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Archives for 2012

Flash Point 47: Dim Sim The Dog Dies (On The Toilet)

December 2, 2012 by

MMO podcastWe get through a large number of topics this episode, which features Matthjew “Scope” Pearce as guest co-host to talk about WOrld of Tanks in addition to his encyclopaedic SWTOR knowledge.

Points of discussion:

SWTOR
– Post F2p impressions
– more quickbar slots and character slots for preferred players
– cartel market discussion
– 1.6 on PTS, including PTS gripes and heroic space combat missions
– PvP / Battlemaster gear

TSW
– Issue #4 impressions
– Issue #5 hints
– toilet seat talk
– Albion Theatre fun (official forum link)
– brief cricket disagreement

WoW
– 5.1 Landfall impressions (nice overview here)
– WoW ain’t dead yet
– Project Blackstone
– ZAGGARAT – amazing zone by zone achievement guide by our own Jemima.

Other
– GW2 customer service
– City of Heroes closing
– World of Tanks overview and discussion, Patch 8.1 and 8.2
– Firefall beta
– Comics coverage
– assorted brief snippets on Borderlands 2, Sim City, PS3 Home Tycoon, Weird Al Yankovic’s Albuquerque (must watch vid link)

– Shout outs for our forums, Facebook page, Twitter account, Simon’s Twitter account and Kristy’s Blog.

Please review or rate the podcast on iTunes if you can – it makes a huge difference!

Listen via iTunes or right here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:15:06 — 34.4MB)

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Filed Under: General News, Podcast Tagged With:

Introducing: Comics Coverage At The Oceanic Gamer

December 1, 2012 by

The pride of my comic collection: a Stan Lee signed Daredevil #3 from 1964

This is a pretty exciting announcement for us at The Oceanic Gamer. A large majority of our team are comics lovers, some like me for more than 30 years. So it has always been a temptation to cover comics, even more so after the past year where comics have had such a huge impact on popular culture.

What sealed the deal was when we had someone approach us offering to write on comics – that someone being New Zealand’s own Mr Sean Robinson. You can find out more about Sean here, but I asked Sean to pen something as an introduction to coincide with the launch of our comics coverage:

Hey everyone!

I’m Sean, your new Comics Writer. I’m really excited to be a part of the team here at Oceanic Gamer, and I hope you guys will enjoy the new section as much as I know I will. I plan to bring you; dear reader, the best of what I can cover. From new releases to more classic titles, each week I plan to broaden your horizons, whether you are long time reader or new to the realm of comics, as much as my own, drawing on new favourites, picking up on titles you may have missed, and giving spotlight to some of the more independent publications. If you have any specific titles you want to recommend, or have a comic that you are on the fence about and want me to suffer through before you do, let me know on twitter @Pipes815 or via the site’s contact form!

Aside from Sean’s great work, we’ll have plenty of guest writers and I know I’ll be indulging my comics passion as well. Most importantly, if YOU have a comic / graphic novel / webcomic you’d like to write about, let us know directly or post in comments below. We’re particularly interested in covering local efforts in the comic industry, so please get in touch if you’re a creator and would like your work reviewed.

Watch out in the next 36 hours for Sean’s first two comic reviews – in the meantime, we’d love to hear any thoughts below on our decision to add comics to the site’s mix.

Filed Under: Comics, General News

Through The Mist: 5.1 Landfall Overview

November 30, 2012 by

Through the Mist is a regular column from Luke Le Page covering everything World of Warcraft. If you’d like something covered in a future column, drop us a line!

As I’m sure most of you are aware Patch 5.1 went live yesterday. David was kind enough to announce the full list of changes – as you can see it was a fairly significant patch with a number of bug fixes as well as some added content.

The most significant inclusion for the average casual player is perhaps the first steps of the Pandaria campaign. The content can be almost exclusively completely without flagging for PvP, which for many players is a positive thing (there were a number of threads on the official forums from concerned PvE players as to whether they could participate in the campaign). The mobs for the daily quests also award Black Prince rep so it’s worthwhile getting straight into the new content even if you’re not at honoured for the additional quests for the Wrathion chain.

I ran through the initial quests with my guild mates yesterday as well as completing the two new Alliance scenarios.  I have to say that this is the first time, with the possible exclusion of the Death Knight starter quests (that I can currently think of) in WoW’s lifespan where I can see the growth of an NPC character through quests. Without giving too much away for those who have not done it, King Varian Wrynn displays a number of characteristics I would not have ascribed to him previously. This bodes well for the future of this expansion and the Pandaria campaign itself.

Another major change for the average player is the introduction of item upgrades. Players can now upgrade the majority of items (both PvE and PvP). Upgrades vary in costs and the exact amounts can be seen in the patch notes. Having already upgraded a couple of items I can tell you it is relatively easy and the stat changes are made quite obvious before you finalise the process.

Probably the biggest change with this patch comes in the form of the Brawler’s guild. Whilst I personally like the concept of the Brawler’s guild I am not entirely happy with the way in which Blizzard have implemented it. Participation is via invite only – these invites can only be bought off the Black Market Auction House or from rare spawn Horde and Alliance NPC’s in the new PvP areas (I am unclear as to whether these NPCs flag you for PvP or not). Additionally you can be invited by someone with the appropriate rank within the Brawler’s guild. For the average player there is going to be a long, long wait before they will see this content. On my server, which has a fairly poor population and progression rate, invitations are already over 60k gold on the Black Market AH. The NPCs that drop invitations are heavily spawn camped. Hopefully Blizzard will continue to increase the amount of invitations and the way in which they can be obtained.

Pet battles have also received some attention, the user interface now has added functionality that makes it easier to sort, select and use pets. We can now also see the quality of a pet during a battle. This is handy for knowing what to catch but it takes the fun out of researching pet families so that you can work out quality yourself during combat based off their stats. We also saw the addition of new pets to older raid instances (which now incidentally no longer need raid groups to enter). A single run of Molten Core saw me snag the Corefire Imp and a Blackwing Lair run rewarded me with Chrominius and the Untamed Hatchling so the drop rates seem quite good.

I won’t go into the many class changes as I’m sure many of you are more familiar with the classes that received nerfs or buffs than I am. Rogues once again saw fairly minor changes.

