Since Blizzard announced the upcoming Transmogrification feature, pretty much everybody and their brother who has a WoW-related blog is writing about it. Now it's my turn. Everybody's talked about how excited they are (or aren't) about it and how it opens up a whole new way to customize your character. If you look around online, nothing I'm saying here is breaking new ground. It's all been said before. But I've been having to repeat a lot of it lately, so I'm finding it necessary to just have it all written down in one place so I can just say "Read this => http://dft.ba/-Transmog"
Here's what we know about Transmogrification and Void Storage so far (and remember, this isn't released yet, so it's all subject to change):
- Void Storage will function kind of like a secondary personal bank. It will have 80 slots, and it will cost money to unlock.
- When you place something into Void Storage, it removes all enchantments, stats, class requirements etc on the item. If you take the item out of Void Storage (assuming you can, of course, which we don't know yet) it will come out as just the default version of that item. Void Storage essentially just stores the ID number of the item you've placed into it.
- To apply a look onto any item, the look you want will have to belong to an item that you've placed into Void Storage.
- The item you're borrowing the look from must be of the same type. You can't make Plate look like Cloth, and vice versa. This goes for weapons too; no maces if you're really using swords.
- There is an exception to the item-type rule with ranged weapons. You can make bows look like guns, guns look like crossbows, etc.
- You can not borrow the look from Legendaries or Heirlooms. Now running around Org with Thunderfury or Zin'Rokh unless you actually have them equipped.
- Some "silly" items (with "silly" determined by Blizzard) will not be able to have their looks borrowed. No dual-wielding fish or frying pans.
- You must have the original item to borrow it's look by placing it into Void Storage. Blizzard has stated that they're looking into a way of you getting some looks back such as the DK starter set, but no news on that yet.
- The item you're borrowing the look from must have stats. This means that you won't be able to transmogrify your shirt or tabard (unless Blizzard changes this for them). It also means, you can't have your dagger look like the Acolyte's Dagger - though you could make it look like the Ogre Pocket Knife which uses the same model.And no, the armour stat on an item doesn't count as a stat.
Here's what we don't know about Transmogrification and Void Storage:
- Fucking lots
If you haven't figured out how you want your character to look like, there are plenty of resources to draw from. There's a whole slew of websites devoted to RP sets. There's also the WoW Model Viewer, which can help you sort through all the models for a specific slot (with toggles for item type so you can turn off the types you can't/don't use), and also help with making sure you don't look like a clown (unless that's the look you're going for) with all of it on at once. I heavily recommend using WMV in conjunction with Wowhead so you can look up the item that you like (when you select an item in WMV there are two numbers that follow the name, the first is the item number), and you'll be able to see if that specific look is attainable. Some may not be, but Wowhead also has a little tab for each item that shows what other items share that item's model (often with just a recolour). If you're looking up a lot of items, copy http://www.wowhead.com/item= and paste it into your address bar followed by whatever number you want to look up.
Here are links to just a few RP gear blogs. There are many out there. Feel free to leave me links to any I didn't mention in the comments (as well as any corrections I may need to make) below. I'll edit them into my post.
It's For My RP Spec!
Oh, Azeroth
The Visual Roleplay Gear List
The WOW Debutante
World of Warcraft Fashion Guru
Blizzard Dev Blog Posts on Void Storage & Transmogrification:
Void Storage
Transmogrification
(Edited for additional links.)
Showing posts with label WoW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WoW. Show all posts
Saturday, 20 August 2011
Friday, 19 August 2011
MMOsolation
Many many thanks to The Wayward Initiative for allowing me to do a guest post today. If you haven't already read it, please do so now. Linkety-link.
Thursday, 11 August 2011
"stfu dabos ur a baddie"
In between recording, editing, and uploading videos to Youtube, I've been playing WoW here and there. Despite having plenty to do on my main, and being in no way bored of him, I've been playing on the Oceanic Nagrand server. The time zone difference between mine and the server's is such that when I'm playing after midnight, I'm right in the middle of their prime time. I play Alliance-side on a Worgen DK named Dabos in a tiny tiny guild. Like 9 toons, but only two accounts tiny. I'm the only one in the guild to have logged on in the last month. On the toons there anyways. The owner of that guild is a friend of mine from Kael'Thas.
None of this is important, really. I'm just pussy-footing around the topic at hand, which is incidentally the topic of this post. That phrase was said to me in party chat maybe twenty minutes ago, and it's ruined my night. I was in a Utgarde Keep run, and the tank had commented to the mage that he'd never seen anybody kite mobs into his aoe range before. The hunter in the group said "what's that?", and I responded with "the opposite of what you're doing" because the hunter had been kiting away from the tank, and had been pulling mobs before the tank was ready.
Then the hunter said "stfu dabos ur a baddie". I don't know if he meant my dps, or something else, but that comment really bothered me. I have "/assist focus" macro'ed into every ability, and the first thing I do when I enter a random is /focus the tank. I'd taken Howling Blast out of my rotation because the aoe from it was almost getting me killed on every pull in previous randoms [with different people]. Maybe Howling Blast not being in my rotation any more was hurting my DPS. Maybe the fact that I could only attack what the tank was targeting due to the" /assist focus" macroed into my abilities. I don't know, I don't run dps meters.
But to be told that I'm a "baddie" really bothered me. It bothers me more, maybe, that I got called one by somebody whom as a tank would drive me insane. But I stfu'ed, and I finished the run. And I don't want to play WoW any more. At the very least, I don't want to group with people any more. I've mentioned in previous posts that I don't want to be dead weight. This type of stuff really bothers me. Fuck, maybe he was just being a douche or trolling. I shouldn't let it get to me. But I can't help but wonder if I really am a "baddie".
Unrelated to the above, I won't be posting any more videos to Youtube until August 29th. I received an automatic notification from my ISP that I was at 90% of my monthly bandwidth limit, and I still have 18 days left in that time period. I can't afford overage costs, and I might still end up going over the limit from normal usage. 10gb [my monthly limit is 105gb] really isn't that much to spread out over 18 days.
This post has no proper ending, unless you count this sentence, which you shouldn't (due to poor sentence structure).
None of this is important, really. I'm just pussy-footing around the topic at hand, which is incidentally the topic of this post. That phrase was said to me in party chat maybe twenty minutes ago, and it's ruined my night. I was in a Utgarde Keep run, and the tank had commented to the mage that he'd never seen anybody kite mobs into his aoe range before. The hunter in the group said "what's that?", and I responded with "the opposite of what you're doing" because the hunter had been kiting away from the tank, and had been pulling mobs before the tank was ready.
Then the hunter said "stfu dabos ur a baddie". I don't know if he meant my dps, or something else, but that comment really bothered me. I have "/assist focus" macro'ed into every ability, and the first thing I do when I enter a random is /focus the tank. I'd taken Howling Blast out of my rotation because the aoe from it was almost getting me killed on every pull in previous randoms [with different people]. Maybe Howling Blast not being in my rotation any more was hurting my DPS. Maybe the fact that I could only attack what the tank was targeting due to the" /assist focus" macroed into my abilities. I don't know, I don't run dps meters.
But to be told that I'm a "baddie" really bothered me. It bothers me more, maybe, that I got called one by somebody whom as a tank would drive me insane. But I stfu'ed, and I finished the run. And I don't want to play WoW any more. At the very least, I don't want to group with people any more. I've mentioned in previous posts that I don't want to be dead weight. This type of stuff really bothers me. Fuck, maybe he was just being a douche or trolling. I shouldn't let it get to me. But I can't help but wonder if I really am a "baddie".
Unrelated to the above, I won't be posting any more videos to Youtube until August 29th. I received an automatic notification from my ISP that I was at 90% of my monthly bandwidth limit, and I still have 18 days left in that time period. I can't afford overage costs, and I might still end up going over the limit from normal usage. 10gb [my monthly limit is 105gb] really isn't that much to spread out over 18 days.
This post has no proper ending, unless you count this sentence, which you shouldn't (due to poor sentence structure).
Monday, 1 August 2011
Your move, Reg
It's an unfortunate thing that playing video games still has a social stigma despite how many people do so. My father even has video game consoles, though he doesn't play them very often. Embarrassingly enough, he actually has more than I do. Or did prior to my move, though even then I only had a PS3 and a DS.
When people ask me what I did last night, there's less condescension if I consistently state that I did nothing - with all the implications of a complete lack of a social life behind that statement - than if I were to say that I played computer games all night, despite the fact that I'm able to play computer games with my friends. Not all, in fact a large majority, of the games I play can be played with friends, but some can, and thus there's more social interaction involved.
What I think is even more unfortunate is how even within the limited circle of those who play video games, there's a stigma against those who play MMOs. It makes very little sense to me, really. They justify their bias behind things like how those who play them don't have social lives, and their wasting their lives playing the same thing every day, but I don't buy it. There's certainly people who do play MMOs all day, and only MMOs, at the expense of real life priorities, but the same can be said for other games. And as for the monotony behind playing the same video game every day, I'm sure there are still people who play Counterstrike and that was first released in 1999 - the same year as Everquest. And MMOs by their definition do have a lot more social interaction than your average computer game. Granted, some people choose to ignore that aspect and prefer to play alone, but those other people are still there and there will be some interaction.
Even within the group of people who play MMOs there's cliques that form around the discrimination of other MMOs. If you look at Vendetta Online, there are people comparing it against Eve, since they are both space-based MMOs. If you log into EVE, and mention World of Warcraft, you'll get made fun of. There's a phrase that constantly gets repeated in that game that when an Eve player quits in favour of WoW, the average IQ of both games goes up. If you log into DC Universe Online people will contrast it against Champions Online. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point.
As far as entertainment goes, video games are relative new-comers, and MMOs even more-so with in that form of media. But when you get down to it, it's a form of entertainment. How does sitting down to play a computer game make me a "loser" when spending the same amount of time watching a movie doesn't? Why should I be discriminated against by people I know in real life for spending my evenings playing video games? Why should I be wary of mentioning to people who do know I'm a gamer, that I play WoW? It shouldn't matter, but somehow it does. If it didn't I wouldn't have had to post the journal I kept of my journey to a different blog to separate it from my gaming blog.
Just a thought.
PS: Shortly after I published this, Rock, Paper, Shotgun published an article entitled "Look, Single-Player People Are Just Better". You aren't helping, guys.
When people ask me what I did last night, there's less condescension if I consistently state that I did nothing - with all the implications of a complete lack of a social life behind that statement - than if I were to say that I played computer games all night, despite the fact that I'm able to play computer games with my friends. Not all, in fact a large majority, of the games I play can be played with friends, but some can, and thus there's more social interaction involved.
What I think is even more unfortunate is how even within the limited circle of those who play video games, there's a stigma against those who play MMOs. It makes very little sense to me, really. They justify their bias behind things like how those who play them don't have social lives, and their wasting their lives playing the same thing every day, but I don't buy it. There's certainly people who do play MMOs all day, and only MMOs, at the expense of real life priorities, but the same can be said for other games. And as for the monotony behind playing the same video game every day, I'm sure there are still people who play Counterstrike and that was first released in 1999 - the same year as Everquest. And MMOs by their definition do have a lot more social interaction than your average computer game. Granted, some people choose to ignore that aspect and prefer to play alone, but those other people are still there and there will be some interaction.
Even within the group of people who play MMOs there's cliques that form around the discrimination of other MMOs. If you look at Vendetta Online, there are people comparing it against Eve, since they are both space-based MMOs. If you log into EVE, and mention World of Warcraft, you'll get made fun of. There's a phrase that constantly gets repeated in that game that when an Eve player quits in favour of WoW, the average IQ of both games goes up. If you log into DC Universe Online people will contrast it against Champions Online. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point.
