusing storyline, but was glad to have a reasonable chunk of Arya.
Bran: Finally met the three-eyed crow, who is one of the Children of the Forest and entwined with a tree. Bran started his training but didn't really get far. Bit of a disappointment; feels like by the time Bran gets anywhere the series will be over.
Rickon: Still no appearance :( But Wex saw him escape Winterfell and then met up with Stannis, and Davos has now been sent to find him, so he has to appear in the next book. I miss Rickon.
Jon: Things at the wall didn't go too well for him. Stannis wanted him to hand over forts and land, the Night's Watch wanted to keep the status quo, and Jon wanted to rescue the wildlings (mainly so they didn't turn into wights and help the Others with the attack). In his last POV chapter he was attacked by some of the Night's Watch. It's left as a cliffhanger whether he lives or dies. My guess is that he dies as a human but lives on in Ghost (the prologue with Varamyr contributes nothing to the plot but tells us what happens when a warg dies; my assumption is it was put in to foreshadow what would happen to Jon). If this is true, then R+L=J is presumably either not true, or at least not as important as people had believed. That doesn't really bother me, since I wasn't that fussed about the theory anyway (I can understand the reasoning behind it, but I didn't really want it to be true). I just really really hope that Jon doesn't turn out to be completely dead. That would piss me off.
Jeyne Poole: Arrives at Winterfell as fake Arya and marries Bolton. Escapes with Theon and meets up with Stannis. According to Bolton's letter, she remains on the run at the end of the book.
Alys Karstark: Runs away from her family and an arranged marriage to the wall. Jon protects her.

Lannisters

Cersei: Confessed to being with Lancel but not Jaime. Released but forced to walk naked through the streets. Now back with Tommen but no longer really has any power. I'm getting a bit sick of Cersei to be honest. They could have executed her and I wouldn't have complained.
Jaime: Not a lot of Jaime in this one. Takes the last remaining castle that was sworn to the Starks. Brienne finds him and tells him that she can take him to Arya and the Hound. This is clearly a lie - presumably Catelyn is using this to get Jaime to her so she can kill him. Would have liked more Jaime. Hope he doesn't die in the next book, I'm getting kind of attached to him.
Tyrion: Quite a lot of Tyrion in this one, and some classic Tyrion lines :) He is smuggled by Varys across the sea to Illyrio, who sends him on his way to meet Dany. He is captured by Jorah who intends to give him to Dany. They are then captured by slavers, along with Penny (one of the dwarfs that jousted at Joffrey's wedding) and taken to Meereen. Tyrion and Penny joust at the re-opening of the fighting pits. They escape slavery and join up with a sellsword company who keep switching sides in Dany's war against Yunkai. Tyrion buys them with promises of money from Casterly Rock to fight on Dany's side. Tyrion's sections were good for the amusement value, but his story doesn't progress all that much - he just keeps switching hands.
Kevan: Acting as King's Hand and Regent throughout most of the book, then killed along with Pycelle by Varys at the end because they were threatening to wreck Varys's plans with Dany and Aegon. This development had some promise, but it's right at the end of the book, so we'll have to wait for the next one to see where it goes :(

Baratheons

Stannis: Working on taking the North from the Greyjoys. Successfully takes Deepwood Motte (where Asha is) but according to a letter from Bolton is killed trying to take Winterfell. His death is unconfirmed and I suspect he hasn't really been killed off. My guess is that Bolton is faking Stannis's death to frighten the Watch into turning in Theon and Jeyne if they are found.
Melisandre: Burns Rattleshirt pretending he is Mance Rayder. Melisandre isn't turning out to be quite as crazy and evil as I initially thought. She's still sacrificing humans, but it seems like R'hllor actually does have power to achieve things so I guess she is justified according to some twisted logic. And now that we have had a point of view scene from here she seems a bit more rational in her choices.
Davos: So he didn't actually die. What a surprise. He's looking for Rickon now, which means we will finally get to see Rickon, but couldn't we have actually got to that bit in this book? We've gone 2 books without a peep from Rickon now.
Edric Storm: No mention of him :(

Greyjoys

Euron: Briefly mentioned but no appearances. Don't mind though, the only Greyjoy I care about is Theon.
Victarion (The Iron Suitor): On his way to court Dany. Doesn't really get anywhere in this book though, although he seems to be converting to R'hllorism (is that the correct noun?), which is an interesting turn of events.
Aeron: No word of him. Again, not really fussed.
Asha (The Wayward Bride, The King's Prize, The Sacrifice): Is captured by Stannis's forces and eventually reunites with Theon. Asha is becoming a little more sympathetic in this book - a little less of the snotty oneupmanship with Theon now that she's a prisoner. Her eventual fate is uncertain, since she was presumably with Stannis when he lost at Winterfell and is not mentioned in Bolton's letter.
Theon (Reek, The Prince of Winterfell, The Turncloak, A Ghost in Winterfell): Alive but partially flayed. Not a surprise, but I'm glad of it (the alive part at least, not so much the flaying, it kind of grosses me out). Initially very subservient to Bolton despite losing various appendages to him, but eventually worked up the courage to protect and then rescue Jeyne and escape from Winterfell. He found Stannis's party but Stannis was apparently then killed at Winterfell so Theon's status is now unclear (although based on Bolton's letter he must have escaped).

Martells

Doran: Finally taking some vague action. Can we kill him off yet?
Quentyn (The Merchant's Man, The Windblown, The Spurned Suitor, The Dragontamer): Arrives in Meereen to propose marriage to Dany, but she is already engaged to someone else. As a last-ditch attempt tries to tame the dragons (releasing them in the process) and gets burnt to death. Didn't feel that I really knew Quentyn well enough to care about his death, and he hasn't actually achieved anything, so in the end he was just a red herring.
Sand Snakes: Two of them are now on their way to King's Landing to represent Doran.
Areo Hotah (The Watcher): POV character but really just existed to relate what the Martells were up to.

Tyrells

Loras: Still in much the same state as in Book 4 - injured but not officially dead yet.
Margaery: Released from imprisonment as the case against her pretty much fell apart.

Targaryens

Daenerys: The dragons go kind of wild and start eating little kids. To stop local uprisings against her, agreed to marry some guy called Hizdahr (tip: if your characters are getting confused about each others' names, don't expect the reader to keep track of them). Hizdahr turns out to be a bad guy and tries to poison Dany so that he can be ruler. Dany escapes with Drogon. At the end of the book she comes across one of the khals that was formed after Drogo turned into a vegetable.
Aegon/Young Griff: So this was the big surprise in this book - Aegon (son of Rhaegar) is still alive. This puts an interesting twist on the prophecies and theories, but he didn't really do a whole lot in this book. On Tyrion's advice he headed to Westeros instead of to Dany, and people have heard who he is, so his plot in the next book is bound to be interesting.
Barristan (The Queensguard, The Discarded Knight, The Kingbreaker, The Queen's Hand): Mainly there to narrate events in Meereen. Becomes more active towards the end when he takes over from Hizdahr, but then what the plague leaves of Meereen is overtaken by war, so maybe that wasn't the best thing for him to do...
Jorah: Captures Tyrion in an attempt to impress Dany, but is captured by slavers. Ends up with the Second Sons along with Dany.
Jon Connington/Griff (The Lost Lord, The Griffin Reborn): Thought to be dead, this guy (who was good friends with Rhaegar) turned out to have been protecting Aegon, masquerading as his father, and grooming him to be king. Mainly acts as a POV character for what Aegon is doing.