UI wise we have seen the addition of a “banner” when under the effects of crowd control. This has received some fairly negative feedback – personally I think it’s an excellent addition by Blizzard and means one less add on.

As many people expected the new Warlock quest chain was omitted from 5.1 and is now slated to be released in patch 5.2.

As some of you are aware I am off on holidays for the entirety of December, so this will be my last column for a little while, I was hoping to get into more detail on the changes but last minute preparations coupled with my recent engagement have left me rather busy.  So merry Christmas and enjoy Patch 5.1!

Filed Under: General News, Opinion, WoW Tagged With:

Blitzkrieg: Chinese Tier X Heavy Tank – WZ-111 Model 5A

November 29, 2012 by

Blitzkrieg is a regular column devoted to the very popular MMO World of Tanks. If you’ve got a topic you’d like our resident expert Matthew “Scope” Pearce to cover, drop him a line!

G’day gamers. Recently, Patch 8.2 hit the World of Tanks PTS and I was able to try out  the new Chinese Tier X heavy tank: the WZ-111 Model 5A

History of the WZ-111 Model 5A.

WZ-111 Model 5A

The WZ-111 Model 5A was a prototype of a heavy tank developed in the early 1960’s with the aim of modernising the armoured forces of the People’s Liberation Army. The vehicle was conceived as a response to the Soviet T-10 tank, which was an evolution of the IS-2 and the IS-3 tanks. During construction and testing of the prototype, many shortcomings were discovered and in 1964 development was discontinued.

  

WZ-111 Model 5A

Not bad for my third game in the WZ-111 model 5A

 

 Survivability, Speed and Armour

The WZ-111 Model 5A has 150mm sloped frontal hull armour, 80mm side hull armour and 60mm of rear hull armour. I found the upper frontal armour to be rather bouncy due to the V-shaped slope similar to that of the Soviet IS-3 and IS-7 tanks. Unfortunately the WZ-111 Model 5A does not copy the IS-7 and IS-3’s lower frontal plate and thus it is a weak spot on the WZ-111 Model 5A along with the side and rear armour being easily penetrated.

The turret armour however is not to be scoffed at with a very bouncy 230mm of curved frontal turret armour, 120mm of side and 60mm rear turret armour. I found myself often bouncing Tier IX and X shells from the front and sides of my turret.

The WZ-111 model 5A has a top speed of 50km/h powered by a 750hp V-2-54SC engine with a traverse speed of 36deg. One of the great things about the WZ-111 is that it has good terrain negotiation and is capable of maintaining around 90% of its top speed in off road situations.

The WZ-111 turret does have a low traverse speed of only 26deg a second, but a good tanker can make up for that by turning the tank the same direction, adding the tank’s traverse of 36deg a second, giving you overall a 62deg traverse speed if needed.

The biggest problem I have with this tank is the lack of gun depression. You simply cannot aim the gun down making it very hard if you are fighting from a high place to engage targets lower then yourself.

A look at both guns

The WZ-111 model 5A comes with the 122mm 60-122T gun which has an average penetration of 257mm, damage of 440 while having an accuracy of 0.36 at 100m and a rate of fire of 5.77 rounds per minute. This gives a total of 2538.8 damage per minute.

The WZ-111 model 5A can upgrade to the 130mm 59-130T gun which has an average penetration of 244mm damage of 490 while having an accuracy of 0.38 at 100m and a rate of fire of 5 rounds per minute which gives the 130mm 59-130T 2450 damage per minute.

Both of the guns have slightly lower penetration values than their Soviet counterparts but make up for it with a higher accuracy and a faster rate of fire.

Comparison between the Chinese and Soviet guns

WZ-111 Model 5A: 122mm 440dmg 5.77rpm 2538.8dpm 0.36acc 257pen

IS-4 122mm: 440dmg 5rpm 2200dpm 0.38acc 268pen

WZ-111 Model 5A: 130mm 490dmg 5rpm 2450dpm 0.38 244pen

IS-7 130mm: 490dmg 4.38rpm 2146.2dpm 0.4 260pen

  

Will this tank be used in Clan Wars?

The WZ-111 Model 5A has the same frontal armour as the IS-7 as well as the same top speed of 50kmph, but it does not have the same side or rear armour. In fact, it has much less side and rear armour than the IS-7 but that lower side and rear armour allow the WZ-111 to traverse a lot faster than the IS-7 can.

The guns are very similar to the Soviet ones but with less penetration, a better rate of fire and better accuracy. So I think that the WZ-111 may have a place in clan wars where a more accurate and manoeuvrable  IS-7 is required – its higher damage per minute is an added bonus.

Will I be working towards getting myself the WZ-111 Model 5A in Patch 8.2?

To be honest no, but not because the WZ-111 Model 5A is a bad tank – I am busy saving up for the new German Tier X medium Leopard 1. Maybe in the future once I have obtained a Leopard 1 I may start down the new Chinese tree, but I’m currently still working on my British medium line.

So over to you my fellow tank commanders: will you be working towards getting yourself a WZ-111 model 5A?

Filed Under: General News, World of Tanks Tagged With:

And Another Thing: MMO Subscription Numbers

November 28, 2012 by

MMO Subscription Numbers

‘And Another Thing’ is a regular column where one of the Oceanic Gamer team get an issue off their chest. If you’ve got a pet peeve or controversial issue you’d like to write about, drop us a line. This week’s column sees us welcome Darren Taylor to the fold – great to have you on board Darren!

There is a lot of talk these days that MMO success is a result of how many people are subscribing. World of Warcraft appears to be once again over 10 million subscribers whereas other MMOs are lucky to break several hundred thousand. Trion Worlds (the makers of Rift) has stated with its relatively small number of subscribers, that it is highly profitable and was awarded extra funding to further develop the game and expand into other countries.

To be honest, I am really not concerned with subscription numbers when playing as long as there is a healthy chat, people running around and it’s relatively easy to get a group for a dungeon or quest.  In fact I find Rift one of the easiest games to get a group in, even compared to the behemoth World of Warcraft.

Rift and The Secret World have done some great work to get its players to feel that their servers are thriving with life. Rift recently cut out the limitations of factions, enabling players from both factions to be in the same guild, group for the same instances, in effect doubling the population. Cross-server chat and grouping also increases the pool of people available. The Secret World has done something similar with its dimensions, enabling players to communicate, group and quest with anyone on any other of its servers, hence its much-advertised single server technology.