As far as entertainment goes, video games are relative new-comers, and MMOs even more-so with in that form of media. But when you get down to it, it's a form of entertainment. How does sitting down to play a computer game make me a "loser" when spending the same amount of time watching a movie doesn't? Why should I be discriminated against by people I know in real life for spending my evenings playing video games? Why should I be wary of mentioning to people who do know I'm a gamer, that I play WoW? It shouldn't matter, but somehow it does. If it didn't I wouldn't have had to post the journal I kept of my journey to a different blog to separate it from my gaming blog.
Just a thought.
PS: Shortly after I published this, Rock, Paper, Shotgun published an article entitled "Look, Single-Player People Are Just Better". You aren't helping, guys.
Monday, 9 May 2011
2(CaO) • SiO2 • 0.9-1.25(H2O)
I spend the greatest portion of my waking hours at my job. Even more-so lately. The vast majority of my co-workers either cannot or will not pull their own weight. Yesterday, I worked an eleven hour shift because there was lots of work to do, and I didn't trust my co-workers - at least one of whom actually makes more than me, though since I'm done there in a couple weeks, that doesn't really matter - to do anything. When I left work last night, there was a very small list of things remaining to do. If something is on the list, I expect - as one should - it to be done. When I went in to work this morning, two hours early because I had to do inventory for my boss whom is on vacation till Wednesday, and because I expected one of my coworkers to call in "sick", I walked into a restaurant where the number of things to do when I left the night before consisted of about six, and a grand total of none of them had been done. This annoys me so much, I don't even know where to being with it. For the last eight or nine years of working there, the amount of work that the night crew does has been spotty at best, though the current crew is by far the worst we've ever had. I've had to work shifts as long because we're busy, sure. But not because I can't trust the people that work there to, I don't know, work, or to even show up. I take my job seriously; probably too seriously. But I get paid to do it, and it's called "work" for a reason.
This is my Armoury. That isn't some cosmetic gear set that I wear while bumming around in Orgrimmar. That is what I use every single time I'm logged into my main. Since the release of Cataclysm, my experience with the expansion has consisted of a small amount of levelling my alts, a couple hours in levelling in Vashj'ir on release night before going to bed so I could have some sleep before work the next day, and lots and lots of Archaeology [and the flying through the new zones that that entails.]
Aside from the aforementioned little burst of actual levelling on release night - which thanks to a full quest log, let me ding 81 [I was halfway through 80 before leaving Northrend] - I levelled to 85 from Archaeology. I've not done any of the new dungeons. I'm under-geared. I'm unprepared. And while I may - may, I say - have some skill, it doesn't offset the handicap I have against me. My friends and my guildmates - not to be redundant - may be willing to have me tag along with them to stuff I really shouldn't be present for. They've even managed to bring me along a couple times to places I wasn't particularly prepared or geared for in Wrath. But the preparation & gear gap was never as large then as it is currently. I don't particularly want to say no when such an invite is extended either, because it's nice to hang out with friends making pixels die and seeing big numbers on my screen, even if my numbers aren't that big comparatively speaking. But I spend too much of my day with the burden of other people not pulling their own weight to be the concrete shoes on my friends' feet.
This is my Armoury. That isn't some cosmetic gear set that I wear while bumming around in Orgrimmar. That is what I use every single time I'm logged into my main. Since the release of Cataclysm, my experience with the expansion has consisted of a small amount of levelling my alts, a couple hours in levelling in Vashj'ir on release night before going to bed so I could have some sleep before work the next day, and lots and lots of Archaeology [and the flying through the new zones that that entails.]
Aside from the aforementioned little burst of actual levelling on release night - which thanks to a full quest log, let me ding 81 [I was halfway through 80 before leaving Northrend] - I levelled to 85 from Archaeology. I've not done any of the new dungeons. I'm under-geared. I'm unprepared. And while I may - may, I say - have some skill, it doesn't offset the handicap I have against me. My friends and my guildmates - not to be redundant - may be willing to have me tag along with them to stuff I really shouldn't be present for. They've even managed to bring me along a couple times to places I wasn't particularly prepared or geared for in Wrath. But the preparation & gear gap was never as large then as it is currently. I don't particularly want to say no when such an invite is extended either, because it's nice to hang out with friends making pixels die and seeing big numbers on my screen, even if my numbers aren't that big comparatively speaking. But I spend too much of my day with the burden of other people not pulling their own weight to be the concrete shoes on my friends' feet.
Friday, 11 March 2011
The other half is killing people.
Hmm.... What to blog about?
I could write about recently taking two characters to 20, and how I did some PvP along the way. How I levelled my crafting professions, making negative money, yet coming out ahead. Somehow. How I've reconnected with some friends whom I haven't played with since around Burning Crusade's release, and how much fun I'm having just chilling out with them. Having my old main off-tank [if that makes sense] tank for me again is a joy that brings back old times. But all that happened in Rift, and I'm not quite ready for another "omg less than three rift" post.
I could write about levelling Leeloo. Or archaeology levelling in general. Or my massive obsession with solving every artifact ion my DK so that I can go back to Vashj'ir and Hyjal to experience the quests that I haven't touched since Cataclysm's release night. An obsession that has left me flying across the world [of Warcraft{!}] at level 85 and still mostly in my ICC10 gear [with a trinket upgrade, and a few sidegrades]. But I haven't even logged in in about a week.
I could write about writing. Blog writing specifically, and how it has changed - even in this short a time - the way I think about writing things down. How I pace some of writing so that it's regular, but not too regular, and how a 'schedule slip' such as this one - even though i don't have an actual schedule - gives me feelings of guilt. About the phrases that I use in writing repeatedly, that I never really noticed until I started doing this. About how many of my friends blog. But I've been poking away at that post for a couple weeks now and I've made very little headway on it.
I could write about how much I love the guild I'm in, and the friends within it that I made both prior to and after joining it. And how cool it was to actually meet some of my guildies. How they were such a wonderful breath of fresh air after leaving my old raiding guild, even when I'm at my most bitchy, people-hating-est. But I just did.
I could write about the circumstances that lead to me leaving my old raiding guild and how much of a blow to my fragile self-esteem that whole situation actually was. How, despite my current guild note reading, "Be gentle. He's fragile." bothering me to no end, how accurate ti actually is, thus me not causing [too much of] a fuss about it. But that's a can of worms I'm not comfortable opening up in such an ... open ... place as this. Nevermind the fact that some of the people from that old raiding guild happen to read this.
I could write about five paragraphs about what I'm not going to write about, when I already knew what I was going to write about before I pulled up the page to write this. Write, write, write. I've used the word too much, it's starting to look odd to me now. Nevertheless, I'm going to use the word again. I'm going to write about goblins. Specifically, my severe racism against them.
In the years that I've gamed, I've had a go at more than a few games in the MMO genre. I've played Everquest, WoW, EQ2 briefly, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE Online, DC Universe Online, Star Trek Online, Champions wait for it Online, City of Heroes/Villains, Aion, DDO, Rift, WoW, even some of those free-to-play Chinese ones that were rubbish to play, but hey! they were free. But the very first MMO I played - excluding a 3 day trial of EQ that I loved, but couldn't upgrade to because that was a decade ago and I didn't even have one credit card, nevermind the multiple that I have now {as well as the associated debt} - was Final Fantasy XI. Anybody who's ever played that game can probably already see where this is going, but I'm going to meander and get sidetracked along the - ooh! shiny! - way.
I started playing that game for a multitude of reasons. I liked the franchise, for one. Final Fantasy was the 3rd game - excluding Mario 1 / Duck Hunt - I played on the NES [Mario 3 and Legend of Zelda were the other two] and I'd played every FF game since. I'd even played Vagrant Story. I've since missed some along the way - FF Tactics Advance 2, Dissida, Kingdom Hearts [Yes it counts. No, I still haven't played it. I've also never seen any of the Godfather movies. I probably never will either.] - but I've still played a decent chunk of the franchise. Haven't always finished them, but I don't finish a lot of games I play, for various reasons. Regardless, it was a Final Fantasy game. More importantly, it was a Final Fantasy MMO, and that brief trial of EverQuest was enough of a taste of MMOs that I was craving more. And most importantly of all, it was a Final Fantasy MMO that a friend of mine played. I could give him the money to pay for my subscription [it was a bit more complicated than that, but that was the gist of it]. And before I got my own account, he let me make a character to fool around with, to see if I liked it.
Looking back on the game now, it's a marvel at just how bad the game actually is.Terrible account management and downright obtuse billing. No real questing per se [there are quests and missions, but they didn't give you any xp, and rarely did you get a tangible reward, let alone a useful one]. A broken economy. There was a limit to how many auctions you could put up, and all bidding on auctions was done semi-blind. You could look at the price history of any item, and see that the average price was, say 500 gil, but you wouldn't know if the ones currently up were actually for sale at a 1 or a 10'000 gil price until you actually bid on them. Want to increase your carrying capacity from 50 slots to 55? Do a wallet-braking quest. 55 to 60 slots? Even more wallet-busting.
While there are some interesting things, like linkshells/pearls which allow to essentially be in multiple guilds at once - though only talk in one at any given point - and the job system, which effectively cures altitis, it's all implemented in the game in such a way that, after the fact [and during the fact for a lot of people], that makes you think Square-Enix actually hates their players. This is incredibly apparent when you get down to the crux of any MMO; levelling your character. Levelling 1-10 you do so, and while you'll die here and there, it's definitely doable. Levels 10-15 you can do solo, but it's safer to duo that level gap with a friend. It's not safe, you understand, just safer. Levels 15 all the way to the level caps [fianl cap at 75, but artificial caps at 50, and every five levels after] you'll be grouping.There's no way around this. If you want XP, you have to group. If you're lucky, you're levelling one of the core classes that every group needs, but that doesn't mean things will be easier. A lot of the time, logging on for the sole purpose of levelling, either entails a long string of bad groups, sitting on your ass in town trying to put together your group for an hour, or sitting on your ass in town all night waiting for a group that needs a whatever.
Once you're in a levelling group, things don't get any easier. While FFXI was hardly the first MMO to include an experience point debt - EQ did it for one, and then compounded it with making you run back to your corpse naked to get your gear back - it is the only MMO I've played where it's felt so much like a giant neon in the sky that reads, "FUCK YOU". You lose 10% of the experience needed for your next level if you die. Need 25'000 xp to reach level 17 and die? You've just lost 2'500 xp. And if you had only accrued 2'200 xp, you've just de-leveled. And unless you've managed to get a great group [assuming you've managed to get a group at all], some time during your levelling you will die. And don't think for a second that after you've levelled to 75 you've avoided the hateful grind that is 'true' levelling in this game, and just have to worry about keeping a de-level protection buffer up here and there. Thanks to the subjob system, you'll have to level at least one other job to 37, and depending on what that job is, probably another to 18..
Every monster in the game, just to remind you how Square-Enix feels about their player-base [I'm falsely attributing here, but it doesn't feel false], is a complete and utter bastard. There's a monster type called Rarabs. They're essentially Rottweiler-sized kangaroo rats. And they will kick your ass. At some point in the game you will get killed by essentially an oversized rabid bunny. No joke. Also no joke, one of the most personally gratifying things for me when I tried WoW while still playing FFXI was seeing a bunny in the game, and punching it in the face. I ran around the Valley of Trials for at least an hour just killing critters. Once you start levelling in groups though, you tend to stay away from fighting them unless you're at risk of losing your EXP Chain [you string together the killing of higher level mobs by killing them quickly enough and you start to get bonus experience; EXP Chains are at the core of every decent levelling group], because they're not worth the hassle. A group of heroic adventures avoid bunnies, because they're more work than they're worth.
