Month: November 2007

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Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.

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City of Videos

Did you see the City of Villains trailer back in the day? See it again for the first time, in l33t. Because you know this is how half the people on your server would be playing that scenario. (Check the DM of the Rings link to the right for how D&D players would do Lord of the Rings.)

How about a different take on it entirely? In Korea, it is “City of Hero.” Just the one? I don’t know any Korean; maybe they pluralize like in Japanese. Anyway, here is the City of Hero promo video (labeled CoV for some reason). WISDOM appears very infrequently in the English-language version, but I imagine they show up a lot in City of Hero. Note that the American hero spends the entire fight immobilized and helpless while Korean mages and martial artists destroy undead by the score. Does the target audience feel pandered to?

: Zubon

Character Contemplations 4: De-Frosta (Dark Blast/Thermal Radiation Corruptor)

De-Frosta in the Sky with Diamonds Dark side, new healer. Having seen the villainous versions of heroes sprouting, I made my own. A Corruptor, I thought, could be the best of all possible things. You get the support that I love from Defenders but the damage that Frosta brought me. As it turns out, all their numbers are fairly lousy, but it sounds nice in the abstract.

De-Frosta. Give her Thermal Radiation so that she has fire. Frosta was blue and white, so we want red and black here, and black gives us Dark Blast. This will be a different sort of healer, one with a little more kick, but with the extra damage prevention that Dark Blast provides. On the whole, a useful but not terribly fun character.

Continue reading Character Contemplations 4: De-Frosta (Dark Blast/Thermal Radiation Corruptor)

I Love My New Headset

How good is my new headset? I bought it in the afternoon, and that afternoon we went back to get one for my wife. Excellent sound quality, both input and output, with comfortable ear pads that muffle outside sounds. It uses a USB input, which is great for those of us who have not bought fancy sound cards. Plus, we can use them on any computer, and we are going to test Karaoke Revolution on the PS2.

I recommend the Logitech ClearChat Pro USB. Cheaper than a good sound card, and the guys on Teamspeak are no longer giving me crap about how low my voice is. Mute and volume control are on the earpiece, so you get to feel all sci fi as you control things by tapping your ear.

: Zubon

Recent Searches

Previously

It’s that time again. Maybe everything else I write is nonsense that no one reads, but our results show that you love to see how people get here. So do we!

This time, I am skipping questions covered previously. Yes, people are still looking for Istvaan Shogaatsu, sharding purples, and tips about Dungeon Runners and The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢. I will not distract them from the proper threads.

Before we hide potentially naughty bits beneath the break, I will note that someone must be messing with us on the whole “atitd cybercat” issue. We get about 5 hits a day for that, all from returning users. I am beginning to suspect my fellow rathunters, who know how this question torments me.

Continue reading Recent Searches

Issue 11: New Badges and Titles

City of Heroes Issue 11 will have over 70 new badges. I have already apologized to my wife, who will miss me.

You can set the name of any badge as your title. Now you can proclaim to all that you are Anemic or Inhibited. Are you a Lemming? Have a fondness for Singled Out or Missionary? (“Temerarious” means “rashly daring.” Way to pull out the thesaurus, guys.)

: Zubon

Fantasy Art

One of my favorite artists/illustrators is Wayne Reynolds. He has been doing a lot of work for Wizards of the Coast and Paizo Publishing, including the main art for Eberron and Pathfinder. Have a link to a bio, a bibliography, and two small galleries (the first is larger), along with wallpapers and larger images. You can also find his stuff scattered throughout the Wizards of the Coast galleries, not always listed by name. I can’t find a good single place for his stuff, and not all of it is online (like some nice ones from Dragon that made it into the Compendium book, which does not have a gallery that I could find).

Flipping through the Wizards archives reminds me that Sam Wood has also done a lot of great art for this generation of Dungeons and Dragons. If you have a favorite piece from D&D 3rd Edition, it is probably from one of those two or Todd Lockwood. Anyone know of any games that are tapping these folks?

: Zubon

Chewing Through Content

In terms of creating new content, the players I want are achievers and socializers. They are the easiest to satisfy.

Killers

Maybe I should want killers. Many seem to prefer no updates at all. All the new PvE content in the world is useless to them, unless there is something new to harvest that could be of PK use, in which case they will condescend to suffer through a bit in order to get back to the real game.

Continue reading Chewing Through Content

An Update on our LOLfuture

I mentioned last time that we were on our way to lolpocalypse. The harbinger has arrived: lolthulhu. There is hope, though. Perhaps the path through The LOLcat Wasteland will instead lead to LOLsingularity. That may or may not be a good thing.

: Zubon

Hat tips to Daily Illuminator, Prettier Than Napoleon, and Language Log. Personally I prefer lolPrufrock:

i can has backpart? i can has peach?
im in ur white flannel trousers walkin on ur beach
have heard mermaids singing each in each

i do not think they say o hai to me.

Information Overload

Leukos comments:

for someone completely new to MMORPGs, picking up the game and getting through all the new customizations is a bigger issue. I have many first time players in my guild, and as they leveled up there was a clear knowledge gap apparent between what they knew from learning in game, and what I knew from my outside reading even about classes I had never played. Increasingly complex customizations are required to be successful in the game, especially if you are looking at the pvp game.

I have no idea how a casual City of Heroes player would know to look for all the task forces or hidden contacts. As an experienced gamer, I no longer expect the game to guide me much beyond a basic tutorial, and I do not trust the tutorial to guide me towards good decisions because of the gap between the designers’ original vision and what is actually effective in the game.

In our guild, you ask Adam or I about rules specifics, and you ask whoever specializes in that class for guidance on big decisions. If you are not tapped into the information network, how very lost are you?

: Zubon