In both games, the world is very alive and no matter what time zone you play, you can always find people to group with. You don’t often see people complaining about populations, as they never seem to have a lack of players willing to do something in the game.

Star Wars; The Old Republic, with its huge following at launch did one thing very wrong with its perception of population. I bet you all know and remember the instance player numbers at the top of your screen everywhere you go. I tend to call it the “worry meter” and unfortunately it proved to be just that. How often did you see people complain that there were only 50 people in fleet on their server? I am willing to bet that if that player number wasn’t there would have been less complaints and less concern. It seems they may have corrected that a little with group finder, cross server and also their take on mega servers, although I am not sure how the Aussie servers are doing as of late.

I think that all MMOs will embrace the one server mentality in one way or other and players will always have someone to group and play with even if there are only a few hundred people online at a given time.  From a player point of view, we should no longer base the success on the game based on investor calls or released figures but how each game uses their ability to bring their players together. I am happy playing games that have a reported smaller number of subscribers compared to some, as long as I can enjoy everything the game has to offer.

Do you agree?

 

Filed Under: General News, Op-Ed, The Secret World Tagged With:

WoW 5.1 Full Patch Notes

November 28, 2012 by

WoW Patch 5.1 has dropped, and what a beauty it is.

We’ll have a full overview in Luke LePage’s Through The Mist column soon, but in the meantime, feast your eyes on the WoW 5.1 full patch notes:

 

World of Warcraft Patch 5.1

General

  • The Pandaren Campaign begins!
    • The conflict between the Horde and the Alliance has ignited a new series of daily quests along the shore of the Krasarang Wilds.
    • Players can visit their faction strongholds in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms to begin the quest to summon their war fleets to the continent of Pandaria.
    • Players will both valiantly defend their faction’s outpost and assault the opposing faction’s headquarters.
    • Two new Reputations have been added: Alliance players can earn reputation with Operation: Shieldwall, while Horde players will curry favor with the Dominance Offensive.
    • Players can follow the story of the Pandaren Campaign through a series of special quests tied to their reputation with the landing forces. Heroes assisting with the war effort will join key characters and faction leaders as the growing conflagration spreads across Pandaria… as well as other locations around Azeroth.
    • Players can slay rival NPCs and opposing faction players along the shore to earn commissions that can be spent to upgrade their faction’s base.
    • Look for strategic objectives to capture, including graveyards and towers. Commissions can be spent to recruit guards that will help protect this captured territory!
    • Players who are truly dedicated to their faction can spend their commissions on an item that will give their fellows an extra reputation group quest for the day. Horde players can speak with Ongrom Black Tooth, while Alliance players can contact Proveditor Grantley for details.
  • Item Level Upgrades
    • Players can now use PvE and PvP currencies to directly upgrade equipment by visiting Ethereal merchants in their respective Pandaria faction capitals.
    • Weapons and armor of item level 458 or higher can be improved by up to 8 item levels each.
    • Rare quality PvE gear costs 1500 Justice Points to upgrade once for 8 item levels, while Epic quality PvE gear costs 750 Valor Points for 4 item levels and can be upgraded twice.
    • Rare quality PvP gear costs 1500 Honor Points to upgrade once for 8 item levels, while Epic quality PvP gear costs 750 Conquest Points for 4 item levels and can be upgraded twice.
    • Be aware that items that have received item level enhancements cannot be placed into Void Storage.
  • Legendary Quest
    • Wrathion has taken a keen interest in the events along the coast of the Krasarang Wilds. Those that have aided the Black Prince in the past will now have new quests to complete as they advance Wrathion’s agenda for Pandaria and their own progress toward Legendary power.
  • Brawler’s Guild
    • Underground fighting rings have sprung up in Stormwind and Orgrimmar that will give brawlers who have their mitts on an invitation a chance to earn bragging rights by testing their solo PvE mettle against some of the toughest creatures found in World of Warcraft.
    • Players will prove their skill, and increase their rank with the Brawler’s Guild, as they win matches against some of the most difficult solo encounters in World of Warcraft.
    • Entry into the brawler’s guild is by invitation only. Invitations can be found on the black market auction house, by invitation from somebody within the guild, and occasionally as drops from certain Horde and Alliance NPCs.
    • As their Brawler’s Guild rank increases, players will unlock additional rewards and activities within the Brawler’s Guild.
    • Brawlers on a realm will gather together into the blood spattered ring to watch as their peers face down their own opponents. They can watch the battles in progress to learn from hardened Brawler’s Guild veterans as they wait for their own turn to fight.
    • If this is your first night at Brawler’s Guild, you have to fight.
  • Lesser Charms of Good Fortune no longer take up bag space, and are now recorded in the currency tab of the Character Sheet.
  • Grand Commendations are now available for purchase from all Mists of Pandaria faction vendors at Revered reputation. Using a Grand Commendation will permanently increase the amount of reputation gained with that faction across all characters on a Battle.net account.