Levels 15-20 are done in a zone called Valkurm Dunes. A lot of people call it Valkurm Hell. Or just Hell. It's a zone packed to the tits with groups, often competing with each other for pulls, often full of people who've just discovered the sign in the sky - the FUCK YOU sign - and are new to grouping, and always full of people 'training' mobs to the zone edges because they aggroed something either they or their group can't handle. Your levelling bread-and-butter in this zone are dragonflies, crabs, and goblins. Goblins in FFXI can be both a blessing and a curse for your levelling group. Goblins have two abilities that have a bearing on your group levelling situation. They probably have more, but these are the only two that matters. The first is a big ol' massive stab - I can't remember what it's called but it works out to pretty much being kicked in the groin with spiky boots, while being elbowed in the face. With spiky bits. If you're lucky, that hits your group's tank. If you're lucky, your tank survives it. If you're me, it hits you. And you die. And you delevel. The second is called Bomb Toss, and this is the one that can be a blessing. At any point in the fight, the gobbo might pull out a bomb and toss it [an ability called Bomb Toss involving tossing a bomb!? What is this madness] The toss can go one of two ways. The goblin can mess up his through and drop the bomb at his feet which will kill him. Or he'll throw it properly, and the bomb will do AoE damage - that usually kills somebody. Usually me.
Dying is a part of any MMO. You learn from your mistakes and move on, right? But no monster in any other game has killed me as much as the goblins in FFXI. Goblins my group were fighting killed me. Goblins somebody else's group were fighting killed me. Goblins chasing me across the zone killed me. Goblins chasing somebody else across the zone killed me. Goblins. Killed. Me. A. Lot. And every time I died - often with the joy of joys that is a de-level - was that much longer I had to be in zone that was overpopulated in both goblins and morons. In the entire time I played FFXI, I had one good group in Valkurm, and they were Japanese so that was frustrating from the language barrier standpoint [pro-tip SE, if you have to learn another language just to accomplish anything, you're doing it wrong. {and yes, I'm aware of the auto-translate tool's presence. You're aware that it was a flawed piece of shit, that often made working with the Japanese players harder, right?}] But you learn from your mistakes and move on, right?
So once I'd had a taste of what an MMO could be - and this was Vanilla WoW, so this wasn't even necessarily what an MMO should be, just what it could be - I left it behind like a Prom baby. And I realize that that is an incredibly tasteless simile, but it's the most apt one for how I felt about FFXI when I quit. I've been playing WoW off-and-on for six-ish years now. I've had my ups and downs with the game in that time, but generally I've enjoyed myself. But when I came, I - to put it mildly - didn't like goblins. I still don't like goblins, even though WoW's goblins are nothing like FFXI's goblins. FFXI ruined goblins for me forever. In every game ever.
So now you know. And knowing is half the battle.
I could write about recently taking two characters to 20, and how I did some PvP along the way. How I levelled my crafting professions, making negative money, yet coming out ahead. Somehow. How I've reconnected with some friends whom I haven't played with since around Burning Crusade's release, and how much fun I'm having just chilling out with them. Having my old main off-tank [if that makes sense] tank for me again is a joy that brings back old times. But all that happened in Rift, and I'm not quite ready for another "omg less than three rift" post.
I could write about levelling Leeloo. Or archaeology levelling in general. Or my massive obsession with solving every artifact ion my DK so that I can go back to Vashj'ir and Hyjal to experience the quests that I haven't touched since Cataclysm's release night. An obsession that has left me flying across the world [of Warcraft{!}] at level 85 and still mostly in my ICC10 gear [with a trinket upgrade, and a few sidegrades]. But I haven't even logged in in about a week.
I could write about writing. Blog writing specifically, and how it has changed - even in this short a time - the way I think about writing things down. How I pace some of writing so that it's regular, but not too regular, and how a 'schedule slip' such as this one - even though i don't have an actual schedule - gives me feelings of guilt. About the phrases that I use in writing repeatedly, that I never really noticed until I started doing this. About how many of my friends blog. But I've been poking away at that post for a couple weeks now and I've made very little headway on it.
I could write about how much I love the guild I'm in, and the friends within it that I made both prior to and after joining it. And how cool it was to actually meet some of my guildies. How they were such a wonderful breath of fresh air after leaving my old raiding guild, even when I'm at my most bitchy, people-hating-est. But I just did.
I could write about the circumstances that lead to me leaving my old raiding guild and how much of a blow to my fragile self-esteem that whole situation actually was. How, despite my current guild note reading, "Be gentle. He's fragile." bothering me to no end, how accurate ti actually is, thus me not causing [too much of] a fuss about it. But that's a can of worms I'm not comfortable opening up in such an ... open ... place as this. Nevermind the fact that some of the people from that old raiding guild happen to read this.
I could write about five paragraphs about what I'm not going to write about, when I already knew what I was going to write about before I pulled up the page to write this. Write, write, write. I've used the word too much, it's starting to look odd to me now. Nevertheless, I'm going to use the word again. I'm going to write about goblins. Specifically, my severe racism against them.
In the years that I've gamed, I've had a go at more than a few games in the MMO genre. I've played Everquest, WoW, EQ2 briefly, Dark Age of Camelot, EVE Online, DC Universe Online, Star Trek Online, Champions wait for it Online, City of Heroes/Villains, Aion, DDO, Rift, WoW, even some of those free-to-play Chinese ones that were rubbish to play, but hey! they were free. But the very first MMO I played - excluding a 3 day trial of EQ that I loved, but couldn't upgrade to because that was a decade ago and I didn't even have one credit card, nevermind the multiple that I have now {as well as the associated debt} - was Final Fantasy XI. Anybody who's ever played that game can probably already see where this is going, but I'm going to meander and get sidetracked along the - ooh! shiny! - way.
I started playing that game for a multitude of reasons. I liked the franchise, for one. Final Fantasy was the 3rd game - excluding Mario 1 / Duck Hunt - I played on the NES [Mario 3 and Legend of Zelda were the other two] and I'd played every FF game since. I'd even played Vagrant Story. I've since missed some along the way - FF Tactics Advance 2, Dissida, Kingdom Hearts [Yes it counts. No, I still haven't played it. I've also never seen any of the Godfather movies. I probably never will either.] - but I've still played a decent chunk of the franchise. Haven't always finished them, but I don't finish a lot of games I play, for various reasons. Regardless, it was a Final Fantasy game. More importantly, it was a Final Fantasy MMO, and that brief trial of EverQuest was enough of a taste of MMOs that I was craving more. And most importantly of all, it was a Final Fantasy MMO that a friend of mine played. I could give him the money to pay for my subscription [it was a bit more complicated than that, but that was the gist of it]. And before I got my own account, he let me make a character to fool around with, to see if I liked it.
Looking back on the game now, it's a marvel at just how bad the game actually is.Terrible account management and downright obtuse billing. No real questing per se [there are quests and missions, but they didn't give you any xp, and rarely did you get a tangible reward, let alone a useful one]. A broken economy. There was a limit to how many auctions you could put up, and all bidding on auctions was done semi-blind. You could look at the price history of any item, and see that the average price was, say 500 gil, but you wouldn't know if the ones currently up were actually for sale at a 1 or a 10'000 gil price until you actually bid on them. Want to increase your carrying capacity from 50 slots to 55? Do a wallet-braking quest. 55 to 60 slots? Even more wallet-busting.
While there are some interesting things, like linkshells/pearls which allow to essentially be in multiple guilds at once - though only talk in one at any given point - and the job system, which effectively cures altitis, it's all implemented in the game in such a way that, after the fact [and during the fact for a lot of people], that makes you think Square-Enix actually hates their players. This is incredibly apparent when you get down to the crux of any MMO; levelling your character. Levelling 1-10 you do so, and while you'll die here and there, it's definitely doable. Levels 10-15 you can do solo, but it's safer to duo that level gap with a friend. It's not safe, you understand, just safer. Levels 15 all the way to the level caps [fianl cap at 75, but artificial caps at 50, and every five levels after] you'll be grouping.There's no way around this. If you want XP, you have to group. If you're lucky, you're levelling one of the core classes that every group needs, but that doesn't mean things will be easier. A lot of the time, logging on for the sole purpose of levelling, either entails a long string of bad groups, sitting on your ass in town trying to put together your group for an hour, or sitting on your ass in town all night waiting for a group that needs a whatever.
Once you're in a levelling group, things don't get any easier. While FFXI was hardly the first MMO to include an experience point debt - EQ did it for one, and then compounded it with making you run back to your corpse naked to get your gear back - it is the only MMO I've played where it's felt so much like a giant neon in the sky that reads, "FUCK YOU". You lose 10% of the experience needed for your next level if you die. Need 25'000 xp to reach level 17 and die? You've just lost 2'500 xp. And if you had only accrued 2'200 xp, you've just de-leveled. And unless you've managed to get a great group [assuming you've managed to get a group at all], some time during your levelling you will die. And don't think for a second that after you've levelled to 75 you've avoided the hateful grind that is 'true' levelling in this game, and just have to worry about keeping a de-level protection buffer up here and there. Thanks to the subjob system, you'll have to level at least one other job to 37, and depending on what that job is, probably another to 18..
Every monster in the game, just to remind you how Square-Enix feels about their player-base [I'm falsely attributing here, but it doesn't feel false], is a complete and utter bastard. There's a monster type called Rarabs. They're essentially Rottweiler-sized kangaroo rats. And they will kick your ass. At some point in the game you will get killed by essentially an oversized rabid bunny. No joke. Also no joke, one of the most personally gratifying things for me when I tried WoW while still playing FFXI was seeing a bunny in the game, and punching it in the face. I ran around the Valley of Trials for at least an hour just killing critters. Once you start levelling in groups though, you tend to stay away from fighting them unless you're at risk of losing your EXP Chain [you string together the killing of higher level mobs by killing them quickly enough and you start to get bonus experience; EXP Chains are at the core of every decent levelling group], because they're not worth the hassle. A group of heroic adventures avoid bunnies, because they're more work than they're worth.
Levels 15-20 are done in a zone called Valkurm Dunes. A lot of people call it Valkurm Hell. Or just Hell. It's a zone packed to the tits with groups, often competing with each other for pulls, often full of people who've just discovered the sign in the sky - the FUCK YOU sign - and are new to grouping, and always full of people 'training' mobs to the zone edges because they aggroed something either they or their group can't handle. Your levelling bread-and-butter in this zone are dragonflies, crabs, and goblins. Goblins in FFXI can be both a blessing and a curse for your levelling group. Goblins have two abilities that have a bearing on your group levelling situation. They probably have more, but these are the only two that matters. The first is a big ol' massive stab - I can't remember what it's called but it works out to pretty much being kicked in the groin with spiky boots, while being elbowed in the face. With spiky bits. If you're lucky, that hits your group's tank. If you're lucky, your tank survives it. If you're me, it hits you. And you die. And you delevel. The second is called Bomb Toss, and this is the one that can be a blessing. At any point in the fight, the gobbo might pull out a bomb and toss it [an ability called Bomb Toss involving tossing a bomb!? What is this madness] The toss can go one of two ways. The goblin can mess up his through and drop the bomb at his feet which will kill him. Or he'll throw it properly, and the bomb will do AoE damage - that usually kills somebody. Usually me.
