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Warhammer: Pays to win

MiJoPeVa — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:14:25 -0400

I'n playing during the beta weekend I started off, a wittle goblin shaman, PvEing trying to learn the basicas enjoying the game and running public quests and getting pissed off when I lost the loot bag rolls.

I threw in some PvP here and there, but the scenario we were put in pitted us against the mighty dwarves, whom I was sure were going to be push overs considering how hard me andd 300 other people were stomping them in the first public quest.

That unfortunatly was not the case.

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The situation would go like this.

ME another shaman, and a squig herder (Goblin with bow and summons disposable and varied squig pets) would assulted by a single, lone ironbreaker.

Said ironbreaker would proceed to attack the nearest player, a shaman. I would put my two hots on the shaman, and have my lifedrain also healing this shaman.

My attempts at dps (And the squigÂ herders, and the other shaman's )would bring the ironbreaker down to 40% before he killed shaman. The squig herder would be next, going down faster because there was only me left to try and keep him up. Ironbreaker would turn to me at 10% hp. NeedlessÂ toÂ say, a RunepriestÂ wouldÂ show up, heal the ironbreaker and IÂ wouldÂ be THREE SHOTTED.

Dwarves in Warhammer are not to be trifled with. Simply put, I would lose about 4 - 5 scenarios, Begin to win one, and halfway through crash to desktop. (/teaR)

After I hit level 10, I checked my Tomb of Knowledge and It told me I had been playing for about 6 hours total on this char. I decided it was time to try somthing else. I opted for the Sorceress.

Now let me take a moment to talk about the sorceress mechanic, Dark Magic. In order for better comprehension, I will refer to it as "Dark Chakra".

Basically the majority of a sorceress's skills (You can roll a sorcerer, but the dudes look more like tranny's rather than dudes)Â build Dark Chakra. For example, youÂ have a basic DOT,Â instant cast, creates 5 DC, Basic Fireball spell, 3 sec cast, creates 10 DC, and then "Gloomburst" which does aÂ littleÂ less than the fireball spell but hasÂ a 10 sec cooldown, 1 sec cast, and creates 35 DC. You thenÂ have a spell called "Dhar Wind" WhichÂ dealsÂ more damageÂ dependingÂ on how much DC you have,Â andÂ resets you back down to zero.

Here is the kicker though, Dark Chakra scales your abilities. At 100 DC, You have a 50% chance to "Backlash" (Which means you hit yourself for about 15% of your hp, not sure if the dmg is scaled with your hp or what) oh yeah and 50% extra critand 50% increased critical hit damage.

Huh? What? After playing my mage for 3 years reading what kind of stats this caster gets as a baseÂ mechanic was ever so slightly flabberghasting. I'mÂ noÂ mathmaticianÂ but I'm pretty sure that atÂ max DC Sorceress are running around with something close to double damage.

Anyways so the whole pointÂ of thisÂ post was to pointÂ outÂ thatÂ IÂ hitÂ level 8Â on my sorceressÂ in 3Â hours. And that was with the pvp quiests for the first scenario being bugged.

Reason? I kept winning the high elves vs dark elves scenario. And Exp is given out for killing players so I was earning ~2k+ exp every game we won + the ~2k exp from just playing the entire scenario out.

So winning scenarios brings in at least twice as much exp ( not to mention renown, which is like your pvp level, and gets you acess to gear)

Here is the Kicker: Cost (W)(W)
There no difference between arranged team que groups and pug solo que groups

So basically what I see happening is guilds who form early on in the game, and play scenarios together will not only level quicker than others but will have acess to decent gear via their renown rank. All of the pugs they will stomp on a daily basis will learn to lothe and fear the guild name...

E-famousity is born.

Point being: I plan on starting a wowriot fueled War Guild. If your interested in helping me out PM me ect.

LF New warrior #3 5v5 team

wisdomcube — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:11:53 -0400

Our warrior couldn't pay for his account anymore so he xfered to his old server where a friend offered to pay for it. We are the #3 5v5 team on bg9 right now with our highest being #2. We run an odd comp of Warrior hunter boomkin resto sham holy pally....yes it works dont worry. Looking for a warrior with experience in mainly the 5v5 bracket. Xfers are welcome and ill talk to u on vent before, in vent we like to joke around even against top teams so chemistry is really the main thing we are looking for.

Flames inc I know alot of you hate me anyways.

Paladin Atheism : I Don't Believe In Kalgan

Roma Victor — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:34:30 -0400

Last night I had a sudden revelation: I am a paladin atheist.Â What led me to this shocking insight?Â One of the fun benefits of being somewhat e-famous is that you get whispers from lots of interesting people and last night was no exception.Â Mounsif (Mal'Ganis Represent!) whispered me and I discovered he was in the WotLK beta, playing a paladin.Â He extolled the virtues of the beta pally, how they were doing so great, better than priests, druids, etc... and it suddenly occurred to me: I didn't believe a word of it.

Being A Paladin Atheist
You see, I don't believe in Kalgan.Â Or more accurately: I have seen no evidence that would convince me, a rational person,Â of the existence of a Kalgan capable of PVP class balance.Â The random buffs and capricious nerfs lead me to a conclusion that there is no Intelligent Designer. This is all merelyÂ random chaos arising out of the painfully slow evolution of 1's and 0's on Blizzard servers.Â It's depressing and refreshing at the same time- there is no one in charge of PVP balance.Â For lack of a better explanation,Â PVP balanceÂ just happens in accordance to natural software laws.

Faith and Reason
I don't want to sound harsh here.Â I have the utmost respect for others' beliefs and I'm not belittling them or their faith.Â I think Mounsif, Zilea, Wingz, etc... are all entitled to believe whatever they wish.Â I simply, and this may be a genetic trait, require more evidentiary proof of Kalgan's existence.Â Those who know me realize I possess a keen intellect and a merciless logic. I apply themÂ like a scalpel to surgically dissect fallacious arguments:

Fact: Paladins have been garbage in PVP for over two years.
Fact: Druids are a provably extant deity of at least PVP demigod status.
Conclusion: There Is No Kalgan.

Kalganism and Predestination
One of the theories supporting belief in Kalgan is that of predestination, the theory that Kalgan chooses which classes to buff/nerf a priori to their actual existence.Â If that's true, then the individual user's choice at the character select screen is little more than a formality.Â Don't believe me?Â Think back: did you CHOOSE to roll druid at launch because you knew they'd be PVP gods for over two years straight?Â Of course you didn't, you had no way to know that.Â But apparently this mythical Kalgan not only knew that, but caused it to happen.Â I cannot subscribe to such an irrational belief.

The Future : Paladin Agnosticism?
As has been pointed out, despite my militant unbelief I nevertheless chose a paladin to level to 60 first as part of the RAF program. But in my defense I think that's only natural.Â After all, we all have a yearning inside of us for something better, something more, a void if you will.Â And the inchoate hope that paladins will, someday, maybe just maybe, be PVP viable is an inspiration.Â It's a glimpse of divine joy in Azeroth, even if it may be nothing but a fairy tale that never comes to fruition.Â

So perhaps I really am agnostic:Â I don't believe in Kalgan, but I hope he exists so that someday my paladin will be PVP viable instead of begging for alms in a dirty gutter in Shat.Â In the end we are all defined by our actions, not just our beliefs.

But I Want To Believe.

BlizzCast number 5, Karune back with Bashiok!

Lipton — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:19:16 -0400

LISTEN NOW!
http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcast/archive/episode5.xml

Drugs help win tournaments

Stonyman — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:00:37 -0400

So taking a look around today I see this article about two of my favorite things to read about drugs and gaming.Â Well I kid those aren't actually my favorite but it does allow for some interesting reading.Â

Interview with Australian WCG Tournament Director

So they ask this dude about drug usage in professional gaming tournaments and the likes.Â It is actually pretty interesting to read some of his responses since most of the time we are seeing things from the player perspective.Â I haven't went out and experimented with a bunch of drugs and tried gaming to figure out which ones will actually provide a +skills.Â Maybe some of our more "enlightened" rioters have more experience.

I know there are quite a few pot heads out there but this director is off base saying "I've seen a number of players at national tournaments who came in "baked" (that's stoned for the uninformed) purely so they could play better. In most cases they did, although obviously they couldn't just pull out another joint midway through."Â If weed provides a bonus it has got to be +chill not +skills.Â There was a guy in my guild who wouldn't smoke more than one puff or his attention went right out the window and he started ******* things up.Â Then there was a guy who would get on vent and take huge bong rips while we where raiding and where would we find him when our tank died?Â Oh thats right sitting over by the hookah pipes just chillin using emotes.