Classes

  • The durations of all disarm effects have been reduced to 8 seconds.
  • The Weakened Blows effect has a new icon.
  • Death Knight
    • Damage received from players (or player-controlled sources) no longer counts towards increasing the healing done by Death Strike.
  • Druid
    • A new passive ability has been added: Tooth and Claw. This ability causes autoattacks to have a chance to empower the Druid’s next Maul. Empowered Mauls reduce the damage dealt by the target’s next autoattack. Guardian Druids obtain this ability at level 32.
    • Omen of Clarity now has a different visual effect for Feral Druids.
    • Symbiosis:
      • Mass Dispel’s mana cost has been increased to match the Priest version, and its cooldown has been increased to 60 seconds.
      • The cast time of Symbiosis has been reduced to 2 seconds.
      • Survival Instincts is once again granted to Brewmaster Monks and now costs 2 Chi to use.
      • Might of Ursoc is once again granted to Blood Death Knights, and now costs 30 Runic Power.
      • Savage Defense is once again granted to Protection Warriors, but now only provides a 30% increase to dodge.
      • Barkskin is once again granted to Protection Paladins, and now costs 1 Holy Power.
      • The cooldown of Stampeding Shout provided by Symbiosis has been reduced to 5 minutes.
      • The duration of Solar Beam provided by Symbiosis now displays correctly as 4 seconds.
    • Glyphs
      • The Glyph of Solar Beam has been changed, and now increases the radius of Solar Beam to 10 yards (was 5 yards).
      • The duration of Solar Beam has been reduced to 8 seconds.
  • Hunter
    • Careful Aim now increases the critical strike chance of Steady Shot and Aimed Shot by 75% on targets who are above 80% health, down from 90%.
    • The duration of Steady Focus has been increased to 20 seconds, up from 10 seconds.
    • Aspect of the Fox has been removed.
    • Steady Shot, Cobra Shot, and Barrage can now always be cast on the move.
    • Lynx Rush has been changed. Lynx Rush is now a bleed effect that causes damage every 3 seconds over a period of 15 seconds, and stacks up to 9 times.
    • Bestial Wrath no longer grants Hunter pets immunity to crowd control effects, and instead now breaks existing crowd control effects when activated.
    • Glyphs
      • The Glyph of Icy Solace has been renamed to Glyph of Solace, and now causes both Scattershot and Freezing Trap to remove all damage over time effects from the target.
      • Glyph of Scattering has been removed.
      • A new Major Glyph has been added: Glyph of Aimed Shot. This glyph allows Aimed Shot to be used while moving.
  • Mage
    • The damage buff from Arcane Charge has been increased from 22% to 25%, and Arcane Blast’s mana cost increase when affected by Arcane Charge is now +75% (was +125%).
    • Rune of Power’s duration now shows in the UI, and no longer has a cooldown (was 6 seconds).
    • Ring of Frost now has a 45 second cooldown, up from 30 seconds, and can no longer affect more than 10 targets.
    • The duration of Deep Freeze has been reduced to 4 seconds.
    • Frost Bomb will now detonate after 6 seconds (up from 5 seconds). Detonation speed is still affected by haste.
    • Mage Armor now reduces the duration of harmful Magic effects by 25% (down from 35%).
    • The damage absorbed by Ice Barrier has been reduced by 25%.
    • Combustion’s periodic damage is now based only on the current Ignite, instead of both Ignite and Pyroblast. Damage has been increased to bring it up to approximately the same level as before.
    • Blazing Speed may now be triggered after recieving damage in any amount.
    • The mana cost of Spellsteal has been increased to 21% of base mana for Fire and Frost mages, up from 7%.
  • Monk
    • Spear Hand Strike now costs 10 energy (was 30).
    • All healing spells which cost mana have had their mana cost increased by 10%.
    • The energy costs of Legacy of the Emperor, and Legacy of the White Tiger have been reduced to 20, down from 50.
    • The energy cost of Healing Sphere has been reduced to 40, down from 60.
    • The Tiger Power provided by Tiger Palm now reduces target armor by 30% with a single application and no longer stacks.
    • Stance of the Fierce Tiger now increases the Monk’s movement speed by 10% in addition to its other effects. This movement speed increase stacks with other effects.
    • The healing provided by Enveloping Mists has been reduced by 32%.
    • The healing provided by the Healing Sphere base spell has been increased by 20%.
    • The healing provided by Chi Burst and Chi Wave has been reduced by 25%.
    • The healing provided when detonating Zen Sphere has been reduced by 25%.
    • The chance to generate 1 Chi while channeling Soothing Mist and Crackling Jade Lightning has increased to 35%, up from 25%.
    • The Power Strikes talent now grants the Power Strikes effect every 20 seconds, which causes the Monk’s next attack to generate 1 additional Chi.
    • The Healing Elixirs talent now grants the Healing Elixirs effect every 18 seconds, which causes the next Brew or Tea consumed to heal the Monk for 10% of maximum health.
    • Mistweaver
      • Enveloping Mist is now available at level 16, down from level 34.
      • You now have a chance equal to your crit chance to generate double the amount of Mana Tea charges.
      • Renewing Mists now travels to 2 additional targets (was 3 targets).
      • The mana cost of Soothing Mists has been reduced by 33%.
      • Haste for Mistweavers is now 50% more effective through Stance of the Wise Serpent.
  • Paladin
    • Turn Evil is now effective against Aberrations.
    • Hand of Salvation has been changed. This ability now removes all of a target’s threat for 10 seconds.
    • Holy Paladin: The 4 piece bonus now reduces Holy Shock’s cooldown by 2 seconds, up from 1 second.
    • Retribution Paladin: The 4 piece bonus now reduces Avenging Wrath’s cooldown by 65 seconds, down from 85 seconds.
  • Priest
    • Atonement’s healing range has been increased to 40 yards, up from 15.
    • Chakras now persist through death and zoning.
    • Discipline Priests can once again learn Focused Will. This ability is obtained at level 30.
    • Spells affected by Inner Focus cast while Spirit Shell is active now fully apply critical effect heals to the shield provided.
    • Chakra: Chastise now increases the damage dealt by Shadow and Holy spells by 50% (was 15%), and reduces mana costs by 90% (was 75%) while the ability is in effect.
    • Chakra: Serenity now increases single target healing by 25%, up from 15%.
    • Chakra: Sanctuary now increases area healing by 25% up from 15%.
    • Psyfiend’s Psychic Terror cast time has been increased to 2 seconds, up from 1.5 seconds.
    • The Psyfiend’s health has been reduced to 10% of the controlling Priest’s health, down from 30%.
  • Rogue
    • The energy cost of Kick has been reduced to 10 (was 15).
    • Seal Fate will now only be activated by melee combo point generating abilities.
    • Shuriken Toss now deals double damage when used against targets further than 10 yards away.
    • The cooldown of Blind has been reduced to 90 seconds, down from 3 minutes.
    • The energy cost of the Burst of Speed talent has been reduced to 50 energy, down from 60 energy.
    • Wound Poison now deals 33% more damage.
  • Shaman
    • All totems are now considered spells, and summoning totems can be prevented by silencing effects. Searing Totem, Magma Totem, and Fire Elemental totems fall into the Fire school, while all other totems fall under the Nature school.
  • Warlock
    • Aura of the Elements and Aura of Enfeeblement can now be dispelled as Magic effects.
    • Demonic Gateway must now be activated by the player wishing to teleport.
    • Kil’jaeden’s Cunning now longer imposes a cast time penalty.
    • Banish is now effective against Aberrations.
    • Kil’jaeden’s Cunning’s snare has been increased from 10% per stack to 15% per stack.
    • Rain of Fire
      • Rain of Fire no longer causes a stun after hitting a target three times.
      • Aftermath will now grant Rain of Fire’s damage over time effect a chance to generate Burning Embers.
      • Rain of Fire no longer requires Immolate to be present to generate Burning Embers.
      • Rain of Fire’s damage over time will now hit every 1 second, down from 2 seconds. The damage animation for the damage over time effect will no longer always display.
    • Removed the ranged Melee attack from Demonology Warlocks in Metamorphosis form, and increased the damage of Doom by 25% to compensate.
    • Conflagrate now generates Burning Embers.
    • Demonic Gateway’s duration has been increased to 20 15 minutes, and it will no longer despawn if the Warlock moves too far away. In addition, this ability can no longer be used in any capital city.
    • Glyphs
      • A new Minor Glyph has been added: Glyph of Gateway Attunement. This glyph will cause a Warlock’s Demonic Gateway to transport them immediately when they step on it.
  • Warrior
    • Avatar no longer grants immunity to movement impairing effects, and instead now instantly breaks movement impairing effects. This ability also no longer generates addiitonal Rage while active. Its duration has increased to 24 seconds (was 20 seconds).
    • The cooldown of Intimidating Shout has increased to 90 seconds, up from 60 seconds.
    • The silence provided by Glyph of Gag Order is no longer effective against players.