Other

Brienne: Survived (not a big surprise), and has convinced Jaime to come with her under the pretence that she has found Arya. Presumably she is leading him to Catelyn.

So. That felt like a lot of information and very little plot. I guess this is the calm before the storm, the last chunk of setup before things really take off. At least I hope so. Crossing fingers for a book 6 that takes our breath away.

Wicked

2011-07-16T14:34:00.000+08:00

Last night my parents and I went to see Wicked at Burswood. This was my second time seeing it; my first time was in Sydney in 2009.

It was even better than I remembered - I think most of my memories have been superseded by listening to the CD a few hundred times, so I'd forgotten about a lot of the funny dialogue that goes in between.

I know a lot of people aren't fans of the Wicked music, but I love it. Even though it does lose something by not having the choreography, I still love listening to the music.

After I saw Wicked the first time, I bought the novel by Gregory Maguire, but I found it very disappointing. It's a lot darker than the musical, without any of the humour that really makes the musical, and there are significant divergences in the plot. It's actually quite a literary book - makes me even more impressed that someone was able to look at it and get the idea for a brilliant musical out of it.

Overall I was very impressed by the Australian cast - for the most part it was the same as the group I saw in Sydney, but where it differed I think both alternatives were equally strong. Although Bert Newton got a lot of cheers I think he brought down the overall quality of the performance - he can't really sing at a Broadway musical level. I'm also not sure if his voice was still recovering from his bout of pneumonia; it sounded hoarse on some of the low notes and the speech pathologist in me was yelling that he shouldn't singing if his voice sounded like that.

On the whole it was a wonderful night. I hope that someone produces a DVD of Wicked at some point so that I can watch it over and over to my heart's content :)

Initial Thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

2011-07-15T14:47:00.001+08:00

Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know that the final Harry Potter movie came out on Wednesday (well, here in Australia at least; for some reason we got it ahead of the US and UK). So my sister and I (and Hedwig) trotted off to the midnight screening.

My very brief review is that it was awesome and I want to watch it again :)

I know that while I was watching the movie there were things that I wanted to blog about. Of course, by the time the movie had finished I had no idea what they were, and sleeping on it has made my recall worse, not better, so I will probably have more to say another time, but for now here are some thoughts I had on the movie.

Warning: Spoilers for book and movie abound.

I'm glad they showed Dobby's gravestone at the start of the movie; I've always thought it was sweet and missed it at the end of the last movie.

I loved the early shot of Snape overlooking the Hogwarts students marching. The marching shows really nicely in a short shot how much Hogwarts has changed, and Snape's expression is perfectly unreadable, so you have no idea if he approves of it or not.

My favourite part of comedic acting was Helena Bonham Carter as Hermione pretending to be Bellatrix. It was perfectly off, and showed how much of Bellatrix's character is provided by the acting even with the eccentric hair/makeup/costume.

I didn't really understand why they revealed that Snape was responsible for switching the real sword of Gryffindor with the fake. Did they feel the need to include more hints that it was Snape that gave them the sword? For non-readers I think it would have just seemed weird if they hadn't already figured it out (and if they had figured it out, they didn't need it spelled out for them). I don't know why they didn't do it like in the book, where Snape clearly had the sword at the start of Book 7.

The whole Gringotts sequence was pretty awesome. Particularly liked Bogrod.

I still don't really understand how the mirror is supposed to work in movie canon. It just sort of showed up in Deathly Hallows Part 1 and I assumed we were supposed to assume that the backstory in the books had happened. But in this movie it seemed like the shard that Harry had was broken off the main mirror, rather than being part of a second mirror - in which case I don't know what the explanation is supposed to be. Did I miss something somewhere?

I was a bit disappointed not to get more about Dumbledore's history. The whole thing with Aberforth and Ariana wouldn't have made any sense to non-readers.

Presumably Bill and Fleur know about the entrance to Hogwarts through the Hog's Head, since they end up at Hogwarts, and they send Luna through before Harry gets there. So why didn't they tell Harry about it? I know that Harry didn't find out they needed to go to Hogwarts until after they left Shell Cottage, but surely it would have been a simple piece of information to pass on. I can't remember if this is handled better in the book.

McGonagall and Neville were both awesome. And Filch was very funny. I was a little bit confused about Cho Chang - why was she shown as being a Hogwarts student when she is a year older than Harry? I suppose in the movies her age is never specified, so perhaps in movie canon she is supposed to be in Harry's year. The Carrows appeared surprisingly little in the movie (although I was kind of glad about it, because I was never that fond of the Carrows and can never remember their first names).

Having just watched the previous movies, I noticed that what Ron says in parseltongue to open the chamber of secrets is longer than what Harry said to open it in the second movie. Is the idea supposed to be that he just repeats all of the parseltongue words he's heard Harry say until he gets the right ones? Just seemed a little odd to me.

I loved Snape's death. I don't remember it being so poignant in the books - not sure if it's a difference between the book and the script, or the difference between a book and a movie, or Alan Rickman's awesome acting, or just because I knew what was going to be revealed in Snape's memories (although I don't think it was the last one, because when I read the book the first time I'd already figured out the gist of Snape's memories - about 5 minutes before I otherwise would have lost my faith in Snape and thrown the book across the room). The whole 'You have your mother's eyes' line, which grated on me every time it was said in the previous movies, was so beautiful as Snape's last words, I almost forgive the filmmakers for making it a recurring line.

The pensieve segment was the one I was most looking forward to in this movie. My main complaints were (a) after the hat-trick of Snape's death, Lupin/Tonks's death, and this, I was too busy crying to really appreciate it and (b) it wasn't nearly long enough (I could have watched 130 minutes of pensieve scenes, but I suspect the majority of the audience wouldn't have appreciated it). But overall I think it was handled really well and I wasn't disappointed. When the DVD comes out I might have to watch this part a few dozen times.

I would have liked to have seen more of Petunia in the flashbacks, especially the part where she writes to Dumbledore asking to be accepted into Hogwarts, but I guess you can't have everything.

I thought it was a bit strange that they cast young Sirius for the flashback when all he did was sit there in the sorting hat scene. Did he even have any lines? Maybe more was shot but didn't make the final cut (gives me hope for more pensieve scenes in the deleted scenes on the DVD).

I thought it was interesting that they showed Snape at Godric's Hollow, since the whole question of whether Snape was at Godric's Hollow was the subject of lots of fan speculation but was never really resolved in the books (I realise that the speculation was more about him being there at the actual time of Lily's death, but still...).

I wish there had been more of Snape's reaction to Dumbledore's admission that he always intended for Harry to die. For me this was a huge twist in the book because it wasn't one that was foreshadowed by earlier events (Snape/Lily, Dumbledore asking Snape to kill him, etc. were all 'revelations' that were hinted at earlier). In the movie, Snape didn't even really object to the idea of killing Harry. I felt like he needed to be really pissed off at Dumbledore on behalf of the audience.

I also thought there should have been more of Harry's reaction to the pensieve revelations. Clearly Harry didn't figure out the hints earlier in the story, so all of this should have been big news to him. But there was pretty much nothing.

I liked the scene in which Harry and Hermione admit that they've known for a while that Harry is a horcrux, without coming straight out and saying it. I don't remember if that scene was in the book; if not then it was a nice addition.