Dying is a part of any MMO. You learn from your mistakes and move on, right? But no monster in any other game has killed me as much as the goblins in FFXI. Goblins my group were fighting killed me. Goblins somebody else's group were fighting killed me. Goblins chasing me across the zone killed me. Goblins chasing somebody else across the zone killed me. Goblins. Killed. Me. A. Lot. And every time I died - often with the joy of joys that is a de-level - was that much longer I had to be in zone that was overpopulated in both goblins and morons. In the entire time I played FFXI, I had one good group in Valkurm, and they were Japanese so that was frustrating from the language barrier standpoint [pro-tip SE, if you have to learn another language just to accomplish anything, you're doing it wrong. {and yes, I'm aware of the auto-translate tool's presence. You're aware that it was a flawed piece of shit, that often made working with the Japanese players harder, right?}] But you learn from your mistakes and move on, right?
So once I'd had a taste of what an MMO could be - and this was Vanilla WoW, so this wasn't even necessarily what an MMO should be, just what it could be - I left it behind like a Prom baby. And I realize that that is an incredibly tasteless simile, but it's the most apt one for how I felt about FFXI when I quit. I've been playing WoW off-and-on for six-ish years now. I've had my ups and downs with the game in that time, but generally I've enjoyed myself. But when I came, I - to put it mildly - didn't like goblins. I still don't like goblins, even though WoW's goblins are nothing like FFXI's goblins. FFXI ruined goblins for me forever. In every game ever.
So now you know. And knowing is half the battle.
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Faluzure begins casting Wall of Text
I've mentioned this before, but I've been spending a lot of time lately playing Rift. I've been enjoying myself quite a bit, but I don't think it will replace WoW for me. The only games [according to Steam] that I've logged nearly the same amount of hours as I have for WoW are EvE Online, and Mass Effect, and I've quit [and restarted] EvE more often than George Jetson got fired. And other MMOs that I've enjoyed this much have included Aion and DC Universe Online, and I don't play either of those any more. Even when I quit, I always come back to WoW. There's a reason it has the nickname "World of Warcrack". But Rift started to get me thinking about WoW.
A lot of MMOs get compared to WoW, either during development or after release, often unfavourably. Such is the curse of publishing an MMO in the aftermath of the titan that is World of Warcraft. But Rift, doesn't suffer in the shadow of Blizzard-Activision. At least, not in my opinion. In fact, in quite a lot of ways, Trion Worlds did things better. I'm of the opinion that WoW could stand to learn some things from Rift. Yes, you read that right.
Before I get started here, it does bear mentioning that the launch of Rift has been by far the smoothest launch for an MMO I've seen. The list of MMOs that I've been present for the launch of consists Aion, Champion's Online, DCUO, and Star Trek Online. There's been a few issues here and there, and one of the crafting professions is temporarily disabled due to player exploits, but it's been pretty smooth. No server crashes, no inability to log in, nothing. Part of this, I think is that they gave online reviewers access to the beta and, here's the thing, paid attention to what they said. Game reviewers colour a lot of people's views [or at least help them decide if they're on the fence] on a game, so it's important that any issues that a reviewer mentions - assuming it's fixable, of course - get fixed. Preferably before release. Prior to release, there was a patch that dealt with a few minor things in the PvE aspect, and a couple things that were explicitly mentioned in the BFF Report PvP review.
Let's start with one of the most obvious things that WoW could stand to learn from Rift's example. WoW's base UI is pretty simplistic,though they've taken some measures recently to improve on it [the new guild interface for example], and I know that they still have to consider older machines when they do any changes. The computers that could run WoW at launch can still run WoW, though with a lot of the settings turned down. But when you get right down to it, if you want to do more than change the scale of your whole UI or add a couple bars, you have to branch out to addons. And that's fine. My roommate raids comfortably with pretty much the default UI; he has mods, but from what I've seen they're more along the lines of Omen and Gatherer, and maybe Grid.
Rift's UI, straight out of the box, is pretty good. Everything's placed in a pretty logical function, raid frames darken or brighten depending on you're being relative range to the players in the raid. And it's customizable in-game. Not to the extent that is possible with mods in WoW, but that's not the point. Aside from your generic scaling of the entire UI, there's a menu option to re-arrange your UI. Want your minimap to be in the middle of your screen, just above your hotbars? Done. Want your quest tracker and group/raid frames to switch locations? Done. Don't want to see your pet frame or pet action bars at all? Done. And each element can have it's own unique scale and transparency. But now that you've done that to your liking for one character, you'll have to set it all up manually on any future characters, right? Wrong.
Any future characters you make on the same shard [read "server"], whether they're of the same faction or not can import the settings you've put together from any other. And not just UI positions either. You could import your UI from ToonA, your keybindings from ToonB, and your macros from ToonC, if you so desired. That piecemeal approach only works for characters on the same shard, but handily there's a way to import the whole thing [or just the UI placement, I'm not sure] for characters on other shards. There's slash commands. Just log in to the one character and type "/exportui name" and log on to the other and type "/importui name" That's it. And this is in the default game, at launch. Rift doesn't have addons [Yet. The developers aren't opposed to them, to my knowledge.]
There's a few other things that add a great deal to the convenience and ease of gameplay, but they're minor enough that I'm only really going to gloss over them. From your bag bar, it's possible to search your bags if you know the name [or even part of it] of what you're looking for. When at a vendor, your available cash is on their pane, so you don't have to glance down [or up, depending on your UI placement ;p] at your bags to see if you can afford to buy that new sword. Next to your gold display on the vendor window is a little button, that when pressed automatically sells all your vendor trash, leaving all your consumables, crafting materials, gear, etc unscathed. AoE looting. Let's say, you've managed to aggro a whole bunch of mobs, and then successfully kill them all. You're now surrounded by corpses to loot. Normally you'd have to loot them individually, but in Rift, if multiple corpses are in a specific radius of the corpse you loot, you loot them all, simultaneously.
Multiple crafting professions [I'd say all the non-gather ones, but I've only tried weaponsmithing, armoursmithing, runecrafting and outfitting so far] have the ability to break down items for crafting materials. Runecrafting works much like enchanting in WoW, in that you break down [or you would, if it wasn't disabled right now due to player exploits] greens and make runes that can put minor enchantments on specific slots of gear. If you're an armoursmith, you can break down pieces of armour for some metal bars and skins [as well as scraps, which can be combined into salvaged parts which, I'm told can be used in higher-level crafting]. Same deal with weaponsmithing, only you're breaking down weapons, instead of armour. These last things are hardly new approaches to crafting in an MMO, but it does stand to reason that a weaponsmith should be able to figure out how to get something usable out of an axe that is no longer useful, etc.
And finally, public grouping. This one gets it's own paragraph because it ties into a major thing I want to touch on. Public grouping, works like this. Any time you come upon somebody killing something you need to kill for a quest, you can click them, and click a little button on top of their portrait and instantly you're in a group together, and you both get credit. This is handy for normal questing, which is mostly done solo. But the public grouping system [which, if you're curious, you can toggle on your own portrait to private so that people can't randomly group you if you're feeeling anti-social {or douche-baggy}] works just a bit differently for the titular Rifts. When you're near a rift, and at least one other person is too, at the top of your screen [again, assuming basic ui positioning] there's a button labelled "Join Public Group". You click that, and then then you're in a group together, and - assuming the other person is at the rift for the same reason you are - you work together the help close it. This is extremely helpful, especially at some of the larger rifts or during invasions, when there's thirty some-odd people there, all busy making stuff dead or alive depending on their calling/souls [class/specs].
The titular Rifts, as they should be in a game called RIFT, are major points of the game. If it helps, [and it certainly helps me, in terms of describing them] they're like the pre-Cata elemental invasions, only they're everywhere. Some are minor rifts, that you can close all by yourself. Some are major rifts, where you'll need help. And every now and then there's invasions. Four or five major rifts and about a dozen minor ones open up at the same time, and start sending troops to outlying towns to conquer them. If you close all those major and minor rifts in time, a boss spawns. The reward system for closing rifts is interesting too. It kind of works like honour points in WoW. There's a specific currency used to buy stuff [gear, recipes, rift-related powers {one reinforces a wardstone in a town, which helps prevent that town from being captured}], and you acquire that currency by closing rifts. The amount of currency [and other minor rewards] you get for closing a rift, though are based on your contribution. You're going to get a bunch of the lower tier currency and a few of the higher tier ones if you're healing the group, or if you help kill the boss spawn. You might get a few of the low tier currency if you arrive when the boss is at 5% and help from there. And you'll get nothing if you stand around in the group doing nothing.
The Rifts also provide something that I, at least, have found lacking in WoW in a long time. Feeling heroic. Ask yourself this: When's the last time you did something in WoW, where you felt like a Big. Damn. Hero? For me, barring the rescue of lowbies from their certain death here and there, it was back in vanilla, when I killed Nefarion for the very first time. That was a long time ago. A lot of the time in WoW, I just feel like a glorified delivery boy, bringing So-and-so twenty bear asses, or at best, a mercenary, killing a boss for phat lewtz. Closing a rift, makes me feel good. Helping defend a town from an invasion? Makes me feel heroic.
And finally [again], a sense of humour. Now this is one thing that WoW doesn't lack. Blizzard-Activision are more than willing to make a joke. The gnome-killing fireball quest in Uldum, being a quest-giver in Hillsbrad, the inclusion of the hunter NPC that walks up and down the road from Orgrimmar to Razor Hill, by the name of "Tednug", and his pet cat, "Scratchfever". But a lot of other MMOs out there seem to have lost their sense of humour somewhere during development. This is just one example [the only one I've encountered so far, but I'm sure there's more]: When you kill a critter, you get a one minute debuff, essentially calling you a terrible person for just killing that rat/cat/deer/whatever. However, every now and then, when you kill one it's lootable. And that loot? Is a tear. With a tooltip with flavour text along the lines of "That coyote was someone's mother" or "I hope you're proud of yourself". And those tears can be collected for an Artifact set [I've not completed an artifact set yet, so I have no idea what the reward for doing so is]. The Artifact set itself, has flavour text that reads, "You're such a mighty warrior, aren't you?"
All in all, I've been enjoying myself in Rift, and I still enjoy playing WoW, but Blizzard-Activision could certainly learn a few things from Trion Worlds.
Oh, and if you're curious to see the BFF Reports on Rift, here are the links. Because no post by me is complete if it doesn't have any links!
First report
PvP report
Dungeon Guide report
A lot of MMOs get compared to WoW, either during development or after release, often unfavourably. Such is the curse of publishing an MMO in the aftermath of the titan that is World of Warcraft. But Rift, doesn't suffer in the shadow of Blizzard-Activision. At least, not in my opinion. In fact, in quite a lot of ways, Trion Worlds did things better. I'm of the opinion that WoW could stand to learn some things from Rift. Yes, you read that right.
Before I get started here, it does bear mentioning that the launch of Rift has been by far the smoothest launch for an MMO I've seen. The list of MMOs that I've been present for the launch of consists Aion, Champion's Online, DCUO, and Star Trek Online. There's been a few issues here and there, and one of the crafting professions is temporarily disabled due to player exploits, but it's been pretty smooth. No server crashes, no inability to log in, nothing. Part of this, I think is that they gave online reviewers access to the beta and, here's the thing, paid attention to what they said. Game reviewers colour a lot of people's views [or at least help them decide if they're on the fence] on a game, so it's important that any issues that a reviewer mentions - assuming it's fixable, of course - get fixed. Preferably before release. Prior to release, there was a patch that dealt with a few minor things in the PvE aspect, and a couple things that were explicitly mentioned in the BFF Report PvP review.
