Month: February 2011

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Dailies and Deeds

If you have played LotRO past the introductory instances, you are familiar with the slayer deeds (achievements). Defeat 30 wolves in The Shire to get a title; great, I will fight at least 30 while questing. Completing each unlocks an advanced version to defeat twice as many. Normal questing will probably get you somewhere in the 45 to 60 range, so you can grind a bit to complete the advanced deed and get your virtue point, maybe come back in 5-10 levels when you can farm very quickly. Then you get closer to the original endgame and the basic slayer deed is to kill 120 of something. Holy crap, kill 360 wights in Angmar, really?

The addition of skirmishes and (more) daily quests has helped this feel less grindy. Sure, I need to defeat 300+ wolves in Enedwaith, but there is a pair of daily quests that gets me at least 10, and I use those dailies to get rep, IXP, and barter items. I might be less cavalier about that prospect because my main is a Hunter, so I can casually zip around to a dozen hubs in a day, but there is a built-in way to spread out the grind and get more reward from it. It also makes those wood trolls in Enedwaith look really painful to grind, but maybe I have not found the deed for them. Skirmishes are much the same: daily reward, and those wolves in The Shire practically come to you.

: Zubon

Rift PvP: You’re Not in…Oh You Know

As I am planning on playing when the game goes live, I have purposely avoided taking my character out of the first area, so as to have as much new as possible. As I’ve ground up a rogue, mage, cleric, and warrior to mid-20’s or higher, and done almost every tradeskill skill to at least 100, that means what I have left to sample is the PvP game in Rift. In a surprising twist, I’ve found that I am amazingly good at it, although I know I am bad at it. It’s just so many people have not realized that Rift is not the same as WoW, despite the familiar feel. In the past, I’ve gone out of my way to avoid the direct comparison, but after several days of playing, I cannot figure out a better way to do so.

I’ve played a lot of Black Garden, Rift’s “Capture the Flag” variant, and Valley of the Codex, which is Rift’s resource capture variant. These are both similar to WoW’s versions, but still distinctly different, which makes it very depressing when someone uses WoW’s tactics on them. Because you will lose. Badly. I was going to go into a detailed explanation of the zones, but that makes for a boring and possibly ranty post. Instead, I’m going to briefly talk about raiding the other side which is crazy fun.
Continue reading Rift PvP: You’re Not in…Oh You Know

Guild Wars Guru 2011 GvG Championship Series

This is pretty amazing, but Guild Wars Guru is setting up a Guild Wars GvG (Guild vs. Guild) Championship Series complete with divisions and prizes in each division. Given that we are nearing the 6 year mark for Guild Wars, and Guild Wars 2 is going in to player testing this year, I am just amazed at some of the things the Guild Wars PvP community is still doing. For another example, every month now the GvG Monthly Automated Tournament (MAT) is casted. Replays are available for awhile in game, but many times it is hard to understand what is going on, especially if the viewer is not familiar with the current meta. Anyway, Guru has a wide range of divisions, including one for casual players unfamiliar with GvG. The prizes include some pretty good stuff (video cards, headsets, etc.), and I hope that there will be some really good competition coming from this tournament.

–Ravious

[Rift] A Spam Contribution

Trion Worlds has a fantastic game going into early access launch this Thursday (1 EST), but they still have a lot of work cut out for them. Likely the biggest issue is going to be massaging souls (classes) to get them where they work. I am not worried about balance for each soul, but I expect that Trion will work out a strong niche for each calling. I’ve been reading balance issues all over the board, but then again even the longer-toothed World of Warcraft is still fiddling with classes.

The one challenge I hope Rift can make work is the contribution system for the dynamic content. Right now, quite frankly, it sucks.

Continue reading [Rift] A Spam Contribution

A loving FU to Trion

Time to eat crow.

See, I wasn’t going to play Rift. Note the past tense. Just looking at it from a distance it looked like it had nothing to offer other than its two major key points, namely the Rifts themselves and the class system. The rest was just your usual spaghetti sauce of modern MMO, adjusted for flavor here and there. Enough? For some people it was, but for me it wasn’t. I just wasn’t interested in the least bit to learn about its details.

Then, of course, I just had to go ahead and try the beta. I never learn. So, basically, FU Trion. For getting me hooked.

Recap? Briefly? Okay: This game has no right being as fun as it is. Why? Because once you take out the rifts and the class system, we’ve played this game before. Some of us for years on end. We’ve done this before. Let that sink in. So, if we did, why is it still utterly fun?

