I explained to my wife that my Warden threw pointy sticks at the enemy.
“Pony sticks?!”
She was horribly disappointed when I clarified.
: Zubon
Month: March 2011
I Feel Safer
This is not a guard on patrol about to turn around. He does not move. The sentry is staring into a corner while a poorly designed outhouse sneaks up on him.
He is guarding the secret camp of the rangers, which I found unaided on my first time in the zone because there is a giant horse head marking the spot, to say nothing of the road leading there.
: Zubon
[GW] Embark to a Mega Update
Today is the day Guild Wars will move on. It’s not a swan song per se, but I just can’t imagine Guild Wars having any further update bigger than the one for today. This update will change the game to such a degree that it might as well be Guild Wars 1.5 now. This is not to belittle the upcoming story content updates, which I am anticipating heavily, but just to paint a brief notion of the magnitude of this thing. First, here’s a WarTower interview with Live Team head, John Stumme:
[GW2] No. 6, The Thief
EDIT: And we’re back. Changed all links to fav site, Massively.
So much Guild Wars news today, but first I will start with the unexpected bomb so I can spend more time working on a post for the Guild Wars update later today. It seems that Massively received a pretty good demo at GDC, where they filmed it entirely. We know about the first part being the norn starting area, which was expected for the new demo coming out. And then at Massively’s demo the presenter casually drops that “oh yeah, the sixth profession is the thief. Play it.” I have to say I was not expecting another profession reveal before PAX, and I definitely was not expecting it in the updated demo/presentation.
[GW2] The Thief Unrung
It appears that megasite GameTrailers did ignore an NDA/embargo on the release of the sixth Guild Wars 2 profession, which I was unaware of when I wrote the thief post here. Out of respect for ArenaNet, and more importantly the people that worked on and were excited about releasing the thief, I am taking down my post until official release. Comments and the post are preserved behind Door #43.
It’s a tough decision between sticking it to the man, information must be free, we know anyway, and respect. I feel better inside taking it down, and I hope no one is offended. I expect that the post with modifications from official news will go back up in a week.
Thanks.
–Ravious
Lag and Gambits
As a Hunter, lag is inconvenient. I might need to wait an extra second before an arrow fires, and I will occasionally mess up my rotation because a lag spike lasted longer than an activation/animation time. Meh, I sometimes shoot people in the face a slightly different way than expected.
As a Warden, lag is fairly horrible. Gambits key off combinations of three skills, so you could be in trouble if thrown-off timing leads to your getting the wrong skills, the wrong order, or a gambit firing before it is complete. If I need my area effect morale leech (312-4), I may really need that health, and 31-4, 32-4, 12-4, or 312-“why isn’t this firing” are not going to cut it. Those are all other gambits, one of which has a small HoT, but they are not the one I need.
Server-side lag has been problematic since the last update. Every fight or two, everything freezes for 0.5 to 2 seconds. It feels absurd to whine about 1 second delays, but that is very frequent, relatively large, and annoyance builds up. Gameplay has a rhythm, and you do not want skips several times a song. I find myself paying more attention to the UI so that lag befouls fewer gambits.
: Zubon
One Entitled Eight-Ball
Is Rift a success? Yes, I am a happy customer. The end. Print that for a box top and smoke it, Trion. Everything else from their return-on-investment to some silly “3-monther” yardstick is irrelevant. Yet, the story doesn’t fully end because this is a subscription game, and I have to determine whether it’s a success every single month. I will never say I am going to subscribe until the servers go dark. Therefore, Rift is instantly a success, and it will never be a success.
The MMO community carries a weird sense of measure for a successful game. It’s like there is some pressure for the game to be timeless that seems found nowhere else in the video game world. People are buying a new Pokemon this month, which is the exact same game every iteration. What about the $60 console games with 10 hours of gameplay before the credits roll? I own games on Steam I have never even played! Yet somehow it matters if Rift is timeless now?
It must be some weird artifact of the bygone days, you know before World of Warcraft ruined “community,” to be benchmarking the game’s life at launch. I certainly am not looking for an indefinite home, especially in a subscription-based game. I am looking for a sweet-vacation spot. When I hit sunny Acapulco, my fun is definitely not inhibited by worries that the town is going to go donkey turds in five years. It surprises me that people are viewing their MMO time that way. Hopefully they are still enjoying the game regardless of what their magic eight-ball is telling them
–Ravious
so let it be written, so it shall be done
[Rift] Breaking Through
Last night was the kickoff event for my Rift guild, Gaiscioch. We congregated at the entrance of Silverwood (from the tutorial zone), and rode through Silverwood on to Sanctum to help people pick up the porticulum warps. Along the way we ran over any extraplanar forces. Then we headed to the Defiant side, where we helped stop a water invasion, and then turned on the godless mongrels just outside of Meridian. Being that most of our 150+ person event was below level 25, the soulless guards of Meridian were able to single-handedly wade through the Defiant tombstones and stop our ascent. I had to say I don’t think I have had this much fun in an MMO since my first big RvR event a few years ago.
Shared Storage
I do not know what it costs in these days of Turbine Points, but I received shared storage in LotRO as a part of the Siege of Mirkwood/Adventurer’s Pack deal of 2009. I may or may not have thrown some Turbine Points at expanding it, but I may if I notice a sale (otherwise: save for buying this fall’s expansion).
I had originally bought in-game housing for the shared chest, so this replaced my need for a house, and it was conveniently accessible from any vault. Upgrade! I only re-acquired housing this weekend, because I am willing to spend 1 gold plus 50 silver per week to give all my characters a convenient recall to Thorin’s Gate. The atmosphere in dwarf housing may not be the best, but it is the closest to town and a stable, and my new house is conveniently right next to the door. Upgrade!
After the 238th time of forgetting that I wanted to pass that [Drop of Amber Resin] to my Loremaster while muling, I used the new tabbed vault interface to set up what you see in the picture. Each character gets a tab (level/class indicated), and when I empty out a character’s pack of goods for alts, I just drop items on the appropriate tab. (You do not need to open each pack, just drag the item to the tab name.) 9 characters, 10 tabs, plus a main pack for unsorted items: no more forgetting items when switching characters.
This has been especially handy as I take advantage of tasks. My Warden has been gaining a level a day, so when I finish a quest hub, I dump the out-leveled vendor trash on a character who can redeem it for xp. (The same applies if I farm deeds or visit old dungeons.) I usually pass 5 to 10 tasks worth of excess vendor trash, plus change for when I play those alts again. It is not a lot of xp, but it works around the 5/day/character task limit, and the loss of silver means nothing when my level-capped character is sitting on enough gold to buy an entire neighborhood of housing.
: Zubon
An Unusual Advertisement
The developer diary for the new upcoming LotRO instances fails to name or discuss the upcoming instances. It is almost entirely about loot and barter token drops.
Okay, how does it advertise the barter token drops? “[T]he costs for barter currency have been inflated significantly,” and that new currency is available on from quests that “reset just as though they were on the twice-a-week raid reset timer.”
The makers of Rift quake at launching in the face of such competition.
: Zubon