Let's start with one of the most obvious things that WoW could stand to learn from Rift's example. WoW's base UI is pretty simplistic,though they've taken some measures recently to improve on it [the new guild interface for example], and I know that they still have to consider older machines when they do any changes. The computers that could run WoW at launch can still run WoW, though with a lot of the settings turned down. But when you get right down to it, if you want to do more than change the scale of your whole UI or add a couple bars, you have to branch out to addons. And that's fine. My roommate raids comfortably with pretty much the default UI; he has mods, but from what I've seen they're more along the lines of Omen and Gatherer, and maybe Grid.
Rift's UI, straight out of the box, is pretty good. Everything's placed in a pretty logical function, raid frames darken or brighten depending on you're being relative range to the players in the raid. And it's customizable in-game. Not to the extent that is possible with mods in WoW, but that's not the point. Aside from your generic scaling of the entire UI, there's a menu option to re-arrange your UI. Want your minimap to be in the middle of your screen, just above your hotbars? Done. Want your quest tracker and group/raid frames to switch locations? Done. Don't want to see your pet frame or pet action bars at all? Done. And each element can have it's own unique scale and transparency. But now that you've done that to your liking for one character, you'll have to set it all up manually on any future characters, right? Wrong.
Any future characters you make on the same shard [read "server"], whether they're of the same faction or not can import the settings you've put together from any other. And not just UI positions either. You could import your UI from ToonA, your keybindings from ToonB, and your macros from ToonC, if you so desired. That piecemeal approach only works for characters on the same shard, but handily there's a way to import the whole thing [or just the UI placement, I'm not sure] for characters on other shards. There's slash commands. Just log in to the one character and type "/exportui name" and log on to the other and type "/importui name" That's it. And this is in the default game, at launch. Rift doesn't have addons [Yet. The developers aren't opposed to them, to my knowledge.]
There's a few other things that add a great deal to the convenience and ease of gameplay, but they're minor enough that I'm only really going to gloss over them. From your bag bar, it's possible to search your bags if you know the name [or even part of it] of what you're looking for. When at a vendor, your available cash is on their pane, so you don't have to glance down [or up, depending on your UI placement ;p] at your bags to see if you can afford to buy that new sword. Next to your gold display on the vendor window is a little button, that when pressed automatically sells all your vendor trash, leaving all your consumables, crafting materials, gear, etc unscathed. AoE looting. Let's say, you've managed to aggro a whole bunch of mobs, and then successfully kill them all. You're now surrounded by corpses to loot. Normally you'd have to loot them individually, but in Rift, if multiple corpses are in a specific radius of the corpse you loot, you loot them all, simultaneously.
Multiple crafting professions [I'd say all the non-gather ones, but I've only tried weaponsmithing, armoursmithing, runecrafting and outfitting so far] have the ability to break down items for crafting materials. Runecrafting works much like enchanting in WoW, in that you break down [or you would, if it wasn't disabled right now due to player exploits] greens and make runes that can put minor enchantments on specific slots of gear. If you're an armoursmith, you can break down pieces of armour for some metal bars and skins [as well as scraps, which can be combined into salvaged parts which, I'm told can be used in higher-level crafting]. Same deal with weaponsmithing, only you're breaking down weapons, instead of armour. These last things are hardly new approaches to crafting in an MMO, but it does stand to reason that a weaponsmith should be able to figure out how to get something usable out of an axe that is no longer useful, etc.
And finally, public grouping. This one gets it's own paragraph because it ties into a major thing I want to touch on. Public grouping, works like this. Any time you come upon somebody killing something you need to kill for a quest, you can click them, and click a little button on top of their portrait and instantly you're in a group together, and you both get credit. This is handy for normal questing, which is mostly done solo. But the public grouping system [which, if you're curious, you can toggle on your own portrait to private so that people can't randomly group you if you're feeeling anti-social {or douche-baggy}] works just a bit differently for the titular Rifts. When you're near a rift, and at least one other person is too, at the top of your screen [again, assuming basic ui positioning] there's a button labelled "Join Public Group". You click that, and then then you're in a group together, and - assuming the other person is at the rift for the same reason you are - you work together the help close it. This is extremely helpful, especially at some of the larger rifts or during invasions, when there's thirty some-odd people there, all busy making stuff dead or alive depending on their calling/souls [class/specs].
The titular Rifts, as they should be in a game called RIFT, are major points of the game. If it helps, [and it certainly helps me, in terms of describing them] they're like the pre-Cata elemental invasions, only they're everywhere. Some are minor rifts, that you can close all by yourself. Some are major rifts, where you'll need help. And every now and then there's invasions. Four or five major rifts and about a dozen minor ones open up at the same time, and start sending troops to outlying towns to conquer them. If you close all those major and minor rifts in time, a boss spawns. The reward system for closing rifts is interesting too. It kind of works like honour points in WoW. There's a specific currency used to buy stuff [gear, recipes, rift-related powers {one reinforces a wardstone in a town, which helps prevent that town from being captured}], and you acquire that currency by closing rifts. The amount of currency [and other minor rewards] you get for closing a rift, though are based on your contribution. You're going to get a bunch of the lower tier currency and a few of the higher tier ones if you're healing the group, or if you help kill the boss spawn. You might get a few of the low tier currency if you arrive when the boss is at 5% and help from there. And you'll get nothing if you stand around in the group doing nothing.
The Rifts also provide something that I, at least, have found lacking in WoW in a long time. Feeling heroic. Ask yourself this: When's the last time you did something in WoW, where you felt like a Big. Damn. Hero? For me, barring the rescue of lowbies from their certain death here and there, it was back in vanilla, when I killed Nefarion for the very first time. That was a long time ago. A lot of the time in WoW, I just feel like a glorified delivery boy, bringing So-and-so twenty bear asses, or at best, a mercenary, killing a boss for phat lewtz. Closing a rift, makes me feel good. Helping defend a town from an invasion? Makes me feel heroic.
And finally [again], a sense of humour. Now this is one thing that WoW doesn't lack. Blizzard-Activision are more than willing to make a joke. The gnome-killing fireball quest in Uldum, being a quest-giver in Hillsbrad, the inclusion of the hunter NPC that walks up and down the road from Orgrimmar to Razor Hill, by the name of "Tednug", and his pet cat, "Scratchfever". But a lot of other MMOs out there seem to have lost their sense of humour somewhere during development. This is just one example [the only one I've encountered so far, but I'm sure there's more]: When you kill a critter, you get a one minute debuff, essentially calling you a terrible person for just killing that rat/cat/deer/whatever. However, every now and then, when you kill one it's lootable. And that loot? Is a tear. With a tooltip with flavour text along the lines of "That coyote was someone's mother" or "I hope you're proud of yourself". And those tears can be collected for an Artifact set [I've not completed an artifact set yet, so I have no idea what the reward for doing so is]. The Artifact set itself, has flavour text that reads, "You're such a mighty warrior, aren't you?"
All in all, I've been enjoying myself in Rift, and I still enjoy playing WoW, but Blizzard-Activision could certainly learn a few things from Trion Worlds.
Oh, and if you're curious to see the BFF Reports on Rift, here are the links. Because no post by me is complete if it doesn't have any links!
First report
PvP report
Dungeon Guide report
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Assistant Professor Leeloodallas, Multipass!
That's right folks, it's time for another quin-level Leeloo update.
This section of levelling took way longer than it should have. Partly because I haven't been playing much, and partly because I apparently received a blow to the head and decided to go back to the Eastern Kingdoms after I dinged 34. I know what I said earlier, and it's still true; Eastern Kingdoms is a horrible continent to level archaeology on if you're horde and can't fly yet.
However, I was getting bored of things over on Kalimdor, and I was hoping that grabbing all the flightpaths in between each digsite would make things easier on EK as well as add some variety. I'm not too sure that I've accomplished the former as digsites in Redridge still entail running from Searing Gorge through mobs several levels above me, bu it definitely added variety. I've been dying in all kinds of new [to Leeloo] and interesting locales.
Truthfully though, aside from the grabbing of flightpaths in Eastern Kingdoms I haven't died all that much, which is a bit surprising considering how poorly geared Leeloo is. Aside from the three initial pieces of heirloom gear that I started this challenge with [Stained Shadowcraft Tunic, Spaulders and the Venerable Mass of McGowan with Crusader], her gear is kind of rubbish. The auction house at 30 had a complete dearth of useful gear, and at 35 what little there was that was an upgrade had exorbitant prices. 50g for some new pants? Bugger that for a lark.
I've also come to the conclusion that this would be a lot harder if Leeloo was anything but what she is, a druid. There are other classes that would do better, in terms of survivability like a hunter or a paladin, but survivability plus ease of travel? Druid hands [paws?] down. If you're thinking to yourself that at level 20, it wouldn't make a difference at all, but I've not bought any Riding skill yet. I'm not even sure I've been able to afford it yet, except at the time of my visit to Orgrimmar upon hitting 35. But the thing is, I've talented for a faster cat form, glyphed for a faster aquatic form, and if I'm outdoors I have travel form. These are hardly the top of the class, as it were, in the realm of faster travel, but they're constant, and relatively cheap.
I'm still bleeding money like a hemophiliac, though. The double-gathering is bringing in tidy sums of money, of course, but that money, as I mentioned when I started this silly venture, is being held elsewhere. Thankfully, my higher level gains has opened up both new zones to dig in, as well as better quality relics. Now the ones I'm solving for don't just vendor for 1g; sometimes they vendor for *gasp* 2g. So upon dinging 35, I was actually sitting on a mountainous sum of 15g - which I then promptly spent on training my druid [I didn't train at 34 due to not needing the newly unlocked abilities] and her profession skills. Mining and herbalism set me back 9g.
Finally, as the title of this post implies, Leeloo got herself some archaeology achievements and is now the proud owner of a Druid and Priest Statue Set as well as the title "Assistant Professor". That title has actually saved my life now, believe it or not. I was at a digsite in ... I honestly can't remember where, but there were nagas everywhere and it wasn't Darkshore. There was also a boss-level [boss-level, not ??-level] naga there that aggroed me despite me trying my very best to avoid her. She hit me twice fo 200-odd damage apiece when I was saved by a fellow archaeologist, a blood elf priest. After solidly thwapping the naga, and me thanking her, she let me know that she only saved me because of my title. Misplaced reasoning aside, that was pretty nice.
And now... Screenshots!
This section of levelling took way longer than it should have. Partly because I haven't been playing much, and partly because I apparently received a blow to the head and decided to go back to the Eastern Kingdoms after I dinged 34. I know what I said earlier, and it's still true; Eastern Kingdoms is a horrible continent to level archaeology on if you're horde and can't fly yet.
However, I was getting bored of things over on Kalimdor, and I was hoping that grabbing all the flightpaths in between each digsite would make things easier on EK as well as add some variety. I'm not too sure that I've accomplished the former as digsites in Redridge still entail running from Searing Gorge through mobs several levels above me, bu it definitely added variety. I've been dying in all kinds of new [to Leeloo] and interesting locales.
Truthfully though, aside from the grabbing of flightpaths in Eastern Kingdoms I haven't died all that much, which is a bit surprising considering how poorly geared Leeloo is. Aside from the three initial pieces of heirloom gear that I started this challenge with [Stained Shadowcraft Tunic, Spaulders and the Venerable Mass of McGowan with Crusader], her gear is kind of rubbish. The auction house at 30 had a complete dearth of useful gear, and at 35 what little there was that was an upgrade had exorbitant prices. 50g for some new pants? Bugger that for a lark.
