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E3 Dissappoints?

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:11:15 EST

It seems that the folks running E3 don't have a clue how to run a convention. They are either bleeding money or pissing off their fans. This years show seems to be the latter.

With an attendence of only 4,000 journalists and critics, E3 is sending a message that they don't care about the fans and can't run their own business. How they can't turn a profit on 80,000 + attendees is beyond me.

This opens the doors for the big game publishers to start their own shows. We've already seen a modicom of success with conventions like BlizzCon. These conventions have proved to be great launching platforms for launchin new products and games. Just ask Steve Jobs at Apple, he'll tell you. The Apple show has outshone CES, the largest electronics show on the planet, on many occasion. Can the game pubs do the same?

Hopefully there will be something truly amazing to come out of this expo that will have the gaming world going ooooh and aaah. Most likely it'll be a new toilet design for Second Life ... ummm yeah.

Blizzard News

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:50:37 EST

If you go to Worldofwarcraft.com or Blizzard.com you will notice a strange new splash page with absolutely no explanation behind it. You can see the image above and judge for yourself. To me it looks a lot like minerals from Starcraft 2, and supposedly the game has been dated for December by distributers. What does this page mean? A lot of people are speculating it is about Diablo 3 and we will be hearing news very soon. To me however this looks very un-diabloish and in fact looks Starcraft 2 related. Time will tell and I will keep you posted.

Tomorrow is also a huge day for Blizzard with the start of Season 4 of the Arena in World of Warcraft. For my Gnome warrior Voig it will be a landmark day; I saved up 5,000 arena points in season 3 that will carry over and I'll be able to purchase 3 huge upgrades directly from season 1 to season 4 gear (lots more stats) tomorrow. I am going to sincerely enjoy being able to compete on a level playing field this season, not wearing obsolete gear the entire time will be awesome.

WoW Patch 2.4.3 Notes

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:18:45 EST

The official notes for WoW patch 2.4.3 have come out and the big news is the cheat death nerf. This totally overpowered ability for Rogues makes them take 90 percent less damage when they are under 10% health as well as absorbing one attack which would have killed them each time it procced. By tying the damage reduction of this ability in with resilience they are removing the ability for Rogues to wear tier 6 instead of their PvP gear; thus significantly reducing their damage output.

Another major change is the introduction of 22 slot bags from the socialite "Haris Pilton" in Shat. These cost 1200 gold each, esentially they are a massive gold sink designed to counter the super inflation being caused by the post 2.4 Shattered Sun daily quests. A special Disco Ball item is also being introduced which I imagine works just like a Piccolo of Flaming Fire, causing everyone in the effected area to burst into dance.

The final HUGE change is moving the first tier of mount from level 40 down to level 30 in order to make the leveling process easier on new players. They are always streamlining the game and this is a major boost to the speed of progressions through huge zones like STV. One unintended negative consequence is that now the raptor jesus flash movie is out of date "Level 40 lol!"

Spore Creature Creator

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:54:22 EST

Check out the Spore creature creator which is available today from Maxis here

You can actually create whatever creature you are going to start the game using because the system allows you to save the creatures you make and then import them into the whole game once it is released. This means we can all play around with the highly anticipated editor now, and have more time to explore procedurally generated planets and fight against AIs when we actually get our hands on the game.

You can see I made a cute little Zergling. I just saw a video that was totally insane where a person made a creature that looks like two people having sex. Simply by putting on 4 arms, 4 legs, and 2 heads and having the two bodies connected by a thin tube. It's pretty much win when he has them get excited or scared. See what you can create and have fun.

AOC Item Looting

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:07:30 EST

Funcom said they would unveil news about their PvP system today and boy did they ever. Age of Conan is getting a very exciting fugitive system where players who are PKs will become progressively more "red" as they do dishonorable deeds. The exciting part is the item looting possibility. Eventually when you hit a certain point death penalties are instituted and items will start to drop off you in PVP.

Here is the official low down on their proposed evolution for the game and it's full of exciting stuff. The fugitive system is just one of many updates coming soon; another addition which should be here by fall is PvP gear and levels.

The possibility that has me most hyped up is that perhaps they will create an all fugitive server. Default every players status to red and suddenly the game is very much like previous great MMOs AC and Ultima Online with player looting enabled. AOC may become the type of really amazing MMO where guilds go head to head to control resources and both sides have no choice but to drop their gear when they die. I called AOC carebear before, but this is a huge step in the right direction. If they do it right they could have the best MMO in a long long time.

