New Features:
New Batcave Raid – 8 players will have the opportunity to infiltrate and retake Batman’s Inner Sanctum, which has been overrun by OMAC and the Dark Knight’s own corrupted technology. Fight along side Batman against Brother Eye!
New Appearance Items – Earn a Harlequin Clown suit or a Cherub disguise through a variety of holiday activities.
Goddess of Love Alert – Join up with three others to decide the epic battle between Devotion and Scorn once and for all.
New Races – Can you catch Catwoman as she leaps across buildings in Gotham City?
New Collections – All new collection sets will allow players to continue finding these hidden items.
New Themed Missions – Enjoy various missions that will challenge the player in combat, jumping, and much more.
A New Bane Duo – Another Duo has been added for your enjoyment! Pair up with another player and take on Bane for a chance at great loot.
New PvP Ring Event – Available on both PvP and PvE servers, Heroes and villains race to either save or steal valuable bags of diamonds from armored vans.
An Auction House – Players may now buy and sell tradeable items on a Broker in The Watchtower and Hall of Doom.
New Armor – Make your way to the Gotham Museum and help Catwoman to receive pieces of brand new Mayan armor!
General:
Improved Server and Client stability.
Added additional support for PC Game Controllers.
An issue where software overclocking would cause gameplay to appear laggy should have been resolved.
Players should no longer be prevented from moving if the Object or NPC they are interacting with despawns during the interaction.
Stealthed characters should no longer become visible if you move far away from them and then move towards them again.
The red balloons in the Vault should now weaponize properly.
Super canceling too early out of longer animating multi-hit weapon combos will now cause you to drop one or more of the attacks hits.
Abilities:
Damage Role buffs now last for a maximum of three minutes.
Channeled abilities will no longer bypass the channeling time when used during another channeled attack.
Harmful Superpowers can no longer cancel into other Superpowers.
While in PvP, targeting a Tank with an offensive power while in the Healing role will now properly remove Ice damage absorption and reduce Fire specific healing capabilities.
Fire:
Absorb Heat’s description now correctly describes that the ability only stuns enemies that have Burning effects.
Absorb Heat – Corrected an issue that could cause Absorb Heat to restore more health than intended.
Consume Objects no longer affects projectiles.
Enflame now grants +100 to Control Resistance when in the Tank Role.
Enflame’s description now indicates that it can ignite enemies on contact.
Eternal Flame’s description now correctly describes the increase to the player’s health that is applied.
Fiery Weapon’s description has been updated to more accurately reflect its effects.
Immolation now grants +100 to Control Resistance when in the Tank Role.
Immolation’s description has been updated to message that it reflects damage from attackers.
Inferno should no longer temporarily break the hit counter.
Reignition’s description now correctly states that it takes 25% supercharge instead of 50%.
Snuff Out’s description no longer implies that it deals damage to multiple targets.
Spontaneous Combustion will no longer hit the same target more often than was intended.
Stoke Flame should no longer temporarily break the hit counter.
Ice:
Bitter Winds now grants +100 to Control Resistance when in the Tank Role.
Bitter Winds’s description now correctly indicates that it can be purchased at level 8 instead of level 12.
Bitter Winds’s description no longer says that it is vulnerable to interrupt as it is not.
Bitter Wind should no longer temporarily break the hit counter.
Cold Snap now grants +100 to Control Resistance when in the Tank Role.
Ice Bash now properly displays the damage it causes when it procs. It was causing the damage but the fly text was not displaying previously.
Resonating Gale now damages enemies even when they are encased.
Winter Ward’s damage reflection effect that is applied to team members now has two charges to bring it in line with the effect applied to the Tank.
Wintry Tempest should no longer temporarily break the hit counter.
Mental:
Cryokinesis should now encase properly even when under Frostnipped.
Mass Levitation now correctly displays the 50% increase in damage in the Current Effects (F3) window.
Psychic Empowerment will now properly give power to group members.
Psychic Resonance will now properly work on encased targets.
Pyrokineses – The secondary damage over time effect should no longer stack with multiple applications.
Reflect Pain has had its damage lowered slightly but has gained some damage prevention during its duration.