It sounds like more drinking goes on at these tournaments (or puking in some peoples cases) then drug use, but what the **** do I know I haven't ever went to one.Â At some point though I gotta wonder if the sponsors aren't a little concerned with this information since potentially these players represent that company while at these events.Â

Morning News: Street Fighter 4 Lag, New PS3 bundles, Former Team Ninja Boss, Blu-Ray vs. Downloads, Game Lobbying

Slapnuts — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:00:00 -0400

Some morning news here for your reading pleasure before I head out for the day.Â The highlight is the 4 page interview with former Team Ninja head, Tomonobu Itagaki.

Capcom is already preparing for the worst when it comes to Street Fighter 4 lag.Â Producer Yoshinori Ono noted in a recent interview that they are looking at all sorts of ways of addressing the issue.Â "Trying to balance it up at user interface level and input timing by using joystick" may be one of their options.

Tomonobu Itagaki, the man behind Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden,Â talks about his recent departure from Tecmo, the state of the industry, his peers and his future in the business.Â Very great read from the guys at 1UP.

There are two new PS3 bundles coming to Europe.Â One featuring two dual shock 3's and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.Â The other featuring some weird ole' French movie.Â I will leave it up to you to decide what the better off is.

People just keep trying to chip away at Blu-Ray and keep promising the days of digital of delivery.Â Sorry guys but I am not buying it.Â This is the generation of Blu-Ray and digital delivery may not even be key by the next console generation.Â Broadband adoption and speeds are too low and will be for some time.Â And I personaly want to have a phyiscal "game in hand".

Game lobby spending is on a massive upswing this year at a record pace.Â The Entertainment Software Association is spending even more money on lobbying than the MPAA.Â "ESA lobbied issues including media violence, First Amendment protection, entertainment industry ratings, anti-piracy, patent modernization, sale regulation, retailer enforcement of ratings system and IP enforcement".Â Good to see they are looking out for gaming in one way or another.Â

PVE GEARRRRRRRRRRRR

Maishoku — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:58:01 -0400

I mean I was wondering why I couldn't stack wound on this bastard and then I see that crap. Its cool when I dump an entire energy bar into mutilates only to have it healed through by his pvepriest but hey I can go on his priest right? Nah not really, since I have 120 energy and two daggers it would be easier to kill me and so we trade games and they ultimately won the series after they caught on to our strategy.

BUT YOU CAN'T DODGE FROM BEHINDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
I know but I can just move behind him right????????????????? NO BECAUSE HE TRAINS ME DOWN LIKE A JEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Basically there are 2 methods of "getting behind" well 3 if I wanted to mutilate.
Mutilating is easy, just walk through him, that was easy but that doesn't solve the problem of my white hits not landing.

The other 2 are unorthodox, first being to burn cloak just to gain mobility to be able to get behind him thing is he likes to use his cloak the same time I do so we're both spamming shiv to cripple the other and well we're back to square one.

And desperate measures? Gouge-> Kidneyshot
problem is, gouge is a frontal attack, and we already have a problem with him having 40% unbuffed dodge so just add a couple more from double mongoose and ghostly strike which is...................oh to hell with it this didn't even work a third of the time anyways.

40% unbuffed dodge, rofl.....................................................................

Mutilate to 2200 on Ruin sup with an awesome disc priest friend.
Wtb pve gear pst for mutilate.

Oh when content patch comes out, I'm going back to mutilate until then gotta shadowstep and do some leet(****ty) damage.

oh armory links would be helpful

heres his
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormrage&n=Electraa
if his rating isn't 2200 with a priest named Heda he is probably helping someone get shoulders

and here is mine
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Arthas&n=Maishokuu

From the Front Lines: WAR Preview Weekend Review

graycode — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:53:18 -0400

I'm sure many of you were as sad as I was Monday morning when the message popped up across the servers: "The server is being taken down in 5 minutes for maintenance. Please find a safe place to log off!". Finally all of the slackers at Mythic had rolled back into the office and decided it was time to finish their game. The Warhammer Online (WAR) preview weekend had come to a close.

This was my first experience with WAR, and though there appear to still be a couple of wrinkles to iron out before release I can say I'm very encouraged. During the preview I sampled about a half-dozen of the twenty classes expected at release, and for those of you who didn't have a chance to join us I thought I would take a moment to offer some observations on what Mythic is doing right, where they could use some fine tuning, and the annoyances I hope are fixed prior to launch in a few weeks (Interns are you listening?!?).

First, the things they are doing right:

Stability: The beta software downloaded perfectly and installed without a hitch. The game never froze, the servers never crashed, and there were no lag spikes. This is exceptionally rare, and it is certainly the one area in which the games prior to WAR have tragically failed. I don't care if your rendering engine was hand-written by Carmack, the second your servers fail the entertainment value becomes zero and I move on. Personally, I believe this accomplishment far surpasses anything they could have displayed on my screen this weekend.

Hybrids that are... Hybrids: The Warrior Priest is a good example of a supportive healing class. However, to finance the cost of his heals, the priest must earn healing points by dealing melee damage. The Archmage, another support class, is also encouraged to find a balance between healing and damage dealing, since her damaging spells become more powerful after long periods of healing and her healing spells become linearly more potent after every consecutive damage spell she casts. Though I have not yet seen the endgame, I imagine this will prevent the hybrid classes from stumbling down the inevitable "heal-bot road" we often see in other MMOs.

Diverse Class Mechanics: Regarding gameplay, what I found very refreshing across all of these classes was how they each naturally enforced a unique playstyle. Rather than simply giving every character a mana pool and assigning costs to their various abilities, the cost mechanic for spells are usually managed through some aspect of the player's behavior. Other games have ventured into this as well via combo points or rage for example, but not to the extent that it appears WAR has. Shaman Waaagh!, Chosen aura weaving, Maurader stances, Ironbreaker grudges, Swordmaster balances, Sorcerer backlash, and all the other mechanics I have yet to deeply investigate provide a lot of promise for interesting battles and high replayability.

No Downtime: Out-of-combat regeneration is very fast, and between fights there is little need to rest before jumping back into the fray or starting the next pull. In fact, there is no concept of eating or drinking at all in WAR.

Leveling Through PvP: Tired of killing giant rats? Then don't and gain experience points by killing your friends or annoying prepubescent SCREAMS-INTO-THE-MIC players.

Collision Detection: While I must admit I didn't like the sound of it at first, I have already seen instances where it has made combat very interesting. I once encountered a Black Orc chasing one of my Bright Wizard allies down a hallway, just a few smacks from finishing him. As a Warrior Priest I threw some heals on the wizard and was able to jump in front of the orc just in time. Since we were at a choke point the orc couldn't get past me and was eventually forced to switch targets. With some stubborn footwork (don't call me fat, ok?) and heals, I was able to withstand enough damage to allow the wizard to nuke down our enemy.

Double Targeting: As it was when Blizzard finally implemented target-of-target, this is one gameplay mechanic that we will someday look back on and wonder how we ever played a game without it. Everyone can select both an offensive target and a defensive target and maintain them simultaneously in the UI. All damaging/debuff skills will be automatically applied toward the player's offensive target, and likewise all healing/buff spells will be applied to the defensive target, without ever having to switch. I know that some games try to implement this via a "focus", but the system afforded in WAR makes it much more manageable. Further, it allows for more creativity in combat design, as some skills will have an effect on both of your targets at once.

Video: Warrior Priest RvR

Public Quests and Looting: No more LFG sadness. See a quest going on and join it - even jump in the middle of a boss fight. Once it's finished it will begin again, and each time you will be rewarded based on your contribution. Loot is handled in a fair and somewhat novel way. After the encounter is over, your personal contribution to the fight will factor in a bonus to your automatic random roll value. If you score highly enough, you will be eligible for a loot reward in the form of a pouch. Opening the pouch later then will present eight "random" rewards from which you may choose one. This greatly raises the chances of getting a drop that will be useful to you - rather than having a boss drop two blue items that must be distributed across a raid, they essentially drop twenty-six items of which three may be chosen.

Next, the things that still need work:

PvE: Still quite buggy at this point. Mobs sometimes path in the wrong direction, or fail to attack you at all. Once we had a public quest boss that would reset back to full health every few seconds during the encounter - it didn't end well.

Video: PVE Public Boss Fight

Polish: There is a reason that Blizzard ends up the best-in-show time and time again, and polish is their key. It can be seen in every aspect of their games; from graphics to gameplay, World of Warcraft (WoW) is as solid as they come. The things that they cannot get perfect they opt to dumb down to a more common denominator. For example, while I don't believe anyone could speak ill of WoW's artistic style, it's truly a testament to their creativity to do so much with so few polygons. Likewise, when dynamic shadows proved to be ahead of their time, Blizzard chose to go with very simple gray ovals. WAR has made some improvements, and with that taken some risks. While I would say in reference to the other WoW challengers that Mythic is near the top of their league, I'm interested in seeing them tightening things down a bit. To be fair, WoW has added polish and fine-tuning with each patch over the past three years -- something WAR should emulate.