I'm still confused about how Harry and co. were calculating the number of horcruxes remaining to destroy. I realise that Harry was an unexpected extra for everyone, but they talk as if Ravenclaw's diadem was the last one, when clearly Nagini is needed to make up the number that they knew from Slughorn's memory that Voldemort was going to create. I remember being confused about this in the book too, although I'm not sure if my point of confusion is the same or if there was a different counting problem in the book.

When I saw the resurrection scene I thought that they had changed the actress playing Lily, which seemed a little disappointing. But when I checked on IMDB I discovered that it is the same actress. Then I realised that it's just the result of the actress being 10 years older than when the flashback scenes were filmed (though I would have thought they could have put more effort into at least making her hair the same colour).

I didn't like the King's Cross scene in the book, and while I think it was handled a little better in the movie, it still didn't work for me. I think my main problem was that the concept of people hanging out in some kind of limbo after they died had never been introduced earlier in the series, so bringing it in at the climax felt like a cop-out. The actual King's Cross setting seemed a bit odd to me too, as did the fragment of Voldemort under the bench. If I'm being completely honest I would have preferred Harry to just die, but I know that would have pissed of lots of people so I understand why J.K. Rowling didn't do it. But couldn't Voldemort's attack just have destroyed the Horcrux, not Harry, without the whole train station in your mind bit?

I wasn't a big fan of the epilogue in the book and I liked it even less in the movie. It felt to me like the kind of thing that should have been an extra on Rowling's website or something, not part of the main story. I think it spoilt the pacing of the end of the movie, and I don't think the story would have lost anything by ending the movie a couple of minutes earlier.

I saw screencaps of the aging in the epilogue ages ago and thought they'd done a good job, but it didn't work as well for me in the movie itself. I'm not sure why - perhaps it was the voices, or having watched the same actors play the younger characters for the previous couple of hours, but it just seemed fake.

I was a bit disappointed not to see Teddy Lupin in the epilogue. He was mentioned in Deathly Hallows Part 1 and again in Part 2, but it was never followed up on, and I think it could have been done relatively easily.

One obscure thing that still puzzles me is a vague memory that J.K. Rowling said in an interview years ago that there was something in the third movie that unintentionally foreshadowed something in Book 7, but I still for the life of me can't figure out what it would be.

That's everything that comes to mind for now. Going to the midnight screening was lots of fun and now I just need to wait for an opportunity to go and see it again :)

My New iMac

2011-07-11T16:15:00.000+08:00

My new iMac arrived today, a little earlier than expected (total time from order to delivery at my door was 5 days, including the weekend). So I've spent the last few hours setting it up and trying it out.

First impression: wow, it's fast! Granted, I'm upgrading from a 5-year old model, and in the last few months (since my original iMac's hard drive went), I've been using a 5-year old MacBook with orange juice in its innards, but still, massive improvements. No more waiting for apps to load, no more horrid beach balls. I've even noticed improvements in webpage responses - a problem that I'd attributed to our internet connection but clearly was due to my system really not being up for the challenge.

I was running Snow Leopard on the old computer so no surprises as far as the operating system goes. I'll qualify for Apple's free Up-To-Date Program once Lion comes up, so there'll be a new learning curve.

I already had a full keyboard from my old iMac, so I got the mini keyboard (similar to a laptop keyboard) for this one. The space saved on the desk is nice, and I don't use most of the extra keys on a full keyboard anyway, but I may miss the forward delete key. I figure I'd rather have two different keyboards than two similar ones, and I can always switch them around further down the track.

I ummed and ahed for a while on the Magic Mouse vs. Magic Trackpad decision. I eventually decided to go for the trackpad on the grounds that Lion is going to use even more gestures than Snow Leopard does, so the trackpad will let me try out all the funky new moves. Plus, I'm used to using my iPad/iPhone, and using a trackpad on a laptop, and I do have an old-style Apple Mouse I can fall back on if I need to. I'm still not sure that I made the right choice - using the trackpad all the time feels a little wearing on my fingertips, but I'll see whether I adjust as I use it a bit more.

Now I face the overwhelming task of moving all my data over to the new computer. I have the files on my MacBook to copy, plus the Time Machine backup of my old iMac, frequently containing different versions of the same file (although sometimes the MacBook is more up to date and sometimes the backup is more up to date). Still not sure what the best way to tackle it all is, but I guess I'll get there eventually.

Awaiting A Dance with Dragons

2011-07-10T15:47:00.001+08:00

After almost six years, the wait is nearly over. Well, to be honest my wait has only been about 18 months, and that has been long enough, so I can only imagine what it has been like for those people who've been reading A Song of Ice and Fire from the start. But for all of us, A Dance with Dragons finally comes out on Tuesday.

I re-read the first 4 books a few months ago, but even when I was reading I had trouble keeping track of who everyone was and where they were up to. The fact that A Dance with Dragons runs mostly concurrently with A Feast for Crows is going to make things even more confusing for me. So I'm going to make myself a little cheat sheet. Maybe it will be useful for someone else.

Note: Major spoilers for the first 4 books. Minor spoilers for A Dance with Dragons (mainly with regards to who has POV). Information that I couldn't remember off the top of my head is from A Wiki of Ice and Fire, but any mistakes are mine.

Starks

Eddard: Died in Book 1 (executed by Joffrey)
Catelyn: Died in Book 3 (at the Red Wedding) but then resurrected. Now kind of creepy and called 'Lady Stoneheart'. Leading the Brotherhood Without Banners. Brief appearances in Book 4 but no POV in either Book 4 or Book 5.
Robb: Died in Book 3 (at the Red Wedding).
Sansa: POV character in Book 4. At the Eyrie pretending to be Petyr Baelish's bastard daughter Alayne Stone. Still technically married to Tyrion. No POV in Book 5.
Arya: POV character in Book 4. In training with the Faceless Men under the name 'Cat of the Canals'. Last we saw of her she was blind. Apparently has POV in Book 5 but not sure how this will work (maybe at the end when the two timelines merge)
Bran: At the end of Book 3 was headed to the wall with the Reed siblings and Hodor. Seen briefly in Book 4 via Sam's POV. Has POV in Book 5.
Rickon: At the end of Book 3 was with Osha. Not seen in Book 4 - hopefully we see him in Book 5
Jon: No POV in Book 4 but seen in the first part through Sam's POV. Has been made Lord Commander of the Wall. Has POV in Book 5.

Lannisters

Tywin: Died in Book 3 (murdered by Tyrion)
Cersei: POV in Book 4. Went kind of crazy after Joffrey died. Currently in prison. Like Arya, has POV again in Book 5.
Jaime: POV in Book 4. Is at Riverrun having taken the castle from the Tullys. Also has Book 5 POV.
Tyrion: No POV in Book 4, On the run after being found guilty of Joffrey's murder, apparently in the Free Cities. Has POV in Book 5.
Joffrey: Died in Book 3 (murdered by the Tyrells)
Myrcella: In Dorne, betrothed to Trystane Martell. In Book 4, Arianne Martell plotted to crown her queen but they were captured by Doran Martell's men.
Tommen: Now King, advised by the Small Council. Married to Margaery Tyrell.
Gregor Clegane (The Mountain): Killed by Oberyn Martell in Book 4.
Sandor Clegane (The Hound): Dying at the end of Book 3, unclear whether he is actually dead.

