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Archive for March, 2010
Know Your Lore: Lore 101, Part 2
Mar 22nd
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You’re playing the game, you’re fighting the bosses, you know the how, but do you know the why? Each week Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.
In the last Lore 101 segment, I went over resources — the novels, manga, comics, source guides, games and everything else that make up the story behind World of Warcraft. It’s a lot of material to follow, and the sheer volume of it can be daunting, but there’s no better way to sort out the story and what happened to who, when and where, than by following the original sources.
While this is all well and good, today’s post covers why everything in part one may or may not be… well, invalid. That’s right, the novel you just picked up and read through may very well not count in the long run. The comics may not actually apply. A later novel may wipe out the timeline of existing events in one fell swoop, and the information you thought you had a solid grasp on might be invalidated in an instant.
And that’s More >
Siege & Territory Reports: March 22, 2010
Mar 22nd
To those who were successful, congratulations! To those who weren’t, may luck be with you next time.
March 22, 2010 Siege Report March 22, 2010 Territory Report
(reports from the March 20 territory wars & the March 21 castle sieges)
If you participated in any of the listed sieges or territory wars, please add your perspective views using the Comment feature or by accessing it directly on the VN boards. (Please keep it as objective as possible and the flames low, but discussion is encouraged!)
Archives: Castle Sieges / Territory Wars
The Colosseum: Jeebeez, restoration shaman of Hyjal
Mar 22nd
The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator to interview some of the top Arena fighters on the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Frostwyrms. We’re especially focused on the people who play these games, to further shed light on the world of the PvP player. If you’d like to be interviewed for The Colosseum, please feel free to contact us — be sure to include your armory as a link!
Today’s interviewee is Jeebeez, current holder of 1st place in US-Whirlwind’s 3v3 bracket. He plays a somewhat unusual composition of restoration shaman-frost mage-shadow priest. We thought it’d be interesting to ask him a few questions about arena and his 3v3 team. WoW.com: What’s the most impressive thing you’ve ever done as a restoration shaman in arena? Don’t be modest.
Jeebeez: I 2v3’d Worlds team back in season 6 playing restoration shaman/rogue. Also, we just recently had a pretty sick kill on a warlock (playing WLD). We killed the pet, switched to warlock. I shocked Fel Domination, blanket silence into another shock on Fel Domination into death of the warlock. That was when More >
Free Realms: "Pirate’s Plunder" Minigame Announced
Mar 22nd
A new Members Only minigame for Sony Online Entertainment’s free-to-play kids MMO Free Realms has been announced. "Pirate’s Plunder" introduces sea-faring gameplay to Free Realms by allowing players to choose from one of three ships in a search for treasure buried deep beneath the sea.
"Pirate’s Plunder" also includes new house decorations and outfits for players. The items will also be available as loot or for purchase on the Station Marketplace.
For more details on "Pirate’s Plunder" go here.
[Thanks Kost for the tip!]
Officers’ Quarters: PUGs are people too
Mar 22nd
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers’ Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader’s Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press.
As Wrath of the Lich King winds down, interest in the current raiding scene will wane. Members will play less, attend less, or even quit the game until the next expansion draws them back in. More and more guilds will have no choice but to invite PUG players to fill their remaining slots. When PUGs join your raid, loot can become an even more sensitive issue. This week, one player is fed up watching PUGs win loot over fellow guildies.
/salute
I’m writing to you Scott to request assistance or advice with an issue i seem to be having. I’m the offtank for my 10 man ICC guild, we only have 1 wing down, but we are extremely casual. Usually during our runs we will take 1-3 pugs with us as not everyone who signs up for a raid makes it. Here is where my issue comes in. The pug’s get to roll on the gear that we guildies have been bashing our heads into a wall to get for the More >
Star Wars The Old Republic : L’équilibrage de l’expérience en groupe ou en solo
Mar 22nd
Un message de Damion Schubert de BioWare a donné certains indices sur l’équilibrage des gains d’EXP pour les joueurs solos et en groupe sur le forum officiel.
Nous augmentons la réserve d’EXP pour chaque membre faisant partie du groupe, et divisons ensuite cette réserve. Je n’ai pas les nombres devant moi, mais c’est quelque chose que nous ajusterons en même temps que nous jouerons de toute façon.
L’essentiel de la chose est que nous voulons récompenser le regroupement de joueurs, mais pas au point que grouper soit la seule manière de jouer (quelque chose qu’il est très facile de faire si vous faites trop pencher la balance, et équilibrez ensuite à nouveau la courbe de progression vers ce taux). Ceci dit, comme certains l’ont mentionné, grouper avec une autre personne augmente votre potentiel offensif et réduit substantiellement le risque de mourir, au point qu’être dans un groupe de deux est largement plus efficace qu’une capacité à tuer multipliée par 2 (c’est ainsi dans la plupart des MMOs). Et encore, vous voulez récompenser le groupe suffisamment pour aider à vous assurer que vous allez au-delà des frictions associées au groupe (trouver des joueurs, les rejoindre, tolérer les idiots, etc).
