Ok, we've wiped out all the bad guys leading up to this quest.

The Herald of the Emerald Claw requires your assistance in stopping Brother Nerezza and obtaining the Twisted Apocrypha. You must discover the treacherous path through the Shadow Crypt to defeat Brother Nerezza.

We actually tried this last week and failed miserably. Well, not miserably, but ... badly.

The quest is a magical maze - everytime you go through a hallway, you may or may not end up in a room you were aiming at. There are a total of 8 keys (12 if you want more loot) you have to gather, to unlock the final boss room. You can end up in a different room each time, or the same room. It appears to be completely random...which makes for a long quest. At the end, you get a nasty surprise.

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For some this is an accomplishment of little remark. And it really has little significance to me -- the next tier for new armor, and over a hundred platinum pieces of expense, is eighty-four. And yes, I have already started shopping. I just bought my tier-nine, mastercrafted, eucalyptus bow, for twelve plat.

All of these are pretty trivial for many: level eighty-two, twelve plat, mastercrafted bow. But, as I level my berserker, I find it harder and harder for me to keep her updated. She is still using tier-eight stuff. In some cases she is still using some tier-seven stuff. Cheap upgrades for skills, jewelry and armor cost over ten plat a piece. Among all my toons, I am lucky to have over twenty plat, and then only for the briefest of time.

Why am I whining? Why am I driven to try to get the best for my pixalated hero? In some ways it's my gear-queer habits carrying into the game. In other ways it's a frustration I see with growing disparities. There are those that have cool stuff and the best gear and most powerful spells and they can solo heroic mobs all day. Then there's me and my guildees, my friends.

Quest rewards are mediocre at best. Leveling up doesn't mean skilling up as well. The skills received are worse than the mediocre ones from the previous tier, so one has to shop the broker to buy an upgrade to the higher-level skill, just to make it useable. Many of the ten-plat upgrades are only marginally better, if at all. The excitement of leveling up, of dinging, are filled with dread for me now.

Well, time for me to go farm some plat.

Samir Sirka of the Silver Flame has entrusted you with the responsibility of defeating the mummy guardian, Nsu. Enter the Tomb of the Shadow King and extinguish all light to awaken the mummy, but beware the dark is the source of his power.

Wow. Lots of running around on this quest. Had to go to multiple locations and turn out the lights, fighting shadow wargs, shadow mages, shadow gargoyles, invisible stalkers (those are fun). When we finally got the lights turned out, we had to find the bad guy and lead him to a room where we had to throw some switches at just the right time to turn on this really bright light. Only then could we fight him. If it was dark, we couldn't hit him for squat.

We had to leave one person in the trap, one person up top on one switch, and I got to run up, hit the other switch at the same time, jump down, fight till the lights went out, find the ladder, and repeat.

We managed to do it, tho.

All that's left is the shadow crypt, now that we got rid of all the mummies.

Link: http://www.blackprophecy.com/

gamigo, a leading European publisher of massively multiplayer online games with North American offices in New York City, today announced having secured global publishing rights to sci-fi combat MMOG, Black Prophecy. Developed by german studio Reakktor, Black Prophecy is the first sci-fi space combat MMOG to incorporate action-packed gameplay from both the first-person and third-person point of view. The game will launch at the end of this year.

Written by award-winning German science fiction author Michael Marrak, Black Prophecy whisks players into a universe marked by a war raging between two supernatural races. The two races - each engrossed in the battle for domination of the universe - don't notice the true risk lurking in the vast emptiness of space. The real danger is a mysterious force whose only goal is to restore order in the universe.

Characters are developed by building up one's skills, thus gaining access to increasingly better equipment. The game features a huge variety of weapons and ship parts that can be added as modules to a player's ship allowing an almost endless range of possibilities for players to design, build and customize their ship or space stations to exactly what they want.

"Black Prophecy is by far our most anticipated game and we are honored and thrilled to be working with Michael Marrack," said Patrick Streppel, member of the gamigo executive board. "Black Prophecy features a truly dynamic sci-fi adventure that players can really sink their teeth into. With its unique genre elements, the game allows thousand players to shape their own destiny within the game thereby offering a great replayability factor."

In addition to a compelling back story with hundreds of quests, Black Prophecy features the latest graphics technology, real-time combat, exciting PvP combat and open world sectors. Players will discover numerous community features, challenging tactics systems, an award and medal system and a complex crafting system.

Alganon has converted to a Subscription Free MMOG and in April 2010 a new Tribute Market System, instances and numerous other enhancements will be released. Alganon continues to offer a great new and growing true persistent fantasy world for gamers to enjoy.

QOL engaged Alganon as a Soft Launch in December for the purposes of refining the product and getting in-tune with the industry and player needs. There were two key things to do; refine the game, and review Alganon's position in the market. QOL held back all marketing during the new year because many AAA titles taking the spotlight and determined the best course of action for Alganon's success in 2010 was to convert to Subscription Free and build a new Tribute Market System for the players. QOL is moving out of the Soft Launch phase of Alganon into full Official Release on April 8th and introducing the Tribute Market System.

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...going to rescue some researchers who got ambushed by the Gorn. The quest itself kind of made sense.

1) Get the distress call.
2) Head to the planet.
3) Defeat the patrolling marauders.
4) Beam aboard the station and rescue some hostages.
5) Find out from them that there's more on the second planet of the system
6) Warp to Planet 2.
7) Defeat the patrolling marauders
8) Beam down to the planet to disable a suspicious energy shield.
9) Defeat the Gorn captain.
10) Back out to space and disable the ship that's trying to sneak away with more scientists.
11) Rescue said scientists.

Wow - that's a lot more steps than I realized. The quest itself took a little over an hour, and I actually didn't mind the combat in space this time. Either I'm getting better, or they're getting easier

Next in the series, and only one more to go. It's slow going when you can only get together for a few hours on a saturday, but then...back in the day, we used to play Pencil and Paper (yeah, we were wimps, and used pencils) once a week on Saturday nights...where was I?

Oh, yeah. The tomb.

The Warforged, Xaeon Penthrax of the Silver Flame, enlists your help to enter the Tomb of the Shadow Lord and defeat the Mummy, Nebtawi. Heed Xaeon's advice: don't go along and do not lose sight of your party.

This was a tomb filled with switches and shadows. It took a while, but we made our way through, and beat the bad guy. Of course, we're 2-3 levels above the quest level, and we're playing on casual, so it wasn't horrendously tough, either.

The Shadow King might be, tho...

WebLords, a browser-based, free-to-play online player versus player (PvP) game from WebWars that utilizes the company's innovative layered-reality game (LRG) platform to turn the Web itself into social entertainment, has entered its first stage of closed beta. The fantasy-based multi-player experience gives players a chance to join the fray and provide feedback directly to WebWars as they check out for the first time WebLords' epic battles to conquer, command and control any website.

"WebLords makes the most of our proprietary LRG technology by turning the Web itself a virtual epic fantasy battleground," said Cindy Armstrong, CEO, WebWars, LLC. "We are excited to kick off our testing period, as closed beta players can be among the first to check out this new genre in online gaming and have the rare opportunity to comment on their experiences directly to a development studio that really listens to its testing community."

WebLords is a social online game, available via a downloadable toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer, which turns literally any site on the Web into a battleground. Players can develop kingdoms, build armies and destroy their enemies. The integrated social community features, including friend's lists and status updates and in-game rankings, mean players will always have access to their score and bragging rights. Other key features of WebLords include:

•Players earn experience and loot from battles, which aids in growing their personal castles, and unlocking new battle-ready units as the game progresses.
•Each WebLord is customizable, allowing gamers to create and modify aspects of their personal character, armies and battle strategies.
•Multi-layered, time-controlled battles provide an entertaining way to multi-task while on the Web.

WebWars invites gamers to continue signing up for their chance to join the closed beta by visiting: http://www.web-lords.com now.