Ground Zero

Fade to Black - Mystic Worlds

2009-08-09T10:25:00.005-03:00

Blogging quantity and quality is pretty hard to sustain unless you are a really talented individual. You must be armed with enough learned literacy to get your point across succinctly; as well as creative desire to put to words the topics you feel are most relevant to you and any audience you might think you have. Then you need to do this over and over enough that said audience will take it for granted.

I don't even pretend to think that I am such an individual. I know my quantity is spotty at best and the quality is workmanlike. But Lauren/Saylah/Alysianah/Illianah/Suri of Mystic Worlds is one such individual. Her ability to describe worlds never visited prompted me to try out Wizard 101, a game I still keep installed to this day. She brought her wit and insight to so many posts over the years that we did just take it for granted. Which is why her decision to shut it all down saddens me. But not as much as finding out the real-life details of what prompted her to start blogging in the first place.

I was lucky enough to be in the same guild as Alysianah (that's what I'll always know her as) in WAR. She was one of the first guildies I encountered ingame and on Vent as my (I think level 9) Warrior Priest went on a guild run to get the Shawl of Spring. Her Bright Mage was higher level at the time (level 11 I think) and we ended up running around the Chaos side of Ostland by ourselves before finally joining up with the rest of the guild group. I wrote about it briefly in this post. The memories of this and other Casualties of War events are why I will always remember WAR fondly even if it's a game I doubt I will ever return to.

The final post on Mystic Worlds has comments disabled which is understandable. I felt like I needed to thank Lauren for the many years of quality blogging as well as wishing her the best of luck with any future endeavors. So this post is my way of doing so. Don't be such a stranger, you know where to find my comments page and email.

Abyss Siege HD Videos

2009-07-27T06:18:00.009-03:00

Up to now, my enthusiasm for Aion Online has been based on theorycraft. I've read all the information and I've experienced a bit of the low-level content first-hand. I've noted the game engine's superior handling of the number of people needed for mass PVP. I projected this onto what I knew about The Abyss and speculated that epic fights could be had. I just didn't know until these videos exactly how epic they would be.

This is my Gauss Rifle

2009-07-24T07:57:00.005-03:00

It seems there is a celebration going on to commemorate the 6th anniversary of Planetside. Anyone who has ever had a paid account was given 45 free days and a whole host of new features were unveiled...including upping the BR cap from 25 to 40. The bad news was, their email notification service failed to notify me about it. Fortunately, I got wind of it in plenty of time to partake in the festivities.

I had played Planetside recently with the fine folks at Rock, Paper, Shotgun when they had their contest against two other gaming sites. But I noted back then that my inability to remember which of my accounts held my old PS character resulted in applying the RPS code to the wrong account. So basically, I had to level a character up from scratch. While fun in its own right, I couldn't help but wish I was able to access my BR20 CR5 toon of old.

So what was it like logging on to a character I hadn't played in about 5 years? Pretty strange. The first thing I noticed was triggering all sorts of new certs that proclaimed my tenure. I got a total of 6; one for every year of service. Ironic that I hadn't played the game in most of that time. Digging around the UI looking to see exactly which term of service cert I had, I noticed Planetside now had an achievement system which also allowed you to display the earned badges on your uniform like medals. Pretty neat.

The next thing I noticed was some old stuff was still saved server side. Opening up my locker and looking at the stuff I had stored away like a packrat brought back some fond memories. There were miscellaneous items like captured enemy weapons brought home as trophies of war. I also noted some macros I had made and put on my hotbar were still there even though some of their functionality were not anymore.

It's good to be back. Time to head on out to the war.

Fourth and Inches

2009-07-20T16:43:00.005-03:00

Aion Online's CB4 comes to a close and I thought I'd post my thoughts on it. I really wanted to level up my Cleric to 25 in order to gate through to the PvPvE content in The Abyss but I wasn't really willing to kill myself over it. I figured I'd see how things developed naturally instead of forcing myself to do stuff I didn't really enjoy.

I got as far as level 23 this weekend. I absolutely could've dinged 25 with a little more effort and with the help of a good guild maybe. But since I was soloing, 23 was as far as I was willing to go. No regrets as I was able to accomplish everything else I wanted to do including doing some more crafting and raising both my gathering skills up over 100.

Level 22 proved to be a watershed level for the Cleric as I spent almost 100k kinah on what must've been 10 new skill books. One of those was a 30 minute self-rez buff further reinforcing the similarity between this class and the WoW Shaman. There was also a great skill called Divine Touch that chained off a basic move which provided some much-needed DPS.

I can't wait for future Beta Events and finally being able to step foot in The Abyss.

Aion Eye Candy HD Videos

2009-07-11T18:20:00.004-03:00

Thanks to Mithoron for pointing these pair of videos out to us in this AionSource thread. Taken during the CB2 and CB3 events, some great looking shots of both the Elyos and Asmodean zones. Pump up the HD option for maximum enjoyment.

They Call Me Tim

2009-07-08T11:28:00.004-03:00

So what's in a name? If you're one that bases class choice on the name rather than doing some actual research, it can be a lot. Case in point my desire to play a Paladin/Warrior Priest type class in Aion. Since there were only two healing subclasses, my choice was obviously limited to Cleric and Enchanter. From just the names alone, the Cleric sounded like what I wanted. Based on knowledge of Cleric classes from previous MMO's, this would obviously be a front-line fighter who could also heal. An Enchanter sounded like some finger-waggling, cantankerous, staff user who would hang out in the back and do whatever it is they do back there.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

The revelation started when I grouped with an Enchanter who had a penchant for pulling mobs and meleeing in the front lines even though we had Templars and Gladiators in the group as well. This guy had a shield equipped so I just figured maybe my UI was just giving me the wrong class info. Further research proved my UI and the guy playing his class was working as intended. It turns out Enchanters were designed to be the Paladin/Warrior Priest class and Clerics were the back row finger-wagglers. Enchanters have auras designed to augment the melee abilities of those around them which definitely cements their place in the front lines. They make credible off-tanks in the absence of a Warrior subclass.

I have a feeling that I'll still go with a plate-wearing class in retail but I'll probably roll an Enchanter alt. I think I shall name him Tim.

Aion Online Screenshots

2009-07-07T13:38:00.003-03:00

As promised, you can go here to see my meager collection of screenshots taken during CB2 and CB3. Believe me when I say that there were quite a few more screenshot-worthy events that I failed in capturing. I'm surprised I even took this many, to be honest, as I'm really not on first-name terms with my Print Scrn button.

Included in the limited play I did of the 20+ zones was a little PVP which was quite unexpected and a nice change of pace. Let's just say if you're trying to run away from the enemy, you better hope there isn't a Priest class nearby. I love having a root on my Cleric.

Third on the Fourth

2009-07-06T11:38:00.004-03:00

The third Beta Event for Aion Online is still going on as I post this title. But as I am currently at work and the event will be done by the time I get home, it is effectively over for me. So here are some thoughts about the event which transpired over the Fourth of July holiday weekend in the US.

I had previously planned on trying to level up my gaggle of level 10's to the level cap of 20 imposed by this beta round. But this turned out to be highly optimistic when confronted with the increased leveling curve of 10-20. Even with the additional day added to the usual time frame of these beta events, I was only able to get just my Cleric to 20 in that time. I chose to use the time left after that to grind up my crafting and gathering skills as well as repeatable coin quests which awarded some kick ass weapons and an unexpected bonus later on.

Still undecided on what my main's class will be in retail and the experience in CB3 only added more uncertainty not less. Cleric turned out not to be as Paladin-like as I had hoped but more like a pre-TBC WoW Shaman. I should've picked up on the similarities with the chain-wearing, shield-equipping, healing class that relied on melee for its DPS but had some nukes as well. But it took learning a spell, Summon: Divine Energy I, which gave me a non-mobile pet with a limited duration which spat out some holy fire to augment my DPS. Hmmmm...that sure does look like a totem, all right.

Remember those repeatable coin quests I mentioned earlier? In the Impetusium region of the Altgard zone, there is a repeatable quest that has you killing 22 mobs in order to get 1 coin reward. You can turn in either 2 or 4 of these coins at once to either of two NPC's which gave out random rewards for melee or magic classes. I opted to turn in 4 coins for my first try to the magic guy as that was what my Cleric was classified as. He rewarded me with a mace I could equip right off the bat, the Mace of Asmodian Army Soldier Level 9 (I really hope they localize the item names a bit more come release). Eager to repeat my fortune, I ground up another 4 coins but was awarded with a spellbook I couldn't equip so I threw that on the auction house for a fair price. I guess I was just lucky the first time and random really is pretty random.

So the unexpected bonus came as I ran to Pandemonium, the capital city, for some errand or other and there was a guy with a quest waiting for me. His first words were that he noticed by my Mace of Asmodian Army Soldier Level 9 that I was ready for this quest. Now I had read something about there being some quests that could only be triggered by wearing a particular set piece somewhere; most likely the loading screen tips. But I had no idea they could lead to important quests like this turned out to be. It was the quest to gain the ability to equip Stigma Stones, which are the equivalent of WoW talents for character customization.

I once again totally failed to take screenshots as usual but I will post my meager collection from the beta events later.

Waiting For AO

2009-07-02T11:39:00.002-03:00

With apologies to Samuel Beckett for the post title. Today is the start of another Beta Event for Aion Online. This time the focus will be on the Elyos and Asmodean levels 1-20. Can't wait to get started as I am starting to second-guess (or was that triple-guess) my decision to roll Warrender as a Cleric. I'm a sucker for plate armor and Aion has some end-game designs that would make me regret my choice to roll a Chain-wearing class. Fortunately, I have both a Gladiator and Cleric at 10 that I can level to 20 which should provide more insight into which class would be the right fit for me. Also looking forward to playing more with the Assassin and Spiritmaster as well.

Doing some crafting in LoTRO last night and so glad to get back to a game which has a craft all button. No offense to those who enjoy the crafting in EQ2 but the minigame is really not my cup of tea. I wasn't a big fan of it either in Free Realms. I suppose those who just craft exclusively in EQ2 might appreciate the added involvement but it did nothing for me aside from the initial "well, this is different" moment.

Having and Eating Your Cake

2009-07-01T12:10:00.003-03:00

NCSoft proved that it is possible to have your cake and eat it too with the announcement yesterday that the US and EU release of Aion Online would be at version 1.5. There isn't a single MMO that has shipped that couldn't have used additional development time for bug fixes and additional content. Even the venerable World of Warcraft. Think WoW at release was pretty good? How about if it released with the stuff that got patched in a year later?

Unfortunately, the real world often dictates that MMO's ship before they are ready for prime time. Companies don't have the luxury of waiting a whole year without a revenue stream just because a product isn't fully polished yet. Look at the recent releases of AoC and WAR, for example. I daresay their user retention rate would've been higher if they had released a year later with the fixes and content that they have now.

Ncsoft got around this problem with the staggered releases. They originally released Aion Online in Korea November of last year and plan to release the US/EU version this September. While staggered releases are nothing new, what is novel about this one is the order and understanding of the different market expectations in the different regions. Rather than release the western version a short time later, they opted to wait until there was enough additional content to satisfy western palates. Pretty crafty there, NCsoft.

Paladin with a Pet

2009-06-30T15:42:00.004-03:00

My plans to level my Champion up came to an abrupt halt when I found out about the Captain class in LoTRO. From the descriptions, it seemed to be a Paladin type class...with a pet. Since the two classes I had played the most in my halcyon WoW days were the Warlock and Paladin, the opportunity to try out a class that combined the best features of both could not be ignored. Peanut butter in my chocolate? Hells yeah.

Rather than deleting Warrender, I opted for the comedy name route and rolled an homage to Captain Liberty from the great defunct TV series, The Tick. Turned out someone already had the same idea as that name was already taken so Liberti, the kickass female Captain was born. Too bad I couldn't sneak BatManuel through the lore filters. I had to settle for naming my Herald Manuel once I leveled up enough to gain that ability.

Winged Nazgul Comes "Home"

2009-06-29T12:36:00.006-03:00

I'm in the middle of the subscribed month in EQ2 and already my MMO eyes are wandering. It's not the title itself; EQ2 is a polished, accomplished MMO with more features and options than you can shake a stick at. It just doesn't grab me viscerally. I had planned on grabbing the discounted price of the Mines of Moria package for Lord of the Rings Online before the offer was up this month but it turned out I couldn't even wait that long. When my EQ2 Paladin dinged 30, I said enough and started the long process of downloading, installing, and upgrading the LoTRO digital purchase.

First off, I'd just like to say that even with my nom de internet being what it is, I've never seriously given thought to buying and playing LoTRO before now. Sure I checked it out during its Open Beta and there was even a trial sometime last year, but only recently has the "buy" word crossed my mind. It first started when they slashed their subscription price from $15 to $10 a month. Then there was this offer which found its way to my email and lodged itself into my subconsciousness offering the latest expansion and complete game for $10. That it also included a free month's subscription was just too much value to ignore and even if I ended up completely hating it, heck, it was only $10 spent.

Tried rolling a Champion named Warrender on Landroval which is where the Casualties are playing but it came back with a name already taken error. Since this almost never happens for some reason, I can only assume this is my Beta character which I dimly remember creating with that name. A quick check on the forums revealed Brandywine as the most populous so I went with plan B and rolled my Champion on that server.

Damn, this is a beautiful game. I had that reaction with the trial last year and it was the same one after I got my Champion up and rolling this time around. Having the game auto-detect the graphics settings, I was quite pleased when it came back and recommended Very High with DX10. There's a little bit of hitching sometimes since I chose my native monitor resolution of 1680x1050 but not enough to make me want to downgrade any of the options just yet. Really enjoying the eye candy and playing in Tolkien's world so far.

Aion Online Video Walkthrough

2009-06-28T13:59:00.003-03:00

Video Game - E3 2009 - Videogames

Some fine folks from NCSoft West take the time to go over the features of their upcoming MMO, Aion Online. A great introductory video for those who might not know anything about the title. Although there is an option to watch it in HD, that feature is not currently working at the moment. Enjoy!

Mark Jacobs Speaks

2009-06-25T21:22:00.003-03:00

On his very underused blog, Mark Jacobs comments about recent events.

Aion Priest 1-10

2009-06-22T09:31:00.003-03:00

I started out with my plan in the CB2 event in Aion to roll an Asmodean Cleric when I finally could get on Friday. Despite reading of queues and other horror stories while at work, I was able to get right in after login.

The first thing I did was go through what would eventually become a ritual after creating a new character which was click through the options to make my gaming life easier. I enabled all the extra hotbars, disabled click-to-move, and enabled displaying monster names. The latter option was particularly handy as it meant I didn't have to mouse over and click on every single mob to find the one I needed for a particular quest.

At one point, I was a bit puzzled over my character's inability to equip chain armor and shield as a Cleric. Then I realized he wasn't exactly a Cleric yet and wouldn't be until he Ascended at around level 10. For now, my Priest was stuck with leather armor and no shield. Not that he even needed the extra survivability of the heavier armor. With a HoT that cost a pittance of mana to upkeep, he was a grinding machine with little to no downtime.

There was some definite differences between the Elyos and Asmodea zones. In Elyos, the player starts out as a benign mercenary in the employ of the peasant NPC's. In Asmodae, the player starts out as a warlike raider who has subjugated the peasant NPC's. This tone was reflected in the quest text and content as well. My fears that the zone scenery would reflect such a dark race proved groundless. If anything, there were some areas which looked more bright and colorful than their Elyos counterparts. I think I'll stick with my plans to go Elyos, though. I just can't get over the long, flowing back hair typical of the Asmodean models.

There were some amusing harvesting experiences. The first happened while harvesting some Angelica in the newbie zone - I actually dinged. Yes, that's right; you get XP from harvesting in this game. It's not much (60 XP or so) but every little bit helps especially if you're a gathering fanatic like some folks I know. The other happened after I got my wings at level 10. It's what happens when you pair a limited flight timer with floating resources placed high in the sky. Now I know how Icarus felt.

I'd go on to level 3 more characters to level 10 which was the cap imposed by NCSoft for this beta event. Doing this enabled me to experience the differences at the early levels between the Priest, Mage, Scout, and Warrior archetypes.

Anticipation

2009-06-19T10:00:00.003-03:00

Props to those old enough to remember what this image has to do with the title.

Aion Online is getting ready to start another of their Beta Events today. This event is scheduled to run through the weekend and anticipation is pretty high judging by the state of the Beta forums. I have access to this and all upcoming Beta events due to my pre-order and I have to admit I'm starting to feel a little excited about the event myself.

Despite having participated in numerous MMO Betas by now, I still feel the same excitement over a AAA title every time. There will be those that will say participation in Betas will only accelerate the feeling of burnout by the time the game releases. I counter that some of my most lengthy stays in MMO's were titles in which I also participated in their Betas as well. I would even go so far as to say that content in games is not the determining factor for me anymore as to whether it's time to move on or not. I'd say it's the people you meet and play with on a regular basis in MMO's that determines this. A good guild can go a long way towards hiding any perceived deficiencies in a game. For a while, anyways.

I'm still unsure which class to start out with in Aion. I usually go with a Paladin class type; being a heavily-armored melee fighter that can heal covers up a lot of typical newbie mistakes. Initially I thought this would be the Templar class but some research on the forums suggests Cleric might be the class I'm looking for. Hopefully the Betas will provide ample opportunity to mess with various alts and find the perfect fit for me.

And the Winner is...

2009-06-17T10:11:00.002-03:00

So it seems like the next big thing gaming-wise for me is going to be Aion Online. It's got everything I want in an MMO plus it runs like a champ on my system. For those who might scoff at the choice, I offer a paraphrasing of an old adage about art:

I might not know much, but I know what I like.

The only problem is Aion isn't going to be released until sometime in September which leaves a few months between now and then. I could use that time with a filler MMO but the trouble is deciding on which one. I could go back to AoC or WAR and see if my time away has improved the game any. There's also the freemium choices like Atlantica Online or Wizard 101 if I feel like eschewing the monthly subs. I could even use the time to explore more of Guild Wars or a new title like DDO.

I actually went through the trouble of installing the trials and poking around all the above games before I made my mind up. AoC and WAR still ran like slugs in molasses on my system and there was no way I was going back to those games after experiencing what Aion had to offer. Not even the hype surrounding Land of the Dead was enough to entice me back. The other games were definite contenders when suddenly a dark horse appeared in the form of a Steam sale last Friday.

