Experienţa vizuală e într-adevăr de nota 10 .

Mobly has had loads of fun the last couple of days, even though he’s died 3 times giving him 144K EXP debt, and spending the majority of his time mining ore and gathering herbs to sell in the auction house.

I had a small debacle, caused by nasty curiousity and a moment of weakness.  I tried buying diamonds on a legal third party site, found out they only worked for US(I’m on Eu), then tried buying them through the main RoM site via paypal.  I thought I was spending my current paypal balance and didn’t bother to check the fine print and see that they only took direct bank transfers.  I’m still a bit confused on this.  Did I inadvertantly tell paypal to do that?  Well, the transfer came back refused which rings up a 40 dollar surcharge on my bank account.   Lovely.  40 dollars down the drain, all for being careless and not taking my time.

This is my first time buying diamonds after playing RoM for a year.  I thought I’d go ahead and get at least 1 mount for 1 of my characters.  Then immediately after this debacle, RoM announces a Moa Charity Mount that is just so very uber looking.

In the end, I’ve used this time to readjust my plans.  The charity mount is available for 199 diamonds until Dec. 28th.  From now until then I am going to continue to work hard in game to earn the diamonds for a mount, but I am also going to buy diamonds or the charity mount.  I want to actually spend money as they’ve hooked me with donating 4.50US toward a childrens charity, and if I only earn the diamonds in-game, I feel I haven’t really donated.  Nice move RoM.

I have plenty of alts, so I will continue my laborias mining to get another mount, or maybe even two if I’m ambitious enough.  Both ways I think will make me feel good.  I like having that warm feeling of a reward in both circumstances.

Oh, I almost forgot, the moment of weakness part.  I had earned 71 diamonds in-game and when I decided to buy the mount, I also was in-game and saw the very cool contract for a mud house.  I thought “Oh Abernacky NEEDS that as he is sort of a dwarfish type fellow”, so I spent the 50 diamonds on it.

Now I have 21 diamonds, and a 40 dollar charge on my bank statement:P

I haven’t been leveling any of my alts either, but I’ve come to a better conclusion on how to Tweak Abernacky.  I want to get him to level 22 and have all his available skills maxed out.  This is hard as you earn TP along with EXP.  Well I don’t know why I haven’t been considering Talent Charms.  They let you store TP and then deliver it to your character.  The only problem is that they may be bound.  They are nice for earning TP on Your main class, then giving the TP to your secondary class.  If I find that I can earn the TP on one character to deliver to another character, I’m set.  But this sounds too good to be true.  I’ll find out.

~ Zacharius Zetch, 4th day of the 33rd year.

I have made it along with Balizi through the Shadowed Forest. He does not see the bounty of the land before him. I will make my capitol here upon this citadel before the greater mountains. Zamilidor, I will call it. Balizi will be leaving through the pass and into the desert in the morning. His disband from our group only leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

~ Illani Dan E’ri the first Stwalart

And so they met in the desert 10 years after their departure. Each had prospered on his own side of the valley, and each had conquest in their eyes. As they came together for their first meet in those ten long years,  Zacharius slew Balizi with a dagger. And so the bloody conflict engulfed the desert. And the two nations became mortal enemies. Before that battle in the desert each faction was left without a leader, for Zacharius died of thirst wandering the desert a misfortune of the gods some called it.

Shortly after two leaders emerged bearing new banners of war,  Queen Salth’iri of the Black Roses and Darmurian of The Sacred Swords. Salth’iri was a emmissary of the countries to the far east beyond the sea. She in the best interest of making Zamilidor and it’s countries colonies of the Taborean Empire began to lead under the banner of a Black Rose. A symbol of a darker time in the Taborean Empire.

Darmurian was one of the most loyal knights under Balizi and during the original conflict fought off Zacharius and his men. He emerged taking Balizi’s Sword and carrying it back to Kerotor garnering the respect of it’s citizens.

And both…met 12 years later, under different circumstances they met…me.

Steam recently had the old MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies on sale for only ten dollars. Now, I’m not a man to pass up a deal, but the sale itself was not the one thing which compelled me to play Star Wars Galaxies. About five or so years ago I played this game with about eleven of my real life friends. So I must admit that I am immediately biased when it comes to this game… well, I would have been five years prior. Not so much now.

The first thing that you notice when you start up Star Wars Galaxies, which from henceforth will be known strictly as SWG, is the quality of graphics. This is an old game. From everything that I’ve heard it’s about six years ago now, so having dated graphics is not something that surprises me. What does, however, surprise me is the comparison to games such as World of Warcraft. Speaking of which, let me give this quick warning:

I believe the best way to show the good qualities of a video game or any other piece of interactive media is to compare it to what is considered to be the top-tier. Some may argue, and often times we find ourselves abhorrent towards the popular simply because they are popular, that we cannot compare two things which are relatively different in terms of their gameplay. This, of course, is completely irrelevant since we are not comparing gameplay but rather the quality of a game in the genre.