Movement:
Dustoff will now prevent damage for either 8 seconds or up to 500 damage.
Inertial Flywheel will now work while having an object weaponized.
Speed Drain should now apply the power restoration of the ability.
Superspeed Dash now has an increased cooldown.
Superspeed Dash can no longer be cancelled early.
Nature:
The description for the Canine Form ability Fling no longer incorrectly states that it requires supercharge.
The description for the Canine Form ability Thrash no longer incorrectly states that it requires supercharge.
Deadly Thorns will not cause damage if canceled early.
Gorilla Form now correctly indicates that it is a supercharge ability and that the effect is temporary.
Gorilla Form’s ranged hold special ability should now function properly. Other Gorilla attacks should have the appropriate vulnerability and counter attacking properties.
Insectoid Form has gained a Pulse Beam style ranged attack combo to provide it with some interesting ranged options.
Metabolism should apply its Pheromone effects to group members now.
Pheromone lasts for a longer duration with a decreased average healing amount.
Primal Wolf Form’s description now correctly indicates that it can only be used in the Damage role.
The Pterosaur Form ability Prehistoric Might now displays a Might icon in the drop down under the heath bar to indicate the Might buff that it grants.
Prehistoric Might should now apply its affect to group members.
Roar’s description now includes the healing effects it provides.
Swarm should no longer temporarily break the hit counter.
Sorcery:
Transmutation no longer affects projectiles.
Final Ruin will not cause damage if canceled early.
Weapons:
Martial Arts ranged attacks now trigger the hit counter.
Explosive Shot should no longer fail when chaining these attacks.
Rain of Arrows should no longer fail when chaining these attacks.
Rifle Mortar now respects line of sight.
Rifle Mortar will now cause damage to objects.
The Two Handed ability Doom Spin no longer continues to do damage once the animation and visual effect have stopped.
The Hand Blaster ability Pulse Beam no longer continues to do damage once the animation and visual effect have stopped.
The Dual Pistol ability Full Auto no longer continues to do damage once the animation and visual effect have stopped.
The Dual Pistol Ability Full Auto’s description has been updated to note it offers a +4 Vitalization bonus.
The Dual Pistol Ability Full Auto will now cause damage to objects
The description for the Two-Handed ability Big Scoop now correctly displays the +15 health that it gives.
Solar Flame now properly displays the visual effect
Alerts, Duos, and Raids:
Ace Chemicals: the Chemo boss fight will now reset correctly when the party dies and all members leave the room.
Area 51: Players will no longer be blocked from speaking with Cadmus Techs who were getting stuck trying to take missiles to the Munitions Teleporters.
Arkham Asylum: In Hard Mode, Poison ivy should now always leave after her initial in-game Cinematic.
Bludhaven: Tthe objective to “Destroy the Dump Truck” will not reappear after it has been destroyed unless all of the Hazmats are knocked out.
Hive Moon Base: the explosives in the second stage should now respawn more frequently.
Ooloong Island: Objectives should now always display in the proper order.
Oolong Island: Players should no longer have trouble progressing if Tornado Tyrant leaves the room.
Oolong Island: Players will no longer get stuck in a loop transforming into Metal Men and back into normal form.
Smallville: Players can no longer exit without receiving the Headline.
Hall of Doom Armory: The Demon Lord’s fire effects should now properly point towards the target of the attack.
Omac Base: Killer Frost and Fire now have in-game cinematic cameras near the beginning of the Duo.
Omac Base: The Incinerator should no longer be able to end up on the wrong side of the door.
Omac Base: The Nanosynths should no longer be able to end up on the wrong side of the door.
Metropolis:
The Metropolis City Hall building should now have proper collision preventing players from getting inside it.
Players should no longer be able to fall through the world near the base of the CAO dam in the Historic District.
Players should no longer be able to fall through the world in several spots along the Metropolis shoreline.
The gorillas in Little Bohemia are now friendly to Villain players.
Gotham City:
Pedestrians should no longer get stuck while wandering in the East End of Gotham.
The balconies near Gotham University should now have proper collision on them.
