The Philadelphia Phillies are a team on the brink of accomplishing something they have only done just once before in their long franchise history. After last night's dominating NLCS victory over the LA Dodgers, they need just four more wins to win the World Series and finally lay the ghost of 1993 to rest.
Similarly, I found myself watching that game last night and simultaneously trying to get my Warrior Priest up to rank 40. I couldn't quite make it as I found myself at 92% by the time the game had ended. In my younger years, I probably would've pushed on as I probably could've dinged 40 with an hour or two more of play, but old age and the pragmatism it brings reminded me that tomorrow was another day. Besides, I was tired as heck and had to get up for work the next day. I figured I could relish the moment as much then as as I could now.
I probably would've been able to ding 40 yesterday if circumstances and server patches didn't conspire to cut into my available playing time. While waiting on the servers to come back up, I was finally able to log into Eve for more than just a skill change. With the Haiduken war over, it was now safe to pop over to Jita and buy the new ships I had qualified myself for while playing WAR. I bought the Hurricane and fitted it for salvaging but decided not to get the Retriever. While playing with possible setups in EFT in order to decide on what equipment to buy for it, I realized my current mining Rokh had a much higher output if I could just live with the faster cycle times of the Mining Laser II vs. Strip Miner. So I decided to take Fholcan's advice and hold out for the Hulk instead. I'll queue up the training for that ship as soon as I'm done training up for the Cheetah.
I was also able to check out a rather interesting game that I first heard about over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun called World of Goo. It's put out by an independent publisher, 2D Boy, and you can find a link to the demo at their site. It's Lemmings for the 21st century as imagined by Tim Burton. The game even comes with Danny Elfman-inspired musical overtones. I highly recommend it and bought it on Steam immediately after trying out the demo. You can't go wrong with subsidizing quality independent game publishers for only $19.99.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
The Fall of Altdorf
By now I'm sure most of you have heard that Averheim played host to a world first with Destro locking down the city to tackle the 2 public quests which, in turn, would unlock the King encounter they needed to conquer it. So what was I doing while all this was going on? Sunday was going to be a day for me to relax a bit from WAR as there were Eagles and Phillies games coming on that I was planning on watching. In fact, I got up around 6 AM EST due to my body clock that thought it was a working weekday. So I took advantage of the sparse crowd in Altdorf to empty my mailbox and re-populate my auctions. For some reason, the mail system seems a lot more responsive during the early-morning hours.
After this was done, I was able to convince my body clock that this was indeed the weekend and to let me get back into bed to get some more much-needed sleep. If I had known then what I knew now, I might've toughened it out to track the invasion from its very beginning. As it was, I didn't get back up until 9 AM EST and I set about to finish an Epic quest chain that was given to me by the Elven King which, in turn, led to more Epic quests given out by the Human and Dwarven Kings themselves. Epic quests are long quest chains which often have a blue Rare reward of your choice at the end.
During this time, I kept an eye on chat like I usually do. There really weren't any cries of alarm just yet on the shared Order channel. Even though Destro was making their opening moves, most of us on Order were so used to the map being a perpetual shade of red that it was just business as usual for us. Around 11 AM, there was finally some talk of a mass of Destro heading towards the Reikwald keep. I decided to mosey over there to check it out but I really wasn't rushing to get there. We had repelled a similar attack not too long ago and I figured we would do the same this time as well.
By the time I had gotten there, it was clear that the few Order folk that had shown up was not going to be able to hold back the tide of Destro this time. In short order, they defeated the Keep Lord and would be able to zone into the City of Altdorf itself. I respawned at the Reikland warcamp, unsure of what to do next. On Vent, there was talk of a new scenario you could queue up for so that looked like the way to join in the Altdorf defense. I queued up for the Streets of Altdorf scenario but, for some reason, this never popped for me during the invasion.
I worked my way back to the southern Altdorf gate and tried to zone back in that way. Success! I was finally in Altdorf and could take part in its defense. This elation lasted all of 5 minutes. This was the time it took to present a laggy slide show which resulted in my quick death at the hands of enemies which hadn't even finished loading on my screen yet. Followed immediately by a CTD.
