You know what makes combat in an MMO really satsifying? Yes, a deep combat system is important. But right now, I want to talk about the sounds.
A lot of the classes that swing their weapons in Lotro make a “swish” sound no matter if they hit a target or not. It’s not something you notice the first time you fight, or even the millionth, but at some point you play a character in Lotro or another mmo and you whack something and go, “Ouch, I think I heard some bone breaking!!”
As an example of the swish effect, I’d like to direct your attention to some bloody penguins.
First, the swishy one:
http://www.logan.ws/games/penguin.asp
Then the more satisfying smashy one:
http://www.logan.ws/games/bloody-penguin.asp
Notice how when you smash the penguins in the second link, it just feels more gratifying. You get to hear a “splat” sound when you actually hit the penguin to begin with, plus the penguin makes “ouch” sounds whenever it bounces, and finally there are sweet “boom” sounds whenever the penguin hits a mine.
FFXI is great at having very satisfying sound effects. Other games like SWG really drop the ball in this department. With Lotro, it depends on which class you play and which skills you use. One of the reasons I like playing my new Warden alt in Lotro is how satisfying the stabbing sounds are. I really feel like I’m inflicting some virtual pain.
[Final Fantasy XI] Well, I fired up my old FFXI account around Christmas. My old character was still saved because Playonline now saves characters for up to a year. I decided I’d probably never play that character again and I’d use it as a mule and sell all its stuff. The first thing I noticed in FFXI when I went to sell my stuff is the current economy “problem.” While some would argue that it’s not a problem, there is a large inflation going on. No one really knows the cause but some attribute it to mostly the holiday season and idiots. Regardless, a lot of items have increased in price, mainly the more rare items. While some say this is bad, others would say it’s not that big of a deal because a lot of other money making items have also gone up in price; however, some haven’t. Either way, inflation in FFXI never increases your current gil supply. Someone who could buy several rare items now can only buy a couple. You either had to realize an inflation was coming on and buy items before they got too pricey and then resell or your gil is now not worth as much as it used to be.
Continue reading ‘FFXI: There and back again’
[Final Fantasy XI] My brother mentioned FFXI one night. I’m not sure how we really came to this decision, but because he hadn’t asked for anything for Christmas, we came to the idea that maybe an FFXI account would be a good idea. Both he and I have burnt ourselves out on WoW, though we are far from done with WoW.
I’ve been kind of mellow lately, not feeling like even logging into WoW, even though I got home five days ago and have been able to. I’ve mostly been playing offline games between my new Nintendo DS and Dragon Quest VIII. I don’t know exactly why I haven’t felt compelled to play WoW. There’s many reasons I can think of, with feeling bored of the game actually being close to last on the list. Playing FFXI again would be like breathing fresh air again. I’ve never played two MMORPGs at once, so I don’t know if this could eventually be a good or bad thing for me.
Continue reading ‘Loving Change’
[Final Fantasy XI]
/em clutches chest.
/em dies from joy overload.
In the next version update, major changes are scheduled for the dragoon two-hour ability.
The development team does not consider the dragoon to be particularly weak when compared to other jobs, but we are aware that a large part of a dragoon’s strength depends on the presence of his or her wyvern. After taking into account the wyvern’s tendency to be quickly defeated in heated battles, and the dragoon’s lack of a powerful special ability for use in missions and other critical situations, it was decided that improvements were necessary.
Continue reading ‘O… M… F… G…’
[Final Fantasy XI] SE is introducing something called Limbus, specifically Limbus: “Temenos” and “Apollyon.” The description sound like it will be a Dynamis style event, which are huge 64 person groups that fight a zone full of monsters. There was very little detail and nothing given on the developers page. There is alot of speculation though, as it appears that the area this might take place in would be in “Sea” the high level CoP mission areas. So far we know that Temenos means the area of and around a religious place and Apollyon is a greek term used basically to describe destruction. Also the term Limbus implies Limbo and all its attendant vagueness.