Items

  • Spirit of Harmony can now be purchased for 600 Conquest Points at the Conquest Quartermaster.
  • Item Enhancements
    • The Dancing Steel, Jade Spirit, Colossus, and River’s Song enchantments now use the Real PPM system utilized by Windsong and Elemental Force.

Pet Battles

  • A new item has been introduced that can be used to upgrade the quality of Battle Pets: Battle-stones.
    • Battle-stones are available in two basic types, general purpose Battle-stones that can be used to upgrade the quality of any pet, and family specific Battle-stones, which can only be used to upgrade pets of a specific pet family.
    • Battle-stones are available in two qualities: Flawless Battle-stones can upgrade pets directly to Rare quality, while Polished Battle-stones will upgrade a pet to Uncommon quality.
    • Players will have a very small chance to obtain a general purpose and family specific Flawless Battle-stone after winning a match against wild pets; defeating higher level opponents increases the chances of obtaining a stone. Family specific Flawless-Battlestones will be of the same family as the pets that were defeated. These valuable items are not soulbound, and can be sold on the Auction House.
    • Family specific Flawless Battle-stones can be found in the Sack of Pet Supplies obtained from performing Pet Trainer quests, and are Bind on Pickup.
    • General purpose Polished Battle-stones can be purchased for 1000 Justice Points.
  • Pet Journal
    • The quality of each pet is now visible in its slot in the Pet Journal.
    • Pets can now be filtered by name, type, rarity and level, and filters will remain in place each time the Pet Journal is viewed.
    • It is now possible to search locations in the Pet Journal. For example, searching “Westfall” will display all the Battle Pets that can be found in Westfall.
  • Pet Battle music is now more appropriate for the type of match being fought.
  • Several new Pet Battle PvP areas have been added to the world.
  • Several classic Raid bosses now have a chance to drop new Battle Pets. The new pets can be obtained from bosses in Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Ahn’Qiraj, and Naxxramas.
  • Abilities that have been used will now continue to cool down for pets when they are not the active pet in a battle.
  • Right clicking a pet’s portrait will now offer the option to look it up in the Pet Journal.
  • Players can now keep up to 650 pets.
  • Battle Pet tooltips will now display whether a pet is owned, and how many pets of that type are owned.
  • Pet Quality is now displayed in battles, and will be visible on portraits, names and tooltips.
  • The level of battle pets in a zone can now be seen on the map, and it’s now possible to see the strength of wild pets relative to your team at a glance.
  • Backline pets now display debuffs affecting them as well as the remaining duration of these effects.
  • The experience multiplier obtained by all seven Grand Master pet trainers in Pandaria has been increased to x5 from x3.5.
  • The experience multiplier obtained by defeating Pet Trainers Julia Stevens, Old Macdonald, Zunta, and Dagra the Fierce has been reduced to x2.5 from x3.5.
  • Macros have been added that allow for summoning random pets and random favorite pets.
  • The achievement Taming the World now awards the Safari Hat, which increases pet experience gained from Pet Battles by 10%.
  • Pets previously removed from the Safari achievements have been added back to the criteria of those achievements now that they’re back in the wild.
  • The I Choose You achievement has been added for defeating Zen Master Aki. The reward for this achievement is 3000 gold.
  • Players that defeat Aki the Chosen at the culmination of the Battle Pet quest lines can now follow a new line of Battle Pet quests and associated daily quests that allows players to battle against Pandaren spirits.
  • A new Master Pet Tamer offering daily quests has been added to the Darkmoon Faire. Completing quests for the new trainer will offer the chance to acquire a new pet: the Darkmoon Eye.
  • The Dragon Kite can now be used in Pet Battles.
  • The Imperial Silkworm and Imperial Moth pets can now be created by Tailors.
  • A number of pets that could previously only be found accompanying other pets into battle can now be found roaming the world.
  • A number of new capturable pets can be found in the world from pet families that were once more sparsely populated.
  • Two new Battle Pets now roam Darkmoon Island waiting to be caught.
  • Fixed an issue that would prevent some pets captured in Pet Battles from correctly saving their skin color once added to the Pet Journal.
  • Player versus Player Pet Battles now award more experience.
  • Large plants and bushes in the environment that interfered with visibility during Pet Battles while now fade out of view during the match.
  • Fixed an issue where the Gazelle would join pet battles.

Sunsong Ranch

  • A new Seed has been added: Portal Shards
    • A mage who fell on hard times back in Dalaran has found a new home on Pandaria. Barnaby Fletcher will occasionally visit Halfhill Market to peddle a new type of seed – and take advantage of the Tillers’ hospitality.
    • Portal Shards grow into consumable items which can be used to open a portal from Sunsong Ranch to a major faction city.
  • Seeds now stack to 50.
  • Runty crops now have a spell visual to help call attention to themselves.
  • Growing crops now display the duration until the crop is ready to harvest.
  • Characters who have earned the “Friends on the Farm” achievement will no longer find gifts while harvesting Cooking Ingredient crops – instead, they have a chance to find special seeds such as Magebulb, Enigma Seed, Songbell, and more.