Turbine Entertainment Grows

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:35:37 EST

Just recently Time Warner along with GGV Capital invested Forty Million dollars into the well known MMORPG development house Turbine Entertainment. Now Turbine is talking about how they recently hired 60 new people and according to their CEO Jim Crowley are looking into cross platform games. Adam Mersky is the companie's communications director and he basically confirmed the idea, telling Kotaku they are actively developing a console game!

Turbine was responsible for one of the greatest MMOs of all time; Asheron's Call. Their Darktide server will always be remembered as "the glory days" of MMO PvP because there was item looting on death, an FFA environment, and vicious guild wars over respawn points. Sadly most people don't remember how badly Turbine fumbled the ball on this when they put up invincible barriers around player housing crushing the ability to control another guild's lifestone.

Since Asheron's Call's initial success and then Turbine's derailment of that games fun factor they have produced crap games like Asheron's Call 2, Dungeons and Dragons Online, and Lord of the Rings Online. Being unable to repeat the glory of AC 1 by making 100% non-pvp games (surprise) has not slowed their ability to convince investors they are somehow good at their craft. Hopefully their attempt at a console MMORPG is something like "AC 1 with better graphics, a few bug fixes, before player housing" ported onto the X-box 360. Then they would have the greatest console game ever.

Video Game Burning

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:20:37 EST

The Reverand Richard Patrick is a Pastor in Newport Virginia with some pretty crazy ideas for the year 2008. He is seriously considering holding a video game and CD burning rally because he blames violent entertainment for crime. Apparently he didn't get very many stories from his relatives about what their lives were like before video games came along.

To quote him "We are considering having something similar to a rally where parents and children can bring CDs and video games that they consider are destructive to the mind set of our youth and have a burning Young people are being influenced by what they see and what they hear. They are being influenced by television ... television and videos are telling young people a vision but something that's not reality... [Violent media] has a tremendous influence on young people and violence. That's basically all they see. Most of them try to emulate what they see, when in reality, the people they see don't even live in those communities. Some of the rappers they see on TV portraying crime don't live in the urban areas — they live in the suburbs somewhere. It's all a facade.

Now the immediate lulz come from the fact that here we have a church upset over "telling young people a vision but something that's not reality... " I mean hello, do you have any clue how out of a job you would be if there were some type of law against making stuff up? The really funny part though is just how stupid it is to blame video games for violence in the first place. Look at the crime rate in NYC since the release of Grand Theft Auto III. I'm sorry if your area of Virginia has a bad crime rate, but it's because of social programs, economics, and families. It's not video games. We have video games everywhere and they aren't causing a problem here. It's not a coincidence that the REAL factors we understand to cause crime are high in your area. Video games have nothing to do with it; ask anyone in Rwanda.

New Worlds Fastest Computer

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:22:30 EST

IBM has shattered the world record for fastest computer with their new creation "Roadrunner!" This bad boy is made out of 13,000 PS3 Cell processors as well as an additional 7,000 AMD Dual Core Opterons and is capable of sustaining 1,000 Trillion calculations per second (1,000,000,000,000,000) or roughly twice as many as the now second fastest comp which is also an IBM creation.

This achievement goes to show how amazing the cell processor really is. It's uses go far beyond just gaming; the chip was actually a breakthrough in parallel processing allowing super computers beyond our previous reach to be created. There is no doubt in my mind in the near future this Roadrunner comp will be surpassed by another device simply made by stacking together even more processors. When we are all done with our PS3s 5 years from now perhaps they won't just sit on a shelf gathering dust but will actually have re-sale value to companies building machines such as this out of everyones old cores.

The purpose of Roadrunner is to monitor our national nuclear weapon stockpile. I find it really bizzare that a super computer would be needed for something like this. Is it a very calculation heavy monitoring process? "Yup, it's still sitting in the silo!" If this is now the fastest computer and it's dedicated to this task what was keeping track of our nukes before? A guy named bubba with one of those paddles that has the rubber ball on a string?

Blizzcast Episode 3

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:05:37 EST

Bilzzards official podcast released episode 3 today. Grab it here Here it's a little long at almost an hour, but is packed full of discussion with the top most developers working on the biggest projects at Blizzard.

First is a section about Starcraft 2, specifically discussing the Zerg who are currently under development. Interesting tidbits about the Queen unit and Ultralisk are given such as the Ultra's cleave attack hitting an area and the Queen's new role as a mobile buff / base defense. It's fascinating to hear how much they are tinkering with and drastically changing the game during development. He actually says they have ex-pro players mastering their new mechanics and "breaking" them easily before they tweak them to perfection.>

The second part is the World of Warcraft discussion but it's largely a waste of time. Who really cares about the evolution of raids from original WoW to the Burning Crusade? They neutered them; that's all you need to know. It's so obvious that the guy talking about Starcraft is a lot more intelligent than Jeff Kapplan. Blizzard obviously pulled their best talent off WoW a long time ago.