World of Warcraft is about five years old and SWG is six, yet the differences in graphics are astounding. Sure, there is an argument to be made that World of Warcraft is cartoonish and lacks any graphical flare, but there is a reason it looks the way that it does. The developers were trying to mimic the RTS game and they managed to pull it off. SWG, on the other hand, looks outdated even for its time. Nevertheless, graphics do not make a game and I was easily able to ignore them. What I was not able to ignore, however, were the animations.

The most irritating issue with the animations comes in the form of the jumping, which is not actually jumping. Instead, it’s a rising hover which takes about two to five seconds to actually work. Don’t worry though, you don’t need to actually jump in the game. I don’t even know why they put it in here since there are no logical physics to balance the worlds around. Literally, you can run up the side of a mountain if you so wish. That is not where it ends, however. The melee fighting in the game is piss poor in terms of animations.

I must admit that the ranged combat is pretty fun, but not when your enemy becomes a fleeing criminal from a silent era movie. They immediately become ten times quicker than you and run out beyond your vision or, oddly enough, you’ll kill someone and they end up twenty feet away.

None of this helps, mind you, when you are forced to deal with a massive amount of lag. Yes, lag. Sure, you can blame my computer, but I just finish a quick Crysis round with some friends – 60FPS+, graphics at the max, and music and Ventrilo playing in the background. Yet, I am unable to run SWG at full because of the server lag. You would think that Sony Online Entertainment would have fixed something like this. I know that the amount of people playing SWG is limited, but those who are sticking with the game deserve to be treated well, don’t they?

Speaking of which, it seems that the game is fairly dead nowadays. There are a few servers which looked exceedingly popular, but beyond that I’ve been forced to live in a dead land. It almost feels like I’m playing a single player offline game. Unfortunately, if I wanted to do that in the Star Wars universe then I would play KOTOR.

As for the actual game, if I were to simply ignore the bad parts and play, I think it would be fairly decent. If I had my old guild from SWG and I started over then I am certain that I would be a very happy player. So with all of the issues and all of the things I want to see changed immediately, I must admit that I would play this game if I had others playing it with me. Unfortunately, this game feels like it is waiting for the sweet release of death to welcome it into the large pile of dead MMO’s. I’m talking about you, Tabula Rasa!… no, I’m not going to put a link up to the wikipedia site.

Screw you, Lord British.

My final judgment on this game: it’s a fantastic piece of nostalgic Bantha poodoo.

-Irish

P.S.: This review has no yet been edited or proofread. Please remember that any grammatical inaccuracies will be taken care of once I start caring.

This is the first Aion trailer I’ve seen that actually impressed me. Suddenly it’s easier to figure out why the majority of the top players in my Runes of Magic Guild left for Aion.

After the first month or so of it’s release, I kept seeing posts and comments on blogs about how Aion was a sinking ship, with people ditching their subscriptions due to whatever reason, grind mostly. Hard to gauge subscription numbers from pure anecdotal reports but it didn’t sound good.

Essentially that trailer features updates, and by the looks of it, some awesome ones like player housing. If NCSoft can reduce their grind and get people into a cycle of resubscribing for impressive additions to the game, maybe they’re not in as much trouble as they appear.

That said, I wonder how long before we in my RoM guild can pull back our old members. If they get sick of the grind, they can always come back, after all, it’s free-to-play.

Thanks to Sinnir

Прокачка на средних уровнях

Вы успешно начали свой путь в игре: ваш персонаж на каждую новую локацию приходит в синей репутационной экипировке, развитие вех и умений идет по четко намеченному плану, характеристики распределены оптимальным образом и при каждом возвращении в поселение вас встречает куча зеленых галочек – символов выполненных квестов. Поздравляю! Вы готовы преодолеть новые трудности, которые заботливо приготовил Нивал для игроков средних уровней. Никто ведь не обещал, что будет легко, а?

Эпические битвы на Святой Земле идут не только между Империей и Лигой...

Итак, к чему надо готовиться, перешагнув экватор развития персонажа (дойдя до 22-23 уровня):

1. В игре появляется полноценная ПвП-составляющая и вам придется вступать в схватки с игроками противоположной фракции вне зависимости от того, хотите вы этого или нет. Даже после того, как новая ниваловская система ПвП начнет работать без ошибок, мира на Святой Земле не наступит – слишком много квестов, особенно на первой локации СЗ, завязаны на противодействие другой фракции. Поэтому будет нелишним перетащить на горячие клавиши 1-5 наиболее часто используемые в ПвП способности, экипировать персонажа под нанесение максимального урона в короткие промежутки времени, активно вступать в рейды и обмениваться с другими игроками информацией о перемещениях врага в зональном чате.

