The twentieth expansion for Everquest was announced during the keynote speech at SOE Live yesterday. The title is "Call of The Forsaken". More details will be given at the Everquest panel this afternoon. Hopefully the panel will be uploaded to twitch.tv/soe like the keynote speech was. It is due for an end of September release which, in my opinion, seems a bit early since the "Heart of Fear" update only went live two short weeks ago.
While I am finished with everything "Heart of Fear" has to offer, it really doesn't give us raiders much time to fully gear up for the upcoming release. I am looking forward to the release since I'm an Everquest junkie, but a November release would be more apropos. It sounds like they will be announcing mercenary alternate advancement points and gear, which was accidentally leaked during the "Heart of Fear" beta. I for one am looking forward to these new features, namely because healer mercs suck sometimes.
Chess has been interesting. I beat a fide master during a correspondence game, which shocked me, but now I seem to be struggling. My tactical training goes up and down, but my percentages for correct answers seems to be going up, although at a very slow rate, which I must assume is good. My positional play I feel is getting better. I don't flat out hang pieces very often, but I do miscalculate. It does take me a while to see a position in my head. I'm attempting to work on visualizing the chessboard every night before I sleep, but I'm not sure it's helping. I still cannot follow game score very well without looking back at a diagram. Three to four moves is about the longest I seem to be able to follow a game score. It's better than the zero I used to be able to do, but if I wish to really improve my calculating ability I need to be able to follow game scores without glancing back to a diagram. I'd be interested in hearing from Paul Crider on his thoughts on this and how he does at following game scores.
Here is my game against the fide master. The second game against him is going rather poorly, but still in progress. This was during a thematic Kings Indian tournament.
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[#]
1.d4
Nf6
2.c4
g6
3.Nc3
Bg7
4.e4
Thematic Game - This is the starting position. 4...d6
5.Nge2
O-O
6.Ng3
e5
7.d5
c6
8.Be2
a6
9.a4
cxd5
10.cxd5
Nbd7
11.h4
h5
12.Bg5
Qa5
13.Qd2
Nc5
14.Qc2
Bd7
15.O-O
Rac8
16.Rfe1
Ng4
17.Bd2
Qd8
18.Bg5
f6
19.Bd2
b5
20.axb5
axb5
21.Qd1
b4
22.Nb1
f5
23.Bg5
Bf6
24.Bxg4
fxg4
25.Qd2
Nb3
26.Qxb4
Nxa1
27.Qxd6
Qc7
28.Qa6
Ra8
[0-1]