Archive for June, 2010
June 30th, 2010
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we discuss the new loot dropping in the Ruby Sanctum.
In one of the worst Patch Tuesdays in recent memory, Blizzard took down a large number of their North American servers for a full 24 hours of maintenance. At the same time, all European servers were offline while patch 3.3.5 was applied and the Real ID system was implemented for our friends across the pond. However, for those lucky enough to have their servers excluded from this massive maintenance window, a surprising gift awaited them. The portal to the Ruby Sanctum was open.
Ruby Sanctum fills the role of being the last salute to Wrath’s raiding scene before Cataclysm. It’s a short, single-boss instance, designed to start ushering in the lore of Deathwing’s imminent release. Those of us who had a chance to fight against Sartharion will be familiar with this type of dungeon. Since it’s such a small raid, the total loot table is relatively small, and there’s only a few pieces of interest to us leather-wearers. However, the loot that is there is worth some discussion, as it fits into a few very particular roles.
Continue reading Encrypted Text: Ruby Sanctum gear for rogues
Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text
Encrypted Text: Ruby Sanctum gear for rogues originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
June 30th, 2010
Group play in Age of Conan is an interesting experience. In many ways it is very different than WoW, even though they are both games based on the trinity of tank-healer-dps.
The nature of AoC groups stems from how healing in AoC is designed. All three healer classes have the same type of spells. There are three healing spells: green, blue, and yellow.1 The green spell is a group HoT. The blue spell is a stronger HoT that affects people in a cone in front of you. The yellow spell is a direct group AoE spell, but a player can only be affected by a yellow spell once a minute.
So healing is essentially HoT-based. You put up your green and blue HoTs and then do damage until you need to refresh them.
The first consequence of this design is that one healer can heal multiple tanks just as easily as one tank, so long as the tanks are positioned correctly.
The next element in AoC group play is that mobs hit like trucks. The standard pull in AoC (so far) is two mobs. Each tank grabs a mob and tanks them next to each other. If you get more than two, the tanks try and hold them and the group uses knockdowns as much as possible. When a mob is knocked down, it doesn’t do damage while it gets back up, giving the HoTs time to tick.
In WoW, this is the sort of situation in which crowd control would be used. But AoC is a PvP game, so all crowd control is short duration, on the order of a few seconds. As well, you don’t deal damage to targets exactly, you deal damage to the area in front of your character. This means that there is a lot of splash damage, which would mean that crowd control would need to ignore damage.
With two tanks, boss mobs are often handled by the tanks swapping aggro. Since both of them are getting healed at the same time, one tank’s health is dropping, while the other tank goes back to full. Of course, tanks don’t have a threat meter or even a baseline taunt, so this can be pretty hard. A tank swap is often accomplished when the lead tank dies.
The long and short of this is that in AoC the normal group size is 6 people, and consists of 2 tanks, 2 dps, and 2 healers. Yes, that’s a worse tank/healer/dps ratio than WoW. This is despite the fact that there are 3 tank classes, 3 healing classes and 6 dps classes.
Oddly enough, even though healing in AoC is fairly easy2 and tanking rather difficult, it’s not that hard to find tanks. It’s still hard to find healers. I think that’s an interesting difference between WoW and AoC. Healers are scarce in both games, but tanks are more common in AoC than WoW.
Of course, maybe part of the reason is because I am starting late, and everyone else who rolled a DPS character rolled a tank to get into groups.
All in all, group play in AoC is different enough from WoW to be interesting, yet similar enough to be easily understandable. Now, if only forming a group didn’t take several hours.
1. The spells put a colored circle around the feet of your teammates, so you can see who is affected by each spell.
2. At least healing is easy in theory. I seem to have a hard time finding healers who understand the idea of keeping the two HoTs up at all times.
June 30th, 2010
The latest Cataclysm screenshot from Blizzard is shown above, featuring another look at the interior of the Abyssal Maw. I tisn’t too different from the previous screenshot we’ve seen from this part of the Mar, but the focus is on the new look of the Faceless Ones rather than the gilgoblins.
If you’ve missed any of the previous Cataclysm screenshots of the day or you want to see a high-res version of today’s screenshot, check out the gallery below.
Gallery: Cataclysm Daily Screenshots
Filed under: Cataclysm
Cataclysm screenshot of the day originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
June 29th, 2010
We’re about a week away from the 4th of July. On this day, our U.S. tradition involves firing copious amounts of explosives into the sky to celebrate our nation. We also barbecue, drink beer and do our best to keep whoever had the most beer away from the explosives. It’s generally a lot of fun. There’s just something magical about looking up in the sky and seeing fireworks.
The good news is that the holiday has an analog inside the World of Warcraft. The goblins gather across the world and totally rock out with an awesome display of pyrotechnic skill. Sounds pretty cool. But I’m a do-it-yourselfer. Accessing the vast legions of crafters under my command, I put together a list of my favorite celebratory recipes in the game. Here are some crafted items that can help you hold your own in-game 4th of July bash.
Continue reading Insider Trader: Celebrating with crafted items
Filed under: Insider Trader (Professions)
Insider Trader: Celebrating with crafted items originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
June 29th, 2010
The latest Cataclysm screenshot from Blizzard is shown above, featuring another angle of the new look of the southern Barrens.
If you’ve missed any of the previous Cataclysm screenshots of the day or you want to see a high-res version of today’s screenshot, check out the gallery below.