After restarting, I found myself outside the city again by the southern gate. Attempting to zone back in, I was stopped by a popup which listed the number of city instances by ID and also the number of attackers and defenders on each. It then asked me which one I wanted to enter. Through trial and error, I queued up for the only instance I could, so now I was queued for 2 Altdorf scenarios according to my queue button. I stayed by the southern gate, helping the others who had also gathered there to stop the Destro respawners from running back into the city. Meanwhile, I listened on Vent as a couple of us who were still inside gave reports on the war action taking place.
After a long while, Destro managed to finally lock Order out of Altdorf. And my scenarios still hadn't popped letting me back in. I figured since I was queued anyways, I should get back to leveling after I finally died in that gate defense. I was really disappointed I couldn't do more to defend the city but at least I had made the effort. Hopefully, Mythic can fix the obvious bugs which were preventing me from doing so. Grats to Averheim Destro for being the organized war machine that was able to score this world first. Next time, I hope we Order can be more than just a speed bump for you all.
After this was done, I was able to convince my body clock that this was indeed the weekend and to let me get back into bed to get some more much-needed sleep. If I had known then what I knew now, I might've toughened it out to track the invasion from its very beginning. As it was, I didn't get back up until 9 AM EST and I set about to finish an Epic quest chain that was given to me by the Elven King which, in turn, led to more Epic quests given out by the Human and Dwarven Kings themselves. Epic quests are long quest chains which often have a blue Rare reward of your choice at the end.
During this time, I kept an eye on chat like I usually do. There really weren't any cries of alarm just yet on the shared Order channel. Even though Destro was making their opening moves, most of us on Order were so used to the map being a perpetual shade of red that it was just business as usual for us. Around 11 AM, there was finally some talk of a mass of Destro heading towards the Reikwald keep. I decided to mosey over there to check it out but I really wasn't rushing to get there. We had repelled a similar attack not too long ago and I figured we would do the same this time as well.
By the time I had gotten there, it was clear that the few Order folk that had shown up was not going to be able to hold back the tide of Destro this time. In short order, they defeated the Keep Lord and would be able to zone into the City of Altdorf itself. I respawned at the Reikland warcamp, unsure of what to do next. On Vent, there was talk of a new scenario you could queue up for so that looked like the way to join in the Altdorf defense. I queued up for the Streets of Altdorf scenario but, for some reason, this never popped for me during the invasion.
I worked my way back to the southern Altdorf gate and tried to zone back in that way. Success! I was finally in Altdorf and could take part in its defense. This elation lasted all of 5 minutes. This was the time it took to present a laggy slide show which resulted in my quick death at the hands of enemies which hadn't even finished loading on my screen yet. Followed immediately by a CTD.
After restarting, I found myself outside the city again by the southern gate. Attempting to zone back in, I was stopped by a popup which listed the number of city instances by ID and also the number of attackers and defenders on each. It then asked me which one I wanted to enter. Through trial and error, I queued up for the only instance I could, so now I was queued for 2 Altdorf scenarios according to my queue button. I stayed by the southern gate, helping the others who had also gathered there to stop the Destro respawners from running back into the city. Meanwhile, I listened on Vent as a couple of us who were still inside gave reports on the war action taking place.
After a long while, Destro managed to finally lock Order out of Altdorf. And my scenarios still hadn't popped letting me back in. I figured since I was queued anyways, I should get back to leveling after I finally died in that gate defense. I was really disappointed I couldn't do more to defend the city but at least I had made the effort. Hopefully, Mythic can fix the obvious bugs which were preventing me from doing so. Grats to Averheim Destro for being the organized war machine that was able to score this world first. Next time, I hope we Order can be more than just a speed bump for you all.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Talisman Making Update
Since I made this post, Mythic has come out with some changes to the Talisman Making profession in the recent patch. Gold Essences have now been removed and, in their place, you can plug in the Gold Dusts as an ingredient. This removes the dependency TM'ers had with Apothecarists. Now, it's more feasible than ever to skill up using level appropriate ingredients instead of level 1 ones you can buy at merchants.