2. Кстати, о квестах… Квестов становится слишком мало для поднятия уровня. Если на 20-х эта проблема не так заметна, то начиная с 30-31 уровней она встает в полный рост. Количество опыта за выполнение заданий вряд ли пересмотрят в ближайшее время, а добавление в игру новых цепочек квестов – дело долгое. Поэтому всем, кто хочет поскорее получить 40-й уровень надо включить режим задр использовать альтернативный способ прокачки – убийство мобов. В этом нелегком деле главное помнить, что по соотношению опыт/время выгоднее всего убивать мобов своего уровня и на один уровень выше. Мобы более высокого уровня дают совсем незначительный прирост опыта за моба, а более низкого – слишком ощутимое снижение.

Цель развития персонажа - личный корабль. Пока еще только маячит далеко в тумане...

3. Хорошая новость – теперь кроме фракционной синей экипировки можно приобретать синюю же экипировку за ПвП-звания. Работает это так: участвуя в убийстве игроков противоположной фракции, ваш персонаж получает очки славы. При достижении определенного уровня славы, вы автоматически получаете новое звание и вам становятся доступными интенданты, продающие в столицах фракций предметы для игроков с этим званием. В отличие от обычных фракционных вещей, ПвП-экипировка одного интенданта может иметь различный минимальный уровень, с которого ее можно использовать. Очки славы время от времени обнуляются (по идее они должны обнуляться раз в неделю, но на ОБТ обычно обнуляются после патчей). Поэтому имеет смысл закупаться вещами сразу при получении звания – использовать их вы сможете, даже если после сброса интендант станет недоступен.

4. Очки славы получать полезно и весело, поэтому стоит знать, как и за что их начисляют. Начисление за убийство персонажей происходит после смерти игрока противоположной фракции, которого вы ударили хотя бы раз. При этом в момент смерти вам необязательно находится рядом с ним (мой маг большую часть очков славы получает сидя в чистилище ). Количество очков славы зависит от уровня убитого персонажа (чем больше, тем, естественно, больше очков получите) и от того, какую часть здоровья ему сняли лично вы. Что из этого следует? В каждом бою важно нанести как можно больше урона, даже если вы видите, что шансов на победу нет. Вряд ли ваши противники умрут “естественной” смертью в клыках какой-нибудь гиены. Скорее всего их прикончит насланная некромантом болезнь, меч храмовника или электрический разряд мага вашей фракции. И тогда в копилку славы упадут очередные несколько единичек. Кроме убийств, слава дается в качестве награды за некоторые повторяющиеся задания, например, “Убить 5 орков/хадаганцев/канийцев/эльфов” и т.п.

Получение уровней ближе к концу игры сильно замедляется, и этим Аллоды не отличаются от большинства других проектов. В игре появляется новая составляющая развития персонажа – ПвП, но возможности прокачки старыми способами (за счет сюжетных квестов и квестов на репутацию) сокращаются как из-за противников, мешающего их делать, так и за счет сокращения количества доступных заданий. Поэтому не стоит надеяться быстро проскочить средние уровни и оказаться на сороковом. У нас будет более чем достаточно времени, чтобы исследовать мир… и, конечно, показать противникам тотальное превосходство своего класса и билда

Hoje é um dia importante para os jogos online. Hoje fazem 5 anos que World of Warcraft, ou WoW para os intimos, foi lançado. Um acontecimento extremamente importante para a Blizzard, não só porque cimentou o seu lugar no topo dos MMORPG, mas porque principalmente foi o início de uma longa campanha de crescimento, que diferente de outros jogos, que têm um crescimento de vendas, principalmente no seu lançamento e depois cai, WoW tem atingido picos de vendas e inscrições mesmo passado anos do seu lançamento.

O jogo atingiu números recorde de vendas e subscrições (veja aqui). Já lá vão mais de 12 milhões usuários. E bem que merece. O jogo não parou e sempre tem as expansões, que tiveram início com The Burning Crusade, e mais tarde o Wrath of the Lich King. Este ano foi anunciado na Blizzcon 09 a terceira expansão Cataclysm.

Veja também:

Adulto: Whorecraft – Swords Sorcery and Sex

World of Warcraft no Atari 2600

WoW – WII Fit

WoW

Oh my God! I took two toons from 0 cooking to 300+ in like 30 minutes. It’s a Pilgrims bounty for sure. For my Pallie it was a little rougher, but for my Mage, I got it done Toot Sweet.

I think this is a freebie to prepare all the alts, and casuals for Cataclysm. Do I mind it? No…but if I took the time and hard work to level cooking the hard way, I might be a little peeved.

The Culling…

I’ll be going over my extensive blogroll and removing those that haven’t posted in a while. If I erroneously removed you, feel free to contact me and I will put you right back on. Thank you.

Allods Online is a free to play MMORPG from Gala-New which is set to be released sometime this winter according to their website. �Allods is currently in closed beta and we will be giving away some beta keys later this week so make sure to check back later as it will be on a first come first serve basis.