Baratheons

Robert: Died in Book 1 (killed by boar)
Renly: Died in Book 2 (murdered by Stannis/Melisandre)
Stannis: At the wall. Brief mentions in Book 4 from Sam's POV.
Selyse (Stannis's wife) & Shireen (Stanni's daughter): At Eastwatch
Melisandre: At the wall with Stannis. POV character in Book 5
Davos: Was ordered to be executed by Cersei in Book 4, unclear whether this was carried out. POV in Book 5.
Edric Storm: Smuggled across the sea by Davos in Book 3.

Greyjoys

Balon (Theon's father): Died Book 3. Fell to his death, may have been due to Melisandre's magic or something Euron did.
Euron "Crow's Eye" (Balon's brother): Made King in Book 4.
Victarion (Balon's other brother): POV in Book 4. Failed to be made king. Euron sent him to court Dany on Euron's behalf. POV again in Book 5.
Aeron "Damphair" (Balon's other other brother, the priest): POV in Book 4. Supported Victarion's claim to the throne. Disappeared after Victarion won. No POV in Book 5.
Asha (Theon's sister): POV in Book 4. Failed to be made queen, disappeared afterwards. POV in Book 5.
Theon: POV in Book 2. Captured by the Boltons in Book 2. In Book 3 was apparently being slowly flayed. In Book 4 he is "assumed dead" but with no proof. POV character in Book 5.

Martells

Doran (Prince of Dorne): Trying to keep peace in Dorne.
Oberyn "The Red Viper" (Doran's brother): Died in Book 3 (killed by the Mountain)
Arianne (Doran's daughter and heir): POV in Book 4. Schemed to crown Myrcella queen but was captured by Doran. No POV in Book 5.
Quentyn (Doran's son): Across the narrow sea, possibly to negotiate some kind of alliance with Dany. POV in Book 5.
Trystane (Doran's younger son): Betrothed to Myrcella.
Sand Snakes (Oberyn's bastard daughters): Imprisoned by Doran, except for Sarella who is in Oldtown
Areo Hotah (Captain of Doran's guard): POV in Book 4. Captured Arianne and Myrcella, killed Arys Oakheart. POV in Book 5.
Arys Oakheart (Kingsguard protecting Myrcella): POV in Book 4. Killed by Areo.

Tyrells

Loras: In Book 4, successfully took Dragonstone but was seriously injured in the fight
Margaery: Imprisoned after Cersei accused of adultery.
Mace: Was attacking Storm's End, now on his way to King's Landing since Margaery's imprisonment.

Targaryens

Daenerys: At the end of Book 3 was ruling Meereen in Slaver's Bay. She was starting to think about returning to Westeros but was concerned about what was happening in Astapor and Yunkai once she left. Did not appear in Book 4. POV in Book 5.
Barristan: Pardoned by Dany in Book 3, now working for her. Did not appear in Book 4. POV in Book 5.
Jorah: Banished at the end of Book 3 for betraying Dany. Did not appear in Book 4.

Other

Sam: POV in Book 4. In Oldtown to become a Maester. Sent Gilly and Mance Rayder's son to his old home, pretending the baby is his. No POV in Book 5.
Brienne: POV in Book 4. Searched for Sansa on Jaime's behalf. Captured by the Brotherhood Without Banners and sentenced to execution by Catelyn. Unclear if she is alive or dead. No POV in Book 5.
Petyr Baelish: In the vale with Sweetrobin as his ward, plotting to marry Sansa to Sweetrobin's heir Harrold Hardyng

Glitch

2011-07-08T19:57:00.000+08:00

The other game I've become addicted to lately is Glitch. It's a browser-based (Flash) non-violent MMORPG with a quirky sense of humour. It's still in Beta but due to open 'Summer 2011' which I hope means soon (while it's still in Beta it's only up for a few days at a time; we're in the middle of 10-day downtime which is going ever-so-slowly. My only fear about launch and constant up-time is that I might never get anything else done...).

My little Glitchling is called Snowdrop (what a surprise). She's level 26, lives in a biggish house in Kajuu with a pig called Glorious (I caught a pig that someone else named and haven't bothered to rename it yet). Her best skills are in cooking and cocktail making but she dabbles in a bit of everything. She likes working on projects but tends to be eternally broke as a result.

If you play, send me a friend request and say hello :)

Lord of Ultima

2011-07-05T19:22:00.000+08:00

My earliest memories of Ultima are seeing my brother and sister playing on the family's communal computer. All that I really remember of it was the gargoyles, so it must have been Ultima 6. By the time they moved on to Ultima 7 I was taking part too (where taking part meant sitting and watching, and occasionally taking notes). I remember thinking that Ultima 7 was an impressive game because it came on 7 floppy disks. When I was a little older, the early Ultima games were rereleased, so we played those too. I even played a bit of Ultima 6 by myself, but then I managed to kill the talking mouse and decided that I preferred computer games as a spectator sport.

Eventually I got into the swing of playing computer games by myself, but by then Ultima had moved past the isometric style that I'd grown up with and seemed to be require a level of coordination that I just don't possess :)

And then last year we discovered Lord of Ultima. I didn't have any experience with the MMORTS genre, although I'd played Civilization and Age of Empires (again, mostly as a spectator sport), so I had some idea of the basic concepts. And I loved the idea of being able to play with virtues and moongates again without needing twitch reflexes. And then... well then I got addicted.

I started on World 7, but after 3 mergers I ended up in a dead-end alliance while another group won. In the meantime I had started on the first Australian server, World 22, which remains my main server. I'm in Crimson Thorn, the third-ranked alliance on the server, and I think we're doing pretty well so far.

I also have an unfortunate habit of starting a new server whenever there's downtime, so I'm also on World 26 and have a small presence on a couple of newer servers, although World 22 is where I spend most of my time (and all my diamonds).

If you play, give me a shout-out (I'm Snowdrop, easy to remember).

Here are some of my favourite resources:

The most important supplements to the game are the two Greasemonkey scripts - LoU Tweak and LoU BOS

A close second would be the LoU Flash City Planner (FCP) which lets you manually plan cities. I used to use LoU City to generate my resource cities (with the options use_slots=90 num_cottages=20 placement_schedule=F,*2,WSI,*100) but recently I've been using the LoU Optimizer. I find it a bit fiddlier, and it doesn't provide an FCP link, but it seems to produce better results.

For general information, the official LoU Wiki is usually pretty helpful. The forum thread Fundamentals of Lord of Ultima is a very thorough strategy guide for new players, although it's probably a little overwhelmingly technical for brand-new players.

My best tips for new players would be:

Start on the newest server in your timezone (the game should recommend this by default anyway), otherwise you will have too far to catch up
Do the tutorial. It's not the best source for information, but it gives great quest rewards along the way.
Join an alliance run by an experienced player. There's enough people on their second (or third, or fourth, or...) server that letting the blind lead the blind is a waste of everyone's time.
Ask questions. The wiki is helpful for the basics, but if there's something you don't understand you're much better off asking someone in your alliance (or in world chat, or on the forums) than making mistakes that could take weeks to undo.

Snow Leopard

2011-01-12T14:07:00.000+08:00

With the release of the App Store I decided it was time to finally fork out for the upgrade to Snow Leopard. I ordered it on Friday night so I had to wait until Monday before it was shipped but it arrived promptly on Saturday morning (so glad Apple changed to TNT overnight shipping; it used to take a week to get stuff shipped from the Apple Store).