They have also seen fit to have standard merchants carry level 1 fragments and even salvageable gear. This will help tremendously those just starting out with Talisman Making and Salvaging. No longer will you need to keep buying low-level renown gear just to start leveling those skills up.
If you've been on the fence about this profession while you waited for Mythic to fix it, now is the time to jump in. Now if only we can find us some other containers aside from these level 1 starters.
They have also seen fit to have standard merchants carry level 1 fragments and even salvageable gear. This will help tremendously those just starting out with Talisman Making and Salvaging. No longer will you need to keep buying low-level renown gear just to start leveling those skills up.
If you've been on the fence about this profession while you waited for Mythic to fix it, now is the time to jump in. Now if only we can find us some other containers aside from these level 1 starters.
Friday, October 10, 2008
PVE Leveling Too Slow?
In my honest opinion, I really don't think so. I think Mythic did a wonderful job balancing the XP needed with XP gained through PVE to create a steady upward curve from 1-40. I really haven't noticed any sharp peaks like some people claim to have experienced going from one tier to the next. But, again, I am probably not your typical leveler and it could be I'm not casual enough to detect the added difficulty. WoW pre-TBC was a lot more grindy than the current pace set by WAR, to be honest.
But enough people have voiced this complaint that it really can't be dismissed so casually. I think what makes people think PVE is so lackluster is when they compare it to what they could make with the equivalent time spent doing scenarios instead. Currently, in T4, it's not unusual to make around 20K in XP combined from repeatable quests and kills in scenarios. Combined with around 3K in Renown along with gold and random loot, this can be a very efficient and fun way to spend 15 minutes. Compare this to the time spent collecting all the quests and going from red circle to red circle on the map and it's really no contest to see which would be the most efficient way to level in this game. But, unless you are in a pre-formed PVP Group of Doom all the time, you're not always going to see a payout like this. There's another side out there that wants to win the scenario as well and it's also not unlikely to come out of the 15 minutes with only a couple hundred XP and Renown for your troubles.
If you average out the good with the bad, you will notice the differences in efficiency start to narrow. But people are optimists at heart and they don't go into scenarios thinking they are going to get blown out by the other team. So they will rarely, if ever, factor that in.
Regardless of my stance on removing the repeatable scenario quests from the game, I really don't want Mythic to nerf the rewards you get from PVP to make the PVE look more desirable. I just wanted them removed to get rid of the need to run back or hang around the NPC; I really wouldn't mind at all if they gave us the XP rewards automatically or in some other fashion. This is a PVP game and, while you could solely PVE your way from 1-40; why would you want to?
My advice to those unsure what the best way to level in this game is would be to do what you want to. PVE when you want and PVP when you want. Both will lead you to 40 eventually and the best part will be you got there doing exactly what you wanted to do.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
The More Things Change
Remember queuing up for battlegrounds in WoW? You would have to trudge to the nearest city and talk to the battlemasters there. And since they deposited you back to the battlemaster afterwards, most chose to just hang around the NPC to queue up again. The war rooms in the cities would be thick with loiterers who had nothing better to do than just stare aimlessly off into space while waiting on their queue to pop.
Mythic promised an innovative way to queue for their scenarios, which are the WAR equivalent of the WoW battlegrounds. A handy dandy button allowed you to queue from anywhere in their world and it would deposit you back in relatively one piece afterwards to where you accepted the queue pop from. This innovation was hailed as a welcome one to PVP'ers everywhere and even led Blizzard to shamelessly steal it for their upcoming WoTLK expansion. No longer would we have packs of players hunched around the NPC like a bunch of aimless drifters.
Or maybe not. Don't these people know about the innovative feature Mythic put in that allows you to queue anywhere? Yes, they do. But the fact is that, oftentimes in some servers, some scenarios pop almost instantly. In this case, it is the Tor Anroc scenario for Averheim Order. When that happens, the most efficient way to gain Renown and XP is by camping the quest NPC's that give the repeatable scenario quests and turn them in after every scenario. So much for innovation.
