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SWTOR 1.6 Launches: Server Downtime Details

December 8, 2012 by

SWTOR 1.6

Tuesday December 11th sees SWTOR 1.6 launch, with a six-hour downtime to coincide. We’ll have the full 1.6 patch notes for you as soon as the servers are back up.

The local time conversions for your convenience:

AEDT: 7pm-1am

AWST: 4pm-10pm

NZDT: 9pm-3am

The official blurb from BioWare:

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

Game Update 1.6 introduces a new Warzone, Ancient Hypergate, where you can team up with other players to fight for control of powerful energy pylons to unleash the power of the ancient Gree hypergate against your enemies. Six new Heroic Space Missions are also available for each faction. These missions will be a challenge even for the greatest pilots in the galaxy!

Please Note: PvP Warzones and Space Missions are available to Subscribers at no additional cost. Players without a subscription have limited free access per week and may purchase additional access in the Cartel Market.

After this maintenance is over, restart the game launcher to patch to Game Update 1.6: Ancient Hypergate.

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Tuesday, December 11th, 2012

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

All game servers will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than six hours.

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

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

GW2 Game Update December 3rd: Full Patch Notes

December 6, 2012 by

GW2 Game UpdateA pretty meaty game update this time from ArenaNet, with a huge number of bug fixes.

Read them all in full:

 

Release Notes:
General

  • Fixed a bug that would cause a crash when repairing armor while transformed.
  • Area of effect heals and boons now prioritize players over minions and NPCs.
  • Guild leaders are able to demote other players of the same rank.
  • Weapon skills will now properly display their PvP and PvE split variants in the Weapon Skills tab of the Hero Panel instead of displaying both.

Events

  • Fixed a bug that caused NPCs not to resurrect other NPCs in various Orr events.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Warmaster Jofast and her caravan to not advance properly through Cursed Shore.
  • Fixed a rare bug that could prevent the event “Protect the trained skelk gathering kindling for Raintimber Mill” in Diessa Plateau from progressing.
  • Fixed a bug that could potentially prevent progress with the event “Protect Orl’s research krewe” in Metrica Province.
  • Fixed a bug that could prevent progress with the event “Stop the Inquest operatives from kidnapping adventurers” in Sparkfly Fen.
  • Fixed a bug that could prevent progress with the event “Raid the Separatist camp with the Warhound Village veterans” in Iron Marches.
  • Fixed a bug that could prevent displaced spirits from rejoining their bodies in Iron Marches.
  • Fixed a bug that could prevent progress with the event “Protect the armory from the Flame Legion” in Plains of Ashford.
  • Fixed a bug that would prevent “Ireta the Smasher” from team switching correctly during the event “Prevent the brawl between the three legions.”
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Suwash from confronting Captain Jetsam in Lornar’s Pass in the event “Defeat Captain Jetsam.”
  • Fixed a bug that preventing events from running properly near Eldvin Monastery in Queensdale.
  • Fixed a bug causing skritt thieves to stop stealing harpy eggs in Harathi Hinterlands.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Crusader Soma to give up searching for the lost caravan in Timberline Falls.

Dungeon
Crucible of Eternity

  • Front door path: Fixed a bug that affected the aggro range of the Destroyer Specimen Boss.
  • Submarine path: Fixed a bug with Bjarl’s armor not going off when he charges and hits a tower.

Ascalonian Catacombs

  • Detha’s Path: Fixed a problem with Detha’s script where she would sometimes not start the event to fix the cannons.
  • Hodgin’s Path: Fixed a problem in Hodgin’s script at the “Collect scepter fragments” event that prevented the event from starting.
  • Detha’s path: Fixed a bug that caused the Ghostly Oozes not to use their basic attack properly, and spend a large amount of time loitering around players instead of attacking them.

Sorrow’s Embrace

  • Fixed multiple problematic doors that would not open and close when intended.

Twilight Arbor

  • Fixed a bug where Morrigu could die after defeating the final boss before the cinematic could start, which would break the dungeon and prevent players from receiving the final reward.

The Ruined City of Arah

  • Seer Path: Fixed an exploit where rangers using longbows could trivialize a fight by attacking at max range, and the Melandru boss would not fight back.

Fractals of the Mists

  • Cliffside: Fixed an issue where players could damage the final seal with their normal attacks.
  • Cliffside: Fixed an issue where players were able to attack and kill the first boss before triggering the cinematic.