And finally, a handful of annoyances: Understandably, every piece of software will have some design decisions that do not gel. Here are my first issues with WAR, which I hope are addressed pre-launch:

Camera Issues: "Follow on movement" cannot be turned off, so if you're running on auto-run and try to pan the camera behind you (via left-click & drag) to see that Black Orc gaining on you, the camera will automatically pivot back around to face forward when you let go of the mouse button. It's eternally frustrating, and almost game-breaking in PvP for my playstyle.

Interface Disabled on Death: When you die in Realm vs. Realm (RvR) combat, a respawn timer comes up that disables all mouse interface. No panning the camera around to see if your friends have avenged you. No referencing the Tome of Knowledge. No double-checking cooldowns. Nothing. This means that for about 15 seconds out of every 2 minutes, I am bored.

No cross-faction scenarios?: I never made it to Tier 2, but from what I could see of Tier 1 scenarios, you were pretty much limited to a given scenario depending on your race/class. As an Archmage it appeared my only scenario option was Khaine's Embrace, where I never saw an Ironbreaker. As an Ironbreaker my only option seemed to be Gates of Ekrund, where I never saw an Archmage (though other elven classes were there). This means that even though we're the same faction, I won't be able to team up on my Archmage with my friends who roll Ironbreakers?

And please, please stop making my character yelp every time I jump. If Ironforge has proven anything, the space bar is the most critical interaction in an MMO. Don't make it annoying.

In the end, this weekend preview has only increased my anticipation for the upcoming beta on Sept. 7th (final release is scheduled for Sept. 18th), where I will hopefully be able to dig a little deeper into the game. Until then, I guess I'll just have to keep killing murlocs... MRAURRUGRAR!

Intel Extreme Masters Leipzig - LB Final & Grand Final

FlyingDJ — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:55:29 -0400

Lower Bracket Final between fnatic and Nihilum:

Grand Final between SK Gaming and Nihilum:

Enjoy!

Best of Class: 2nd Edition

Serennia — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:42:21 -0400

On Monday of this week, I presented my first article in a series of "Best of Class," nominating several top US players from different classes as being potentially the best of their respective class, and at the same time, giving the community a chance to cast their vote on who they think deserved the bragging rights or who they thought should be mentioned, as well.

The first edition covered Mages, Shamans, and Warlocks, while tonight's 2nd edition will discuss Paladins, Priests, and Rogues. Less introduction, more nominees.

Paladins:

Glasroy of Blackrock - Although, according to Glorin, Glasroy has always been a good paladin for aÂ long time now, he didn't receive much acclaim or mention until late season three when he started rising in all three brackets of BG9 arena: 2v2 as paladin/warrior, 3v3 as paladin/shaman/warrior, and 5v5 as 234hunter (priest, paladin, elemental shaman, warrior, hunter). Not many people gave them a fair chance in their minds at accomplishing anything, however, their 5v5 team called "WIN TRADING IS HARD" managed to eventually climb the bracket to the point where they were in range to pass Jolly Asian Clams, a 4dps 5v5 team from Kil'Jaeden Horde, that had held the top rank for a large period of time toward the end of last season.

After JAC had agreed to play WTIH, WTIH respec'd Glorin a few times from Elemental to Enhancement to Restoration finally and took the series from JAC and decided to stop queueing after earning a comfortable lead on the first place spot. JAC then attempted to win-trade on the last day of arena with their alt team, but got caught by Blizzard and had their gear stripped and ratings reset. Despite some controversy with Glasroy also win-trading, he and his team were eventually cleared of the allegations and their team received the Vengeful Gladiator titles for 5v5 in BG9.

Glasroy's success continues further into this season as they, once again, have the top ranked 5v5 team, as well as him playing on a 2254 rated paladin/warrior, which is more impressive than people usually give credit for. HIs success does not come without asterisks, however, as there are a large number of people out there that directly attribute his success to his gear and gear alone. While I slightly disagree in the notion that gear can entirely carry a player (hi Mentoc), there is no doubt that Glasroy possesses close to the best gear available to a paladin in the game right now. Is it his crutch or simply utilizing what paladins are able to wear?

Sck of Tichondrius - Sck rings now a lot, playing on many different teams, as well as different classes, however, his paladin and he as a player were often regarded as the best arena paladin to play the game back during seasonÂ one and two. Possibly even more impressive is the fact that all of his success came with using little to no PvE gear, but rather playing a much more aggressive playstyle and being very smart about heal drinking (and one of the first people to really use it extensively).

Sck was part of the legendary Pandemic WSVG team that went undefeated all the way up until WSVG was cancelled right before their Los Angeles event. Instead of relying on countercomping back then (to an extent), Pandemic basically just outplayed the competition and decimated the playing field with primarily rogue/mage/priest (Nitrana/Ecilam/Kintt) and paladin/priest/warrior (Sck/Kintt/Noktyn). Online, Pandemic shared similar success earning the top rank 5v5 position for season one as seen in the BG9 Hall of Fame.

Sck also released several videos during their prime showcasing his incredible play. Possibly the best one he released was his videoÂ showing a night of playing against cutebabyelephants (cbe) as 2345 (paladin, priest, elemental shaman, warrior, mage) vs. cbe's 2346 (same comp with a warlock instead of a mage). It was very impressive at the time during season two because this was right around when warlocks were peaking (read: overpowered) and 2345 was supposed to have little to no chance when playing against 2346. If I recall correctly that night, Pandemic took around 150-200 rating from cbe, proving that they were an exception to popular belief.

As with all good things in life, his run has seemingly come to an end, or at least a temporary halt. When the new wave of LAN play began with MLG San Diego, WWI Paris, and MLG Orlando, Pandemic had a re-structured roster with Douja on-board to replace Kintt and Pandemic saw themselves repeatedly in a place where they were not familiar with from the WSVG days: the loser bracket. Although they made it closer to the loser bracket finals in Orlando, they also had quick exits at both San Diego and Paris. Is this due to Kintt no longer being there to keep the gears rolling, because Paladins have completely fallen behind in terms of 3v3 viability, because Sck is past his prime, or simply because the playing field has gotten "smarter?"

Zilea of Kil'Jaeden - Zilea has been a veteran paladin for a while now, having extensive arena experience at the top ratings all the way since season one. Zilea has run several comps in all brackets, including the ever-so-skillful paladin/paladin/warrior 3v3 comp with Hoodrych. Joking aside, Zilea has also run rather unorthodox comps such as paladin/rogue 2v2 and paladin/rogue/warrior 3v3 and has performed quite successfully with them, becoming one of the first holy paladins in the world to reach 2200 this season for shoulders.

Having played both with and against him, I must say that his dispelling is extremely quick and he realizes what CC is being cast before it actually happens most of the time. He also happens to be one of the better paladins at timing his emergency buttons (divine shield and blessing of protection), as they are obviously the most important cooldowns a paladin has in their possession. Although he has never played on LAN, he has already shown the potential of being a top competitor online at least once now by playing with our 5v5 trifecta team we created called "nerd stompers," which we took all the way to first place before being passed by a team that fed off of TSG's sold charter.

Like Glasroy, however, Zilea is often criticized for relying too heavily on his PvE gear. Although he doesn't have the same caliber of items that Glasroy has from Sunwell, it still cannot be disregarded as some of the items such as the Crystal Spire of Karabor and Memento of Tyrande can be absolutely game-changing. Zilea has also been showcased in several PvP videos by other players such as Xantims 5Â and Xantims 6Â which even included a fight where Xantim's shadow priest/rogue team defeated Zilea's paladin/warrior when Zilea was wearing BT shadow resist gear. Were these random flukes and is his PvE gear a minor asset or is Zilea carried by good gear and equally good partners?

Clicker (Xarrio) of Mal'Ganis - Formerly known as Clicker from Tichondrius server, Xarrio mostly earned a name for himself by playing as a paladin with the CAPSLOCKCREW 5v5 team during season two, being one of the first to run the 2346 comp before it became popular. Unlike many of its predecessors however, CLC ran the comp extremely well and a large part of it had to do with Clicker's mostly exceptional play. Though many would disagree with me on this, I don't find it just coincedental that as soon as Clicker bailed on Inactive during season three, the team became a non-factor as they went through new paladins such as Elessarz and Wd, yet could never achieve the same success with another paladin in his place. All of this despite Inactive being quoted in saying that he isÂ "confident will be ultimately be a much stronger team with a new paladin."

