Ah the massively multiplayer online end game. MMOEG. Yeah, it probably deserves that label. Why? Because so many games dramatically alter the gameplay landscape if you ever manage to get there. Eve iskThat consistent and fun experience you’ve been participating in for hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours, suddenly changes to something completely different. Often times, that experience not only changes dramatically, but it suddenly requires near-infinitely more dedication and time to hang with the crowd. I, for one, am tired of it.
Why do many games completely change the landscape of play at the end? Well, there’s a few reasons, but the most annoying one to me is that the game as it was all the way to max level wasn’t fun enough to sustain itself without the level grind. Eve iskYeah. Meaning, a big part of the reason people even got to the end in the first place was to get to the end, not because the journey itself was fun. Otherwise, that same style of play could remain without the need for levels at all, right?
Well, maybe. I’ll admit that it may not be the fault of developers entirely, and rather the fault of human psychology (or probably more correctly, the human brain). But I like to blame the developers, because there’s gotta be a better way to reward people even if they don’t keep getting pretty number increases in their level.
Let’s pretend that it’s completely okay for the gameplay experience to change entirely at the end game. Eve iskIt’s okay that the experience people have come to love and expect out of the game for hundreds or thousands of hours is abruptly and dramatically changed. What, then, would I have to complain about? All of it.
Raiding. Yeah, killing uber cool mobs is fun once or twice per mob. Coordinating dozens of players at once is fun sometimes too. What’s not fun about it? The routine. The repetition. The fact that nearly the only option you have is to stand around and wait for that raid mob to be up and ready for the killing. Eve iskI don’t have any other options except to fart around until the next multi-hour chaos session that is raiding.
That’s the big part that really cheeses me off. Raiding is, apparently, the de facto standard for all PvE end games, and most developers seem to believe that raiding and raiding alone is quite enough to satisfy. They don’t care that much about live content to keep my appetite sated, they don’t let me participate in the intrigue of a world, they don’t give me any real alternatives to the endless routine of raiding the same old mobs over and over. And I’m tired of it.
I want a game that keeps me engaged after I’ve “reached the end” (or maybe one that the end somehow doesn’t exist in) without forcing a new style of play on me, Eve iskwithout requiring MORE time than I’ve already dedicated to the game, without making me repeat the same old crap over and over again. I want a game that’s willing to give me PvE content at the end game that is actually fun, so I have some sort of motivation to actually get there and keep playing.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
'WoW': 8 million served
Currently, the population of Earth is estimated to be 6.7 billion people. As of this week, roughly 0.1 percent of the sum of modern humanity plays World of Warcraft. On Thursday, Blizzard Entertainment announced that more than 8 million people subscribe to the massive massively multiplayer online role-playing game,buy wow gold setting a new milestone for the title more than two years after its fall 2004 release.
As it is with the real-world population, Chinese subscribers are the largest demographic in Azeroth, totaling 3.5 million players, Blizzard said. Next up is North America, with 2 million players, followed by Europe, with 1.5 million--the remainder of subscribers are in other territories. Subscription rates vary by region, but U.S. players pay $14.95 each month to play WoW after doling out the suggested retail price for the game, buy wow gold which has been lowered to $19.99. "We're ecstatic that the World of Warcraft community has continued to grow steadily since we launched the game," Blizzard President and co-founder Mike Morhaime said. "This milestone wouldn't have been possible for us to achieve without the incredible support of our players."
Though its original world is already popular, WoW's borders will soon grow, courtesy of next week's release of the "Burning Crusade" expansion pack.buy wow gold Like the original WoW, it is rated T for Teen. However, at $39.99, it will cost more than the original game, which is required to play the expansion.
As it is with the real-world population, Chinese subscribers are the largest demographic in Azeroth, totaling 3.5 million players, Blizzard said. Next up is North America, with 2 million players, followed by Europe, with 1.5 million--the remainder of subscribers are in other territories. Subscription rates vary by region, but U.S. players pay $14.95 each month to play WoW after doling out the suggested retail price for the game, buy wow gold which has been lowered to $19.99. "We're ecstatic that the World of Warcraft community has continued to grow steadily since we launched the game," Blizzard President and co-founder Mike Morhaime said. "This milestone wouldn't have been possible for us to achieve without the incredible support of our players."
Though its original world is already popular, WoW's borders will soon grow, courtesy of next week's release of the "Burning Crusade" expansion pack.buy wow gold Like the original WoW, it is rated T for Teen. However, at $39.99, it will cost more than the original game, which is required to play the expansion.
Healer needed!
How often have you read "healer needed" in the looking for group channel? How often have you participated in groups or raids which started late, because they were waiting for more healers? Fact is there are not enough priests and druids in World of Warcraft. You would have thought that this was a problem that solved itself, with players realizing that more priests and druids are needed, cheap wow goldand then making new characters of those classes. But unfortunately very few players do that. While the percentage of priests on a server tends to slightly go up with time, it doesn't reach sufficient numbers even after the server is over a year old.
The reason for the lack of druids is bad game design coupled with simple statistics. There is only one race in each faction that can become a druid, the night elves for the Alliance and the tauren for the Horde. cheap wow goldThis is one of the unfortunate cases where artifical game lore gets into the way of playability. Druids aren't such a bad class for soloing, and more people would play them if they were available for more races. But often a player decides that he already played a night elf hunter for example, and wants his next Alliance character to be of a different race, to start in a different zone. Or he doesn't like to hear constant cow jokes, and doesn't want to play a tauren. If for any reason you decide to play another race, you can't play a druid, and that is a pity. If in the expansion blood elves can become paladins, cheap wow goldand dranaei can become shamans, I don't see why they couldn't have become druids as well. That would have given a good boost to the druid population.
The lack of priests is due to their perceived lack in soloability. People tend to flock to classes which are perceived to be good in soloing, like hunter or dps warrior, in spite of the well-known problems of getting accepted into a group or guild later. What Blizzard would need to do to increase the number of priests would be to make another class review, in which their healing power remains unchanged, cheap wow goldbut priests get some new, cool, obvious soloing powers, for example making their bubble damage the attacker with holy damage, or making their smite do double damage against undeads and elementals.
Now somebody is going to cry out that priests are already powerful enough, and that making them stronger would break the game balance. But what *is* game balance? If a population of players is given free choice among 8 classes (per faction, soon to be 9), and less than one eights of them choose a particular class,cheap wow gold I would define that class as being underpowered. Classes would be perfectly balanced if players would choose them in equal numbers. Making priests even better healers wouldn't change anything, as that is obviously not the criterion of choice. Only by making priests a bit more active, and more powerful in soloing, can that class be balanced against the other classes.
The reason for the lack of druids is bad game design coupled with simple statistics. There is only one race in each faction that can become a druid, the night elves for the Alliance and the tauren for the Horde. cheap wow goldThis is one of the unfortunate cases where artifical game lore gets into the way of playability. Druids aren't such a bad class for soloing, and more people would play them if they were available for more races. But often a player decides that he already played a night elf hunter for example, and wants his next Alliance character to be of a different race, to start in a different zone. Or he doesn't like to hear constant cow jokes, and doesn't want to play a tauren. If for any reason you decide to play another race, you can't play a druid, and that is a pity. If in the expansion blood elves can become paladins, cheap wow goldand dranaei can become shamans, I don't see why they couldn't have become druids as well. That would have given a good boost to the druid population.
The lack of priests is due to their perceived lack in soloability. People tend to flock to classes which are perceived to be good in soloing, like hunter or dps warrior, in spite of the well-known problems of getting accepted into a group or guild later. What Blizzard would need to do to increase the number of priests would be to make another class review, in which their healing power remains unchanged, cheap wow goldbut priests get some new, cool, obvious soloing powers, for example making their bubble damage the attacker with holy damage, or making their smite do double damage against undeads and elementals.
Now somebody is going to cry out that priests are already powerful enough, and that making them stronger would break the game balance. But what *is* game balance? If a population of players is given free choice among 8 classes (per faction, soon to be 9), and less than one eights of them choose a particular class,cheap wow gold I would define that class as being underpowered. Classes would be perfectly balanced if players would choose them in equal numbers. Making priests even better healers wouldn't change anything, as that is obviously not the criterion of choice. Only by making priests a bit more active, and more powerful in soloing, can that class be balanced against the other classes.
Monday, January 29, 2007
World of Warcraft Arena Rules
Recently a lot of posts on the forums were raising issues with the future arena system. Those of you who read the WoW forums regularly know that players always make guesses about game features before they are added to the test realm. Drysc made an attempt to nip some of this speculation in the bud by listing more information about combat for the arena system. cheap wow goldParticularly important are the facts that potions can't be used and abilities with cooldowns longer then 15minutes can't be used. Thank goodness paladin shields are on 5min cooldowns so we'll still get to see them.
New Arena Information cheap wow gold
-When a player enters an arena battle, all buffs and conjured items are purged/deleted. This is done to ensure no outside buffs or items from members outside of your team are able to be used in an arena battle.
-No consumables other than bandages and conjured items can be used while in the arena. There will be a waiting area similar to the current battlegrounds where players on the team will be able to conjure items and cast buffs. cheap wow gold
-Abilities/spells/items with cooldowns longer than 15 minutes cannot be used while in the arena.
-Each arena team will be given a rating, and will be matched up in the arena queue against teams of a similar rating (matching within that specific cross-realm battlegroup). As time progresses the matching system will broaden its search up to a limit if a closely rated team cannot be found.
-Ratings adjustments are made in the same way that ELO ratings adjustments are made. This system works by adjusting each arena team's rating from a specific match based on the rating of the team they are up against.cheap wow gold If a team wins against a team of a higher rating, the increase of their arena rating would be much higher than if they had won against a team of a lower rating. This system will help promote players improving their skill and besting teams which may have previously held the top spots.
-At the end of each week, characters receive arena points based on their team's rating. A team must have fought a minimum number of battles for the week, which we have announced as currently set to 10 games. A player must have played in at least 30% of the team's battles that week in order to be eligible to receive arena points. Each eligible player will then receive a fraction of the teams total awarded points to spend on arena rewards.cheap wow gold
-Players may spend their points on arena rewards, or save their points until they have enough to get the rewards they desire.
-There is a limit to the number of points a player can stockpile, which is currently planned to be as high as the most expensive item.