The end of the podcast is the question and answer section which was one of the best parts. Check it out; It's a long listen, but worthwhile.

Crysis Warhead

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:11:15 EST

Crytek, the creators of Crysis, announced a new PC exclusive game today called Crysis Warhead. This is not a sequel to their blockbuster FPS, but rather is a "parallel story"; which basically means there are no real upgrades and improvements just more of the same stuff we enjoyed from the original.

I thought Crysis was supposed to be the first installment of a game trilogy, but apparently instead of going ahead with creating part 2 they decided to stretch the bucks they spent a little further and make this entierly new box for us to buy in addition to everything else. I'm not really complaining, the Crytek engine was one of my favorite game experiences in recent memory. I'm all for another romp around the jungle using my nano-suit powers to give mere mortals the smackdown.

The announcement really raises more questions than answers. Will we have the same exact nano-powers and guns? Are we going to be fighting Koreans again? How closely tied together are the two storylines? I assume more information will be pouring out now that the announcement has been made. I'll keep you all posted.

Guitar Hero Metallica

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:18:45 EST

What Aerosmith lacked as a Guitar Hero headliner Metallica is sure to compensate for and then some. The greatest metal band of all time has officially been announced as the next group doing a Guitar Hero game dedicated to their songs. This is so awesome, because Metallica actually has great guitar shredding and insane Kirk Hammet solos which you would actually want to emulate. Aerosmith by contrast without their vocals as part of the experience did not come remotely close to comparing.

No real surprise here; the sales generated from these music video games has recently surpassed music sales on services like I-tunes in some cases. The latest Motley Crue release for example moved 10,000 units on I-tunes and over 4 times that ammount through the pay to download service on the game Rock Band. Metallica deserves their money and had an extremely ugly fight with Napster in the early days of internet piracy. I applaud their new found spirit of embracing new distribution methods and figuring out how to actually profit off it themselves. I always found it irrational that downloading songs "illegally" was frowned upon so sternly before any other channels of downloading them "legally" even existed!

Here is sincerely hoping we get full albums of the older stuff like And Justice for All and less of the modern era stuff. If they are really smart though they will put the full album of Load (which I kinda like) on the game and have songs like Blackened, Master of Puppets, and Sanitarium as extra downloads you have to pay to access. That is what I would do, but I am a devious bastard.

Stefang Interview

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:43:07 EST

Thoridal The Stars Fury is the new legendary quality (Orange) bow that is part of Kil'Jaeden's loot profile. We recently shared the news of world first Kil'Jaeden downings and now apparently on their very first kill the guild Last Resort got Thoridal to drop and gave it to their hunter Stefang. World of Raids did an interview with him about the new bow that I'll share with you here:

Congratulations to the Kil'jaeden kill and the legendary weapon. How was the nerdscream when Kil'jaeden was defeated and you saw the loot? :)

Yea, it was pretty loud, I was raiding that day from a Net Cafe where I play a lot and people around me were like 'Wow whats wrong with that guy' I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it. Kil'jaeden was on 1% and I was praying for a kill, and there it was in the middle of my screen: Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury. I was really happy about it, I've been waiting for a hunter legendary for quite a while.

What do you think about the fight itself?

Well what can I say. Every part of the encounter looks amazing. They had really put some effort into it, in the end it's Kil'jaeden but I'd say I was more impressed with M'uru in terms of difficulty. I see KJ as a simple zerg from my point of view. You have to Dps him to certain % or you die, it's a race with time. DPS orbs or Images from time to time but I don't see that to be complicated. What really impressed me was the way he looked, the whole room and last but not least, that good old lore part in the end after you kill him.

What's the bow like? DPS-wise we know most of its strength comes from working around the Steady Shot mechanic. How much of its legendary-ness can other specs enjoy? Like survival with the similar rotation and the very high crit%?
Well I heard quite a lot of stuff about it the last 2 days, but I have to say it's an insane dps boost. Haven't really got the time to test it properly in raid, did some 10mans but you can't really see its true power unless in a 25man raid. I can't wait to go to SW next week, and see what this baby can do. I spent some hours on Dr. Boom to test it and what not to compare it with my old bow, which was the Bristleblitz Striker off Archimonde, and I'm pretty impressed with what I have seen till now. Roughly speaking 150+ dps increase and that's a lot I'd say. That bow would be insane for Surv spec, because of the low speed you can pretty much play as a Beast Master on 1:1 rotation and maybe add an Arcane Shot from time to time but with a huge amount of crit. Best of luck to Suntzu to take it and we'll see how it works with Surv spec.

