Ultros Free Company is back in business!

Me and my pal Wrrrtw / Cibriel Haibane have returned after a small hiatus to the world of Eorzea, and we come bearing our Rank 5 FC, complete with buffs and fun. Possibly even a small FC house in the not so distant future.

No website and forums to sign up for this time, no crazy serious rules. This time around, it's about logging in and having fun while playing casually, leveling jobs and crafts / gathering while enjoying the company of others. If you're somehow reading this from the SE website, or looking for a smaller Free Company on the Ultros server in Final Fantasy XIV, feel free to shoot a /tell to Blacksmith Tony or Cibriel Haibane, and we'll work you into the group.

Account security and you

First order of business. Hearthstone is fun, and somehow I'm half a week or so into the future as a result of letting that have it's way with me.

Main thing though I want to point out is a little reminder about security and phishing attempts, detailed above. As someone who's basically been hit several times in the past few months and more or less "lost" my identity, I'm more on the look out for possible scams and the like. 

Some general pointers after the break.

Let's explore XIV's Crystal Tower (Kinda)

Watch live video from ShadowboltsOrg on TwitchTV
Wanted to test a new broadcasting software out, thanks to Nem of TheBluePrint for tipping me off to OBS. I'll begin streaming things again now that I got the new setup, since I've obtained over $500 in extra gear since the last time I really bothered.

Considering it was eating up bandwidth on top of being a MMO with the usuals, I think it came out really nice. I'd consider turning the volume up to probably max, since I didn't come across very loud in this for some reason.

Announcing weekly events, The Ship Tuesdays and F2P Friday

We ran the poll for about a week, and the most voted game people wanted to play together in the group was everyone's favorite, "The Ship", which held the majority of the votes. After getting with people, it sounds like Tuesday nights are usually dull and slow for all involved, so it's perfect to get together and have some mindless fun.

Speaking of new events, I hereby declare Fridays "Free To Play", which will be an event where every week we'll all try our best to get together and fiddle with a free game, and have some fun with it. F2P Friday also rolls off the tongue nice and easy, so more power to it.

By now, you've noticed the Blizzard logo up top, which actually ties into the new F2P Friday push. With recent news, Starcraft 2 is now opened up with all 3 playable races and player made maps for free, and Hearthstone just went into Open Beta as well to try out.

Respective download links are up above, with a reminder that SC2 is the sequel to one of the most beloved RTS ever created, while Hearthstone is a new WoW card game with online play.

Tipster - Axel (Thanks for letting me know Hearthstone went into OB!)

Shadowbolts page is up in Star Citizen!

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/orgs/BOLTS

Got the email last night from RSI about Organizations being implemented finally to an official capacity, so I've been tinkering away at the page and detailing how "I" envision the Bolts operating in Star Citizen. Shadowbolts has a great ring to it for a fighter group of pilots, dontcha think?

Feel free to check it out if you're one of the regulars here, and to any potential visitors from RSI or just in general, welcome! Feel free to join our steam group chat and turn on your mic, since there's no need to be shy to strangers over the internet.

Can a bad game become good?

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/8130/Why-You-Should-Give-Marvel-Heroes-Another-Look.html

After seeing XIV and MAHVEL do such big turn arounds with extra time and polish, and even FFXIII-2 compared to the first one, I'm starting to rethink the whole first impressions when it comes to games. Except for Mechwarrior Online, since there's no real salvaging that one under PGI's rule, am I right? I'm still gonna probably throw money at it for some Timberwolfs, seeing as they own the license now til 2020 from what I recall reading, so not like that game is going anywhere... Which it hasn't. Still the same game since Open Beta, more or less.

But yeah, Marvel Heroes is a pretty good game in the time killer department, if your system can run it. I've got nearly 400 hours sunk into it by now, since it helps fill the void I have now that XI isn't really a viable game outside of nostalgia, til they do some server merges down the road if I'm lucky. If you're looking for a Diablo fix, I think this does the job just fine, not to mention the whole free and MMO aspect makes it nice as well.

Group news after the cut, as it's a bit meaty.

Random fun, I choose you!

It's no suprise that just about every current Bolt holds at least a small bit of love for Pokemon, since I see you all logged on X/Y and hear your cries about the lack of Pokebank, which approaches as quickly as the next Zelda game, so there's been some rumbling within the group...

Proposal - Weekly Pokemon event

The initial purpose is that we'll all get together and pick a random type each week, and determine rules from there. Say we're going with Normal type one week, we can decide either randomly if it's 1v1 / 3v3 or 3 on 3 / doubles matchup. As time goes on and the group progresses, we can spin it into more fun, and the "Champion" of a type gets elevated to Gym Leader status with the group as a funsies rank, and eventually we could even have a once a month E4 kinda tourney of SRS COMPADITION!

All things to keep in mind, since it was a suggestion that I doubt people would object to. We could probably have it kick off on Sunday and have the matchups on Friday / Saturday, giving people ample time to train and breed up a team to use with the weekly criteria. Leave comments in the comment section or get me on the Steam chat, and we'll get the ball rolling proper.