-At the end of a season, players on a team are given a title based on their team's relative position on the ladder which will last through the next arena season.cheap wow gold
New Arena Information cheap wow gold
-When a player enters an arena battle, all buffs and conjured items are purged/deleted. This is done to ensure no outside buffs or items from members outside of your team are able to be used in an arena battle.
-No consumables other than bandages and conjured items can be used while in the arena. There will be a waiting area similar to the current battlegrounds where players on the team will be able to conjure items and cast buffs. cheap wow gold
-Abilities/spells/items with cooldowns longer than 15 minutes cannot be used while in the arena.
-Each arena team will be given a rating, and will be matched up in the arena queue against teams of a similar rating (matching within that specific cross-realm battlegroup). As time progresses the matching system will broaden its search up to a limit if a closely rated team cannot be found.
-Ratings adjustments are made in the same way that ELO ratings adjustments are made. This system works by adjusting each arena team's rating from a specific match based on the rating of the team they are up against.cheap wow gold If a team wins against a team of a higher rating, the increase of their arena rating would be much higher than if they had won against a team of a lower rating. This system will help promote players improving their skill and besting teams which may have previously held the top spots.
-At the end of each week, characters receive arena points based on their team's rating. A team must have fought a minimum number of battles for the week, which we have announced as currently set to 10 games. A player must have played in at least 30% of the team's battles that week in order to be eligible to receive arena points. Each eligible player will then receive a fraction of the teams total awarded points to spend on arena rewards.cheap wow gold
-Players may spend their points on arena rewards, or save their points until they have enough to get the rewards they desire.
-There is a limit to the number of points a player can stockpile, which is currently planned to be as high as the most expensive item.
-At the end of a season, players on a team are given a title based on their team's relative position on the ladder which will last through the next arena season.cheap wow gold
What determines Skillz in MMORPGs?
When you defeat someone in online player vs. player combat just how rewarding do you find it? In Real Time Strategy games those who can multitask and click fast seem to have the advantage. In First Person Shooters the players with good hand-eye coordination and knowledge of the maps dominate.Maple Story Mesos It seems that depending on the genre of online gameplay different traits come into play for determining the better player. So what traits define "Skillz" in Massive Multiplayer Online games?
The number one trait that seems to give an advantage in MMO combat seems to be time spent playing. Unlike the other genres its not just that players learn the subtle nuances of combat by practicing. Players also attain statistical advantages to combat by increasing both their level and the equipment on their characters over time. Maple Story MesosAs a general rule characters that have been played more often are going to beat players that have been played less.
Some roadblocks are thrown in during the end game of most MMOs to try to slow down those with large amounts of free time. But they never seem to work. Despite the ridiculously high time cost of end game items many players will eventually pay it. After all MMOs are popular since they are relatively cheap for the hundreds of hours of entertainment they provide. However, players with the less time intensive gear are forced to work on improving other traits to be competive in PvP.
1) Time Spent Playing: Time played = Quality of Gear, Maple Story Mesosand better gear provides the statistical advantage in almost every aspect of combat. A tier-3 equipped player can be half asleep and playing against good players and still win if they are only wearing blues. In my opinion the gear advantage from having a high /played time will offset two of any other traits I've listed.
2) Timing: Patience is a virtue and being able to know the cooldowns of your spells and abilities keeps you one major step ahead of your button mashing opponents. Know which spells take too long to cast and aren't likely to go off during combat. Plan your crowd control abilities around your other spells. Rogues aren't the only ones who can time abilities to lock down a player.
3)Maple Story Mesos Teamwork: Combat is almost never 1v1 and being able to integrate your character's abilities with another makes you both stronger. I'm not just talking about having a healer following you around. Knowing when to leave an enemy alone cause they have been crowd controlled or already about to die because of dots can be crucial. Having a chat channel can artificially boost teamwork but people truly skilled in this area will know what to expect from good players and be prepared to react to their abilities.
4) Preparation: For player vs. environment combat this mostly means researching information to know the outline of a quest or raid boss before you begin the fight. In player vs. player combat this generally means having the consumables and trinkets to break out of someone else's good timing. Fear, root, snare,Maple Story Mesos and critical strikes can all be offset off by consumables and trinkets. Its amazing how many times a cheap pvp healing potion from the AV vendors will save your life in the battlegrounds.
5) Interface: Old MMO games had interfaces set in stone which often required players to use special programs to modify. But newer games often include macro and scripting languages which allow players to reduce the amount of keys they need to press. Thus a player's favorite combo attack or complex spell sequence can be put into a single key. Then it just becomes an issue of reaction time since the computer is really doing all the timing. And I hate to say it but a computer is always going to win in a contest of timing abilities.
The number one trait that seems to give an advantage in MMO combat seems to be time spent playing. Unlike the other genres its not just that players learn the subtle nuances of combat by practicing. Players also attain statistical advantages to combat by increasing both their level and the equipment on their characters over time. Maple Story MesosAs a general rule characters that have been played more often are going to beat players that have been played less.
Some roadblocks are thrown in during the end game of most MMOs to try to slow down those with large amounts of free time. But they never seem to work. Despite the ridiculously high time cost of end game items many players will eventually pay it. After all MMOs are popular since they are relatively cheap for the hundreds of hours of entertainment they provide. However, players with the less time intensive gear are forced to work on improving other traits to be competive in PvP.
1) Time Spent Playing: Time played = Quality of Gear, Maple Story Mesosand better gear provides the statistical advantage in almost every aspect of combat. A tier-3 equipped player can be half asleep and playing against good players and still win if they are only wearing blues. In my opinion the gear advantage from having a high /played time will offset two of any other traits I've listed.
2) Timing: Patience is a virtue and being able to know the cooldowns of your spells and abilities keeps you one major step ahead of your button mashing opponents. Know which spells take too long to cast and aren't likely to go off during combat. Plan your crowd control abilities around your other spells. Rogues aren't the only ones who can time abilities to lock down a player.
3)Maple Story Mesos Teamwork: Combat is almost never 1v1 and being able to integrate your character's abilities with another makes you both stronger. I'm not just talking about having a healer following you around. Knowing when to leave an enemy alone cause they have been crowd controlled or already about to die because of dots can be crucial. Having a chat channel can artificially boost teamwork but people truly skilled in this area will know what to expect from good players and be prepared to react to their abilities.
4) Preparation: For player vs. environment combat this mostly means researching information to know the outline of a quest or raid boss before you begin the fight. In player vs. player combat this generally means having the consumables and trinkets to break out of someone else's good timing. Fear, root, snare,Maple Story Mesos and critical strikes can all be offset off by consumables and trinkets. Its amazing how many times a cheap pvp healing potion from the AV vendors will save your life in the battlegrounds.
5) Interface: Old MMO games had interfaces set in stone which often required players to use special programs to modify. But newer games often include macro and scripting languages which allow players to reduce the amount of keys they need to press. Thus a player's favorite combo attack or complex spell sequence can be put into a single key. Then it just becomes an issue of reaction time since the computer is really doing all the timing. And I hate to say it but a computer is always going to win in a contest of timing abilities.
Friday, January 26, 2007
PvP changes in Burning Crusade
Part 2 of my comments on the Gamespy preview of Burning Crusade, on a totally different subject: PvP. If the information in the preview is correct, the current stupid honor ranking system will be abandoned, to the great joy of players everywhere. Instead there will be a much simpler system,cheap wow gold where you buy loot with honor points and battleground tokens.
The advantage is obvious: It doesn't matter any more whether you PvP continuously, or you take breaks and do other things instead. Two people achieving the same amount of honor kills and battleground wins end up with the same amount of reward, even if one of them did his PvP in just one week, and the other took a month for it. You also don't see your PvP rewards diminishing because other players just played more than you in the same week.cheap wow gold PvP becomes a bit like PvE, where you know how many mobs you have to kill to level up. Wonder when we get a honor point rest bonus. :)
To balance this good idea, Blizzard also makes a very bad change to PvP: Neutral towns in the new zones, which need to be captured in PvP to have access to the quests and vendors there. That looks good on paper,cheap wow gold but is of course catastrophically unbalanced given the generally prevalent Alliance numerical advantage. The neutral towns will be in Alliance hands 80% of the time on most servers. Worst case scenario is that the neutral cities are so important that people start moving server, just so that they are on a server where their faction has the advantage.
It seems that based on the Warcraft RTS games, Blizzard still believes in WoW's strength as a PvP game. cheap wow goldBut in fact the WoW PvP is sub-par, and it is the PvE which is so great that it has attracted so many players. Neutral cities, where people are basically forced to do PvP to reach a PvE goal is not going to be popular.
The advantage is obvious: It doesn't matter any more whether you PvP continuously, or you take breaks and do other things instead. Two people achieving the same amount of honor kills and battleground wins end up with the same amount of reward, even if one of them did his PvP in just one week, and the other took a month for it. You also don't see your PvP rewards diminishing because other players just played more than you in the same week.cheap wow gold PvP becomes a bit like PvE, where you know how many mobs you have to kill to level up. Wonder when we get a honor point rest bonus. :)
To balance this good idea, Blizzard also makes a very bad change to PvP: Neutral towns in the new zones, which need to be captured in PvP to have access to the quests and vendors there. That looks good on paper,cheap wow gold but is of course catastrophically unbalanced given the generally prevalent Alliance numerical advantage. The neutral towns will be in Alliance hands 80% of the time on most servers. Worst case scenario is that the neutral cities are so important that people start moving server, just so that they are on a server where their faction has the advantage.
It seems that based on the Warcraft RTS games, Blizzard still believes in WoW's strength as a PvP game. cheap wow goldBut in fact the WoW PvP is sub-par, and it is the PvE which is so great that it has attracted so many players. Neutral cities, where people are basically forced to do PvP to reach a PvE goal is not going to be popular.
Why Copy WoW?
If you played more then one MMOG within the last couple of years you have most likely noticed a trend among the genre. Once a change or feature is released in World of Warcraft it somehow magically starts showing up in all the MMO games. It's like every other developer out there reads the WoW patch notes and uses it as a design document. cheap wow goldThe one notable exception is the Vanguard beta which seems to exclude features based off the WoW patch notes.
While its nice to see useful features like in-game maps and the ability to link items become common among online games, we do not need the majority of WoW features to be copied. Some features are uniquely tailored to the rules in World of Warcraft and do not work as well in other games. cheap wow goldStill other features are bad ideas but are copied simply because they exist in the most popular MMOG.