I've also played with Clicker in the past as both retribution and holy spec, and I can say with confidence that he wasn't carried, at least not entirely, by Inactive and CLC. He was always quick with dispels, blessing refreshes, and timing his outs well, but on the flip side, many people including the CLC team themself felt that Clicker had left a lot to be desired when playing with them. Even though he replaced Prominents, who wasn't exactly a big shoe to fill, he never seemed to gain much respect in the eyes of the arena community for being a top-notch paladin. Was he really just an above average paladin riding the coattails of some of the best players in CLC or was he in fact the foundation for the team but no one had realized it until he quit?

Honorable mentions: Dudslol of Blackrock/Tichondrius, Medz of Blackrock, Supasjgokuu of Tichondrius, Optimistic of Blackrock, Zyori of Mannoroth

Priests:

Crysalid of Tichondrius -Â Crysalid from CLC is often seen as the unspoken hero of the team, often making many important calls and key decisions that often change the outcome of matches. Crysalid held top teams on Nightfall battlegroup before transferring to Tichondrius to test out the BG9 waters and made quite the splash in doing so, as CLC remained top three in 5v5 for the majority of season two, eventually winning the title of Merciless Gladiator (unfortunately Crysalid did not get the title as he accidently team quit his 5v5 due to a UI bug), as well, when BG9 was at its peak. Having played many games against them personally, I feel that Crysalid's strengths lie in his ability to know exactly when he needs to be agressive with burns and dispels and when he needs to play defensively to withstain a burst.

Unlike many other priests that are limited to just one bracket, Crysalid has also proven time and time again that he can excel in 3v3 running a multitude of comps. In fact, Crysalid, Inactive, and Helldridge were very close to getting Merciless Gladiator in 3v3, as well, during season 2 until they were passed by Affix and GC's team toward the end of the last day.

Despite these accomplishments, however, Crysalid along with the rest of the CLC crew has also been known to be rather inconsistent with their play. Their 5v5 team went downhill for the most part after Clicker's departure from the team and eventually back to Mal'Ganis, and you could see that despite only being one player different, that the team wasn't what it used to be in Celex's 5v5 video of him playing on a paladin with his transferred 2345 against CLC's various setups. Crysalid, Inactive, and Kyx also have a huge chip on their shoulders for still maintaining a goose egg in every competitive 3v3Â tournament thus far, and while they may not have a nerd sponsor to back them, they'll need to show some results before anyone would consider picking them up.

Ely of Tichondrius - I won't lie, I have NFC what this guy's armory is now or who his main priest is, as he's gone through so many banned characters and different races that I've honestly lost track. That doesn't take away from his credibility at all though, obviously, as Ely has proven time and time again with his "Duelists Going for Glad" team that they have what it takes to be the best, with top 3 placements at MLG San Diego, MLG Orlando, CGS, and TR1, as well as winning the CGS "grudge match" series against Shadowplay.

Ely tends to play somewhat of a more defensive playstyle as you can see in their famous TR video, but ironically gets the job done better than most priests in 5v5, as well as having some of the best mass dispel timing of any priest out there. DGFG really has PMR mirrors down to a simple science almost and a large part of that has to do with Ely's fast reactions and ability to stay out of CC's and lockouts.

Ironically, Ely's question marks come from his online play and consistency there moreso than his ability to perform well on LAN. DGFG had a very comfortable lead for the top rank in BG9 3v3 last season after farming a good deal of points off Hafu's WLD, but apparently lost in a series against Vorrent/Loz/Chicane running druid/rogue/warrior on the last night of the season. Much like in his SK-portion of his past interviewÂ with Jasi, he entirely blamed it on racials. I don't know about everyone else, but I've run druid/rogue/warrior extensively, and I honestly don't feel that racials make that much of a difference when playing against PMR anymore. Apparently Vorrent's team would zerg Ely each game and they were never able to outlast their initial rushdown, but I feel this is more the fault of poor strategy rather than racials, and that PMR in general should never lose consistently or much at all to RWD anymore. There are also many people that claim Celex, DGFG's mage, to believe that Triks of Cho'gallÂ is a better priest and is why he plays with him more as of late. But does online matter anymore or is LAN all that counts?

Dw of Blackrock - Dw didn't really make his arena presence felt until season three, but when he did, he made sure people remembered his name; not by trash talking, but by results. Dw and his "Shuttle*****" 5v5 team running 2346Â seemingly came out of nowhere to shoot to the top of the 5v5 bracket, and even eliminating CLC from the BG9 5v5 tournament with a 3-2 victoryÂ in a 2346 mirror. Probably even more impressive is the fact that 2346 revolves largely around how skilled your warrior is, and let me tell you, Globals would give even Joobei a run for his money on being a complete scrub.

Dw's success continued into season three as his 5v5 team eventually triumphed over JAC for the title of Vengeful Gladiator, as well as into season four now, where his "No Kobold" 3v3 team has been in the top 10 (even highest rated 3v3 in the world for weeks) for the entire season, as well as their "WIN TRADING IS HARD" team maintaining the #1 rank all season, as well. Having limited experience playing against Dw in arenas thus far, I do personally think he's an amazing priest that knows how and when to exploit people's weaknesses and especially when mash mana burn like there's no tomorrow.

Like all people associated with Nurfed, however, his success often comes with a lot of skeptics that claim he would not be where he is without not only his own PvE gear, but his teammates and their PvE gear, as well. Although a priest typically cannot afford to drop their resilience too low with PvE gear, it is undeniable that running a double healer/warrior 3v3Â comp and 234hunter 5v5 comp would benefit a great deal from having certain PvE gear on various classes. Dw has also been known to have somewhat inconsistent play, as you can see in Xahlior's 6th videoÂ when his WLD beats Dw's "No Kobold" team, largely because of Dw's inability to drink and inefficient mana usage. First off, I don't feel WPD should ever lose to WLD. Secondly, Xahlior is ******* terrible at warlock (hence his WCM ratings on his movie). Good warrior but... well, not really, nevermind. For shame, Dw!

Kintt of Tichondrius/Laughing Skull - Kintt needs no introduction. Everyone knows him, every priest from season one and two had his armory as their homepage (you know who you are). Playing alongside the rest of Power Trip (now known as Pandemic), Kintt was easily one of the biggest motivating factors of the team's success both online in 5v5, as well as offline in their undefeated string of WSVG events.

Despite being disqualified from the Blizzard 5v5 tournament (because his human priest account was given to him)Â and forcing Power Trip to run a horrible comp of warrior, rogue, hunter, mage, paladin, Kintt was not discouraged and eventually rerolled a priest from scratch to prevent that from happening again. I don't think this guy needs his accomplishments listed off as he's probably earned more money off winning WoW tournaments AND commentating on WoW tournaments than most people will ever be able to earn from this game.

That said, Kintt does have some rather bi-polar tendencies:

That was messaged to me after beating Pandemic 10-2 one night which was recorded by Kollektiv in this video. I will admit that he did approach me later on apologizing for the way he acted with me in the past, and I do give him a great deal of respect for that. However, Kintt has also shown some "signs of age" (in a figure of speaking) when it comes to arena, with some slow reactions and occasional blunders. Is he simply a Michael Jordan trying to make a comeback and should stay in retirement, or is he just getting warmed up again with his return to the LAN scene?

Noxn of Mannoroth - First off, I'll start out by saying I have no idea if Noxn is a guy, girl, or she-male, as I've heard different stories and different answers and Noxn apparently never talks on vent. If anyone is able to clarify this for me and the world (as I'm sure its on everyone's minds), please do so. That said, Noxn has been one of the most reknowned shadow priests to play this game in arena. Coming from Dragonmaw server and having experience against Noxn's spriest/rogue team personally from season one days as paladin/warrior, I must admit that he/she is not all hype in the slightest.

Most famous for his/her "Chapter 2" video, Noxn's armory page had become the holy bible for anyone aspiring to become an arena shadow priest (hence his/her old guild name of "DONT ARMORY ME I QUIT." Noxn and Conradical (rogue/warlock) had one of the most impressive tandems in 2v2 going and held the top rank 2v2 in Ruin for most of season two, until they lost a few controversial games to Glick and Zyori in the end. Noxn came back with a vengeance during season three and swept all three brackets with first place teams for a good portion of the season and never caved to doing so as a healing spec, only shadow. That in itself speaks volumes.

However, whether it be due to the comp being inconsistent or Noxn's play, their team never managed to get very high on the real phase of either TR, despite early success in the practice phase. Maybe Noxn is also losing his or her touch, because a really really terrible shaman/warrior from my old server was bragging about beating Noxn in 2v2 and posted some rather interesting screenshots, one of which included this one. Say it ain't so, Noxn!

