Kill Ten Rats

[World of Warcraft] Blizzard has just released volume 2 of their battleplan. I must have missed volume 1. In it, they promise a few things and certainly do their job of hyping you up. You can find the whole post here. It’s much too long to post, but I will list quotes of what I find most important in a list form, not in any particular order.

1.) For this Battle Plan, we want to take the opportunity to look ahead to what our players can expect in the coming months leading up to BlizzCon and the expansion announcement.

2.) One feature we’re excited about is the addition of mid-sized raid dungeons.

3.) In addition to those new areas, we’ll also be adding some outright terrifying world raid encounters. Along with Azuregos and Lord Kazzak, the names of four green dragons—Ysondre, Lethon, Emeriss, and Taerar—will come to be feared throughout Azeroth.

4.) To this end, we’re focused on launching new world events and expanding on some of the ones already available.

5.) That aspect is something we definitely want to keep in Alterac, but we also want to make it more accessible by lowering the launch requirement from 30 players per side to 20. We also plan to shorten the length of time required to complete a game of Alterac Valley. Some of the changes we’ll be implementing to accomplish this goal are balancing out the terrain, slightly decreasing the landmass, and improving the queue to ensure balanced teams for each game.

6.) We want to bring back the hectic action of mass PvP, but with some improvements. One idea on the table is to place a capturable objective in the exterior environment. With something like this, we can encourage outdoor PvP again while centralizing the action to a designated location.

7.) We’re currently in the process of improving underused talents for all classes.

8.) Another feature of the Web site we’ll be implementing is fee-based character transfers. This is a feature that’s been very frequently requested and one which we want to provide for players as soon as we can. We’ll offer character transfers from one realm to another, as well as allow players to move characters from one account to another. While we want to offer this service as a convenience, we also want to prevent its use for exploitive reasons, so there will be a time restriction to limit the frequency that a character can be moved.

I’m personally most excited about the improvements to out-of-BG PvP as well as character transfers. By the time I got within town raiding level, BGs were coming out and almost all forms of non-BG and ganking PvP were dead. I missed the days before BGs where I would group up with other faction members and hunt down Alliance. It was even more fun when we met another group of Alliance that were doing the same thing, except they were killing Horde. I’m also excited about character transfers because I might be able to obtain my level 57 Shaman and put him on my new account.

Honorable mentions would be the new outdoor raid bosses and talent fixes. Hopefully this will more evenly distribute people wanting to participate in these outdoor raids, rather than limiting it to only two, which is what it is currently, which means you run into more bottlenecking between guilds and factions wanting to kill these bosses. As for talents, I hope Blizzard does this well. In the case of my Shaman, there were some talents that no one would EVER use no matter what spec you were. It seems that is true for my Mage as well. Blizzard said that some classes, such as Warlock, are complete in terms of talents. I’m curious to you Warlocks out there, are there still talents a Warlock will never take no matter what spec they choose (or was there ever)? If so, I hope Blizzard doesn’t consider that complete, because it certainly isn’t. It’d be nice in a perfect WoW world for all talents on the same level tier to be equal in usefulness. I know as a Shaman I would never take Improved Stoneskin Totem as a second tier talent, especially when TS, ImpGW, and ImpLS are on the same tier!

I’m a bit iffy about the world events. If you read the full post you will notice that there isn’t much said. In fact, they really only mention one new event. Events are something I would love having but neither FFXI or WoW have really done them the way I would like them to happen, especially WoW.

It’s also a bit disappointing to see another “look to the future” news report and still no sight of Hero Classes. Oh well, maybe next time. Hopefully they’re keeping it a secret for the expansion reveal.

.:lufia22:.

[EVE Online] Another EVE patch, nerfs, buffs, cancels, and of course, Fubaring of the game text will now occur, have a nice day.