One example of a bad feature being copied is the Auction House and how it encourages spam. A staple of MMO games at this day and age is to incorporate as many money sinks as possible. This cuts down on the eventual inflation of their online currency. The Blizzard developers in a moment of cluelessness decided to make the auction house take a percentage of every sale done through them. cheap wow goldThus on high level items sellers will lose anywhere from 25 to 75 gold per sale. These people are often the raiders who are strapped for cash the most. Raid instances don't drop very much money and often cause 5-20gp repair bills on a single night. Thus because of these reasons people will spam any channel they can get into looking to avoid the auction house cut.
Overall they're much better systems of allowing players to sell items but I am seeing more and more games adopting the auction house cut system. It even seems as if EVE Online is adopting the auction house though they already have a thriving player trade system.cheap wow gold In fact EVE Online is going through several feature additions in the next few months which can be linked to World of Warcraft. Read the Cesspit article link if your interested in the specifics.
Blizzard's success is partly because they integrated and improved so many other game mechanics from previous games. cheap wow goldYet their success is more then the sum of their parts. When other games copy their UI or game mechanics all they are doing is limiting the uniqueness of their own game. It's a lot like what happened to television. We have hundreds of different channels with thousands of different shows, which all somehow manage to bore us with their similarity. The only really interesting shows are on the niche markets like Adult Swim, TLC, Discovery and G4TV.
While its nice to see useful features like in-game maps and the ability to link items become common among online games, we do not need the majority of WoW features to be copied. Some features are uniquely tailored to the rules in World of Warcraft and do not work as well in other games. cheap wow goldStill other features are bad ideas but are copied simply because they exist in the most popular MMOG.
One example of a bad feature being copied is the Auction House and how it encourages spam. A staple of MMO games at this day and age is to incorporate as many money sinks as possible. This cuts down on the eventual inflation of their online currency. The Blizzard developers in a moment of cluelessness decided to make the auction house take a percentage of every sale done through them. cheap wow goldThus on high level items sellers will lose anywhere from 25 to 75 gold per sale. These people are often the raiders who are strapped for cash the most. Raid instances don't drop very much money and often cause 5-20gp repair bills on a single night. Thus because of these reasons people will spam any channel they can get into looking to avoid the auction house cut.
Overall they're much better systems of allowing players to sell items but I am seeing more and more games adopting the auction house cut system. It even seems as if EVE Online is adopting the auction house though they already have a thriving player trade system.cheap wow gold In fact EVE Online is going through several feature additions in the next few months which can be linked to World of Warcraft. Read the Cesspit article link if your interested in the specifics.
Blizzard's success is partly because they integrated and improved so many other game mechanics from previous games. cheap wow goldYet their success is more then the sum of their parts. When other games copy their UI or game mechanics all they are doing is limiting the uniqueness of their own game. It's a lot like what happened to television. We have hundreds of different channels with thousands of different shows, which all somehow manage to bore us with their similarity. The only really interesting shows are on the niche markets like Adult Swim, TLC, Discovery and G4TV.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Mudflation and raiding
The Burning Crusade is throwing a long shadow, and already has a measurable effect on World of Warcraft, in spite of not being expected to go live for another 6 weeks or so. The reason is the beta, and tons of websites already posting the items you will be able to get in the expansion.wow gold And there are lots of items in the expansion which are significantly better than the loot you can get from Blackwing Lair, and a lot easier to get. Mudflation at its finest, the new items of the expansion devaluating the old raid loot.
Both Friday and Saturday I stood in BWL with 30 to 35 people of my guild, and not enough people of the right classes to even attempt Razorgore. Friday we ended up going to Molten Core, which was lucky, wow gold because I got my Gloves of Prophecy there, and now have 6 Prophecy, 2 Transcendence. Nice! But some guild members were online and simply refused to come to BWL, citing that they didn't want to bother wiping repeatedly in BWL any more, if they could get better loot easier in Burning Crusade.
And of course besides the loot effect, some people simply don't feel like playing the "old" World of Warcraft any more, now that the new one is on the horizon. Either they are playing the beta (like I do), or they are taking a break until the expansion comes out.
The effect on 40-man raids is profound.wow gold Guilds are usually designed in a way that they don't have too many reserves for raiding, that the 40-man raids just fill up. If some people burn out, take a break, play the beta, or just wait for better loot from BC, the remaining guild members often can't get enough people for the more challenging encounters together.wow gold
Both Friday and Saturday I stood in BWL with 30 to 35 people of my guild, and not enough people of the right classes to even attempt Razorgore. Friday we ended up going to Molten Core, which was lucky, wow gold because I got my Gloves of Prophecy there, and now have 6 Prophecy, 2 Transcendence. Nice! But some guild members were online and simply refused to come to BWL, citing that they didn't want to bother wiping repeatedly in BWL any more, if they could get better loot easier in Burning Crusade.
And of course besides the loot effect, some people simply don't feel like playing the "old" World of Warcraft any more, now that the new one is on the horizon. Either they are playing the beta (like I do), or they are taking a break until the expansion comes out.
The effect on 40-man raids is profound.wow gold Guilds are usually designed in a way that they don't have too many reserves for raiding, that the 40-man raids just fill up. If some people burn out, take a break, play the beta, or just wait for better loot from BC, the remaining guild members often can't get enough people for the more challenging encounters together.wow gold
Jewelcrafting for beginners
As long as I am in the Burning Crusade beta, I am going to write a series of blog posts about the expansion. These are basically spoilers, so if you don't like spoilers, look away. But for the rest of you they might serve as useful hints, and even give you some ideas how to prepare already today for the expansion. wow gold I'll write a number of "BC Journal" entries with my observations. But whenever possible I'll group the information on a single subject into one post, for easier reference. This blog entry is about everything I could find out about low level jewelcrafting.
Jewelcrafting can be learned from trainers in the new Draenei and Blood Elf cities, I couldn't find a jewelcrafting trainer in the old cities. As I was playing a Horde character, wow gold I flew to Light Hope's Chapel in Eastern Plaguelands, and rode to the Blood Elf city of Silvermoon. Later I found out that there is a teleport between Undercity and Silvermoon, which made traveling back and forth a lot easier. The journeyman, expert, and master trainer are all in one spot, no idea yet where the artisan trainer is hiding.
When you learn apprentice jewelcrafting, you get two new skills in your spellbook: jewelcrafting and prospecting. You also get the first basic recipes. Prospecting is the art of turning ores into gems. Only basic ores, wow gold like copper, tin, iron, etc., can be turned into gems. Rare ores like silver and gold, or quest ores like incendite are not prospectable. Prospecting destroys 5 ores, and always gives you one worthless metal powder, plus between zero and two gems. The gems are of the type which you could also find when mining that metal, so Tigerseye and Malachite for copper, and so on. Prospecting is important, because jewelcrafting needs lots of gems, more than normal mining can find. But as prospecing destroys a lot of ore, it makes jewelcrafting use quite a large amount of resources.
As I had already heard about ores being needed, wow gold I came to the BC beta with 160 copper ore and 160 tin ore in my bags. That turned out to be not enough. Because besides destroying the ores for gems, you also need lots of metal bars to make either intermediary products or final jewelry. I ended up spending many hours in the beta mining; which was easy, because everybody else was in the new zones, and I had places like the Wetlands or Hillsbrad for me alone to mine. If you plan to do jewelcrafting when the expansion comes out, you should stock at least 200 each of copper and tin, plus gems and silver. I got my jewelcrafting up to 110 before I needed the first iron, but unfortunately the first iron item also needed large fangs, and I wasn't prepared for that. wow gold All other items I could skill up with either needed silver, shadowgems, or moonstone, none of which are very easy to find, and so I'm blocked at 110 right now.
You might have heard about socketed items and gems to put into these sockets being made by jewelcrafting. Well, not at the lower levels. There don't seem to be any socketed items below level 60, nor does it seem that a jewelcrafter can do any socketable gems before 225 skill. I assume that is something the artisan trainer teaches you, the one I haven't found yet.
The main product at jewelcrafting up to 110 are rings, plus some necklaces. As low level rings and necklaces aren't very common up to now, wow gold jewelcrafting will be useful to equip low level characters with jewelry. I heard, but couldn't confirm, that there will be recipes for enchanters to enchant jewelry, adding further bonuses.
The other product of jewelcrafting is statues, which are made from the stones (rough stone, coarse stone, heavy stone, etc.) which you find when mining. 10 stones make one statue, which is a clickable object in your inventory. When you use it, you summon a cute mini earth elemental pet, which heals you for a couple of seconds. Not by very much, but might be useful to classes which don't have other combat healing methods available. Unfortunately the statues are bind on pickup, only the jewelcrafter himself can use them.
Up to now I'm not terribly impressed by jewelcrafting. Lots of people will try it, just because it is new, but just like the other item-producing tradeskills, the quality of the crafted items isn't all that great. wow gold I was able to make one blue ring, with good stats for its level. It was interesting because when you make it, you don't know what stats it will have. You get a ring with a random "of the animal" name. I got a "of the tiger" ring, with +4 agility, +3 strength. The ring was labeled "Unique - equipped", meaning that I could have several in my inventory, but could only equip one of them.
To explore jewelcrafting further, I loaded up my Alliance priest with tons of metals and gems, and copied him to the BC beta. You can only copy 4 characters, and copying takes 2 days, so it will take a while before I can tell you more about higher level jewelcrafting, if I ever get there. But I have decided that my Horde priest,wow gold who currently has mining and tailoring, will not give up tailoring to learn jewelcrafting. I think I will take one of my level 40ish alts and make him a jewelcrafter instead, sending him the metals mined by my priest. This is not really a "must have" tradeskill.
Jewelcrafting can be learned from trainers in the new Draenei and Blood Elf cities, I couldn't find a jewelcrafting trainer in the old cities. As I was playing a Horde character, wow gold I flew to Light Hope's Chapel in Eastern Plaguelands, and rode to the Blood Elf city of Silvermoon. Later I found out that there is a teleport between Undercity and Silvermoon, which made traveling back and forth a lot easier. The journeyman, expert, and master trainer are all in one spot, no idea yet where the artisan trainer is hiding.
When you learn apprentice jewelcrafting, you get two new skills in your spellbook: jewelcrafting and prospecting. You also get the first basic recipes. Prospecting is the art of turning ores into gems. Only basic ores, wow gold like copper, tin, iron, etc., can be turned into gems. Rare ores like silver and gold, or quest ores like incendite are not prospectable. Prospecting destroys 5 ores, and always gives you one worthless metal powder, plus between zero and two gems. The gems are of the type which you could also find when mining that metal, so Tigerseye and Malachite for copper, and so on. Prospecting is important, because jewelcrafting needs lots of gems, more than normal mining can find. But as prospecing destroys a lot of ore, it makes jewelcrafting use quite a large amount of resources.