PersonalStory

  • Minor personal story bugs in multiple personal story steps were fixed.
  • The story step “Forewarned is Forearmed” has been fixed to avoid an error that prevented completion.
  • The story step “Time for a Promotion” has been fixed to avoid a problem that caused it to stall.
  • The story step “Silent Warfare” has had the difficulty adjusted.
  • The story step “The Artist’s Workshop” has been fixed to allow players to rally when they defeat hypnotized performers.
  • Players who completed the sylvari “mirror” storyline are now recognized by the NPCs in the story step “Through the Looking Glass.”

World vs. World

  • Invisible & invulnerable players can no longer contest capture points in WvW. WvW capture points now follow the same rules as PvP capture points.
  • All players will now correctly receive WvW bonuses. Players who transfer worlds will still be locked out of bonuses for the current and subsequent match.

StructuredPvP

  • Heart of the Mists: Added light, medium, and heavy PvP Underwater Mask items to the PvP Armorsmith.
  • Battle of Kyhlo: The hit box on the trebuchets has been decreased so that they are less vulnerable to certain AoE skills.
  • Legacy of the Foefire: The red guild lord and his guards have been repositioned to more closely match the blue side.
  • Forest of Niflhel: Fixed incorrect names on the archer NPCs that guard each base.
  • Removed slots in the PvP locker for the Rawhide armor pieces, as they are not obtainable as PvP rewards.
  • PvP locker now can store consumable finishers up to rank 6, glory boosters, PvP salvage kits, and tournament tickets.
  • Updated the NPC names of archers in Forest of Niflhel.

Items

  • Updated the names of the level 80 rare armorsmithing boxes to match the names of the items they contain.
  • Runes of Balthazar and Orrian now properly apply quickness when the player is struck and below 20% health.
  • Updated Knight’s Jewel so that it appropriately grants Power rather than Toughness.
  • Updated the ingredients required to craft satchels and boxes of armor to match the ingredients required to craft the individual pieces contained within.

Commerce

  • Fixed an issue with the Boxing Glove skills remaining when players swap to armor from town clothes.
  • Mini pets are now usable in the Heart of the Mists.
  • Fixed Krait Tonic second skill description.
  • Fixed missing nightmare medium icons and pants using gloves icons.
  • Total Makeover Kit and Self-Style Hair Kit added to the Black Lion Chest as rare rewards.
  • Increased chance to get Mini boosters and Dye Pack boosters from the Black Lion Chest.

Profession
Elementalist

  • Updated elementalist conjured weapons to appropriately apply attributes to all players that pick them up.
  • Dragon’s Tooth: This skill’s blast finisher now triggers at spell location, instead of character’s location.
  • Electrocute: This skill now has a maximum range and line of sight requirement.
  • Impale: Fixed an exploit with this skill’s interaction with Signet of Restoration.
  • Arcane Resurrection: This trait now applies five seconds of aura to allies affected by it.
  • Evasive Arcana: This trait now has a blast finisher while attuned to earth.
  • Elementalists will no longer get into a state where they aren’t attuned to any element. This commonly results in the player’s skillbar being empty.

Engineer

  • Toss Elixir C: This skill’s underwater cooldown is reduced from 60 seconds to 30 seconds to match the land recharge.
  • Elixir S: Fixed a bug that would cause this skill to go on normal recharge when Fast-Acting Elixirs is equipped.
  • Smoke Bomb: Cleaned up skill facts.

Guardian

  • Ring of Warding: This skill will no longer affect non-attackable NPCs.

Mesmer

  • Updated the description for Blurred Frenzy to indicate that it gives evasion through “Blur,” instead of “Distortion”.
  • Phantasms will now properly have all boons applied to them via player traits.
  • Phantasmal Disenchanter can now be cast at the correct distance.

Ranger

  • Fixed a bug that allowed a ranger to have two traps of the same type active simultaneously.

Thief

  • Using a stolen bundle item should no longer destroy a bundle being wielded in their hands.

Warrior

  • Whirling Axe: This skill can now be cancelled by other skills.
Filed Under: General News, Guild Wars 2 Tagged With:

The Naked Gamer: #1ReasonWhy

December 5, 2012 by

#1ReasonWhy

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!

When I applied to write for The Oceanic Gamer, I told myself that I would never write this article. It is something that has been talked about for so long and it’s really getting to the point where I feel that if people just don’t get it now, then they never will. It’s not like there aren’t already plenty of articles out there by people a lot more knowledgeable and smarter. People better at getting their thoughts, opinions and more importantly, their feelings across.

However I feel I should at least give it a try after seeing the recent twitter campaign #1ReasonWhy. This twitter campaign saw women and men raising awareness of some of the battles still fought by women within the gaming industry. These were women that are making our games, expanding our knowledge and bringing gaming to everyone.

