Hello again.

Yeah, it has been a while - what of it?

Anyway, I was just thinking to myself about World of Warcraft and the new Worgen playable race coming in Cataclysm. Remember back in 2005 when we were all waiting to find out what the new Alliance race would be for Burning Crusade? A lot of people were speculating that, among a few others, the Worgen were a good possibility.

As we all know, it turned out to be the Draenei, and fortunately they weren’t as ugly as everyone expected them to be - but there was a very strong rumour at the time claiming that official information had been leaked, and the Worgen were coming.

Present day - the Worgen are coming. There may indeed be some truth behind this story. Remember, this was originally posted back in 2005:

Their zone is south of Silverpine, and it’s called Gilneas. It’s a level 1-10 zone and the general flow of the quests there focuses on fighting Worgen and agents of Arugal, as well as various enraged species of wildlife. There’s also a threat from a renegade navy that disbanded from Kul Tiras and is ravaging the coasts with cannonfire.

The Greymane Wall is under lock and key and you are not allowed to pass through it until your mid-20s, when quests begin pointing you to Shadowfang Keep.

Their 10-20 zone is on Kul Tiras, an island south of Gilneas and west of Menethil. It serves as a sister city to Menethil. One boat transports you between Gilneas and Kul Tiras, the other between Kul Tiras and Menethil. Kul Tiras is an island with strong navy tones and mood to it, and there’s lots of crab-bashing and pirate-killing on it.

After that, logically, you leave the protected areas and head to the contested zones. The closest, of course, is the Wetlands.

No details about their play mechanics were leaked, so unfortunately there’s no info about their racials.

The expansion pack site had a URL like… www.worldofwarcraft.com/yaddayadda/bloodelves.html. Someone changed the URL around, plugging in various race names and eventually hit worgen.html. It was posted on the general post, but the URL was deleted within two minutes of the post. I myself saw it. All the images were broken, but the text was there.

Take it as you will

The people of Gilneas entombed themselves in their isolated peninsula at the outbreak of the Undead Scourge, erecting the Greymane Wall to keep out the demons and walking dead of the cursed army. To this day, refugees from the ravaged villages of Lordaeron gather at it, crying for safe haven from the Forsaken that now claim Silverpine Forest as their own.

Yet it is not much better behind the wall. For agents of the crazed wizard Arugal have infiltrated the once-prosperous land and spread a dark curse among the populace. As the first tainted moon climbed into the sky, screams rendered the countryside as the inhabitants of Gilneas changed forms and became the crazed Worgen. Few retained their minds. Many became wild and bloodthirsty.

Those who remained in control of their thoughts waged a war hidden from the eyes of the rest of the world, slaying former friends and family in an effort to preserve what little life still hoped for survival. Naming themselves the Nightcry after that first terrifying moonrise, they fought until they found themselves drained of resources and the will to continue the bloody battles alone.

Unable to conceal their horrid existence from the world any longer, a new sun rises over Gilneas. The Alliance has opened its gates to the refugees and an effort is now underway to restore humanity to the Nightcry Worgen. As one of their number, you must prove yourself a capable ally to the Alliance’s cause and master the powers granted to you against your will in order to free your land…no matter how much blood you must shed.

While browsing YouTube videos about Jailbreaking iPhones, I stumbled upon this video. Skip to where ideemac has iTunes open at 1:20 and you’ll see that he took the extra precaution to block out his iPhone name, capacity, software version, serial number, and IMEI. Apparently he wasn’t aware that you can turn off video annotations and reveal all of his details.Better luck next time!

I suppose we all know that stealing domain names is illegal, but do you know how many people have been convicted of such a crime? Zero. Not a single person has ever been convicted of stealing a domain name.

I discovered this today because I read a story that one man has now been arrested over this very charge - but whether there will be enough evidence for the court to find him guilty; Who knows?

Apparently there’s a whole bunch of (heavily paraphrased) reasons why this has never happened before:

1. The victim of the crime would need to know the technical and legal intricacies of the domain name system.
2. They would also need a law enforcement professional who understands the case.
3. Often, the rightful owners can’t afford the legal fees necessary to handle a case like this.
4. Most domains have little-to-no aftermarket value, making it difficult to prove its value in court.
5. Domain names are globally traded assets. Jurisdiction across international borders makes it difficult to gather evidence and prosecute.
6. Domain names aren’t considered property:
   • The IRS treats domains as a form of intellectual property.
   • The Eastern District of Virginia (home to the Verisign registry) holds domains to be the subject of a license and thus not property.

Well. That’s some fascinating stuff. I certainly feel a lot better knowing this. How about you?

It sure is hot these days.

Part one of a series of ventrilo throwbacks. A collection of memorable moments captured forever in poor digital recordings. These are almost entirely inside jokes, but may have some insightful value to others.