Players should no longer be able to get inside the root of the East End Lighthouse.
Missions:
Players no longer have to return to the quest giver when completing a side quest, but instead can complete the quest via the Journal.
Testing 1, 2, 3 – Raven can no longer get stuck outside of the flame wall when using her teleport attack.
Trigon’s Blood – The wheelchairs throughout the instance will no longer explode.
Avatar of Sin – The Avatar of Sin should now respawn more frequently.
Shipping and Handling – Huntress should no longer remain attackable after being defeated.
The Awakening – The Brainiac Soldier seen in the first Overseer Cutscene will no longer sometimes get stuck in the door.
The Awakening – The time before the first door opens and the NPCs in the hall spawn has been increased to allow for the comms to finish playing.
Failing STARs – Encounters should no longer spawn inside statues or benches.
Take Heart – Players no longer have to touch the obelisk that converts them into the Embodiment of Greed again before taking the Heart of Avarice.
Take Heart – Players are now provided with a minimap marker to the obelisk that provides them with Greed form.
Supersize Souls – Players no longer have to touch the obelisk that converts them into the Embodiment of Gluttony again before devouring the souls of superheroes.
Conduit of the Soul – Lightkeeper Taleb will no longer shoot effects from his hand when interacted with by the player.
Conduit of the Soul – Players can no longer weaponize Lightkeeper Taleb’s Soul Globe.
Soul Catcher – The Soul Wells are no longer floating above the ground.
Brain Pain – The number of mobs in the final wave of the turret defense room has been reduced. This should make the encounter much more survivable.
Tortured Titans! – After defeating the Titans and releasing Brother Blood from Raven’s magic, the player will now receive a communicator message from Calculator before the comic cutscene plays.
The Last Laugh – Joker Presents should no longer be stuck in the walls.
The Big Payback – Patrolmen will no longer slide along the ground after being knocked out if a Villain fails to strap a bomb on them in time.
One of Us – Hazmat Bogue will no longer float above the ground.
Bane Brought Down – The waypoint arrow for Batman will now be displayed.
Fear Itself – The in-game cinematic for Edward and Eddie will no longer jitter.
Fixed various grammar issues and typos in the quest text descriptions and objectives.
Party Foul – The female officers no longer have male voices.
Queen of Lies – During the Aquaman boss fight, Circe no longer retains her signature cape and sash when transforming into Mera.
Queen of Lies – After leaving the instance, but before speaking with the Atlanteans, the player now shapechanges into Atlantean form when returning to the instance.
Rare Blood – the clerics near the quest giver can no longer be attacked by the opposite faction.
Daily Missions:
The Captain Cruel encounter will now count towards completion of the mission.
The armored truck robbery will now count towards completion of the mission.
The Ironkurtin encounter will now count towards completion of the mission.
Feats:
All feat descriptions that said ”KO’d” now say “Knocked Out” instead.
“Walked the Beat” should now properly complete for Villains when finishing the last mission.
Changed the descriptions of the PvE Badge Feats to indicate that they can use either Marks of Triumph or Marks of Distinction to complete the feat.
“Amazing Aerialist” for Acrobats will now correctly update when you complete the East End Adept Acrobat Challenge.
“In the Mist” for completing the first Grodd story arc contact missions is now working correctly. Players who have already completed the requirements for this feat should have it update and complete for them automatically.
Items:
Equipping the Sharpened Synthium Katana will now collect the Tech Ninja Sword style.
Consuming a single use item will no longer display that “Player Destroyed Item” in the combat log.
Addressed an issue where tokens dropped for a group would display the purple icon for an item rather than a Token. This caused confusion because there was no item for players to roll on.
PvP:
In Metropolis, Manhunter and Alpha Lantern should no longer get stuck in a state where they will not attack the enemy faction while guarding their vendor.
In Metropolis, the rally locations for the Ring War PvP event should now be at an equal distance from the battle.
It should no longer be possible to dodge roll to avoid the push back attack of the guards at safe houses.
Added particle effects to the diamond heist bags when a faction is close to winning.
Races:
All players in a multiplayer race should now be able to properly activate the first hoop in the race.