Jasi of Tichondrius - There's no way I wouldn't be crucified if I didn't include Stevie in this running, so although I'll spare him any commentary, he's going to beÂ on the chopping block with the rest of them. Go Jasi!

Honorable mentions: Swarm of Tichondrius, Blehbleh of Blackrock, Verty of Executus, Deztruckt of Black Dragonflight, Brazetina of Tichondrius, Trance of Blackrock/Tichondrius, Realz of Mannoroth

Rogues:

Nitrana of Tichondrius - Mason "Nitrana" Groendal, like Mr. Quinn, needs no introduction. One of the most vocal players of Team Pandemic, he was always a huge driving factor for their success on LAN for the WSVG tournaments. Not everyone knows where the whole, "YOU'RE DONE, YOU'RE DONE" screaming humor comes from, but in case you were wondering, Nitrana was the one that did this at WSVG Toronto when Pandemic (nitrana/ecilam/kintt) was facing off against MoB TurtleForce (zecks/spoh/zizek) in round 3, seen here:

I'm being honest when I say that I've played against almost every top rogue in the game (at least in the United States) and I've honestly never been intimidated by how aggressively any of them used their cooldowns except for Nitrana. That said, however,Â people occasionallyÂ question his use of cooldowns, and often feel he wastes some of them early such as the ones Neilyo pointed out in Neilyo9. Despite that, however, very little can be taken away from Nitrana, but the only question that really remains is if he has enough gas left in the tank to win another tournament or is he, too, "past his prime?"

Neilyo of Cho'gall - Every WoW player who hasn't been living under a rock for the last year knows who Lord Neilyo is. Neilyo himself coined (or made popular)Â many phrases and slang terms such as "devastating," "neilyo'ing those >," and "feels like 22 points." Having played with him myself obviously, there's no denying that the kid has skill oozing out of his veins and pulls some amazing **** out of his ass sometimes that you wouldn't even think possible. I vividly remember us playing against Glick and Hafu once where I despawned Glick's felhunter, Neilyo was on him but decided it was a good time to swap to Hafu, and while running to Hafu, did a focus deadly throw on Glick to dump his combo points but in doing so, interrupted his fel dom (this was when deadly throw interrupt had a delay, too) and we eventually locked out his fel dom and killed him. Best match ever.

I won't write too much about Neilyo because everyone knows what's done and the accomplishments he's earned: vengeful gladiator s3 2v2, 14 videos out now that go platinum within 24 hours each, etc etc, the list goes on. Possibly the most impressive part about everything he has done, however, is the fact that he's done it with absolutely no PvE gear. I remember it taking him several weeks just to get 60 badges for an Angelista's Revenge, as well as how long he had used the Insignia of the Horde resilience trinket before he could even upgrade to the Bloodlust Brooch.

Similar to myself, however, he has the tendency to feel that he's never wrong, even when a mistake was blatantly made by him and there were no two ways around it. For example, in our series vs. Improved Clicks in the loser bracket finals at WWI Paris, Neilyo blinded the druid on accident the first game instead of the warrior, and blinded the warrior with a deep wound on in the fourth game, and to this day, never really accepts responsibility for either mistake. I don't particularly hold it against him, as I obviously did not play perfect, either, but the principle is there.

Happyminti of Tichondrius - The man, the myth, the movie maker himself. Like most eCelebs listed in this article, he really doesn't need much of an introduction, either. Famous for his acclaimed "Nerf Sap" videos, especially his latest 10th videoÂ in the series with commentary, Happyminti has always been one of the unspoken "rogue heros" of the community, often keeping to himself and letting the community form their own opinions about him and everything else.

After being plagued by inconsistent and gimmicky teams for most of his arena experiences online, he eventually joined up with Sodah and Venruki to form one of the most versatile and formidable lineups online and on LAN now. Although Shadowburn isn't a terribly competitive battlegroup, the fact that they can get to the top rank in 3v3 by a massive margin with only two losses shows the chemistry the team already possesses playing together. I feel that after they get experienced with a few other comps and don't have to feel obligated to play with Sonydigital on LAN anymore (epic failure at MLG Orlando), the team will be much stronger as a whole and easily be a #1 competitor at tournaments.

Unfortunately this guy was reported to lose repeatedly in duels to ret paladins, which is rather embarassing for him. I mean honestly, who does that?

Emolol of Cho'gall - The rogue list wouldn't be complete without including the last member of DGFG for mention in these articles. Although Emolol was not known too well before season three, his performance online and on LAN ever since transferring to BG9 has most definitely not gone unnoticed. Many people regard him as one of the most clutch rogues out there today, and I must agree after watching him play over his shoulder at two MLG tournaments now and noticing several key plays that he does that would normally be overlooked.

Also unlike most other rogues, Emo doesn't feel the need to create a plethora of PvP videos to engrain in people's heads that he can play arenas well (hi Buddhist). After having played against him both online in arena, world PvP, and now on LAN, I can confidently say that he's easily one of the best "lesser known" players out there and saying that he deserves a mention is a gross understatement.

My only gripe with him, ironically, is the fact that he doesn't haveÂ publicly released video anywhere, whereas most other rogues have at least one or two. I'm sure people want to see how he plays so quit being a ***** and make one already.

Ming of Black Dragonflight - Like Jasi, I don't think I would hear the end of it if I DIDN'T include Ming here, so here's your chance to vote for him if he's really your secret rogue hero but you don't want to admit it.

Honorable mentions: Loz of Blackrock, Akrios of Gurubashi, Literacola of Black Dragonflight, Shindo of Tichondrius, Zecks of Tichondrius, Girlz of Mannoroth, Zyz of Burning Blade

Dishonorable mentions: Mortale of Tichondrius, Sneakysnakes of Tichondrius, Miley of Tichondrius, Plantsmom of Tichondrius, Warscalp of Tichondrius

That concludes the second installment of my "Best of Class" series. Stay tuned for the final one with the remaining classes of Druid, Hunter, and Warrior soon!

Epic Drop 8/26/08: DBZ Movie looks Bad, 5 second 100 meter? ABC reporter arrested, RIAA gets a W, Diddy *****es about his Jet

Slapnuts — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:36:30 -0400

Another day, another Epic Drop and a new poll!Â Next week I will be pretty busy so Kyle may "guest write" the Epic Drop for a night or two.Â Be excited, and troll him with the same love you give me!Â On with the show!

What happens when you report from a Democratic gathering of Senators and big donors in a private meeting?Â Â You get arrested!Â Take that freedom of speech!Â An ABC producer was out in Denver for the Democratic National Convention "following the money" and keeping tabs on the kind of money donors were tossing around to the Democratic party.Â Watch the video of these asshat cops removing him from the premises.

I am sorry but this Dragon Ball Z movie looks like it is going to be pure ass.Â I just don't think this anime is going to translate well to the screen in live action; CG maybe.

Usain Bolt may be fast, but 5 second 100 meter fast?Â Not quite.Â Not for many many years at least if possible at all.Â Check out this piece at Wired where they attempt to guess when it could happen with mathematical models.Â

If the RIAA comes after you for stealing music, don't reformat your hard drive says the court, it is basically an admission of guilt.Â The smart move?Â Buy a new one or send in a back a up OS install.Â Â Tips from your resident PC tech.Â

Diddy diddy diddy... get a grip man.Â I don't care if this is a "joke", teeheeheee.Â Don't ***** about having to fly commericial to the people who generate your income, it is bad taste:

BlizzCast 5 - Jay Wilson Interview

Sp3tSnAz — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:06:48 -0400

BlizzCast Episode 5 is finally out, and this time it concentrates on Diablo 3.

There are two parts to the interview, one with Bashiok (Community Manager for Diablo III), Nethaera (Community Manager for World of Warcraft) by Karune (Community Manager for Starcraft 2).

The second part of the interview is Bashiok's interview with Jay Wilson.

The interview can be both downloaded as part of the BlizzCast or read on their website as a transcript, the link to which is available below. Here is a summary of it though.

First they talk about the WWI event unveiling and the reactions they got from the people. Next they talk about what everyone is doing after WWI.

They have the team split up into parts, with most of the Art team working on Act 2 and the designing team working on Act 1 where they are refining and polishing it. Jay then mentions the way in which they usually construct the order in which they design their games. The number of acts in the game is going to be roughly the same as in Diablo 2.

Next is the discussion of trading, which can be seen below.

Bashiok: Talking about Diablo 2, everybody that played Diablo 2, or plays it â€“ I think a lot of people are going back and playing it, since the announcement â€“ they sort of understand the economy of Diablo 2 as a barter item based kind of system, the gold that was dropped in Diablo 2 wasn't worth much. How do you see the economy in Diablo 3 developing? And are there going to be any goals to establish trade systems?

