donderdag 25 augustus 2011
woensdag 6 juli 2011
And now for something completely different
It's been ages since I last wrote something on here, and a lot has happened in Taborea in the mean time.
But this post is about a different game.
Some time ago I created a trial account in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) because I read a lot about it being PvP by design, and being fairly good at it. I chose to play a Greenskin Choppa, because I wanted a DPS character and supposedly Choppa's are some of the better ones out there.
First impressions, although they were a long time back: wow, those are nice graphics. By comparison RoM looks so badly like a game of the early 2000s.
Character handling is a bit different than RoM, there is of course a WASD setup but you can't use f.e. the attack skill to loot a dead mob. You need to right-click instead, which I read is similar to how WoW does it but I have never played WoW so I cant really tell. You also cannot move to a mob or NPC by using the attack skill, you have to actually move there yourself.
Bonus points for RoM on these small tweaks, I find them handy during gameplay.
On the few occasions that I logged on over several months, I had only been doing some PvE play. Fairly soon I ran into the first so-called Public Quest, which are a bit similar to world encounters in RoM. Only they appear to work better because your contribution to the success of the encounter is always considered when the public quest completes. There is no need for partying, just run into the area and start working towards the goal. Alone or together with other players that are already there or join in the fray afterwards.
To make it easier, active public quests with participating players are marked on the map.
And whether it is successful or not, you get to gain "influence" (that you can accumulate over the span of multiple occurrences of the same public quest). When you have collected a predetermined amount of influence you can go and collect a reward with a specific NPC for that public quest.
The only downside I have seen so far with the public quest is one session where there were insufficient players, over a timespan of several hours, that participated in that quest. Since one of the stages involved a lot of champions (the equivalent to elites) that were on or above level, it was impossible for those who were there to complete that stage and the quest. Maybe this doesnt come into play as much during evenings or weekends when there should be more players online.
Another fun aspect of WAR, both PvE and PvP, is the Tome of Knowledge. It is a quest log on steroids.
In it they keep track of a ton of things, which all may or may not give bonus XP, titles or different "rewards". There are records for places you have visited, mobs you have encountered, counters for mobs you have slain, counters (and titles!) for set amount of numbers you have died in PvE, same thing for PvP, amount of enemy player kills, and a gazillion more things. Except for some festival titles and the "30000 Cards" title in RoM I don't know of anything equivalent. And those titles are a meager reward in comparison to some ToK entries. This is a definite bonus for WAR.
Today I also decided to finally try out PvP. First I enqueued for some "scenario's", which are like battlefields in RoM. Only there is no direct X vs X as far as I can tell, there are actual goals in each type of scenario - at least those I had access too.
Summary: fun! Just like Siege War is fun if you don't crash every 20 seconds and the opponent is not cheating. The only downside is, in all scenario's I participated in, the Destruction side (which is what the Greenskin race is part of) lost. Maybe it is just a problem of being locked in Tier 1 and playing with only newbies like myself. Maybe it is a balancing problem on the low levels; I read that WAR has plenty of balancing problems. Maybe it is something completely different, I have no idea.
My personal impression was that the opponents were usually healed better than we were, so it might as just as well be a matter of class distribution. Or not.
Another part of WAR PvP happens in so-called RvR zones (Realm vs. Realm, i.e. Order against Destruction). I visited one RvR zone and played there for an hour or so. There too Order was overrunning us. Except very briefly after the objectives for an RvR zone reset, we were pushed back to our War Camp (think Guild Castle in SW) all the time. Here too, healing seemed to be lacking a bit, but less so than in scenarios. I should also mention that we were usually assigned an RvR XP bonus buff for being outnumbered. That latter fact surely won't have helped our cause. I should mention this wasn't really a problem in scenario's because there a preset and equal number of players on both sides is required before the scenario runs.
Due to the constant losing, the RvR experience became frustrating after a short time. I think I'll have to roll some other classes and also other sides and see how that fares.
Last thought: WAR uses a system of Action Points, which I think are kind of like rogue energy in RoM, for using skills.
I was fine with keeping enough during most PvE combat situations, but found myself constantly running out in PvP fights. The enemies I was fighting usually did not seem to have problems to keep hitting me, so I wonder how they were handling it. Better skill rotations to accomodate for AP regeneration? Popping potions by the dozen?
All in all I like WAR for it's PvP aspect, which should be a good thing since it is what is supposed to be the meat of the game. I will keep playing it on occasion, but I'm am not fond of subscription games so I will be locked in Tier 1.
If PvP is your thing, you should probably try it out, and if you don't have personal issues with subscriptions there would be more content for you to play around with.
But this post is about a different game.