Before I started writing, I thought for a very long time how I am going to write this. I thought about what angle I should approach this from, how I should handle it. How I could maybe bring something new to this subject. In the end, I decided to bare all and go for the all natural stance, just like my column is named. I figure if I can’t talk truthfully and honestly about our current situation than there really isn’t a point in writing about it at all.

I wanted to start over ten years ago. This is because while I’ve been gaming since before I went to Kindergarten, it wasn’t until the ‘90s that I got into online gaming and I guess I became a part of the larger gaming community. So much has changed so quickly and I feel that the gaming industry is actually getting worse and moving backwards instead of forwards.

Roughly twelve years ago, I was really getting into MUDs (Multi-User Dungeon). They were awesome and as someone with a crappy computer and an even crappier internet connection they were the poor man’s MMO. This didn’t make them terrible games at all though. MUDs were text based and so they ran off player’s imaginations. You could create anything in a MUD just by typing. There were fewer constraints and it meant that people were creating systems that are amazing even by today’s standards.

I got to experience this first hand and it was my first experience being on the other side of the code. I got to be a world builder for a pretty amazing MUD. There were only two of us that got to play around in the game and create whatever we wanted, and I felt very lucky.

You may have already noticed where this is heading. My world builder colleague was indeed a male. There were three of us working on this game and the owner/coder of the game was also male. You may be already cringing thinking of the horrible tale I am going to tell but the truth is, there is no horrible tale. Everyone knew I was female, I was even titled the Goddess of Chaos, but no one cared. I was never once told to go make a sandwich, get back to the kitchen or even to show people pictures of my naked body parts.

No one cared.

I created amazing areas in that game. My world building skills were centred more about creating zones that were filled with their own sort of story, with hidden passages and brain teasing puzzles. My counterpart tended to make more killing zones, packing in as many baddies as possible and letting the player kill or be killed. This partnership meant we created a world with something for everyone and was targeted to all gamers.

When I think back to this time, I can’t help but wonder where everything went wrong. My first experience as a part of the gaming industry was great. My last experience though was completely different.

I worked extremely hard running a Community Team for an Indy MMO developer. I did an amazing job but I still felt constantly that the only reason I was there was because I was female and not because of all I had done.

It started as jokes like when discussing possible competition prizes – it was actually suggested that they could give away game shirts that have been worn by me (including a photo as proof). It continued when I was working to make the community a better place and was told how the directors made the right choice getting in a ‘girl’. It ended when we were going through the job description and one of the perks was going to game conventions. I said that I can’t sell the game, I’m not hot enough. The reply was, ‘don’t worry you are plenty hot enough’.

It was horrible seeing the hours of work I put in be pretty much squared down to the fact that I am a woman. It was hard to feel any pride in the amazing direction the community was taking when it was simply because I am a woman. It doesn’t help that I would take my developers hat off, put my gamer one on and get the exact same treatment.

And people keep asking me why I left such an awesome job.

So these are my experiences from the beginning and the end – I won’t bore you with the middle. Next week I will be coming back to this subject and exploring why this is happening instead of just my experiences. I will also be explaining the full reason I am writing these articles when I said I never would.

So stay tuned for what I am hoping will be at least a slightly interesting take on the gaming industry from my personal experiences.

Filed Under: General News, Op-Ed, Other Games Tagged With: , ,

Review: ‘Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits’ – Garth Ennis and William Simpson

December 5, 2012 by

(Note: The Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits TPB collects Hellblazer issues 41-46)

Dangerous Habits is the one of the best character studies of John Constantine. It deals with all elements of his flawed character: his hard alcohol and cigarette abuse, his exploitative use of friends, and his con-man status to the many ethereal beings of our universe, from both heaven and hell. It also shows the progression of the often morally grey anti-hero, as he deals with coming to terms with his eventual death at the hand of one of his many vices: his much loved pack of silk cut cigarettes.

For the uninitiated, John Constantine (pronounced Con-stan-tyne, as in fine) is a British occult magician/con-man/ arsehole who is modelled after the famous musician Sting. Known for his drinking and smoking habits, as well as his dry wit, he has been a mainstay of Vertigo Comics for well over twenty years. Dangerous Habits marks the entry of Garth Ennis to the series in 1991, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest Hellblazer storylines since the series’ inception. It deals with Constantine’s newfound knowledge of his terminal lung cancer, and as he says goodbye to the ones he loves, he formulates a plan that will at the very least, see him die swinging.

