Writing 2014

I've decided to make a concerted attempt to revive my blog, so I'm going to ease myself into it with an update on how my writing is going and what I'm working on in 2014 (February isn't too late to post a plan for the year, is it?)

Lord of Ultima Tools Part 5: Other Extensions and Scripts

I was going to make this post about TDK (One Defiant) Extension, but I realised that the official TDK extension page has a pretty nice description of all its features, including screenshots, and I would just be duplicating their efforts.

So I'll cover a couple of the smaller scripts instead.

CFS and POTS: What Works for Me

For most people, New Year's is a time to celebrate and make resolutions for the year ahead. For me, it marks the anniversary of becoming sick. I have have been sick for five years. At first I thought it was just a transient illness. After two doctors and many blood tests, Ross River Virus was suggested, but that diagnosis didn't hold up to further tests. Much later, the doctors grudgingly admitted the label that I knew was the only one that fit - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). I guess I should consider myself one of the lucky ones in that some of my symptoms have improved to the point that I don't really meet the criteria for a CFS diagnosis anymore (depending of course, on exactly which criteria you use), and I think I better diagnosis for me now would be Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). I haven't officially been diagnosed with POTS, and I only realised that I had it about a year ago, but my heart rate can more than double going from lying down to standing up.

But even though I have made some natural improvement over the course of the last five years, I'm definitely also managing my symptoms a lot better. It's taken me all this time to really figure out what works for me and what doesn't. So I thought I'd share my experiences in the hopes that it might help someone else.

Lord of Ultima Tools Part 4: LoU Assistant

LoU Tweak and LoU BOS are the main scripts that I use when playing Lord of Ultima, but there are a few other scripts and extensions around that fulfil miscellaneous tasks. The first that I'll discuss is LoU Assistant, which contains a few minor but useful options.

Unfortunately it hasn't been updated for about 6 months, and every new game update seems to break a new feature.

Lord of Ultima Tools Part 3: LoU BoS Tools

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.

Rise of Isengard: Southern Dunland

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).

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: