Space, The Final Frontier

I went searching for neat PHP scripts yesterday and came up with Quantum Star SE.

Quantum Star SE is a competitive browser based space strategy and combat style game based on Solar Empire.

I've set up a game called Conquest with default settings. Feel free to send me feedback if you'd like to see any of the system variables changed. Anyone is welcome to play.

Here is the link to play:
Quantum Star SE on Northorn's Realm

Legend of the Green Dragon

I had Legend of the Green Dragon running a while back and decided to bring it back for some more fun!

Click the link to play!

Verify your Windows system files

Here's a neat little trick I picked up from The Old New Thing.

If you run the sigverif program it will look at all of your system files and verify their digital signatures. This will tell you if you have files that have been tampered with by viruses and such.

I think this is only available in Windows 2000 and later versions of the OS.

Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation

So I was flipping through my vast assortment of cable channels (most of which I never watch) the other day when the title "Starship Troopers" pops up on the old channel guide. Cool, I think, even though I've seen it, or pieces of it, a hundred times before. When I flip to the channel I'm surprised to find that it isn't "Starship Troopers" after all. It is "Sony Pictures - Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation". What the hell, I didn't know they were making a sequel. How could I have missed it in the theaters and in the video store.

So I popped up a bag of popcorn and prepared to be amazed. About half way through the movie I came to the realization that this might be one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The story is terrible and the acting is worse. It has nothing of what the original had except the title. The producers of the movie apparently agree with me because this movie bypassed the theaters and video stores and went straight to cable TV.

To sum it up, this movie is a cold hard TURD!

Buy this	Buy this	Flush this

The Story Board

I was doing a little web surfing for neat PHP scripts today and ran across this little gem.

"Myth2 is a sort of interactive story in which you traverse down a binary tree of storys, you are given two options on each node and can choose either. Once you reach the end of a branch you may add to the story."

I set up a web site for the script and started a story. Here's the link:

The Story Board

If ya can't beat em, emulate em

People have been trying to create MMORPG server emulators almost as long as there have been MMORPGs. There have been emulators for Ultima Online, Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot for sure. I remember playing around with FUSE and UOX back in the day. The focus of this artical is on a little project called RunUO.

RunUO is a Microsoft Windows .NET Framework based server emulator. The core of the application is the actual engine that drives the game. This core provides low level services like networking, packet parsing, memory management, etc. The cool thing about RunUO is that the majority of the actual game logic is scripted. The scripting language is C# and I think you can also use VB.NET. So the engine is using the .NET Framework's ability to compile and execute code at runtime. This scripting allows you to customize your server any way you like.

When you download the RunUO system you get a set of scripts that emulate pretty much every aspect of a commercial Ultima Online server. You get shop keeper NPCs, monsters with AI, weapons, armor, crafting abilities, the full UO spell system, the new Age of Shadows stuff, housing including custom house creation, and a whole lot more. It's incredible the amount of work the RunUO developers and community have put into this project.

The RunUO web site claims that the server can handle "well over 1000 concurrent users with ease." I can't say if this is true or not but I know there are several very large servers (In Por Ylem, UO Gamers) out there handling lots of players. I've had a RunUO server running on one my machines for over two weeks straight without restarting and its still clicking along. I set up a bunch of spawners and it has spawned almost 30,000 creatures. I log in and whack a bunch of them every now and then though.

My plan has been to set up my own little theme based server. My cable modem should support a fair number of players. If I ever get some time I'll actually work on it. If I come up with any neat scripts I'll post them here.

Many of the server's out there are trying to recreate what they think of as the glory days of UO. Back when the PKs ruled the land and the newbs cowered in fear for their lives. There are also other servers out there that concentrate on crafting and community activities. You can pretty much find whatever type of server you like. Many of the servers start you out with elevated stats and skills and give you nice items. Some have accelerated advancement so you aren't a total newbie for too long.

I suggest you install UOGateway. This application gives you a list of all the popular servers that are registered and updates the list every time you run it. It also hacks your UO client to remove the encryption. The encryption must be removed in order to play on an emulator server.

There is also UORazor. Razor is a UOAssist type utility that provides lot of addon features to the client. It has advanced macroing, consumable item tracking, etc. Be careful though because some servers do not allow the use of such tools.

If you don't have a copy of the client you can actually download the full client from here. It's meant to be for a 14 day free trail to play on the commercial servers but it also allows you to play on the emulated servers for free.

Some other server emulators:
Dawn of Light - DAOC
UOX Classic - UO
UOX:NG - UO
UOX3 - UO
EQEmu - EQ
Hacker's Quest - EQ

New Spring: The Novel by Robert Jordan

I can't beleive I missed this when it came out in January! I usually have these books in my hand the day they are released. I guess I've just been busy lately and wasn't paying attention. I've only gotten a couple chapters into it so far but I'm liking what I'm reading. This is a prequal to the series so all the events happened before the events in the first book. New Spring was originally published as a novella and this is the full novel version. It is the story of Lan and Moraine and takes place in the time that Rand was born. It will be interesting to read about these mysterious characters from the books who's past is shrouded in mystery.

According to the author he intends to write two more prequals and two or maybe three more normal books in the series. He doesn't indicate in what order he'll write the remaining books however.

You can visit the offical web site by clicking here.

Happy reading, and click the image of the book above to buy it from Amazon.com.

Hello and Welcome to Northorn's Realm

Who am I?
Just some guy on the other end of the internet.

Why am I blogging?
I dunno...might be fun. I may never make another post again...ya never know.

What am I going to Post on this Blog?
Whatever I want. Probably stuff related to my interests listed below.

What are my interests?
Spending time with my beautiful wife and baby daughter.

I've been into computers since the early 80's. C64 rulz!!! I've been into computer games forever and especially online games. I've played Ultima Online, Everquest, Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies. I'm not playing anything at the moment except UT2004 every once in a while.

I'm a member of the Sterling Order of Knights online gaming guild.

I'm a software engineer by trade and like to do it in my spare time also. C++ is my language of choice currently but I'm in the process of learning .NET and C#. I like what I see so far. I also enjoy doing website stuff with PHP and MySQL.