Everquest II - so now I have a level 22 Paladin on the Antonia Bayle server.

Who would've thought I'd finally get around to giving EQ2 a serious try after all these years. Certainly not me yet even I could not resist the siren call of the Steam sale for $9.95. Even more amazingly, I'm having fun in this game despite my preconceived notions about it. EQ2 always seemed like a game with features I would enjoy but there was something about the art direction that just turned me off. Even with the graphic options turned all the way up, it still couldn't hide character models that all looked like they were beaten severely with ugly sticks. But I've been able to get over that initial distaste to give the game the chance it deserves. So far so good.

Can't see the Forest for the Trees

2009-06-12T09:59:00.002-03:00

There's an event currently running in Atlantica Online that celebrates the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival. From April 21 to June 16, guilds can build and plant their own cherry blossom trees in their towns for possible added revenue and aesthetics. Unfortunately, after the initial "neato" impression the particle graphics of the cherry blossoms that greet you upon visiting a town soon wears on you. I'm sure June 16 can't come soon enough for some of the regular AO players. I can't even imagine what a newbie's impression would be of these blossoms if he has no idea why every town he visits has these stupid pink blossoms flying around everywhere.

But I'd like to examine the actual mechanics of the cherry tree and appreciate the thought that went into its design. From the wiki entry:

Spring has sprung, so let’s have some fun, like they do in the land of the rising sun! The Sakura Matsuri, or Cherry Blossom Festival, is a highly anticipated time in Japan to get together and view the beautiful scenery of the Cherry Blossom Trees. If you can’t make it to Japan, don’t fret! The Cherry Blossom Trees are now available to view in Atlantica!

From April 21 to June 16, town owners will have the opportunity to build a Cherry Tree. Visitors of towns that have a Cherry Tree will enjoy some very pleasant scenery along with the chance to grab a Cherry Tree Fruit once a day at the cost of 100% will and 200,000 gold (half the gold will go directly to the guild fund). Eating the Cherry Tree Fruit will grant the player an additional 10% increase of experience for two hours. The Cherry Tree can only be guild-crafted and requires building craft to be at level 5 or higher.

Some new items that are required to build the Cherry Tree, such as the Cherry Tree Leaf, Cherry Tree Stem and Cherry Tree Root can be purchased on the market. All new items relating to the Cherry Blossom Festival event will be removed after the event is over.

Guild crafting, town customization, guild revenue, and XP booster all in one tree! That's some impressive multi-tasking.

Lack of Content

2009-05-18T14:01:00.009-03:00

It's not only MMO's that can be accused of lacking in content. Sometimes, player blogs can run through dry times as well. But I've always been a quality over quantity kind of guy so you won't ever see me posting if I don't feel like I have anything worth posting about. Which is what I've been feeling lately.

I've been running around in Free Realms indulging my inner child. I opined a few weeks back that I didn't feel like a release was likely anytime soon considering the unfinished state of the Beta I was currently in. Then SOE announced it was going to release shortly afterwards which goes to show my knowledge of such things. The fact that they got 1 million registered users so quickly shows that there was an audience salivating over the chance to play this game for real. I'm afraid the unfinished parts I saw in Beta are still gumming up the works of an otherwise polished product.

But even still, it's hard not to have fun with this game if only because there is just a multitude of activities available. Don't feel like questing? Try some minigames or the virtual Trading Card game. Go complete some collections or explore the entirety of the Realms. Speaking of which, this game really caters to Explorer types as there are hidden delights waiting to be discovered beyond every bend.

So I've been pretty casual about my playing time which is definitely the way to go in Free Realms, I think. If I start feeling the grind especially when I'm leveling up a combat job, I'll switch to a different activity. Sometimes, I'll exit the game and go do something else. This would be a huge mark of failure for a typical MMORPG but not so for FR in my opinion. I don't really see myself playing this game long-term. But, for right now, it's a breath of fresh air as I replenish my stores of hardcore in preparation for the Next Big Thing™. Whatever that may be.

You Say It's Your Birthday?

2009-04-28T14:53:00.005-03:00

April 28 seems to be a good day to launch a MMO. Both City of Heroes and Guild Wars launched on this date and now SOE's Free Realms hopes to join those two titles sometime today.

I celebrated Guild War's impending birthday by buying the Guild Wars Trilogy a few days ago. When this title first came out, it was competing with the then-hot World of Warcraft for my attention. WoW won that first skirmish but I'd kept my eye on this game and its development over the years as something I would really like to try. A Trilogy trial a few months back confirmed this and I was set to buy it then. The lack of a digital distribution option made me change my mind though. I was interested, but apparently not interested enough to go out to a store and buy a copy.

The recent move to Steam for the NCSoft titles renewed my interest and, this time, the Trilogy was available. When I found out they were offering free storage as part of the birthday celebration, that was enough for me. Nothing gets me to impulse buy quicker than if I think I'm getting a good deal. So far so good and am enjoying making my way through another MMO as a clueless newbie.

First Time For Everything

2009-04-28T13:35:00.002-03:00

Even being a new father hasn't stopped Syp from rolling out some interesting memes.

First MMO Played?
Planetside - before this game came out I was heavily into First Person Shooters and never really gave regular MMORPG's a second thought.

First Character Class/Role Played?
My Planetside character was a Vanguard-driving, Phoenix-shooting, mine-laying son of a gun.

First MMO Subscribed For More Than A Consecutive Year?
World of Warcraft. I think I missed the one year mark in PS by about a month and I don't remember playing CoH that long before WoW came out and I jumped ship.

First MMO You Fell In Love With?
Planetside, natch.

First Guild You Really Felt Attached To?
Sturmgrenadier in Planetside.

First Character/Game You Leveled To End Cap?
WingedNazgul in Planetside.

First “Wow” Moment In A MMO?
Coordinated outfit ops in Planetside. Nothing like hotdropping from a Galaxy into a tower full of hostiles.

First MMO You Burned Out On?
World of Warcraft.

First MMO You Followed Avidly Prior To Launch?
City of Heroes

First Time You Felt Truly Noobish In A MMO?
Playing the Free Trial of Eve Online.

First MMO You Went Alt-Crazy In?
City of Heroes.

Job Security

2009-04-23T11:18:00.003-03:00

I've never been a chef, brawler, race car driver, miner, or ninja in real life. So when I got the chance to try out the Free Realms Beta and dive in, guess which job was the most appealing to me?

Trading Card Game Duelist.

Pretty ironic as it's one I have had plenty of experience with in real life. It's not as if the other jobs don't have their fun moments (well except for race car driving which I apparently stink at) but that the questline and the TCG itself is probably the most polished content currently available in Free Realms. Which is not a knock on the game. It's still pretty early in the Beta process and, despite the lifting of the NDA, I don't see release as being anytime soon. At least, I hope not as there is quite a bit more work that needs to be done before they open this up to the general public.

But I highly recommend any veteran card-floppers out there to check out the TCG in both virtual and real-life versions.

Clash of the Titans

2009-04-22T11:38:00.004-03:00

Atlantica Online was recently patched with a huge content update. Not the housing or 100v100 battle system patch that was recently revealed at this year's GDC. They're still busy working on those items. This patch updated the North American English servers with the content that has been live on the Korean servers for months now. Full patch notes can be found here.

There's quite a number of changes and additions documented on that page but the centerpiece of the update has to be the new Titan server. This enables interaction between characters of different servers. For now, it's only limited to sharing info and PVP but there are future plans to enable trade between the different servers. Future content is also planned which will utilize the unique aspects of this intra-server gathering place.

It's the PVP that has most people excited though, as finally we can find out who is really the best of the best. There is already a Free League ranking system that ranks players according to accumulated fame but there has never been a way to determine how players from different servers would match up against each other. Until now. You can Challenge other players on the Titan server to duels and there will be a weekly Grand Championship held there every Sunday. The rewards for participating and winning this GC are very nice to say the least and I imagine the inaugural event to be held this Sunday will have a very festive air to it. Hope to see you all there!

Back in the Beta Saddle Again

2009-04-18T14:49:00.005-03:00

After a relatively long drought of not participating in a Beta of any kind, I found myself playing two high-profile ones over the weekend. The Chinese Open Beta of Aion Online and Sony's Free Realms. I got an invite to Free Realms and sneaked into the Chinese Beta through nefarious means.

There's one piece of advice I would like to give to NCSoft: Please change your mind about not having a North American/European English Beta for Aion Online. You might not feel you need one for technical reasons given that this game has already been released in Korea since November of last year and the various other Betas since then. But the buzz surrounding such Betas can't hurt especially given the unique combination of early level gameplay in this title. Seriously, CoH level of character customization, gorgeous graphics and animations based on the Crytek engine, and engaging quests with cutscenes is a potent mix. I don't know if you have enough to keep people around for the endgame and reports are a lot of grinding will be needed to get there in addition to the quests provided. But a NA/EU Beta would hook an awful lot of people for a couple of initial months at least.

As for Free Realms, I can't say a lot about it. SOE has a chance to reach the rest of the world's gaming population that doesn't really think it likes MMO's. Plus it has enough fun activities for jaded MMO vets as well. It will make SOE money but how much depends on how free Free Realms turns out to be.

Losing Our Voice

2009-04-14T10:17:00.004-03:00

Rest in Peace, Harry. Your voice will live forever in our hearts.

Atlantica Online - Increasing Benevolence in MMO's

2009-04-09T10:16:00.008-03:00

I don't know if I'm the only blogger that keeps a mental list of topics in their heads that they absolutely must cover in their blogs but just don't seem to get around to it. Usually it's something they want to disseminate in order to inform or hopefully spur discussion but also can't be neatly en-capsulized with just a few minutes worth of work. Nay, doing the topic full justice requires going above the call of duty and maybe require screenshots or even...gasp...charts.

So it can be a relief when someone pre-empts you by writing the piece you wanted to write; but doing a much better job at it than you possibly would have. All you have to do now is just link to the article here and your job is done. Let the information dissemination and discussion begin.

I will update the link to point to the blog article when I get the information.

Third Time the Charm

2009-04-06T12:27:00.005-03:00

We finally completed the Guild Dungeon, Marksburg Castle, on our third attempt. Our first attempt was a scouting run when I was in my early 70's. It showed we weren't ready to take on such a challenge so early in our guild's life just yet. We knew it but wanted to see what it would be like. I opted to pass on the opportunity as I didn't think I'd be able to contribute that much at my level.

The second try came last week and though we failed, we came awfully close to completing it. Ultimately our lack of planning and execution led to delays which saw the time run out on us just as we were clearing our way to the last level. I was able to contribute more to the effort this time around as a fresh 90 but it still led to some deaths and running back on my part.

This weekend was our third try and this one proved to be the charm. The combination of familiarity as well as the added levels we all had proved to be the deciding factors. Coming in as a 95 really upped my survivability against the mobs that ranged from levels 91-105. I went through the whole run without a single death although the lower level guildies weren't so fortunate.

The dungeon had a gothic/medieval/alice in wonderland feel as we fought our way against a variety of court jesters, palace guards, knights, wizards, and...grandfather clocks??? We actually had around 30 minutes to spare so the run took about an hour and a half. Not a bad way to spend some quality time with your guildies as well as getting some decent loot. Since this Guild Dungeon features prominently in the Dark Archer recruitment questline, I have a feeling I'll be spending more time in here once I turn 100 and become eligible for the quest.

Future Atlantica Content Revealed at GDC09

2009-04-03T10:07:00.005-03:00

This year's annual Game Developers Conference was held in San Francisco, CA during the week of March 23-27. The developers of Atlantica Online were on hand to reveal details of future content at a press conference. Initial word came from translations of the Korean website as well as gaming news sources. But information was finally released on the nDoors website yesterday and can be found here.

There's also a flash site that has an introductory video. While the video doesn't show any new content, it does have some pretty nice Atlantica eye candy set to exhilarating music.

Pretty excited about the 100vs100 tactical battle system. If they can make it work, it should make for a pretty unique gaming experience.

Gutting the Ghost Ship

2009-04-02T12:54:00.007-03:00

While the handful of level 90+ players we have in our guild is not enough to successfully run a high-level Guild Dungeon yet, it did make us an attractive commodity to burgeoning Nations. We kept getting offers to join from a number of them. Our first priority on finding a suitable Nation to join was their ability to run and successfully complete Nation Dungeons. While they would all promise the ability to do so, very few Nations on our server possessed the organization and manpower to actually complete ND's. A secondary consideration was the willingness of the Nation to help us out in completing our Guild Dungeons with the temporary loan of some high-level players.

With this in mind, we decided to join a relatively new Nation. New as in date of creation, but they had plenty of guilds and players that had been around for a while. Most importantly, the leading guild in the Nation had previous experience in successfuly tackling ND's. They were also willing to help us out in the matter of Guild Dungeons. Our guild leader took a vote and the overwhelming majority agreed to join this nation; innocuously named Peaceful.

We barely had time to greet our new Nation-mates in chat before plans got underway to run the Nation Dungeon, Ghost Ship of the Carribean. This was no coincidence as we had been invited to come along on this run beforehand to see exactly what it was we were getting into. Ghost Ship is the first and easiest of the series of Nation Dungeons and it is in here that access to the much-coveted Pirate mercenary is determined. Instructions from the Nation leader flowed as groups were assembled and reported in. I have to admit most of it went right over my head and I just focused on the immediate role of my group and what we had to do. I later found an excellent guide to this dungeon here that explained much of what our organizer had to say. Even with my extensive raiding background in WoW, I was impressed at the level of organization needed to succesfully conquer even this most basic of Nation Dungeons.

My guildmates advised me to stock up on Ambrosia and a Blessing Potion but I balked at their high market prices and determined to gut it out on regular food and the buffs provided by my various titles. I did spend some gold completing my level 90 armor set so I didn't look so mismatched. Finally the preparations were done, we were able to zone in, and I got my first look at the zone. I wish I would've taken some screenshots but I was so focused on making this a successful run that I didn't dare take the time to sightsee. Maybe next time. It was very much Pirates of the Carribean themed with mobs ranging from octopuses to crusty crustaceans to pirate ghosts. The end boss was none other than Davy Jones himself. We traveled from the ghost town to its docks where we boarded the famed Ghost Ship itself and scoured it decks clean of all the mobs.

One of the features I love about raiding in Atlantica Online is that they are timed events. You have 2 hours after starting the Dungeon to finish it. No more banging your head learning an encounter for 8+ hours only to find you still don't have what it takes to beat it. Even after you have a Dungeon on farm status, the times are saved so beating a previous record can be motivation for some guilds. My group quickly fell into a groove as we fought the mobs we were tasked with clearing. There were a couple of tricky pulls as sometimes we bit off more than we could chew but my groupmates were able to cover for my underpowered self. My thanks go out to my guildmates, fateii and Clematis, who were in my group for this inaugural ND run.

Looking at our progress compared to the timer counting down, it became obvious that we were going to successfully complete the ND unless something went horribly wrong. I probably stayed up for the event longer than I wanted to but there was no way I was missing out on the successful conclusion. When the success banner and music flashed on the screen, a collective cheer went up in Nation chat.

What a great way to lure prospective guilds to your Nation. Treat them to a great ND run and the phat lootz from same. Now, you're never going to get rid of us.

Nations in Atlantica Online

2009-03-31T15:22:00.007-03:00

Having a 50 player cap for guilds can be problematic when it comes to getting the numbers to run endgame content. Except for the most hardcore of guilds, you will usually have a wide range of levels and playing times. Getting enough high-levels together at a certain time for a Guild Dungeon might not happen right away.

This is where Nations and Nation Dungeons come in. Nations are alliances of up to 10 guilds and the Nation Dungeons are endgame challenges which scale in difficulty. If Guild Dungeons can be run with a maximum of 50 players, Nation Dungeons can be run with a theoretical max of 500 players. Access to the B grade mercenaries (currently the highest grade in the game) relies on drops that can sometimes only be found in Nation Dungeons. So if you want a Spartan, Pirate, or Elementalist in your formation, you would be wise to seek out a Nation that has access to and can successfully run Nation Dungeons. Once you join a Nation, you gain access to Nation chat and can share info with Nation members as easily as with guild members.

The leader of a level 30 guild can go to the Caesar NPC in Rome and start his own nation for a fee based on the number of starting guilds. The roster of 10 allowable guilds allows for a wide variety of member guilds and the Nation leader has to seek out like-minded guilds with a decent amount of high-level players in order to grow his Nation. There's a considerable amount of diplomacy involved and the reputations of players and guilds go a long way towards convincing others to join your fledgeling empire.

Guilds in Atlantica Online

2009-03-27T12:51:00.009-03:00

It shouldn't come as a shock to most readers of this blog that being in a good guild can lead to more positive experiences in a MMORPG. We all have our different ideas of what makes a perfect guild and also what the ideal guild activities would be. Guilds come in different shapes, sizes, and compositions but I daresay most of us feel more comfortable with a smallish but close group of people rather than being an anonymous cog in a giant-size superguild. On the other hand, smaller guilds rarely get the chance to engage in end-game activities which usually require a goodly number of players to complete.

At level 20, any player can go to a guild office in any town to create their own guild for a fee of 20,000 gold. Like WAR and EQ2, there is a guild level system that determines the maximum size, number of officers, permanent guild buffs, and susceptibility to deletion by inactivity. Guilds are eventually capped at 50 members. This is the reason why you see so many guilds listed when you use the Guild Ads feature. Anyone who has ever been in a guild before will know this number will not take long to reach especially with multiple alts per guild member. This cap on guild size, rather than being onerous, leads to a more intimate atmosphere in my opinion.

Guild levels are gained through regular player XP and activities. But guilds also generate guild points which can fuel a large number of guild activities. Guild points are generated by many means: individual players completing guild or town quests, Training Center, Guild Dungeons, guild crafting, and player attendance. These guild points can be spent by the guild leader at the Pointry NPC in Rome for Guild Dungeon keys or rare crafting supplies. They can be converted at a loss into Guild Operation books which can be used to add guild points. These books are usually sold on the market to beef up the selling guild's coffers and the buying guild's stock of guild points. Lastly, guild points are used to bid on and retain control of the towns in Atlantica Online.