Something really needs to be done about this. I can't imagine Mythic would be okay with this considering they went to the trouble of providing us with the means to free ourselves from this sort of behavior. I don't know exactly what needs to be done and I'll leave that up to Mythic themselves to decide. Whether removing the repeatable scenarios altogether is a good move or not is debatable but removing NPC loitering is not in my opinion.
Mythic promised an innovative way to queue for their scenarios, which are the WAR equivalent of the WoW battlegrounds. A handy dandy button allowed you to queue from anywhere in their world and it would deposit you back in relatively one piece afterwards to where you accepted the queue pop from. This innovation was hailed as a welcome one to PVP'ers everywhere and even led Blizzard to shamelessly steal it for their upcoming WoTLK expansion. No longer would we have packs of players hunched around the NPC like a bunch of aimless drifters.
Or maybe not. Don't these people know about the innovative feature Mythic put in that allows you to queue anywhere? Yes, they do. But the fact is that, oftentimes in some servers, some scenarios pop almost instantly. In this case, it is the Tor Anroc scenario for Averheim Order. When that happens, the most efficient way to gain Renown and XP is by camping the quest NPC's that give the repeatable scenario quests and turn them in after every scenario. So much for innovation.
Something really needs to be done about this. I can't imagine Mythic would be okay with this considering they went to the trouble of providing us with the means to free ourselves from this sort of behavior. I don't know exactly what needs to be done and I'll leave that up to Mythic themselves to decide. Whether removing the repeatable scenarios altogether is a good move or not is debatable but removing NPC loitering is not in my opinion.
Talisman Making in WAR
Having leveled my talisman making skill up to the 130's, I can't help but feel like this crafting skill is the red-headed stepchild compared to the more favored apothecary skill. Apothecary is often paired with cultivation which, while it has a similar crafting window to cultivation and talisman making, is actually considered a gathering skill. Cultivation has numerous perks to it starting with the numerous seeds which can drop often from kills. As if that wasn't enough, there are repeatable quests in all the zones which will award you with seeds should you ever find yourself short for some reason. And as if that still wasn't enough, you can find crafting merchants everywhere that sell you the supplies; the tavern even has some of the more esoteric ones for sale if you can't get them anywhere else. Trainers for cultivation and apothecary can be found conveniently in your capital city.
By contrast, talisman making is usually paired with salvaging and the only trainers for them can be found in the chapter 2 town in each racial pairing. Nobody is going to give you supplies for free and the only way to get them is to salvage any magical gear you can find short of some exceptions like belts and some other items. You better make friends with the renown gear vendor as, unless you have a steady and voluminous supply of magical gear, that is going to be the only way to level up your talisman making skill with any regularity. Buy the cheapest renown gear that will salvage into a fragment that you can currently use. Cross your fingers that the salvage operation doesn't fail and you don't need to buy another for a possible skillup. Plug the fragment into the crafting window along with some containers, gold essences, curios, and magic essences. Pray as you hit the fuse button that it gives you a skillup. Rinse and repeat.
There isn't a recipe book that lists ingredients and their results. It's a freeform process and the end-result depends heavily on the quality of the ingredients. There's a little power-up bar that might figure into it with the timing but I've been able to ignore that so far without any ill results. If you are just skilling up, you can get by with a fragment of your current skill level (I have found using fragments I have out-leveled won't skill me as dependably as current level ones) and level 1 ingredients in the other slots.
Is it worth it? Only you can decide this for yourself. The ability to create talismans on demand is offset by the number of talisman awards and drops you can find in the game. But it does get better as you find yourself being able to craft higher quality talismans; eventually even epic ones that have no expiration timer like most of the ones you will find yourself making.
