Month: December 2009

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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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Thank You

I just wanted to say thanks for spending a little of your precious time here at KTR over the past year. It’s been a lot of fun getting to know so many of you and talking about a common passion we all have. Hope you all have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve and a great 2010.

I’d also like to thank a group of sites that have sent a lot of traffic here over the past 12 months and they are as follows:

VirginWorlds, thanks Brent.
All the great folks over at Massively.
Scott Jennings at Broken Toys.
Everyone at Guild Wars.
The staff at WoW.com.
Keen and Graev.
Syp at Bio Break, probably the best MMO blog out there.
Tipa at West Karana, you rock!
All the people behind the Official Guild Wars Wiki.
The folks at Guild Wars 2 Guru.
Who can forget about Tobold?
Sanya’s amazing Eating Bees.
Green Armadillo over at Player Versus Developer.
Syncaine at Hardcore Casual.
And finally everyone over at MMORPG.com.

– Ethic

New Year Planning

As we head to the annual New Year’s LAN party, I post my annual off-topic reminder. I moonlight in traffic safety when not living the glamorous life of a gaming blogger, and midnight to 4am on January 1 is the worst time of year for alcohol-involved crashes (July 4 is a worse day, but January 1 packs a lot into those 4 hours). Your tolerance is probably not as high as you think it is, nor is that something you can judge well after you lose count of drinks. Even if you are fine, that other guy isn’t.

  • If you can, party somewhere you can spend the night.
  • Failing that, a designated driver is a good thing. Plan ahead on that instead of seeing who is least drunk at 3am. Spending the night is still better, because of the other folks who do not have designated drivers. Alternately: taxi.
  • Unless you are 100% sure of your state’s open container laws, keep any alcohol in the trunk. There will be extra police out, and you don’t want questions if you are stopped.
  • On the planning ahead front, don’t forget a pillow, toiletries, and condoms. You may not be planning on using the last, but remember that bit about your judgement after the fourth tequila and how many early September birthdays you know.

On the gaming front, before heading to the LAN party:

  • Patch your games.
  • Save patches to a shared folder for those who did not.
  • Update your drivers, but do not do that last; play for a bit to make sure the new drivers are fine before you arrive.
  • DotA is a great LAN game, but avoid surprises when one person wants to switch over to Demigod, another to League of Legends, and a third to Heroes of Newerth.

Nothing slows down the gaming like having someone patch for an hour before every new game. Don’t be that guy.

: Zubon

Software Toys

A game is something you play; a toy is something you play with. The divide is not a bright line, but I do find myself playing some games and thinking that I am playing with them. It usually relates to the degree of interactivity. When I click and then sit back and watch it go, the less it feels like I am playing something. Pandemic is an example: you set up a bit, get to push a few dials every now and again, but mostly you watch it go. Overlord is clearly a game, Evil Genius feels narrowly on the game side of the line, and Master of Orion 3 was probably on the toy side. Penny Arcade described it as a space empire management simulator rather than a game as such, and that is probably fair. Most simulators are toys rather than games. Details matter there: various editions of Sim City might fall on either side.

“Social games” are mostly software toys. Raising a virtual pet is not so much a game, nor is managing your virtual restaurant, farm, or fish tank. If the intended gameplay is for you to click some stuff and walk away for an hour, that is probably a toy. Which is really weird, because that in no way describes how we play with physical toys, but I almost always think of Facebook games as something I play with. Except Bejeweled Blitz, which is not a “social” game. And social games aren’t really social, since you just send each other presents or steal each others’ crops, instead of perhaps talking to one another. Wow, this is some severe abuse of terms.

This has also become an indicator of when I am about done with an MMO. If I think of myself as logging on to “mess with” the game, rather than play it, I am probably tidying up things before unsubscribing. Gotta get quests and vault space in order, in case I come back someday.

: Zubon

I just found D&D Tiny Adventures on Facebook, so if you’re my friend, you should totally play (with), just because I need more people to buff me. :p I like that they are advertising their product without any RMT add-ons to the game.

Favorite LOTRO Solo Instance

I am way behind even the casual hardcore wave hitting the fog-filled forests of Mirkwood, but I am steadily plodding along like an old work horse.  I usually follow the quest hubs pretty closely, and I maintain the epic quest to “match” the geographic location.  This is even more doable now that Turbine has given players the choice to do Volume 2, Book 9 solo or with a group.

The story thus far in Volume 2, Book 9 is that I have to transport the most badass orc west of Mordor to the gates of Dol Guldur in the hopes I can do a prisoner exchange.  Nevermind the fact that if I were the Nazgul in charge I would just shoot them all dead (including the orc) as they approached my tower, and I am surprised that the elves think this outcome will be any different.  Anyway, it is a secret mission that uses the actual Siege as a cover.  We take the mithril-shackled Mazog through the backwoods so Dol Guldur will not know of our approach.

In Chapter 3, Midnight in the Drownholt, I felt that my solo instance somehow transcended normal gameplay in to something meaningful.  Where I was, momentarily, the hero.

Continue reading Favorite LOTRO Solo Instance

LOTRO Vol. 3 Starts in Dunland?

The collective on the Lord of the Rings Online forums has found a rather interesting tidbit.  The official interactive map shows some new “in-game” geography approximately where Dunland could be.  The area is just to the left of the Waterworks, and if you flip from Terrain to Parchment, you will see the region-in-question disappear.  If you scroll in enough you can see rez-circles and a town.  Looks like Volume 3 might be pushing through the Gap of Rohan.  My guess is Rohan will be in the next buyable expansion, and Isengard will be the culmination of Volume 3.

–Ravious
break on through, to the other side

Skirmish Scaling II

skirmish mark value declining Yes, for the bargain basement price of 108 skirmish marks, you can upgrade your soldier’s power-over-time spell by 0.8 power every 3 seconds. 108 marks is about half what you get for a skirmish with the daily bonus. The herbalist likes to cast Nature’s Power on itself at the start of a fight, although it may decide to give you a recharge once its cooldown is done.

Looking at the other skirmish trainer options past rank 10, this seems typical. I could also spend 132 marks to upgrade the herbalist’s armor by 6. Six. Skirmish training is hard-capped at 20, but it seems soft-capped at 10. Lower ranks increase quickly and cheaply, which was the stated design intention, but the curve becomes a wall in the latter half.

It is a microcosm of MMOs generally: early on, large and quick increases in power; once you feel committed, increasingly small increments for increasingly large investment. On the other hand, I guess that encourages me to spend my marks on those Empowerment scrolls.

: Zubon

Taunting

I am enchanted by this notion of taunting as magical mind control rather than simply insulting an ogre’s mother. One aspect of 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons is dividing power source and role. A Wizard is an arcane controller, a Fighter is a martial defender, and a Swordmage is an arcane defender. If you want a taunt ability, you could build it as psychological trickery, a magical compulsion, a divine geas, or a psychic power. They all amount to roughly the same thing, but it goes with my favorite notion of detaching the mechanics from the fluff. This is a martial class, so it gets martial fluff, while those magical tanks get magical fluff.

: Zubon

Update with additional thought: D&D 4E also avoids the taunting question by using a mechanic called “marking.” A marked target is free to attack whoever it wants, but if the attack does not include the marking defender, it has a penalty to hit, and all the defenders get to do something extra in that case. You can ignore the tank, at which point the tank becomes a pretty good debuffing class that is free to go with its secondary function (generally damage).