For the guild leader, having control of a town leads to a SimCity-like minigame. You can set the fees that town agencies charge the players that make use of them in your town. Different towns charge different rates for using services like the Market, Bank, or Travel Agency. If you find the town you are in is charging you a rate you would rather not pay, your best bet is to port to Rome where the minimum is always the going rate. You can also build and place buildings to attract and keep satisfied the NPC population that dwells in it. Funds generated from service fees and taxes on the NPC population go directly into the guild funds so owning a town can be quite lucrative for a guild. Some towns even allow access to exclusive Guild or Nation dungeons for the guild that controls it. As you can imagine, there can be a lot of competition for the finite amount of towns amongst the numerous guilds on the same server.

For Pony!

2009-03-22T22:29:00.011-03:00

My guild, Hunters on the Argos server, gifted me with a couple of surprises recently. The first is pictured above. There's several ways to score this particular mount but the most common way is by spending some real cash on the Item Mall for a Mount Box. For around $10, you can buy the box for a chance at a rare mount. The vast majority of the time, however, you will end up getting this pictured mount which comes with no stats and a 10% movement bonus. Like most Item Mall purchases, the mount can then be sold or traded ingame as desired. Currently, this particular mount is going for around 20 million gold on our server.

Now I had enough gold to throw away on this mount and, ordinarily, I would've paid the market price for the convenience as in other games. But Atlantica Online isn't like other games in that it comes with the highly convenient auto-move feature which takes much of the drudgery away of traveling from place to place. Drudgery that mounts with increased movement speeds used to alleviate. Happily, there are other reasons to get mounts in this game aside from aesthetics; most will come with stats that will increase you main character's survivability immensely. So I was saving up my gold for one such mount when my guild leader surprised me by giving me this one bought with our guild funds. Many thanks for the fine gift and now I don't have to look like a complete noob running around everywhere on foot.

The other surprise was their announcement that I had been promoted to guild officer. I was a little surprised in that I had only been playing this game for a few months and still considered myself an AO noob. But I guess my attitude and regular playing schedule impressed the ones who had to make the decision. Either that or there was nobody else that wanted the job. Since I am now on the cusp of level 87 and the AO endgame, I decided to accept to have some influence over upcoming decisions on how to move our guild into the endgame.

VINPC's of Atlantica Online

2009-03-19T12:49:00.007-03:00

Atlantica Online doesn't have the standard vendor you can sell your trash drops to. Probably because there is no such thing as a trash drop in this game, per se. Every single item is useful in some way with the items most often associated as trash in other games being used in some crafting recipe somewhere. Sure, there are NPC's stationed outside the newbie starter towns that will buy anything off you for a flat 10g price but you can get much more than that if you are patient and place your items on the Market for others to buy.

This doesn't mean there is a lack of NPC's to interact with in order to acquire more wealth and power. In fact, you will become very familiar with these NPC's as you play the game. Which is more than you can say about anonymous regeant vendor #43 in WoW. The following is a short, but by no means complete, list of these NPC's.

Name: Livingstone
Can Be Found: Outside of Bucharest.
Role: This is the NPC stalker and the guy to come to when you don't know where a particular NPC can be found at the moment. For a 1000g fee, he will give you the whereabouts of every other NPC of note in the game. Very handy for tracking those NPC's that like to wander around.

Name: Goncourt
Can Be Found: Wandering Around
Role: Converts useless books into boxes which can hold more useful books or more useless books you can then trade back to him. The fee depends on what you are trying to convert but for regular skill books it is 1000g. Depending on your luck, he can be a great source of income especially for newbies. Trade useless book for book that sells for several millions on the Market. Profit and repeat.

Name: Howard
Can Be Found: Wandering Around
Role: In your travels, you will sometime come across Cultural Boxes, which contain random Cultural Treasures. Take them to Howard to appraise and, if they turn out to be real, he will offer to buy them off you for 200-400k gold. Take his offer as you won't be able to cash them in anywhere else.

Name: Columbus
Can Be Found: North of Lisbon
Role: Will buy armor and weapons for half the market price from you. The caveats being that he won't buy anything enchanted over +1 and Ghost Warrior level and above. He also has business hours from 9 to 18 ingame time. Check the ingame clock on the lower left hand corner of the UI to see when he's open. Very handy for unloading gear that is currently selling for less than half of the normal market value.

Name: Pointry
Can Be Found: Bazaar in Rome
Role: There are points to be accrued for various activities in this game and he's just the man...er...rabbit to go to when you want to convert them into something substantial. There's a great Pointry guide to be found here. If you ever find yourself wanting to try this game out, do me a favor and roll on the Argos server. Then set Warrender as your referrer so I can rake in those glorious Referral Points. Muahahahaha!

Name: Volcanus
Can Be Found: Bazaar in Rome
Role: You can improve your gear in two ways. You can use enchanting stones as well as an identical sacrificial copy of the item to be improved or you can go to Volcanus with just your item as well as enhancing stones. The caveat being it's not a guaranteed process like the first method and there is a chance of losing the item in the event of failure. Enhancing, especially with the use of Item Mall-only enhancing stones, is the preferred method of upgrading your equipment to endgame levels.

OMG MY BFF SYFY

2009-03-17T09:41:00.002-03:00

Seriously? Someone actually thought this was a good idea? Like oh my gawd!

Atlantica Online PVP Video

2009-03-15T20:02:00.002-03:00

This video was taken quite a few months ago and the build and strategies involved are outdated. Specifically, Xargrr's Seth Will build has been reduced in potency and the days of Oracles Sething Spears to wreak havoc on the front lines and beyond are gone now. But it does give a taste of what to expect from a typical Free League match.

Atlantica Online PVE Video

2009-03-12T23:52:00.005-03:00

Jormungund is a level 107 Shadow Dungeon boss you will need to defeat in order to unlock the Lady Knight mercenary. Shadow Dungeons are designed to be tackled by groups of 2-3 players but it's entirely possible to solo one if you outlevel it by 10 or more levels. This video shows a 3-player party and is a good representation of what the combat in AO typically looks like.

Spirit of 76

2009-03-11T11:21:00.005-03:00

My character is currently level 76 in Atlantica Online and I'm in the middle of rebuilding my formation. When I turned 70 and became eligible to use the Prophet mercenary, I elected to change my build from a melee-heavy formation to a more flexible one by replacing my 2 Swordsmen and 2 Spearmen for some range/DOT/AOE options with a Witch, Archer, Artilleryman, and the Prophet. At first, this move doesn't make much sense as much of the Prophet's value is being able to buff and heal melee units with their passive Concentrate skill. But I'm counting on this skill to bolster my weaker tanks on the front line.

Joining the Beast Tamer up front to take the place of the Swordsmen are my Exorcist and my Axe main. It remains to be seen if my main will continue to be up front as he's still a bit squishy at this level without any accessories like an armored mount to increase his survivability. I can't wait to level these new mercs up to take them into Free League. My FL ranking took a dive from 10 to 11 as I've been concentrating on PVE to catch these guys up to speed. Depending on how this formation works out for me, I might swap a Swordsman back in to replace either the Archer or, more likely, the Prophet.

Atlantica Online Screenshots

2009-03-09T20:58:00.003-03:00

By popular Saylah demand, you can find some Atlantica Online screenshots here. Naraka is one of the solo bosses in the main questline. You can also find pics of my first ever winning Arena bet. Arena allows you to bet on NPC teams that face off against each other. Also, the Cute Bunny Suit and fishing seems to be popular in AO.

10 Tips For Atlantica Online Newbies

2009-03-03T12:11:00.004-04:00

Atlantica Online probably has the most extensive ingame tutoring and help systems available in any game that I've played. But even with all that, there are still some tips left to pass on that you won't find so easily in the game. The following is in no particular order with apologies to David Letterman fans.

1) There is no need to beware of strangers bearing gifts. If someone wants to give you a gift of gear or gold, there are no strings attached. AO gives an XP reward based on the gold value of the gift for anyone level 30+ who sends a gift to beginners under level 30. It's totally random who it goes to but thanks are always appreciated.

2) Unless the item is specifically a quest drop, in which case it will have a letter Q on the item icon, you can always buy items needed for quests from the Market. An example is the Basic Training quest from Master Goh which requires you to get him 10 pieces of Rough Leather. Ignore the quest text that says you can get them from the nearby deer. The Market has plenty for you to buy and will save you some time and effort.

3) The Market is what is known as an Auction House in other games. But there is also an Auction in the game as well that functions much like a real auction. Don't get the two confused. If an item says it can't be auctioned, it can still be put on the Market for you to sell.

4) Read your Notes. If the note icon is flashing, chances are you probably want to check out what it has to say. Everything from tips on defeating monsters to email notifications can be found there.

5) Make your Mentor work. If you accept an offer from a player asking to be your Mentor, make sure to put that person through his paces. Mentors receive 200,000 gold upon your reaching level 30. The good ones will have imparted aid in the form of knowledge, monster info, craft info, and even gifts. The really nice ones will give you give you most, if not all, of the 200k to you. If your Mentor is slacking, you can get rid of him from the Mentorship menu.

6) Free League is available at level 1. You can start your climb up the PVP rankings at any time. If you don't mind losing a lot and to higher levels with more mercenaries than you, then FL is a great way to have some fun and earn gold at the same time. The coins you receive from winning and losing can be cashed in right away or held for a rainy day as their value appreciates over time.

7) There are quests that earn you titles and the NPC's that give them out are found outside Athens. More info can be found here. It's best to start working on the titles you are interested in as early as you possibly can.

8) Speaking of which, http://aop.muwing.com/ is a great site in the Wowhead/Allakhazam vein with tons of useful info and utilities about the game. There are also great wikis out there with additional info.

9) Pressing the C key (you might need to try this multiple times) when your mouse is over an item icon will open up the relevant item info giving you details such as what is needed to craft it if it is craftable or which mobs drop them if you have the creature's drop info.

10) You can find out even more tips in this great thread.

Grouping in Atlantica Online

2009-02-27T14:22:00.005-04:00

You may think a MMORPG that gives you control of your own self-contained party of tanks, healers, and DPS would be one where you wouldn't have any reason to group up or even be social.

You couldn't be more wrong.

The main storyquest line is a long and ardous chain which is designed to be soloed. Indeed, the bosses you will encounter in this chain can't be fought in groups. But, eventually, you will find yourself with good reasons to venture into the Shadow Dungeons which are instances meant to be tackled in a group. Even though you can control a maximum of 9 characters, wandering monsters will join a fight in progress and you could see yourself in a 9 vs. 27 if you are particularly unlucky. Shadow Dungeons seem to have automatic adds as I've yet to see a fight in there where it was just 9 vs. 9. So grouping for those is the way to go unless you have gold to burn on Bewitching scrolls. Group battles can be really dynamic as it is possible to cross-buff and cross-heal between the different groups. Finding a group is particularly easy due to a Peer chat channel that only reaches those in the same level range as you. This filters out a lot of extraneous info and insures you get level-appropriate advice.

There are also many reasons to join a good guild as soon as possible. Each character has a hotbar that can be equipped with a potion or scroll they can activate with the appropriate function key. F1 and F2 are standard but the F3 key is only available to those who belong to a guild. F4 and F5 is unlocked when your guild controls a city. Monster and craft info can be freely traded between guildies and you gain access to the private guild dungeons and training center. Training centers are a low-level training ground for guild dungeons and are a great option for those guilds that don't have a lot of high-levels needed to run a GD. Guild dungeons are timed levels where you must clear out the different floors and finally the boss for your fat loots. Groups are capped at 3 players per but you can bring as many players and groups as you like for fast and easy runs. There are also Nation dungeons available for those guilds that belong in a Nation. Those high-levels that want to run instances apart from their guild or nation can run Independent Dungeons. Eventually, Nations will want to engage in war against another Nation and group combat takes another interesting twist with open PK 3v3 groups.

One thing to note is that there is absolutely no punishment for grouping in this game and you gain the benefits of grouping (in the form of extra XP) even when the group members are separated by geography and levels. This is known as Long Distance Grouping or LDP for short.

Crafting in Atlantica Online

2009-02-25T12:03:00.003-04:00

At first glance, the crafting in AO seems to be typical of other MMO's. You have your crafting levels with new recipes available upon reaching some arbitrary level. You gather up the materials and the crafting job constitutes a workload you have to work through to come up with the finished product. As an aside, there are literally no trash drops in this game. Chances are if you don't know what an item does, it is used as an ingredient for some crafting recipe somewhere. This will drive those with packrat mentalities bonkers as they come to grips with the limited inventory space. After you gather up the necessary mats and go through the steps to define your job and workload, you will then find out where Atlantica Online diverges from the norm.

Your crafting progress is fueled by the XP you get from killing stuff.

Sure, you could get an auto-craft license on the market or as a reward for a quest chain you get in your 40's. This license will allow you to craft in the traditional way without having to kill anything and is a great option for those crafters unable or unwilling to engage in combat. But it really is faster and more efficient to craft the other way. The process seems a little strange at first and not a bit counter-intuitive but, eventually, you get used to it and will appreciate the fact that you’re not tied to a forge or sewing table if you want to make something. Guild officers can even set up guild crafting jobs where the huge workload is shared by everyone in the guild and their kills contribute to its progress, provided they aren't doing their own personal crafting. You can learn as many crafting skills as you want and there are a huge variety to choose from. Everything from weapons, armor, food, potions, buildings for your towns, skill books, and even licenses needed can be crafted. I'd say that short of special items only available from the item mall or special quest rewards, everything found in this game can be crafted. The only limitations being that it takes some effort and quite a lot of gold in order to level up your tradeskills. There are even plans to introduce end-game gear that is crafting-only; a move that hasn't met with universal acclaim.

That's not the only new wrinkle to crafting in this game. You gain crafting levels (up to a max of 100) by gaining craft XP. Once you gain enough XP to go to the next level, you will then need to be trained up before you actually gain the new level. It's even possible to gain enough XP to gain several levels at one time. Training can be done by finding the appropriate NPC or a player high enough to train you. For example, you can begin to train others at level 11 and can train those levels 11 and below. The same goes for levels 21, 51, and so forth. Training takes a huge chunk of Will which limits how often you can do it but the trainer gets a crafting XP reward as well for doing this which can be a great way to level up your crafting on the cheap.

There are other ways to gain crafting XP. There's the normal way of personal crafting jobs but you can also gain it through the guild crafting jobs as well. When the job finishes, it awards crafting XP to those guildies who contributed to the progress. You also get XP from dismantling gear into materials you can then use to create new crafting jobs. Teaching others also gains you crafting XP as mentioned already. These alternate methods are a great way to level your crafting without having to shell out for expensive materials. For example, I was able to level up my Machine skill from 0-12 purely from the XP I got from one guild crafting job (admittedly it was a huge one) without having to scrounge up so much as one lugnut or whatever it is they need to make things from that craft.

Combat in Atlantica Online

2009-02-23T12:18:00.003-04:00

When creating your character, one of the first choices is the type of weapon your character will wield. This is equivalent to choosing your character class in other MMO's as the choice locks you into a set of skills you can learn and starting stats. The choices are sword, spear, axe, staff, gun, cannon and bow. With the most recent patch, two new weapons were added: instrument and power-saw with power-saw only available if you already have another main leveled to 100. Each class except for the new additions are roughly equal to the D class mercenaries that share their weapon type and they can learn all the skills available to that mercenary as well as main-only skills. For example, Staff mains can learn the healing spell Blessing of Life like Shamans but they can also learn the main-only skill Evanescent Scud which is an AOE attack. You can find a great page summarizing the different main character stats and abilities here.

Your very first quest in the game will have you hiring 2 mercenaries to aid you in your travels. At level 10 you will have an additional 4 mercenaries and gain the ability to add an additional one every 10 levels afterwards. At level 50, you will reach the maximum of 8 mercenaries available to be used in your formation. The starting D class mercs can be hired from a hiring NPC or you can find them wandering around and ply them with gifts to convince them to join your party. The ones later on will only be gotten from braving tough shadow dungeon quests or paying the exorbitant market prices for their summoning marble. Each mercenary brings something different to your group and much of the fun in this game is deciding exactly what the composition should be to maximize all the synergies between your units. This means every player is a self-contained holy trinity of tank, healer, and DPS and you won't ever find a LF1M - NEED HEALER in this game. This also means that if your side doesn't focus fire in PVP, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Muwing has another great page summarizing the different mercenaries here.

One of the first things you will notice in combat are the huge numbers over each unit in your party. These numbers tell you how many Action Points that unit has. AP is important in that it controls how many actions a unit can do over the course of a fight. Each main and mercenary has a different AP recharge rate which determines AP gain per turn. During the first turn, only one unit can act and that one is determined by whoever has the highest AP that initial turn. Since the recharge rate is random within a certain range, this can be any unit but the ones with the most steady range of recharge like Swordsmen usually will act first. After the first turn, 5 units can act with the same restriction; however, it is now possible for units to pass their turn to another one that isn't scheduled to act this turn. As long as the desired unit to act has 100 or more AP, the passing unit can choose the Guard option for a cost of 50 AP and pass their turn on. You might need to choose Guard on several units before the desired one is finally selected to be able to act.

You can tell which units can act that turn as they will have green rings around their feet. The unit currently being selected to act will have the green ring completely filled in. It takes a while to get the hang of if you're not used to this style of combat but it won't be long until you are ordering your units around and grinding PVE mobs with zen efficiency. There are boss mobs that will keep you on your toes and maybe even get you to change your strategy up in order to beat them. And PVP becomes almost chess-like as you and your opponent try to get past each other's defenses.

Atlantica Online - What Would Bartle Think?

2009-02-17T15:18:00.007-04:00

If you're a fan of customizing your character avatar to your exact specifications so that its unique look stands out from the crowd, Atlantica Online is not for you. The character creation options limit you to a small number of faces which look pretty similar anyways. The standardized armor system doesn't help either and you will find a number of clones hanging around the leveling areas.

If you are an explorer who just has to find out what is up that trail and behind the babbling brook, I can tell you right now there's nothing there for you to find. Everything can be found on your handy map/mini-map. Even supposedly hidden treasure chests.

If you love your fluff and cool pets that follow you around; sadly, AO is virtually fluff-free. What little there is usually purchased from the Item Mall. Even the usual vanity stuff like mounts, outfits, and titles have stats elevating them to the status of useful items.

But for everyone else, Atlantica Online has something that is sure to appeal to them. For the socializers, there are comprehensive guild and mentor/apprenticeship systems. They can communicate to peers of their level in the peer channel globally and will always be rewarded handsomely for lending a helping hand.

The killers will have their hands full with a combat system that plays more like speed chess than the usual hotbar mashing. There's plenty of PVE mobs to grind and when you get tired of those, there is a full-featured PVP league system (Free League) and weekly tournaments. If you are in a guild which belongs to an alliance of Nations, you might even find yourself embroiled in open PK called Wars.