Gallery: Cataclysm Daily Screenshots
Filed under: Cataclysm
Cataclysm screenshot of the day originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
June 29th, 2010
It occurs to me that gemming has become very boring these days. It’s pretty much choose the best stat for your class and stack it.
When jewelcrafting was first released, it seemed much more exciting. There were all these colors of gems, with different colours of sockets, different socket bonuses, and meta-gems with interesting requirements.
Pretty much all of that has been bled from the system. Socket colours are pretty much ignored. The different types of socket bonuses have disappeared, replaced for most classes by a single stat. For example, on plate DPS armor, the socket bonus is always strength. It’s the only stat that can possibly tempt someone away from mono-coloured gems. Meta-gem requirements have been reduced to the bare minimum. And even that is not enough. The meta-gems which require 1 of each color are considered much better than the meta-gems which require 2 blues, because you can use only 1 Nightmare Tear and meet the meta-gem requirements.
As well, I’m not sure being able to focus so much of your item budget on your single-best state is good for the game. It allows for an extremely wide range of that one ability. For example, the health difference between a tank stacking all stamina gems and one matching socket colors is very noticeable.
Is there a way to make gemming interesting once again, and maybe also rein it in a bit?
My suggestion would be to remove single-color gems. If all gems are dual-colors, then it might be easier to hit the socket bonuses. You can’t focus so much in the same way. The choice becomes not so much between best stat and second-best stat, it’s between second-best stat and third-best stat. Oftentimes, that’s enough wiggle room to make decision-making interesting again.
In my opinion, sometimes offering the best possible choice as an option is not the best way to go. Making a decision between two flawed choices can be more interesting.
June 28th, 2010
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.
Two weeks ago, Blizzard revealed all the latest updates concerning their game plan for Cataclysm. Among them were a host of changes to the new guild systems and a guild UI overhaul, which were originally announced at BlizzCon 2009. Last week, I discussed Blizzard’s decision to axe guild talent trees in favor of automatic perks at each level. Most of you disagreed with me on the issue, and I wasn’t surprised. Most people would rather have all the perks, and I understand that. I still believe that offering guilds a way to define themselves using in-game elements would be incredibly useful, but we’ll have to keep waiting for that.
Moving on to another part of Blizzard’s plan for guilds, I’d like to talk about guild reputation and where I’d like to see Blizzard go with it.
No more guild currency
Part of the announcement in mid-June was that guild currency as an idea has been scrapped. Instead, players will be able to purchase rewards with gold. I don’t think anyone is mourning the loss of yet another type of currency.
Continue reading Officers’ Quarters: Guild reputation in Cataclysm
Filed under: Officers’ Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Officers’ Quarters: Guild reputation in Cataclysm originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
June 28th, 2010
The latest Cataclysm screenshot from Blizzard is shown above, featuring an aerial dogfight over the scarred remains of the Barrens.
If you’ve missed any of the previous Cataclysm screenshots of the day or you want to see a high-res version of today’s screenshot, check out the gallery below.
Gallery: Cataclysm Daily Screenshots
Filed under: Cataclysm
Cataclysm screenshot of the day originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 27 Jun 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
June 27th, 2010
Ever wonder what happens to raid bosses when they get bored? For Thaddius, it seems he has been spending some time moonlighting over in StarCraft II. While he was there, it also seems like he’s picked up a few more tricks and upgraded his armor. After all, Naxxramas was only a setback!
IIam4 used Thaddius as an inspiration for his entry into the custom ability contest on SC2Mapster by recreating his Polarity Shift. While he was recreating this ability, he also decided to add a few new features of his own.
- Shocking Grasp A random target will be paralyzed and take damage over time. If any other unit comes within range of the afflicted unit, Shocking Grasp will jump. This can create a chain reaction.
- Spawn Volatile Spark Two volatile sparks are spawned, serving as summoned adds that should be DPSed down right away.
These abilities combine to create a very interesting and creative boss battle using the StarCraft II editor. The amount of micromanagement required to keep all of your units alive adds a nice level of complexity to the boss encounter. I personally like that Thaddius is a giant Maruader unit. This video is a nice showcase of the tools that were available even in the beta and exactly what could be done with enough motivation.
StarCraft II is set to release on July 27, 2010. While I’m absolutely certain it will be a fantastic game in its own rights, I can’t help but wonder if we will see any more player-created World of Warcraft crossovers with the tools that are shipping with SC2. Can you imagine a campaign where the end boss is casting Defile while you try to micromanage all of your units safely around it? How about navigating your troops into position for a Shatter or managing Burning Adrenaline. Maybe a little Doomfire for good measure! This could bring a whole new level of fun to Tower Defense and Mastermind-style game mods!
So, if you could recreate any one boss or ability from WoW in a StarCraft II fight, what boss would it be?
Thaddius encounter recreated in StarCraft II originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 27 Jun 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
June 27th, 2010
The latest Cataclysm screenshot from Blizzard is shown above, featuring another look at Hyjal. Are those marigolds? Do we have any botanists in the house?
If you’ve missed any of the previous Cataclysm screenshots of the day or you want to see a high-res version of today’s screenshot, check out the gallery below.
Gallery: Cataclysm Daily Screenshots
Filed under: Cataclysm
Cataclysm screenshot of the day originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 26 Jun 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.