Moved the race start node up a bit for the Metropolis Little Bohemia Adept Acrobat Challenge.
The rewards for the intro races in Little Bohemia now have icons.
Added race descriptions for the Expert Flight and Expert Speedster challenges.
UI:
Art for the countdown/up timer around overhead icons has been updated
The character select screen will now show you the number of characters that you currently have out of the maximum number of available slots.
Loot collection notifications will now only be sent for nearby group members.
When playing a Legends match the levels of other players are no longer displayed on the UI.
Corrected the messaging for the On Duty UI when no arenas have become available for a player.
Reward mails should now be resent if the initial attempt fails.
The Group Loot UI should no longer completely abandon all input if it is open when the scorecard appears automatically.
The On Duty UI now sports a new Events category, under which you can find special events or seasonal scenarios.
You are no longer able to “Leave” a PvE type On Duty scenario from the UI (you will need to use one of the exit locations.
You are no longer able to close the Scorecard UI at the end of a PvP type on Duty scenario (you can only leave the map).
The player character paper doll now fades in on the Style and Inventory UI screens.
The “Delete Item” functionalityin the Bank UI has been moved to Button 4 on the controller (Triangle on PS3).
The Control Schemes settings should now always from appear on the PC client.
The buff/debuff list will now show the correct source for chains of effects.
Keys held down during the start of the comic cutscenes will no longer be stuck “on” after the cutscene completes.
The combat log text now specifies “Melee Attack” or “Ranged Attack” instead of just displaying “Primary Attack’.
Fixed combo localization issues in the Traits UI.
Fixed combo icon art issues in the Traits UI.
The ‘\’ (back slash)key will now toggle the PDA to the last window or cancel a race challenge. IF you have been using ‘/’ (forward slash) to cancel your races please use ‘\’ instead.
Collector’s Edition items will no longer have square icons but will display the correct circular art when visible on the hotbar.
Social:
Added “Loot” as a new default Chat tab.
Added new configurable chat channels for “Items” and “Cash” which get routed to the “Loot” Chat tab by default.
The League message of the day is now labeled when appearing in the Chat channel.
The PS3 virtual keyboard will no longer automatically pop up in quickchat mode if you have a keyboard connected to the PS3.
Reply to tells should now continue working after opening/closing UIs.
Pressing ‘/’ (forward slash) on the keyboard will now open quick chat mode and automatically add a slash to the text field.
Current chat channel setting should now persist properly after opening/closing UIs.
Removed flashing notifications from the tabs in the Quick Chat UI.
On the Social UI the Selection focus now starts in the Who list.
Removed the flashing tab notifications on the Social UI.
Improved the layout of Voice Chat options on the Social UI.
Visuals:
Sorcery characters should now have a casting animation when using Final Ruin.
Addressed an issue that made it appear as though you are using Block on the client though you are not actually blocking on the server.
The visual effect for the Iconic power Robot Sidekick should now display properly.
The visual effect for the hand Blaster power Solar Flame should now display properly.
Patched a hole in the wall of gifts where players could sometimes become trapped.
The Spite and Smitten Emote animations have now been improved.
The Auto Zoom Camera option now works when in combat.
The camera motion when transitioning into a glide has been improved.
The camera motion when a player lands after a fall has been improved.
The camera should no longer stop following the player when melee attacking in Wolf Form.
The Martian Manhunter’s communications animations have been improved in the Smallville Alert.
Flight characters should orient properly when using ‘jump’ to fly straight up.
The Twisted Harness should now be collectible and visible when worn for female characters.
All items using the Jah Kir appearance will now properly display for male and female characters.
The large female body type should now play the proper animations for the chosen personality type.
The following items should have an improved appearance:
The Shoulders of Azar
The Metalhead Boots
The Battle Harness Shirt
The Power Reinforced Boots
The Heeled Female Boots
The Tall Trim Female Boots
The Shielded Robot Helmet
The Centurion Helmet
The Medieval Shirt
The Striker Trench Coat
The Paramilitary Shirt
The Paramilitary Pants
The Formal Ahirt
The Opera Pants
The Demonic Boots
The Demonic Shirt
The Demonic Helmet
The Steel Raid Shirt
The Angelic Chest
The Welder’s Helmet
The Knight’s Helmet
The Urban Slick Pants
Audio:
Communicator messages should no longer play multiple times when activating new quests.