As I had already heard about ores being needed, wow gold I came to the BC beta with 160 copper ore and 160 tin ore in my bags. That turned out to be not enough. Because besides destroying the ores for gems, you also need lots of metal bars to make either intermediary products or final jewelry. I ended up spending many hours in the beta mining; which was easy, because everybody else was in the new zones, and I had places like the Wetlands or Hillsbrad for me alone to mine. If you plan to do jewelcrafting when the expansion comes out, you should stock at least 200 each of copper and tin, plus gems and silver. I got my jewelcrafting up to 110 before I needed the first iron, but unfortunately the first iron item also needed large fangs, and I wasn't prepared for that. wow gold All other items I could skill up with either needed silver, shadowgems, or moonstone, none of which are very easy to find, and so I'm blocked at 110 right now.
You might have heard about socketed items and gems to put into these sockets being made by jewelcrafting. Well, not at the lower levels. There don't seem to be any socketed items below level 60, nor does it seem that a jewelcrafter can do any socketable gems before 225 skill. I assume that is something the artisan trainer teaches you, the one I haven't found yet.
The main product at jewelcrafting up to 110 are rings, plus some necklaces. As low level rings and necklaces aren't very common up to now, wow gold jewelcrafting will be useful to equip low level characters with jewelry. I heard, but couldn't confirm, that there will be recipes for enchanters to enchant jewelry, adding further bonuses.
The other product of jewelcrafting is statues, which are made from the stones (rough stone, coarse stone, heavy stone, etc.) which you find when mining. 10 stones make one statue, which is a clickable object in your inventory. When you use it, you summon a cute mini earth elemental pet, which heals you for a couple of seconds. Not by very much, but might be useful to classes which don't have other combat healing methods available. Unfortunately the statues are bind on pickup, only the jewelcrafter himself can use them.
Up to now I'm not terribly impressed by jewelcrafting. Lots of people will try it, just because it is new, but just like the other item-producing tradeskills, the quality of the crafted items isn't all that great. wow gold I was able to make one blue ring, with good stats for its level. It was interesting because when you make it, you don't know what stats it will have. You get a ring with a random "of the animal" name. I got a "of the tiger" ring, with +4 agility, +3 strength. The ring was labeled "Unique - equipped", meaning that I could have several in my inventory, but could only equip one of them.
To explore jewelcrafting further, I loaded up my Alliance priest with tons of metals and gems, and copied him to the BC beta. You can only copy 4 characters, and copying takes 2 days, so it will take a while before I can tell you more about higher level jewelcrafting, if I ever get there. But I have decided that my Horde priest,wow gold who currently has mining and tailoring, will not give up tailoring to learn jewelcrafting. I think I will take one of my level 40ish alts and make him a jewelcrafter instead, sending him the metals mined by my priest. This is not really a "must have" tradeskill.
WoW realm queues and server age
If you ever tried to log on to one of the more populated realms (servers) of World of Warcraft during prime time, you know them: Waiting queues, telling you that you are player number 163 waiting in line to log on, and giving you an estimate that this might take 24 minutes. Apparently these queues have been put in place by Blizzard not only to prevent overloading the servers, but also due to game design reasons.wow gold So ideally the queues prevent not only lag, but also zones becoming overcrowded, with too many people hunting for the same mobs.
Of course for that to work you have to assume some sort of player distribution over zones. Letting, lets say, 3,000 players on the server only prevents lag and overcrowding if these 3,000 players distribute themselves over the world in a "normal" fashion. The world event of the gates of Ahn'qiraij opening was a good example of how that could fail,wow gold because a much larger percentage of players gathered in Silithus than normal, causing horrible lag.
So queue or no queue, on the first days after the Burning Crusade expansion goes live, we can expect lag and overcrowding problems, because people will be concentrated in 3 zones: The draenei and blood elf newbie zones, and Hellfire Peninsula for all level 60 players. I thought I could escape overcrowding by going to an instance, but that might have been optimistic. On the beta server I already got the message once that I couldn't enter the Blood Furnace instant, because there were already too many groups in that instance. wow gold So there seems to be a limit on the number of players the instance server can handle.
But what I am even more afraid of is having to wait in a queue. Blizzard will raise the cap of how many players are allowed per server by 25%. That will probably be sufficient for the latest and newest servers, but I doubt it will suffice for the older servers.
By the time the Burning Crusade comes out, the oldest World of Warcraft servers will be over 2 years old (3 months less for the oldest European servers). During these 2 years a lot of people stopped playing WoW, but they still have inactive characters on the servers. Blizzard keeps inactive characters indefinitely.wow gold So the older the server, the more inactive characters accumulate. The Burning Crusade will most certainly cause a large number of players to resubscribe, like after every major content patch. So the number of people trying to get online on an older server will be much larger than the number of people trying to get online on a newer server.
As my main character, the Horde priest, is playing on one of the oldest European servers, part of the original batch of servers that were available on the first day of World of Warcraft in Europe, I'm afraid that I will run into major queue problems. That is especially annoying when you finally get in, but then get disconnected for some reason.wow gold Sometimes the game will allow you to bypass the queue and reconnect immediately. But we had several raids where somebody who lost connection only came back 20 minutes or more later, due to having to wait in the queue. These queues might get 1 hour or more long after the expansion comes out. Not a very appealing prospect.
Of course for that to work you have to assume some sort of player distribution over zones. Letting, lets say, 3,000 players on the server only prevents lag and overcrowding if these 3,000 players distribute themselves over the world in a "normal" fashion. The world event of the gates of Ahn'qiraij opening was a good example of how that could fail,wow gold because a much larger percentage of players gathered in Silithus than normal, causing horrible lag.
So queue or no queue, on the first days after the Burning Crusade expansion goes live, we can expect lag and overcrowding problems, because people will be concentrated in 3 zones: The draenei and blood elf newbie zones, and Hellfire Peninsula for all level 60 players. I thought I could escape overcrowding by going to an instance, but that might have been optimistic. On the beta server I already got the message once that I couldn't enter the Blood Furnace instant, because there were already too many groups in that instance. wow gold So there seems to be a limit on the number of players the instance server can handle.
But what I am even more afraid of is having to wait in a queue. Blizzard will raise the cap of how many players are allowed per server by 25%. That will probably be sufficient for the latest and newest servers, but I doubt it will suffice for the older servers.
By the time the Burning Crusade comes out, the oldest World of Warcraft servers will be over 2 years old (3 months less for the oldest European servers). During these 2 years a lot of people stopped playing WoW, but they still have inactive characters on the servers. Blizzard keeps inactive characters indefinitely.wow gold So the older the server, the more inactive characters accumulate. The Burning Crusade will most certainly cause a large number of players to resubscribe, like after every major content patch. So the number of people trying to get online on an older server will be much larger than the number of people trying to get online on a newer server.
As my main character, the Horde priest, is playing on one of the oldest European servers, part of the original batch of servers that were available on the first day of World of Warcraft in Europe, I'm afraid that I will run into major queue problems. That is especially annoying when you finally get in, but then get disconnected for some reason.wow gold Sometimes the game will allow you to bypass the queue and reconnect immediately. But we had several raids where somebody who lost connection only came back 20 minutes or more later, due to having to wait in the queue. These queues might get 1 hour or more long after the expansion comes out. Not a very appealing prospect.
For the new player on a budget: Which Guild Wars Should You Buy?
For the new player on a budget: Which Guild Wars Should You Buy?~by RedSo you want to play Guild WarsGreat!Guild wars Gold If you feel you already know how the game works and just need an opinion between your options, jump down to the section entitled “I only want to buy one chapter”. Otherwise, before deciding what version of Guild Wars to buy, there are some important things you need to know.-) Guild Wars is completely online. You must be connected to the internet to play Guild Wars.Guild wars Gold The game won’t even load if it can’t sense an internet connection.-) Each Guild Wars chapter purchased is free to use and play. There are no periodic subscription charges. Ever.-) Guild Wars accounts are not allowed to be sold by their original owner. All purchases should be new units from stores. Using eBay and other such methods to gain an account is forbidden, and may result in your newly acquired account being banned for illegal activity!What’s with this Chapter business?Guild wars Gold Isn’t Guild Wars just one game?There are multiple “chapters” in Guild Wars. A new chapter is released every six months, and each includes entirely separate lands to explore, missions to complete, and skills to learn. Your game account consists of a series of access keys that determine what chapters you have purchased, and thus what lands you can access.You only need one chapter to play Guild Wars, as each is a “stand-alone” game,Guild wars Gold much like movies like Star Wars and Return of the Jedi can be enjoyed on their own. At the same time, much like the movie series, owning and playing through multiple chapters is more rewarding than owning only one.NamesThe terminology can be a bit confusing. At first, the game was released in a box simply entitled “Guild Wars”. When the second chapter was released a year later entitled “Guild Wars: Factions”, the game designers decided that all chapters should have a subtitle, including the original release. Guild wars Gold They renamed the original chapter “Guild Wars: Prophecies”.When someone says “Guild Wars” now, they are referring to the entire game world that spans across the chapters. The original release is usually called simply Prophecies, the next Factions, and the most recent Nightfall. Sometimes they are also referred to as chapter one, two, and three (C1, C2, and C3) respectively.Much like the original Star Wars can be found in a variety of editions (full screen, wide screen, director’s cut, collector’s, etc.), the chapters of Guild Wars have multiple editions. The first chapter, Prophecies, can be found in boxes that read “Guild Wars”, “Guild Wars: Collector’s Edition”, “Guild Wars: Game of the Year Edition”, Guild wars Gold and so forth—but they are all the same chapter, with only minor differences between them.ChaptersWhen you purchase your first Guild Wars game, you will create a gaming account tied to an email address (or a PlayNC.com account) and a password. As you purchase additional chapters of Guild Wars, you can add the content of those chapters to your current account. Each account starts with four character slots for the first chapter, and two more slots are added each time a new chapter is attached to the account. Also, additional slots can be purchased from the in-game Guild Wars store, each costing $10 in the US, €9 in Europe, and £6 in Great Britain. Slots can be used to create characters in any chapter the player owns on his or her account, as slots are not reserved for use in specific chapters.In general, Guild wars Gold a chapter opens a new continent in the game world of Guild Wars. Each chapter is entirely separate, using its own map and having its own storyline and quests. A character is created on one of these continents and, after a certain point in that continent’s storyline, is able to travel to the other continents to play through those storylines (assuming those chapters have been added to the account).In addition, Guild Wars uses a system of skill sets, which has been likened to the card game Magic: The Gathering. Guild wars Gold There are roughly 240 “core” skills that appear in every chapter, but there are many more that can only be obtained by playing in one chapter’s continent or another. Any Elementalist can learn the spell Fireball, for example. However, only players who own Prophecies have access to the spell Chain Lightning, while Factions owners have access to the spell Lightning Hammer.ProfessionsAll Guild Wars chapters include the ability to play one of the six core professions—Warrior, Ranger, Elementalist, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Monk. The first chapter, Prophecies, allows only these six professions to be created; but each new chapter has introduced two new professions. In Factions, players could create an Assassin or a Ritualist, while Nightfall players can make a Dervish or a Paragon.A player who owns only Nightfall does not have access to the Assassin or Ritualist professions for their characters, while a player who owns only Factions can not make a Dervish or Paragon. However,Guild wars Gold players who own multiple chapters have access to all professions, and can use a character from one chapter in the missions of another. For example, someone who owns all three chapters can create an Assassin in the Factions continent, and then transport their Assassin to the Nightfall or Prophecies continents.I only want to buy one chapter. Which one should I get?There are many factors to consider here. I’ve put together a small table for reference, with each line explained in detail below.((Note: The term “PvE” stands for Player versus Environment, and refers to the adventure part of the game where players group together to complete quests and battle AI-controlled enemies. Guild wars Gold “PvP”, short for Player versus Player, refers to the side of the game in which human players can fight other human players in direct competition.))