At first look Allods Online looks to be just another fantasy MMORPG, but looks can be deceiving. �Allods is fantasy sci-fi mix reminiscent of Final Fantasy VII. �There are 6 races in the game which are split into two warring factions. �On one side you have The Leauge (good guys) and the other, The Empire (bad guys). �Each side has three races you can select from, most being the common races that you would find in any fantasy MMORPG. �The 6 races are split into 8 archetypes and 28 classes.

Starting off with The League, you have Kanians (Humans), Elves and Gibberlings. � If you ever played any MMORPG, then you already have a good idea of what the human and elven races can do. �The Gibberlings however are these small cute, furry animals that remind me of Snaft from Thundercats. �Gibberlings are stealthy, tricky and quick creatures which sounds like they would be fun to play.

On the other side, The Empire, you have Xadaganians (humans), Orcs and Arisen. Again, I’m sure you are already familiar with the human and orc races so I’ll just skip them and go straight to the Arisen. �The Arisen are undead beings that have dedicated themselves to science and technology. �Because of this the Arisen are sorta like the Borg in Star Trek having combined their bodies with technology.

Allods Online takes place on the planet Sarnaut, which is split into continents and islands. �In order to travel throughout the continents gamers have a variety of ways to get around, one being in a massive ship which players will be able to get later on in the game.

From what I’ve seen of Allods Online so far, it looks great and it seems others agree as well. �Allods Online won Best Game 2009 & Audience Choice awards from the Russian Game Developers Conference. �Check out some of the screenshots below.

I recently downloaded the Allods beta.  I still haven’t recieved an email with a beta key, but I wanted to get the game installed and patched so I’d be ready to jump in.  I installed to get a corrupt file warning that fixing didn’t correct.  I uninstalled and tried 2 more times before redownloading.  The new download was the same.  I checked the forums to find a large thread that had various techno-babble that “might” help solve this problem for some people.  It is now the next day and I’m redownloading so I can attempt one of these manual fixes.

This is a typical scenario for many free to play MMORPGs.

For me and some of my past game jounalism acquaintances, we always loved to discuss the business side of the gaming industry as much as the games themselves.  I came to a personal belief that one of  World of Warcraft’s biggest claims to fame is its accessibility.  The game is extremely approachable by many demographics.

I found that playing WoW was about as easy as playing a game on my Playstation 2.  I just pop the disc in and I’m practically up and running.  It had me thinking of all the people that aren’t playing other MMOs because they take more effort on the users part.  Many people aren’t some determined MMO lot that is accustomed to this, or even understand how MMOs work at all.  They just know that it’s a game that looks fun and would like to try it.

I consider myself to be averagely skilled with computers and am still reaching a frustration level cap with getting Allods to work.

Runes of Magic, my current favorite game, is not without this problem.  We see new posts from new players daily on the official forums with errors and other problems just getting the game started.

Two good friends of mine, who aren’t really MMO players as much as they are video game players, loved WoW but they’ve told me they want stuff to work period.  If they are buying a game, if it doesn’t work it’s total and utter useless junk to them.  These are guys who’ve owned every gaming system imaginable and have played PC games for over 10 years.

I played the Vanguard trial over a year ago.  I had extensive problems and confusion over Sony’s Station.com site with registration, getting ID codes, and the like.  Personally I went through it and loved the game, and plan on playing in the future, but I’m one of those determined type that will go the extra mile and know how to.

MMOs in general are not always as easy to play as console games.  Adding a flood of free to play MMOs with constant corrupted file problems can immediately make a persons decision of whether they will ever play that game or not.

Have you had mainly friendly experiences with MMOs? What games do you think do a great or poor job with handling accessibility?

Should companies start beefing up tech support and waiting longer to put out well tested downloads, and making user experience smoother and more easily understood.  Or is this too fine a line where people have it too easy and just need to put the work in, if they want to play?

I’ve been one of the lucky people chosen to play Grand Fantasia for Aeria Games, in Closed Beta.

Now, while most people don’t know who I am (I’m on the Alice Server, Channel 4), I’m easily identifiable by the person who shouts that they’re recruiting people who can type and are friendly to the Loki guild.

It appears the average age of the gamers is about 17. There are 4chan references abound. While the player base is relatively helpful (if you ask something over world chat for help, you’ll usually get a response), they’re also immensely childish and would sooner make “Yo Momma” jokes than cater to intellectual conversation.

The game’s graphics are up to par, with Chocobo-like creatures running around to-and-fro. Unfortunately, character customization is at a minimum. I’m afraid Aeria Games is going to pull a Fiesta Online and make customizing your character’s face and hair cost real money.

For now, though, the game is loaded with quests to keep you busy and an interesting plot that has a lot of potential (though isn’t completely explored) in order to keep you hooked.

The sprite concept is a lot like a pet system, except these pets are actually somewhat useful. They don’t help in combat, but they can get materials for you so that you can make various items.