The install was all very straightforward. I'd read some horror stories on the internet so I was a little bit worried but it all turned out fine. The upgrade cleared out about 6gb on my harddrive, which I was very happy about since I'm constantly running low. My only real complaint was that the version on the DVD was 10.6.3 so I had to use Software Update to upgrade to 10.6.6, which involved a 1gb download. Not too bad with our current internet setup but a few months ago it could have been an overnight job.

I was still running iLife '08 so I upgraded iPhoto using the App Store as I was eager to finally try out Faces. While not as accurate as I'd hoped it would be, it's still pretty awesome. I will probably upgrade iMovie as well at some point, but I finished off making a DVD of last year's holiday to Brunei before I did the Snow Leopard install so there's no rush. I haven't used Garageband for ages so I'm not sure if I'll make that upgrade or not. Even if I do end up upgrading all three apps, it still saves me a few bucks over buying the DVD, plus it comes off my iTunes balance so it becomes part of my Christmas present rather than coming out of my savings.

I haven't noticed any speed changes with Snow Leopard; there hasn't been an improvement but it doesn't seem to have any trouble running with the minimum 1gb of memory. I did have a vague hope that it might help my problems with Firefox freezing up while playing Lord of Ultima, but I think that has more to do with the game itself than anything on my end.

I still need to install and try out Facetime, and fiddle around with the other changes that come with an OS upgrade, but so far I'm happy with my upgrade-to-Snow-Leopard experience.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-04T19:15:00.000+08:00

So it's been even longer since I last posted than I thought it had been. I decided that in the new year I'd make an effort to post more, but it's been too hot to do much at all (it's still hot, but I've run out of low-hanging fruit so I'm revisiting my todo list looking for things that I can at least do without moving around or thinking too much).

The traditional topic of the first post of the year is to talk about New Year's Resolutions. I haven't made any specific resolutions for this year but in general I'm working on improving/managing my CFS, getting a job, and writing more regularly.

The stuff I still have to post about our trip to America is now a bit out-of-date, I guess, but I'll make an effort to post it soon anyway. After that I'm thinking about using Plinky to get some inspiration to post a bit more.

Hopefully my next post will be in the next few days (maybe if I promise that I'll be more likely to do it...)

Animal Kingdom

2010-09-05T14:02:00.001+08:00

Returning to the Disney World posts after a bit of a hiatus... Posting about our trip was making me a bit depressed because it reminded me that I don't have another trip planned. But I think I'm past that and can enjoy reminiscing about it instead.

I've settled on Animal Kingdom as my favourite park. It has two awesome shows (Festival of the Lion King and Finding Nemo: The Musical), a cool rollercoaster (Expedition Everest), and I have to admit I'm a closet fan of Dinosaur. Plus it has animals! Who couldn't love it? And I'm a sucker for Disney theming and I think they've got it pretty much perfect in Animal Kingdom.

Honestly, what I mostly want to do in this post is put up photos of animals and coo over how cute they are. So. This is a giraffe.

Some rhinos:

I'm not sure what this guy is (some kind of antelope, I guess), but we got an awfully good look at him because our safari truck stopped near him for about ten minutes.

Why did the truck stop for so long? Apparently because a few trucks in front of us, this guy was standing in the middle of the road.

My favourite animal is the meerkat, exemplified by this little guy, looking cute for the camera:

His friends are keeping watch:

But what are they all looking at? Oh... these...

When I saw that there were vultures and meerkats in the same enclosure, I was a bit concerned. In hindsight, it should have occurred to me that vultures are only interested in meerkats that are already dead. But still... those birds are an awful lot bigger than the meerkats. I just had to assume that Disney knew what they were doing.

The meerkats were keeping a close eye on the vultures. And the vultures were keeping a close eye on the meerkats. Then one of the vultures stepped a little bit closer, crossing some invisible line that the meerkats had drawn in their mind. As one, the meerkats dropped to all fours and charged at the birds, screeching. The vultures fled. Meerkats 1, Vultures 0. I needn't have worried.

My most magical moment we had at Animal Kingdom though, was on our last day at the World, when we went to check out Rafiki's Planet Watch. We discovered that the previous night there had been a scuffle among the gorillas and the 4-month-old baby gorilla, Lilly, had been bitten on the arm. An x-ray showed that her arm was broken.

The vets called in some doctors from Celebration Hospital to help out, because operating on a baby gorilla is much more like operating on a baby human than, say, a lion.

We had a plane to catch, so we couldn't stay for the whole thing, but we did get to see Lilly being prepped for surgery.

Lilly greets her fans before her operation:

And the procedure begins:

We never got to find out how it all turned out but I hope that the operation went well and I assume since I haven't heard otherwise that Lilly is back with her family in the gorilla exhibit.

Minas Elendúr/Delotham

2010-08-23T15:20:00.002+08:00

One chapter in Volume III Book 2 in the upcoming LOTRO content release takes place in the sprawling maze instances Minas Elendúr and Delotham. Now anyone who knows me (in real life or in game) will know that I have terrible direction sense. So I didn't get very far into Minas Elendúr before I realised a map. And this being beta, there weren't any maps readily available. So I made my own. But it quickly became clear from GLFF that even people who don't normally have a problem navigating in LOTRO were having trouble with this one. I hope that my maps will be able to help someone.

For those who aren't familiar with these instances, there are two separate instances, Minas Elendúr and Delotham. However, they are connected by 17 doors. Delotham can only be accessed by going through Minas Elendúr, and parts of Minas Elendúr can only be accessed by going through Delotham. The epic quest primarily takes place in Minas Elendúr, but there is also a deed that requires exploring both instances.

I've posted two sets of pictures below. The first is in-game screenshots of the maps; the second is my hand-drawn maps. The hand-drawn maps aren't exactly to scale but it should be pretty easy to match the shapes up (especially with all those Hidden Mickeys...).

The red numbers indicate the doors. Going through the door in Minas Elendúr marked 1 will take you to 1 in Delotham and vice versa. All doors are two-way. The red dot in Minas Elendúr is the exit. The door is located at 48.6S 6.5W.

The Ds on the map indicate a couple of places where I've come across the Defilers that you have to kill as part of the quest. They tend to wander a bit and they can be found in other parts of Minas Elendúr (but NOT Delotham). I don't know if they've improved the numbers since I did the quest but if not... be prepared to be patient. I've also indicated the location of some of the mobs in Delotham but you don't need to kill them for any quests.

Some of the labels on the map indicate locations for the exploration deed. These are incomplete (and I don't guarantee they are all correct) because there's no way to find out what a particular place is called once you've visited it once and I had finished the deed before I finished the map. But to finish the deed you pretty much need to go everywhere in both instances.

In game map of Minas Elendúr:

In game map of Delotham:

My map of Minas Elendúr:

My map of Delotham:

Welcome to Enedwaith

2010-08-22T15:37:00.001+08:00

With LOTRO's Free to Play launch in a couple of weeks, I'm going to start posting some of my maps from beta. These are mainly intended for my kinnies in Eventide Revelry, but I'm posting them here so that they are accessible to anyone who might be interested. First up is a map of the new region, Enedwaith and the coordinates of all the POIs I've found. It should be fairly complete but if you find something missing or incorrect let me know. Apologies for any typos; I can't always read my own writing when it's not in English.