What do you think about the other perks like no need for ammo, and a free bagslots? Do you see epic ranged weapons obtaining the features of this bow in the second expansion?

Well it saves you a lot of money at least, other than that I don't feel the need of a free bagslot, at least not while raiding. Maybe when I level to 80, but I'm fine for now. It's a nice thing to add to that great bow and who knows how things will go with ammo in WotLK, maybe all ranged weapons will be like that in the future, saving us hunters some money. But for now, besides the fact that I'm the first hunter with that bow, I'm also the first hunter with 5 bags in the world, Hell yeah!!! :)

What are your thoughts about getting a legendary hunter weapon this late in the expansion?
Well as much as I'm happy about it, I think it's really late for it as it is. Blizzard usually releases the legendaries too late I might say. Same as the Atiesh back in Naxxramas, it's insane for its lvl but you got it in the end when you were pretty much done with the content for that level. Same thing goes for this bow, I don't mind it in SW, I think it will be an insane upgrade and boost of my damage, but then again I don't really need that kind of thing anymore. Comes out legendaries come to help us level in the next expansion, the deal with the bow will be like that at least. Warglaives were another story though, I think that it was timed perfectly in the middle of The Burning Crusade at the hardest encounter at that point, they came to help you progress in SW especially considering how much demon bosses are there in SW, that passive AP vs demons is pretty good. You also shouldn't get it too early on a stage such as SSC/TK which would be a mistake again. So I'd suggest to Blizz for next legendary items to drop off encounters at a better time, not in the end when we are done with everything. Legendaries shouldn't be here to buff us on farm or to help us level, they should help us progress, the same way as it was for the Glaives.

What do you think about WotLK? Does the bow have enough "give" to make it last more than just leveling up to 80?

I really doubt that the legendary bow will be of any use in the 'End Game' of WotLK. That would oblige players to go back to SW in search of the best weapon possible. I see it more like something to enjoy now and to have fun with, help me level but in the end on level 80 I'm confident that I will change it at the very beginning of raiding as a level 80.

How does your guild handle legendary loot? Did you earn it with DKP or high attendance, how much of your work is in it? How much support do you get at home / school / work for raiding a lot?
Well, in this case it was given out for DKP, and I was the leader for quite some time. I wasn't sure if this would be the way the bow would be handled and that's why I've been saving ever since my foot stepped in SW for the first time. I can't say that I got a lot of support at home or at school, because most people think that someone at my age shouldn't be considered with such things. But in the end I try to combine everything as good as I can.

What about the other hunters in the guild, was there any drama over your looting of the bow?

No, I wouldn't say there was any drama over the bow, as I said, I was the leader in DKP for quite some time and that was the only thing that mattered.

Hunter DPS - when supported properly - is top among all classes. What's the status of the hunters in your guild? How much do you build on class synergy?

Well, in Last Resort we are three hunters – Suntzu(survival), Neza and me as BM. Survival can't top DPS and Neza is under-geared compared to me due to the fact that he was inactive for quite some time. I always give my best and end up as top if not first. I really think that hunter should be first on a lot of encounters if supported properly from their group.

How much of a difference does the weapon make in PVP?

I haven't done a lot of arena since I got it, mostly Bgs and there in most cases I out-gear my opponents greatly. Haven't really done arena for three months ever since I migrated here to Boulderfist, but I think that I will focus a lot on that now that we are back to one or two raiding days. Undoubtedly it will be great boost for my performance in PVP, but I would say that I always preferred Black Bow of the Betrayer due to the fact that it drains mana off your opponents.
What do you think about the current status of hunters in PVE raids? We hear a lot of complaining over the boredom that is the the "steadyshotspam".

Well, looking at it, most if not all DPS classes are played with two-three buttons but I don't hear mages complaining about spamming Fireball or Warlocks about spamming Shadowbolt. In the end 'End Game' PVE was always about extracting the best of your class. If it's efficient it's good enough for me.

What are your thoughts about the Sunwell Barriers? Do you prefer this sort of gate system or did you like the previous system better?

I can't really say, in the end all leads to that big slack till WotLK. Maybe this way they made it somewhat more interesting, but left us hunters less time to farm our so desired bow :)

What are your plans for WotLK? What do you think about the Death Knight?

Well, I'd really love to be part of Last Resort in WotLK if they still want me and I will most definitely continue playing. For now I haven't really put any thoughts over Death Knights, but I doubt that I'll have such a class as a main. As interesting as it sounds and different from what we've seen till now, I really enjoy playing a hunter and I'll probably stay like that till the end.

