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.
.Travis “Rashere†McGeathy, Lead Designer of EverQuest has quit and announced a road trip across country to work on a new title. My only guess is 38 Studios. Seems like they could almost be SOE East if it’s true. Who’s next, Scott Hartsman?
UPDATE: Massively confirms it to be true.
Nerfbat makes it Official!
– Ethic
The Lord of the Rings Online Book 13 patch will be improving the LFG and quest log UIs, which I already felt was some of the best out there. Currently, when grouping it is easy to see what quests your other group members have. No need to ask what quests everyone has, just look at the quest UI and you can see an icon for each member with the quest.
In Book 13, they will be adding several new features and it looks impressive. Here are some of the highlights:
More prominent filtering options for your list of quests lets you look at just solo quests or just fellowship quests or just the quests you share with your fellowship members. We expanded shared quest status beyond just showing who has the same quest – we tell you where each member of your fellowship stands relative to you for each quest. You can see who among your fellows is behind, or ahead, or even done with the overall quest chain-easily find out who needs to get caught up so that you can tackle that instance or group challenge together. You can see when your fellowship members are ready to turn in a quest-much easier than spamming fellowship chat asking if everyone is done collecting 10/10 boar stomachs! Sharing a quest can now share earlier quests in the chain-if you’ve done a couple of quests in an epic book and your friends haven’t started, you can share the quest you are on and they will get the first quest in the chain! No more blind fellowship invites-when you’re invited, you see the name, level, class, and location of everyone in the fellowship. “Find A Fellowship” button comes in. It’s a new button on the Quest Log that works a little like the “Add to Tracker” button. You can mark one quest for Find A Fellowship. That automatically opens the Fellowing tab of the Social Panel and fills out all the relevant information. You’ll see a list of players who also want to work on that quest (and those players can now find you, too).
To top it all off, they are adding “Mustering Horns” at campsites across Middle-earth. These allow you to summon the distant members of the group to the campsite. Very nice, Book 13 is looking to be another excellent addition to an already satisfying (at least for this explorer) game.
– Ethic
As previously contemplated and announced, City of Heroes is selling extra character slots. The official implementation is here. (2 free for current subscribers, 1 free per year that you are subscribed, one time fee of $6/$10/$20 for 1/2/5 slots, add up to 24 per server) I open this for your comments, as I am curious about what you think of the option, pricing, likely staff time needed, the limits placed, other options that could be viable, etc.
Kicking it off, I note that you are buying one slot for one server, not one slot per server. Also, if you want your cap of 36 slots on a server, that will cost ~$100, or $80 if you are a two-year subscriber who puts all the free slots there.
I predict many people returning for at least one month for Issue 12: two free slots for being a current subscriber, plus new archetypes and power sets to play with. Lots of new characters will be made to play with those, so it is a good time to start too. Great marketing item, definitely worth e-mailing to former players with the “$10 value!” note. Of course, that is still at least a month away, so keep your powder dry. I am on-break from CoX until then.
: Zubon
According to TechSpot, as well as several other sources, the source code for the EVEOnline client program has been leaked and is merrily making its way around the torrents right now. This, by itself, would be pretty big news. Even more interesting, however, are allegations that CCP, understanding that a bell can’t be unrung, is instead seeding torrents themselves, then taking a banhammer to any IP address that they find downloading the source.
Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition is available for pre-order at 40% off. That is pretty tempting for me, what with my bookcase of gaming books. I feel reasonably certain that I will buy at least the PHB, but buyer’s remorse on many other products makes me hesitate to pre-order. I avoid pre-ordering anything these days unless I have direct experience with it, which seems unlikely to be available here. On the other hand, there is lots of info at EN World and DnD4.com.
So basically I am asking if you have any advice, comments, leaks, etc. I am leaning towards it, so I don’t need a big shove, but I remain worried about getting another RPG book/system that I will never use, a failure of both fluff and mechanics.
: Zubon
He both ran around and deserted me. He said he would do neither, but that was a lie. It hurt. He made me cry. Way to let me down, Rick. I guess I’ll have to give you up. Time to say goodbye.
: Zubon
I just wanted to help draw attention to Gamers For A Cure. I consider Shawn “Kwip” and Becky “Kwipette” best-friends-I’ve-never-actually-met. Kwip runs N3 aka Neenerneener.net. It is probably the first gaming related blog I ever read. His wife Kwipette has MS and every year those crazy folks all get together for the MS Walk to raise money to fight MS. If you want to help out, they are having an auction for some Warhammer Online shirts (thanks to Sanya Weathers). You can also donate money directly if you wish.
Shawn and Becky, I wish I could join you guys – but I hope this little bit helps. Good luck with the walk and take care!
– Ethic
I have previously cited suggestions that internet folks are repeating very old trends in spelling and grammar. I would like to head a few decades before the Civil War citation to find an earlier root in a craze of the 1830s. People would intentionally misspell words, then turn phrases into acronyms and abbreviations based on those misspellings. The canonical example is “OK,” which stood for “all correct” (oll korrect). It was popularized when Martin Van Buren ran for president, because he had a nickname with the initials OK.
The roots of lolcattery lie in Martin Van Buren partisanship. Now you know.
: Zubon
Context:
Some games such as Asheron’s Call or EVE Online are (character) skill-based rather than class-based. This means that instead of selecting “Warrior” or “Wizard” at character creation, players can choose from a menu of powers and skills, possibly assigning points to specialize in them. Most such games will offer default suites of skills that replicate the standard warrior and wizard classes.
Problem:
The standard suites of skills are almost always suboptimal, and players can unintentionally select sets of skills that make characters unplayable or underpowered, particularly in later levels. This creates a large power gap between min-maxers and casual players.
Continue reading Design Document: Classes in a Skill-Based Game
My fondness for Warcraft 3 tower defense maps having long been established, I direct your attention to my latest obsession, DotA. It is more or less a new game, using Warcraft’s pieces. Waves of enemies appear automatically and crash against each other, while you are a hero who leads/supports your troops and fights your enemy counterparts. It is kind of like being Captain America in the World War II comic days.
It is a great LAN game, seating up to ten players (and not really coming into its own unless you have at least six). Each game takes about an hour, so you can try a few different teams, heroes, or strategies in a normal gaming binge. You can also download bots for solo play (or to fill empty seats), which feels preferable to braving the wilds of Battle.net. I am mostly interested in playing with friends, and I am using the bots map to help me see which heroes I enjoy.
There are about 80 heroes, so you could play for a long time just trying them out. If it takes a game to get the swing of a hero, another to see if you like it now that you understand it, and maybe a third if you liked that one, you could play for months just doing that. Your heroes include swordsmen and mages, a giant scorpion, Zeus, a druid who awakens trees to fight for him, suicidal goblins, invisible assassins, the skeleton of an elvish archer, a two-headed dragon, and Pudge the Butcher.
The game rewards an odd playstyle called “last-hitting and denying.” You get gold only for deathblows, so the ideal is to follow your NPC troops and killsteal. If it looks like an opponent is going to get a deathblow on your NPC, kill your own troops. Early success is dangerous, because it brings you in range of enemy towers, so your early “lead and support” campaign involves delaying and murdering your NPC allies so that the fight happens closer to your own defenses. Perhaps not so much Captain America.
: Zubon