Staff ranged effects should now play audio.
In the mission Empty Parts, Technician Larz is no longer missing his voiceover when interacting with him.
In “The Joker’s Problem” Joker’s voiceover should now match the text of his communicator message.
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NDA is lifted– so I wanted to share my thoughts/feelings about what we’ve found, thus far, in DC Universe Online:
I had some trouble with screenshots, so the photos below are actually cellphone photos of my screen, so, before you judge based on graphics, let me AGAIN state:
THESE ARE CELLPHONE PICS OF MY SCREEN!!
Character Creation:
I have to admit I was a bit leery about this. I never played CoH or CoV before, and the idea of creating a ‘super hero’ or ‘villain’ just sounded nothing more than lame. The entire idea of this game seemed sort of lame to me, but I wanted to try something DIFFFFFFFERENT.
I got into the Character creation screen, and right away was pretty excited. There was a ton of options for making your toon ‘truly’ one of a kind looking. All the way down to customizing the color of the trim on your gear. I will mention that Lisa offhandedly said to me that the controls felt a little ‘clunky’ to her. While I do disagree, I will say that toon creation was a bit confusing. There’s a lot of clicking the ‘back’ button going on, so it can take a bit to figure it out.
PVP:
Outstanding. That’s all I gotta say. I did not really play CoH and CoV, though I did watch Hunter play from time to time. The ability to PVP in a 3d scenario is pretty bad ass. My husband, my son and I were playing along with one of my gal pals. There was lots of communication, back and forth about where the target was, who was on who, etc. It was amazing to get back into the habit of calling targets. Fun, fun, fun shit. Additionally, we noticed that us as level 8′s could even kill levels MUCH higher than us. It’s about the combos. TBH, I’m not very good at pulling off the combos, but Jay and Hunter are just outstanding. We fought last night for a good hour, and just had a blast. It was us 3 versus 5 or 6 guys, and we held our own, their deaths FAR outnumbering ours.
I know there are incentives and rewards and shit in pvp, and I’m still looking into all that, in relation to our guild and stuff as well. More to come on that, unless Lisa has spent her time standing in line at the airport doing the research for me.
It’s still early, but at this point, it’s the closest thing I’ve seen to ‘skill’ based PVP in a long time. Perhaps Jay will come along and give his thoughts as well.
Quests:
Not painful. Sometimes a challenge to complete when areas are being camped by reds, but one can always head off and do other shit instead, or one can quest as a group. None of the quests were SUPER engaging, but the story lines were decently crafted, and they didn’t ‘suck’ by any means. Also, I’m not sure we got a full taste of the quests, considering we capped at level 20. To be perfectly frank, I don’t evne know what level cap is here, but surely it’s not 20.
Instances:
There are instances in this game, and you can queue up to play with a random group, much like WoW. You can also queue up as a party, and just fill your empty slots. Those instances were pretty tough, and you can do ‘regular’ or an ‘advanced’ mode, depending on what you choose. I lost connection about halfway through our instance last night, and had to restart the game. Of course, this meant I was booted from said instance and couldn’t get back in. Pretty lame, because it means I have to do it again to complete the quest! I should have more on this soon.
I’ll try and get some screenshots and shit this evening if I get time to play. It’s my boy’s 16th bday, and we have some burgers to eat, some ice cream to purchase, and some fries to injest!
Original article found here, at the Austin American Statesman:
http://www.statesman.com/business/ut-archive-preserving-video-game-history-1133582.html
Earlier this year, Austin attorney Richard Anton was looking to get rid of his old, unused Apple II Plus computer.
Then his wife found out about the University of Texas’ Videogame Archive, an effort to preserve gaming history that was started three years ago by some of the godfathers of the Austin gaming scene.
Anton ended up donating the computer and a stack of software to the archive, which operates as part of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.