Some time ago I created a trial account in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) because I read a lot about it being PvP by design, and being fairly good at it. I chose to play a Greenskin Choppa, because I wanted a DPS character and supposedly Choppa's are some of the better ones out there.
First impressions, although they were a long time back: wow, those are nice graphics. By comparison RoM looks so badly like a game of the early 2000s.
Character handling is a bit different than RoM, there is of course a WASD setup but you can't use f.e. the attack skill to loot a dead mob. You need to right-click instead, which I read is similar to how WoW does it but I have never played WoW so I cant really tell. You also cannot move to a mob or NPC by using the attack skill, you have to actually move there yourself.
Bonus points for RoM on these small tweaks, I find them handy during gameplay.
On the few occasions that I logged on over several months, I had only been doing some PvE play. Fairly soon I ran into the first so-called Public Quest, which are a bit similar to world encounters in RoM. Only they appear to work better because your contribution to the success of the encounter is always considered when the public quest completes. There is no need for partying, just run into the area and start working towards the goal. Alone or together with other players that are already there or join in the fray afterwards.
To make it easier, active public quests with participating players are marked on the map.
And whether it is successful or not, you get to gain "influence" (that you can accumulate over the span of multiple occurrences of the same public quest). When you have collected a predetermined amount of influence you can go and collect a reward with a specific NPC for that public quest.
The only downside I have seen so far with the public quest is one session where there were insufficient players, over a timespan of several hours, that participated in that quest. Since one of the stages involved a lot of champions (the equivalent to elites) that were on or above level, it was impossible for those who were there to complete that stage and the quest. Maybe this doesnt come into play as much during evenings or weekends when there should be more players online.
Another fun aspect of WAR, both PvE and PvP, is the Tome of Knowledge. It is a quest log on steroids.
In it they keep track of a ton of things, which all may or may not give bonus XP, titles or different "rewards". There are records for places you have visited, mobs you have encountered, counters for mobs you have slain, counters (and titles!) for set amount of numbers you have died in PvE, same thing for PvP, amount of enemy player kills, and a gazillion more things. Except for some festival titles and the "30000 Cards" title in RoM I don't know of anything equivalent. And those titles are a meager reward in comparison to some ToK entries. This is a definite bonus for WAR.
Today I also decided to finally try out PvP. First I enqueued for some "scenario's", which are like battlefields in RoM. Only there is no direct X vs X as far as I can tell, there are actual goals in each type of scenario - at least those I had access too.
Summary: fun! Just like Siege War is fun if you don't crash every 20 seconds and the opponent is not cheating. The only downside is, in all scenario's I participated in, the Destruction side (which is what the Greenskin race is part of) lost. Maybe it is just a problem of being locked in Tier 1 and playing with only newbies like myself. Maybe it is a balancing problem on the low levels; I read that WAR has plenty of balancing problems. Maybe it is something completely different, I have no idea.
My personal impression was that the opponents were usually healed better than we were, so it might as just as well be a matter of class distribution. Or not.
Another part of WAR PvP happens in so-called RvR zones (Realm vs. Realm, i.e. Order against Destruction). I visited one RvR zone and played there for an hour or so. There too Order was overrunning us. Except very briefly after the objectives for an RvR zone reset, we were pushed back to our War Camp (think Guild Castle in SW) all the time. Here too, healing seemed to be lacking a bit, but less so than in scenarios. I should also mention that we were usually assigned an RvR XP bonus buff for being outnumbered. That latter fact surely won't have helped our cause. I should mention this wasn't really a problem in scenario's because there a preset and equal number of players on both sides is required before the scenario runs.
Due to the constant losing, the RvR experience became frustrating after a short time. I think I'll have to roll some other classes and also other sides and see how that fares.
Last thought: WAR uses a system of Action Points, which I think are kind of like rogue energy in RoM, for using skills.
I was fine with keeping enough during most PvE combat situations, but found myself constantly running out in PvP fights. The enemies I was fighting usually did not seem to have problems to keep hitting me, so I wonder how they were handling it. Better skill rotations to accomodate for AP regeneration? Popping potions by the dozen?
All in all I like WAR for it's PvP aspect, which should be a good thing since it is what is supposed to be the meat of the game. I will keep playing it on occasion, but I'm am not fond of subscription games so I will be locked in Tier 1.
If PvP is your thing, you should probably try it out, and if you don't have personal issues with subscriptions there would be more content for you to play around with.
woensdag 15 december 2010
Bah
Warning: complaining ahead! Leave this page now if you can't handle negativism.
I actually intended on writing about something different, but the prolongued maintenance made me think things over. And realize I just have to vent some frustration that RoM is giving me lately.