Raids, Dungeons and Scenarios

  • Non-boss enemies in Mogu’shan Vaults, Heart of Fear, and Terrace of Endless Spring now respawn much more slowly.
  • Raid groups are no longer necessary to enter pre-Mists of Pandara raid dungeons. Some bosses that previously required more than one player to defeat are now more easily dealt with by players battling alone:
    • High Warlord Naj’entus in the Black Temple
    • Viscidus in the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj
    • Razorgore the Untamed in Blackwing Lair
  • The Statistics page now tracks and displays 10-player and 25-player raid boss kills separately.
  • Cooldown timers greater than 5 minutes will now reset between attempts on Challenge Mode dungeons.
  • Scenarios
    • New level 90 Scenarios have been added, including additional faction specific Scenarios:
      • Assault on Zan’Vess
      • Alliance
        • Lion’s Landing
        • A Little Patience
      • Horde
        • Domination Point
        • Dagger in the Dark
    • Scenarios now include Dungeon Finder queue features, including leaders, backfill, vote to kick, and deserter debuffs. Roles are still not required.

PvP

  • The growing conflict between the Horde and the Alliance has spilled across the face of Azeroth: level 90 players can now queue for Wintergrasp and Tol Barad via the PvP tab to battle one another in these epic conflicts.
  • Arena matches now have a 25 minute time limit (was 45 minutes).
  • Rated Battlegrounds now share the same spell restrictions as Arenas.

Professions

  • Fishing
    • The Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Tournament has returned every Sunday, but now allows three winners per tournament. It also offers competitors a chance to earn the rewards once offered by the the Kalu’ak Fishing Derby.
    • Speckled Tastyfish fishing pools no longer spawn during the tournament. Instead, Tastyfish can be caught from any fishing node in all parts of Stranglethorn Vale while the tournament is active. This includes inland nodes, and wreckage.
  • Cooking
    • A cooking profession bag has been added, and can be purchased with Ironpaw Tokens from Nam Ironpaw.
  • Mining
    • All mineral nodes will now despawn one minute after they are mined, even if items remain in them.

UI

  • Justice, Valor, Honor and Conquest Point quartermasters are now signified by new minimap icons.
  • A new banner will appear when a player is subjected to an effect that causes them to lose control of their character. The effect that caused the loss of control and remaining duration will be displayed. Configuration options are available in the “Combat” section of the “Interface Options” menu.
  • A search bar has been added to the mount section of the Mount and Pet Journal.
  • The Mount and Pet Journal remembers which tab you were last using.

Bug Fixes

  • Swooping Plainshawks no longer use abilities from the Bird of Prey Hunter pet family.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause crops to fail to appear when players entered Sunsong Ranch while several hundred yards up in the air.
  • Players who have learned the Terrible Turnip pet can now continue to find Ominous Seeds when harvesting Cooking Ingredient crops.
  • Classes
    • The responsiveness of many abilities and effects has been improved, including: Renewing Mist, Halo, Rogue Poisons, Revealing Strike, Rime, Killing Machine, Maelstrom Weapon, Sudden Doom, Ultimatum, Scent of Blood, Crimson Scourge, and Sudden Death.
    • The following spells now display less intense visual effects for other players: Hellfire, Death and Decay, Hurricane, Astral Storm, and Explosive Trap.
    • Earthquake’s sound effect is now quieter.
    • All spells that cause Forebearance can no longer be applied simultaneously.
    • Hunters
      • The snare provided by Ice Trap is now more responsive when enemies enter or leave the area of effect, and its effective area more closely matches the visual effect.
      • Lock and Load will now activate correctly when Ice Trap is triggered by an immune target, as long as a susceptible target is within the area of effect.
      • Fixed several issues involving Trap Mastery, Entrapment, Glyph of Black ice, and Glyph of Ice Trap.
      • The Growl pet ability will no longer cause diminishing returns against bosses that are immune to its effect.
      • Glyph of Black Ice now correctly benefits from the increased duration provided by Trap Mastery.
      • Glyph of Ice Trap now causes the visual effect of Ice Trap to match the increased area of effect provided by the glyph.
    • Mages
      • Fixed an issue with Glyph of Icy Veins that could prevent all three bolts from firing.
      • Fixed an issue with Glyph of Icy Veins that could prevent the affected abilities from doing the correct damage.
    • Warlocks
      • The Felguard and Wrathguard pet ability, Threatening Presence, will no longer be auto-cast by default.
      • Pandemic no longer smooths the damage when extending dots with different amounts of spellpower.
    • Warriors
      • Execute damage with high amounts of Vengeance is now capped at the Warrior’s maximum health to prevent it from reaching excessive numbers.
    • Professions
      • Banquet of the Steamer and Great Banquet of the Steamer now correctly provide Intellect to damage based casting classes. Healers will continue to gain Spirit from these foods.

Over to you: is there anything that’s particularly got you excited about 5.1?

Filed Under: General News, Patch Notes, WoW Tagged With:

SWTOR 1.5.1 Patch Notes

November 27, 2012 by

SWTOR 1.5.1 Patch Notes

The servers are back up and we have a small but useful patch 1.5.1 in place. It’s predominantly bug fixes and Cartel Market discounts:

1.5.1 Patch Notes

11/27/2012

General

  • Subscribers are again able to file Customer Support tickets from the Character Selection screen.

Cartel Market

  • The following Cartel Market items are on sale!
    • Major XP Boosts: Discounted 25% to 90 Cartel Coins from 120 Cartel Coins.
    • Level 15 Chest Pieces: Discounted 10% to 135 Cartel Coins from 150 Cartel Coins.
    • Medical Probes: Discounted 25% to 375 Cartel Coins from 500 Cartel Coins.
  • The Experimental Flight Suit has been added to the Cartel Market! This adaptive armor can be worn by any Class at level 1.
  •  The tooltips for unlocking Speeder Pilot Ranks now correctly indicate that the unlock is per character.
  • Restrictions have been removed from Cartel Pack White Color Crystals, which can now be equipped by anyone.
  • Players will no longer receive an occasional error upon purchasing inventory slot unlocks for their account.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue that would allow Preferred Accounts to trade below level 10.
  • French players will now have proper audio during conversations with General Avrun.
Filed Under: Patch Notes, SWTOR

The Naked Gamer: The Day the Heroes Left

November 27, 2012 by

The Naked Gamer is a regular opinion column that strips back the superficialities and looks at the flesh underneath. If you’ve got a topic you’d like discussed, drop columnist Kristy Green a line!