I've also come to the conclusion that this would be a lot harder if Leeloo was anything but what she is, a druid. There are other classes that would do better, in terms of survivability like a hunter or a paladin, but survivability plus ease of travel? Druid hands [paws?] down. If you're thinking to yourself that at level 20, it wouldn't make a difference at all, but I've not bought any Riding skill yet. I'm not even sure I've been able to afford it yet, except at the time of my visit to Orgrimmar upon hitting 35. But the thing is, I've talented for a faster cat form, glyphed for a faster aquatic form, and if I'm outdoors I have travel form. These are hardly the top of the class, as it were, in the realm of faster travel, but they're constant, and relatively cheap.
I'm still bleeding money like a hemophiliac, though. The double-gathering is bringing in tidy sums of money, of course, but that money, as I mentioned when I started this silly venture, is being held elsewhere. Thankfully, my higher level gains has opened up both new zones to dig in, as well as better quality relics. Now the ones I'm solving for don't just vendor for 1g; sometimes they vendor for *gasp* 2g. So upon dinging 35, I was actually sitting on a mountainous sum of 15g - which I then promptly spent on training my druid [I didn't train at 34 due to not needing the newly unlocked abilities] and her profession skills. Mining and herbalism set me back 9g.
Finally, as the title of this post implies, Leeloo got herself some archaeology achievements and is now the proud owner of a Druid and Priest Statue Set as well as the title "Assistant Professor". That title has actually saved my life now, believe it or not. I was at a digsite in ... I honestly can't remember where, but there were nagas everywhere and it wasn't Darkshore. There was also a boss-level [boss-level, not ??-level] naga there that aggroed me despite me trying my very best to avoid her. She hit me twice fo 200-odd damage apiece when I was saved by a fellow archaeologist, a blood elf priest. After solidly thwapping the naga, and me thanking her, she let me know that she only saved me because of my title. Misplaced reasoning aside, that was pretty nice.
And now... Screenshots!
Monday, 28 February 2011
LUA's Your Daddy (And What Does He Two)?
I really should be making another Leeloo gathering post today, but I've been playing the head-start of RIFT so the vast majority of my playtime in WoW has only consisted of scanning the auction house in the background while I catch up on my RSS feeds. Or while I make blog posts. And I'm finding that I really do enjoy making blog posts. So today, I'm going to hit up some mods again, while reusing my LUA pun.
TukUI
This is kind of an all-in-one, as is usually the case with mods that contain "UI" in their names. It's a very nice, minimal [and resolution-independent] package that takes care of pretty much everything. It handles your buff bar, minimap, bags, bars, nameplates, and to a limited extent also works as an LDB broker [like Titan Panel or FuBar] It also comes with a toggle between a dps/tank UI and a healer one, though I've not tried the healer one. This mod, no joke, replaced ten mods I was using previously [SexyMap, FuBar, Bartender, Bagnon, Sunn - Viewport Art, Recount, Tidy Plates, PitBull Unit Frames, SatrinaBuffFrame and TipTac] and uses about as much memory as one of the less mem-hog ones I listed.
This mod is pretty flawless right out of the box, and it's super easy to configure [though you do have to download something additional to do so; that's on the download page linked above as well]. If you do end up using it - or one of the three edits of it [ElvUI, EclÃpsé UI, and Hydra UI] - be sure to stop by their forums. Aside from being pretty friendly there, they have a sub-forum for mods that have been built from scratch or have been skinned to mesh with the TukUI look [not the other three, sorry].
My only real gripe with it is the LDB broker portion of it. The way it is set up only allows for a maximum of eight things being displayed, which for me, is pretty limiting, but for others may be more than enough. Even so, I heavily recommend this mod.
Flight Map Enhanced
This mod does a lot of things that makes taking a flight anywhere in the game a lot more convenient. Amongst other things, it adds a list to the side of the map at the flightmaster separating flightpoints by their zone, with each zone collapsable. It shows on your world map any flightpaths you're missing, independently of whether you've fully explored the zone or not [a failing in Blizz having hard-to-see symbols on the new maps], though you have to talk to a flightmaster first for it to get a list of what's missing for that continent [and talk again once you've grabbed some, to refresh it's list]. You can click [or shift-click, alt-click, etc] anywhere on the world map, and not only will it auto-select the closest flightpath to where you clicked as your destination, it will show an icon on your minimap directing you to the closest flightpath to you.
I would love for it to have some optional TomTom support for finding new flightpaths, and directing you to the nearest fp once a destination has been selected, but their absence doesn't hurt the mod at all. And I may end up submitting a ticket or coding in support for it myself. We'll see.
TomTom
I originally installed this mod for integration with another mod that I not only no longer use, but can't even remember the name of. It puts an arrow on the screen that points to specific coordinates in a zone [it doesn't have to be the one you're in], as well as a range, and it updates as you head towards/away that waypoint. Upon death, it will instantly generate a waypoint to your corpse [or the instance portal if you died in a dungeon]. Despite the fact that I constantly use TomTom, I'm mostly using it via other mods and not by itself. Still, all-around a good mod [es evidenced by my wish for integration with Flight Map Enhanced, above].
ProspectBar
Despite the name, this mod handles milling, disenchanting, unlocking and opening of boxes, as well as the titular prospecting. I've only used it for milling so far, but it's amazing for that [way better than Panda, honestly]. It, oddly enough, puts a tiny movable [and collapsible] bar on your screen, that adds buttons that correspond to your herbs [and ores, boxes, and greens too, though as I said, I've not explored that aspect of it yet]. You click the button and presto-change-o you've milled [etc.] that herb [brackets are fun {nested brackets more-so}].
Well, that's it for this dose of addon-related blogging. For the amount that I actually say in these posts, the amount of time it takes to write them is kind of ludicrous. This one took about two hours to put together, though that's pretty much entirely due to the massive amount of linking I did in my rundown of TukUI [seriously, 15 links, not counting the one actually linking to it].
As always [let's pretend I've been saying this from the start {and that I'll remember to say it in the future}], I hope you've enjoyed my writing, or at the very least didn't hate it. And I hope you've found something new and shiny to ease your WoW experience. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an overlord I must abase myself before.
TukUI
This is kind of an all-in-one, as is usually the case with mods that contain "UI" in their names. It's a very nice, minimal [and resolution-independent] package that takes care of pretty much everything. It handles your buff bar, minimap, bags, bars, nameplates, and to a limited extent also works as an LDB broker [like Titan Panel or FuBar] It also comes with a toggle between a dps/tank UI and a healer one, though I've not tried the healer one. This mod, no joke, replaced ten mods I was using previously [SexyMap, FuBar, Bartender, Bagnon, Sunn - Viewport Art, Recount, Tidy Plates, PitBull Unit Frames, SatrinaBuffFrame and TipTac] and uses about as much memory as one of the less mem-hog ones I listed.
This mod is pretty flawless right out of the box, and it's super easy to configure [though you do have to download something additional to do so; that's on the download page linked above as well]. If you do end up using it - or one of the three edits of it [ElvUI, EclÃpsé UI, and Hydra UI] - be sure to stop by their forums. Aside from being pretty friendly there, they have a sub-forum for mods that have been built from scratch or have been skinned to mesh with the TukUI look [not the other three, sorry].
My only real gripe with it is the LDB broker portion of it. The way it is set up only allows for a maximum of eight things being displayed, which for me, is pretty limiting, but for others may be more than enough. Even so, I heavily recommend this mod.
Flight Map Enhanced
This mod does a lot of things that makes taking a flight anywhere in the game a lot more convenient. Amongst other things, it adds a list to the side of the map at the flightmaster separating flightpoints by their zone, with each zone collapsable. It shows on your world map any flightpaths you're missing, independently of whether you've fully explored the zone or not [a failing in Blizz having hard-to-see symbols on the new maps], though you have to talk to a flightmaster first for it to get a list of what's missing for that continent [and talk again once you've grabbed some, to refresh it's list]. You can click [or shift-click, alt-click, etc] anywhere on the world map, and not only will it auto-select the closest flightpath to where you clicked as your destination, it will show an icon on your minimap directing you to the closest flightpath to you.
I would love for it to have some optional TomTom support for finding new flightpaths, and directing you to the nearest fp once a destination has been selected, but their absence doesn't hurt the mod at all. And I may end up submitting a ticket or coding in support for it myself. We'll see.
TomTom
I originally installed this mod for integration with another mod that I not only no longer use, but can't even remember the name of. It puts an arrow on the screen that points to specific coordinates in a zone [it doesn't have to be the one you're in], as well as a range, and it updates as you head towards/away that waypoint. Upon death, it will instantly generate a waypoint to your corpse [or the instance portal if you died in a dungeon]. Despite the fact that I constantly use TomTom, I'm mostly using it via other mods and not by itself. Still, all-around a good mod [es evidenced by my wish for integration with Flight Map Enhanced, above].
ProspectBar
Despite the name, this mod handles milling, disenchanting, unlocking and opening of boxes, as well as the titular prospecting. I've only used it for milling so far, but it's amazing for that [way better than Panda, honestly]. It, oddly enough, puts a tiny movable [and collapsible] bar on your screen, that adds buttons that correspond to your herbs [and ores, boxes, and greens too, though as I said, I've not explored that aspect of it yet]. You click the button and presto-change-o you've milled [etc.] that herb [brackets are fun {nested brackets more-so}].
Well, that's it for this dose of addon-related blogging. For the amount that I actually say in these posts, the amount of time it takes to write them is kind of ludicrous. This one took about two hours to put together, though that's pretty much entirely due to the massive amount of linking I did in my rundown of TukUI [seriously, 15 links, not counting the one actually linking to it].
As always [let's pretend I've been saying this from the start {and that I'll remember to say it in the future}], I hope you've enjoyed my writing, or at the very least didn't hate it. And I hope you've found something new and shiny to ease your WoW experience. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an overlord I must abase myself before.
Saturday, 26 February 2011
LUA's Your Daddy (And What Does He Do)?
Like a lot of WoW players, I use addons. I use a lot of addons. According to the Curse updater, I currently have 25 installed [and I'm using a few others from alternate sources, so let's say... 30]. And this is assuming that I count all the multi-piece mods as one [all of the DBM stuff for example]. This is also the fewest amount of mods that I've had installed since I was in a raiding guild and we were still progressing in Molten Core. I constantly install, remove, and modify the addons I have installed. Emphasis on the modify. If I find an addon [or mod; I'm using the terms interchangeably here] that has one feature that I like, and three that, while nice, I'll either never use or are done better by something else I have installed, I'll go into the code and snip it out.
So, I thought it might be nice, from time to time, for me to go through mods that I've tried recently or am currently using indefinitely and give mini-reviews. I'll be avoiding the mods that are usually installed by the average user, whether they should be or not [Omen & GearScore for example]. So let's start things off nice and easy, shall we?
!BugGrabber and BugSack
These two mods are essential to me due to the sheer amount of add-on editing that I do. I've been fooling around with programming for fun for the past ten years or so, coding by hand everything from a javascript to LiteStep to Linux. !BugGrabber does pretty much what you would expect it would do based on the name; it grabs any LUA errors that pop up during gameplay and makes them faff off [unless you call them via the slash command]. BugSack is another mod by the same author that works hand-in-hand with !BugGrabber [it has a hard dependency on it, so you can't run BugSack without !BugGrabber]. What it does is takes all those LUA errors you may or may not have gotten and sets them aside for you to view in full, copy/paste to an outside source, etc. Usually after I've messed around with a mod's code, I'll log in and run around for an hour or two doing dailies and archaeology, and then have a look in the sack to see what - if anything - I need to fix.