This story arc is Hellblazer at its most poignant. Constantine’s quest for redemption with what little friends he has left sees him backed into a corner as he fights for what little time he and his dying allies have. From the liver cancer-stricken Matt, to his old friend Brendan Finn, each allow Ennis to delve into the tortured mind of our anti-hero as he comes to terms with his mistakes, and all the friends whose deaths he blames himself for. John Constantine is a person hiding behind the con-man persona – too afraid to get close to anyone he cares about for fear of their safety. This story breaks down Constantine to his bare minimum: a man who despite his sins, wants to leave with having done more good in the world than wrong.

It is also to Garth Ennis’ credit that he chose lung cancer as Constantine’s downfall over a more supernatural curse as it both humanises and undermines his place in the world. Here is a man who deals with some of the most powerful beings in the universe, only to be taken under by one of the most basic of diseases. It allows Constantine to reflect on one of the of the most interesting issues faced in life:  this is not how, and when, I planned to go.

Ennis also allows Constantine to show off his expertise as a con-artist, as the final stages of the story arc culminate in potentially one of the most badass displays of arrogance ever witnessed in comic form. He manages to pull off the most impressive cons I have seen in potentially any medium, and it leaves the series in an interesting place by the arc’s end.

The art in this arc is merely serviceable to the story presented here. On one hand, William Simpson’s drawings can be equally weird and fitting, as Constantine’s world is one part disgusting to two parts dark. On the other hand, certain panels that focus solely on characters look plain bad – their distorted faces resemble closely those of demonic caricatures, as odd angles and stretched faces lead the reader to often be looking up the nostrils of Constantine.

As mentioned, Dangerous Habits marks Garth Ennis’ entrance into the series and it is heralded by a bang, as he systematically sets up the title character to die, exploring Constantine’s own demons, while allowing him to battle some monsters as well. While Simpson’s art may not be up to par with the writing; the Dangerous Habits storyline manages to create not only a powerful part of John Constantine’s own story, but a classic in comic books overall.

Filed Under: Comics, General News

The Secret World’s Alternate Reality Game Starts Dec 21st

December 4, 2012 by

The Secret World ARGFuncom have some history running ARGs for games and they’re about to unleash it in a big way on The Secret World. The email teaser just says that the ‘End Of Days Is Coming’:

The End of Days is Coming

Mankind has been warned. On December 21st there will be a cataclysmic event that marks the end of time as we know it. It is time to prepare.

Leading up to this world-changing event is a brand new alternate reality game (ARG) set in and around The Secret World universe, which will allow you to better prepare for what is to come. If you have never participated in an ARG event before, this is your perfect chance.

And quite possibly your last.

This might be your one chance to save yourself from this inevitable cosmic event, and we encourage you to pre-register to take part in the ARG. Pre-registration is free and available on this page. The ARG will start in a few days and this is one train you do not want to miss.

You do not need to be an active The Secret World player to take part, but if you are, note that exclusive prizes will be offered to all those who participate and that you will be able to enjoy these before everything comes to one last, screeching halt on December 21st.

 

The prizes aren’t too shabby either, particularly if you’re a TSW outfit junkie:

I’ve always been looking for a reason to get involved with an ARG and now I have no excuse to do so. My only selfish criticism is that this is one hell of a time of year to be running it – so here’s hoping that not too many hours need to be sunk into it.

Over to you: will you be taking part?

Filed Under: General News, The Secret World Tagged With:

WoW Zone by Zone Achievement Guide Part 2: Stormwind and Stranglethorn

December 4, 2012 by

Welcome 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. The printer and screen friendly guides can be downloaded at the bottom of this post.

This week’s ZAGGARAT features Stormwind, the Stranglethorns and Zul’Gurub.

For the last two expansions, Stormwind City has been the Alliance mecca and, without question, now serves as the most significant hub for Achievement hunters in the entire realm. In fact, compiling everything to be achieved in Stormwind required four pages of listings.

Mounts and cooking recipes feature prominently but Stormwind also houses much of Azeroth’s history for the Well Read achievements. It’s the fashion capital of the Alliance, if you call getting a haircut and donning a new tabard fashion and there’s also a disturbing amount of the realm’s cheese available in this one cosmopolitan hub.

Northern Stranglethorn started our four-expansion adventure with those crazy Nesingwarys and was most people’s first experience with open world PvP. Has anyone else ever thought that the goblins in Booty Bay look a little too much like BDSM Leather Men for comfort? Fitting, I suppose, since many of my first PvP encounters occurred outside the Gurubashi Arena and felt like I’d paid for such services.

