Lord of Ultima Tools Part 2: LoU BoS Summary

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:

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

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.

Countdown to NaNoWriMo: Resources

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.

Countdown to NaNoWriMo: Looking Backward, Looking Forward

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.

Rise of Isengard: Northern Dunland

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.

Pottermore

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.

CFS Diagnostic Criteria and Me

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.