_NPCScan and _NPCScan.Overlay
There are other mods that do what these two do - SilverDragon for example - but I personally find these two be easier to work with. _NPCScan, much like !BugGrabber above, does just what you'd think; it scans for NPCs. Specifically BC, Wrath and Cata rares for the achievements [or in the case of the TLPD, a mount]. It also allows you to add custom NPCs to scan for. All you need to know is the mob's ID number. Other information like what continent/zone it's in, helps reduce the memory use by only scanning for it in that area, but it doesn't really use that much to begin with. The separate Overlay mod puts an - surprise, surprise - overly on the map [world, mini or both - your choice] that indicates the mob's patrol path as well as spawn points if you desire to camp it, though that only supports the NPCs that the main mod scans for out of the box.
One gripe that I have with _NPCScan is that it doesn't have a config option within the game that allows you to select which raid marker it will put on the mob once it's found. It will put on the green triangle only, unless, of course you modify some files.
Overall, _NPCScan is a convenient mod to have if you're after those achievements, and the ability to add other mobs to search for improves it's potential greatly. Though the more mobs you add, the more often you have to clear your cache [info on that is on the main addon's website.]
Two additional things for _NPCScan that are of note:
If you desire to change what raid marker this addon applies to found NPCs, it's a really simple edit of one file.
Go into the addon's folder [Your_WoW_Install_Path\Interface\Addons\_NPCScan\] and open _NPCScan.Button.lua with any text editor [I recommend Notepad++, but whatever floats your boat] and search for the text "me.RaidTargetIcon = 4; -- Green triangle" [line 19] and change the 4 to the corresponding number for your preferred icon [The list here will tell you the numbers if you don't already know them]. You can change "Green triangle" too if you so desire, but there's no need; the double dash denotes a comment in the code, it has no real bearing on the final result. Save the file and you're done. [Obviously, unless you know what you're doing, you should leave the rest of the file alone ;p]
If you're like me, you're not content to have it just search for BC, Wrath and Cata rares. You want the mod to look for all rares. Everywhere. Well, that's some time-consuming work - searching for rares, rare elites, finding their ID number, blah blah blah. I know it's time-consuming, because I did it. A couple warnings before I give you a download link though =)
- First of all, you'll have to clear your cache a lot more often if you want to continually scan for the lower level rares.
- Secondly, I know that I'm missing some, so if you find a rare that doesn't trigger the mod, then please tell me the mob's name, as well as what zone you found it in.
- Thirdly, I did leave four mobs out intentionally - the Scarshield Quartermaster and the three beast bosses in the Servant Quarters of Karazhan. If you want to add them yourself, by all means, feel free, but I won't.
- Finally, how to "install" the bloody thing. Install _NPCScan and log into the game with it enabled at least once per character that you want to run it on. Then download my file. Browse to Your_WoW_Install_Path\WTF\Account\YOUR_ACCOUNT_NAME\Your_Server_Name\Character_Name\SavedVariables\ and paste the file there. When asked to, override the original file with mine. You'll have to do that for each character you want this done to.
WARNING: If this messes up your WoW, your computer, your social life, your dog's eating habits, whatever - it shouldn't, but if it does - it is not my fault. Download here.
I think that about does it for this post tonight. This has taken a lot longer to put together than I originally thought it would, and I have some Juicy Bear Burgers just waiting to be nom'ed.
So, I thought it might be nice, from time to time, for me to go through mods that I've tried recently or am currently using indefinitely and give mini-reviews. I'll be avoiding the mods that are usually installed by the average user, whether they should be or not [Omen & GearScore for example]. So let's start things off nice and easy, shall we?
!BugGrabber and BugSack
These two mods are essential to me due to the sheer amount of add-on editing that I do. I've been fooling around with programming for fun for the past ten years or so, coding by hand everything from a javascript to LiteStep to Linux. !BugGrabber does pretty much what you would expect it would do based on the name; it grabs any LUA errors that pop up during gameplay and makes them faff off [unless you call them via the slash command]. BugSack is another mod by the same author that works hand-in-hand with !BugGrabber [it has a hard dependency on it, so you can't run BugSack without !BugGrabber]. What it does is takes all those LUA errors you may or may not have gotten and sets them aside for you to view in full, copy/paste to an outside source, etc. Usually after I've messed around with a mod's code, I'll log in and run around for an hour or two doing dailies and archaeology, and then have a look in the sack to see what - if anything - I need to fix.
_NPCScan and _NPCScan.Overlay
There are other mods that do what these two do - SilverDragon for example - but I personally find these two be easier to work with. _NPCScan, much like !BugGrabber above, does just what you'd think; it scans for NPCs. Specifically BC, Wrath and Cata rares for the achievements [or in the case of the TLPD, a mount]. It also allows you to add custom NPCs to scan for. All you need to know is the mob's ID number. Other information like what continent/zone it's in, helps reduce the memory use by only scanning for it in that area, but it doesn't really use that much to begin with. The separate Overlay mod puts an - surprise, surprise - overly on the map [world, mini or both - your choice] that indicates the mob's patrol path as well as spawn points if you desire to camp it, though that only supports the NPCs that the main mod scans for out of the box.
One gripe that I have with _NPCScan is that it doesn't have a config option within the game that allows you to select which raid marker it will put on the mob once it's found. It will put on the green triangle only, unless, of course you modify some files.
Overall, _NPCScan is a convenient mod to have if you're after those achievements, and the ability to add other mobs to search for improves it's potential greatly. Though the more mobs you add, the more often you have to clear your cache [info on that is on the main addon's website.]
Two additional things for _NPCScan that are of note:
If you desire to change what raid marker this addon applies to found NPCs, it's a really simple edit of one file.
Go into the addon's folder [Your_WoW_Install_Path\Interface\Addons\_NPCScan\] and open _NPCScan.Button.lua with any text editor [I recommend Notepad++, but whatever floats your boat] and search for the text "me.RaidTargetIcon = 4; -- Green triangle" [line 19] and change the 4 to the corresponding number for your preferred icon [The list here will tell you the numbers if you don't already know them]. You can change "Green triangle" too if you so desire, but there's no need; the double dash denotes a comment in the code, it has no real bearing on the final result. Save the file and you're done. [Obviously, unless you know what you're doing, you should leave the rest of the file alone ;p]
If you're like me, you're not content to have it just search for BC, Wrath and Cata rares. You want the mod to look for all rares. Everywhere. Well, that's some time-consuming work - searching for rares, rare elites, finding their ID number, blah blah blah. I know it's time-consuming, because I did it. A couple warnings before I give you a download link though =)
- First of all, you'll have to clear your cache a lot more often if you want to continually scan for the lower level rares.
- Secondly, I know that I'm missing some, so if you find a rare that doesn't trigger the mod, then please tell me the mob's name, as well as what zone you found it in.
- Thirdly, I did leave four mobs out intentionally - the Scarshield Quartermaster and the three beast bosses in the Servant Quarters of Karazhan. If you want to add them yourself, by all means, feel free, but I won't.
- Finally, how to "install" the bloody thing. Install _NPCScan and log into the game with it enabled at least once per character that you want to run it on. Then download my file. Browse to Your_WoW_Install_Path\WTF\Account\YOUR_ACCOUNT_NAME\Your_Server_Name\Character_Name\SavedVariables\ and paste the file there. When asked to, override the original file with mine. You'll have to do that for each character you want this done to.
WARNING: If this messes up your WoW, your computer, your social life, your dog's eating habits, whatever - it shouldn't, but if it does - it is not my fault. Download here.
I think that about does it for this post tonight. This has taken a lot longer to put together than I originally thought it would, and I have some Juicy Bear Burgers just waiting to be nom'ed.
Friday, 25 February 2011
Polymorphic Monotony
I originally wasn't going to post this, as [a] it's a mini-rant, and [b] it's something that I've already mentioned too much in guild chat and in our forums. But while I was in the shower I thought of this post's title and, well, I can't let something like that go to waste. So I guess I'll just have to go into more detail.
Before I get started, I should also mention that this is pretty much an "Accentuate the Negative" post. While I am complaining here, I'd like it to be clear that I do like WoW, and druids, and all their capacity for shapeshifting. It's the models that I have some issue with. The models for Travel Form and Aquatic Form, specifically. In and of themselves, they're perfectly cromulent models, and they're incredibly useful spells. But they're bland.
Perhaps they only seem bland because of the semi-recent changes to Cat Form and Bear Forms, and all the variety that they offer, but my point remains. They're bland. Travel Form is the greater offender in this case, since the model for that spell is actually a placeholder. Travel Form was originally going to be a stag, but they put in the cheetah model we know and love [and we do love it] as a placeholder in beta to be changed later. It's been three expansions. But both models have been in since release, and if nothing else, compared to a lot of other stuff we're seeing in-game they're poly-count is really quite low.
In all honesty, some of my complaints about travel form rise from the fact that I'm colour-blind [anomalous trichromancy, protanomaly for those curious]. It's not a huge deal as in a lot of games, WoW especially, it doesn't effect too much of the gameplay for me. I don't turn on WoW's colour-blind mode, for one thing. It does make Audiosurf a bit harder than it has to be though. And obviously, some of the more red-tinged zones tend to give me a bit of difficulty [Badlands, and Hellfire I'm looking at you], but I've adapted. Interestingly, it also seems to affect some forms of yellow as well. Not entirely sure if that's normal, but c'est la vie. That does cause some other interesting interactions though. Gathering in Badlands is doubly hard, if using the minimap to notice nodes. And seeing where I am on my screen while in Travel Form and in Azshara... I've been told by others that they've lost track of themselves momentarily there due to the camouflage tendencies of the cheetah pattern against the yellow ground with high vegetation. I pretty much have to shift out and cast a spell to find myself.
In other games I'd have an easy choice. I'd either stop playing the game, muddle through [I'm an exceptionally stubborn individual], or modify/replace whatever model was the root of the problem. While not the easiest thing to do in a lot of games, it's not all that hard to figure out. Thanks to the internet, if I can't figure out how to do something, about five minutes of looking on Google, not only will I have found thirty people who know how, but whom have done it better than myself. I have very little graphical talent, so if I've gone the route of model-editing over model-swapping, I usually end up going to these resources anyways.
WoW, however is a special case. There's plenty of models to choose from. If I wanted Aquatic Form to look like a makrura or a grouper, I could. If I wanted Travel Form to look like Ashtail or a different cat model, I could. It wouldn't even be very hard compared to some of the model swaps I've done in the past. But there's a caveat. I could change the Travel Form model [and incidentally have all mobs that use the model look like whatever I switched it to as well] but I won't. Blizzard's Terms of Use [You know, that thing that you don't read and you click the button that says you agree to?] disallows model swapping; "You agree that you will not, under any circumstances: ... D. modify or cause to be modified any files that are a part of the Game Client or the Service in any way not expressly authorized by Blizzard;". In other words, if I model swap, I run the risk of having my account shut down. No, thank you. I'll struggle on.
Also, as others have pointed out to me, I'm sure a redesign on Travel/Aquatic Forms [and hopefully Moonkin as well, though that's a form I don't use and thus have no opinion on] are in the works, though probably not even middling in their priorities. Soon™
Before I get started, I should also mention that this is pretty much an "Accentuate the Negative" post. While I am complaining here, I'd like it to be clear that I do like WoW, and druids, and all their capacity for shapeshifting. It's the models that I have some issue with. The models for Travel Form and Aquatic Form, specifically. In and of themselves, they're perfectly cromulent models, and they're incredibly useful spells. But they're bland.
