37 posts tagged “wow”
The news is in! Your GM has decided to take on a fellow colleague's challenge to fly around the world in 80 days, and therefore can no longer be the GM of your raiding guild. Chances are high someone else in the guild will be anointed lord of the flies, but chances are even higher the guild will disband. You will now enter the five stages of grief.
Denial. The guild is still alive! We can do it! Who needs that schmuck anyway? Sure, you and your chums may try to raid for a few more weeks, but the odds are against everyone. Other things to consider: small server size making new recruits hard to come by, time of the year (people going back to school), new arena season, expansion and patch dates, and general trolling. There are tons of reasons why you could disband as opposed to picking up the pieces, refocusing and burning through progression. Most guilds do not survive for long under new management.
Anger. When one realises there is no reason to go along with the guild's facade any longer, the seventh ring of hell shall open. People will jump ship and take everyone with them. This usually involves trolling, drama mongering, and general bickering. Oh, there will be words exchanged!
Bargaining. Those who haven't left due to harassment or being gkicked for poor behaviour will bargain means in which to keep the guild together. Maybe they'll nominate themselves to become next guild officer? Maybe they'll take it upon themselves to find new, but useless, recruits to fill the ranks? None of this works, however. And no, you cannot be guild officer.
BAAAAAW. This is essentially the time everyone realises that the guild is doomed (if they haven't left already). Some people may not log on for a while as they're so overcome with baaaaw. Then hopefully the GM is a reasonable person who reminds everyone it's JUST A GAME.
Acceptance. Usually the part where everything in the guild bank gets divided up among those who went through the ordeal. Though everyone has secretly been applying to other guilds, this is the step where it is usually made official that it's OK to app without fear of retribution. Everyone thinks fondly of times spent together, or times spent hating each other, then the guild disbands.. hopefully with your bags filled with [Sunmotes] and [Hearts of Darkness].
Step 1: Find a new server/guild.
Transferring is serious business. Especially serious depending on how much crap you have on your Auction House alt. Now is the time to hope there's a tailor on to make you [Imbued Netherweave Bags] for free.
Years after I had stopped playing Ultima Online, every now and again I would run into someone who would remember the "Blood & Glory" days. Getting ganked in Ultima Online was a harrowing experience where the stakes were higher as your bags could be looted entirely. In later games, I tried to explain this to people who hadn't played UO. They could barely wrap their heads around the idea of being killed and robbed. The fact that they couldn't fathom this heralded a new age in MMORPGs and in PVP.
Like a former mugging victim leaving their house, a certain level of paranoia became the norm in Ultima Online. You made sure never to leave a town with a full bag of anything important. Traveling alone was a liability. Looking like you had a lot of money was a liability. A lot of people got tired of being constantly paranoid. A lot of people enjoyed it. It was a different time back then.
There is this new on-going battle between the PVP server people in Age of Conan. The question is, "If you kill someone who is of much lower level than you, should you be penalized?" A hot topic as many have been temporarily banned for "harassing" people on PVP servers.
We have two camps on this debate, each whose beliefs I will present.
Free For All PVP - Felucca
By creating a character on a PVP server, you accept the following terms:
1. You will die. You will die a lot.
2. You will be killed by anyone and everyone, regardless of level or reason.
3. The GMs shouldn't/won't help you. Which reads simply: lawless PVP.
4. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen and reroll on a PVE server.
Law and Order - Elder Scrolls
By creating a character on a PVP server, you accept the following terms:
1. It is unlawful to kill someone who is gray to you.
2. Ganking, corpse camping, and border camping should be prevented by GMs.
3. Even the most delicate of mindset shall be avenged through reporting "harassment" to the GMs.
4. To make complaints easier on the GMs, a passive jail and murderer system will be enacted.
There is no easy answer to "the Question." As someone who plays on a PVE server, you may be apt to agree with the Law and Order stance. As someone who regularly ganks people on a PVP server, you may be a die-hard supporter of the FFA PVP stance. One may poorly make references to other games as examples of systems that "have worked." What is most important to take into account here, is not what worked for other games, but what will work for Age of Conan.
What you may have come to expect from PVP in another game, won't be universal. WoW PVP is full of griefing, to the point where most people level two characters in tandem as corpse camping is the norm. EQ2 PVP, if someone above or below your level by no more than 8 kills you, you lose money and maybe an item off of your person. In non-PVP areas on normal shards, UO would mark you as a murderer, preventing you from going into towns and sometimes even guaranteeing you a permanent loss in stats.
Why do people kill other people?
To understand the rules of engagement, one must first understand what the reason to kill is. Once you understand why people kill others, you can build a system around that that passively forces people to kill people closer to their level and spend less time griefing others.