By contrast, talisman making is usually paired with salvaging and the only trainers for them can be found in the chapter 2 town in each racial pairing. Nobody is going to give you supplies for free and the only way to get them is to salvage any magical gear you can find short of some exceptions like belts and some other items. You better make friends with the renown gear vendor as, unless you have a steady and voluminous supply of magical gear, that is going to be the only way to level up your talisman making skill with any regularity. Buy the cheapest renown gear that will salvage into a fragment that you can currently use. Cross your fingers that the salvage operation doesn't fail and you don't need to buy another for a possible skillup. Plug the fragment into the crafting window along with some containers, gold essences, curios, and magic essences. Pray as you hit the fuse button that it gives you a skillup. Rinse and repeat.
There isn't a recipe book that lists ingredients and their results. It's a freeform process and the end-result depends heavily on the quality of the ingredients. There's a little power-up bar that might figure into it with the timing but I've been able to ignore that so far without any ill results. If you are just skilling up, you can get by with a fragment of your current skill level (I have found using fragments I have out-leveled won't skill me as dependably as current level ones) and level 1 ingredients in the other slots.
Is it worth it? Only you can decide this for yourself. The ability to create talismans on demand is offset by the number of talisman awards and drops you can find in the game. But it does get better as you find yourself being able to craft higher quality talismans; eventually even epic ones that have no expiration timer like most of the ones you will find yourself making.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
PVE in my RVR Game?
It's more likely than you think. I have seen quite a bit of folks that have dismissed the PVE content in WAR as an afterthought to the central PVP theme. It's got me scratching my head wondering if these guys are playing the same game I am. If WoW is the benchmark for PVE quality in current MMORPG's, I'd have to say I'm more than well qualified as any internet expert out there to comment on PVE content. Having leveled every class to 70 on both Horde and Alliance through solo questing and gone through every 5-man and raid instance in the game, I have literally seen everything that WoW has to offer PVE-wise.
I'm here to tell you today that WAR can hold its own when it comes to PVE. There are the standard quests that never get to the tedious "kill 500 mobs hoping for that one rare quest drop" stage that is far too common in WoW questing. The lore and story that accompanies the quests are of high quality which is a shame considering it won't get read at all by the majority of players including myself. Unless it's something memorable like the Duskwood pathos in WoW, I really couldn't care less. So far, there hasn't been anything memorable like that in WAR but it seems WAR doesn't do maudlin pathos well. The brutal reality that is WAR has your next contact be more likely to be found as a corpse in a field somewhere than waiting patiently for you next to the mailbox. When I'm questing, I just want to find new and interesting people in new and interesting places...and kill them. So far, WAR delivers this in spades. Unlike in WoW, I don't dread being sent into a cave or tower and dealing with wonky mob aggro or trudging through the same boring layout. Mythic has done a great job mixing up the vistas and opponents you have to fight through especially if you do the quests in all three race pairings like I've done.
Instances have been sparse but they are there with more waiting to be unlocked once we hit 40. There are the beginner instances in the capital cities which are kind of lacking in terms of XP or loot rewards. But they are there if you want a change of pace and are reasonably quick to get in and out. There's also the Gunbad public instance for the 20-30 range. This instance has a bit more depth and atmosphere compared to the beginner ones but, again, the XP rewards and loot don't compare to what you can get from PVP or questing. I think this was a conscious design effort by Mythic to prevent people from grinding instances to level or get that one uber piece of gear. I really hope this holds true for later instances as well; I like running instances but I don't want them running me. If you know what I mean.
Well solo questing and 5 mans are fine, you say, but Blizzard made its name with epic boss raid encounters. Where are those in WAR, I hear you ask. There are random lairs that can be found in the world holding various beasties for you to slay but I think the real parallel to epic boss encounters are the public quests that are sprinkled liberally in every zone. While on the surface the ease of doing public quests compared to raids in WoW won't enable you to make the connection right away, anyone with any raiding experience will recognize that public quests give you many of the positives of raiding without much of the negatives. When you get to Tier 4 many of the public quests get downright elaborate and there are many moments where you say to yourself, "Self, that's pretty cool.".
I'd like to close this wall of text with a screenshot of a quest reward from the Emperor himself. Karl Franz gave me his own warhammer after a long quest chain that is even labeled distinctively in WAR as an Epic Quest.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)