.

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.

.

Costume Brawl – PvP Done Right

As I explained in preparation for Guild Wars Halloween, Costume Brawl is something I was looking forward to big time, and now for this week I am having a blast playing the once-a-year PvP game.

The premise is quite simple.  Each profession has a set skill bar.  If you go in as a Warrior, every other Warrior will have the same skill/attribute set up as you.  The game is random 5 vs. 5 where the goal is to kill your opponents and control shrines (capture points).  Each shrine lends a bonus and increases the speed at which you get points for controlling the shrines.  First to 20 points wins.

I think it is brilliant for two reasons.  First, it is fast and fun.  You don’t have to wait for a party, and the gameplay is a great balance between deathmatch and zone control.  Killing people matters, but so does the skill of players surviving and snaring the other players.  If the battle is by one shrine, a good player can ninja-capture another shrine.  Winning is quick, and losing is quick.  If you lose you can go right back in with another team.  If you are stuck in a rut playing in the Random Arenas (4v4) or Alliance Battles (12v12) as your go to for casual PvP in Guild Wars, the game mechanic of Costume Brawl is a fresh breeze.

The second reason is the balance between professions.  Guild vs. Guild battles, Heroes’ Ascent, and to a lesser extent Team Arenas requires a web of protection and healing that normally comes from the PvP mainstay: Monks.  Without this crucial web, a team crumbles in the face of quick spikes of damage.  This places a daunting requirement on the Monks in Guild Wars PvP.  Costume Brawl takes out much of this required web and gives each profession one or two self-heals, which they must rely on more than their healbot teammate.  The average heal for each profession is about 100-150 so one profession does not clearly outshine another.  I would not say that Costume Brawl builds have a perfect one-on-one balance as some professions can easily beat down others, but all told, I think a team of 5 is usually balanced against the other random team.  In other words, PvP returns to its roots of being about skill, not build.

This also excites me for Guild Wars future with Guild Wars 2.  ArenaNet basically has a get out of jail free card with the restart, and they can remake Guild Wars 2 so that one profession (the Monk) is not absolutely required to win.  I think that across the MMO genre, players are getting tired of needing healbots for PvE and PvP.  It is nice to play Costume Brawl, which remains fun without the requisite of a spambot friend.
–Ravious

Public Service Announcement

Halloween is next weekend. You still have time to get a costume other than the Joker. Seriously. The only way you can redeem that one is to play Rock Band with three of the other seven Jokers at the Halloween party.

You could take that idea and turn it into something interesting. The Crow comes to mind, and you need two more dead celebrity superheroes. Then you can make a theme of it. Adding the Rock Band instruments can only help.

: Zubon

I’m not anti-social, just anti-grouping.

This is a topic that has caused considerable discussion in the past. Not all of it awesome discussion. So let’s just get it out of the way: I like playing with by myself. I like soloing. If you give me the choice, 8 times out of 10 I’d rather be out there doing my own thing than being in a group.

But I’m not anti-social. At all. All my characters (of some importance) in every MMO (that I played more or less seriously) have been guilded. I have many good game friends, and these friendships persist even when either party moves on to another game.

Is there a disconnect here? No. Why? After the break.

Continue reading I’m not anti-social, just anti-grouping.

Asheron’s Call 2 Screenshots

I pulled out a few of my old screenshots of Asheron’s Call 2 to share. I find these interesting because they show the user interface and you can see how it really was not that different from the MMOs that came after it.

The first one is of my Feral Intendant fighting a Squall Tyrant out in what we called the Tyrant Bowl. You can see my shreth pet off to the left. The boxes below my health bar are all my buffs and debuffs.

This next one is of my FI about to finish off a Storm Tyrant and a Squall Tyrant has noticed me. He is moving in for what he thinks is an easy kill, but I did finish him off too. Yes it was fun to feel like a hero.

The third shot is me standing where you first arrive in Dereth after the training, just outside of Arwic down the hill.

This final shot I included because it shows me just outside of Arwic and it also shows the inventory management system.

Hope you enjoyed these little peeks back into Asheron’s Call 2.

– Ethic

Dairy Heir

Another flashback of Asheron’s Call 2. You’re welcome!

—————-

The following is a quest that a group of players (including me) in Turbine’s Vanguard program helped to create and which was put into the game. The Vanguard program was a developer selected group of players that were given early access to new content on the test server, as well as having a forum with direct developer contact for feedback.

They placed special Dillos in the game, which were named after the players that were involved in creating this quest. I was one of them, it was quite surreal to go see my NPC in the game.

Continue reading Dairy Heir

Recurring Apocalypse

The City of Heroes/Villains Halloween event is on. As usual, previous years’ content returns (with changes: go door-to-door rather than camping one, and Spirits are not spawning as often as intended — sorry badge hunters). This year’s new thing is the Zombie Apocalypse, patterned after the Rikti Invasion. Sadly, the two zone events cannot happen at once, even with the LGTF, but that would be awesome, especially if they fought each other.

After Halloween, zombies will return as an occasional event, again like the Rikti (although presumably with no non-event trigger like the LGTF, although again: awesome). This leads me to again wonder: why would you live in Paragon City? Even after you get used to walking past werewolves, rock monsters, and alien invaders on your way to the corner store, the apocalypse is a recurring event. Welcome to Sunnydale?

: Zubon

Feral Intendant Guide

This was originally written by me on Feb 20th, 2004. I hated to see it go away forever so I put it here mostly for my own gratification. This is in regards to the long-gone Asheron’s Call 2. I dedicate this weekend to AC2 flashbacks.

General

Turbine describes the Feral Intendant (FI) as a resilient creature of the jungle. He is a hunter, a killer, an explorer of the deepest undergrowths. He claims some of the jungle creatures as his friends, and they have learned to work with him to achieve devastating results in combat.

Continue reading Feral Intendant Guide