For the new player on a budget: Which Guild Wars Should You Buy?~by RedSo you want to play Guild WarsGreat! If you feel you already know how the game works and just need an opinion between your options, jump down to the section entitled “I only want to buy one chapter”. Otherwise, before deciding what version of Guild Wars to buy, there are some important things you need to know.-) Guild Wars is completely online. You must be connected to the internet to play Guild Wars. The game won’t even load if it can’t sense an internet connection.-) Each Guild Wars chapter purchased is free to use and play.Guild wars Gold There are no periodic subscription charges. Ever.-) Guild Wars accounts are not allowed to be sold by their original owner. All purchases should be new units from stores. Using eBay and other such methods to gain an account is forbidden, and may result in your newly acquired account being banned for illegal activity!What’s with this Chapter business? Isn’t Guild Wars just one game?There are multiple “chapters” in Guild Wars. A new chapter is released every six months, and each includes entirely separate lands to explore,Guild wars Gold missions to complete, and skills to learn. Your game account consists of a series of access keys that determine what chapters you have purchased, and thus what lands you can access.You only need one chapter to play Guild Wars, as each is a “stand-alone” game, much like movies like Star Wars and Return of the Jedi can be enjoyed on their own. At the same time, much like the movie series, owning and playing through multiple chapters is more rewarding than owning only one.NamesThe terminology can be a bit confusing. At first, the game was released in a box simply entitled “Guild Wars”. When the second chapter was released a year later entitled “Guild Wars: Factions”, the game designers decided that all chapters should have a subtitle, including the original release. They renamed the original chapter “Guild Wars: Prophecies”.When someone says “Guild Wars” now, Guild wars Gold they are referring to the entire game world that spans across the chapters. The original release is usually called simply Prophecies, the next Factions, and the most recent Nightfall. Sometimes they are also referred to as chapter one, two, and three (C1, C2, and C3) respectively.Much like the original Star Wars can be found in a variety of editions (full screen, wide screen, director’s cut, collector’s, etc.), the chapters of Guild Wars have multiple editions. The first chapter, Prophecies, can be found in boxes that read “Guild Wars”, “Guild Wars: Collector’s Edition”, “Guild Wars: Game of the Year Edition”, and so forth—but they are all the same chapter, with only minor differences between them.ChaptersWhen you purchase your first Guild Wars game, you will create a gaming account tied to an email address (or a PlayNC.com account) and a password. As you purchase additional chapters of Guild Wars, you can add the content of those chapters to your current account. Each account starts with four character slots for the first chapter, Guild wars Gold and two more slots are added each time a new chapter is attached to the account. Also, additional slots can be purchased from the in-game Guild Wars store, each costing $10 in the US, €9 in Europe, and £6 in Great Britain. Slots can be used to create characters in any chapter the player owns on his or her account, as slots are not reserved for use in specific chapters.In general, a chapter opens a new continent in the game world of Guild Wars. Each chapter is entirely separate, using its own map and having its own storyline and quests. A character is created on one of these continents and, after a certain point in that continent’s storyline, is able to travel to the other continents to play through those storylines (assuming those chapters have been added to the account).In addition, Guild Wars uses a system of skill sets,Guild wars Gold which has been likened to the card game Magic: The Gathering. There are roughly 240 “core” skills that appear in every chapter, but there are many more that can only be obtained by playing in one chapter’s continent or another. Any Elementalist can learn the spell Fireball, for example. However, only players who own Prophecies have access to the spell Chain Lightning, while Factions owners have access to the spell Lightning Hammer.ProfessionsAll Guild Wars chapters include the ability to play one of the six core professions—Warrior, Ranger, Elementalist, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Monk. The first chapter, Prophecies, allows only these six professions to be created; but each new chapter has introduced two new professions. In Factions, players could create an Assassin or a Ritualist, Guild wars Gold while Nightfall players can make a Dervish or a Paragon.A player who owns only Nightfall does not have access to the Assassin or Ritualist professions for their characters, while a player who owns only Factions can not make a Dervish or Paragon. However, players who own multiple chapters have access to all professions, and can use a character from one chapter in the missions of another. For example, someone who owns all three chapters can create an Assassin in the Factions continent, and then transport their Assassin to the Nightfall or Prophecies continents.I only want to buy one chapter. Which one should I get?There are many factors to consider here. I’ve put together a small table for reference, with each line explained in detail below.Guild wars Gold ((Note: The term “PvE” stands for Player versus Environment, and refers to the adventure part of the game where players group together to complete quests and battle AI-controlled enemies. “PvP”, short for Player versus Player, refers to the side of the game in which human players can fight other human players in direct competition.))
For the new player on a budget: Which Guild Wars Should You Buy?~by RedSo you want to play Guild WarsGreat! If you feel you already know how the game works and just need an opinion between your options, jump down to the section entitled “I only want to buy one chapter”. Otherwise, before deciding what version of Guild Wars to buy,Guild wars Gold there are some important things you need to know.-) Guild Wars is completely online. You must be connected to the internet to play Guild Wars. The game won’t even load if it can’t sense an internet connection.-) Each Guild Wars chapter purchased is free to use and play. There are no periodic subscription charges. Ever.-) Guild Wars accounts are not allowed to be sold by their original owner. All purchases should be new units from stores. Using eBay and other such methods to gain an account is forbidden, and may result in your newly acquired account being banned for illegal activity!What’s with this Chapter business?Guild wars Gold Isn’t Guild Wars just one game?There are multiple “chapters” in Guild Wars. A new chapter is released every six months, and each includes entirely separate lands to explore, missions to complete, and skills to learn. Your game account consists of a series of access keys that determine what chapters you have purchased, and thus what lands you can access.You only need one chapter to play Guild Wars, as each is a “stand-alone” game, much like movies like Star Wars and Return of the Jedi can be enjoyed on their own. At the same time, much like the movie series, owning and playing through multiple chapters is more rewarding than owning only one.NamesThe terminology can be a bit confusing. Guild wars Gold At first, the game was released in a box simply entitled “Guild Wars”. When the second chapter was released a year later entitled “Guild Wars: Factions”, the game designers decided that all chapters should have a subtitle, including the original release. They renamed the original chapter “Guild Wars: Prophecies”.When someone says “Guild Wars” now, they are referring to the entire game world that spans across the chapters. The original release is usually called simply Prophecies, the next Factions, and the most recent Nightfall. Sometimes they are also referred to as chapter one, two, and three (C1, C2, and C3) respectively.Guild wars Gold Much like the original Star Wars can be found in a variety of editions (full screen, wide screen, director’s cut, collector’s, etc.), the chapters of Guild Wars have multiple editions. The first chapter, Prophecies, can be found in boxes that read “Guild Wars”, “Guild Wars: Collector’s Edition”, “Guild Wars: Game of the Year Edition”, and so forth—but they are all the same chapter, with only minor differences between them.ChaptersWhen you purchase your first Guild Wars game, you will create a gaming account tied to an email address (or a PlayNC.com account) and a password. As you purchase additional chapters of Guild Wars, you can add the content of those chapters to your current account.Guild wars Gold Each account starts with four character slots for the first chapter, and two more slots are added each time a new chapter is attached to the account. Also, additional slots can be purchased from the in-game Guild Wars store, each costing $10 in the US, €9 in Europe, and £6 in Great Britain. Slots can be used to create characters in any chapter the player owns on his or her account, as slots are not reserved for use in specific chapters.In general, a chapter opens a new continent in the game world of Guild Wars. Each chapter is entirely separate, using its own map and having its own storyline and quests. A character is created on one of these continents and, after a certain point in that continent’s storyline, is able to travel to the other continents to play through those storylines (assuming those chapters have been added to the account).Guild wars Gold In addition, Guild Wars uses a system of skill sets, which has been likened to the card game Magic: The Gathering. There are roughly 240 “core” skills that appear in every chapter, but there are many more that can only be obtained by playing in one chapter’s continent or another. Any Elementalist can learn the spell Fireball, for example. However, only players who own Prophecies have access to the spell Chain Lightning, while Factions owners have access to the spell Lightning Hammer.ProfessionsAll Guild Wars chapters include the ability to play one of the six core professions—Warrior, Ranger, Elementalist, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Monk. The first chapter, Prophecies, allows only these six professions to be created; but each new chapter has introduced two new professions. In Factions, players could create an Assassin or a Ritualist,Guild wars Gold while Nightfall players can make a Dervish or a Paragon.A player who owns only Nightfall does not have access to the Assassin or Ritualist professions for their characters, while a player who owns only Factions can not make a Dervish or Paragon. However, players who own multiple chapters have access to all professions, and can use a character from one chapter in the missions of another. For example, someone who owns all three chapters can create an Assassin in the Factions continent, and then transport their Assassin to the Nightfall or Prophecies continents.I only want to buy one chapter. Which one should I get?There are many factors to consider here. I’ve put together a small table for reference, Guild wars Gold with each line explained in detail below.((Note: The term “PvE” stands for Player versus Environment, and refers to the adventure part of the game where players group together to complete quests and battle AI-controlled enemies. “PvP”, short for Player versus Player, refers to the side of the game in which human players can fight other human players in direct competition.))