Locations:

Amon Min: 63.1S 18.0W
Araniant 63.5S 16.8W
The Black Dens: 60.7S 13.3W
Cartrev Duved: 59.0S 12.3W
Cartrev Hamon: 68.0S 17.0W
Cartrev Maru: 71.5S 16.9W
Cartrev Matho 69.7S 15.3W
Cartrev Rurith: 69.4S 17.9W
Colven-unus: 66.6S 15.7W
Drûg-haniad: 74.4S 15.3W
Dûv Corvan: 71.6S 13.5W
Echad Daervunn 66.6S 21.5W
Echad Dagoras: 58.5S 14.6W
Echad Idhrenfair: 63.5S 21.5W
Echad Saeradan: 63.8S 18.0W
Fordh Maru: 71.9S 15.5W
Galar Culch: 67.7S 21.9W
Gavar Cadlus: 61.8S 14.1W
Gwaed Brun: 69.1S 22.4W
Gwâl Draig: 66.5S 12.0W
Gwyllion's Gate: 62.9S 14.2W
Hall of the Huntsman: 72.8S 24.0W (exit only)
Hall of Sanctuary: 72.1S 16.1W
Harndirion: 69.7S 13.7W
Hobbit Arrow: 64.3S 22.2W (for me deed triggered at stag at 64.0S 22.6W, might be fixed now)
Hobbit Boots: 61.2S 19.3W (approx, it's at the King's Way Gate)
Hobbit Bow: 63.7S 23.0W
Hobbit Bucket: 63.3S 22.2W
Hobbit Skeleton: 63.4S 22.6W
Hobbit Tool: 64.6S 20.4W
King's Way Gate: 61.2S 19.3W
Khoblún Utot: 64.9S 22.8W
Lhanuch: 66.5S 17.2W
Lhe Lhechu: 59.2S 16.0W
Mafân-mudun: 69.4S 9.6W
Maur Tulhau: 62.5S 23.2W
Nar's Peak: 65.6S 8.5W
Oirnad Culch: 72.5S 22.2W
The Old Way: 74.5S 15.8W
Pluvun Gwern: 61.6S 15.0/15.2W (marked on map twice)
Pool of the King: 65.7S 18.3W
Pruv Cadlus: 69.3S 12.0W
Rabbit: 73.9S 20.4W
Sarf Cadlus: 68.3S 12.2W
The Serpent-halls: 67.6S 9.2W
Skirmish Camp: 69.6S 13.8W
Tol Einyr: 56.6S 13.3W
Trac-plas: 73.5S 16.6W
Uch Cadlus: 65.1S 16.4W
Unig-pulh: 71.0S 19.7W
Unnamed camp: 72.7S 14.8W (has milestone, summoning horn, vendors)

Disney's Hollywood Studios

2010-07-18T14:37:00.001+08:00

Since our last visit, Disney's MGM Studios has been renamed to Disney's Hollywood Studios. While it makes sense in that the park doesn't have anything to do with MGM and at the moment I don't think it's a good thing to be associated with MGM, it makes it kind of hard to know what to call it for short. We used to call it MGM. "Hollywood" is confusing and "DHS" is pretty opaque. I guess the most appropriate name is "Studios" but even that isn't completely clear to someone who's used to it being MGM. I suppose we'll all get used to it eventually.

Whatever you call it, the park has a bunch of new additions which I think round it out nicely. Toy Story Mania is pretty cool, although the wait times we saw posted in the middle of the day were pretty insane. I'm not sure I'd wait two hours for what is essentially a souped up midway game.

The American Idol Experience was very well done. I really felt like I could have been in the filming of an Idol episode. My only complaint is that Disney didn't advertise very well that you need to get there half an hour before the scheduled time to (a) get the full experience of being filmed screaming and dancing and (b) to be assured a spot -- we tried for the 7pm show our first time but it was full so we had to go to a daytime show another day.

Somehow I messed up my planning and scheduled Tower of Terror for the day before the start of Summer Nightastic. I'm not sure whether we ended up getting the new version or not. I can't remember what it used to be like well enough to tell the difference. But it was fun either way.

There's also a new parade since our last visit (although we saw the Christmas version of the last one anyway). It has a bit of the dance party feel that Disney parades seem to be shifting towards. I'm not really sure what the point of this is -- in a daytime parade I really just want to see the characters. And while I have no objection to Pixar characters, I did miss the Muppets. Also got to see the giant size version of Lotso. He's... very pink.

Epcot

2010-07-03T19:31:00.001+08:00

To be honest, I don't feel like I have a great deal to say about Epcot. To me, it feels like it's now the weakest of the parks. I suspect it's because there's not a great deal of new stuff since our last visit. The biggest difference is that Wonders of Life has closed. I liked Wonders of Life.

The only attraction in Future World that had been updated since our last visit was Spaceship Earth. I like the changes, but it's not really anything earth-shattering. There was new stuff in Innoventions too, and I did like designing and then riding our own rollercoaster in Sum of All Thrills. My only complaint was that the time limit for the designing was very short and it didn't give you a chance to really understand the maths/physics principles that it was purported to be about. The actual ride was very good though. I found Mission: Space more motion-sickness-inspiring than last time but I still enjoyed it. I think Test Track and Soarin' are still my favourite Epcot attractions.

World Showcase was pretty much the same as our last visit. The Mexico ride has been changed to incorporate Donald Duck but the feel of the ride hasn't really changed. I do like the new Kim Possible missions although we found them to be a little picky about where you stood when you were pressing the button. I still love the music for Illuminations too.

A couple of the Epcot monorails have been rethemed as Tronorails. They looked cool. Honey I Shrunk the Audience was closed in preparation for the opening of Captain EO, which sounds like it's going to be pretty popular. But overall I think Disney needs to put some more work into Epcot to keep it fresh.

I think the problem with Epcot (or at least, Future World) is largely that there has been a cultural change since it was originally designed. When Epcot first opened, people were very positive about the future and excited to learn about new technology. Now, people associate the future with negative environmental change and it's no longer something to be excited about. So things like Animal Kingdom have much more relevance to people than Epcot. I guess some of the exhibits in Innoventions cater towards the more concerned view about the future, and I hope that Epcot can be kept fresh by concentrating on technological solutions to some of the problems we are facing.

Magic Kingdom

2010-06-28T14:42:00.001+08:00

I suspect that the wonder of Magic Kingdom can only truly be appreciated if you are travelling with kids. But it still holds a special place in my heart. There's something really magical about walking under the train station and seeing Cinderella Castle towering over you. My only complaint about Cinderella Castle is that the painting seems kind of inconsistent. The bottom half has an awesome stone effect going on, but the top half is kind of meh. And then the top tower is gold instead of blue? They were painting the castle during our 2006 visit and I assumed they were halfway through changing the colour scheme. But it still has the same half-done look to it. I'm not really sure what look they were going for.

For me, the most magical part of the Magic Kingdom is Dream Along with Mickey, the show in front of the castle. This trip I found (and bought) the CD with the soundtrack for this show and just listening to it makes me cry. This, to me, is what Disney magic is about. Plus the new movable heads are awesome (new since our last visit).

Pirates of the Caribbean had been updated slightly since our last visit with the addition of Davy Jones. Last time we were there Jack Sparrow had just been added and the queue was horrendous. Much quieter now. And the drop was more impressive than I remembered.

Last time we did Jungle Cruise on the Keys to the Kingdom tour and so we didn't do the traditional version. Was good to do it with the proper commentary (although Mum tuned out and didn't realise that the skipper was asking her a question...).

