When is a Website Inactive or a Guide Outdated?

Posted by FelizB on Dec 14, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments

The question is of course important for this website. We want to give up-to-date information and become a reliable source this way. Thus, we either shouldn’t even list old guides or inactive websites and mark those, that have become outdated or inactive over the course of time.

But how do we know that? It has certainly to do with the life cycle of the information that is presented. For news items, the old adage holds true, now more than ever: “Nothing is older than yesterday’s newspaper”. Which in the end tells us, that yesterday’s news is replaced by today’s news and that it has become part of history. Which means, a website providing news can be seen as inactive after a very short period. I can hardly see a reason why we should keep list it as active, if news haven’t been updated for more than 2 month. And it’s very easy to change it back, should it arise from the dead.

Similar rules can be applied to a forum or a web board. If there isn’t a single post on a board for more than 2 months, it’s inactive. It’s also inactive if the same guy keeps asking “anybody home?” once a week.

Guides are of course different. They remain valid at least until the next patch, but some last even as long as the game itself. (Note to self: research if the Everquest epic quests are still around). Which in the end doesn’t make life any easier. Somebody who doesn’t constantly follow a game can hardly judge if a guide is up-to-date.  Thus, we have to keep a guide marked valid, unless somebody tells us otherwise.

On a side note, there are internet archaeologists out there, digging in the ruins of www.allakhazam.com as seen through the wayback machine at web.archive.org, just to keep project1999.org as true to the original as possible.

EQ2interface

Posted by FelizB on Dec 14, 2011 in Everquest II, Guides | 0 comments

EQ2interface.com hosts UI mods, skins and addons. The site has been around since release and is a spinoff of EQinterface.com. It is the prime resource for mod & interface authors and the download and information hub for users.

The most prominent project is EQ2MAP, a full set of maps with user maintained waypoints exceeding the waypoints that come with the standard EQ interface by far. It comes with an automatic map updater. Expect a separate entry for EQ2MAP.

Among the fully featured UI’s, ProfitUI is used most frequently and well maintained. There are other UIs like Fetish, eXtreme and Drums.

UI compilations, which might not complete rebuilds of the existing UI, Skins, which just change looks and interface pieces like Autoattack timers are available as well.

SWTOR: New User Guide

Posted by FelizB on Dec 14, 2011 in Guides, Star Wars: The Old Republic | 0 comments

Star Wars: The Old Republic has a great new user guide up on their main website at http://www.swtor.com/info/newplayerguide. It’s a pretty good introduction how to get started with the game. It is certainly directed toward the newcomer into MMORPGs, but the information presented is compact and gives the experienced player a quick rundown of the games features, races and classes.  It also has some short chapters on the game’s more innovative features like companions, interaction with NPCs, flashpoint missions, crew skills and space combat.

Disclaimer

EQ2Flames

Posted by FelizB on Dec 13, 2011 in Everquest II, Guides | 0 comments

Aaah, EQ2flames. Where the children run wild, but the adults usually win. It’s a very interesting site. A web forum which is not controlled by SOE and has a very liberal policy regarding its content. As the name says, flames are fine, but there are a couple of common sense rules to keep the children in check. And guess what, the site works.

Nonetheless, people vent, have to blow steam, but only the truly socially inepts expose themselves. What remains is usually decent material.

And to top it all off, they have great guides, mostly in their class section. We will be addressing those separately in stand alone posts. Other notable sections:

• An active guild recruitment and looking for guild section
• The flames core “Center Stage”  section
• Very active class sections
• Active server forum

EQ2i, The Everquest II Wiki

Posted by FelizB on Dec 13, 2011 in Everquest II, Guides | 0 comments

EQ2i is a major resource for every EQ2 player. Guides and articles span many subjects from achievements to zone descriptions. The information find in the articles is generally very good and accurate. The wiki is approaching 60,000 articles with daily additions and updates.

Of note are the quest guides which organized in timelines, a collection of quest sequences, usually describing a single zone, but also Heritage or Epic quest. Most often used is the Solo timeline, guiding through quests from level 1 to 90. Another significant timeline is the Dungeon timeline.

Additionally, there are zone, monster and class guides as well as tradeskill, spell and equipment guides.

The wiki is hosted by http://wikia.com, a host of so many game related wikis. Here’s the link to the EQ2i main page: http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/EverQuest_2_Wiki:Main_Page

12 SOE Days of Holidays

Posted by FelizB on Dec 13, 2011 in Everquest II, News | 0 comments

In 6 online games SOE has started the 12 Days of Holidays promotion. Starting from Dec, 13, 10am PST to Dec, 24, 23:59pm PST you’ll find daily offers and deals when logging into your game.

Participating games are: Everquest, Everquest 2, Free Realms, Magic: The Gathering, Pox Nora and Clone Wars Adventures.