The achievers will think they've died and gone to heaven as there are plenty of bars to ding. Level cap is 120 and there are also the 8 other mercenaries in your formation to level from scratch. Roughly 90% of all items found in the game can be crafted and there's many different crafting skills that you can learn. The aforementioned Free League also sets another bar to conquer as you PVP your way from rank 18 all the way to the top number 1 spot.

So go get your Bartle quiz done and see if AO is right for you. You really can't go wrong with the price of admission.

Atlantica Online

2009-02-10T13:15:00.006-04:00

This is a post that I've been meaning to write for some time now but have been putting off. But seeing the negative posts recently on some of the blogs I frequent, I thought I'd balance them out with a positive one.

I have to admit my first impression of this game wasn't a favorable one. I went in, as is my wont, having no previous knowledge of the title except that it was a F2P MMO of Asian design (I would later find out the developers are Korean). This explained the light anime graphic influence and the bad text translations to English. Neither of which were exactly endearing to me. The turn-based combat system was a pretty novel idea for a MMORPG but past experience has taught me I'm fairly bad at those types of games. Adding a timer to such a system certainly didn't help either. Instead of the typical MMO single character model, AO has you controlling up to 9 characters at once in a fight. These other characters are mercenaries that you can recruit or are given to you as a quest reward. About the only thing that impressed me right off the bat was the auto-move system. It was one of those now why don't more games use this feature moments. I would later have many more of those moments after spending some time with Atlantica Online.

So the game languished forgotten on my hard drive until I read this post and this post on Syncaine's blog. Wow, that certainly sounds interesting...what game was that again? Oh right, I already have that installed. Maybe I should take another look and see for myself some of these novel features he's talking about. I decided to do some research and find out more about this game. This led to a decision to reroll which wasn't that hard to make considering my original character was only around level 10 I believe. I began to get the hang of the combat system and I started to appreciate some of the unique features AO had to offer. The auto-move and enchanting system were just the tip of the iceberg. People actually are rewarded for being nice to noobies. I was bombarded with gifts in the mail containing gold and equipment and offers from strangers to be my mentor. Since I had done my homework, I knew that there weren't any strings attached like there would normally be in other games. Gift-givers get an XP reward based on a percentage of the gift's monetary value and mentors gain mentor points as well as a substantial gold reward after their students turn 30.

You know those other MMO's that seem to want to punish you for grouping for some reason? Not so here. There's no reason not to ever group as everyone gets additional XP as well as small XP books which can be saved up or used at your convenience. This system works even if the party is not in close proximity to each other and is typically known as LDP's or Long Distance Parties. Be careful of leechers and it's best to check with guildies first when doing this. Speaking of guilds, there is comprehensive support for guilds in this game. Guilds can control a town and multiple guilds can band together into alliances called nations. Nations can even go to war with one another which can result in players suddenly being able to attack one another. Other perks for guilds include access to guild dungeons and training centers as well as being able to add buildings to your growing town if you are the guild leader. The rank and file can also help out by convincing wandering NPC's to move to your town, doing town quests, and contributing to the guild crafting by killing mobs. But guild crafting is also a two-way street as everyone gains crafting XP as well just by being around when a guild crafting job is finally done. I've gained levels from different crafting skills without having to scrounge up one scrap of material because of this.

The graphics, especially the landscapes, can be stunning at times and not even the aforementioned auto-move system can detract from this. It actually enhances it, in my opinion, as you have more time to gawk at your surroundings when you don't have to worry about if you're heading in the right direction or not. The setting is a hodge-podge of eras from the real world with Spartans and Vikings fighting at your side along with the steampunk gunpowder might of Gunners, Cannoneers, and Inventors. The world map is very familiar as is the names of the cities and towns within it. Even the familiar is not to be taken for granted as I learned when I fought some camels with bulbous mouths for humps which spat out some deadly cannonballs.

This game's design reminds me a lot of Eve Online without the sandbox. In fact, there is a central storyline quest which will teach you everything you need to know about this game. But, like Eve Online, this game has features that dare to be different from your standard MMO. And all those features are tightly woven to produce a very complex MMO.

You say you want a revolution? Well, are you willing to make some time to play one then? If so, give Atlantica Online a serious try.

So Close...

2009-02-09T13:39:00.002-04:00

The current tower I am stuck at in Dragonspyre is called Edrik's Vault. The reason I guessed there were at least seven floors was that I happened to die on my best attempt at the seventh floor. So I now find out in this excellent post from the Wizard 101 Central forums (Great forums I highly recommend BTW to anyone wishing to learn more about this game) that there are indeed 7 floors to this particular tower.

So I died during the last floor.

I had lost all desire to try again after that attempt. But now that I know how close I was I'm probably going to try again to solo this monstrosity. Wish me luck.

Tower Power

2009-02-07T08:23:00.003-04:00

So it looks like the end of my soloing days in Wizard 101. I had a sneaking suspicion that Dragonspyre was meant to be tackled in groups in my previous post. This was confirmed when I came up against a tower instance that had at least 7 floors from what I had seen so far that would reset completely in the event of failure. 7 floors and 3 potions. I didn't like the math but was determined to try anyways. Even dinging during the middle of one attempt which acted like a fourth potion didn't help. There was no way I was doing this solo.

It got me to thinking more about the intended audience for Wizard 101. It's always amazed me and the more mature players I've grouped with how appealing this game is for adults. The difficulty level seemed way out of proportion for something you would expect a child to enjoy. I now think this wasn't by accident. The first world is easy enough but by the time the player reaches the second world, Krokotopia, the difficulty starts becoming too much for the average child. Who better to seek help from but your parents, then? So Wizard 101 wasn't really designed strictly for either kids or adults to enjoy. But for whole families. The revelation didn't exactly help my situation but it did soothe the rough feelings about it a bit.

I still want to fight that bastard Malistaire so if you have access to Dragonspyre and want to help or need help yourself, let me know. I won't promise to adopt you but I might say some nice things about you in this blog.

The Emperor's New Clothes

2009-02-04T13:52:00.004-04:00

"According to Jacobs, another way to measure success is to look at the number of servers a game has added in a six-month period. “The corollary to that is if you’ve seen a game consolidate servers, you know it’s in deep, deep trouble — that’s not a healthy sign for an MMO,” he said, citing Sony’s January-released “Pirates of the Burning Sea” as a recent example. “It will be the same for ‘Warhammer.’ Look at us six months out. Look at us six weeks out. If we’re not adding servers, we’re not doing well.”

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/...-is-overblown/

There's a point in the parable about the Emperor's new clothes where somebody finally has to tell the Emperor to please put some clothes on for the sake of everyone around him. I think we have reached a similar situation now that the EA report has put some hard subscription numbers to WAR for everyone to see.

300,000.

There will be those who will measure those numbers a success and also those who will measure it a failure. Regardless of what the numbers may mean, can we finally get server merges for those poor beleaguered servers that desperately need them? Success has been measured. Can we now at least put some pants on?

Free to Play - Enjoy it While You May

2009-02-03T11:33:00.006-04:00

I'm old enough to remember when TV used to be free. Drinking water as well. I remember thinking why on earth would I ever pay for something I can easily get for free? Heck, there was even a time when free Internet was more than a buzzword and NetZero really did live up to its name. But times change and we either adapt or we play around with the rabbit ear antennas still.

So it really mystifies me when I come across those who dismiss F2P (or Free to Play for us internet-savvy types) so casually out of hand. Yes, the games coming down the pike with this payment model may not be your cup of tea. But you will never know unless you try them. And trying them, get this, won't cost you anything but your time. Games are all about wasting time so I don't even want to hear about time being money.

For those who do find something to their liking, play the heck out of those games. Don't be afraid to throw a few shekels out to the developers. Goodness knows you don't want to assume that someone else is willing to finance this free ride. We all know what happens when we assume. While I'd like to think F2P will be here to stay, the pessimist in me isn't too sure. Only time will tell. Now excuse me while I sip my bottled water and surf the cable channels over my high-speed Internet line.

Dragonspyre Ratchets up the Difficulty

2009-02-02T11:10:00.007-04:00

One of the first things I noticed after I got my first "kill some wandering street mobs" quest in Dragonspyre was the increased HP's of the average mob. In Mooshu, the typical trash mob would have maybe 675 HP. In Dragonspyre, they tend to have around 1200 HP. This would necessitate a change to my typical deck design which had revolved around abusing Immolate for fun and profit.

Immolate is a Fire spell available as a reward after completing Krokotopia so only primary Fire wizards have access to it. For four pips, it deals 600 fire damage to an enemy and deals 250 fire damage to yourself. I had accumulated enough spell power gear that I was able to knock out around 700 HP's in one successful shot even without any charms or traps to augment the Immolate spell. With my Mooshu sword, 4 pips were almost always available during the second turn and sometimes rarely on the first. So unless the mobs were Fire and thus resistant to Immolate damage, I would face them with a 40 card deck that had 6 copies of Immolate increasing the odds that I would always see one on the first or second turn. Add in Fire protection shields that reduced any Immolate damage by 80% and fire resistant gear for even more fun.

The increased toughness of the random Dragonspyre mobs meant a halt to the Immolate festivities. The damage I was doing to myself would mean that I was just doing the surviving mobs a favor in killing myself. So this relegated Immolate to a closing spell to do the final damage to the last mob and increased the importance of my big-hitters, the 5 and 6 pip spells, Stormzilla and Helephant. This also meant an increase in the time needed to kill the pairs of common street mobs you typically come across when soloing. 1200 HPx2 is nothing to sneeze at especially when both mobs are constantly throwing hexes to reduce your spell's power and shields to reduce your damage. Fizzles are absolutely magnified in Dragonspyre as they go from being momentary nuisances to major time sinks.

The increased HP's are not the only feature of the increased difficulty in Dragonspyre. Tower quests are back which have you running through a gauntlet of floors without any health wisps to top you off between fights. Bosses also have some annoying features like one that has two companions wisps that do nothing but cast every protection shield known to man on the boss mob until you manage to kill them. I'm sure the increased difficulty is there to put the brakes on ardent soloers like myself and to increase the importance of grouping up in the endgame. It's all good if it means I have more time to savor the last 5 levels to cap in this game.

Dragonspyre

2009-01-31T23:26:00.003-04:00

Finished off Mooshu and got to Dragonspyre. I celebrated by going back to Sunken Temple and soloing that annoying instance. So good to finally get that entry out of my logbook. For an encore, I then went and dinged 45. A pretty productive day, I'd say.

WAR Update Plans

2009-01-29T10:38:00.002-04:00

Mythic hinted that a big announcement concerning future WAR content was coming today. They didn't actually say where it would be coming from. The first salvo seems to have been fired by Eurogamer.net. According to this post credited to GOA, it reveals the following revelations:

GOA has announced that a great big "Call to Arms" update for Warhammer Online will go live from March.

Top of the bill are re-instated classes Orc Choppa and Dwarf Slayer. Both are mirrors of one another: berserk, up-close brawlers with little regard for their own safety.

These will be introduced properly in March, but players can get a head start with the new classes by completing a live Bitter Rivals event slightly earlier. This event opens a Chaos-themed Twisting Tower RvR battleground, too.

The other big feature will be a Land of the Dead zone, home to an enormous new Tomb Kings dungeon that Mythic claims to be the spiritual successor to Darkness Falls from previous MMO Dark Age of Camelot. Here, remember, all factions fought openly - albeit after starting from separate corners of the immense underground chasm.

There were also tokens to collect from hellish enemies that could be spent on equipment sold by imps. And the further down players descended the much more difficult life became, culminating in an enormous boss encounter with the Legion - a screen-filling monster made up from thousands of corpses.

The Land of the Dead will be openly contested, then, and whoever controls the area will unlock the numerous public quests and instances associated with the zone.

The Land of the Dead opens fully in June, but realms will need to complete two previous live events for access. The first, Beyond the Sands, has yet to be detailed, but will happen in April.
The second event, Rise of the Tomb Kings, unlocks the Land of the Dead for each faction, and takes place in May.

On top of all this, Mythic will be finally implementing official Warhammer Online forums, adding extra Realm Wars functionality to the website, and offering a free trial versions of the game.

Plus, this Call to Arms update is just the first of the "live expansions" planned for Warhammer Online.

Planetside: Then and Now

2009-01-27T23:35:00.005-04:00

Good news. SOE was able to get back to me with the information of which one of my two old accounts has my Planetside character on it. Time has a way with fooling you sometimes so I got curious and dug up the character info page on WingedNazgul. Last logged on over 5 years ago when I left the game for City of Heroes. Back then, I was part of the Sturmgrenadier outfit which was infamous for their recruitment video. If you look real closely, you can see my tag around 3:55 and in other parts of the video. I seem to remember driving some of the Galaxies and Vanguards in some of those shots as well. As an aside, the guy who talks about nuking the tower would go on to be the guild leader for my first ever WoW raiding guild.

Cheesy voice acting and attempts at roleplay aside, the video does do a good job at depicting the level of organization we had in those halcyon days. At the height of the outfit and game's popularity, we had the ability to population lock whole continents (now planets it seems) by ourselves. Everything from teamspeak protocol to battlegroups organized around similar certs was handled with ruthless military efficiency. Sturmgrenadier started out in WWII Online and many of its founding members came from military backgrounds in real life. So it wasn't too much of a stretch to apply familiar doctrines to the new game. It was hardcore and I absolutely loved every minute of it.

When I log on to Planetside now and play, it's a whole different experience. It's a lot more casual now. You find out where your outfit squad is and go join them. If there isn't an outfit squad formed, you can pull up a list of squads and put a request in to join those instead. It's very similar to the open group mechanic in WAR. You get a feel for where the action is by where the majority of squads are operating from. But even if I join a full platoon of squads, there's very little direction given by the squad or platoon leaders. Everyone pretty much does their own thing although the CR5's still try to direct the flow of the war by barking out over global every once in a while.

But, hardcore or casual, the action in Planetside remains the same. Depending on enemy activity, it can range from boredom to frenetic scenes of carnage straight out of the best war movies. I just wish they would take a page out of Wizard 101's book and price their MMO more realistically. At $14.95 a month, I can't just can't see it. But at $9.95 a month, it would definitely make me think about it.

I'm Not Dead Yet

2009-01-26T09:39:00.009-04:00

Just haven't found anything interesting to write about apparently since I left WAR. I guess I could regale you all with tales of deck construction and synergy in Wizard 101 but I doubt that would excite many of you out there. Or how I fell in love again with the Phoenix Launcher and Gauss Rifle in Planetside. Yes, the Gauss Rifle. That much-maligned instrument of doom. Not as flashy as the Cycler or Pulsar but it gets the job done in the hands of a skilled user.

I had a very productive weekend on the Wizard 101 front. Dinged 35 and got to Mooshu with the help of some great friends, Suri Jadeshade and John Lifesinger. I know it's primarily a kid's game but soloing the instances you need to advance the storyline and move on to the next world is about as tough a challenge as any gaming achievement out there. Having them help me complete the last two instances I needed in Marleybone was a refreshing change of pace but the truth is I would've completed those instances solo if they weren't around and willing to lend a hand. I just wouldn't have blasted through them as fast as I did. Looking back at it, the gauntlet I had to run through would've been brutal to solo and any wrong decision on any single turn would easily have been fatal.

On the Planetside front, I hooked up with the RPS outfit and we went on our first major excursion as an outfit on Saturday. You can read about it here and I took a few screenshots of my own and placed them here. Dinged BR6 and got my first implant to be able to view the enemy's health finally. Juggling the certifications I needed for a viable skillset made me pine for my old BR20 CR5. So I put in a ticket to Sony thinking that they had deleted my old character but it turns out that the account I was using was not my old Planetside account. There are two accounts associated with an old email I was using at that time. Now I just need Sony to figure out which one of them has my old character in case I ever want to re-activate Planetside.

Speaking of which, SOE really needs a better pricing plan for PS. Bundling it up as part of a Station Access pass doesn't work for me as I'm not interested in any of their other games. And paying the normal $14.95 monthly fee for it alone doesn't work either. Sorry, but that's not a lot of value compared to what you can get elsewhere for the same amount. Judging from the player population the past week, Planetside is still a very popular niche game. I would imagine a more creative pricing plan would boost the paying population even more.

As for World of Warcraft, I have barely logged on since I bought the expansion. I just couldn't muster the minimum effort needed to even level my Paladin past 71. Not a good sign and one I took to heart as I cancelled my WoW account yet again. At least I'll have the expansion installed in case I ever decide to return to Azeroth.

From one WAR to Another

2009-01-19T08:16:00.005-04:00

I got an email this morning from one of my favorite e-columnists, Jim Rossignol. It seems I was chosen after I put my name into consideration to be one of the seventy representatives of Rock, Paper, Shotgun in their 3-way vs. The Escapist and Boing, Boing Offworld. The arena of choice: Planetside. The details of this event can be found here.

Believe me I didn't need that much of an excuse to check out Planetside again which was responsible for hooking me into the world of MMO's. Before Planetside, I had eschewed MMO's being happy with FPS'es as my online games of choice. The opportunity to represent RPS as well as free gaming time which included the latest expansions was too good to pass up. I was really hoping we'd be fighting on the Emerald server where I have a BR20 CR5 on ice unless SOE decided to delete him. But it looks like it's the Gemini server so I get to level one up from scratch.

So I sit here with the Station updater informing me my download is at 94% and reading various horror stories about Vista and its effect on this game's performance. Hopefully, I can rediscover some of my long-unused FPS skills to give a good account in this war.

Exit Survey - Warhammer Online

2009-01-15T11:38:00.004-04:00

Since there didn't seem to be an option to fill out an exit survey when I unsubscribed to WAR this morning, I thought I'd leave my thoughts about it here.

What was it you liked about WAR? Warhammer Online is an absolutely gorgeous game when you run it at the highest settings. The art and animations combine to make you feel as if you have stepped foot into a world only hinted before in lush tabletop battles. The character classes and customization are top-notch. The much maligned PVE, is for the most part, very well done with some unique innovations in the form of public quests and map rings. The PVP scenario designs and matchmaking system were a cut over those provided by previous games. Other innovative features like the Tome of Knowledge and the Bolster system deserve praise as well.