We went to Hall of Presidents mainly because it had been updated quite a lot when Obama was added. It was still boring. At least it's air-conditioned and has comfortable seats, so it was a nice place to take a nap...

We also went on the Liberty Belle for the first time. This offers a view of the park that you don't get anywhere else. Unfortunately you need to stand to really see everything and I was too tired to stand up for the length of the trip. The inside seating had awesome seating, though, and Mum took lots of photos.

This photo makes me want to read Tom Sawyer again.

And I don't think you can see Haunted Mansion like this from land.

Haunted Mansion has new effects since we last went, which were pretty cool. The interactive queue trial must have ended by the time we got there though, which was a bit of a shame because from what I'd heard it sounded cool.

The biggest change in Fantasyland is obviously the long stretch of construction walls put up ready for the upcoming expansion. I'm pretty excited to see what's coming. We walked through Toontown for the last time. To be honest I don't think I'm going to miss anything there.

Snow White broke down just as we got into the ride vehicle. People talk about how they wouldn't want to be stuck on it's a Small World, but I think this could be worse. We were only stuck for about 5 minutes and since we were still in the loading area we could have just got out again, but 5 minutes was more than enough to hear the ride vehicle behind us announcing repeatedly 'Please exit to your left.' If we'd actually been *stuck* there for an extended length of time, I would have gone crazy.

Space Mountain was another attraction which had received a refurb since our last visit. I think the new version is awesome. It's much darker, so you really have no idea what the ride vehicle is going to do. From what I've read, a bigger refurb was planned but they cut back to save money. I'm not fussed though, that one change gets a big thumbs up from me. They've also added queue games but because of the timing we didn't get to experience them. The only downside of the changes is that you can't see anything when the TTA goes through Space Mountain. It felt like they'd also made the TTA vehicles go heaps faster which ruined the feel for me.

The Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor was in softs when we went last time so it was much more polished this time around. I got picked for one of the segments. The monsters asked me where I was from. I said Australia. They said that Australia was a volcanic island famous for the Eiffel Tower. They asked me if that was correct. I said yes. The look on their faces was priceless :D I'm just glad I wasn't 'that guy'.

We went to Magic Kingdom on the first official night of Summer Nightastic. Spectromagic was replaced by a slightly updated version of Main Street Electrical Parade. I was a little bit disappointed really -- I love the soundtrack on CD but it didn't quite work live. I wonder if they were still tweaking the audio levels as I think the problem was that I couldn't hear the music from the floats properly.

The new fireworks, on the other hand, were awesome. I believe they are mostly copied from the Princesses & Pirates Party (the music for that was on the same CD as Dream Along with Mickey and it sounds the same as what I remembered from the Nightastic fireworks). The fireworks effects were amazing, especially the pirate fight. I was seriously worried that the castle had been damaged :). Hope that somehow they manage to keep those fireworks permanently but I get the impression that they are more expensive to run than the regular fireworks and that's why they only do them for special events.

Port Orleans French Quarter

2010-06-26T14:33:00.001+08:00

On this trip to Disney World we stayed in a Moderate resort for the first time -- Port Orleans French Quarter. One of my primary motivations for this decisions was that French Quarter is a small resort so we were guaranteed a short walk to the food court and buses, which I knew I'd need if my CFS got bad. But it also meant a bunch of other improvements over a Value resort which I appreciated.

Firstly, the theming was a little bit more sophisticated. Still a definite Disney feel about the whole thing, but more of an immersive theme like in World Showcase or Animal Kingdom rather than a bright and cheerful kid-friendly theming. It's themed to the French Quarter of New Orleans (from what I've read, the main difference is it's a lot cleaner :) during Mardi Gras.

The resort is also set on a river which is supposed to represent the Mississippi. Some of the rooms look out on to this river which I think would be very pretty. However, you have to pay more for a 'water view' and you aren't able to guarantee that the water in question is the river rather than the pool. Plus the river-view rooms are the furthest from the food-court and the bus, which would somewhat defeat the purpose of staying at a small resort.

We went for a standard room and got a 3rd floor room over looking a courtyard with a fountain. I don't recall any equivalent of this courtyard in either of the Value resorts we've stayed at so I guess that's another bonus of the Moderate resort. It made for a nice view and in nicer weather I think it would be a nice place to sit around and relax (in June it's a little too hot to be outside if you don't need to be).

The rooms are a little bigger than in the Value resorts although not really noticeably so. It was nice though to have 2 basins so that Mum and I each had our own little space. And it was good to have the curtain separating the basin area from the bedroom because it gave us plenty of room to get changed in relative privacy. And like the outside, the theming in the rooms was a bit more subtle (although with plenty of Hidden Mickeys in the bedspreads). Was also good to have a fridge incorporated into the room rather than having to rent one squashed in a corner. We used the fridge a bit to store leftovers. The resort could do with a refurb though -- the cupboard that housed the fridge didn't shut properly and the drawers would occasionally roll open by themselves.

Another difference between the Moderate and Value resorts is that the pool has a slide. However we never had time to take advantage of it. It looked kind of fun though, although maybe aimed at kids more than adults.

French Quarter is right next door to Port Orleans Riverside. This is a bigger resort with a table-service restaurant. It had 4 bus stops so most of the rooms would have been pretty close to a bus but I think some of them would be a long way from the foodcourt so I'm glad we chose French Quarter.

The theming at Riverside was very stylish and I think it would have been a nice place to stay apart from the distance issue.

I also preferred the transportation at French Quarter to what we were used to at Value resorts. When we were catching a bus into the parks the crowd was small enough that we didn't have to queue. Most of the time we could even sit down while waiting for the bus and we always got on the first bus that came for our park. Coming back was not quite as good -- we had to line up in switchbacks like the Value resorts and at closing there was a decent line that took more than one bus to empty. The only drawback was that when we went to the parks during the day the bus stopped at all of the Riverside bus-stops before heading to the parks. In the morning we got our own bus though, and coming back we either got our own bus or French Quarter was the first stop.

Going to Downtown Disney we had another transportation option -- boat. This was a peaceful little ride down the river, more pleasant than catching a bus. The boat serviced both Riverside and French Quarter and didn't have that many seats so there was a reasonable queue to get on, but I think it probably ended up taking about the same amount of time as the bus. My only complaint was that it only stopped at Marketplace at the Downtown Disney End, so we had to walk a little while to get to Pleasure Island. We could have also caught the boat to get to Riverside but it was only about a 10 minute walk anyway.

Overall I definitely enjoyed staying at Port Orleans French Quarter. It was definitely a step-up from the Value Resorts and I really appreciated the small size on days when I wanted to crash.

Boston

2010-06-20T11:49:00.001+08:00

Our first stop in America was in Boston to visit James. We got to see his apartment and his regular haunts, do some shopping (Gap clothes for me and cheap Clinique for Mum), and recuperate from the trip over. James drove us up to Portsmouth to reminisce and Mum and I went into Boston itself where we walked most of the Freedom Trail. We also took the opportunity to send in our spit to 23 and Me for DNA analysis.

It was awesome to see James, of course, and great to see where he lives so that we can imagine what it's like for him now that we're all the way back home. I also enjoyed the scenery (it's so green!) and enjoyed learning about Boston's history.

Pictures (again, all Mum's):

Airlines

2010-06-19T15:06:00.000+08:00

The flights for our holiday were picked primarily based on schedule. As a result, we ended up flying with 5 different airlines, so we experienced a lot of variety in seating, amenities and service.