Autres notes :
Oui, nous avons des mesures anti-twink (NDLR: un twink est un More >
Star Wars The Old Republic : L’équilibrage de l’EXP en jeu de groupe ou en solo, selon Damion Schubert
Mar 22nd
Un message de Damion Schubert de BioWare a donné certains indices sur l’équilibrage des gains d’EXP pour les joueurs solos et en groupe sur le forum officiel.
Nous augmentons la réserve d’EXP pour chaque membre faisant partie du groupe, et divisons ensuite cette réserve. Je n’ai pas les nombres devant moi, mais c’est quelque chose que nous ajusterons en même temps que nous jouerons de toute façon.
L’essentiel de la chose est que nous voulons récompenser le regroupement de joueurs, mais pas au point que grouper soit la seule manière de jouer ( quelque chose qu’il est très facile de faire si vous faites trop pencher la balance, et équilibrez ensuite à nouveau la courbe de progression vers ce taux). Ceci dit, comme certains l’ont mentionné, grouper avec une autre personne augmente votre potentiel offensif et réduit substantiellement le risque de mourir, au point qu’être dans un groupe de deux est largement plus efficace qu’une capacité à tuer multipliée par 2 (c’est ainsi dans la plupart des MMOs). Et encore, vous voulez récompenser le groupe suffisamment pour aider à vous assurer que vous allez au-delà des frictions associées au groupe (trouver des joueurs, les rejoindre, tolérer les idiots, etc).
Autres notes :
Oui, nous avons des mesures anti-twink (NDLR: un twink est More >
Runes of Magic cumple un año y lo celebra con 3 millones de jugadores
Mar 22nd
Justo a tiempo para celebrar su primer año, el juego de rol online basado en micro pagos está en disposición de anunciar el logro de una importante marca: tres millones de usuarios registrados en Estados Unidos, Corea y Europa están ahora explorando el mundo de Taborea.
Jugadores en 23 servidores, y en seis idiomas distintos, ya han completado más de 500 millones de quest o misiones en este mundo fantástico. El equipo de localización con sede en Berlín ha traducido para ellos 4,5 millones de palabras sólo en Europa. Tanto en España, Alemania, o Reino Unido, el deseo de una experiencia de juego en comunidad es el mismo. De este modo, los jugadores se unen a lo largo de todo el mundo para formar gremios, construir sus propios castillos, luchar contra otros grupos o superar siniestros jefes finales. Más de 7,5 millones de estas peligrosas criaturas han sido derrotadas en un solo año por bravos aventureros, que han usado sus poderes de forma coordinada. El Príncipe Demonio, el villano más poderoso de los dos primeros capítulos, ha visto cortadas sus alas tan sólo 24 veces.
De las tres millones de cuentas de jugadores de Runes of Magic se han creado aproximadamente seis millones More >
The Queue: A slap in the face!
Mar 22nd
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.
I saw this on Digg this morning, and it immediately took the place of the next disgusting animal I was going to force you all to look at. I’m putting it up on WoW.com in hopes that all these people who think they can troll actually learn something — realize that their great great great great great grandfather knew how to troll ten times better then they can.
Steven asked…
“Why is there the hybrid tax? Don’t hybrids that use abilities other than their dps abilities lose dps when doing so, thus imposing their own sort of hybrid tax?”
Continue reading The Queue: A slap in the face!
Week 7 Renown Rankings are Up!
Mar 22nd
Browse previous rankings summaries:-week 1
-week 2
-week 3
-week 4
-week 5
-week 6
Guild Rankings Are Up!
We’re continuing to show the weekly renown rankings from CROM, the biggest PVE General server in AOC and provide a brief commentary on the guilds’ progress/regress. You can also check numerical stats for current week globally at the official AOC Online Guild Rankings site, http://guilds.ageofconan.com/
Weekly Summary
The 7th week of Renown Rankings showed that CROM guild competition is far from over, and no-one can rest on their laurels. CRO guild, which previous week tried to steal the limelight from the competition, didn’t manage to retain their positions. SolidLine has been brutally thrown off their game and only Tainted Souls and Band of Brothers managed to retain their No.1 positions in multiple activities. But who dethroned CRO, ousted SolidLine and other guilds that were safeguarding their “unchanged” positions for several weeks now? Relative newcomers to the Renown Race – aggressive Brothers of Arms, previously bobbing up and down Carnage and slowly growing Sanctuary.
Numbers Speak
Objective amount of Valor and Totals have dropped again for all the guilds. This shows an all-round drop in server activity in all aspects but Glory – which shows slight increase. It’s hard to contribute Valor More >