Jay Wilson: Well, Diablo, at its core is basically a trader's game. If you look at other types of progression based RPG games, World of Warcraft is a great example. In World of Warcraft the best items are you know, held by the raiders. In Diablo the best items are really held by the traders. You know those people that are really good at trading with other people. We have no intention of destroying that design or that group of players. That being said a bartering system is actually a very exclusionary trading system; it essentially favors a very small group of elite people and it's not just that those people have entry into it. It's that anyone who wants to gain entry to that system, anybody who wants to just trade items with people, they have this huge barrier to entry, they just can't get into because they don't the value of items, they don't know what's worth what, they don't know what they need. So an elite trader would probably say, â€˜Oh well, I like that I have this exclusive knowledge,' but he's actually denying himself customers essentially because there's no common language. A currency really provides a common language: that's the point of a currency. So we do want to support some kind of currency, we don't want to do some of the stuff that Diablo 2 did where they kind of actively devalued gold. We really do want to make gold, or potentially another currency â€“ it may not have to be gold â€“ a valuable commodity that players can use to be able to trade items. That being said it doesn't really prohibit item trading like people can use items as a currency. We have no intention of adding a Bind on Pickup or Bind on Equip, if we did it would probably be for like quest items not for actual functional, like items which people use to hack down monsters and stuff. There's nothing that's stopping bartering in that system but it does give people at least some kind of language you know if you've got two items and ones like a little bit more valuable, you can pad it with currency as well.

Bashiok: Right

Jay Wilson: Really we're trying to allow more people to get into the trading game because the more people that are in it the more fun it will be.

Next they talk about classes and their skill designs, especially concentrating on the Barbarian. They use this discussion of skills to then talk about monsters and their skills.

Next is a very large discussion on inventory and items which is best read in the actual quotes by the devs.

Bashiok: Cool. Changing gears onto the inventory, I think a lot of people noticed that the inventory management system is changing from the, I guess you call it the â€œTetrisâ€ style grid system to a one-slot system where each item only takes up one slot. What were the reasons for changing the inventory system?

Jay Wilson: They're actually pretty simple. I know there is a contingent of players who absolutely love the grid system, but for the most part, it's pretty un-popular with players. With the team in general we have a lot more people who dislike it than like it. In general feedback we've gotten, there's a lot more people who are happy that it's gone than, you know, wish that it was still there. That being said, we recognize that the real purpose for the grid-based system, really one of the coolest things was that it made the items feel a little more real, because they were larger, when you were interacting with them in your inventory. So, we tried to keep that in mind and really change how the look of the items and look of the icons so when you open up your inventory the items feel more real. We're actually not even happy with that; like, some of the feedback we got on just what people saw and, the fact that there were people who were unhappy with it. It made us really go back and revisit that. Right now, we're actually trying to design a new inventory that has even larger-sized icons and, again, makes the items feel very real, and you know, that's a focus we're trying to get the best of both worlds, but ultimately we made the decision because it's not a very popular feature.

Bashiok: Could you comment the actually bag system? Some people saw the actual, small bags drop in the demo.

Jay Wilson: Currently, in the game we have a system where you have one inventory page and its got, I think, I can't remember exactly how many, sixteen slots I think or twelve, you know, that's how many you start with, and then you have four bag slots, and each one of those slots you can add items and as you do, it expands the number of items on that page. But we're actually; that's one of the things we are potentially going to revisit as well and we're kicking around a lot of ideas like, you know, bags that are item specific; they hold specific types of things but generally, we want people to kind of be able to upgrade their personal inventory in some way, either by removing things from their core inventory through these kind of additional bags or just expanding the inventory overall. But, none of that's final, we're actually right in the middle of a big redesign on that whole system.

Bashiok: Cool.

On the same vein of item storage, anybody that played Diablo II, to a great extent, or maybe a medium extent probably had item mules, which were characters specifically created just to hold items for your main characters. What are your thoughts on mules? Are those going to be coming back? Do we see a need for them in future Diablo titles?

Jay Wilson: Well, I think as long as there is limited inventory space, which pretty much as long as there's limited hard drive space there's going to be limited inventory space, you're going to have people who are going to want to mule, like, you want to store items. Storing items is fun, like collecting items is fun; that being said, the way that people had to do it in Diablo II was not fun at all. So, what we're going to be looking at is, you know, generally we don't want to encourage mulling, we don't want to make it the way people want to do- simply because the way it was done in Diablo II wasn't fun. So, we're going to make a lot of changes overall to how inventory's done. One of the first probably- I think all these changes will actually be quite popular, which is one of them is going to be we're going to give people more inventory in general- just a little bit bigger inventory. It's also easier with a one-slot system actually, because you don't have the items eating up so much screen real estate, you don't have the risk of an especially large item just destroying the inventory space, but creating tons and tons of room for lots of little items. So, we have a lot more control with that. The other one is we're going to give people lots of ways to expand and deal with your inventory andâ€¦ more info on that, coming in the future. And then, the last one is we really want to make it easier for you to be able to share and trade items with other people and other characters on the same account. We've talked about ideas like a shared stash, or a mail system like World of Warcraft has, and we haven't nailed down exactly which one of those we want to do, but we're definitely going to do something like that, that's going to make it really easy for you if you've got, a witch doctor and a barbarian character, and you find that awesome witch doctor drop and you want to share it, it'll be super-easy to do that.

Bashiok: so in other words, I won't have to worry about my game closing after...

Jay Wilson: No, no more opening up a game, dropping items on the ground, and you know, hoping that the game stays open or getting a friend to help out, no more of that. You should be able to do it on your own.

Bashiok: Awesome. Some fans of the, grid-based system though, argue that the size of the item in your inventory kind of equated to its value to some degree- if it was a huge item, it was, I guess it would offset some of the power of the item. So you had like, a grand charm, it took up three slots so you know, it was kind of like you were weighing the advantage of holding the item in your inventory. What do you think of people that, I guess, hold that stigma?

Jay Wilson: I think there's some truth to that, primarily with charms, but then I think anybody who looked at the charm system would probably say, â€˜yeah but I don't want a bunch of charms taking up my inventory. Like, inventory is for inventory, charms should be separate.â€ But, as far as other items, like, â€œI'm not going to carry this suit of armor because it's really big and I can carry rings that sell for more,â€ that's not really much of a choice and it's pretty obvious what the best choice there is- to just carry smaller items. So, there is some game play to that, but, you know, I don't want to dismiss it, and like any other design decision there's a tradeoff, but ultimately, so many people disliked the grid system overall that the benefits of it just did not outweigh that general kind of aggravation that people had with it.

Next is the discussion of classes and the lack of Necromancer, which is followed by this interesting quote:

That being said, I wouldn't expect, I would tell people not to expect any other Diablo II or Diablo I classes appear you, know, in the exact same form that they did- if we did bring back another class it would be a radical change.

Next is an interesting disussion on the art style, but there isn't much there which we haven't heard already.

Link: http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcast/archive/episode5.xml#i1

Warhammer Online population imbalance

Slappywag — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:36:12 -0400

One of the biggest concerns a lot of people have about the upcoming MMO Warhammer Online is Realm (faction is the WoW counterpart) population imbalance between the Forces of Order and the Armies of Destruction.

For a game that puts so much emphasis on RvR PVP, and includes a system where every action contributes to the overall battles progress, severe population imbalance will do more than piss people off via long queue times, it will allow one side to dominate (and in WAR, dominate entails destroying the enemies capital city and killing their king) purely because of numbers.

The reason for imbalance? Well, there are several speculations, but I'm going to let these comparisons speak for themselves:

Sword Master class, and its destruction mirror; The Chosen.

Ironbreaker class, and its destruction mirror; Black Orc.

Arch Mage class, and its destruction mirror; Shaman.

The list goes on and on, but basically it all comes down to is **** DESTRUCTION IS COOL (and so is Duckers).

The Closed Beta and preview weekend really emphasized the imbalance (there was one point where we all switched to Order because Order had 30 second BG queues and Destruction had 10-min) however since then, according to surveys at Warhammer Alliance, the balance of players is slowly starting to even out.

Reasons for this? Perhaps a lot of destruction players weren't really attached to their class and favored short queue times over looking badass (like everyone in my guild does... except me.... **** Shaman's are awesome). Or perhaps simply the Closed Beta audience didn't include the Human Females and Night Elf Hunters.

Not only that, but Warhammer developers have stated that they are going to be adding realm (faction) caps to try and prevent one side completely dominating in numbers (I actually was linked another Q and A video where they said this was going to be done progressively, for example; rather than just being a flat 5000 per side, it was going to start at 1000, then once that was within 100 people it would be up to 2000 etc -- and they also commented on some other "idea's for balancing the population that we're not allowed to talk about right now).