Learning CurveIf this is your first experience with Guild Wars, the learning curve can greatly affect your opinion of the overall game. The original release, Prophecies, is widely considered to have the smoothest learning curve. Due to factors discussed a bit lower on the screen, Prophecies eases players into new aspects of the game much more slowly than the later chapters.Guild wars Gold Factions is widely considered to have the sharpest learning curve, oriented more towards experienced players who played Prophecies than to new players. Nightfall falls somewhere in between the two, but is much closer to the slower pace of Prophecies than to Factions’ haste.PriceLike many video games, the oldest in the series is the cheapest. While the newest Guild Wars release is always sold at the same price level as new releases of other PC and console games, the older games can be found at lower prices. Prophecies is easiest to get cheaply, but recently many stores sold Nightfall at roughly half the usual market price. Members of the GuildWarsGuru.com forums often post a thread in the Riverside forum when a significant price drop occurs, so a would-be player who is tight on cash would do well to shop around and wait for a sale.Guild wars Gold FocusBy the admission of the Guild Wars developers, Arena Net (ANet), Factions was designed to be much more PvP-oriented than either Prophecies or Nightfall. If your ultimate goal is to play through traditional questing and saving the world from crime and the forces of evil, Factions is probably an inferior choice to the other two chapters.PvP ImportanceThe balanced, sophisticated PvP aspect is one of Guild Wars’ strongest selling points. Most PvP is universal, with arenas located at a “core” area called the Battle Isles. However, owning the skills sets from multiple chapters allows you to have more versatility, more options in designing characters for battle. Because Prophecies was around for a year as the original game before new chapters were released,Guild wars Gold its skill set might be termed the “normal” skill set, the default around which most builds are based. For that reason alone, Prophecies may be the most important chapter in terms of being able to PvP competitively.Between the other two, Nightfall skills are perhaps more important than Factions, only because Nightfall is the newest chapter and so those new skills are very prevalent in the PvP scene. As the Nightfall skills become more integrated and players become more familiar with counters to them, this may change. Keeping up on the PvP scene by reading the forums like GuildWarsGuru.com can help players keep tabs on the current trends, but these can change rapidly.Note: Guild wars Gold Though Factions is more PvP-oriented than the other two chapters, the fact is that it will be easier for new players to find help in making builds with only Prophecies skills since it was the only skill set for the first year of Guild Wars, or only Nightfall skills since players were only allowed to use that skill set in the tournament following Nightfall’s release. Hero battles are exclusive to Nightfall. These are matches in which one human player and his three customized AI-controlled henchmen, called Heroes, face off against another team of one human and three Heroes.Alliance Battles are exclusive to Factions. The two tribes in Factions, the Kurzicks and the Luxons, each have an area for players to group together into teams of four. Each Alliance Battle randomly groups three of these teams from each side into a cooperative group of twelve, Guild wars Gold who work together to defeat the opposing group by obtaining more kills and controlling more shrines in the huge arena.ProfessionsAll chapters have access to the six core professions—Warrior, Ranger, Elementalist, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Monk. A player must own Factions to create an Assassin or Ritualist, while only Nightfall owners can create a Dervish or a Paragon.HeroesAs stated above in PvP Importance, only Nightfall offers the use of customizable henchmen called Heroes. All chapters allow you to use AI-controlled “henchmen” to fill out your group; but Heroes allow you to manually use their skills and edit their builds and attributes, as well as individually assign them positions on the map. Heroes are extremely useful for PvE, Guild wars Gold and even have their own PvP arenas called Hero Battles, which allow two human players to fight each other using teams of four: one human player and his or her three Heroes.EnvironmentEach chapter’s setting has been inspired by real world geography and cultures. Prophecies was designed around the traditional medieval setting in the style of King Arthur legends. Factions has an East Asian theme, while Nightfall is a mix of North Africa, Egypt, Middle East, and Greek elements.Storyline, Length of Story, Number of Missions, and GrindWhile there is some debate on whether Prophecies or Nightfall has the better storyline, it is generally accepted that the Factions storyline is inferior to the other chapters. Guild wars Gold The games’ lengths can be roughly measured by the number of missions they contain. While quests in Guild Wars send your party out into the explorable world to perform tasks, missions send your party to a specific zone, where the group must achieve an objective under certain conditions. After a mission is completed, players will either find themselves in the next mission staging area, or else they will receive quests that will lead them to the next mission.Prophecies remains the longest game of the three, with 25 missions in a linear storyline with very little grind but a slow pace. The large number of missions means that players spend a certain amount of time completing several missions in the first area of the game before moving to the next major area. Guild wars Gold Whenever a mission does not directly drop players off at the next mission, the quests they are given are usually direct. There is very little backtracking in Prophecies, as every mission or quest leads the player to someplace new. While Prophecies contains very little grind due to the slow rise in difficulty throughout the game, some players find themselves getting bored with the long story. Still, many players enjoy replaying the Prophecies storyline on new characters again and again.Factions is much shorter, with only 13 missions, two of which are mutually exclusive in the storyline.Guild wars Gold The game may seem longer than it is due to the questing format of Factions. While Prophecies is more straightforward in that it follows a pattern of “Do mission A, follow quest B to arrive at mission C”, Factions tends to send players back and forth between towns before allowing a player to move on to the next mission. As a result, a player will see some areas of the game multiple times while attempting to proceed in the story. Factions contains only one real grind—but it’s a big grind indeed. At one point mid-game, players must accrue 10,000 unspent factions points for their chosen tribe, Guild wars Gold the Kurzicks or the Luxons, before moving on in the story. These 10,000 points take quite some time to gain through quests and Alliance Battles—but factions points are also account-based. The prepared player will take multiple characters to that point in the game, accrue the 10,000 points, and gain access for all characters to the next stage in the story before spending the faction points. Apart from this one grind, replaying Factions on new characters is a relatively quick affair—a fact appreciated by some players, tired of Prophecies’ drawn out story, while others are unsatisfied by the shortness.Nightfall has 20 missions, almost exactly between the numbers in Factions and Prophecies. Like the pair of mutually exclusive missions in Factions, Nightfall features three pairs of missions in which only one is required to proceed.Guild wars Gold There is a grind in Nightfall, in that certain levels of “Sunspear points” are required to pass beyond certain points in the game. However, most players find that, through normal questing and fighting, their characters are already quite close to the quotas asked of them at these points. Because of this, new characters tend not to experience the same need to grind more points that Factions characters might.Runnable and Explorable?Prophecies is unique in that, while the storyline takes players through 25 missions, a player can finish the game by completing only four missions, reached by having someone “run” them between mission points through zones filled with high-level monsters. The game world of Prophecies is very large, with many areas that a player focused only on following the storyline would never see.Guild wars Gold Factions and Nightfall are both not runnable. Access to high-level zones is only obtainable by passing through key points, which themselves only open after certain missions are completed. As a result, players are unable to skip missions in either of the later chapters. However, while Factions is extremely linear in that the completion of one mission opens a new zone which leads to a new mission, Nightfall opens itself to new players in sections. Several missions may be in one area, and the player is free at any time to explore the zones in that area without entering the missions, but may not move forward to the next major area of Nightfall without completing the storyline’s missions.Guild wars Gold SkillsOne major difference between Prophecies and the later chapters is in the acquisition of skills. All chapters utilize skill trainers, which will teach your character a new skill at a cost which starts out low, but rises with each purchase up to a maximum price level.However, Prophecies alone offers new skills and spells as rewards for normal quests throughout most of the game. These ‘free skills’ are a major reason why players will create their warriors or monks in the Prophecies chapter rather than the later chapters.ConclusionEasiest to pick up: Prophecies. The learning curve is much smoother than Factions, and the gameplay less complex in its entirety, while Nightfall gets rather complex towards the end of the storyline.PvE enjoyment: Prophecies and Nightfall. While these two are neck-and-neck among the GuildWarsGuru.com community, Factions is generally agreed to be an inferior game to the other two. While each chapter has its fans, there are many more fans in favor of Prophecies and Nightfall than there are Factions.Guild wars Gold Group play: Nightfall. The largest population of players tends to be in the newest chapter, as old players move on to new content, while new players who have just bought the new chapter have nowhere else to go. Prophecies has seen less of a decline than Factions in terms of people playing in those chapters’ missions, but both have less players than Nightfall does. Of course, when chapter four is released, there will no doubt be a mass migration to that setting, leaving the Nightfall lands less crowded than they are now.Solo play: Prophecies or Factions. While Nightfall’s Heroes make a strong argument in favor of Nightfall being the chapter best suited to the player who would rather avoid grouping with other human players, Nightfall becomes rather difficult near the end of the storyline and drives many players to grouping with others. Guild wars Gold Prophecies largely avoids this. Factions also lends itself to solo play—though not without a degree of frustration in later missions.PvP: Prophecies arguably provides the best base for learning to PvP in Guild Wars’ environment, simply because older players are familiar with using builds made only from the Prophecies skill set, when it was the only available chapter—but note that most serious PvP players will insist that all three chapters’ skill sets are necessary for competitive play.Which one should you get?Unless you have a specific reason for choosing another chapter, the original Guild Wars: Prophecies is probably the best choice for introducing yourself to Guild Wars. Nightfall may have more people playing in it now, but much of that crowd will move on to the next chapter when it is released.Guild wars Gold Prophecies has shown that it has staying power, as many old players keep returning to what they consider the Original Guild Wars game. This, combined with the smoother learning curve in Prophecies, make it prime for being the first Guild Wars you’ll play.*"Thanks to JR, King Symeon, Squidget, Inde, and my [MEEP] friends Baratus, Arkantos, Drizz'l, and my mate Rachel for their edits and suggestions."
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
First Level 70 guy in Burning Crusade
The first level 70 dinged at 4:04 am (CET) on Januar 17, 2007. Time played from 60
to 70: 28 hours .