What was it you didn't like about WAR? The system bogged down whenever you get more than 2 groups on each side in close proximity to each other. Even though I could run the graphics on the highest settings while soloing in deserted zones, I was forced to run it on the lowest setting and animations disabled for most of the time if I wanted to see more than a slideshow. The keep and fortress designs need a revamp badly in my opinion. One can look at the High Elf fortress grounds and imagine a pitched battle like Helm's Deep occuring outside the main keep. But the reality is it's just so much wasted space as the real fighting in a contested keep always devolves to the stairway before the keep or fortress lord. A redesign of the zone locking system with more options and incentives for groups besides zerging is probably needed as well. While the gear grind for the sets you need to acquire to move through the endgame isn't as harsh as other games, it can still use some tweaking to remove some of the randomness. I'm fine with PVE or PVP, but I'm way too old for PVRNG shenanigans.

What games are you planning on playing after WAR? I have some unfinished business in WoTLK now that they raised the level cap to 80 and now's a good time to head back to WoW to check out the new goodies. I'm going to try and take it easy this time around which will leave me time to also enjoy the various free MMORPG gems I've discovered out there. Hopefully, Mythic will be implementing changes sooner rather than later to their game and I will be back to WAR before I know it.

Wizard 101 First Impression

2009-01-12T11:53:00.006-04:00

I kept saying to myself several times while I was playing Wizard 101 that I really should stop this and go do something else. But it was always just one more quest, one more boss and eventually I just gave in to just having fun in this game.

So this weekend was supposed to be where I'd get my White Lion to 20 and get the mount to make my leveling life a little easier. Instead, I decided to check off a couple more games on my to-do list and installed the free-to-play MMO's Atlantica Online and Wizard 101. Even without the updates on the game from Saylah and Tipa, I knew this was a title I would eventually check out on my own. Many moons ago, I had a voracious addiction to Magic: The Gathering and spent quite a bit of time playing the collectible card game. Also, while I've never read the Harry Potter books, I knew basically what the genre was about from the movies based on them.

Based on the little quiz that is given in the beginning, it turns out I was a Fire Mage. Since I had next to no clue what the different schools were about yet in the game, I just went with that result. As a secondary school, I picked Thunder thinking the best defense is a good offense. Now that I'm close to level 15, I'm thinking this build might not be all that suitable for soloing which I plan to do a lot of in this game. So I'll probably reroll as Thunder/Life before I get too much further in the game. Strange that in a game with such a young target audience, there isn't a respec system to redo bad decisions regarding your character class selection.

While the game is free to play, the amount of free content is pretty meager and it won't be long before you exhaust it all. I opted for the pay as you play option instead of a regular subscription but I knew in the first hour of playing that I'd eventually be plunking some money down to unlock the additional content.

Kudos the developers at KingIsle Entertainment for creating a game that appeals to both the young and young at heart. The graphics and animations are suitably bright and colorful yet look like they could run on almost any system. The world looks alive as you see tons of players run around. I must admit to feeling a little uneasy at the thought that most of these were really young children and I've found myself being more reticent than normal. The ability to jump in and help out in fights is fantastic and the cardgame mechanic is solid if a little elementary. I still need a guide to decipher all the card symbols and it won't be long before I pore over card lists and come up with the ultimate deck design. I can't wait.

Clarifying the Grind

2009-01-08T13:17:00.003-04:00

It seems I hit a hot topic with my stance towards the gear grind in WAR. I think some points were missed about grinding that were lost in the mad rush towards the torches and pitchforks to vilify the monster called Wards. So I'd like this opportunity to clarify my stance on grinding.

It is my belief that MMO game designers and developers are not the clueless sadists that most people make them out to be on the Internet. I believe they take pride in their work the same as everybody else. It's up to them to design the challenges and rewards that we as players must face in their games. But they can't account for how every single person will react to the content they design. Obviously, there will be those who find the challenges too easy and some too hard. As well, there will be those who think the rewards appropriate and those who think they aren't.

The grind is the feeling individuals get when they feel the reward doesn't quite fit with the effort involved in getting it. Normally, if you felt this way in a non-MMO game, you would just stop playing it altogether and look for some other way to waste your gaming time. But the subscription model of most MMO's means that this option is not taken lightly and is usually reserved as an option of last resort. And so are born the grinds that are undertaken in the name of character progression.

In summary, grinds are here until the day developers can develop mind-reading technology to custom-design every facet of their game to individual tastes. It's up to you to either embrace or reject these grinds. Nobody else can make that decision for you. For me, I enjoy leveling characters to max too much for it ever to be a grind. In much the same way, I just can't see grinding PVE instances over and over with the ultimate payoff being more glorified PVE encounters. That's not what I signed up for in this here RVR game.

Your mileage most definitely may vary.

The Daily Grind

2009-01-07T10:02:00.004-04:00

Grinding: Any activity which is not enjoyable but is tolerated because you know that it's good for your character's progression. That's my definition of grinding. Note this means that grinds are highly subjective and what is one person's grind can be another's font of enjoyment. This is why I can level so many characters to max when the thought of this is enough to make most people nauseous. For some strange reason, I love the sound of the ding and look forward to using the new abilities I gain every level. There's just something about completing quests that tickles the achiever in me. When those completed quests turn into the experience bar growing towards the next level, it's a double bonus to me.

On the other hand, I took one look at Mythic's setup for the endgame gear grind and just said pass. Basically, the ward system means you need to grind the lower level wards in order to tackle the next content in line. This ultimately leads you to equipping a set of gear that will enable you to survive the encounter to take down the opposing faction's king. While, in theory, this sounds glorious. The reality is that in order to do this efficiently you need to run around to different zones capping undefended battlefield objectives and keeps and hope you can win some gold bag lotteries. Then you have to hope to win the RNG lottery in the 3-day lockout instance of your choice. No thanks.

I'd rather just RVR for the sake of RVR. I'll check out those end-game instances eventually but I'm in no hurry to do it. If I happen to have a set of gear which will enable me to survive a fortress lord or city PQ or even a Chaos king when it's time to tackle them; great. If not, I can always help out in the defense of said encounters. You don't need wards to do that.

A Clean Slate

2009-01-05T16:14:00.005-04:00

That's what Tabula Rasa means in Latin.

Before the news broke about Tabula Rasa shutting down for good in February of this year, I really hadn't heard much about this game. What I did hear consisted mainly of advice to stay away from it and what a huge steaming pile it was. Since I like to form my own opinions, I decided to check this title out for myself before its self-destruct date. According to the official website, they had opened up free play from last month to February 28, 2009 which would be the last day for TR.

Here's the link with all the details. You will need to create a PlayNC Tabula Rasa account first. Then, you go to their support site and ask for an activation code. You can download the game client from the link or if you already have the PlayNC launcher installed you can install it that way. The request took just a few minutes for them to give me a code even though they warn that it could take up to 7 days because of the backlog of requests.

Here's an awesome site that will help you take your first few steps in this game. I've got to say that the limited time I was trying out this game made me sad that it would all be going away soon. The art direction and the world looks incredible. The unique FPS/MMORPG hybrid really works due in no small part to the work put into making a UI that would be comfortable to players coming from both genres. I understand that it's been polished quite a bit from its rough start which was responsible for scaring off the player base. If so, now's the perfect time to try it out before it's too late.

My Gaming Year in Review

2008-12-31T10:47:00.003-04:00

I started off this year where I had been for the past 4 years: in World of Warcraft. My guild was close to finally killing Illidan Stormrage and moving on to Sunwell Plateau. In between hardcore raiding and mats farming, I was leveling up the 7th or 8th of my 9 level 70's. After killing Illidan and putting Black Temple on farm status, I started to feel an ennui which even tackling the new challenges of Sunwell Plateau couldn't dispel. Around May and after finally leveling the last of my level 70's, I bid my guild goodbye to seek greener gaming pastures elsewhere.

The first stop was Age of Conan, based on the positive experiences I had during the Open Beta. Unfortunately, the experience I had during Open Beta which had a level cap of 20 proved to be the shining moment for this MMO. You know that standard warning for online games where they say: Game Experience May Change During Online Play? That's exactly what happened after level 20 in AoC. It soon became clear that the title was rushed out into production before important MMO mainstays like content and polish were applied. I think I lasted until level 63 before I stopped logging on which took about a month or so.

While I was waiting on Funcom to fix their game, I downloaded the trial for Eve Online. When I found out I was having more fun with the free trial than my subscription to AoC, I knew it was time for a change. In the second week of my 21-day Steam trial, I applied for and was accepted to Eve University. This was around June and Eve consumed my playing time as I strove to learn everything I could about this complex MMO. Started reading and following the various Eve blogs which inspired me to try my hand at this here blogging thing.

Around August, intrigued by the reports of various gaming blogs of the unique features of the upcoming game, Warhammer Online, I decided to pre-order the game which allowed me access to the Open Beta. Before this, I thought I might play this title but wait until a few months had passed in order not to repeat my AoC experience. At literally the last moment, I decided to apply for Casualties of WAR and they were foolish enough to accept my application.

Events after that have been covered already on this blog so I won't go into them again. I do want to mention that I've trialed some more games recently that were on my to-do list. Among them were Vanguard, Everquest II, Lord of the Rings Online, and even Tabula Rasa. Sadly, the title that I was most impressed with turns out to be Tabula Rasa which will unplug for good in a few months. I don't think I can ever get over the art direction in Vanguard and EQII enough to actually enjoy the gameplay offered. In my younger years, I would've jumped at the chance to live in Tolkien's world but now I just yearn for a good game to play and I don't think Middle Earth can really provide that for me. But we'll see as I still have some time left in the free trial.

I can't wait to see what the next year holds for the future of WAR and other MMORPG's.

Bright Wizard Diary: Epilogue

2008-12-29T08:16:00.003-04:00

This concludes the blog series I started about a month ago. Of the three classes I have leveled to 40 so far, the Bright Wizard was the most painful to solo with. Yes, being a DPS class meant kills came fast and furious. But the Combustion mechanic and the inability to handle multiple mobs meant more deaths as well. I'm a big fan of the slow and steady approach and not as much of the respawn and die again method of soloing.

Mythic needs someone that actually plays their game to handle the itemization for Bright Wizards. I went through almost all the chapters in all the zones in the game and not once was there an elite influence reward that tempted me to grind for it. Intelligence is, of course, our primary stat. Our secondary stats are the various survivability ones with Wounds being the front-runner because of our Combustion mechanic. Toughness and Initiative is always welcome as well as any resists you want to throw our way. We don't want Willpower. Yes, it helps with resists but other casters are not our bane. It's those pesky melee and the other stats will help more than Willpower will.

I didn't want to offer an opinion about the nerfing this class took but I will say that we were absolute monsters on the battlefield before the various changes and fixes. I'm fine with being reeled back into the pack but they need to take another look at Combustion along with the identical Sorceress mechanic. I feel they need to dial down the damage we take from it to make the ratio of risk versus reward more appropriate in light of the changes made.

For my next trick, I'll be working on getting my Ironbreaker some renown so I can wear some of this ward gear I have laying around. After that, a melee DPS class - most likely a White Lion.

Bright Wizard Diary: Days 34-37

2008-12-28T10:17:00.004-04:00

Day 34: Christmas Day. No time to log in to my Bright Wizard today so he got a boatload of rested XP. Ended the day CR37 RR26.

Day 35: I can smell the finish line from here. Finished off the chapter 18 quests in Thunder Mountain. Went through the entire Bonds of Fellowship epic questline that had me traipsing from zone to zone. As expected, I died multiple times doing the bits in Chaos Wastes with the zombie/undead spawns of doom packed around the quest area. No good gear rewards but awesome XP. Queued for all scenarios sporadically but Serpents was the one that popped the most. Finished off all the chapter 18 quests so I moved on to chapter 19 starting with Praag and also finally finishing off the Unholy questline. After that, it was off to Dragonwake for the chapter 19 quests there and finally to Thunder Mountain. There was a bit of a bug where it was impossible to finish one quest if you turned in another. A Prod in the Right Direction has you using a zapper to weaken a Hero mob blocking your way and a bag of black powder to gain access to a hidden dwarf city and a quest NPC who gives you the Champion of the Lost Forge quest series. If you turn in the Prod quest, you lose both the zapper and the black powder bag making it impossible to return to the quest NPC and turn in the completed Champion quests. Make sure you finish all the quests from that NPC before turning in the Prod quest back in the chapter 19 town. Started on the chapter 20 quests in Black Crag. Ended the day CR39 RR27.

Day 36: Weird thing I noticed when I logged on. There was a bag of black powder in my quest items where before there wasn't. Good thing I kept that completed Champion of the Lost Forge quest in my log instead of abandoning it. No zapper, though, so I was forced to kite the hero mob while I blew the hole in the tunnel. Got that quest completed and got a travel quest to Altdorf afterwards. After that, another quest to send me back to that remote NPC. Only trouble was the bag of black powder was gone again. Sigh. I sent another bug report in. I decided to finish off all the quests in the Dwarf pairings instead of the Elf lands like I did with the last two characters. It will take me a little longer due to the unfamiliarity but I figure the new content will be more enjoyable and there's always warDB if I get stuck. I wasn't even going to try the Empire zone; Chaos Wastes undead hordes for the lose. Order managed to lock Dragonwake so we got Caledor Woods as a new scenario to queue up and no Serpents. Pretty enjoyable change of pace unless you get a scenario with seven Bright Wizards like I did. No way were we going to hold the ground needed to win with that group setup. Also found another bug with the quest, The Grudges of Karak Drazh. In the part where you have to find these books or chronicles, it seems they moved the items to new locations. The trouble is they forgot to update the map circles. Read the newest comment on warDB for the new locations. Finished off the chapter 20 and 21 quests in Black Crag and moved on to chapter 22 in the same zone. I wanted to push to 40 but just ran out of steam at 90%. Ended the day CR39 RR27.

Day 37: Finishing up the chapter 22 quests in Black Crag. Too early in the day for scenarios so none popped. With the rested XP, it didn't take me long to get the 10% I needed for rank 40. Here's the screenshot of the time it took me. I was a little more efficient this time around ingame than with my previous 2 40's according to this post. But it took about the same real time as my Ironbreaker; about 5 weeks according to this diary. No surprises there really. Ended the day CR40 RR27.

Bright Wizard Diary: Days 31-33

2008-12-25T06:54:00.000-04:00

Day 31: Started to take the Bright Wizard out for a spin but just wasn't feeling like leveling today so I put him back in Altdorf to get some more rested XP. For some reason, the holiday bonus is having the opposite effect on me that it does on others and making me less inclined to play my toon. Maybe it's because I know that I can really take advantage of it to level even faster than I usually do. This makes me feel like I have more time to goof off and still keep up my usual leveling pace. Ended the day CR36 RR26.

Day 32: I finished out the chapter 18 quests in Praag and still had that Unholy epic questline hanging around from chapter 17. But the questline had me going to the chapter 19 area of Praag so I thought I'd leave that for when I got to that chapter. So I went to Dragonwake to work on the chapter 18 quests in that zone. Remember what I said about the cyclical nature of scenarios? It seems Destro is suffering from not being able to win a scenario now for whatever reason. It's my opinion that the cyclical nature owes a lot to the fact that you can't queue scenarios as a warband and I hope Mythic never caves in to the whiners demanding such a feature. I enjoy not knowing if I am going to win or lose instead of dreading every queue like I eventually did with WoW battlegrounds and their premade groups. Ended the day CR36 RR26.

Day 33: 'Twas the day before Christmas and my Bright Wizard was burning through all the rested XP Santa Mythic had given him. I had finished off all the chapter 18 quests in Dragonwake except for the Awakening epic questline. So I headed out to Thunder Valley to start on the chapter 18 quests there. There was a good grouping of quests in Cinderfall, which is a subzone of Thunder Mountain. Unfortunately, like all the other subzones it was impossible to queue scenarios from there. I worked around this limitation by binding to the chapter 18 town and scrolling back every once in a while to fly out to a zone where queueing was possible. There were 2 groups of Keg's End NPC's right next to each other in Cinderfall so I also worked on my Live Event influence as well whenever they respawned. Ended the day CR37 RR26.

Happy Holidays

2008-12-24T10:41:00.004-04:00

Whatever it's called and whatever faith you believe in, holidays are a wonderful time to share with friends and family. Sometimes, memories of loved ones are all that we have now so be sure to make many more with the ones that are still with us. Here's hoping that the holiday spirit lasts throughout the year.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Kwanzaa everyone!

Bright Wizard Diary: Days 28-30

2008-12-22T08:13:00.004-04:00

Day 28: Didn't touch the Bright Wizard. Strictly Dungeon Runners and then logged on my Ironbreaker for some epic open RVR. Patch 1.1d had fixed an issue where the Dragonwake scenarios weren't contributing their victory points correctly, making Dragonwake impossible to lock. Tonight, Order locked it first then moved on to Caledor before being pushed back all the way to our fortress. Then I and many other Order logged on to push them all the way back to Caledor again. Good times. Ended the day CR35 RR25.

Day 29: Since the Unholy epic quests were all that remained for me to do in Praag, I turned my attention back to the rest of the chapter 17 quests in Dragonwake. This meant going back to the Isle of the Dead. I had enjoyed this zone before as one packed with quests that when completed was usually enough for a level or so. But for some reason I was having problems doing them as a Bright Wizard. It could be the island's mob density and fast respawns were not conducive to a squishy that couldn't heal themselves. Also, I don't remember the Screamer mobs being level 42 before. That seemed out of place for a zone with chapter 17 quests so I sent in a bug report for those. Whatever the reasons, I made one death run after another. After I had about enough of doing those, I decided I'd much rather be doing something else so I ported back to the Altdorf to take advantage of the increased rested XP Mythic was giving out over the Holidays. Ended the day CR35 RR25.

Day 30: Started the day creating a brand new White Lion alt to level up to 5 before parking her in Altdorf for the increased rest XP. Kimba was already taken as a name, so I went for Kimbah instead. Then some Dungeon Runners and Tabula Rasa before football came on TV. After watching my Eagles lay an egg against their rival Redskins, I turned my attention back to WAR and my Bright Wizard. Being an obstinate SOB, I gave Isle of the Dead some more tries. Managed to finish the quests there save for the one that had me killing 6 of the level 42 Screamers. It wasn't happening at my present level of 35. I then moved on to the chapter 18 town in Praag to clear off those quests. Ended the day CR36 RR26.