1. People kill because they like to kill. They like settling their disputes with fists instead of words. Someone farming your node? Kill them. Someone killing mobs you need for your quest? Kill them. Take what you want from the world and never apologise. (I personally fall under this category.)
2. People kill because they like being assholes. Like children with magnifying glasses burning a marching row of ants, people will create characters on PVP servers to generally make life difficult for people. You may argue that this stems from some deep-seeded mental issue, but who cares. These people exist and there's nothing you can do about it.
3. People kill because there's something in it for them. Be it honor points or a PK score or some sort of title. These people tend to be the most practical out of the lot. If it's easier to get item X by killing player A, then they may set aside their stand-offish playing routine to jump a player.
People who kill because they like to kill, may never change but they tend to be the less likely out of the bunch to grief low level players. They kill when they think someone is in their space. People who kill because there's something in it for them are opprotunists and can be lured away from harassing lower level characters by being given bigger, better rewards like PK/honor scores that only count people near their level that can be redeemed for items/titles.
But you will never, under any circumstance, be able to control or get rid of the people who kill because they're assholes. You may be quick to write these people off as a waste to the PVP community but anyone who has actually leveled on a PVP server understands that these people are the most necessary out of anyone on the list. They give you, the person on the PVP server, a reason to level up. You're so angry they keep on harassing you so all you dream of is revenge, or the ability to be high level and repay your anger by harassing other low level people. These "assholes" actually stir the shit of PVP servers, making it interesting and giving people reason far beyond or in lieu of material rewards. And the people who can't take the harassment or win the fight reroll onto PVE servers, keeping the PVP community strong.
Like in real life though, you can't please everyone. And the loudest voice sometimes in an MMO can change the way the game plays. Developers have to weigh these "suggestions" and find out what's best for their game and what's best for their players. If they waste money and resources creating a PVP system that a majority of quiet people dislike, but the loudest minority likes, they're going to have a tough decision. The biggest seller of games is PVP/multiplayer.
Felucca or Oblivion?
After all is said and done, what should be done with Age of Conan's PVP servers? Should they put in a jail/murder system? Should they continue to let people run around lawless? Should they include honorable kill incentives? Because right now, there is no real reason to kill anyone in Age of Conan, which is something the "asshole" PVP camp thrives on, but the other two groups care not much for.
You have to trust your subscribers. Give them the benefit of the doubt before you throw more than half your PVP server in jail. Set guidelines and rewards for killing those who are closer to your level. There will always be griefers, corpse campers, and even the more passive "training." Embrace your PVP community instead of sending it to bed early without supper.
Think about the lower level people too. If they're having a hard time, give them a buff after they're killed by someone who is much higher leveled than them. Put more graveyards in the game to solve the horrid "long run back" problem. Make the starter island impossible for higher level people to come to and kill people.
People will always complain. People will always die. These are two things we hold to be self-evident on a PVP server. What Funcom decides to develop for Age of Conan has yet to be seen. Give PVP a chance.
When WoW came out, I was bewildered by the differences between it and Ultima Online. Usually after you've been playing something for a while, you almost don't want to invest the effort learning how a new game functions. The honest truth is, all these games are pretty much the same so you don't have to worry. And so I present to you my awesome guide to make the transition from WoW to Age of Conan. A lot of my friends in WoW were overwhelmed by details about AoC, so hopefully this helps you make your decision of whether or not you want to switch over.
Working for Vacation: mo' problems, maybe
Before you make that big jump to Age of Conan, you should know the following.. (list as of May 22)
- There is no bank, auction house, or mail system in place currently. There WAS a bank and mail system, but it got bugged and was taken down the first week of release.
- There is no macro system. This is suppose to be enabled "in the future."
- Everything is instanced. Walk two feet in front of you, and you probably aren't in the same instance as a friend. This may confuse you during quests like it did my first character's time around. Once you realise you can quickly switch, it's no issue but some people are complaining about it.
- When creating your character, you'll probably get sea sick if you spend too much time customizing them.
- There is no immediate way to log your character out back to the character selection screen. You must /camp then wait thirty seconds.
- Contrary to popular belief, there is no DirectX10 version of this game currently available. Retail versions only carry x9 and patching does nothing.
- No one understands how armor really works in this game. If you can wear both light and cloth armor, but they both seem to have the same +stat, no one can adequately suggest which one to pick over the other. Naturally you'd assume light armor over cloth, but there's no numerical evidence to prove this.
- In groups, you cannot see what other people have looted. There are settings so that when a green drops, you can roll or need before greed, but you still won't be able to see what whites and grays people pick up.
- Australians/New Zealand folks and the like have been forced to buy the US version of AoC, yet there are no blatently Oceanic servers. AoC Wiki suggests Gwahlur.