Player's informationwow power leveling
Player name: GullerboneCharacter name: GawellClass: MageServer: Archimonde (EU - PvP)French Guild: MilleniumHere it the interview from World of Raids.com
[WoR]Teza: Can you introduce yourself quickly in a few words?Gullerbone: I am french and 24 years old, a member of Millenium (french guild) since 1-2 months and I was the one playing the mage called Gawell for this exp rush, eventually I will reroll shaman to complete my PvP arena team. wow power leveling
[WoR]Teza: Whats your played time from 60 to 70? Which zone were you in when you reached lvl 70?
Gullerbone: It took me 28 hours to get from 60 to 70, and dinged 70 at 4:04 am (CET) on Januar 17. I was in Netherstorm (subzone: Mana forge) when i reached lvl 70.
[WoR]Teza: What was your preparation? How did you make it in such a short time? wow power leveling
Gullerbone: Cau (the 1st european lvl 60) and I planned the exp route step by steps, trying everything to make sure it was the most approriate, the groups organization with the guild Millenium and their members. Each member rotated using a definite order to help me to grind on mobs, mostly with AE, surrounded with several guildmates healers, tanks, pullers etc...
[WoR]Teza: How many people were involved in your leveling project?
Gullerbone: All 40 members were involved; Milleniums member were assigned to specific tasks and planning inorder to keep me leveling and the maximum rate. wow power leveling
[WoR]Teza: Was it 10-20 or more people killing mobs after you tagged them?
Gullerbone: Well at first we had be only 5 (during the first 10 hours or so) so that 10 of the members could get lvl 62. then in the morning we were 15 inorder to kill the mobs at a faster rate. Finally in the evening, everyone was involved and we could gather a 35 man raid to help me in netherstorm with our newly lvl 62 doing most of the job. wow power leveling
[WoR]Teza: Right, were you the only one playing Gawell from 60 to 70 for the whole duration 28 hours?
Gullerbone: I sure did, I slept form 2 to 10pm on monday (waked up 2 hours before TBC launch),so the physical preparation was a part of the plan.
[WoR]Teza: Fine, any last words? wow power leveling
Gullerbone: It has been a pleasure to do this with Millenium, I hope we come across other similar challenges in the futur, I am very gratefull to every Millenium members.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
The Burning Crusade: 28 Hours leveled to lvl 70 ?
The Burning Crusade: 28 Hours leveled to lvl 70 ? I just heard that there is one guy who leveled his char from lvl60 to lvl70 in only 28 hours. I really can't believe it at all!!!!
How could he do it ? Is it really?wow power leveling Seems as it is a dream ! But somebody told me that it is real.It is described that a lot of players help this guy during the leveling to lvl 70. For example, if he wanted to kill a monster, he just needed to take part in it and others killed it for him.So it was really very easy for him to get experience. wow power leveling
If lots of friends help me ,maybe I can do that also. :P
How could he do it ? Is it really?wow power leveling Seems as it is a dream ! But somebody told me that it is real.It is described that a lot of players help this guy during the leveling to lvl 70. For example, if he wanted to kill a monster, he just needed to take part in it and others killed it for him.So it was really very easy for him to get experience. wow power leveling
If lots of friends help me ,maybe I can do that also. :P
The new World of Warcraft honor system
As apparently we will get the new honor system patched in before the expansion, I'm not calling it the Burning Crusade honor system. But of course all the information I have on how about it works is from the BC beta. As you all know, buy wow goldthe old honor system, where you were assigned a rank based on your *relative* performance compared to the other players on your server and your faction is going out the window. And the new system will give PvP rewards based on absolute points. The big advantage in that is that lets say winning 50 battlegrounds and doing 1000 honor kills in the new system will always be worth the same, regardless how much the other players played, buy wow goldand regardless of whether you did those battles over 1 week or over 1 month. So how do the rewards work?
What I did was visit the PvP reward NPCs, both in the Hall of Legends in Orgrimmar, and the one standing in front of Alterac Valley. I couldn't actually do a battleground, because there aren't enough players on the beta servers to fill one up. But I was able to see the rewards, and what they cost. buy wow gold
The big disappointment was the Alterac Valley PvP reward NPC. He was offering exactly the same rewards as before, with no "level 70" items added (yet?). That makes the best items available from him look decidedly mediocre compared to green and blue items you can get in the Outlands even at level 60. The big surprise here is that there are no more reputation requirements. You don't need to be exalted to buy lets say The Unstoppable Force. buy wow goldYou just need to "pay" 30000 honor points and 80 Alterac Valley Marks of Honor. Whatever reputation you gained with the Frostwolf is useless now.
In a way that makes sense. You get 1 Mark of Honor from losing, and 3 from winning. So while currently people in AV often go reputation farming, and ignore the win condition, winning AV will become a lot more important. Because all the honor points don't help you if you don't also have the 80 Marks of Honor.buy wow gold Assuming you win half of your battles, you need to finish AV 40 times to pay for the Unstoppable Force.
Next I went to the Hall of Legends in Orgrimmar, which is now open to everybody, not just officers as before, because the officers rank doesn't exist any more. You can still display your highest rank, if you want to, but it doesn't do anything any more. Except, curiously, of still giving you the 10% NPC vendor rebate if you ever made it to rank 3. buy wow goldNo idea why they left that in, as I don't see how new players would be able to still gain that bonus.
In the Hall of Legends there are several PvP reward vendors, for armor, weapons, mounts, and accessoires. Here there are a few level 70 items, but up to now I only counted 4 of them, the others are still the same as the PvP rank rewards. For example a Sergeant't Cloak (level 60 version) now costs 1500 honor and 10 Arathi Marks of Honor. General's Satin Leggings cost 4250 honor and 30 Warsong Gulch Mark of Honor. Some items cost "Eye of Storm Mark of Honor", buy wow goldbut I didn't see any Eye of Storm battleground.
Most stupidly an epic mount cost 30 AV, 30 WSG, plus 30 AB Mark of Honor. But as it still needs 150 riding skill (which still costs 720 gold), this mount is just for show, you can with the same riding skill training cost buy an equally fast standard epic mount for just 80 gold, instead of paying 90 Mark of Honor for a battleground epic mount.
What I don't really like is that most items here also cost specific Marks of Honor. If you don't like lets say Warsong Gulch, you can't pay for the General's Satin Leggings, because these need WSG Marks of Honor. Only the potions, insignia of the horde, buy wow goldbattle standard, and some cut gems to put into sockets can be bought with honor points without Marks.
As long as Blizzard doesn't adjust the PvP rewards to the much higher level of Burning Crusade PvE rewards, I don't see how the changes will induce people to play more PvP. The new system is better than the old reputation farming and rank system, but the rewards need some serious balancing to make PvP as attractive as PvE.
---This article is picked from an unknow player
What I did was visit the PvP reward NPCs, both in the Hall of Legends in Orgrimmar, and the one standing in front of Alterac Valley. I couldn't actually do a battleground, because there aren't enough players on the beta servers to fill one up. But I was able to see the rewards, and what they cost. buy wow gold
The big disappointment was the Alterac Valley PvP reward NPC. He was offering exactly the same rewards as before, with no "level 70" items added (yet?). That makes the best items available from him look decidedly mediocre compared to green and blue items you can get in the Outlands even at level 60. The big surprise here is that there are no more reputation requirements. You don't need to be exalted to buy lets say The Unstoppable Force. buy wow goldYou just need to "pay" 30000 honor points and 80 Alterac Valley Marks of Honor. Whatever reputation you gained with the Frostwolf is useless now.
In a way that makes sense. You get 1 Mark of Honor from losing, and 3 from winning. So while currently people in AV often go reputation farming, and ignore the win condition, winning AV will become a lot more important. Because all the honor points don't help you if you don't also have the 80 Marks of Honor.buy wow gold Assuming you win half of your battles, you need to finish AV 40 times to pay for the Unstoppable Force.
Next I went to the Hall of Legends in Orgrimmar, which is now open to everybody, not just officers as before, because the officers rank doesn't exist any more. You can still display your highest rank, if you want to, but it doesn't do anything any more. Except, curiously, of still giving you the 10% NPC vendor rebate if you ever made it to rank 3. buy wow goldNo idea why they left that in, as I don't see how new players would be able to still gain that bonus.
In the Hall of Legends there are several PvP reward vendors, for armor, weapons, mounts, and accessoires. Here there are a few level 70 items, but up to now I only counted 4 of them, the others are still the same as the PvP rank rewards. For example a Sergeant't Cloak (level 60 version) now costs 1500 honor and 10 Arathi Marks of Honor. General's Satin Leggings cost 4250 honor and 30 Warsong Gulch Mark of Honor. Some items cost "Eye of Storm Mark of Honor", buy wow goldbut I didn't see any Eye of Storm battleground.
Most stupidly an epic mount cost 30 AV, 30 WSG, plus 30 AB Mark of Honor. But as it still needs 150 riding skill (which still costs 720 gold), this mount is just for show, you can with the same riding skill training cost buy an equally fast standard epic mount for just 80 gold, instead of paying 90 Mark of Honor for a battleground epic mount.
What I don't really like is that most items here also cost specific Marks of Honor. If you don't like lets say Warsong Gulch, you can't pay for the General's Satin Leggings, because these need WSG Marks of Honor. Only the potions, insignia of the horde, buy wow goldbattle standard, and some cut gems to put into sockets can be bought with honor points without Marks.
As long as Blizzard doesn't adjust the PvP rewards to the much higher level of Burning Crusade PvE rewards, I don't see how the changes will induce people to play more PvP. The new system is better than the old reputation farming and rank system, but the rewards need some serious balancing to make PvP as attractive as PvE.
---This article is picked from an unknow player
Guild management in World of Warcraft
Managing a guild in any MMORPG, whether as guild leader or officer, is hard work, can be pretty stressful, and is often a rather thankless task. Since burning out on a guild leader job in Dark Age of Camelot, which basically ruined the game for me, I have kept my head low and prefer to avoid the responsability. buy wow goldBut having been in several guilds in World of Warcraft, I have observed some typical modes of behavior of guild leadership, and I think WoW guilds are somewhat different from guilds in other games.