People might say "well it's a free game, what would you expect?"
However that's hardly true; some players might get away playing entirely free. But if you have a full-time job and a family to spend time with, the cash shop is a necessity to support your character's progression. You can't spare the time to farm sufficient in-game gold and buy all your purified fusion stones and refining jewels through other players.
Frogster and Runewaker are in fact making millions from the game. Yet when you consider their primary product, an enjoyable gaming experience, they utterly fail at delivering it to their customers, at least since late spring or early summer, with the diamond trade trade disappearing from the auction house probably being a recognizable flipping point. (and some players would probably argue they've never been able to deliver; I'll leave that up to discussion as I've been reasonably content with their performance before that time)
What follows is a small summary of the major issues bothering me lately, in no particular order.
I actually intended on writing about something different, but the prolongued maintenance made me think things over. And realize I just have to vent some frustration that RoM is giving me lately.
People might say "well it's a free game, what would you expect?"
However that's hardly true; some players might get away playing entirely free. But if you have a full-time job and a family to spend time with, the cash shop is a necessity to support your character's progression. You can't spare the time to farm sufficient in-game gold and buy all your purified fusion stones and refining jewels through other players.
Frogster and Runewaker are in fact making millions from the game. Yet when you consider their primary product, an enjoyable gaming experience, they utterly fail at delivering it to their customers, at least since late spring or early summer, with the diamond trade trade disappearing from the auction house probably being a recognizable flipping point. (and some players would probably argue they've never been able to deliver; I'll leave that up to discussion as I've been reasonably content with their performance before that time)
What follows is a small summary of the major issues bothering me lately, in no particular order.
- The 3.0.3 mana patch a.k.a. class imbalancing patch. 'Nuff said.
- I don't remember exactly which, but a certain patch during summer broke creation of certain tier barrier runes from guts and rouse, or from combining lower tier barrier runes. Consequently preventing creation of the higher rank fearless rune that is created with barrier, and still higher rank sorcery and might runes, and everything above these.
- I was happy to read in the patch notes for 3.0.5 that the barrier rune problem was finally fixed after a few months. I wasn't happy at all when I died 3 times in the first 15 minutes after login, doing dailies in Ruins of Bymorsh. Because of a still existing problem with mobs that cast fire spells, such as the wandering vines in Bymorsh, and suddenly did about five times the damage they did before.
Oh, and yes, that was during finale of Drow trying to reach level 60. Debt FTW!
To add insult to injury, an in-game report I created for this was dismissed with the comment that this was a game mechanics question and Frogster support does not handle these.
- The new diamond trade NPC's are a joke. A bad one.
Please just give us a way of safely trading diamonds between players. The market will decide on conversion rates.
- In between 3.0.5 and 3.0.6 there was an intermediate patch, "to prepair for 3.0.6". Which didn't come with official patch notes but yet severely changed at least one in-game item: the Savage staff got quietly nerfed to do less damage, both physical and magical.
While not as severe as the pdmg nerf, the mdmg nerf was still highly frustrating for me as a reschooled p/m. I had just brought the staff up to t8 the week before, and overnight I lost over 10% mdmg, or more than a full weapon tier. It is still very noticable in heals, even if the heal bonus on most items outweighs mdmg these days. And it's even more noticable if I actually try to fight mobs myself - and it's not like priests are already near the top of the damage ladder.
In the 3.0.6 "unofficial patch notes" thread on the EU forum, this was acknowledged by a community manager and labeled as intended. In another thread related to it he actually went as far to ask what someone might have done if they had announced the upcoming nerf sometime before implementing it, like maybe trying to shove the Savage staff onto an unsuspecting player? Surely some players might have been trying to do that. But I for one might have considered trying to get different weapon, or a high durability Savage instead, or keep working towards t9 to make up for the loss of damage. There are probably many more players that would have chosen a different weapon or upgrade strategy for their weapon if they had known this beforehand. Besides, the correct course of action in the current situation would've been to improve Raksha Temple and newer staffs and wands, not nerf the Savage staff.
As for the hybrid classes that relied on the physical damage of the staff, I sympathize with your griefs.
- I work in the IT department of a large company, and we would never get away with how maintenance is handled by Frogster.
We have to plan small maintenance at least two weeks before, and larger maintenances even sooner. I don't care for that to happen for an online game, but at least a week advance notice rather than the night before would be nice.
We would also never get away with the sheer number of maintenances that take longer than announced.
And I could say a few things about making keeping services running while maintenance is applied piecemeal to different components of the entire platform. Hey Frogster, wanna hire me?