Continue reading ‘WTF is Limbus?’
[Final Fantasy XI] Well, I have completed and helped my static complete Chapter 2 of the Chains of Promathia. We are now working on The Road Forks. This is a quest that has a semi-branching story line and doesn’t have to be completed in order (even though it usually is because the story lines take place in San d’Oria and Windurst respectively). For the San d’Orian story line we had to defeat a relatively simple Marlboro-type mob then return to San d’Oria to complete the mission. For the Windurst branch we had to go to Attohwa Chasm and defeat a pretty simple named Antlion mob. The problem with this part is that we then had to go up the Parrademo Tor, which is a big mountain that we had to climb to finish the quest. It has these cliffs you have to walk along that you can easily fall off of and the path is often times blocked by gas escaping from fissures in the wall.
Anyway, I have now completed the hard parts of both of the quests and just need to talk to the NPC’s to finish the quest. Which is nice. Except the fact that I have to do it again for the rest of my CoP static.
ringthree
[Final Fantasy XI] Square Enix is adding new conquest points items that will allow you to get a slight bonus in experience points (and limit points) for a period of time. This will likely be used mainly for soloing while looking for a party.
Experience Point Bonus Items
These items are designed to help those who wish to earn a little extra experience from defeating easy opponents, rather than for use in extended party play.
The bonus points provided by these new additions may not be noticeable at first, but taking advantage of the bonus every day will eventually make a substantial difference.
The new items will be available through the exchange of conquest points, making them accessible to a wide range of players. Talk to your nearest conquest guard after the version update and see how this adventuring accessory can help you!
Stolen from the Development Team page.
ringthree
[Final Fantasy XI]
O
M
G
Pics from the Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansion:
From top to bottom: Blue Mage Artifact Gear, Blue Mage using a spider slow attack, Blue Mage using raptor breath attack, Boat to a new city, Beautiful new scenery, More beautiful new scenery, Even more beautiful new scenery, You get the picture, Ghost ship
Square Enix also made this statement:
Blue Mage
Employing the legendary arts of Aht Urhgan, these formidable fighter-mages employ elegantly curved blades for close combat, while decimating their enemies from afar with fell magic mastered from their opponents.
This was all completely ganked from DigitalBackSpin.
ringthree
[Final Fantasy XI] Just completed chapter 2 of Chains of Promathia. The battle, which involves defeating 3 faceless baddies, is said by some to be one of the toughest battles in the game.
Beat it on the first try… I am so uber.
Well, not exactly on the first try but only because we did a dry run first to test my strategy.
I have come to believe that every single CoP mission boss has a weakness and SE designed it this way.
The strategy of body aggroing the three bosses with the paladin and having the white mage spam cures on the main tank while the rest of the group deals with one at a time works wonders.
The Yellow Liquid is fantastic for this fight especially for ninja tanks, as it locks the boss into one of its four forms for about a minute. Get it on the polearm form of the boss and the attacks are so slow that you wont have a problem with it at all. The paladin with the white mage can take anything as long as they have MP.
I even screwed up and threw the Yellow Liquid on one while it was in warrior form. This is a bad idea because it attacks so fast.
From what I saw they had four forms. No job (great except for transmogrification), Polearm (Dragoon), Staff (Black Mage) and Sword (Warrior). Try to lock it on Polearm. Don’t lock it on Sword >.<
Also, dont let the main tank engage the last mob before the second one is dead. If they do that then they can get hate from the white mage that is still curing the main tank. I would save all your special attacks for the second mob.
ringthree
[Final Fantasy XI] The information from the October update has been slow in coming but here is some more.
Two of the new pets that will become available for the beastmaster ability “Call Beast” in the October version update.
Exciting!
Thieved from the FFXI Developers webpage.
Yeah, I think this update may be just a hold over until we can get some more information on the expansion. Because so far we have a quest that only level 70 fishermen can do, and jug pets. Woo… hoo…
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