Bright Wizard Diary: Days 25-27

2008-12-19T08:23:00.007-04:00

Day 25: Spent most of the day playing my Guild Wars trial. But I did manage to get that out of my system as I got my guy up to level 7 and past the Sundering event. I was able to spectate a GvG match which is the GW equivalent of a keep siege. Very interesting to be able to watch any PVP match I wanted and it was pretty enjoyable but, Holy Cow, did that really just say the match has been going on for 4 hours already? Pretty hardcore, that. Unfortunately, I then installed the trial to Dungeon Runners. Ended the day CR34 RR24.

Day 26: Keg End Live Event starts today. But even that wasn't enough to tear me away from the Dungeon Runners trial. This thing can be seriously addictive. It's like Diablo crossed with Monty Python as an MMO. You know those guys that rant on MMO forums how their game would be different if they ever got around to making one? The devs are those guys. Ended the day CR34 RR24.

Day 27: Finally decided to stop my slacking and get some leveling done. But first, some Dungeon Runners. I am so gonna buy myself the retail box for an early Christmas present. I needs my Bling Gnome, yo! Had previously cleared off all chapter 17 quests in Praag with the exception of the Unholy epic series. This quest series provided me with a few 10k XP rewards. I love epic quests. Hooked up with a Warrior Priest as I headed into some Skaven caves and he was kind enough to share 2 quests I completed along with the one that sent me in there. That saved me a return trip and also was good for some additional XP I didn't have to go out of my way to get. Ended the day CR35 RR25.

Trials and Tribulations

2008-12-17T11:18:00.006-04:00

So I let my subscription to Eve Online expire yesterday. Rather than be content to have some extra cash laying around especially with the coming holidays, I found myself looking around for a possible replacement. There's a whole bunch of MMO's I've been meaning to trial but have never gotten around to for one reason or another. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to go through my mental list if only to discover if there were any hidden gems I'd been depriving myself of.

I wanted to try out LoTRO but discovered there was no way to install a free trial short of borrowing someone's install discs. Seriously? In this day and age, why is this still the only possibility? Next up was Guild Wars. The lack of a monthly fee marked it as a serious contender for a second MMO along with my current WAR subscription.

In the few days of playing the trial, I've come to the conclusion that this game would not fit in very well as a casual alternative for the times when I don't feel like logging on to WAR. It looks and runs great on my system but, to really get the most out of the game, you really need to be hardcore about the PVP. While in another place and time, I would be all over Guild War's unique gaming concepts; that time has long since passed for me I think. I will keep an eye out for Guild Wars 2 which is being developed at the moment.

While I had the NCPlay launcher open, I scanned the other offerings available. Hmmmm....Tabula Rasa, I really should try that out while I still can. Dungeon Runners, didn't know that was published by NCSoft. This was one title which had completely flown under my gaming radar. I knew almost nothing about it save its name. Even then, I thought it was a Dungeons & Dragons Online clone because of that name. Still the price to buy and play: free with more content available with a $4.95 subscription fee seemed like it wouldn't hurt to try it.

Letting the launcher download the necessary install files for Dungeon Runners, I thought I'd read a few reviews just to see what exactly it was I was getting into. After reading a few, it turned out this game was not really a DDO clone but something which had me actually impatient to get on with playing the game instead of waiting for it to download and install. The brief time I had left before it was way past time to get to bed convinced me that this game is definitely a hidden gem.

If you play MMORPG's, and why would you be reading this blog if you don't, do yourself a favor and try Dungeon Runners out. It reminds us that even with MMO's being serious business and all, a little mindless fun is never a bad thing when you play games.

Bright Wizard Diary: Days 22-24

2008-12-15T12:10:00.004-04:00

Day 22: Started on the chapter 16 quests in Eataine. The first two scenarios of the day were Howling Gorge. Got tired of Order being content to engage in a massive scrum with Destro without making any attempts to try and score or prevent them from scoring. So I decided to queue up Serpent's Passage and Dragon's Bane exclusively the rest of the day. Serpent's, while ubiquitous, was one scenario Order seemed to have a handle on. Dragon's Bane because I had never seen it pop ever. It's like my Holy Grail of scenarios now. One day I will see its loading screen at the very least. I took advantage of Order locking the Eataine, Kadrin Valley, and Reikland zones to run the RVR lake travel quests for some quick, easy XP. After finishing up the quests in Eataine, I then moved on to chapter 16 in Reikland and then on to finish Kadrin Valley. Ended the day CR33 RR24.

Day 23: The chapter 17 quests got a bit tricky. Originally, I started out in the eastern part of Dragonwake. After I quickly finished off the quests in the surrounding area, the next batch had me going north to the Isle of the Dead zone. The zone is annoying in that it is tightly packed with mobs higher than my current level and you can't queue for any scenarios from there. If you die, you respawn south in Dragonwake and have to make the run back north again. After a few untimely deaths, I went with plan B: finding a more appropriate chapter 17 zone to level in. I found it in the Dwarf zone even though it was a bit of a hassle running to the chapter 17 town from the warcamp. After clearing out all the quests there, I moved on to chapter 17 in Praag. Ended the day CR34 RR24.

Day 24: Continued clearing the chapter 17 quests in Praag. Installed an awesome new quest tracker mod called Kwestor. It provides a much clearer display of your quest progress and you can even set it to filter your quests by zone. Pretty darn cool. Was going to be time limited today so didn't even bother with scenarios. Well, I did optimistically queue up for Dragon's Bane which, of course, didn't pop. Broke early to watch the Monday Night Football game. Go Eagles! Ended the day CR34 RR24.

Bright Wizard Diary: Days 19-21

2008-12-13T10:01:00.005-04:00

Day 19: Finished off the rest of the chapter 14 quests in Badlands which left me in a quandary. I would have to move to a T4 zone to continue questing but I was loathe to queue up for T4 scenarios at my present level of 30. I had no problems starting on T4 scenarios at 30 with my Warrior Priest and Ironbreaker but for some reason I was really dreading it with my Bright Wizard. I found out that I wasn't eligible yet for all the T4 scenario quests so I decided to wait until the next level when they should be unlocked for me. In the meantime, there was much shuttling about with flight masters as I queued scenarios in Averlorn while I started questing in Eataine. Said goodbye to my awesome dragon staff as one of the last Badlands quests I did rewarded me with the typoed Surpressing Staff. I couldn't resist the combination of high Wounds and Intelligence stats on it so it was back to wielding a fiery broom of death. Order was making another push after their success yesterday in locking 3 zones so I logged over to my Warrior Priest. Ended the day CR31 RR22

Day 20: Patch day cometh. Looks like there were quite a few changes to the UI with 1.1 resulting in some broken mods. Chief among them zMailmod and AutoDismount. Found a link to a fixed zMailmod zipfile on the Curse page and a simple lua edit fix to AutoDismount on the WHA UI forums. If I can just get WindowCleaner working, I'll be in UI hog heaven once again. I tried my best to ignore the squeals of delight from my guildies on Vent and guild chat as they recounted the tales of intense RVR action that exploded in every tier it seemed on my server. The weird part was even with this open RVR-mania, the T3 and T4 scenarios I queued up seemed to pop pretty regularly. Finished the chapter 15 quests in Eataine and dipped my toe into T4 scenarios with my Bright Wizard. As I feared, it was a glut of Serpent's Passage that featured my lowbie Bright Wizard dying in a number of gruesome ways to the higher level Destro in there. Nobody seemed to be taking advantage of the new main assist button which annoyingly did not want to stay where I moved it to. Found some new quests added in Eataine which was a nice surprise. After I finished up all the Eataine chapter 15 quests, I decided to reward myself by flying to Averlorn to queue up T3 scenarios where I could lord it over the lowbies for a change. I found one of the new chicken run quests in that warcamp that had me scouting the objectives in the T1 RVR lake as a chicken. My reward was the title Bawk, Dont Run. Ended the day CR31 RR23.

Day 21: Moved on to the chapter 15 quests in Reikland. One thing I've noticed is the lack of PQ influence rewards that appeal to my Bright Wizard. It's a mixed blessing as this means I'm not tempted to solo grind the influence like I did too many times with my Warrior Priest and Ironbreaker. Looking back, it wasn't worth the time better spent leveling and getting to higher levels where better gear awaited me. Scenarios weren't too productive for me today so I decided to queue them only when I needed a break from questing. Finished the chapter 15 quests in Reikland so that left only Kadrin Valley for that particular chapter. Tried to squeeze in some T3 scenarios when I could figuring I might as well while I still qualified for them. Dinged just as I finished off the last of the chapter 15 quests in Kadrin Valley. Pretty good timing. Reluctantly, I abandoned the unfinished T3 scenario quests from my Tome for the last time. Ended the day CR32 RR23.

1.1 Patch First Impressions

2008-12-12T07:54:00.003-04:00

The Good: The new RVR influence system seems to be igniting open RVR across all the tiers of my server yesterday. It remains to be seen if this will persist after the new shiny phase. A lot of welcome additions to this game which, while individually small things, add up to a lot more polish. Sigmar knows this game needs it. Some prime examples were the item linking and right click menus on names in chat. Renown gear got a makeover and I found out my Warrior Priest was eligible for a second piece of Annihilator's without any extra renown grinding needed. Sweet!

The Bad: Some UI mods were broken. Not a big deal if you go default but really annoying for those who like their copious mods. Even the default UI exhibited rather strange behavior like buffs that behaved like bad dinner guests and simply wouldn't go away and a main assist button that would not stay put if you decided it was better somewhere else on your screen. Mythic decided to add some more money sinks in the form of increased flight master and merchant dying fees. They have since rolled back the cost of using the flight master to their 1.06 values but it was quite a shock to find out it would cost you almost a gold if you wanted to fly anywhere.

The Ugly: The client stability and performance was a mixed bag. I suffered more CTD's than usual yesterday. Scenario performance was very good even with all effects enabled. So good I'm tempted to up them from its fastest framerate settings. I didn't participate in any open RVR so I couldn't tell you first-hand how it held up with a mass of players around. Reports on Vent were positive but reading the forums and some blogs, it looks like the client took a few steps back in regards to mass mob action. There was another fortress zone crash last night on our server after I had logged off for the night so that is still a work in progress, it seems.

Bright Wizard Diary: Days 16-18

2008-12-09T23:49:00.010-04:00

Day 16: Finishing the High Elf chapter 13 quests meant an end finally to the epic questline, Control. When a quest is labeled as epic it usually means a number of quests that send you all over the place with a rare (blue) reward at the end of it. This epic questline started in chapter 10 Averlorn and finally ended in chapter 13 Saphery. The quest reward was a very nice staff reward that had a unique look that was a change of pace from the regular fiery broom of death I've been wielding for quite some time as seen here. Didn't have much time for leveling between watching football and a guild Bastion run which I tanked with my Ironbreaker. I did finish up all the Talabecland quests except for the last 2 set in the PQ Unterbaum Castle. Wait until you get both quests to send you there so you don't have to run this crowded, fast-spawning gauntlet twice like I did with earlier characters. Ended the day CR29 RR21.

Day 17: Noticing that PVP survivability in T3 has gone down compared to T1 and T2. If melee gets to me, my only hope is Fire Cage which at this level most of them will have a counter to get rid of it. I usually don't survive long enough after to try anything else. So I have to play with my head on a swivel and get ready to start running away the second one of them looks at me funny. Finished up the Unterbaum Castle quests so that left only the Dwarf lands for the remaining T3 quests. Headed for the chapter 14 quest hub and finally won a Doomfire Crater for the first time in 4 days of trying. Huzzah! Finished a few of the chapter 14 quests in the Badlands before I dinged 30. Unlocked the flight masters to the T4 warcamps so I did the travel quests to them for quick and easy XP. It sure beats having to ride up to each of the warcamps in question. Ended the day CR30 RR22.

Day 18: Kept plugging away at the chapter 14 quests in Badlands and queueing for scenarios. The most competitive scenario for T3 Order right now is Toc Anroc and I've been having some fun with my morale ranged knockback in there. Did the Buying Time and Ancient Horror quests which sends you scampering Indiana Jones-style on elevated bridges set high over a precipitous canyon and eventually through a long, twisting cave to the bottom of said canyon. Do yourself a favor and get both quests before setting out on this lovely jaunt. I made the mistake of not doing this on a previous character and just deleted Ancient Horror rather than slog through that mess again. The call went out to Order to take some of our zones back from the grubby Destro so I logged on my Warrior Priest cutting short my leveling for the night. Ended the day CR30 RR22.

Pie in the Sky

2008-12-09T12:13:00.005-04:00

Remember what I said about a time and place for Paul Barnett's brand of humor? Trying to place the blame of a faulty RVR contribution system on the fellow employee next to you: not really. Playing damage control so you don't come off looking like a total jerk : spot-on.

Random Thoughts

2008-12-08T13:29:00.002-04:00

Paul Barnett's video regarding the coding goof in RVR contribution was very informative if a little squirm-worthy. After I watched it, I thought to myself: self, did I just watch what I thought I just watched? There's a time and place for Paul's brand of dry British humor, but that wasn't it I'm afraid.

Official forums most often are nothing more than a wretched hive of scum and villainy. But they are also very much needed if you want to project yourself as a grade A MMORPG. Doling out info to the masses via fansites just isn't the same thing, no matter how much spin you put on it.

My Eve subscription runs out on the 16th of this month. The 30-day pilot licenses have actually gone up in price since I bought my first one and not down as I thought they eventually would. My passive isk generation can barely cover the cost of another month so it looks like it might be time to shut down my account for a while. But I have said this before only to extend my subscription when push came to shove.

Bright Wizard Diary: Days 13-15

2008-12-07T08:44:00.006-04:00

Day 13: Dufftimers got picked up by another author and was updated for 1.06 today. Now I can get rid of these laggy, ugly default buff icons. It seems like much of the lag was due to the default buff icons and going back to Dufftimers improved my client performance in scenarios immensely. Turned all effects back on so I can spot those nasty purple puddles. Still some issues with Dufftimer not being able to just display your own debuffs on hostile targets but at least it's working again. Destro already had some lower 20's Blackguards in the T3 scenarios I queued up today. A shame I didn't see any Order KoTBS in there as well. Just what I need - another melee class to chase me around. Mopped up the rest of the quests in Averlorn including the problematic Control quest set inside a troll cave. Then I did the same thing with the chapter 12 quests in High Pass. All that was left was chapter 12 in the Dwarf Lands. This chapter town is located in Black Fire Pass, not Badlands. Chapter 13 in Dwarf tier then doubles back to Badlands again. Started on a few of the quests in there before turning in for the night. Ended the day CR27 RR19.

Day 14: T3 Order can't seem to win any scenarios whenever I queue up anymore. I think I may have won one Tor Anroc all day. Rather than blame this on class or faction imbalances, I like to think these things are cyclical. I can certainly remember stretches where it seemed Order couldn't ever lose a scenario. I can't wait for the default main assist button in scenarios coming soon in 1.1. I certainly saw some instances yesterday where our side could've benefited from having such a tool. Finally saw some low level KoTBS in the T3 scenarios. One tip for ranged DPS is a handy dandy mod that can do many things: TheSeeker. I like to set mine to look for healers as they can be hard to spot at range especially if they are bunched up. I finished up Dwarf chapter 12 in Black Fire Pass so I set out to Saphery to start on the High Elf chapter 13 quests. Finished those up so I headed south to the chapter 14 hub. Order put a call out for all able-bodied T4 players to assemble in Praag for a takeover attempt. So I logged over to my IB who needed the renown more than my WP. Ended the day CR28 RR20.

Day 15: It's becoming more apparent that this current crop of Order has no idea what it takes to win at Doomfire Crater. It's a shame as I have enjoyed this scenario in the past before on my WP and IB. But when every single time it pops the scenario quickly devolves into them camping our spawn, it's time to do something else. Like the old joke about the guy complaining to his doctor about how his arm hurts every time he does this, I'm taking the doctor's advice when he says: "Well, then don't do that." Luckily, this is easy to do with a handy mod called Join Selected Scenarios. This addon pops up an additional window at scenario select with a list of the available scenarios and checkboxes along with a Join Selected Scenarios button. Very nice when you don't feel like queuing for that really annoying scenario. Finished up the chapter 13 quests in Talabecland which cleared out all the pairings and made it time to move on to chapter 14. Now that I'm doing these diaries, I'm paying more attention to the chapter names of the quest hubs. Before, I paid about as much attention to them as I did the quest descriptions. Finishing off the current chapter in each pairing before moving on to the next chapter should result in more efficient leveling than my previous freeform strat. Destro was feeling froggy as they went and locked down Kadrin Valley and started moving on to Stonewatch Fortress. I logged out my BW and logged my IB on for some fortress defense. Afterwards, I knocked off most of the chapter 14 quests in Saphery. Ended the day CR29 RR21.

The Return of The Case of the Missing T4 Scenarios

2008-12-06T09:49:00.003-04:00

If you remember from this post, I posited that the missing T4 scenarios were not actually missing but rather locked out due to the nature of the T4 zone control system. Since our guild's move to the more populous Badlands, I've had the chance to see these normally locked zones become contested and note which scenarios are associated with them. So here is the list I have compiled so far:

Dwarf vs. Greenskins

Kadrin Valley - Gromril Crossing
Thunder Mountain - Thunder Valley & Logrin's Forge
Black Crag - Howling Gorge

Empire vs. Chaos

Chaos Wastes - Maw of Madness
Praag - Battle of Praag & Grovod's Cavern
Reikland - Hills of Reikland

Hish Elves vs. Dark Elves

Caledor - Caledor Woods
Dragonwake - Serpent's Passage & Dragon's Bane
Eataine - Blood of Blackcairne

[EDIT: 1/7/09] Since this page gets a lot of hits, I thought I'd update it with confirmation that the Caledor and Eataine scenarios are, in fact, correct. [/EDIT]

After looking at this list, there does seem to be some missing T4 scenarios, after all. Fragendorf Castle and Skaven Caverns don't seem to be associated with any zone. So I have no idea if they are actually playable or not yet their associated quests still linger on in the game.

A mystery for another day, it seems.

Bright Wizard Diary: Days 10-12

2008-12-03T22:51:00.005-04:00

Day 10: Finished up the chapter 10 and 11 quests in High Pass. Destro must be having an off day today in the T3 scenarios. Saw such oddities as a Doomfire Crater win with only a Warrior Priest as the sole healer and me ninja-ing a Highpass Cemetary cap while about 10 Destro were chasing a Witch Hunter around. Never mind the bright orange guy carrying a fiery staff. I finally get to rank 25 and get Rain of Fire which is the Bright Wizard equivalent to the Sorcerer's purple puddle. I also finally get Nova in the Incineration tree which will add some more burst damage. The one Tor Anroc I was able to get in before turning in for the night shows some promise with the new abilities I must say. Rank 25 also unlocks the warcamp travel quests so I was sure to complete those for some quick and easy XP. Ended the day CR25 RR18.