Would I recommend this game to a friend? Most likely yes. Would I encourage them to buy things using Aeria Points? This game hasn’t shown me yet that buying anything is worthwhile, aside from the experience boost.

~~~

As a complete side note, I’m still accepting donations and am willing to write articles on a multitude of topics, given that it doesn’t require me to buy something first. Please check out the Donations Page.

Allods Online is a free to play MMORPG from Gala-New which is set to be released sometime this winter according to their website.  Allods is currently in closed beta and we will be giving away some beta keys later this week so make sure to check back later as it will be on a first come first serve basis.

At first look Allods Online looks to be just another fantasy MMORPG, but looks can be deceiving.  Allods is fantasy sci-fi mix reminiscent of Final Fantasy VII.  There are 6 races in the game which are split into two warring factions.  On one side you have The Leauge (good guys) and the other, The Empire (bad guys).  Each side has three races you can select from, most being the common races that you would find in any fantasy MMORPG.  The 6 races are split into 8 archetypes and 28 classes.

Starting off with The League, you have Kanians (Humans), Elves and Gibberlings.   If you ever played any MMORPG, then you already have a good idea of what the human and elven races can do.  The Gibberlings however are these small cute, furry animals that remind me of Snaft from Thundercats.  Gibberlings are stealthy, tricky and quick creatures which sounds like they would be fun to play.

On the other side, The Empire, you have Xadaganians (humans), Orcs and Arisen. Again, I’m sure you are already familiar with the human and orc races so I’ll just skip them and go straight to the Arisen.  The Arisen are undead beings that have dedicated themselves to science and technology.  Because of this the Arisen are sorta like the Borg in Star Trek having combined their bodies with technology.

Allods Online takes place on the planet Sarnaut, which is split into continents and islands.  In order to travel throughout the continents gamers have a variety of ways to get around, one being in a massive ship which players will be able to get later on in the game.

From what I’ve seen of Allods Online so far, it looks great and it seems others agree as well.  Allods Online won Best Game 2009 & Audience Choice awards from the Russian Game Developers Conference.  Check out some of the screenshots below.

Happy Birthday to you, my old friend World of Warcraft. WoW has now been around for five years ! That is a nice feat for an online game.  Over the years its customer base has drastically increased to make it the most played, most popular game of all time. As a thank you gift from Blizzard when a player logs in to their WoW accounts they will receive an online pet; the Onyxia whelp.  The pet is account bound and available to all characters that log in. This cute little whelp will be your companion during your travels.  So log on, claim your pet and have fun. Here is a pic of the lil guy:

The Guild Wars Alliance Madness continues!

Guess AB is not dead.

Time for my monk to get a few rounds.

Just about to start.

Ready to heal.

Moving on to the next spot.

Death to constant interruption.

Over all it was a fun match. We didn’t win but it was nice to be the back line instead of charging in for once.

The next day…

Time for my elementalist to make a few rounds.

The gang (3 teams of 4 people).

Chasing after some luxons (red dots).

Taking down the elementalists.

Burning up a luxon warrior.

The luxons (assassin, necromancer, elementalist, warrior, and others) get there revenge.

I get my revenge on 6 luxons.

Taking back one of the resurect shrines.

Taking over the luxon mesmers.

Continuing to take over the mesmers and other luxons.

Renewing my fire attunement after taking over the shrine.

Me and a another elementalist with 2 warriors attacking a luxon monk and warrior.

Us winning the match by a landslide.

That was a very fun match. While also very hectic at times. It was nice to win a match to remove my very long losing streak. There where no gimmick builds seen, everyone was cooperating, no one was mobbing, and mostly everyone had fun. Nice to know my pick to be elementalist that round would lead to seriously dominate the match.

Moving on the next one…

Side by side with a fellow warrior.

Following a train of minions and kurzicks.

Following a train of minions.

The shrine that was taken over after a few minutes.

Filling the place with fire.

The luxons gang up and get there revenge.

Taking over the res orb shrine.

Taking down by 3 luxons and there interupts and monk.

Trying to take over the shrine with luxons all around.

Winning the match by litterally 4 points.

That match was just a fun. Although there where a lot a unbalanced builds (like the ritualist playing a dervish). It was pretty close and was my last match of the day. I gained enough faction to donate 5,000 to my Guild so it was all good.

I’m kind of a big fan of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, it’s a very dark, very satirical show that airs on FX. In one of their best episodes, Charlie attempts to woo the woman he’s been obsessed with over the previous seasons with a grand musical about The Nightman. It’s really indescribably funny, and I highly recommend the series to anyone.