The Qantas flight from Perth to Brisbane was very good. I slept on the plane (I think being unable to sleep with excitement the night before played a part in that though) and the flight was over much more quickly than I expected. The Qantas flight from Brisbane to Perth on the way back... not so great. Mum had a bit of a panic attack about the lack of leg room, and while it didn't bother me at first, it did get to me over time. And Qantas really needs to put in individual TV screens. But the main problem was that there must have been something wrong with the food because halfway through I started feeling sick and ended up going through 5 sick bags before I made it home to a nice still bed. On the plus side, though, the flight attendants were excellent -- checked on me every time they went past, let me use the business class toilet, offered me oxygen. So in that sense I'd rather be sick on a Qantas flight than on a no-frills airline.

Mum wasn't too keen on the idea of the long flight right from the start, so we decided to go Premium Economy with V Australia between Brisbane and LAX in both directions. Best decision ever. The main plus was the awesome extra room, but we also enjoyed the little self-service bar as a place to wander when we were sick of sitting and the extra service we got. We also got priority access going through security in Brisbane and because we were one of the first off the plane had a shorter queue at immigration on arrival. We didn't get any perks at LAX on the way back but that may have been because it was very quiet and there was no queue at security anyway (side note: Terminal 3 at LAX is horrible).

We were expecting our Virgin America flight from LAX to Boston to be quite nice but in the end it was a bit meh. The seating seemed so cramped compared to Premium Economy and we hardly ever saw the flight attendants. The only good thing about this flight was the novelty of being able to use the touch-screen to order an apple juice. And it was shorter than scheduled.

JetBlue was marginally better. The flight attendants were nicer although it was still limited service. JetBlue advertises itself as having lots of legroom but it didn't seem any different to the other US domestic flights. I think perhaps the seat pitch measurement is a misleading way of measuring room, because the size of the seat impacts a lot on how much leg room you get, and that isn't advertised anywhere. At least this flight (Boston to Orlando) was very short.

We were worried about Delta because we hadn't heard as many good things about it as the other airlines we flew, but it ended up being our favourite of the US domestic legs. It had similar-looking seats to Virgin America and JetBlue but somehow it seemed to give you more legroom for the seat pitch.

One thing I noticed on all the flights is that none of them have the nice koala ears that Qantas has (apparently they're called 'wings' in America). I kind of rely on those koala ears to sleep -- if I don't have them out I wake myself up whenever my head falls over. Would have been really happy with the seats on V Australia and Delta if they had koala ears that folded out close to 90 degrees like Qantas does.

Brisbane

2010-06-18T16:52:00.001+08:00

We stayed in Brisbane for 3 nights on our way to America. Dad came along too just for those 3 nights and then went back home. We stayed in a 2 bedroom apartment close to the city which gave us plenty of room (and let me avoid the worst of the snoring), nice views, and a relatively short walk to a bunch of places in the city.

It was generally a pretty laid back couple of days. We did a hop-on, hop-off bus tour which was very good as well as a river cruise. We also went on their big Ferris wheel (I never got around to going on the Perth one before they took it down) and explored the city a bit on our own. In the evenings we stayed at the apartment and watched TV (Lost finale! But that's a subject for another post).

Brisbane was a nice city. Pretty similar to Perth really -- more laid back and easy-going than Sydney -- and I suspect it would be a pretty nice place to live. But I'm glad we went in winter; given that I found Sydney too humid for my liking I don't think I could manage Brisbane during the summer.

Piccies (taken by Mum):

Back Home

2010-06-16T13:15:00.000+08:00

Got back home on Friday. Trip was awesome but have been sick since the flight back to Perth. I plan to post in more detail about the holiday over the next few days. Trying out a new blog layout too with Blogger's new template stuff.

It's Finally Here

2010-05-24T19:50:00.000+08:00

In 12 hours I'll be on a plane to Brisbane on the first leg of my trip to Boston and Disney World. I've been planning this trip for a couple of years, so to finally be going seems pretty surreal. I think I've had tears in my eyes about half a dozen times today. I'm still not sure it's really hit me that we are actually going. My internet access will be fairly haphazard for the next few weeks. I should be able to keep up to date with email and Twitter but beyond that I'll be pretty absent.

Hogsmeade Open to Muggles (kinda)

2010-05-19T13:11:00.000+08:00

The official previews of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter have started (first the travel agents at PowWow and now TMs at Universal). Reports (Orlando's World Smile Search, Inside the Magic, The Disney Blog, Orlando Sentinel) coming back sound super exciting. I just hope that at least some of it is open to the general public by June 4th.

Happy Where-does-the-stupid-apostrophe-go Day

2010-05-09T11:39:00.000+08:00

To all the mothers out there, have a good Mothers' Mother's Mothers I think this is why they call it Mothering Sunday in England....

Struck down by the Common Cold

2010-05-07T12:20:00.000+08:00

I've spent the best part of the last couple days in bed with a cold. The cold itself wasn't that bad -- a bit of a sniffle, a bit stuffy, some post-nasal drip, the odd sneeze and cough. But getting the littlest bit sick is enough to cause a flare up of my CFS symptoms. So I was aching in joints I didn't know I had and struggling to find enough energy to get out of bed. Feeling a little better today. Still seem to have a sniffle and a cough but I'm not hurting so much and so far I've managed to resist the urge to go back to bed. Just hope it's all an upwards curve from here.

One Month to Magic

2010-05-02T21:06:00.000+08:00

In one month I'll be getting on a plane to the most magical place on Earth. Very exciting!

Push-crash Cycling

2010-05-02T10:50:00.000+08:00

I've been push-crash cycling pretty bad the last few days. Went to Margaret River on Thursday; spent Friday in bed. Went to a birthday party Saturday morning; spent Saturday afternoon in bed. This is making me worry about how I'm going to cope in America. And how am I supposed to manage with a job or with study once I get back?

Happy Birthday LOTRO

2010-04-27T14:50:00.000+08:00

LOTRO is celebrating its third birthday at the moment. Since I've been playing since before official launch, that means it's been a little over three years since I started playing. I've done a lot in those three years -- finished a degree, got a job, quit my job, got sick, done a whole Masters degree. But I can still remember sitting in my room with my brother listening to the LotR soundtrack and waiting for Landroval to come up.

I've played a lot of LOTRO in the last 3 years -- according to the in-game /played command, I've played for 2 months, 3 weeks and 1 day on Snowdrop alone. I've met a lot of new people and had a lot of fun. So thank you Turbine for three years of LOTROy-goodness.

Google MindReader

2010-04-26T22:43:00.000+08:00

So AdSense kicked in on the blog... and at least half the ads I'm seeing are for Disney World related services. Now that seems like a perfectly logical thing to advertise on my blog, given how Disney World crazy I am, but... how does AdSense know?! Prior to this post, nothing on the blog mentioned Disney World. Is Google reading my mind? Well I suppose, being Google, it's more likely to be reading my search history... but it was still unexpected and somewhat creepy...

New Blog

2010-04-26T12:00:00.000+08:00

I've decided that one of the reasons I'm not blogging much is that creating content in iWeb is just too much work, because it doesn't do quite what I want it to do by default so I'm forever fiddling with it. So I'm trying out Blogger instead. I won't link to it from anywhere yet because I'm still changing the layout around. But here it is, anyway.