You can’t stop the music…

The theme for this edition is… Music! Enjoy.

Pizza Nova

I can show you the world! - Johnny & Jordan

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Pangya is perhaps the greatest golf MMOG ever.

That could be because:

• It is the only golf MMO. or more likely because…
• It is very fun.

I’m currently playing on the EU servers under the guise Mikuso. Why not pester me for a game sometime?

I have uncovered some B-sides from Lily Allen’s most recent album It’s Not Me, It’s You. Well, they’re not B-sides of the album as such, but B-sides of the various singles accompanying it.

Anyway, I figure a lot of people will not have heard these, so in a similar fashion to what I did for Kate Nash’s B-sides, click away for some free music.

Kabul Shit

And here are two more:

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Hello Flamescape Cultists.

I have a nice and shiny new OpenTTD dedicated server. The server address is simply: flamescape.com

Here is a copy of the OpenTTD distro + addons which we play by: Download OpenTTD TiPP FSC (.zip 13.8mb)

• When noone is playing, the server will pause. (should make the games last longer)
• The games currently last 200 years, starting in 1950.
• After 200 years, the game will automatically restart itself and begin a new one.

You might also notice that there are live game statistics shown at the top of the page.

Any questions?

I’ve been playing WoW a lot recently — so much so that I’ve neglected ALL other games.

So my apologies go out to: Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Prince of Persia, GTA4 (PC version), Call of Duty: World at War and Left 4 Dead. I am sorry for not playing you yet - you are on my to-do list.

Anyway, back on to WoW — It really is a lot of fun. Among other things, I have just bought my TTM and I’m now saving for a CWH and a sweet hog.

So thank you WoW for such a great year. I hope the next one is just as fun. I leave you with this picture of my one minute at the top, when I achieved Realm First! Grand Master Angler

In other news — After hours and hours of patching the beta, I present to you a lovely screenshot of a death knight elf. See how the shadow is cast over her face? That’s something special right there.

I can also reveal that as a death knight, all races (except undead) can choose to either have a regular or undead appearance, which make for some interesting race hybrids.

Update: Here’s what I look like after three more hours of gameplay.

It’s a hybrid of the words coding and programming, but it also has an extra meaning of its own…

Ramming, being another word for intercourse, makes coderamming sound like “sex with code” — which in itself is quite an accurate definition.

Here I shall use it in a sentence:

“I was coderamming all night long — my input device is exhausted.”

I am a coderammer. That is all.

At this time of year, I like to look back and remember our patriots that stood up against those filthy traitors in the late 18th century.

In July 1780, Benedict Arnold obtained command of West Point, New York. His scheme to surrender the base to us, the British, was detected when American forces captured British Major John Andr carrying papers that revealed Arnold’s plan.

Benedict Arnold avoided capture by sailing home via the Hudson River on the British gunship, Vulture.

Arnold received a commission as a Brigadier General in the British Army, a huge annual pension of £360 and a lump sum of £6,000.

What a hero!

Take a look at the screenshot above. Notice anything different or unusual? Really? You don’t?

Look again - it’s a red train in a green station!

You may be saying “OMG” right now, understandably so. Want to get in on the track-sharing goodness? I know you do.

Download OpenTTD TiPP FSC (.zip 13.8mb)

You don’t even need hamachi anymore.
The server address is: openttd.flamescape.com

Vent me up for a game and I’ll let you know the password.

Read more to see how track sharing works and other features.

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So I was listening to some of Kate’s B-sides. I had to hunt them down because I am such a huge fan of hers. There’s some pretty good stuff that she’s done that really should have made it to her album.

Here’s one of my favourites, Stitching Leggings.

Enjoy!

Here’s something new and exciting (for British people only) which I have developed. The FilmFour Movie Database. It combines the nature of TV listings with the data from IMDB to create a powerful search tool.

It is currently hosted on my home machine, so it will be offline at night.

You can try it out now at ff.flamescape.com or READ ON for more details.

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This game is boring. Mega boring.

I suppose that is a bit unfair, as this non-game was designed to simulate what some people do for a living. As a game concept though, it has failed.

There are two goals you can aim for with this game:

1. Do it right. Pick up passengers and drop them off.
2. Derail. Crash or roll it.

The game is almost playable just for the ability to derail — if only those very short moments of glee weren’t woven together with loading times akin to Postal 2 (back in the day).

If all of this hasn’t put you off already, here is one final very good reason not to install this game:

It really does take that long.

Want to hear read it? No? Fine, whatever.

Behold! A three step plan to my ultimate success in the games industry.

1. Get qualified
2. Get noticed
3. Get paid

Read on to learn of the intricacies….

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It’s all here - from terraformed graffiti, retarded rail networks, huge cities and the effects of global warming.

To begin, let’s have a look at the four-player game of Miku, John + Adam (Finningbury Transport) and Mark (Mark Transport).

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