The Waiting Game, finally, updated after a few weeks of waiting. I noticed that the Guild Wars update RSS had changed and went inside to check out if The Waiting Game was included in the update. Upon speaking to the Voice of Grenth, I was given a new message. “The time is nigh, Dhuum stirs”. That was it though, which I admit confused me. So I asked around, and was immediately pissed off. The Waiting Game is a quest that sends you to complete all the quests in the Underworld. Completing all the quests in the Underworld will take you about 2.5 hours with a normal competent group.

I have never managed to do this. I’ve never had the luxury of a normal competent group who wanted to do this. I know a lot of good players and I wasn’t that bad myself, but I’d never managed to do this while I was actually playing the game every day. Let alone now that most of my friends no longer play, I don’t really want to play, I’m rusty as hell, and anybody who wanted to complete the Underworld has probably completed it a long, long time ago.

Once you complete all the quests, you are given a new quest. The Nightman Cometh instructs you to indeed defeat Dhuum himself. So to get to this boss fight, you’ve got yourself about 2.5 hours of work, and then the boss fight. If your party wipes at any time, you have to start completely over.

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is a show for cynical, sadistic minded types, who take joy in watching others suffer. First the funny little joke in the title of The Waiting Game, because we’ve all been waiting and waiting for Guild Wars 2, then you make us wait and wait for the quest to be updated. Now you give us the quest and it turns out it’s a giant pain in the ass, a 2 and a half hour run through the Underworld that may or may not work out.

Sounds like a lot of fun Arenanet. Suddenly your taste in sitcoms makes a lot more sense.

I’m not sure exactly why, but there’s a lot of unused content in Runes of Magic. There are 2 fully realized zones that are barely used by the populace, at least on my server. Sacillia Steppes and Dragonfang Ridge are meant for leveling your secondary profession, but barely anyone does that there. The majority of people in these zones are there for about 4 reasons. To collect black codex ingredients for crafted armour, or to go to one of three dungeons, Pasper’s Shrine, Cyclops Lair, or Ice Dwarf Kingdom.

You start out after first entering the game in Howling Mountains, and that zone is packed. There’s always plenty of people and activity. When you reach level 10, you get a quest to travel to Varanas and pick a secondary profession. When you do, you’re given a hearth to (the other side of Taborea) Sascilia Steppes, with the clear indication that this is where you should level your secondary. The quests are all for level 1 and lead you on a clear path around the zone, all the way down to the entrance of Dragonfang Ridge. By the time you get there you should be around level 22, and surprise surprise just inside DR, there are quests that start around level 22. By the time you’re done those, your secondary should be level 35 or so.

Nobody does this. Good luck getting a group. There is no way for you to kill bosses on your own. Abandon all hope. That said, if you want to reach 55/55 without a giant hassle, this is the way I’d recommend it. There’s no competition for drops or mobs, so there is some benefit.

I’m constantly in high level areas seeing people with low level secondaries. People tend to only use their Daily Quests to level their secondary. This leads to quite slow leveling. Honestly it is grueling enough just to get to 55. Why do people avoid content then? SS and DR are ripe for the picking. 1-35 without wasting your DQs.

DR and SS are empty though, literally about 5 people at any one time not doing the above mentioned high level content. People use their DQs or find grind spots to level their primary and use high level quests to level their secondary. Anything but go to those zones.

It’s not like there’s anything wrong with those zones, they have bosses, Merchants, House Maids, Auction Houses, and the level 35 Ice Dwarf Kingdom instance.

There is a small travel problem. They are two of the biggest zones in the game, and getting around can take time, but it’s not much worse than any other zone.

I’ve theorized for a while, that people don’t go there because they’re oblivious. Most quests in RoM are badly translated text walls with no point to reading them. People glaze over the Sacillia hearth and don’t even realize they have it. That explains some people anyway.

The dead, silent, emptiness of the zones probably deters the others. You can’t get questions answered, you can’t group up, you can’t get bosses killed. Most of all, you can’t really socialize. I think that’s the main hurdle. Otherwise these zones would be a boon, a place to level your secondary and use the DQs the way you want.

Certainly shows whats important in this game. It’s not the quests, or monsters, or graphics, or gear. Straight up, if there are no other people, nobody will be interested. The Massively part of MMO.

Pugnacious: inclined to quarrel or fight readily; quarrelsome; belligerent; combative.  Dictonary.com

When I found myself in a Vent over this weekend where a long diatribe of the conversation were negative remarks towards women.  Not just one little comment,  but they were egging each other on,  each line more offensive then the other.  I could have sat there like a good little girl and taken it. Not bitten,  not reacted, not defended myself,  or reminded them that there were ladies in the channel and to rein the conversation in. I could have left the vent if I found it so offensive.  Did I stay silent?  No way. 