The Stranglethorns now are a treasure-trove for Pet Battlers. The schism that divided Stranglethorn Vale into the North and Cape also gave rise to lots of interesting new quests, so if you haven’t completed the zones since, they’re worth a look.

The return of Zul’Gurub heralds the return of the prized Razzashi Raptor and Zulian Panther mounts at a staggering 1% drop rate. And I, for one, can assure you how much I missed farming Zul’Gurub every week during those few months of reprieve to help my husband maintain his car… er mount… status. /end sarcasm.

Despite everything there is to be accomplished here, it’s a good time to talk about what’s not included in these Zaggarat Guides.

Reputations and factions: I’ve included how to procure the windfalls of gaining reputation that help earn other achievements like Mountain-o-Mounts and Thirty Tabards but not the achievements associated with earning reputation themselves or any notes on how to.

Daily Quests: achievements associated with daily quests haven’t been included here. Daily quests tend to be associated with a faction or a secondary profession. So while the Twilight Highlands ZAGGARAT may indicate you need to fish up a Striped Lurker for The Catalcylsmic Gourmet, it won’t tell you that you need to complete three cooking dailies to earn the tokens to buy the recipe in Stormwind.

Those sorts of achievements will be covered in a separate guide.

Low-level dungeons: ones like Stormwind Stockades, that don’t have a heroic mode, any boss-by-boss achievements and can easily be soloed by a 90 are included as a breakout section in their relevant city or zone and don’t have an entire page devoted to them.

PvP: this is a world of achievements unto itself. I have included some of the open world and city PvP achievements like For the Alliance! and Gurubashi Arena Master, but PvP achievements will, on the whole, be covered in another series.

World Events will also be covered separately, although by the time I’ve finished every other guide I’ve an idea for, it may be a Level 100 guide.

Next week: Ironforge, Dun Morough, Loch Modan and the Wetlands.

Download the screen-friendly version here

Download the printer-friendly version here

(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 4th December 2012

December 3, 2012 by

A standard four-hour server downtime this week from BioWare. Local time conversions for you:

AEDT:  7pm-11pm

AWST: 4pm-8pm

NZDT: 9pm-1am

The officialise version:

Hello everyone, we wanted to let you know that we will be performing scheduled maintenance for four hours on Tuesday, December 4th, 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 will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than four hours, but could be extended.

This weekly 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, December 4th, 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 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

Review: FF#1 – Matt Fraction & Michael Allred

December 3, 2012 by

FF#1 ReviewWhat could possibly go wrong in four minutes?

Potentially a whole lot, as the first issue of the Marvel Now! relaunch of the Fantastic Four series deals with. Reed Richards is taking a year to travel the space-time continuum with his family, which equates to four minutes Earth-time, under the pretence of an educational field trip. As we learn though in both this issue, and in Fantastic Four #1, his motives are a lot more obscure. In the Fantastic Four’s place at the head of the Future Foundation, Richards recruits Ant-Man, She-Hulk, Medusa and newcomer Darla Deering, who will eventually become known as Miss Thing.

Matt Fraction pairs each of these new members of the Future Foundation with the current Fantastic Four, as each character recruits their replacement for when they take their intergalactic field trip. He manages to create some memorable character moments in these pair-ups, most notably from Reed Richards/ Ant-Man, and Johnny Storm/ Dana Deering, as each of these tackle the Fantastic Four’s choices of replacements believably. While the way the recruitment of Miss Thing makes sense in regards to Johnny’s character, we don’t know yet how Dana’s transformation to her Miss Thing persona actually takes place. It initially sets up for a very interesting turn of events as we learn how this will eventually come about.

FF#1, as with much of the Marvel Now! titles, is an excellent starting point for new readers, as Fraction disperses talking-heads moments with each of the children of the Future Foundation, explaining how and what this organisation is out to do. This makes for a simple jumping on point, as well as allowing fans of Jonathan Hickman’s previous run on FF a quick refresher.

Michael Allred produces some truly beautiful work in this issue, channelling 1950s pop art brilliantly, even going so far as to incorporate a “dot press” effect in one panel that invokes a classic comic book style. It complements the tone of the story well, as its camp and light-hearted nature is felt throughout the entire issue.

Fraction and Allred have succeeded in introducing us to the world of the Future Foundation, and the acting members of the Fantastic Four. FF is set up to be a series that invokes a feeling of pure pulp fun. That’s something that can be forgotten all too often, and it’s this issue that reminds us that these titles still exist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Comics, General News, Marvel

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)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

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:
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