WuphonsReach Blog

Okay, clinics vs hospitals...Medical Clinic - $400 to build - $400/mo ($100 ambulance) - 500 patients (550 if funded to $460)Large Medical Center - $1100 to build - $1200/mo ($200 ambulance) - 3000 patients (3300 if funded to $1400)Ambulance costs allow you to change the service territory of your medical...

Uggh, finally grew the region past 500,000 population. From what I'm seeing, there's a definite population cap at 20k for a city - unless you add health and education items. (I've got more then a few cities that are capped at 20k.) I'm even beginning to suspect that there's a...

Got my first city to 100k population this weekend (South Bend). I'm also in the process of fixing some of the writing style, adding in more details, and trying to stay on top of all of the cities that I've created within the region. Total region population is now 339k....

I've published the first half a dozen pages on SimCity 4, including the cheat codes and information on developing custom regions.

I've added an entire section dedicated to mucking around with SimCity 4, keeping track of tips and tricks as well as web links. I'll be adding pages and bits to this section over the next few months as I figure it all out.

Simcity Maps... Nothing But Maps! This site is all about SimCity 4 maps and creating what are called Regions. - Learn to create your own regions - Use our terrain blanks and modify to your specifications - Trade and download new terrains

Once you have your config.bmp properly setup, you can now begin the process of editing all of the city tiles to create the terrain that you want for each. This could take a few hours or a few days, depending on how much time you lavish on tiny details. When...

One of the simpler things to do in SC4 is to create your own custom region layout. All it takes is a 24-bit bitmap of the appropriate size. Each pixel across and down is 1km in size, so the 16km x 16km default size would be 16x16 pixels. Once you...

Creating new regions in SimCity 4 - very nice article explaining how to create large tracts of land quickly, and then how to lay out custom regions. The basic summary is as follows: Regions are cut into the various city sizes like a jigsaw puzzle consisting only of square pieces....

The following cheats will work with all known versions of SimCity 4. To activate these cheats, press CTRL+X to bring up the cheat input box, then enter the desired code and press enter. DollyLlama - Gives city planners llama heads fightthepower - Operate your city without any electricity requirements. GOL...

Well, I have SC4 in my hands now... getting it installed is another thing. It may be due to some obscure oddity on the laptop CD-ROM, but this is about the slowest installation of a 2-CD program that I've ever seen. It's taken about 2-3 hours so far and I'm...

Okay, last MOO2 thing for now. Here is my current favorite racial picks. This race is designed to compete aggressively with even the Sakkra (who have 100% population growth). I may fall behind on the population growth side, but the 50% boost to industrial output from Unification makes it possible...

Here's a technical strategy (what to research and in what order at the start) that I snagged off of the MOO3 forums. The goal with this is to jump-start your research budget and economy at the beginning of the game while also providing you with enough fire-power to defend your...

For those games where you just want to get in and play around...During play, hold down the Alt key while typing these codes: canbonly1 - computer players unite against you crunch - type at individual planet screen to finish current building project einstein - all technologies iseeall - shows all...

I've been mucking about with Master of Orion II again in my spare time (v1.31 patch) and came across the COrion2 save file editor. It lets me change anything about current players, ships, systems, leaders by editing the save game files.COrion2.zip (May 1997)README.NOW - this is the readme fileTIPS.TXT -...

Just some screenshots that I filched off of The Master of Orion 3 Guardian, these screens were the ones that really drive home just how BIG a game with 256 star systems is going to be (I think MOO2 was limited to 80? stars). Note that these are older screenshots,...

So anyway, I'm listening to "The Moriarty Murder Mystery" episode (8th series, 17th episode, Jan 20 1958), when Moriarty and Grytpype-Thynne break into a silly singing song around 5 minutes into the sketch (aparently for money since you hear a copper get dropped into their tin mug by a passer-by)....

(from another post on EQCleric that I made in regards to someone looking to parse their log files to calculate damage-per-second numbers)I don't parse our damage output (yet)... but we make use of the modal damage calculations to figure out weapon choices: Modal Damage Primary Hand: (2*DMG + Damage Bonus)/Delay...

(from a post on EQCleric that I made)Hmm, I'm also pretty much the only active cleric most evenings in my guild as well (54 cleric). Although there are a few other non-regulars, or alts of people that play some evenings that are clerics. I used to run all over the...

But I'm pretty darn sure, you can manage to tick someone off at least some of the time.There are definitely some night when I wish I wasn't a guild officer; where I could just login, put LFG on, get some phat lewt and experience, and log back off. Instead, you...

Bebi Dollface working out on her defense skills in The Dreadlands (Sep 2002).A very, very young Corish in his full suit of leather armor (level 13 or so).Corish - traveling through Iceclad at level 32 (shortly after being tagged as a moonie).Corish at level 53 - with a few pieces...

EverQuest - some more screenshotsJust some more screenshots that I finally pulled out of my EQ directory and organized (warning: all of the linked images are around 350k and are 1600x1200 resolution -- OTOH, they do make some nice background screen shots).Running along the path in Hollowshade Moor with some...

Warchalking Warchalking is a way that geeks communicate the presence of wireless access points to other geeks by scribling a symbol in chalk on walls or sidewalks. If I manage to see any symbols like this, I'll try to grab a picture of the spot. Collaboratively creating a hobo-language for...

EQ - People who complain that losing exp when you die is too harsh Death is part of the game, avoiding death is part of the challenge of the game (regardless how much it sucks to die to the uber LD monster). Sometimes you can avoid death through better tactics,...

Just digging through my archives... some of the zones in EQ are very nicely done. A pretty cool shot of the East Freeport docks back before Shadows of Luclin came out. (SoL redid the graphics, and even made changes to textures in the old world zones.) Shows how well done...