I turned an insult back on them, and I felt their hackles raised over the airways.   “So its ok for you to have a go at girls,  but you can’t take it if it’s directed to boys?” I asked – extremely outnumbered.

One guys excuse for their behaviour was that it was ‘normal’  – I had asked where all the gentlemen were because they certainly were not in this channel.

I don’t think I was out of line – for me not to remind them that they were being inappropriate would have meant that I was approving of  their behaviour,  and I think that people can need reality checks  – no one knows that they are doing something wrong unless they get told.

Did I go on a female lib rant?  No.  I didn’t need to,  I just needed to remind them that they were going to far.    Did it work?.  I think so,  they didn’t say anything further along that line as least while I was in the channel.

I got a pst from what I assume was the only other girl in the channel glad that I had stuck up for myself  – and I’d do it again,  because if that is what it takes to make it a more pleasant environment for me to play in,  then I am going to bite.  It doesn’t have to be an in your face  ”respect my authority” rant, but  I do believe  that standing up when things are not right, can be  as important as doing what is right. 

Hola lectores casuales que no respondeis… aqui sigo por si algun dia alguno quiere responderme y no sea del rollo “blog guay por fuera con tonterias y buzzwords, sufrimiento por dentro” con una bitacora mas.

1-Hay diferencia entre blog y bitácora? pq los de meneame ya estan llamando microblogging a los sitios web con contenido de diario personal…

2- Quisiera haber levantado una comunidad de tematica muy variada, con sus foros y tal, pero sin redes sociales ni censura vulgar; pero como no tengo una garantia de que vaya a participar gente, no la levanté. Incluso queria crear una galeria de archivos para quien quisiera añadiera contenido siempre que no fuera copyright o similares sino dominio publico o alguna licencia no atributiva por fuerza… es mas, queria levantar un motor de juegos de rol en 2d, para usar con interfaz pero mas avanzado que rpg maker con sus funciones para trabajar y tal.*

3- Los amigos de mi cuenta de msn y jabber me estan dejando, y me voy sintiendo solo, aunque a estas horas tenga unas 15 tareas de la fp pendientes (que eso es otro punto). Busco almas caritivas que se comuniquen conmigo por aqui o por Jabber en negativo@jabberes.org o por MSN en anonimo@didamail.com

4- La FP… con la crisis económica que hay y la recesion me he visto un poco obligado a estudiar un modulo de grado medio de informatica, lo que pasa es que meten mucha cantidad, cosa que me parece bien, pero no logro centrarme. A pesar de gustarme la informatica(no los cotilleos de los gadjets, el feisbu y demas gilipolleces) y de trabajar cambiando piezas de pc y salvando datos de discos duros con sistemas operativos infectados, atencion al publico, pudiendo hacer algun trabajillo de diseño web que no vaya a ser para hacer un css como este que hay en el blog (si quieres uno mejor ya sabes, damunalimossna y pusisioname paaayo), etc, pero claro, eso me va a hacer que me kickeen del clan shrine knight del Fairyland Online(juego mmorpg fascista por las normas como chorrocientosmil) por inactividad, pero ya me esta bien, asi en vez de entretenerme sin poder decir tacos me entretengo por poder en un futuro ganarme unas pelas pa comer y si hay tiempo ya jugare a juegos fachas o sino me creo yo uno donde me pintes el cipote de colores ( xD LOL ). Tampoco voy a levantar inetneutral de nuevo… esto esta en un subdominio ya posicionado a pesar de lo de “Reportalll como contenido adulto”(aun no me pillaron xD guay), pero claro, posicionar partiendo de 0 un dominio sin ser fan de los sitios con normas tradicionalistas para poder participar en ellos para poder pasado ‘x’ tiempo enlazar o que vean mi perfil(pa que luego se encuentren una cosa bastante distinta en normas por los tacos y una menor dictadura) y llamandome ellos troll a la primera de cambio… como que no… hasta ha salido en algun “blog” de mierda de estos el troll “enlace(wtf??!)”…

5-estoy con un catarro que lo flipo… puto tabaco, pero es que jode tanto la soledad a veces… y eso que creí no necesitar compañía cuando era un crío, de todas maneras me enganché a eso por los gritos y la manipulación de mi hermano desde el año 2004-2005 hasta hace 1 año al irme unos dias a Ciudad Real con uno del jabber que apenas me habla. me fui ya por la mala actitud de mi hermano junto con su  manipulacion al pedirle a mi madre que le llevara a cualquier lado y le comprara cualquier cosa(ni que fuera el rei del mambo) y sus gritos y roturas de palos de barrer y fregar.

6- odio a los kies chulitos, se creeran lo mas…ts, pos no sera x la musica que escuchan xk el hardcore le da mas de 4 o 5 vueltas en contundencia que El Barrio o la hungara masia remix…

7-Odio la web 2.0 y la gente que escribe en sus blogs noticias o cosas positivas suyas y ocultan su mierda, porque son los que incomprensiblemente tienen visitas y luego yo que oculto mi lado bueno pa ir a contracorriente no tengo ninguna, si al final es verdad que hoy en dia muchos de lana blanca siguen el mismo sendero… prefiero las paginas elrellano.com, insociables.(noseke), manicomic.com, la antigua terra.es, la antigua ozu.es … que aunque hubieran seguido siendo fachas en sus normas de los chats y los foros y relacionando educacion con finolismo, almenos en las secciones de humor me reía y el diseño era mas ameno para mi, ahora un blog cualquiera de pseudotecnologia me parace a mi que deja la gracia en Barcelona…