Over the years, playing so many different MMORPG, I've seen a lot of different guilds and types of guilds. And one type that was slowly developing out of the fact that there are so many more games to play now was the multi-game guild. I've been in an American multi-game guild, which was very nice, buy wow goldand only the inevitable problems of living in different time zones prompted me to leave. I joined an European multi-game guild, just to see it run into major problems with World of Warcraft. And I think the issue here is the underlying purpose of guilds in WoW and other games. Especially with multi-game guilds the purpose of a guild is playing together with friends. It is a lot nicer to move to a new game with a bunch of people you already played with, than to start every time again with a group of strangers.buy wow gold You then can expand your circle of friends and invite some new people, but the people who knew each other the longest form the core of the guild, and are often the guild leaders and officers.
In World of Warcraft the purpose of a guild is a different one: progressing together in the raid circuit. Many casual guilds either develop towards raiding, or have constant problems losing guild members to raiding guilds. Guilds start measuring their success in terms of what the most difficult boss is they can kill. buy wow goldIs your guild "only" killing Venoxis in Zul'Gurub, or are you killing Ragnaros, Nefarian, or even Kel'Thuzad? The original purpose of "playing with friends" becomes lost, and you start valueing people more for playing the right class in the right way than for being nice persons. In previous games to get recruited into a guild I often had to play with them for a while, to see whether I was a good guy and friendly character. In WoW most guilds have some restriction to recruitment based simply on your character class, and tend to ask more questions about what gear you have and what dungeons you are attuned to than verifying whether you are a decent chap. buy wow gold
It is somewhat ironic that World of Warcraft is a game where it is a lot easier to solo to the maximum level, but there are more people guilded in WoW than in other games. Guilds are considered a necessity to advance in the endgame, not an option to play with people you like.
What remains the same is that the guild management is often done by a small group of friends, some inner core of the guild. Guild size is more dictated by the number of people you need for a raid than by social concepts like the Dunbar number. The number of friendly relationships you have is often smaller than the number of people in the guild, so you consider some guild members your friends, buy wow goldwhile others are just a necessary addition for raiding.
Very often the guild's inner circle is the people that play the most, the people who are at the front of the raiding effort, and most advanced on the raiding circuit. Unsurprisingly loot rules often favor these frequent raiders, so they are also the best equipped. And with the very purpose of the guild being raid advancement, what is "good for the guild" is defined in how it pushes forward the progress of guild raids.
The big downside of that is that people who join the guild later, and are less far advanced than the average guild member, often have a hard time to get integrated. buy wow goldThey might be required to have a certain level of equipment or certain attunement quests done to participate in the guild raid events, but at the same time the guild is too busy with the top end howthey *they* got their starting equipment and attunement quests by playing together, and how much harder it is to do the same in pickup groups. The same thing applies to learning how to raid well. When the top raiders of a guild tackled Zul'Gurub or Molten Core for the first time, there was a lot of discussion and learning how to raid together well. Later a newcomer might be able to join a MC raid where the dungeon is cleared out in record time, but without anyone explaining him the tactics. He'll have a better chance to get epic loot, provided everybody else already has most gear from there, buy wow goldbut as a learning experience of good raiding that isn't so good. Besides being shouted at when he does something wrong, such a raid is more confusing than teaching him much.
I've seen that again and again how guilds are so concentrated of pushing the front forward that they basically forget about the stragglers coming behind. The worst uber guilds just kick out the people that fall behind. But even the better guilds basically let the newbies fight for themselves, or think that by letting them have an epic from MC they helped them more than enough. But purple loot can't replace the feeling of being part of a community, and new players having to endure pickup groups while the guild is raiding BWL probably don't feel much friendship towards the others. buy wow goldBy the time they arrive at being able to raid Zul'Gurub, the guild has probably just decided to not give out any DKP for ZG raids any more, because no officer can be bothered to join these "low level" raids. The gap between players even inside the same guild is growing. And if everything is organized by guild officers that are the guild's top raiders, it is logical that not much thought is spent on the problems of the "lesser" guild members. I've seen some cases where the guild leaders evolved so far ahead of the rest of the guild, that they ended up quitting and leaving the bulk of the guild behind. Or they burned out and quit, with nobody left to take over guild leadership.
My hope is that the Burning Crusade fixes some of these issues. On the one side the smaller number of players per raid should make smaller, more casual guilds viable for raiding. It is a lot easier to know everybody and integrate everybody in a raid guild that only needs 25 people to attend each raid, buy wow goldthan if you need 40 of them. For existing guilds, the fact that the Burning Crusade loot easily replaces the previous raid epics makes it possible to close the gap between players and let people newer to the guild catch up with the top raiders and guild officers.
Of course that won't be an easy process. There are a multitude of risks, things that could be managed badly. One very likely problem is that most guilds will keep their loot distribution and DKP system, which is in many cases heavily loaded against newer players. So on their first level 70 raid guilds might end up giving most loot to people who raided the most level 60 dungeons, although the link between having raided level 60 dungeons a lot and contributing to the success of level 70 dungeons is somewhat strenuous.buy wow gold With everybody wearing gear acquired from BC quests and dungeons, why should somebody have priority on level 70 raid loot, just because he went to Molten Core a hundred times? Another probable problem is that level 70 raids could easily be oversubscribed, because the 40 people who raided MC/BWL/AQ40/Naxx together all show up, and only 25 people can raid together now.
A difficult period will be the first weeks after the Burning Crusade comes out. Guilds that used to raid every night will have to somehow replace these large scale guild events with organizing lots of small scale 5-man groups. There is a danger of everybody soloing, and the guild not having any purpose or events left at all, with people drifting apart. And then not everybody will level up at the same rate, with the first level 70s impatiently tapping their feet while waiting for enough others in the guild to level up for raiding. buy wow gold
So I don't envy all these guild leaders and officers, they have a difficult time ahead, managing these massive changes to the previously established guild routines. Some guilds will probably not survive the transition, break up, and reform. But if that ends up grouping more similar people together, maybe that is not such a bad thing. Maybe the current World of Warcraft guilds, operating under the special 40-man raid constraint, are just too big for their own good.
----This article is picked from an unknow player.
WoW Battleground Changes
I've been picking up on several WoW Battleground changes that seem to be working their way down the Blizzard pipeline. Since I'm going to have little time to blog this week I am planning on doing some small articles on how each one might effect the game. I should get the three bigones covered and who knows if I have time I might be able to write a rant or two. buy wow gold
One note of warning though is that some of these have only been vaguely hinted at by the Blizzard development team. Therefore their implementation could be different from what you or I picture. Expect the first article tomorrow.
1) Battlegrounds might soon only allow people to join as groups not raids. Most think this is an attempt to cut back on premade WSG and AB groups.
2) The 1.12 patch should effectively cut down the queue wbuy wow goldait time for the Alliance. I am going to try to dig out some old queueing theory books and see how a battleground server group might help wait times.
3) A system is in the works for the battlegrounds that will match people together based on gear quality or current honor ranking. I keep spotting hints of this from the community managers on the forums. I'll look at several different ways this could be implemented and which one is most likely.buy wow gold
----This article is picked from an unknow player
PvP and the Burning Crusade
I wanted to take a close look at the PvP changes coming in the World of Warcraft expansion. It seems PvP is being modified into three distinct types, each with their own rules and rewards. I am going to give a short outline of each type and then a review on how they might affect overall game play.
World CombatEach of the seven world zones in the Outlands will have a different PvP objective which can be fought over by the horde and alliance. Rewards for meeting a zone objective seem to include buffs or control of a useful location.buy wow gold For example some zones will have towns or graveyards that change factions depending on which side has recently won. Also reward buffs might be nothing to sneeze at since its been rumored that they will increase the amount of experience gained per kill in the zone.
Review of World Combat:I like the idea of introducing world combat into the game but giving well defined objectives. buy wow goldI never understood people who whined about the good old days before the honor system. It always seemed to me that world combat was mostly about the ability to gank newbies in low level contested towns. As a result of this I am not sure world combat will attract those who miss the days before the honor system. However, if the rewards are good enough I predict these objectives could attract a decent amount of players. If the pvp towns have good quest rewards inside of them I expect players to actively fight to gain control of them, especially if they need to do a turn in. buy wow goldAlso if the experience buff is a reward in a good grinding zone then I expect there always to be a decent amount of players fighting for the objective.
The Honor SystemThe honor system is being revamped so that honor points can be spent like currency. The ranking system is being removed so that the gear is available to anyone who has the points to purchase them. Some items might require specific tokens/points from certain battlegrounds along with general honor points gained from killing the opposing faction. The expansions will introduce a few more battlegrounds into the game though no specifics have been released yet. buy wow goldDevelopers have said that the rewards for the new honor system will be generous but not on par with the top end raid loots.
Review of the Honor System:Loot wise the honor system is not going to change much. There will still only be a couple of useful epic items that require a decent amount of time to get. Still for those who don't like to raid this is going to be a useful boon to gain equipment. Even if half of the PvP population has the same equipment,buy wow gold think Unstoppable Force, at least they will be able to fight on par with most everyone but serious raiders.
The Arena SystemThis is the most interesting idea Blizzard has had in the PvP area. Basically its a gladiator pit fight that requires teams of players to fight matches against other teams with similar rankings. The format is varying with 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 matches with each team have double the members as their format. Thus a 2 person team could have 4 members but only 2 could fight in a match at the same time. The winner of each match will gain points that are used to determine their ranking in comparison with everyone else. Matches are server wide and cross faction so it will be impossible to determine your opponents ahead of times. buy wow goldThe ranking system will match up evenly ranked teams so that one sided fights will be less common. At the end of a three month period time (seasonal) the ranks will be given points which can be used to buy arena gear. Arena gear is supposed to be on par with the top end raid gear found in the 25 man instances.
Review of the Arena System:I love this idea. Matches should go a lot quicker then battlegrounds and will become the ultimate way to kill 5 minutes. There should be no queue time for matches and even higher ranked teams should find opponents quickly. Also the ability to form a team and get team colors/tabard is a very nice way to join players together. Also if players are given the ability to view matches this could quickly become a popular pastime. As for the rewards they will require the most amount of time to grind to get because of the seasonal nature of the point system. buy wow goldHowever, there is no decay on the points once earned and there should be wide range of items available. Even a low ranking team should be able to buy something after the first season. I hope the season timetable is moved up from the implied 3 month period to something more in line with a month. However, I believe Blizzard will want to balance the time nature of the rewards to match the amount of time it takes a raider to gain their gear.
I hope you enjoyed this short review on the Burning Crusade PvP changes. Feel free to read the two interview articles below which are the source of most of the pvp information.buy wow gold
----This article is picked from an unknow player
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