-Zxyrox

You are probably familiar with the list of computer RPG cliches. Veterans of the genre are probably familiar with many variations, actually, and understand exactly what each reference means. This means that we have spent too much time in front of monitors instead of learning Spanish, dating, exercising, cleaning up litter, etc. Well, it’s a sunk cost now.

Anyway, your hero wields a sword. Your healer/mage/potential love interest has a staff. Beyond that, anything goes. Deck of cards? Great weapon. Umbrella? Now you’re talking! Plunger? You know some game has it. And, of course, the shops do a brisk trade in varying levels of those. Want to upgrade from a bronze parasol to a silver assault umbrella? Third shelf on the left, next to the exploding chicken eggs. No, under the mana-infused tortilla chips.

MMOs explain why this is coherent. Why in the world would there be a market for combat accordions? Because people would use them. Given the chance, players will make mechanical squirrels, exploding sheep, muffins of wondrous power, and carrot cake soup. These are not the most absurd items that really do exist in-game. In Asheron’s Call, not only can you one-shot high level monsters with a properly buffed pumpkin, but people have traded for dinner plates with nice attack mods. Engineers in World of Warcraft carry around jumper cables to rez, and I assume that Duct Tape of Healing is in the works, if it is not already around (10 linen, 6 Sparkling Duck Feathers, 4 Silver Spider Web Glands).

I refuse to look at the weapon list for Final Fantasy XI.

: Zubon

Hello. Perhaps some of you have seen me around here leaving comments. Well, I’m going to be writing stuff for you to leave comments for now!

Anyways, I’m 18 years of age and I just started college. I was interested in writing for this site before summer began but I wasn’t sure if I were going to be playing any MMOs any time soon due to me moving on to college. It turns out that I am able to play MMOs! To make a long story short, I’m building a top of the line computer currently but do not have the funds to complete it, so I’m using a pretty average to below average computer that I built right now. I wasn’t sure if it was going to run the MMO I play well or not, but it turns out that it runs it well enough.

And which MMO do I play, you ask? World of Warcraft. Before that, I played Final Fantasy XI starting at the PS2 launch (I eventually moved to the PC platform for anyone wondering), and I have also dabbled in Guild Wars and some other dinky free stuff. I do not consider myself a very experienced “MMOer.” I’m actually quite new to the PC scene as well. I only really started getting into PC games, namely online ones, a year or two ago, starting with Counter Strike. All the while, I’ve always been interested in MMORPGs since Everquest came out. I remember reading over and over a three part article in a magazine about Everquest. This was before the time I even owned a PC and the only access to one I had was at my Dad’s house, who lived two to three hours away from where I lived with my Mom. I eventually bought EQ and found out, as many kids have, that it has a monthly fee, and thus my parents made me take it back.

It wasn’t until I got interested in FFXI through, yet again, a magazine that I started my MMORPG craze. By then, I was able to pay for the fee and my parents were more open to the idea of the internet. I quit FFXI out of lack of interest. I left with a level 50 Bard, level 37 Thief, and a level 32 White Mage as my only notable classes. Most would say that I didn’t even get to the main content of the game, and I was aware of that, but the amount of time I had to spend trying to find people to help me and the countless farming I knew I had to do just turned me off. I had played WoW’s open beta and I had the urge to start a new MMO, so one day I just went out and bought it. My brother, who also plays online games just as much as I, wasn’t interested in FFXI much (his highest character was a level 25 Warrior) so I thought it would be good for both of us to just begin a new MMO.

I believe I began WoW around March. I started as a Troll Shaman named Ardant and took him to level 57, but then I had to move to college just recently. I ended up giving the account with the Shaman to my brother and I started my own account. I wasn’t having much fun with Shaman anyways. Despite all the “nerf shaman” hoo-ha you hear, they’re not that interesting of a class, in my opinion. I am currently a level 22 (almost level 23) Gnome Mage named Felandra (yes, I do suck at names) on the Shadow Moon server and I’m having a total blast as a Mage.