Day 11: 1.06 Patch Day. Waited for the servers to come up after work and then spent the next hour or so redoing the mastery points of my Ironbreaker and Bright Wizard. Found out I had to redo my Renown training as well as any tome tactics I had previously learned. Then had to fix and replace all the broken mods brought on by the patch. Biggest hit was DuffTimers and I had to settle for the ugly default ones for now. Everyone and their brother was out in the newbie Empire zone rolling Knights except for me, it seemed. Since I had finished off chapters 10 & 11 in both the Order and High Elf zones, I figured I'd do the same now for the Dwarf zone. The chapter 10 quests had some grey mobs that gave no XP when killed but they were easy to do so I completed them for the completion reward anyways. Moved on to the chapter 11 hub in Badlands and started on those quests. I decided to call it an early night as I was feeling a bit tired. Ended the day CR25 RR18.

Day 12: Mythic claims the new client is supposed to improve stability and reduce lag. I don't know as my experience seems to indicate the opposite. I had to set effects to self only in scenarios where before I was able to run all effects enabled. Even then, the performance of the client was still bad and my performance in the the scenarios suffered as well. Finished up the chapter 11 quests in the Badlands. Destro then locked Reikland and were marching on the Reikwald Fortress...in prime time. This should be an interesting test of the new client's capabilities so I switched over to my Warrior Priest. By the time I got to the fortress, Destro had already broken through the outer walls. Slideshow time...followed by the inevitable client crash; several of them as a matter of fact. I switched over to my Ironbreaker as I figured I'd be a more effective defender now that Destro was pushing into the inner keep. That was when the server decided to get in on the crashing fun and when it came back up, it seemed that Praag had reset. I can only imagine what choice curse words Destro was throwing out there as Order quickly decided to fly out to Praag and grab back the keeps and BO's. Placed 32nd in the first keep siege and 1st in the second and got a massive loot bag for my efforts. So I got my second Annihilator piece (shoulders) for my IB. Now I just need to grind up the renown to wear them. After that, I decided to get back to leveling my BW as it seemed like the open RVR was dying down. Headed back to Averlorn to finish up the chapter 12 quests there. Ended the day CR26 RR18.

WAR 1.06 Open RVR Changes

2008-12-02T12:49:00.004-04:00

They snuck some last-minute additions to the 1.06 patch notes that many might not be aware of. In the Realm vs. Realm section is this bit of welcome news:

Realm vs. Realm

Based on player feedback we have made some additional changes to Tier 4 Victory Point contribution. The following changes will reduce the amount of time necessary to capture a Tier 4 zone as well as place more emphasis on open field RvR:

Battlefield Objectives and Keep contributions have been increased.
PvE contribution has been decreased.
Prior Zone control contribution has been decreased.
The amount of Scenario Victory Points to take a zone has been decreased.

This will indeed place more emphasis on open field RvR. Combined with my guild just graduating a batch of 40's, this may lead to less alt leveling time for me and more play with my 40's. I will, of course, keep chronicling my Bright Wizard's progress but the updates may be fewer and far between.

Bright Wizard Diary: Days 7-9

2008-12-01T08:36:00.006-04:00

Day 7: Having hit the High Elf and Order T2 zones, I wanted to next check out the Dwarven zones. Questing in the Dwarven zones can be tricky for a number of reasons. Unlike the other zones, the chapters can ping-pong between both zones which irritates the completist in me that likes to complete one zone before moving to another so he doesn't ever have to go back to the previous one. For example, Chapters 5 & 6 are set in Marshes of Madness. Chapter 7 has you taking a brief tour of Barak Varr before you come back to Marshes of Madness again for Chapters 8 & 9. Navigation can also be tricky as suspension bridges mean going from point A to point B isn't always as simple as it looks. First thing I did was fly to Barak Varr and start walking south to head towards Marshes of Madness and check out Chapters 5 & 6. I noticed the mobs I would be killing for those quests would be grey to me so I abandoned them to make room in my log except for Eye for an Eye. This one needed me to kill 80 players so I kept that. I figured I would be able to complete that eventually without too much added fuss before I outleveled T2. So I skipped almost all of Dwarf chapter 5 & 6, finished up chapter 7 and made my way down to 8 & 9 in Marshes of Madness. I cleared out chapter 8 and got to the chapter 9 hub; now would be a great time for some Mourkain queueing as the warcamp to turn in both Mourkain quests was right next door. Dinged 20 and couldn't wait to get my mount. Finished Dwarf chapter 9 and since I had cleared all the Order and Dwarf T2 quests, all that was left was the Ellyrion zone. Destro was making a push towards locking Reikland and making a move towards the Reikwald fortress so I hopped on my Warrior Priest to help out on defense. Ended the day CR20 RR14.

Day 8: Finished up the rest of the Ellyrion quests. Noticing that as my gear improves, the chances of blowing myself up improves as well. I'm really not looking forward to going from high man of T2 to low man of the T3 totem pole. But you can't really linger on even if you want to as everything you do in this game gives you XP. Took a break from leveling to engage in some open RVR in Dragonwake with my Warrior Priest. Came back and started on T3 content with Averlorn. This proved a bit of a hassle as I had to go to a T2 zone to queue the T2 scenarios up. Also annoying was Reikland Factory now considered me a T3 player so I was forced to keep that out of the queueing selections for now. It was only appropriate that I leveled to 22 in a Stonetroll Crossing scenario. I just needed less than one percent of my XP bar to level and I wondered if I'd turn into a chicken in the scenario when it happened. To my delight, I didn't chicken out but proceeded to crank up the ownage even more as a 22 in a T2 scenario. What a great way to bid goodbye to that tier. Ended the day CR22 RR15.

Day 9: It seems like Destro just love seeing my low-level butt in their T3 scenarios as my fate is to invariably be one of the first targets to be focus-fired and chased by their bloodthirsty melee. Or it could just be I'm so used to being ignored as a WP and IB in PVP. It's really making me think about respeccing as Incineration doesn't factor in as heavily when I'm forced to move around so much. But the lure of another instant nuke in Nova is just too much for me and I doggedly hang in there for now. Finished off the chapters 10 & 11 quests in Averlorn except for the epic questline of Control. The current quest in this questline has me going into a cave that spawns melee right on top of me and is a bit problematic still at my current level. After a few failed attempts, I decided to start the quests in High pass and come back to finish this when I'm higher level. Participated in a keep defense in Averlorn and noticed that the range on the walls weren't all that great for nuking. I hope I was just doing it wrong as it would be dissapointing if this turned out to really be the case. Ended the day CR24 RR17.

Bright Wizard Diary: Days 4-6

2008-11-28T07:44:00.003-04:00

Day 4: First order of business was making up a batch of low-level potions for my BW. This entailed converting some vendor level 1 seeds with my cultivating alt then shipping the final product to my apothecary alt who then mailed the pots to my BW. Next on the agenda was the Heavy Metal event where I was able to earn enough influence to finally get the capes for my IB and WP. The rest of the tasks were opened up in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. Looking at the remaining tasks, the character who stood the best chance of getting the elite reward with the least amount of fuss looked to be my BW. So I finally hopped on him to continue where I left off which was finishing the last of Chapter 6 quests in The Shadowlands. Queued up for scenarios and got Reikland Factory to pop several times finishing off the tasks in there. Moved up to the Chapter 7 quest hub and grabbed all the quests there, one of which led me the Lair of the Dead, a public quest area. Teamed up with a few folks there and we were able to do all 3 phases during which I finished off the rest of the Heavy Metal tasks (with the exception of the open RVR task) and got enough influence to unlock the elite reward. Ended the day CR15 RR9.

Day 5: Moving day for our guild to Badlands. Huge PITA with the number of auctions I have at any given time. Had to abandon an auction that had a current bid of around 3 gold that wasn't going to expire anytime soon. After transferring I, of course, had to stock the Badlands AH with my transferred wares which took some time. Noticed their AH had a better selection of gear to bid on, most likely due to the higher population. When I finally got on my BW, I decided to head back to the Lair of the Dead PQ in Shadowlands and grind up the elite influence staff reward for chapter 7. Noticed there were quite a number of others there as well and we formed a party to do all 3 phases of the PQ. Queued up for scenarios and noticed the shorter wait time as well as a better variety. It wasn't just Mourkain Temple all the time. I hope this trend continues all the way into T4. The quality of healers seemed to go up a notch as they did an awesome job of keeping this suicidal nut alive. Having healers that actually heal DPS made me look better than I actually am and had a blast tearing through Destro tonight. If you find yourself queuing up for any length of time, grab the quests that send you from one warcamp to another. It can be a quick and easy way to get XP while you wait for your scenario to pop. Ended the day CR16 RR11.

Day 6: Happy Turkey Day. Looking at my mailbox, I notice the higher population not only meant a better stocked AH, but it also meant my auctions were selling faster than on my old server. I might have to adjust my prices accordingly. I had cleared out almost all the quests in The Shadowlands so I decide to head to Ostland next as there was one lone epic quest left from The Shadowlands that led me to this Order zone. Installed a great addon called Keeptracker which lets you keep track of the state of every keep in one glance. Very handy for those who want to know where the possible action is in open RVR. I really, really want to get my horse so I can speed up my travel time so am trying to push to 20 as fast as I can. Scenarios not so productive as last night as Destro seemed to steamroll us in Mourkain so I took a break for food and football. Came back after a nap to finish off the rest of the quests in Ostland save for the later stages of Sanctified Ground. Didn't feel like making the long trip underground with my BW and it seemed as if Order was making a push to lock Praag. I couldn't resist the siren song of open RVR in Praag so I logged on my Warrior Priest. Ended the day CR18 RR12.

From Point A to Point B

2008-11-26T15:46:00.005-04:00

Round 7 of server transfers revealed a surprise for the inhabitants of Averheim as our server was tagged to be a source server. Coming so soon after being a former destination server and the day after Order had made its greatest advance ever, this came as a surprise to many to say the least. But if there's one thing you don't want to do when Mythic comes to your server's doorway and puts its mark on it; you don't want to hang around there for very much longer. Not if you value having a healthy server population around.

So the decision was made as a guild and alliance to pack our bags and try our luck in Badlands. Basically this is a server consolidation without having to turn off the lights on the abandoned servers. It's what we as gamers have been crying for and what Mythic has too much pride to do so early in the game. Here's hoping Averheim hangs on and experiences a rebirth later on down the line when the game gets popular enough to support having so many servers on the list.

For those of us who have had to watch as friends and foes abandoned this game for one reason or another, this is quite the morale booster to be given the opportunity to play with more people.

Dear Diary

2008-11-24T23:04:00.018-04:00

Prologue: I thought it'd be fun to document the trials and tribulations of my next character to level to 40. While not strictly a leveling guide as that's simply not my style, it's more a diary of sorts. The first tip I can give for anyone stuck at a given quest is to look it up on wardb or even allakhazam. Chances are you can find the answer to your problem in the quest comments section.

Day 1: Started with a level 4 Bright Wizard I had leveled one day to provide a mailbox storage alt. Cleared off all the chapter 1 quests. Thought there were more but probably already did them in the run from 1-4. Got to the chapter 2 town and warcamp. Learned Butchering as my last profession to level to 200 and flew to Altdorf to move stuff from the mailbox to the bank. 157 emails to clear out - wow. Picked up a guild recall scroll - these will be sure to come in handy. Queued up scenarios but only Nordenwatch ever popped. I thought Destro had rolled enough tanks by now but apparently not as there were tons of Black Orcs and Chosen and very few Order tanks to face them. Have to learn to kite and I want my Fire Cage now dammit. Not used to being so squishy in PVE and have already died many more times than with my WP and IP. Ended the day CR7 RR4.

Day 2: The rest of the quests on Order didn't appeal to me. One batch was set in a RvR lake and the rest had me going against some higher level mobs. So I decided a change of scene was in order and I flew to Chrace in the Elven lands. My rule of thumb is when questing starts pitting you against mobs 3 levels or more above you, it's time to go look elsewhere and fatten up on some lower or equal level quests. Then, after you get a few levels, you come back and try them again. One addon that I highly recommend for questing is Moth . This replacement for the default tooltip is superior in every way. The reason I recommend it is that mousing over mobs will reveal if they are needed for any quests in your log or not. Queued up for scenarios and even got Khaine's Embrace and Reikland to pop. One run of the factory was enough to backflag all the tasks needed for the Heavy Metal event on this toon. Loving the change to the Need/Greed in scenarios as I was able to score both an epic robe and a rare staff that would've been harder for me to win in an earlier time. Some lucky finds in the AH were low-level shoulders and a helm. No cape, though. Chrace was a zone I had never hit on my first 2 40's, surprisingly, so the quests were brand-new to me. When I hit 12, I bid goodbye to T1 ownage in Nordenwatch. I had cleaned out Chrace of every quest so I decided to hit Altdorf and do all the quests there. A surprising number could be found that filled my XP bar about 3/4 of the needed amount for the next level. Ended the day CR12 RR9.

Day 3: I continued the High Elf campaign into T2. The Shadowlands was next up and the scenario du jour: Mourkain Temple. I began the day doing the current Heavy Metal task on my WP and IB which had me looking for 15 enemy kills in open RVR. Since Destro can be uncooperative sometimes, it took a little longer to complete than some of the recent tasks. Starting to get the hang of playing a squishy DPS in PVE as my survivability increased. Having Fire Cage helped a lot too. PVP was a different matter, however, as being low man on the T2 totem pole meant there was some pain ahead of me for a while. Ended the day CR14 RR9.

Second 40

2008-11-23T15:27:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I leveled my second character to 40. Comparing the tome screenshots between Thunda and Warrender, it took me less ingame time to reach 40. Not surprising as familiarity with the game system and quests would lead to more efficient soloing. Referencing this post, it looks like it took me about 5 realtime weeks to level Thunda to 40 as opposed to only 4 weeks for Warrender. Again, not surprising either as I wasn't able to devote all my gaming time to just the one character now. Also, there were other gaming distractions vying for my attention during that time.

Next up: A Bright Wizard named Playswyth Matches.

Knight of the Blazing Sun

2008-11-22T12:17:00.005-04:00

So Mythic had good news and bad news for me this morning. The bad news was that the servers would be taken down for maintenance thus delaying my Ironbreaker's inevitable march to 40. The good news was that tier 3 templates of the new tank classes were available to play on the test server. This was good news as hardly anyone was going to take the time to level one up that high just to test their level-appropriate abilities. According to the email, these characters would be come with the following:

• Rank 20/Renown Rank 15.
• 20 gold so that players may purchase certain necessities immediately.
• Level appropriate renown gear.

Very nice. I took this opportunity to take some screenshots of the various incarnations of the KoTBS for anyone who might be interested.

Here we see both the level 1 version as well as the endgame version with typical endgame gear. I have to say the endgame version looks quite nice and it really does look like Order finally got a tank that looks the part. The level 20 gear, however, doesn't look like it scaled that well as the theoretical midpoint between noobery and kickassery.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition indeed.

I Hate Snow

2008-11-21T14:02:00.004-04:00

I really do. It's currently snowing very hard where I am right now. Thankfully, it's not sticking to the roads yet but it will be a right mess overnight if this keeps up. I can't wait to get home from work and then it can snow as much as it wants to. As long as the electricity and Internet holds out, I'll be fine for the next few days. I hope to get my Ironbreaker to 40 over the weekend. She's currently sitting at 55% towards level 39 so it shouldn't be any problem getting those 1 1/2 levels done.

I've had some guildies ask me how exactly it is that I'm able to level so fast. I'm thinking of taking notes and doing some kind of leveling guide on here as I get set to level up my next 40. As much as I'm itching to do the Destruction content, I think I'll just round out my holy trinity of Order toons with a Bright Wizard next.

Testing Tanks

2008-11-20T11:49:00.002-04:00

Those interested in finding out how the new WAR tanks play won't have to wait until the end of the Heavy Metal event. The new patch is on the test server right now and this includes the 2 new tanks coming out next month. I got an email this morning welcoming me to the exclusive public test and the public test forums. So participation might be limited to those who had previously bothered to copy and log onto the test servers before today.

I only had a little time to level up the 2 new classes to level 2 before work today. I noticed the Black Guard didn't seem to get an Oath-Friend ability at the start like the IB did. And along with the similar strike that improved your toughness, the Black Guard also got a unique strike that reduced the enemy's toughness at level 2. I wish I could comment on the KoTBS but having never played a Chosen, I didn't have anything to compare it to.

Public Service Announcement

2008-11-19T19:31:00.002-04:00

Today's daily task for the Heavy Metal event requires that you complete 3 stages of a Public Quest.

It does not specify that it has to all be the same one or that they have to be of your appropriate tier. You can solo an easy phase 1 3 times and it will count. There is a chapter 13 PQ in the Saphery zone that requires you to click on 8 stones to complete. I had a guildmate solo a chapter 1 PQ for his daily task even though he was level 31 and it counted.

Heavy Metal First Impressions

2008-11-19T11:34:00.005-04:00

It's your one-way ticket to midnight
Call it Heavy Metal
Higher than high - feeling just right
Call it Heavy Metal
Desperation on a red line
Call it Heavy Metal noise
Yesterday, the second Live Event for WAR hit the servers: dubbed "Heavy Metal" in honor of the two new tank classes set to return next month. It seems like Mythic has learned from their first attempt as the fun factor surrounding this event is much, much higher in my opinion.

For starters, the centerpiece is Reikland Factory. Say what you will about scenarios, but Mythic has designed some incredible examples of PVP instances and Reikland Factory is as good as it gets. The level design is a throwback to the old classic FPS maps featuring a compact zone with a variety of routes from one point to the other. There is even a basement and upstairs area in the factory for z-axis goodness. There are four flags to capture and hold for points. Three outdoor flags that give you more points over time and one indoor flag that gives the most points for the cap but less over time. Grab the outdoor flags as your first priority as the earlier you can get the points ticking for your side, the better off you are. Don't ignore the central indoor flag, however. Just grab it as the opportunity presents itself.