An intern got the computer working and used it to play a copy of “Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress,” which was created by Richard Garriott, one of the aforementioned godfathers.
“I’m glad it’s working, and I’m glad there’s some interest in it,” said Anton, who said he spent about $3,500 for the computer and assorted peripherals in the early 1980s.
Since the archive started in 2007, thanks to the efforts of Garriott and fellow gaming legends Warren Spector and George Sanger, a music composer, the center has amassed more than 1,500 video games and about 200 linear feet of design documents, game proposals, internal correspondence and concept art, as well as much more, said digital archivist Zach Vowell.
The collection includes e-mails from Spector discussing the production of his acclaimed cyberpunk game, “Deus Ex,” which was released in 2000.
Those e-mails reveal an incredible amount of detail regarding the production of the game, Vowell said.
“You call tell with ‘Deus Ex’ that they really thought hard about every aspect of the game, and it showed in the end,” he said.
There’s also a copy of “Akalabeth: World of Doom,” Garriott’s first video game. It’s still in one of the plastic bags Garriott used to package his games that he sold more than 30 years ago.
“State-of-the-art publishing back then was a Ziploc bag,” said Garriott, who donated a trove of his own documents to the collection and plans to give more.
In the quickly evolving art form of gaming, source material from early developers can be an important learning tool for future generations, he said.
“I think it is really important that, while we still have our fingers on some of that early material — and importantly, some of those early creators are still around to talk about it — it’s very valuable to try to capture as much as possible,” Garriott said.
Preserving gaming history is more important now than ever, said Billy Cain, a gaming industry veteran who is chief creative officer at Lakeway-based Sneaky Games.
Cain donated items from his collection of video games, consoles, game magazines, strategy guides and design documents.
“It’s the right thing to do,” he said.
With games becoming more and more mainstream, “it seemed more important than ever to provide some grounding, and where things came from,” he said.
And while the collection is very Austin-heavy, Vowell recently got an unexpected call from the attorney for David Rosen, a former CEO of Sega Corp., a pioneering game and console maker. Rosen donated some late 1980s-era Sega Genesis console systems and games.
Archiving video game history can be a tricky process, because obsolescence is a huge problem. Many of the old computers, consoles and operating systems used to play the earliest video games are simply no longer around.
For instance, the 1962 game “Spacewar!” exists on a punched paper tape, which requires a PDP-1 computer, according to the report “Preserving Virtual Worlds,” by a team of researchers led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
But, to the best of those researchers’ knowledge, there’s only one functioning PDP-1 computer left in the world.
“The fate of the paper tape of ‘Spacewar!’ is the fate awaiting all games without the active intervention of preservationists,” wrote principal investigator Jerome McDonough of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“A book may pass 50 years on a shelf and still be readily accessible; rapid technological change and the resulting obsolescence of the technology necessary to access software mean that a computer game will not,” McDonough wrote.
Vowell says that archivists are still pondering the obsolescence problem. But ideally they would like for researchers to be able to play the actual games that they’re studying, he said.
In a way, the video game archive is a good fit with the Briscoe Center, which is known for its Texas history collections, Vowell said.
“This kind of stuff, you don’t think it would fit together immediately, but I think it does make sense, because it is local history,” he said. “And the role that the game business played in Austin’s development … it was pretty substantial.”
bgaar@statesman.com; 912-5932
This review was written for BiC Gaming by Chaser Jane, (also known as Chy). I’d love to have your thoughts and feelings on the new WoW expansion, too! Send your submissions to nat@borninchaos.com and don’t forget to include your website, guild website, or blog link!
The big phrase used quite often before this expansion was, “Catering to casuals.” In players’ minds it seemed that Blizzard was making everything easier for new players or the people who just never really grasped the idea of the game entirely. I can, with great reassurance say that this is not true with Cataclysm.