Perhaps they only seem bland because of the semi-recent changes to Cat Form and Bear Forms, and all the variety that they offer, but my point remains. They're bland. Travel Form is the greater offender in this case, since the model for that spell is actually a placeholder. Travel Form was originally going to be a stag, but they put in the cheetah model we know and love [and we do love it] as a placeholder in beta to be changed later. It's been three expansions. But both models have been in since release, and if nothing else, compared to a lot of other stuff we're seeing in-game they're poly-count is really quite low.
In all honesty, some of my complaints about travel form rise from the fact that I'm colour-blind [anomalous trichromancy, protanomaly for those curious]. It's not a huge deal as in a lot of games, WoW especially, it doesn't effect too much of the gameplay for me. I don't turn on WoW's colour-blind mode, for one thing. It does make Audiosurf a bit harder than it has to be though. And obviously, some of the more red-tinged zones tend to give me a bit of difficulty [Badlands, and Hellfire I'm looking at you], but I've adapted. Interestingly, it also seems to affect some forms of yellow as well. Not entirely sure if that's normal, but c'est la vie. That does cause some other interesting interactions though. Gathering in Badlands is doubly hard, if using the minimap to notice nodes. And seeing where I am on my screen while in Travel Form and in Azshara... I've been told by others that they've lost track of themselves momentarily there due to the camouflage tendencies of the cheetah pattern against the yellow ground with high vegetation. I pretty much have to shift out and cast a spell to find myself.
In other games I'd have an easy choice. I'd either stop playing the game, muddle through [I'm an exceptionally stubborn individual], or modify/replace whatever model was the root of the problem. While not the easiest thing to do in a lot of games, it's not all that hard to figure out. Thanks to the internet, if I can't figure out how to do something, about five minutes of looking on Google, not only will I have found thirty people who know how, but whom have done it better than myself. I have very little graphical talent, so if I've gone the route of model-editing over model-swapping, I usually end up going to these resources anyways.
WoW, however is a special case. There's plenty of models to choose from. If I wanted Aquatic Form to look like a makrura or a grouper, I could. If I wanted Travel Form to look like Ashtail or a different cat model, I could. It wouldn't even be very hard compared to some of the model swaps I've done in the past. But there's a caveat. I could change the Travel Form model [and incidentally have all mobs that use the model look like whatever I switched it to as well] but I won't. Blizzard's Terms of Use [You know, that thing that you don't read and you click the button that says you agree to?] disallows model swapping; "You agree that you will not, under any circumstances: ... D. modify or cause to be modified any files that are a part of the Game Client or the Service in any way not expressly authorized by Blizzard;". In other words, if I model swap, I run the risk of having my account shut down. No, thank you. I'll struggle on.
Also, as others have pointed out to me, I'm sure a redesign on Travel/Aquatic Forms [and hopefully Moonkin as well, though that's a form I don't use and thus have no opinion on] are in the works, though probably not even middling in their priorities. Soon™
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Lord Magmathar hates archaeologists!
I've decided to take some ... creative liberties ... with my pre-posted posts. That is to say, I'm going to be editing them to be a bit more bloggy, and leave out some unnecessary details. I did some minor editing to the first post, but this is going to be a bit more comprehensive. This one is going to combine my 20-25 & 25-30 posts.
Upon reaching 25, my /played was 16 hours, 59 minutes, 10 seconds [so 20 to 25 took about six and a half hours]
Initial impressions... This was a lot more challenging than I thought it was going to be, though only 2 deaths total. Also, Archaeology as a druid is kind of weird. I can survey in kitty/travel [and I'm assuming flight once I get it] form but when I go to loot the relic I get shifted out into caster form.
Started off my Arch/gathering in Eastern Kingdoms which turned out to not be so smart. That continent has to cater to essentially three locales for it's initial digsites due to how spread out the undead, human, and dwarf/gnome starter zones are. My choice of zones were initially 2 in Hillsbrad, 1 in Wetlands, and 1 in Redridge. I managed to finish up 3 digsites, before it became obvious that this continent was a bad idea. My locations were Redridge, Hillsbrad, and Duskwood.
Also, just to finish those three digsites, I had to fight through every inch of ground, with the lowest level mob I fought in them being 24 [Being only level 20 myself at the time], and often more than one at a time. I managed to get a full level out of those three sites.
I then switched over to Kalimdor like a good little Hordie. Most of my experience is, as a surprise to no-one, coming from herbing/mining and defending myself so I can get those nodes. I did end up completing two quests at 24 though.
At various digsites in Ashenvale, I was assaulted by Ursangous and Sharptalon, whom when you kill them drop quest-starter items. I turned those quests in for 2535xp [Ursangous] and 2405xp [Sharptalon] respectively. Each of those quests accounted for about 11% [22% total] of level 24.
At this point in this experiment I was pretty much bleeding money, thanks to training all my new skills and selling my herbs/rocks on a separate toon. Overall, I am enjoying myself though. I fully expect to be broke when I go hit town though, thanks to the joys of glyphs and gear upgrades
In between the 20-25 & 25-30 updates, I replied to some comments in the thread about mod suggestions, my self-hatred/insanity, and answered a couple questions. I also posted a mini-update of video footage of this process that I had uploaded to youtube. Due to youtube's time limitations on videos it had to be split into two parts which can be found here and here. Apologies in advance if you live in Germany. While recording it picked up the music stream I was listening to in the background, which caught me by surprise. Content ID matches on some of the songs have led to the videos being blocked in Germany.
Level 30!
Nothing too remarkable about the 25-30 leveling gap, though my death rate increased five-fold. Which is to say that 20-25 I died twice, and I died at least ten times this section. As a bonus these deaths were exclusively from the Stonetalon dig sites. One falling death up near the northern end, and nine deaths from the Grimtotem & alliance guards by the dig site near Malaka'jin.
Level 30 did unlock some new dig sites for me. No longer am I constrained to just Ashenvale, Azshara and Stonetalon Mountains! It gave me at least two more zones to dig in; Desolace and Southern Barrens. The astute viewer of the screen shot below will also notice that the Night Elf relic in progress is the Druid and Priest Statue Set. This is one of the few relics I have yet to complete on my main [/fistshake] and it will be Leeloo's first rare.
The title for this post was inspired by a comment from Chawa of The Wayward Initiative.
Upon reaching 25, my /played was 16 hours, 59 minutes, 10 seconds [so 20 to 25 took about six and a half hours]
Initial impressions... This was a lot more challenging than I thought it was going to be, though only 2 deaths total. Also, Archaeology as a druid is kind of weird. I can survey in kitty/travel [and I'm assuming flight once I get it] form but when I go to loot the relic I get shifted out into caster form.
Started off my Arch/gathering in Eastern Kingdoms which turned out to not be so smart. That continent has to cater to essentially three locales for it's initial digsites due to how spread out the undead, human, and dwarf/gnome starter zones are. My choice of zones were initially 2 in Hillsbrad, 1 in Wetlands, and 1 in Redridge. I managed to finish up 3 digsites, before it became obvious that this continent was a bad idea. My locations were Redridge, Hillsbrad, and Duskwood.
Also, just to finish those three digsites, I had to fight through every inch of ground, with the lowest level mob I fought in them being 24 [Being only level 20 myself at the time], and often more than one at a time. I managed to get a full level out of those three sites.
I then switched over to Kalimdor like a good little Hordie. Most of my experience is, as a surprise to no-one, coming from herbing/mining and defending myself so I can get those nodes. I did end up completing two quests at 24 though.
At various digsites in Ashenvale, I was assaulted by Ursangous and Sharptalon, whom when you kill them drop quest-starter items. I turned those quests in for 2535xp [Ursangous] and 2405xp [Sharptalon] respectively. Each of those quests accounted for about 11% [22% total] of level 24.
At this point in this experiment I was pretty much bleeding money, thanks to training all my new skills and selling my herbs/rocks on a separate toon. Overall, I am enjoying myself though. I fully expect to be broke when I go hit town though, thanks to the joys of glyphs and gear upgrades
In between the 20-25 & 25-30 updates, I replied to some comments in the thread about mod suggestions, my self-hatred/insanity, and answered a couple questions. I also posted a mini-update of video footage of this process that I had uploaded to youtube. Due to youtube's time limitations on videos it had to be split into two parts which can be found here and here. Apologies in advance if you live in Germany. While recording it picked up the music stream I was listening to in the background, which caught me by surprise. Content ID matches on some of the songs have led to the videos being blocked in Germany.
Level 30!
Nothing too remarkable about the 25-30 leveling gap, though my death rate increased five-fold. Which is to say that 20-25 I died twice, and I died at least ten times this section. As a bonus these deaths were exclusively from the Stonetalon dig sites. One falling death up near the northern end, and nine deaths from the Grimtotem & alliance guards by the dig site near Malaka'jin.
Level 30 did unlock some new dig sites for me. No longer am I constrained to just Ashenvale, Azshara and Stonetalon Mountains! It gave me at least two more zones to dig in; Desolace and Southern Barrens. The astute viewer of the screen shot below will also notice that the Night Elf relic in progress is the Druid and Priest Statue Set. This is one of the few relics I have yet to complete on my main [/fistshake] and it will be Leeloo's first rare.
The title for this post was inspired by a comment from Chawa of The Wayward Initiative.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
BAD IDEA (Take Two)
This post, as well as the next couple, actually started off as a post on my guild's forums on the 15th. A little over a week later (that is, today) it occurred to me that given what I'm doing, a blog would actually probably be a better idea, as well as allowing me to write about other things without having to start up a new post, or leave it buried in a thread that nobody reads. Now it can be in a blog that nobody reads!
Original post follows:
So... I had an idea pop around my head the other day. Now, as ideas go, this one is pretty shit. But it won't go away. I know myself well enough to know that if I don't follow through on this it's going to nag at me for a long time.
The plan is this: level to 85 ONLY from archaeology, gathering, and defending myself from the mobs I aggro in pursuit of the first two.
Originally, the plan was 5-85, but arch can't be picked up until 20 apparently.
To help reduce how much I die, every five levels, starting at 25 I will raid the auction house for the best purchasable gear I can find - on that trip. No going back after switching to send myself some gold.
And on the note of gold, this will be funded solely from vendor trash, most notably the recently buffed sell prices of relics. All herbs and minerals will be mailed off to my bank alt for separate processing.
Like I said... It's a bad idea. One likely to drive me insane.
Well.... MORE insane. =p
I'll also be updating this post, every 5 levels with screenshots much like the first one below.
Oh, and one thing I forgot to include in the screenshot was my /played, which at time of this posting is 0 days, 10 hours, 29 minutes, 26 seconds.
Original post follows:
So... I had an idea pop around my head the other day. Now, as ideas go, this one is pretty shit. But it won't go away. I know myself well enough to know that if I don't follow through on this it's going to nag at me for a long time.
The plan is this: level to 85 ONLY from archaeology, gathering, and defending myself from the mobs I aggro in pursuit of the first two.
Originally, the plan was 5-85, but arch can't be picked up until 20 apparently.
To help reduce how much I die, every five levels, starting at 25 I will raid the auction house for the best purchasable gear I can find - on that trip. No going back after switching to send myself some gold.
And on the note of gold, this will be funded solely from vendor trash, most notably the recently buffed sell prices of relics. All herbs and minerals will be mailed off to my bank alt for separate processing.
Like I said... It's a bad idea. One likely to drive me insane.
Well.... MORE insane. =p
I'll also be updating this post, every 5 levels with screenshots much like the first one below.
Oh, and one thing I forgot to include in the screenshot was my /played, which at time of this posting is 0 days, 10 hours, 29 minutes, 26 seconds.
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