Expect me to post mostly about WoW. Due to my lack of experience with MMOs, I feel that I do not have the credibility to talk about some subjects such as design and such as I have had a narrow view of what MMOs have to offer. However, if you like reading day to day experiences, rants, and such, and you also don’t mind reading about WoW, you might find what I have to say interesting, or at least entertaining, I hope.

.:lufia22:.

Sometimes you hear a sentence in-game that adds no new information. It is something people say so often that saying it again creates no new knowledge in the world. In fact, only the sentence’s opposite would be notable. It isn’t always true, but at any given moment, someone will say it within the next 30 seconds:

• I hear there are going to be a bunch of nerfs in the next patch.
• There have been a lot of complaints on the boards lately.
• Some moron is babbling about nonsense in broadcast/general chat.
• Some morons are comparing e-peens in the lowbie zone.
• I hate Jack Thompson
• Did they nerf accuracy? I think they nerfed accuracy. I swear, I’m missing a lot more lately.
• My healer got another blind team invite.
• For the love of God, I am never joining another non-guild group again. This pickup group is herd of f’ing morons, I kid you not. There’s this one guy here who knows what he’s doing, and I think the rest are a bunch of twelve-year-olds on crack.
• I never get any good drops.
• Is anyone working customer service tonight? I’ve been in the queue for like an hour.
• That chick is so obviously a guy.
• I’m lagging pretty bad here. Is anyone else lagging?

Feel free to add your own examples.

: Zubon

What are some of the MMORPG companies doing to help those affected by the latest natural disaster? Well, they are trying to make it easier for their affected customers by making sure things will be like they left them in-game. If the game has housing maintenance, they are stopping the cost for now. Some games are even dropping the fees temporarily. Still others are linking to charities.

Mythic Entertainment: We’ve all got friends and family down south, and there’s a big player community down there as well. Like many of you, we’re struggling to find some small way that we can help besides the basic and obvious “donate to the Red Cross” stuff. We went through the game systems, looking for stuff that people could lose if they are unable to log in for awhile, and paying rent on the in-game houses is fortunately the only thing. We can’t suspend in-game house rent by billing address, so we’re just suspending house rent across the board for the whole game.

Sony Online Entertainment: In EverQuest II we have added the /donate command, type in /donate to be taken to the American Red Cross’s Hurricane 2005 relief page. For those members of SOE Communities in other games, you can contribute using this link, American Red Cross. The American Red Cross will process your donation and make sure that it is put to maximum use to help those whose lives have been affected by the hurricane.

Additionally, for our 13,000+ players actually in the affected areas, we will be suspending billing until such time as they are able to play again. In addition, any items or structures in any of our games, which decay over time, will be preserved until the user’s next login.

NCSoft: To show our support for the Gulf Coast victims of Hurricane Katrina, NCsoft has placed a banner to the Network for Good website on the front pages of all North American NCsoft websites.

Blizzard: Our heartfelt condolences go out to the individuals and families affected by Hurricane Katrina. We encourage everyone to assist the federal, state, and local organizations doing vital work on the ground by making a donation to the relief efforts. The Department of Homeland Security has asked that donations be made in the form of financial contributions, rather than supplies, which are difficult to get into the affected areas at this time. If you would like to make a donation to the relief efforts, please contact the American Red Cross: www.redcross.org; 1-800-HELP NOW (1-800-4357-669).

Kudos to Mythic and SOE for going the extra mile, but still more can be done. Give an incentive to players that donate, perhaps some in-game item or something. Or better yet, how about matching pledges?

Oh, here is a nice FU from Blizzard: Any player affected by the hurricane should call our Billing department to turn off their account until they power is restored. Characters and items on the accounts affected will not be removed, deleted, or changed during the time the accounts are turned off. WTF?

Anyone see something I’m missing, let me know.

Regardless, if you have the means to do something to help, whether it is a donation or something more involved, please do so. This is a terrible tragedy.

– Ethic