The rewards are of a comparable quality as the first event. You have a trophy as the basic reward, a decorative cape as your intermediate reward, and you unlock the ability to create one of the new tank classes a week before anyone else as the elite reward. What I like this time around is the addition of daily tasks which is the only way to gain influence for this event. Instead of lamely grinding PVE mobs over and over again for the influence like in the last event, you have a number of tasks which adds some needed variety to the mix. The first daily task was simply to participate in the Reikland Factory event and the future ones are still clouded in mystery for now.

Random Thoughts

2008-11-17T16:18:00.006-04:00

So I didn't let my Eve Online account lapse. I decided to take advantage of the new pilot license thingamabob that CCP put in the last update. Basically, you can take a 60-day code and split it into two 30-day pilot licenses online. These licenses can be listed on the market and traded in the usual manner which addresses two problems at the same time. The lack of payment options aside from 60 day chunks and having to rely on out-of-game resources like forums to buy and sell GTC's. It remains to be seen if I can continue to raise enough isk to continue buying 30-day licenses in the future.

I still have zero interest in WoW.

Mythic seriously needs to revamp their zone control mechanics and hopefully the next iteration won't need a roomful of spreadsheet-toting eggheads to explain. We need more fortress and city sieges and we need them ASAP.

If we are supposed to grind for needed PVP gear in PVE instances, can we make the process a tad less painful then? If not, can we at least make it more fun?

The basic reward for the Heavy Metal event is supposed to be a trophy. It better not be a belt trophy considering I have never been able to get one to correctly display on my 40 WP or my 37 IB. I'm just saying.

Downloaded and installed the 14-day trial for Vanguard after reading Ardwulf's post. I suspect that there's a lot more to this game and probably some of it I would enjoy, but it's just not hooking me in right away.

What's That Smell?

2008-11-16T14:53:00.002-04:00

It's Gagrus the Unclean. That's what that smell is. It's not me, lady. It's him. Honest.

The Game is Afoot

2008-11-14T10:28:00.003-04:00

Since my last Sherlockian post about missing T4 scenarios, I logged in yesterday to conclusive evidence supporting my theory. Guild chat was buzzing about how Howling Gorge was popping instead of Serpent's Passage. Howling Gorge? That scenario wasn't even on my list of MIA scenarios. So adding this to the list would make T4 have a total of 13 possible scenarios with maybe some more that have yet to be discovered.

This is what a normal scenario queue looks like in Averheim at any given time. This is what it looked like yesterday. So what changed on our server to disable Thunder Valley and Logrin's Forge and enable Howling Gorge? It seems Order had gotten its act together overnight enough to lock down the Thunder Mountain zone and force Black Crag into contested as seen in this screenshot.

So what was Howling Gorge like? Think Talabec Dam except in a more compressed map and multiple pathways. Order didn't seem to get the hang of the new scenario as quickly as Destro did. They couldn't quite catch on to the fact that you just needed to slow down the bomb carrier for 90 seconds. The bomb will do its job for you, kill him in a spectacular fashion and reset back to the starting position. Oh well, at least it wasn't Serpent's Passage.

The Case of the Missing T4 Scenarios

2008-11-12T16:47:00.006-04:00

Fragendorf Castle
Reikland Hills
Blood of Blackcairn
Caledor Woods
Skaven Caverns
Gromril Crossing

The first time I encountered these scenario quests on my Warrior Priest, I just assumed these were the names of T4 scenarios I just wasn't familiar with yet, especially since all that ever seemed to pop was Serpent's Passage. But now that I've had a chance to play almost all of them except for Dragon's Bane (which never pops on my server), I can truly say that these scenarios are definitely MIA.

Well, it could be these scenarios simply didn't make the cut along with the 4 classes and 4 capital cities. But, no, if that were so I think Mythic would've removed the quests for them as well from the game. No, I think these scenarios are tied to the home zones which in a normal server will be locked down by their respective side. So, in reality, T4 has 12 possible scenarios you could queue for if all the zones were contested.

If this is so, then the city capture mechanics makes these truly wasted content. Since an opposing side has a time limit to flip a home zone or else it reverts back to the control of the defenders, that means you will never see a home zone in a contested state for long. Also, I think the last thing on any attacker or defender's mind if a home zone is being contested would be to queue up for these scenarios.

Again. I'm only speculating but if this is truly the case I can't imagine Mythic would spend all that time developing these scenarios that will never see the light of day on most servers. I would really hope they tie these scenarios to the normal contested zones instead of the normal locked home zones so we can get a chance to play these scenarios.

That is, if anything other than Serpent's Passage would ever pop.

Does Your Enemy Own a Keep?

2008-11-10T13:46:00.002-04:00

"If their guild initials are CoW, do not rest until the structure is burned and razed and its grounds salted and mixed with the blood of its defenders."

I'm thinking this was on the loading screen of every T3 capable Destro that loaded into Averheim last Saturday. The day started innocently enough. I had finally cleared out all the T3 quests in my Ironbreaker's quest log and was starting on the T4 zones when a guildie, Werit, complained that there was no oRVR to be found as Order controlled everything in T3. I suggested that we claim a keep to draw Destro out and that Avelorn would be a good one due to its proximity to the Tor Anroc scenario loiterers.

After some false alarms with the requisite Witch Elf ninja, we finally got our wish. Boy, did we ever get our wish! During this first assault, a warband quickly formed and grew and I put away all thoughts of questing. No scummy Destro was going to take over our guild keep on my watch. We joined an alliance during this time and they bolstered our meager numbers. Technical difficulties prevented CoW's from communicating in the new alliance chat but we were able to coordinate just fine in /warband.

The next few hours were amazing in that both sides were pretty evenly matched but that Order had the defensive superiority. The amazing thing was even after this was demonstrated several times with the Destro attacks breaking up and eventually being chased all the way back to their warcamp, this did not seem to faze them one bit. They just reformed and did it again. And again. And again.

So I have to give the Destruction players credit for not taking the easy way out. Yes, you can get easy XP and renown by capping undefended objectives. Yes, scenarios are an even more optimal way to get both. But they simply are not as epic as the battles that raged on as both sides seemed to fight without a seeming care for XP or renown that night. One side wanted the other's turf and the other was determined not to give it up. Simple as that. I'd like to thank all the Order players that showed up especially those from our new alliance. Thanks for having our backs, guys.

And, finally, thanks to the persistant Destro players that showed up. We couldn't have had those epic battles without you. My Ironbreaker will most likely be 32 sometime today and finally out of T3 for good. I couldn't have wished for a better sendoff than this.

<3 Praag - The Pics

2008-11-06T18:15:00.002-04:00

As promised, here are the pics! Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/7ejAkG9x8dYZ6p3Mwe4Ciw

<3 Praag

2008-11-06T14:23:00.005-04:00

So there I was, yesterday, leveling up my Ironbreaker. Doing the questing thing and occasionally queueing up for scenarios (excuse me, I mean Tor Anroc). Let me tell you, being an Ironbreaker in Tor Anroc is an absolute blast so I don't complain too much if it's the only scenario that keeps popping up.

All this time I've been keeping tabs on the Order chat channel like I usually do. I see someone announce their guild had claimed the southern Praag keep and punch and pie were available to all who come to visit. Most days, I see some talk of action in Praag and I always promise myself to go and investigate it since that has been my favorite T4 RvR lake since the first time I set eyes on it. But, usually I go about my leveling business on my Ironbreaker content on knowing that oRvR exists on my server even if I myself am not a part of it.

But after flying back to Altdorf to empty my bags I see that I just had about an hour left until I should log off. Since I didn't think I'd be able to gain a level in that time, I thought I'd log on my 40 WP and go pay Praag a visit.

I was able to find my way to the southern keep alright but found there was absolutely no Destro around despite what the map icon was telling me. So I get the bright idea to look for any open groups and I find there is almost a full warband in this area. Quickly joining it, I still couldn't tell where everybody was from the map and, being a typical male, didn't want to ask for directions. So I decided to mosey over to the nearest Destro-controlled BO, thinking that's where I'd go if I was them.

Wouldn't you know it I run into a pack of Destro? Being the brave knight that I am, I quickly turn my mount around and hope that they're too busy doing something else to bother going after me. No such luck. A Witch Elf throws one of those annoying daggers and dismounts me so I figure I might as well try and fight back. In back of her, I see a Zealot so I already know how this fight is going to end. After I respawn, I find out the rest of my warband is at the warcamp as well. So it actually worked out for the best that I ran into those goons.

Now it was my turn to be the windshield to the Destro's bugs as the warband went from BO to BO claiming it and annihilating any and all Destro unfortunate enough to get in our way. Eventually we made our way to the northern Praag keep and claimed that as well. I wish there was more actual Destro opposition as what was there barely slowed down the warband juggernaught. But at least I was able to get in on a successful keep siege in the hour I had left to play.

So there is RvR life on some servers, after all. With the news that Averheim is a destination server for the latest free transfers, things can only get better here. I took a few screenshots and I'll see if I have enough quality ones for a photo album later on today.

No Miracles Needed

2008-11-05T16:42:00.008-04:00

Mark Jacobs recently posted about the upcoming 1.05 patch:

Folks, Look for my new topic in a few hours. The notes are 17 pages long and still growing. And yes, this is the patch that pretty much everyone has been asking for and talking about here and elsewhere. Brought in from 1.1 to 1.05 as I hoped we could do. There's no such thing as a miracle patch, and WAR certainly doesn't need one, but it certainly is a big patch.

Mark

While we wait, I thought I'd speculate on what I'd like to actually see coming in this 1.05 patch. Mark is correct in that WAR doesn't need a miracle patch but there are a few niggling issues that have gone on for quite too long in my opinion.

Belt Trophies - Trophies are a wonderful addition to this game and it's a shame the ones you hang on your belt do not display correctly for one reason or another.

Mastiff's End as Twilight Zone - Whenever I run a character after flying into Altdorf to the nearest inn to check on the auction house, it's a 50/50 chance that he will get there. Sometimes he ends up in the basement. Sometimes, he gets stuck in some twilight zone where only a /stuck command can free him. I know clipping problems are an old issue in MMORPG's but does there have to be such an obvious zone in such a popular Order gathering spot?

Auction House Categories - Please add more in for crafting and for the repairable items.

Warrior Priest Prayer Tooltips - The tooltips for the different Warrior Priest prayers (party buffs) always say the same thing. The icons are correct but the tooltip always defaults to the description for Prayer of Devotion.

Tighter Netcode - It's okay now but we really need these to go up to eleven. So tired of thinking I'm doing my job as a tank and blocking the horrendous Destros from my squishies only to find out, several seconds later, said Destro has warped in back of me doing nasty things to the squishie and I'm standing there with my shield looking stupid.

That's about all I can think of for now. I'll look back on this list after we hear more details about patch 1.05 and see how many of my problems were addressed. How about all of you out there in blogland? Do you have any you would like to see fixed as well?

Happiness

2008-11-04T13:41:00.005-04:00

“Happiness equals reality minus expectations”
---- Tom Magliozzi

There's a great post here by arbitrary about expectations in WAR. I wanted to post a comment on his blog but selfishly decided it merited its own space on my own.

Whenever I go into a new MMO, I have next to no expectations other than the game works on a basic level the way it's supposed to. Which is why I really haven't been disappointed in any of them with the possible exception of AoC. When I decide it's time to venture on to another MMO, this does not mean the time I spent playing the previous one was a waste or that suddenly the game is going to die a flaming death without my one subscription. I never understood what people thought they were possibly accomplishing with pathos-filled posts about EVERYTHING WRONG ABOUT THIS GAME AND WHAT THE DEVS NEED TO DO NOW IF THEY WANT TO KEEP MY SUBSCRIPTION. The reality is you can't please all of the people all of the time and if it was that simple, every MMO would have a subscription base like WoW. Of course, this would mean every human being on Earth would have to subscribe to an MMO, but logic has no place in diatribes.

For me, I don't try to diagnose why or what it is that makes me feel it's time to move on. Most of the time, it's the lure of new games and new experiences. In Planetside, it was after I spent some time in the City of Heroes Beta. In City of Heroes, it was after I spent some time in the WoW Beta. In WoW, it was after I realized that raiding night after night hoping to get that one drop for my set really wasn't fun any more. In AoC, it was after I realized this game was nowhere near ready for prime time and I was having more fun playing a trial for Eve Online. I'm currently subscribed to both Eve Online and WAR but I'm thinking of letting my Eve subscription lapse. I really don't do much in Eve anymore except log in to change skills and I really can't justify the subscription cost any more. I guess I could just keep it going indefinitely through passive income-generating and GTC's but, really, what's the point unless I plan on returning to play full-time someday?

If there is one thing I do know, it's that I do not want to go back to WoW with WoTLK. Sorry, but I really have done everything there is to do in WoW and the new content promised can't cover up the fact that it really is just the same old thing. There will come a day when I will feel the same about WAR and head for newer pastures (or maybe older ones, who knows?). But, as of right now, there are things to do still and experiences to be had and I'm not quite done with this game just yet. When that day comes, I promise there will be no pathos-filled post from me.

Witching Hour Thoughts

2008-10-31T12:24:00.004-03:00

Warhammer Online has unveiled what is the first of hopefully many Live Events in the game and it is themed in the spirit of the Halloween season. Called The Witching Hour, this event promises to ignite more open RvR and dispenses some treats to go along with the PvP tricks. I'd like to weigh in with my opinions now that it's been implemented live for a few days now.

Tricks

I can't help but feel like the implementation of this event was rushed a bit. That's quite understandable given how close it was to WAR's release date. I'm sure there were a lot more important things to hammer out than what the heck they were going to do for Halloween. The first thing is the phase 1 objectives being that you must kill a certain number of the opposing realm in order to get to phase 2 and the boss spawn. Now I'm sure that when this was first drafted, it seemed like a really cool idea and, yes, I agree it is for something like a repeatable quest to get RvR influence. But for something to get holiday fluff? Not so much. Especially something that is going to last 5 days as it is. Not only must you depend on your realm to band together in enough numbers to actually make a serious attempt at the WH PQ but you must also depend on the opposing realm to do the same. And seriously, what is up with the restrictive zones in which to count kills and influence towards the PQ? Especially in T4, it felt a little like having to PvP in a closet.

But even with the negativity, I have seen it being successful in igniting open RvR in areas that are not used to seeing mass PvP in those numbers. So kudos for that, at least. I hope that Mythic sees from this experience what types of virtual carrots are needed to entice people away from scenarios and into the open RvR lakes.

Treats

The rewards for this Live Event might have been as rushed as the implementation but you would never know it from the quality. The masks look awesome, especially when you compare them to the masks given out for a similar event in WoW. There are 4 masks in all that you can collect. One is a random drop from Restless Spirits that are found outside the RvR lakes. One is an elite influence reward for capping the Witching Hour chapter influence. One is a gold bag reward for killing the boss spawn in phase 2 of the WH PQ. And the last is a random drop from looting a player's body in normal PvP. The cape and titles are a nice touch as well. In the info page on the official site, they also mention special potions and trinkets but I have yet to come across any of them in game. In total, I think the rewards were just enough for the season and the holiday itself.

For those seeking more information about this Live Event, there's a great post about it here.

We are the Champions

2008-10-29T23:16:00.004-03:00

I'm not a baseball fan. I know this in my heart. I've fallen asleep through too many Phillies games to think otherwise. I am a Philadelphia Phillies fan. The only World Series they have ever won was back in 1980 when I was still in high school. I was hip-deep in being an artsy proto-geek to care about sports back then. I was dimly aware of this event but hell if I could care less about something that seemed like only the jocks would follow.

In the years since I've developed a fondness for sport and for the Philadelphia teams in particular. In part, this was from growing up in South Jersey where Philly was just a 30 minute drive away. Since I started following the Philly teams, one thing has been a constant: the lack of championships. It didn't matter. Being a Philly fan meant that there was always a next year.

But not this year.

This year we are the champions. This year everybody else has to say there's always next year.

Good Grief, Sigmar Brown!

2008-10-28T11:26:00.003-03:00

In the spirit of the season and to highlight a very funny comic made by one of our very own CoW's, I present to you this.

Also, Mother Nature really wants us Phillies fans to wait just a bit longer it seems. Boo to you, Mother Nature.

Better Living Through Chemistry

2008-10-27T14:01:00.004-03:00

Since I had tried out talisman making with my Warrior Priest, I figured I'd see what the other crafting profession was like with my Ironbreaker. I thought the natural gathering profession to pair this with would be cultivation. Much like TM and salvaging, I foresaw cultivation providing the main ingredients for apothecary that I would need to level.

This plan worked all the way up until the level where the level 1 stabilizers failed to ensure even a slight chance of success even using the maximum of 3 per attempt. Obviously, I would need higher level stabilizers if I wanted to level up any further. The problem was, getting a steady supply would be problematic unless you had access to a scavenger or butcher. So whereas fragments were the bottleneck in TM which ensured you needed to also be a salvager to level efficiently, stabilizers were the limiting factor in apothecary. This means you need to either be a scavenger or a butcher as your gathering profession in tandem with the crafting of apothecary. I switched over to scavenging from my relatively high cultivation skill as soon as I figured this out. Luckily, I didn't need to grind in low level areas to start leveling up scavenging. In fact, it seems you can only level it through level-appropriate mobs and the drops improve as your level does and not necessarily have anything to do with mob level.

I have even found that there are apothecary main ingredients that can be scavenged or butchered. So where does this leave the gathering skill of cultivation? Well, all those seeds that find your way into your backpack will still need to be converted into ingredients via this profession. But it's the perfect alt tradeskill in that it isn't really level dependent or require you to do much travelling. Once you get to the chapter 2 town to learn the skill, you can just park by the mailbox and level from 1-200 from seeds sent to you from your other characters. I was not happy with the prospect of going through cultivation 40-50 again but there seemed to be no other choice if I wanted to level apothecary up anytime soon.

The tradeskill shares a similar interface with talisman making in that you get a crafting window where you can plug in the various vials, main ingredients, and additional ingredients you are qualified to use. After finding a mix you are happy with, you hit the brew button and depending on how stable the mix is, you will get a random result as far as potency is concerned. The main ingredients will inform you as to what the potion will untimately be but you can still get random results depending on the additional ingredients you choose to also include in the mix. A skillup is gained if you successfully brew a potion depending on your current apothecary level and the level of the main ingredient.

Is it worth it? Only if you like the idea of always being stocked with every kind of potion you might ever conceivably need. And if you just hate empty bag slots for some reason.