This expansion was something that I was weary of from the start. I’ve been playing World of Warcraft for 6 years now and I must admit that I love the game. From the professions, to the tedious leveling of a character, I adore WoW and I always have. To change the zones that I knew and loved was something that I was afraid of. I was nearly sure they’d mess it up in some way. Well, I was wrong to fear the change. The new zones are more fun, less tedious, and in the end beautiful compared to the textures and graphics of the old world before The Shattering. Blizzard has successfully made questing easier but it’s important to remember that we’re pushing through 85 levels now. I won’t lie, you probably won’t see me level another character to 85. I’ve done enough of that.
It took the first level 85, 9 hours to get there. Technically this was 9 hours after the release of the game in the USA but he did it. It took me roughly 24 hours. I leveled through some amazing quests, rushed through content, and was quite pleased in the end. An Egyptian twist with a few 20,000 leagues under the sea references was written nicely. I will pay my respects to Blizzard for the time and effort they put into this expansion. All of the new zones look great, they feel comfortable and above all, they give a badass gaming experience. Levels 81-82 aren’t bad experience wise and tend to go very quickly, after that however experience doubles to 4,000,000 experience for your next level. By the time you’re working through that last level you’re burning 10,000,000 experience to reach that epic level of 85.
In Wotlk we went from “Ding, I’m 80! Lets do heroics!” to “I’m 80, lets run 3 instances and get me full raid ready gear without trying.” Blizzard has ended this saga for all “casual” players and all but the serious raiders. You need normal instance gear before you can touch heroics and the best part is, the heroics aren’t easy. In fact, they’re terrible! They’re well thought out fights, but you need a good group that’s working together properly. There is no more running headfirst into a pull and powering it out. I’ve seen more tanks say, “Ok, Sheep Moon, Sleep Square, Mind Control X, and Repent Diamond.” Than I thought I’d ever see again. We’ve got a new/old mechanic back and it’s making things much better on a healer end. I never thought I’d see the day where MC would be used regularly again… The gear is there, it just takes time and effort to get. If you’re a serious player you can still get a couple (like 3) epics before you start raiding, and if you’re not so serious or don’t have as much time you’ll find the ilvl346 alternative will work for the time being. It’s a rather nice balance.
Archaeology is the new secondary profession and other than being rather tedious to level it’s very interesting. It’s pretty neat and I can see that it will soon just become part of the game like every other secondary profession is now. You can get some of the best items in the game at the moment (at least for healers) and in the end it’s a time sink. It’s fun for those people that enjoy games inside of games. OH! Did I mention that Plants v.s. Zombies is the best game evar invented in WoW? Screw you Peggel.
A ton of healers right now are bitching and moaning about mana, but truthfully if you’re level 85 and reasonably geared it’s not an issue. I can successfully say that I have 105,000 mana and plan to have more by the end of tonight, and I rarely go oom anymore unless the dps suck. =) Yeah that’s right, I’m a healer finally passing the blame onto someone else. Even some of the dps are complaining about mana issues, but what they’re not considering is that this is a completely different game. You must play it as such.
Eventually people will again adapt to the changes Blizzard has made and we will all be back to the top of our game. However I don’t think it’ll ever be as simple as Wotlk and this makes me smile. There are 628 new quests in 5 new zones, 6 new reputations, 2 new races, a new secondary profession, new skills in your old professions, new dailies, 9 new heroics, 7 new instances, 2 new battle grounds, 1 new world pvp zone, rated battle grounds, new spells, new abilities, flying in the old world, and an over all incredible design. Congratulations Blizzard, you didn’t fuck this up! In fact, I would call this a win.
My personal opinion- If you quit the game, try it again. If you’ve never tried the game, buy it. This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time and I’ve been complaining a little until I realized they gave us nearly everything we asked for. No more warriors wearing leather, Boomkins wearing cloth, or paladins sporting the dresses, people are nearly forced to use their own armor class again. We can fly in old world, you can’t jump right into epics or raid content.. the list goes on. This is an incredible game, and to all those Vanilla WoW players out there, Welcome back! It’s time to show these kiddies how we play.
Sorry for the long absence, folks. Between some changes at work, changes in gaming, and just being busy, I forgot all ABOUT updating this site. Well, I guess if I am perfectly honest with myself, the reality is that I just plain FORGOT about this site.
There are TONS and TONS of exciting crap going on in the gaming world right now, and I thought I’d touch on a few of them.