- AoC has the concept of nighttime and daytime, which may make your gameplay confusing. Certain vendors are only available during day, some only available at night. The same goes for certain quests. In the beginning area, day and night are your choice, but further reading has lead me to believe that day and night outside of the starting area is non-instanced and therefore must be waited for. I do not know if day and night follow real life time.
Races
There are three races in AoC. It seems, on the surface, that no race has any +stat over any other race, however races are limited to certain classes. I've tried my best to see if there are any hidden +stats, but none of my quick google searches have yielded any clear answers.
In short: pick your race based on looks and what class you want to play.
Armor
Unlike WoW, there are numerous classes of armor. Cloth/silk, light armor, medium armor, heavy armor, and plate.
Classes
AoC categorizes its classes under four flags: rogue, soldier, mage, and priest. Another important thing to note, there are talent points and trees in AoC. They have one normal tree that everyone of your type has (mage, rogue, etc), then two specialized trees that deal with your class specifically. Instead of calling them talent points, they are called "feats."
Soldiers
Conqueror - can wear heavy armor, has stances, has two auras (defensive, offensive) that may both be used at once, cannot use shields. Seem most comparable to DPS warriors, with "shouts" working more like a paladin's auras.
Dark Templar - can wear heavy armor AND use shields, acts as an unholy paladin. Through debuffs on the enemy, can heal self and others. Has no direct heal spell as far as I know.
Guardian - can wear full plate and use shields. Very similar to a prot warrior, has stances, strikes, charges, and debuffs to lower enemy's attack/defense/etc. Can use polearms like a paladin/warrior.
Allegedly, all solider classes can wear "all types of armor" according to the little tooltips in game. The AoC wiki and the game manual both say otherwise, so it's a bit confusing as to what's true.
Mages
Necromancer - can summon "pets" like a warlock. Unlike a warlock in WoW however, necromancers have ice and unholy spells. And instead of summoning demons, a necromancer can summon undead whatnots to fight beside them. Depending on what you summon, you could have a melee-driven undead thing or a spell-based undead thing. Necromancers DO have a life drain, but whether they have a life tap is to be seen.
Demonologist - can summon demonic minions. Use fire and lightning spells. Have the ability to "spell weave", which basically does what it sounds. By combining spells into one single cast, you can successfully improve your DPS. However, weave too many spells at once and it's liable to backfire. Demonologists have excellent mana regeneration in later levels.
Herald of Xotli - can shapeshift for melee combat like a druid, calling upon demonic forces. Uses fire spells. Seems to me like a nerfed fire mage with the ability to physically hit things and incur almost shadow priest-like debuffs like mana burn. Can do a reverse life tap, sacrificing mana for health.
Rogues
Barbarian - can only wear up to light armor. Has minus evade debuffs, flurry, melee DoTs, and a standard rogue's snares and binds. Cannot stealth. Can dual wield.
Assassin - can only wear cloth. Uses poisons similiar to standard WoW rogue, can use certain attacks to imbue extra unholy damage or poison damage on melee hit. Can dual wield ONLY daggers.
Ranger - can wear medium armor and use shields. Essentially a weird hunter who has stances for ranged DPS. Can track and use traps but cannot tame animals. (No pets, sorry!)
Priests
Bear Shaman - can wear medium armor. Similar to a pure enhancement shaman with improved healing abilities but no spell shocks. Similar to the good ol' days of WoW, bear shamans can tank but of course not as well as any soldier class. Has totems that function less tangibly and more like an hour long buff, mana and health regen spells/debuffs, on-hit disorienting poison debuff. Can only use two handed weapons!
Tempest of Set - can wear light armor and use shields. Seem like shadow priests on crack, who can poison (AOE and single target) and use AOE lightning spells. Still have healing spells, no shadow-shifting required. :)
Priest of Mitra - can wear light armor and use shields. Healing abilities similar to a full-spec'd holy/disc priest, therefore has best healing spells. Has buffs similar to fort, has a fear ability, AOE heal, undead shackle, and smite but no PW:S.
Arcane Surge is the Scryer rep proc effect from the Shattered Sun Offensive's healing necklace. It's an increasingly underwhelming effect that applies additional heals on your target. So if you heal so-and-so for X amount, it has a chance to proc and heal your target for an additional 600-700. This amount is not effected by +heal, if your heal critical'd (though the amount of heal will be higher you've spec'd into crit), or anything else of the nature. It simply has a chance to proc an additional heal between those numbers.
When I got the necklace, I wasn't sure it was working because unlike the Aldor reputation effect, it has no graphic display. Then eventually I started thinking: how does this work with chain heal?