On the 30th of November, Paragon Studios will be closing their doors and City of Heroes servers will be shut down. This beloved Superhero and Supervillain MMO has been operating for over eight years and will leave a giant hole in the industry.

This is something that no gamer should let pass in silence or brush off like it doesn’t matter. It does matter, it matters so very much.

It might seem like it won’t affect many people but this should be a huge wake up call for all of us that love our MMOs. You might think because the game was free to play and only had a small but loyal following that it was a prime target. City of Heroes though was still making a profit after all this time – it was still a fun game that many enjoyed.

It is a reminder that no MMO is safe since we will always rely on ongoing support and services to play. All it takes is a publisher or developer to decide they don’t want to keep going and they can sell it off to new people or shut it down completely. We should all stand together whenever we hear the talk of closure of any MMO.

Save City of Heroes tried everything to stop their beloved game from shutting down. They wrote letters, signed petitions and showed Paragon Studios and NCsoft that the game was still wanted but in the end, there was nothing they could do. It was really wonderful to see the community rise up and stand together (heroes and villains alike) to try and save their favourite MMO.

City of Heroes had some awesome features that I hope don’t disappear when the servers go black. It was a really fun game that was easily accessible and let you play as your very own made up hero or villain. Imagine the weirdest, intriguing hero you can think of and I can assure you, it could have been real within Paragon City.

My favourite feature was being able to design how my hero looked and that was how my hero always looked. I spent hours in the character creation making my amazing hero and imagining all the awesome feats she will perform. My favourite was the charming metallic Valkyrie hero with red lighting sparking around her body. When you look that cool from the start, would you ever want to have appearance changed by gear or a new outfit?

I also asked my friend what his favourite feature is because there are too many to remember. He has played the game a lot longer than I and so he knew it better. He said enjoyed how accessible the game was and how easy it was to find a group. With the Side Kick system, it didn’t matter what level you were. You could group with anyone, whether they were higher or lower than you. You could also affect the difficulty of the game easily so it was always a challenge.

After eight long, glorious years, it is sad that this is the end. It’s a little teary and a continued reminder than our favourite games are never safe. All it takes is flicking a switch to see all that we love fade away.

In only a few short days there will be fewer Heroes in this world and City of Heroes will become just another victim.

Let this game not become some forgotten piece of code, let us always remember the fun times we had and continue to keep up the good fight.

Over to you: are you sorry to see City of Heroes go?

Filed Under: General News, Other Games Tagged With: ,

WoW Zone by Zone Achievement Guide Part 1: Elwynn, Westfall, Redridge and Duskwood

November 26, 2012 by

WoW Zone-by-Zone Achievement GuideWelcome to ZAGGARAT ( Jetsai’s Zone-by-Zone Achievement Guide for Getting Across the Realm with Alliance Toons), a comprehensive zone by zone guide to wrapping up every achievement you need. You can view all instalments by clicking here.

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m an achievement whore.

I was pretty proud of the some 10,000 achievement points I’d managed to accumulate when I quit playing WoW a month or so into Cata. So when I returned to the game for MoP with a new main, I secretly knew it would only be a few weeks before the stigma of venturing around with a paltry few thousand points got to me and I’d have to farm up my “I’m no noob” points again.

I looked for a guide that could help satisify my addiction efficiently. What I wanted was a guide that could take me zone by zone and get every conceivable achievement while I was there.

The Loremaster and World Explorer are easy to get, but there are a lot of additional achievements in later zones that slip through the cracks: hunting rare spawns, finding lore objects and returning lost treasures to some old codger.

I also want to do my fishing achievements: The Oceanographer, The Limnologist, The Scavenger. Cooking achievements have historically been extremely tedious requiring many trips to the AH, back to the zone and to vendors to purchase recipes I forgot to get. I want to buy and eat everything I’m supposed to for the Delicious series and farm up all the mats so I can cook up the Gourmet achieves in one go at the end.

Then there’s mounts and pets. Pokemon brings a whole new form of torture to pet collecting. It’s no longer a question of doing a continent hop to half a dozen different vendors, spending a suspicious amount of time with the neutral Auction House master in Booty Bay, and camping some rare spawn spots. There are literally hundreds of pets to catch and collect now, so I need to know which pets to battle and catch while I’m in that zone.

Plus I need to buy all my tabards, get my old-school dungeon and raid achievements and those pesky miscellaneous ones Like Archmage Xylem’s trials, reading the entire history of Azeroth, a series of unnatural associations with Squirrels, getting down with the Nesingwarys, getting beaten up in Gladiator rings on every single continent and spending lots and lots and lots of gold on useless things.

There had to be a guide out there that could deliver me all that – Googling “wow Achievement Guides” returned pages of online lists sorted by exactly the same categories Blizzard provides. Googling “wow Achievement Guides by zone” returned me exactly the same list with the Explorer ones at the top. Curse gave me nothing broad or overarching. Zygor looked promising but a trial demonstrated I had to keep switching out new guides and starting the zone over again – I wound up doing the Cape of Stranglethorn six times over and still lots of little things got missed.

With every option exhausted, I decided to compile my own and I present Chapter One to you here – Jetsai’s Zone-by-Zone Achievement Guide for Getting Across the Realm with Alliance Toons. Ok, so the name needs a little work… but ZAGGARAT will do for now. In this guide, I start in Elwynn Forest, move on to Westfall and Deadmines, then Redridge and Duskwood listing everything you need to do to complete ALL the achievements sorted by sub-zone. I’ve included waypoints and some notes as well as a map for each zone with icons to indicate what you’re supposed to do there. The paths roughly follow the questing order throughout the zone, so if you’re not working on your Loremaster achievement you may find it quicker to work from one end of the zone to the other.

