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The Daily Grind: Who's your favorite villain?
Sometimes villains are individuals, sometimes they're simply faceless armies. Sometimes they're major antagonists, sometimes they just harass you a bit in low-level zones. But every game has antagonists, even if they're no more organized than "those animals milling outside of the front gates." In EVE Online they might be other players, in World of Warcraft they change with the expansion, and in Guild Wars 2 they arrive gift-wrapped with two-week bursts of content to accompany their arrivals. In some games all you can do is kick them around a bit, while in some games your favorite villain has likely been met, matched, and defeated, never to rise again. So today we ask you: Who's your favorite villain? Is it a group of villains, like the Freakshow in City of Heroes? A single figure like Gaius van Baelsar in Final Fantasy XIV? Or is it just a group you personally hate, like every roaming aggressive animal on Voss in Star Wars: The Old Republic? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Exploring Eberron: Weapon materials 101
Crafting is coming to Dungeons and Dragons Online! There's a lot of player excitement about the looming Update 9, but the introduction of a true crafting system easily eclipses a lot of it. One of the most significant aspects of crafting in DDO is that players will be able to craft the perfect weapon rather than relying on lucky drops while playing or on the auction hall. This system will be open to even new players, and while that's great, it might get a little confusing for those who haven't had time to learn what all of the gear details mean. For that reason, I want to take a look at some of the basics today: weapon material composition. Weapons are made of silver, adamantine, some varieties of wood, and much more. It can seem a little overwhelming to try to figure out what type of weapon you should choose and why -- and the temptation to say "oh, forget it" and just use whatever is strong. Don't throw out that cool adamantine sword quite yet, though. Join me after the jump and let's look at what these materials mean and why you care!
The Daily Grind: What enemy groups do you feel are overused?
There's no denying that the Praetorian Clockwork of City of Heroes are a cool-looking gang of robots. They're powerful, military, and intimidating in numbers, and their prominence in recent task forces isn't unwelcome. Of course, after fighting them all through the first 20 levels of the game, and then fighting them in the most recent task forces, and then fighting more of them in the upcoming Issue 20... some players might be getting just a bit tired of seeing the war machines stomping about. World of Warcraft has at least one troll dungeon per expansion, Star Trek Online loves its Borg, and of course you've got Orcs from dawn to dusk in Lord of the Rings Online. Sometimes they make sense; sometimes they don't. But there's always one group of enemies that seems to get trotted out more often than others. So what group do you feel gets brought into the forefront just a bit too often in your game of choice? Was it a group that you used to like but have grown bored of, or one you never found all that interesting? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
We've become carebears in Shattrath
Arrianae has a great point over on the forums: since when did Outland take the war out of Warcraft? Remember all that blood spilled on the Crossroads? Remember the massacres that took place at Southshore, or the daily incursions at Orgrimmar and Stormwind. STV ganking is legendary, and BRD used to have skeletons all over it. So why is it that, in Shattrath, Horde and Alliance are suddenly buddy-buddy?The answer, says Nethaera, is that there are bigger foes to worry about in Outland, the Burning Legion definitely not the least of them. There is some good PvP to be found in Outland, although the Auchindouin nodes are usually just grabbed rather than conquered. But while Halaa in Nagrand is covered with the entrails of both sides, you still get the feeling that there, we're just fighting for a turn-in vendor. It's fun, but it doesn't have the epic, original Warcraft flavor that was so sweet in Azeroth.I think what players want is some good old Orcs and Humans combat. Before Burning Crusade, we were asking for more World PvP, and we definitely got it-- from HFP to Zangarmarsh to Auchindouin, there are tons of ways to fight the other faction, and tons of reasons to do it. But no amount of standing around in a PvP objective feels better than sticking pointy end of sword into enemy, and that kind of ruthless attack is what players miss.