Last question. What are your plans for the summer?

I plan to spend some time at the beach and probably get a job, while attending all the raids Banaii has in plan for us. I am dedicated enough not to let my pals down and leave them alone to venture inside SW. Soon it will be a matter of only one day of raiding and I don't see how this could be a problem for anyone. Any shoutouts? I'm really happy about the bow and that I was the first to test it. I'd like to thank all of my guild for supporting me and to help me to reach my current goal, which was the bow. I'm really proud to be part of Last Resort and also I'd like to thank the Worldofraids crew for this interview!

Age of Conan App.

Thu, 29 May 2008 14:54:22 EST

Voig is proud to release our first Age of Conan application to our users. It's a combat text analyzer that outputs damage done, damage taken, and many other stats regarding the combat text in Age of Conan.
Grab it Here to check it out.

How it works is simple. You use the /logcombat on script command and it generates a text file that contains all your in game combat text. Run the app. on that file and it will parse all the data out for you, adding together all the damage done by each source and giving you a useful report on the information.

With this damage meter you can accurately measure what items you have are the best. With this damage report you can also see which group members are pulling their weight in PVP or PVE circumstances. You can figure out the best rotations of abilities for DPS, you find the optimal spec for your talents to raise your damage as high as possible. You can also do fun things like brag about doing the most damage in a siege or conquering a battlekeep and know exactly how many deaths occured during the course of the battle.

It's not perfected yet, but it works and we would love if you used it and gave us feedback on what you would like to see it do in the future. My last article might have seemed like I hate AOC or something, but that is not the case; it's certainly better than World of Warcraft. I just have issues with the total lack of a death penalty right now, but I hold out faith that a loot server will someday be created and the game will get really amazing.

Age of Carebear

Wed, 28 May 2008 14:31:52 EST

I'm starting to lose faith in humanity and life itself. Why is the world we live in incapable of producing a good MMORPG anymore? Since World of Carebearcraft rose to power it's felt increasingly like we will truely never have a good MMO again. Age of Carebear seemed like it might have been a beacon of hope, but thus far it's pretty much exactly the same type of garbage just with more glitches and fewer players.

Lets count the ways AOC is horrible. Number 1 there is no loot server. Just like WoW they refuse to make the game actually good and instead design it all around farming items and grinding things out. There is ZERO death penalty in this game (just like WOW). It's to the point that players go out, complete a quest, then die on purpose to get a free teleport back to town. Fill up your bags and want to sell? just suicide. The only thing it accomplishes is to bring you to the ressurection point and there is no downside.

Number 2 they are having GMs warn players about certain pvp tactics. Camp someone and kill them repeatedly? You get a warning and eventually will get suspened / banned for this behavior. Even though there is a PVP solution to the problem available for anyone (kill the campers / have friends come / join a guild) they are removing the PVP politics and instead making "cry to the GM so he saves you" the PVP skill of choice.

Funcom is really making the game and themselves into a joke by not allowing any options. There are two types of servers; Carebear server and REALLY Carebear server. There is NO pvp server type yet (just like WoW) even though they specifically said there would be a variety of servers prior to launch. Currenty only one type is available (the pointless type) and we are awaiting whatever poll they have in store for the paying customers to be able to even voice our opinion about what we really want. This poll will obviously come like 3-4 months from now after we have all wasted 60 bucks on monthly fees for the ability to have our vote counted.

It really doesn't make any sense to develop this mature pvp game and then neuter it into a WoW clone with ZERO pvp draws. It reminds me of Manhunt 2 with the blurred violence to the extend that it might as well just not have been there at all. There is no excuse whatsoever for not already having a crazy server that will go down as legendary in MMO PvP history. Clearly the people in charge of AOC are themseleves carebears, or else this article would not have gotten written. I would be too busy playing the damn game to care about work, bodily functions, or anything else.

Kil'jaeden Down

Tue, 27 May 2008 15:39:22 EST

The third gate in Sunwell just opened last week and already guilds have begun to kill the final boss of the Burning Crusade expansion; Kil'Jaeden. SK gaming claimed the top glory with their world first kill. Check it out Here Anyone know who that guy standing in their midst in the Screenshot is?

After SK gaming got him down more kills were soon to follow. Nihilum was't far behind. Here is there kill Screenshot KJ Down! The United States saw our first Kil'jaeden downing from the guild Dues Vox immortalized by this SS.

So now that he is dead it aught to not be long before Season 4 is started up. It's supposed to parallel the progression in PVE. If you look at those items KJ drops it's just insane how powerful they are going to be in arena until season 4 weapons are introduced to combat them.