I figured it either proc'd and divided the heal across the three people, or it simply proc'd and healed the first person in the chain. Little did I know, I was horribly wrong and it was even more useless than I thought.
I gathered a warlock in IF and cast chain heal across me, them, and their pet until the neck proc'd. Eventually I realised after three procs that Arcane Surge only effects one person in the chain, and the person it effects in the chain is completely and totally random. And now I am sad and disappointed and wish I had chosen Aldor instead.
At least I have a hott tabard that isn't purple.
Eh, not as comforting as I thought.
When I'm not raiding in WoW, me and my posse (likewise BT-Hyjal geared rogue and MT warrior) enjoying killing this one world dragon that's solo'able. It's one of the few world dragons that can be killed with less than a raid and yields a large amount of money. The three of us can kill Azuregos in less than twenty minutes, earning us each 64g and two pages worth of loot to roll on. Better than doing daily quests, in my opinion.
One of my favourite parts from Apocalypse Now is when Chef is telling Willard about his dream about him and Raquel Welch picking mangoes. As Chef and Willard are walking through the jungle, a tiger pops out and scares the crap out of Chef.
A fucking tiger, fucking tiger... I don't wanna take this goddamn shit man... I didn't come here for this, I don't fucking need this. All I wanted to do is fucking cook, I just wanted to learn to fucking cook. Alright, it's alright, it's gonna be alright... never get outta boat... Hi tiger, hi tiger...
So when my WoW server crashed and I was on a boat, I logged back in and ended up still on the boat but underneath Alterac Mountains.
Needless to say, I pondered not getting off the boat but for the sake of my curiosity I jumped anyway. What I found was an endless fall heading towards Dalaran.
I was heading North in my fall until I Nature's Swiftness'd into Ghost Wolf, which caused me to fall South. I fell so far South that I eventually hit Hillsbrad. I was moving so I couldn't hearth nor could I Un-stuck button myself. I feared hitting the water as I knew I'd probably get fatigued or fall straight back to Ironforge. But when I hit the water, I actually stopped and was able to hearth quickly.
And this is why you should never get off the friggin boat. Srsly.
Show us what makes you tick.
I've melted my brain watching tacky Vashj videos this morning, fearing imminent spyware/virus attacks while watching them. All I've learned from these videos, as a shaman healer, is that I'll be doing what I've been doing this whole time: spamming chain heal. If I get lucky, I'll get to stand next to a shield generator, then I'll really be doing what I do most fights: standing stationary AND spamming chain heal. I understand in phase 3, the ground will be covered in hurty green slime and that moving will be utterly important, but I don't think we'll get past phase 2 on our first day of attempts. We'll spend too much time complaining about wiping, people AFK'ing without saying anything, and repeated requests for certain buffs going unheeded.
The reason why I hate watching WoW videos is because 1: the video is normally edited in a manner that gives me a headache, as I can't tolerate too much screen shaking, tilting or motion blurring (I had a dreadful headache after Blair Witch Project), 2: the music used in these videos is absolutely horrible, usually trance or some Urban Outfitters crap, and 3: I have to see peoples' UI set-ups. I never understand how they can see past all the stuff on their screen when they only have a small window in which to see things. I personally can't stand my UI, and if I could, I'd just use two buttons or something.
Gist of the fight: Tank her in the center of her platform, similar to Void Reaver, she continuously casts arcane missiles (funny considering she's wearing t4 warlock gear) at random targets. You'll need a paladin with a macro to heal people via assist'ing Solarian. Every few seconds, she'll cast Wrath on a person, which causes them to explode and pop up into the air. You don't take fall damage if you're the one it's casted on, but near anyone else, the damage is considerable and they WILL take fall damage. So you need to run away from everyone. The fall from the explosion is so long, your HoTs will probably tick six times before you hit the ground. Then she'll despawn, adds will spawn. She'll also tend to hit the whole raid with arcane damage when she comes back. Once she's down 20%, she turns into a gigantic voidwalker and you've pretty much killed her.
Biggest issue with my guild was running away when you're afflicted with Wrath. Everyone seemed completely blind to the fact they had it, so they'd linger ontop of everyone in the clump and effectively kill everyone, wiping the raid. Then there was an issue with people spreading too far out to gather the adds to kill them, leaving no space for anyone with Wrath to go. After that, it was pretty easy. My guild couldn't grasp strafing during Wrath, so we decided it'd be better to run towards the wall behind us. The only people who tend to be back there are the hunters and who cares about them. Haha! Good times.
She dropped some spell-crit socketed healing gloves for me.
Ponder no longer! For I have found a practical use for a shaman's sentry totem (besides being paranoid):
P.S.: After I was done cooking, my pool did indeed spawn.