Musings about that last point: It’s still fun because you really can’t take the rifts and the class system out. Sure, you might choose never ever ever to join a PQ and do a single rift, cross your heart and hope to die. That’s fine. But it still alters your gameplay as you go along. And of course, you can’t take the class system out. It’s still fun because it works, and it works great at what it does, which is offering a condensed can of modern, post-WoW MMO, with all that people love and hate about it. It’s fun because the combat feels meaty and punchy, and at least to me, never got old with any of the soul combinations I tried. It’s fun because it’s exceptionally pretty new ground to cover and muck about in. It’s fun because it’s polished and you can tell a lot of love went into it.

So, if you’re like I was up until a few days ago, thinking that you’re gonna give it a miss because there’s nothing in it of note other than the Rifts – which you won’t care about – and the class system – which might be nice, but whatever – here’s my impressions from playing the beta for just a few days: You’re wrong.

A Conundrum of Commitment

My wife says I lack speeds between 0 and 60.

If Rift offered a lifetime subscription plan, I would most likely take it. If it used a carnival model, so I would not need to pay to revisit characters after a break, I would most likely be there. The monthly subscription model instead puts me in the unfortunate place of having repeated psychic costs every unit time, along with the feeling that I need to “get my money’s worth” (which should take all of one night, relative to other entertainment costs) and the game structures that make it difficult to meaningfully play more than one at once. MMOs tend to promote serial monogamy over polygamy, so if I have one, moving to a new one is a lot like abandoning the old. You can revisit your exes, but again, psychic costs.

I am interested, and it looks high quality, but I am not over the cost of switching and starting over. Guild Wars 2, however, seems like a gimme, what with box cost only.

: Zubon

[GW2] Necromancer: The Gambler

(Note: This post was written for the GuildMag Blog Carnival Event. Be sure to check out the other great articles!) http://www.guildmag.com/blog-carnival-event-bring-the-popcorn

The necromancer in Guild Wars has a handful of iconic builds, those that rise like cream. The necromancer is a lord of hexes and conditions, yet arguably it’s heart, it’s purpose is to be a minion master. The minion master’s purpose is to quickly convert bodies into undead slaves as quickly as possible. Unlike a pet oriented class, such as Guild Wars ranger or the pitiful necromancers in other MMOs, the minion master cares not about a single creature it creates. It sends them on their way in to the meat grinder hoping their death even brings destruction.

After 250 years, the necromancer profession has changed and evolved. Legend says it was a sylvari that asked the simplest question of all, which would change the minion master forever: “Why do we need bodies?”

Continue reading [GW2] Necromancer: The Gambler

Baby Warden

As implied, I am leveling up a Warden in The Lord of the Rings Online. My main has always been a Hunter, and there is something distinctly annoying about having the most common class in the game. There are things that Hunters do very well, and in LotRO it really matters that travel is one of them, but there are very few that require a Hunter. Most things require a tank, and a few things require a Warden (or perhaps a Captain).

A Warden is my kind of tank, more nimble, less getting hit in the face, with some self-healing and range. The Warden’s taunt mechanic is very different from the Guardian’s. Guardians have taunts that force a target to attack them for some number of seconds. The worst Guardian in the game can still keep the boss’s aggro for X seconds out of every Y, and if DPS pulls aggro in between, he will assume he over-nuked. Wardens instead increase their threat with damage, healing, abilities that directly increase threat, and others that transfer threat from allies. A mediocre Warden will never top the threat list and cannot tank anything; you cannot dislodge targets from a great Warden without a force-taunt.

What I really like about the Warden is the gambit system. My Hunter has bar after bar of abilities, plus a couple bars of teleports before you became able to use those from the skills menu. My Warden has four main buttons, plus a few stances, ranged attacks, and toys. 1 is the Spear (offense), 2 is the Shield (defense), 3 is the Fist (taunt), and 4 is the combo. 4 changes depending on which of 1-3 you use first and in what combination: 11 is a quick stab, 213 boosts all your defenses, and 32 is an area effect taunt/DoT with a self-heal. The most celebrated Warden gambit comes at level 58: Conviction, an area effect heal and threat transfer, letting you grab aggro on every add. There is something glorious about having access to 20+ skills using only a few buttons.

Plus, Wardens are the second-best travel class. I should get access to the “Muster in…” self-teleport line of skills soon.

: Zubon