Basically -- just like you should already know -- Mythic is a good developer and they won't let it get out of hand.

Duke Nukem Forever is playable! I call bull****!

Slapnuts — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:50:33 -0400

I can't quite wrap my mind around it yet but apparently Duke Nukem Forever may actually be real!

I know people have been saying this for like the past 10+ years but the crew at 3D Realms had a chat with Team Xbox and the topic of Duke Forever came up while discussing the XBLA port of Duke Nukem 3D.Â Word out of president George Broussard is that there are several hours of game play that are playable right at this moment.

He also goes on to say:Â "We're actively testing parts of the game and getting feedback from play testers and things are coming together. It's fun, it's in focus, we know what bits are fun and which are not, and it's just a matter of time now."

Hold on, I can hardly contain myself.Â What a riot!Â

Okay, now with that laugh out of my system I can ponder the future.Â Is it real?Â Will it finally make it to an actual release?Â Will any one give a damn at this point?Â Will it be with old tech and humor that people find out of date?Â Will the game suck, making all this time effort over the years a complete waste?

So many questions, so few answers.Â But if they are to the point of play testing code it may be even possible that we see this game next year.Â To quote Lawrence from Office Space, "F*#kin' A".

My rant on JRPGs

anris — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:12:09 -0400

I made a rant about JRPGs over at gamespy and figured i would post it here.Â It was inspired by the video found in this article

http://kotaku.com/5042749/new-japanese-infinite-undiscovery-gameplay-trailer

Feel free to watch and then read my post.Â Â Agree, disagree, please share your input.
===
Screw introductions, lets just dive right into it.

I just got done watching the new Ultimate Undiscovery gameplay trailer and several things came to mind that I feel I need to express. Im very sick of the trend that square-enix and most other JRPG companies have followed for the past..three or four years now. So here it goes:

1. Is it even possible anymore for you to create a game whos characters are all older than 20? Im very tired of the "children with power" motif that most Jrpgs push these days. Im sick of seeing a baby faced teen (or preteen) thrust with the responsibility of saving the world. Its impractical, highly improbable, illogical, and finally very very played out. I watched this trailer and the only 2 characters that seemed older than 14, managed to look liked their own played out stereotypes.

flowing along with that topic

2. Can we please for once have original character design that strays away from overused stereotypes?
Â - Can we for once have a main character that DOESN'T fall in love with the main female lead? Maybe he already has a wife somewhere. In addition can we please have the majority of the cast be above the age of 21? That way they can have some realistic living experience and maturity to handle the situations that confront them.
Â - Can we have female characters that are strong, but not biker boot lesbian butch? Honestly, a woman can be a strong personality without being super macho independent, short haired, and battle hardened. Strong willed women that are attractive and dare i say average looking DO exist gentlemen.
Â - On that same token, can we please have a female character that isnt a fluffy faery overly sensitive type? is that even possible in your games these days?
Â - Can we please ditch the "big strong and dumb" archetype for your characters that are obviously supposed to be based off of Americans? Considering that the United States absolutely crushes Japan in terms of ethnic diversity, you would think it would be easy to find inspiration for an American themed character.
Â - If a character is older and experienced can we ditch the "wize half spectacles" that they always wear? Citan Uzuki from Xenogears, and Whoever the guy with the backpack is in the video look almost exactly the same. And im almost positive they fulfill the same roll (backup, voice of reason for the dashing young heroes that save the day)

3. CHOICE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CAN WE HAVE CHOICE?! I understand the need to convey a story you wish to convey, but can we live up to the genre name and actually make a ROLE PLAYING game? And if your going to refuse that then please ditch the old tired themes that we have seen in the past 4 (probably soon 5) final fantasy games? Ditch the main lead, and the main female love story, ditch the damsel in distress, stray away (or delve entirely into) fantasy, get out of the steam punk theme that seems so popular these days. And finally create a REAL villain thats motivated by something other than his overly sensitive feelings of loss and betrayal.

4. Graphics! If you've seen FF10, then you have pretty much seen the art style that square used for the next few years. Lots of elegant flowing curves. An abundance of ornate and overdone "royal rug" textures that you see on every floor, and every set of rich clothing. And worst of all the sparkly cloudy appearance of almost every magic attack. Why cant you go back to how magic was in Final Fantasy 9? Just because tech got better doesn't mean you have to abandon the "aggressive" and hard feel the magic in that game had. Every magic spell square has designed since FF10 has been very ethereal, soft, and fluffy. Go look! Everything is sparkly and soft, and transparent. The most amazing fire spells look like orange clouds erupting.

5. Too many effects! This plays off of number 4 a bit. Can we please have it so not every spell looks like the end of the world? Its sad when a 4 hit melee combo looks like an F5 tornado made of rainbows and gumdrops. There is such a thing as "too much!" but Square-enix just doesn't seem to know about it yet.

6. Going back to characters, MAKE A GAME THAT DOES NOT HAVE A SUPER CUTE TINY CHARACTER MEANT FOR COMIC RELIEF! Not every game needs this. No you don't always have to cater to the raving yaoi fangirls.

7. Try something other than the 3-4 party, ATB style fighting (and every iteration of it you may think of, including that featured in FF12). Its possible to do combat in real time, and in fact that can be very fun. Imagine a real time combat system that still had all the magic and spells you have in an ATB system. If you design it right you could probably develop the most revolutionary RPG combat system of the age.

8. ALWAYS REMEMBER that the games you make are often played WORLD WIDE! Not just in japan! STOP stuffing your games full of Japanese trends. Believe it or not, people do enjoy something different. Im not saying make it overly American. What I'm saying is do something different. Get away from the long hair and effeminate male leads, and submissive females. Try something completely new! Create a unique culture within the game who's roots are NOT based in Japan (because if you look closely every game you've made is.) The world will thank you for seeing something new!

Â Â Â Â Thats it for now, im sure there's more in my head but that's all that's coming out at this moment. Feel free to agree or disagree. I look forward to your comments. The video that spurred this is linked at the top.

Why I'm Voting For McCain

Marsh — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 02:09:01 -0400

Simply put, I think we have a much better chance of winning both the Iraq and AfghanistanÂ conflicts with McCain in the lead. He's shown tremendous foresight in defenseÂ policy by calling for changes in strategy years before anyone else when it was political suicide to do so. In 2004 and 2005 McCain was the only public figure that passionatlyÂ supportedÂ the troop surge when the entire nation, left and right, and the entire world seemingly, was totally against it.

Long story short, McCain was right and everyone else, including Obama and Biden, were wrong. And thanks to his efforts,Â andÂ ourÂ brave men and women on the ground most of all,Â the tides have turned in Iraq and victory is now a likely outcome. Now, some of you might be thinking "So what? Who cares if we win or lose in a war several thousand miles away? Honestly, who gives a crap? We should be spending the money on healthcare instead. And our staying in Iraq only creates more terrorists. Dur."

Well, I don't know about you guys, but I think the terrorists winning a decisive victory in Iraq and Afghanistan is aÂ really really bad thing for future security and global stability. History has proven time and time again that anytime a violent movement takes place and is percieved to be successful, then supporters flock to their cause in droves. And anytime that violentÂ movement suffers defeat after defeat then it slowly dies out and people would rather carry on with their normal lives thanÂ join the cause.

I dunno about you guys, but I'd rather not let the terrorist movement gain momentum. And what greater way to carry that momentum than a overwhelming victory over the mighty United States of America? Are you starting toÂ understand why retreating from Iraq might not be the brightest idea now? If we go back a couple decades in history to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, you can a get an even better understanding on this issue.

In the early 1980s the Soviets invaded Afghanistan inÂ a blatantÂ attempt to steal territory and expand their empire. This resulted in the creation of Osama, the Taliban and an international terrorist group. So unlike whatÂ the liberal history revisionists say, it was the Soviets that played a much larger role in creating these modern day terrorists than the United States. But of course, the terrorists themselves and their arab supporters are responsible for their own actions.

A lot of people have tried to blame America for the creation of Osama, which is absurd*, since the CIA gave the Taliban some trainingÂ like shoulder launchedÂ anti-aircraft missiles for shooting down Soviet transport aircraft. That's like blaming us for the creation of the Soviet Union because we gave them aid in WWII... Anyway, the Taliban and the Jihadists were ultimately successful in resisting Soviet aggression and what do you know, a few years later the Soviet Union collapsed.