- There has been all talk and patting themself on the back about security, including a forced password reset for everyone, but I still see too many reports of people being hacked since. (I'm not saying that it is avoidable alltogether, just that it still happens too often)
And I don't like the new password security requirements. I can easily come up with way stronger passwords that don't match the policy.
- The newest zone "Limo Desert" is at best another under-performance.
The layout is horrendous, reminiscent of Dragonfang Ridge (which was architecturally at least spectacular, I don't find I feel the same way of Limo).
To see new types of meshes for some mobs is at least refreshing, good points to Runewaker for these.
But the "Great Throat" worldboss that was announced with great fanfare is a joke, while on the other hand the Zhanka and Sespiroth quests are too hard for probably 90% of the players. Speaking about quests, the quests in Kafarg Lair require the same NPC making a performance, for multiple quests, for every single player that does them. Best time to try and do them without having to wait hours for the NPC to come available is probably around 5am.
The daily quests' XP is hardly worth the effort, the only one worthwhile requires to kill 6 elite Yasheedee for an item drop. Which isn't guaranteed. And there are probably only about 30something of this type of mobs on the map, meaning far too few for the amount of people trying to do that daily. Back to Bymorsh it is.
And releasing a zone without housemaid, mailbox or auction house? What on earth were you thinking, Runewaker?
- Hot of the presses: apparently today's delay in maintenance was due to a "technical complication" with the diamond trade NPCs, and they will stay disabled for the time being. May I suggest keeping them that way, permanently?
- Even more hot of the presses: forums are down. Right after maintenance, good job guys...
dinsdag 26 oktober 2010
Things to do when you're 60
Drow just hit 60/60 yesterday (both classes within only a couple of days, yay). She's the first with 60 on both classes in our guild, but there have been a few others level 60 on one class since shortly after it was attainable. And actually some of them have been complaining that there is too little to do after hitting level 60, but I disagree.
Here is my list of things to do before I might get bored:
- Aside from doing dailies, spend an hour of farming mobs for TP every now and then to keep leveling skills that are not maxed out yet
- Run some more Spirit of Tempest Height and see if she can get a better hair style
- Finish the instances the guild hasn't cleared yet (meaning most of the chapter 2 and 3 instances!) and maybe get us some better gear in the process of doing so
- ... And perhaps maybe also win a Siege War for the first time if we can gear up :)
- Try soloing some chapter 2 bosses
- Level Drow's crafting skills, I've been mostly neglecting these skills since her primary class was level 20 or such
- Get the level 50 elite skills
- Craft the epic weapon too, just for kicks
- Complete a Lyk set, not that Drow will have much use of it, but it will come in handy after...
- ... Playing my alt some more, a knight/rogue who is currently level 23/19 I think, and level it up
- Actually given his levels I should use Drow to farm/craft him a "Hochim Warrior III" set first ( that's the purple level 22 set)
dinsdag 19 oktober 2010
Waaaaaah!
Not having read the description all too well, I had not realized you cannot choose the hair color let alone haircut you get.
First time Drow ended up with actually the same haircut that she had before, only in a dull grey color. I ran around with it for a few hours but really didn't like it, and since I had another one of these chests I took a gamble and tried if I could end up with something better.
Here's the result of the second hair change. The haircut is a fresh look on the character, after running for months and months with the ponytail, but the new color is a bit too flashy for my liking. But at least the overall result is better than the first hair change.
(This screenshot was taken inside my house, resulting in being rather too dark. I'll have to think of moving to a brighter place next time.)
woensdag 15 september 2010
I would like you to...
She is a mage by profession who likes to heal injured people in her spare time.
Together with her fellow guildie Thedarkwarklord, Drow really likes to throw a BBQ.
Dark slices the mobs and Drow roasts them with a flame or fireball. She is a little clumsy tho, so fairly often things tend to become a little charred :-)
If you have a character on Isiltir, feel free to drop her a line.
Note: I wish Runewaker would add some nicer facial expression on characters. Everyone looks like they just drunk a glass of vinegar.
woensdag 25 augustus 2010
Last post
Hello lost wanderer!
As I write it, this note is set to become the first post of me rambling about my dabblings in the online roleplaying game “Runes of Magic”.
To you it might well be the last post after reading through a larger number of articles I will sometime have written here.
If you have in fact taken time to bear multiple incoherent writings of mine, please also take some time to comment and tell me how and when you got here.
Credits to Spiral for the idea
As I write it, this note is set to become the first post of me rambling about my dabblings in the online roleplaying game “Runes of Magic”.
To you it might well be the last post after reading through a larger number of articles I will sometime have written here.
If you have in fact taken time to bear multiple incoherent writings of mine, please also take some time to comment and tell me how and when you got here.
Credits to Spiral for the idea
Abonneren op:
Posts (Atom)