Ultima Online:
As many of you know, Jay and I re-upped our UO accounts not too long ago, completely and utterly bored with World of Warcraft, we just wanted something to do, and figured we’d give it a try. While we did have a good time for a bit, the reality is that champ spawns are not they used to be. We found an entire server allied together and no champ spawns really being done at all. The six of us compared to the 15 or so that would come in and rape us just became tiresome. With nothing to really fight over anymore, it just lost some of it’s excitement for us. We aren’t big ‘doom’ fans and the other PVE that’s come along since we left all those years ago wasn’t all that exciting for us. Our accounts are still live and active- we just haven’t played them in a couple of months.
On another note, Ultima has released some new content called High Seas. This mini-expansion was put in place to bring some life back out to the waters in UO. With new boats, weapons and other fun stuff, Ultima is looking to revamp and recharge. I know many people are super excited about these changes, and there’s been quite a bit of talk about it on the varoius UO boards. My kid asked me to get it for him, but at the last minute decided to go back to WoW.
World of Warcraft:
Speaking of WoW, I have noticed some of my friends drifting back over to this terribly, terribly addictive game. Many of them are trying to get achievements completed and the like before the highly anticipated release of Cataclysm. I can honestly say, with a fair amount of certainty that Jay and I will not be purchasing Cataclysm, I am interested in the hype surrounding it. I know Chy is super excited, and Jamie and Michael have also expressed some interest. I’ll be watching the launch closely to see what my friends think. Perhaps I can get them to come over and do some first person article writings!
COD: Black Ops
I haven’t seen my son since he opened the box last night. I’ll get his take on this and do a write up tomorrow.
StarCraft:
I am still loving this game with a passion. Jay and I have been working up in the ranks, and bless his heart he gets better and better, and I’m almost positive I’m getting worse and worse!! He’s a real trooper, though and never complains about just how terrible I really am. I like the fact that I can jump on with only him or him and friends, and still play together. As this was my first experience with an RTS, it was a new experience, but I am most definitely hooked now. I am frustrated that more of my ‘playing friends’ won’t do teams with us, but perhaps they’ll come around when they finally realize Jay’s awesomeness offsets my terribadness.
Diablo 3:
Folks, if you guys have not checked out Blizzard’s website for the latest information/screenshots/trailers for Diablo 3, I HIGHLY recommend you do so. I got so excited about this goddamn game, that I made Jay go buy me Diablo 2. I’d never played it before, and while the graphics are circa fucking 1998 Ultima Online, it’s so much cheesy goodness filled fun, that I just don’t even care. The storyline itself is engaging and I just know Blizz is going to knock this one out of the park. As we all know, Blizz doesn’t give out release dates, as ‘the game is finished when it’s finished’ but I’m hoping it will be released this summer. I’m really looking forward to it!
Welp, that’s about it for today. Ya’ll feel free to submit any information or articles you’d like to see posted here, whether it be game info, hardware info, or why the PS3 is superior to the Xbox 360. I’d love to have a few of you write some guest articles for this site. All credit will go to you, and your site, of course!
Jay started playing StarCraft last night! We’ll see what he has to say shortly!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38424617/ns/technology_and_science-games/
Many of you have heard all sorts of different things about the new iPhone. Here’s the skinny from someone ya know and trust.
This phone is friggin slick. It’s thin, it’s got a great weight to it, and it feels great in your hand.
The display itself is just nothing short of gorgeous. The colors pop, the videos are gorgeous, and photographs come over beautifully.
As for the camera/flash? Complete and total win. It’s shooting some great photographs, and the zoom option is just lovely.
Additionally, “Facetime” is probably one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time. I don’t want to get into a big explanation of what that is, but basically it’s like a conferencing program, where you can video chat with people through your iPhone.
I’m getting some awesome battery life on this thing, and I’m using it constantly. Once I took Steve Jobs advice and ‘stopped holding it that way’ I stopped losing calls/service. THANKS STEVE *sarcasm*
Anyway- all in all, I give it a thumbs up. The thing is gorgeous and I definitely do not regret my purchase.