Figured it was a good time to go back and look at the various layouts I've tried for all of my on-screen windows and buttons, because over time, it's evolved to meet different needs of my playing style.This is probably one of the earliest screenshots (Dec 2001) and it shows...

I was wrapping up a night of exp hunting in Karnor's Castle on Wednesday night this week (trying very hard to get to level 52), when I got word via friends that Gathering of Banners (GoB) was going to try to take out Lord Nagafen again. (Apparently they had wiped...

8:30pm - login, get into a group, work our way back to "hand" room and begin killing9:20pm - Venril Sathir kills our puller, apparently VS is out wandering the castle instead of staying in his room10:00pm - puller has been pulling continously despite my being at 20 mana or less...

Finally, Corish dinged into level 50 last night, which is good because the guild is starting to break into the upper-end game and I'd hate to get left behind. (Our allied guilds are already mostly past 50, with a few level 60 players.)

Not sure if this is official, or just a compilation of random tidbits from all over...Codex of War - History of NorrathAnyway, it looks pretty complete.

Since this was my first PoH raid, I figured I'd post some notes for those of you who are getting ready to go to the planes for the first time. As Billit said to me before port-up, "planes are.... different :)".SetupSetup for the raid was done by Shadora (LoV). We...

Corish (my cleric) finally made it out of level 35 purgatory (level 35 takes 2-3 times the normal amount of experience points to get through compared to the previous level) into fast moving level 36 (the exp bar seems to fly after suffering through level 35). On the downside, there...

(story starts in the present, flashback to the past, then continues on to the end)Panting heavily, I begin my climb up the side of the mountain, trying to reach the safety of the lands beyond the mountain pass. (trees are thick here, hopefully offering me some cover, so many enemies...

Last night, while working on my swimming skill in Felwithe's swimming pool (a.k.a. the lake on the backside of town), I got a tell from a level 14 cleric. Now, usually at this point, I cringe, because I'm expecting to read that little purple text and see a request for...

Sigh, well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. AotA is disintegrating, and I'm afraid that I have to add into the chaos by choosing this time to move on as well. Simply put, our first officer left the guild at the start of the week, taking 4 or...

Heh, the title pretty much says it all. Basically, when I logged in last night I had to pay attention to the group's battle, down-time chat in the group, while simultaneously handling 3 other conversations in direct tells. Oh, and don't forget keeping an eye on the guildchat and attempting...

Half the fun of EQ some days is reading and posting to the message boards (over my lunch hour, honest!). (Having died close to 10 times in the past week, averaging about 1 death per level lately, this topic hits home.)Why huge exp losses @ death? - this has been...

Just a quick note for those people who hit that nasty "windows" key while playing EverQuest (of course, crashing you out to the desktop at a most inconvenient time). Microsoft has a article on how to disable this key. All the usual caveats apply of course.Now, if I could just...

Hooray, finally made it to level 31 (I'm out of the double-experience level.) Hopefully, I'm now quit of High Keep for good (was growing mushrooms on top of my head from being down in the basement for so long). On the plus side, I've finally caught up to a large...

Ugh, 6 hours of play and only 1 yellow to show for it (it takes 5 yellow bubbles to complete a level). I can tell that level 30 is one of those "heck" levels (the experience required to complete this level is double that of level 29). Well, that, and...

Gee, I wonder what's been going on in the rest of the world of Norrath? I've been holed up down in the warrior room group in High Keep for so long I think I'm starting to grow mushrooms on my head. I did some serious leveling up this past weekend,...

(just a copy of a long rant I wrote on various message boards late last night)I just spent the weekend in High Keep's Guard Room and watched a level 22 cleric gain aggro on every other multi-mob pull (we had no enchanter, and even though I was level 25/26 they...

Sigh... I still remember my first time walking out of the gates of Felwithe (the high elf city) into the dark and forbidding forest of Greater Faydark armed only with a little dagger and my level 1 offensive magician spell. My first thought was, "wow... it looks like I could...

So how "good" are my cleric buffs? Well at level 19, I have Spirit Armor (+14 AC), Daring (+8 AC, +115 HP), and Symbol of Transal (+34-73 HP) for a total of +22 AC and +188 HP. At level 24 when I get Bravery (+9 AC +140 HP) which replaces...

...and a happy cleric is more likely to keep you alive (LOL). Actually, only the very worst clerics will let you die out of revenge (it's just not good for a cleric's reputation ya know); but even the best clerics may become distant and withdrawn (and not as careful with...

Heh... little did I know back when I purchased EQ that I'd eventually be a guild officer. I originally bought EQ because it looked like a fun game to play and the multi-player aspect of it just seemed like a nice touch. You know, a nice mindless (hah!) computer game...

Well, unlike making posts to my blog, I have actually been playing EQ regularly, but have spent most of the last 2 weeks working on leveling up my cleric alt (who is rapidly becoming my main or favorite character to play). The first dozen levels of a clerics' life are...

Lots of topics that include the word 'guild' in the EverQuest TNZ discussion board (just some highlights):Random guild invites. Why? - I've seen a lot of guilds trying to form in Greater Faydark in the past few weeks (you'll see silly stuff like /ooc Guild X forming, will pay 1pp...

... and who have suddenly come back into my memory after falling off my friends list.Kondessa - see "Deathwish Gang gets their wish"Jarius - got me my first port from Steamfont to Toxx Forest

[steps up on soap box and prepares to preach to the choir]Use a supply of summoned throwing daggers to pull with (easier than running up and trying to hit a moving mob). It's possible that you don't even have to hit the mob with the thrown dagger to aggro it....