This was a huge boost for the terrorists and they thought "Hmmm if we can defeat one super power, then we can defeat America as well. Durka durka jihad!" And that's why we can't let them win in Iraq. We already rocked their world and gave them a crushing blow in Afghanistan by easily succeeding where the Soviets failed for years. U.S. Army Special Forces and later an international coalition defeated the Taliban and destroyed the terrorists bases in a matter of weeks.

We need to keep that momentum up and not allow the Taliban to slowly retake Afghanistan or the terrorists toÂ recreate sectarian violence and chaos in Iraq. And who better to accomplish those goals than John McCain? Well, that's the main reason I'm voting for him. I also agree with him on a lot of otherÂ issues andÂ respect him for having the correct positions on the environment and closing down Camp X-Ray and being againstÂ torture. I hope all you guys go to voteÂ in this next electionÂ and put a lot of thought into who you're voting for.

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_aENuLFBn8Â

Why pet classes suck and you should avoid playing one

Sciar — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:51:11 -0400

Visual proof.

Lock pets are fine

Video details (If you stream and can't see anything) I ran the in game stopwatch, This rogues in mostly S3 gear as he hasn't been played until recently in S4.

From pet open to pet kill 6 seconds, from 1 rogue. Try keeping that thing alive in arenas on a game built around long forms of spammable crowd control. It's only 20% of my incoming damage, my dispel and my counterspell. Yknow the kind of stuff that loses you games if it goes down.

http://files.filefront.com/Lockpetwmv/;11627047;/fileinfo.html

My warlock has 13.5k hp and 503 resilience while still rolling 1250 spell damage. Doesn't mean a thing when my retard pet with 6.5k hp (buffed because of good warlock gear) goes down hard.

Awesome

I love you guys and your internet hate, this really does work well spam that ****!

FFTcomics weekly comic - Lighting Bolt

Lipton — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:49:07 -0400

http://fftcomics.com/day33.htm

Related Post:
StarCraft 2 fan art appreciation post

I'm 13 and I want to have a baby girl

Slappywag — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:39:55 -0400

http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AtKhNCs294KmVx.Qd7EicSdHcxV.;_ylv=3?qid=20080827212700AAFHurW

Is anyone actually opposed to people having to take some sort of intelligence test or something before they're allowed to reproduce?

Like, actually.

Blizzard and the Carrot on a Stick Part 1

Damballah — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:14:24 -0400

I have always loved Blizzard. I've always felt from day one that their level of quality was second to none. I've played every game of theirs over thousands of hours, from the Zerg, to Bloody Foothills, to the depths of Molten Core. Recently, my faith in them has been shaken. I came to a startling realization:

Their games aren't that great.

I know. It can't be. Heresy. Break out the flamethrowers. Burn the heretic. Before you flame me into next week, know this: I have invested more of my life in Blizzard games than I care to admit. I am 31 years old now, and have been playing them for more than a decade, so how am I thinking this way just now all of a sudden?

It started with Starcraft 2. I am a huge RTS fan and have played every notable RTS that has ever existed, most recently Supreme Commander, and Company of Heroes. When the first gameplay videos hit, I clicked and eagerly waited for the joy to come.

It never did. As I scrutinized the footage I noticed several things, all negative.

1. No new races?
2. Cover system?
3. Big destructible environments that alter the map?
4. No squad based units and morale?
5. No hero/commander type units?
6. Bigger scale? More Epic?

I just assumed since Company of Heroes was so amazing, this stuff would easily be standard going forward. It looked like Starcraft 1 with better graphics and new units. As far as I was concerned, the bar was raised, and I felt Blizzard didn't keep up. I felt their drive for innovation faltering, as they bathe in piles of cash. I could write a lot more on this, but I'll move on.

Then came World of Warcraft. I have been in the same guild for 3 years+ and was there for every 1st time kill we had from Lucifron-AQ40. I did a good amount of raiding, levelled up in the original honor system to R10 (I had a job) and invested over 3000 hours. I just got bored. When dailies first came up, I remember thinking "Man this is great, easy money repeatable every day". Then I read some guys comment on a blog, maybe here:

"You know dailies are just a second job right, you go do some chores and get paid."

It hit me like a ton of bricks. How I never came to this realization before that baffles me to this day. I quit raiding, farming for mats, anything even remotely resembling grinding, ending in quitting the game. I reflected back on how many dozens of times I raided MC and BWL. How many times I farmed mats or grinded alts. How often was I actually having fun?

This caused me to look back on my Diablo days. I played an Assassin, and did ENDLESS Tristram and Bloody Foothills and Baal runs. I had a pre-nerf Skullder's Ire I sold on Ebay for 250 Bucks. I mean, I played the hell out of that game. Again, in retrospect, I asked myself: How much of that time was actually fun?

So, then Diablo 3 rolls around. I scrutinized the gameplay footage, and it looked pretty decent. Then I came to another realization: It's a dungeon crawler clickfest. You know why NO ONE else has been successful with those? The MMO model outmoded it. Dungeon Siege, Titan's Quest, Sacred, all failures, despite being arguably superior to Diablo. However, people everywhere were soiling themselves over D3. Why? The Blizzard Reality Distortion Field (BRDF). This RDF term is usually applied to Apple, but I believe Blizzard has it all over Apple in reality distortion field technology. Blizzard has gained such unbelieveable devotion, I'd argue Blizzard fanboys would eat Apple fanboys for lunch. Again, I may elaborate more later, but moving on for now.

Looking for more help I asked Gameriot's own Roma Victor, who wrote a great article on this at:

http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/The-Life-e-Casual/WoWs-Ten-Greatest-Failures

I asked Roma: "If you had to put a percentage on it, what percentage of the total time you have played Wow would you say that you were involved in actual "fun" activity?"

His answer was 10%. Very, Very low. My initial assessment was around 30 or so percent, which upon further review, is probably a lot lower. So then I kept thinking, how did they get me? How did they get me to go through so much **** that wasn't fun, to get to a small percentage that was fun?

The answer, of course, is the carrot. The carrot on a stick. Where Blizzard was essentially ahead of the curve, is that they discovered that people will do ANYTHING, no matter how un-fun or bull**** it is, to get a shiny item that gives them a nice e-peen boost over other people. Run Bloody Foothills for the 5002nd time? No problem. Run AV for the 3454th time? No problem. Raiding Kara a year and a half straight for badges? Ok.

Obviously, they were not the first to have powerful items in a game, or even have powerful items in a multiplayer game. Where they differentiated themselves, was that they were the first to make the advancement via items, and their application to player ego THE FOCUS OF THE GAME. Yet, the brilliance in the model is that you can't "beat" the game.

"Oh" you argue, "I've got a 2500 arena rating, I pretty much beat WoW."
-I say you win traded.
-I say you were carried.
-I say your comp is OP.
-I say you are in a crappy BG.
-I say unless you are making 50K plus playing it you fail.
-I say you aren't farming Kil Jaeden so you are a failure.
-I say your Hydraxian Waterlord rep is Neutral, so you are a raiding noob.

The list goes on. No matter what accomplishment you have in the game, I can break you down. So you farm harder, you grind more, all in attemping to attain "maximum e-peen" chasing down the carrot. The Armory was really what took it to the next level. Now, everyone's accomplishments were IMMEDIATELY verifiable. Got one gem slightly lower quality? Noob. One rep not maxed out? Noob. Etc. The Armory, coupled with Arena rating, took e-peen to another stratosphere. In what was thought to be impossible, Blizzard made people care about their e-peen EVEN MORE than before.

So now, here we are, at the crux of the matter. I said their games aren't great. They aren't all that. Frankly, Starcraft is overrated, and Diablo and WoW have an incredibly low "fun percentage" ratio. IMO the best game Blizzard ever did was Warcraft 3. I feel that that was it for them, the peak of their innovation, and everything else is good, but not great.

So, I know this blog is new, and I barely scratched the surface of MMO psychology, but I want to ask you all:

Was it worth it? What percentage of time were you engaged in ACTUAL FUN ACTIVITY? Don't even try to convince me you were having fun farming up your mats or levelling your 4th 70. BE HONEST.

Later.

ps: The next one is why WOTLK is a colossal failure and makes your "fun percentage" dramatically lower.

Zero Punctuation Wednesday: Just how good is 'Braid'?

Slapnuts — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:22:15 -0400

Line of the week:

"and then it's back to text boxes which leave me confused and unsatisfied, which incidentally is how my girlfriend feels most nights and I refuse to accept that it's just because I'm thick"

I have been hearing almost everyone rave about this Braid game, but not having a 360 obviously means I can't play it.Â The good news is that it will make it's way to the PC sometime this year at which point I may check it out.Â

The game is similar to Portal with its use of the "rewind" gimmick which is key to navigating around in the world.Â It is a 3D platformer as well which apparently cost Jonathan Blow $180,000 of his own money to develop.Â Wow!