8- El dia que me muera, enterrad mi cadaver en un bosque, por favor.

* Los MMORPG’S no son muy productivos, pero por tener una epoca de mi vida muy mala y ver rechazo y ACONDICIONAMIENTO en internet en muchos mmorpg, muchas veces he pensado en hacer un motor/editor/ejecutador mmorpg y luego hospedar un mmorpg con menos censura y acondicionamiento, aunque por impaciencia no lo haya hecho aunque tenga conocimientos en C/ C++, SDL/Pygame y Python básico. En estos momentos simplemente falta el tiempo aunque este escribiendo aqui pero el catarro no me ha dejado hacer anteslos deberes.

Holy crap, the largest source mod since the games inception…the largest source code mod in my entire game development career. It has been finished. This new system is one-hundred twenty-six million, thats 126.000.000 times more efficient. It will never de-synchronize either. The FPS of the game has been drastically improved to 64 making things so much more fluid. Special thanks to Scorpious2k for all his coding help.

I am going to be working straight on the games development now…only one more month to go.

With the release of Sarah Palin’s crazy train book, I’m assuming every MMO blog on earth is going to use this title at some point, so I thought I’d get my kicks in. I’m still planning on going rogue (smuggler) for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Sure, the Imperial Agent looks pretty bad ass, the Bounty Hunter can fly, or any of the other classes that appeal to me, almost all of them actually. Maybe I should hold off on a final decision.

Especially since the last 2 classes have been leaked. A German magazine, PC Games, informs us that the last two classes are the Jedi Consular, and Sith Inquisitor. Essentially these are two caster classes. Which makes me a bit of an idiot. I was definitely leaning toward two types of straight-up healers for the last two classes.

Both Knights of the Old Republic and the sequel used tons of medpacs to keep people healed. Once you leveled up your force user, you could use (try to figure out which ones are light and which are dark!) Heal, Cure, Drain Life, or Death Field, but the main focus was on healing yourself. The Consular/Inquisitor may still end up being used as healers, so I’m not going to draw any final conclusions, not yet. However, if they are healers I doubt that healing will be their main focus, as I recall in KOTOR, there were only those 4 skills for healing. The remainder of force powers were buff and attack powers.

In any case we should find out soon, now that the cat is (mmrrrooahh ahh ahh!) out of the bag!

You know what, this entry is all over the place, Sarah Palin, Seinfeld, can’t decide if these two new classes are healers or casters or both. Nice structure in your article Hunter.

EDIT: And of course just as I post a few more details are posted, and guess what, they’re not healers. Medpacs it is then.

I was Horde for a long time, as I dwelled on Garona Server, though I don’t regret my decision leaving the Horde side, because there are some wonderful people I met on the Alliance side, there are a few things I do miss on the Horde side, and a few things I do NOT miss on the Horde side. Now this is simply my experience, your Horde experience may be something completely different.

Things I miss about the Horde

1. Camaraderie - More so before BC, there was a real sense of us versus them. We worked more closely together. You knew alot of your side, as opposed as seeing an alliance person once a month that you knew. I would run into some fellow hordies everyday, and mess with them in Org.

2. More Pride – When your part of the Horde, it really felt like I had more pride. Probably because as they said back in the day. Being Horde was WoW on hard mode.  When someone shouted, “FOR THE HORDE!”  your chest would swell with pride

.3. Seller Market on the AH- When you sold goods, you made a pretty decent coin cause not alot of sellers means less competition. Less competition means higher prices, higher prices means more coin in my pocket.

4. Less Asshats - It felt like more people knew what they were doing on Horde side, less 13 year old boys borrowing their dad’s account just to gank someone Horde..  If there were asshats the whole Horde side knew about it really quickly.

5. More Friendly – It seemed like those of the Horde were more willing to lend a hand. Maybe because they knew you would return the favor, or that we had to rely on each other more, because there were so few of us.

Things I don’t miss about the Horde -

1. Never able to Pug anything – It seemed like to even run a 5 man was like pulling teeth. Alliance it’s like Dungeons on tap.

2. Trying to buy stuff – The ill gotten gold to sell stuff goes quick if you need something, that’s if it actually on the AH.

3. Lack of Ambition – Seemed like the Attitude of the Horde was more laid back. Alliance is all about getting shit done, and no tolerance for slackers. Cause if you slack theres 80 more people waiting to take your spot. With some possible exceptions of some awesome Guild leaders on Horde side Garona, like Auriellien aka Bitaken of Phoenix Ascension and Phoenix Aegis, Foe of Oppress, and Kalye of Purgatory…but for the most part the Horde seemed like they didn’t have that much ambition.