I’ll continue to release new chapters each week working through all the zones on all the continents up to and inlcuding Pandaria. Next week, we tackle Stormwind and the Stranglethorns.

I do need to note, this is a pretty old-school guide. There’s nothing fancy about it. I list subzones by their names, not a set of co-ordinates, although those are included where possible and it’s designed to be printed out and placed in a ring binder –landscape fashion. The map goes at the top and the sub-zone list below.

Why? Well I don’t have the programming skill to develop and in-game assistant like Quest Helper or Zygor, but honestly I think old school is good sometimes. For one I hate alt-tabbing – having all the information on my desk next to me to view at a glance is great. Moreover, this game isn’t even close to an exact, step-by-step progression and things don’t happen in the same order for all people.

I find a battle-pet on one side of the zone, you find it in another. Someone just farmed out my entire quest area so I’ll move on and come back later. Plus, as a 90, you have the choice to start pretty much anywhere. I chose to start at the beginning but you could easily do the zones in whatever order you wanted to: start in Outlands, do the zones backwards or alphabetically, do the dungeons as you go or assemble them into a collection of their own and do them with a group – just mix up the pages in your binder.

And finally, I think there’s something really satisifying about actually ticking a box with your own hand. Yellow highlighter pens are pretty good too.

Download the screen-friendly version here

Download the printer-friendly version here

Go here for all the other Zaggarat Guides

(Editor’s note: I just wanted to say what an amazing feat Jemima has pulled off with these Zaggarat guides – if you find them as incredibly useful as I have already, please use the donate link below – proceeds will be forwarded onto Jem for her work)





Filed Under: General News, How-To, Maps, WoW Tagged With: ,

SWTOR Server Downtime: 27th November 2012

November 25, 2012 by

A four hour maintenance downtime this week. Local time conversions for you:

AEDT: 7pm-11pm

AWST: 4pm-8pm

NZDT: 9pm-1am

BioWare’s notification:

Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for four hours on Tuesday, November 27th, 2012 from 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET/7PM AEDT) until 6AM CST (4AM PST/7AM EST/12PM GMT/1PM CET/11PM AEDT). All game servers, SWTOR.com, and the launcher will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours, but could be extended.

This maintenance is done in order to make general improvements and to check performance of the game so that we can continue to provide a consistent, quality experience. Quite often (but not always) after a maintenance period there will be a patch to download. After the maintenance, please login via the launcher to download the latest patch. If your launcher was open during the maintenance, you must close and reopen it for a fresh login.

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Tuesday, November 27th, 2012

Time: 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET/7PM AEDT) until 6AM CST (4AM PST/7AM EST/12PM GMT/1PM CET/11PM AEDT)

All game servers, SWTOR.com, and the launcher will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours.

Thank you for your patience as we maintain service for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

Filed Under: General News, Servers, SWTOR Tagged With:

The Naked Gamer: What Does Free-To-Play Mean?

November 22, 2012 by

what does free-to-play mean

The Naked Gamer is a regular opinion column that strips back the superficialities and looks at the flesh underneath. If you’ve got a topic you’d like discussed, drop columnist Kristy Green a line!

It’s such a tiny term but seems to be so filled with meaning and causing so much confusion. Ask ten gamers what they think Free-to-Play (F2P) means and you will get ten very different definitions.

It feels like the term F2P is becoming nothing more than a buzz word used by people for their own personal agenda while ignoring everyone else. It has been very frustrating to watch people bring forth valid opinions of the changes to the subscription model made for Star Wars: The Old Republic but only to have them completely brushed over or ignored because people seem to be unable to get past their own preconceptions whenever they see the phrase F2P.

One common idea is that F2P means that you can create an account and play the game without paying anything. It doesn’t matter what you can or can’t do, just simply being able to login seems the biggest point in this description, oh and no time expiration. This means that games like World of Warcraft, Tera, SWTOR, Aion and Battle of the Immortals are all considered F2P.

Another common way of defining F2P is to say that you can play the whole game without any restriction to your gameplay. If the game has restrictions that are unlocked or accessed only by spending money then it’s no longer free. Instead it is some sort of unlimited time trial. So in this definition the only games that are F2P from the above examples are Aion and Battle of the Immortals.

So I thought about this and I wondered what harm is there if we see F2P differently? I would like to say none but all you have to do is read up on any of the feedback from SWTOR’s recent changes to see that this isn’t working. Those that consider the game as F2P see those that don’t as entitled and in return they get labelled as pretentious. It’s very hard to talk about the good and the bad when such loaded words are being thrown around. Also, many of us have predefined notion of what F2P means and so when we see the term, we are expecting to see one thing and may be seeing something else. None of this comes together to equal good communication.

Then I thought, ‘but isn’t it up to the developers and publishers to define what their game is or isn’t?’ That might seem like a perfect solution but not one that would be practical. WoW and Tera never once used the term F2P and yet the media and gamers constantly do. SWTOR says that it is but it doesn’t necessarily fit into all definitions of F2P. I’ve even heard of Guild Wars 2 being referred to as F2P simply because it doesn’t need a subscription to play. If we as gamers can’t even agree, then how are we expecting game developers, publishers, and media and of course marketing to?

The only way to see all the brilliant opinions on SWTOR is to stop focusing on what is F2P. Maybe we should instead just move past any buzz words and actually hear out what someone has to say. If we stop predefining people’s opinions then we will see that a lot of time, we are actually all in agreement.

Filed Under: General News, Op-Ed, SWTOR Tagged With:

WoW’s 8th Anniversary: Share Your Stories!

November 21, 2012 by

On the 23rd November it’s eight years to the day since World of Warcraft launched. To coincide, Blizzard have released a short video to commemorate the occasion. There’s nothing new in it and a lot you will immediately recognise from older videos, but all the same it’s a good way for current players and older players alike to see the breadth of content we now have access to.

Have a look for yourself:

Hopefully that’s got you into the mood to share some stories about your time in WoW. I love hearing about people’s history with games and WoW has one of the longer histories.

Have you been there the whole eight years? If not which expansion got you in? What are the most fun things you’ve done in-game? What parts of the game do you miss? It’s as good an excuse as any to share WoW reminiscences. The sky’s the limit so hop to it!

Filed Under: General News, Opinion, WoW Tagged With:
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