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How professions are changing in Warlords of Draenor
Like with every expansion before it, Warlords of Draenor will be shaking things up. Professions will get their skill caps increased to 700 and you'll find new recipes (and new epic gear) waiting for you in Draenor. But it's not all business as usual: some major changes in Warlords will be shaking up how professions work and how they fit in with the rest of the game. Blizzard's goal here seems targeted to opening up player choice: you shouldn't be forced into a profession or be penalized for not having or leveling one. This doesn't mean that the advantages of having a profession are going away, but come Warlords some unique bonuses will be gone, people without a profession will have additional access to it, and leveling professions will be more straightforward for players who might not have focused on professions in the past. Here are the biggest changes: Profession-based bonuses are gone. And, though we may be losing some perks, with the stat squish and resultant rebalancing in Warlords, this is the ideal time for Blizzard to make this switch. The end result is that you won't have to pick a profession for a specific combat bonus... but can have whichever professions you most want. You can gather anything in Draenor, regardless of skill level. We saw this happen with mining and herbalism in Pandaria in patch 5.3, and now it's expanded to cover all gathering professions, making it easier to level up a gathering profession from zero. Players with higher skill levels will gather more materials than players with lower skill levels. In addition to gathering professions being easier to level, crafting professions all have catch-up recipes that will let you level from zero onward using Draenor materials. This will probably make it more expensive if you plan on buying materials (since everyone will be looking for the same new-world materials), but less of a nuisance if you're gathering your own. Garrison buildings will allow you limited access to professions you don't have... or improve your abilities in professions you do have. Want to know all the details? Read on to see just what's happening for professions in Warlords of Draenor.
Flameseeker Chronicles: Professions are like onions
We've previously talked about the fun results of interaction between Guild Wars 2's relatively simple elements. Emergent complexity is a driving force behind a lot of the depth in Guild Wars 2, as we examined in both the skill and dynamic event systems. This layered complexity also works to benefit professions: There are enough options and tools for fine-tuning your character that incredibly divergent uses of the same profession are possible. Professions have layers. The farther you progress with a given character, the more layers get added and the more you can do to specialize and fine-tune your style of play.
Learn the basics of Diablo III gameplay
Massively's sister site WoW Insider brings us this special bonus article tonight on the basics of Diablo III for folks who normally play MMOs like World of Warcraft. Enjoy the rest of Joystiq's WoW team's Diablo coverage over on WoW Insider, and stay tuned for our own Diablo III launch roundups tomorrow morning! Since Diablo II was released 12 years ago, it's safe to say that Diablo III will be the first Diablo title many people will have ever played. It's one of the most anticipated titles of the season and is attracting countless new players to the genre. We've received a number of questions asking how this game is even played -- and if it has anything in common with your favorite MMOs. We have you covered. The core of Diablo gameplay is the mouse click. You do everything from combat to looting to movement with your mouse, and your interactions with your keyboard are extremely minimal overall. On Twitter recently, many Diablo diehards have mentioned they were buying a new mouse specifically to use with Diablo III -- and that's not a bad idea. No, we're not talking a brand-new $80 Razer Naga; we're talking some $10 to $15 thing you can pick up off of a department store shelf. You want a mouse that you're not going to mourn when your buttons inevitably give out from the mountain of abuse you're about to unleash upon them. Grab something cheap and disposable so that when it dies, you will consider it a victory -- just another technological corpse for the bone pile.
Massively's guide to SWTOR's launch and beyond
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, we first heard mention of a new Star Wars MMO set in the popular Knights of the Old Republic era. Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare named it, and we've waited patiently impatiently through months years of hope and hype, fanboys and haters, and at least eight million articles about the fourth pillar of story. This week, The Old Republic is the new hotness, and the Massively staffers are right there with you, champing at the bit to get in the head start already! But what if you're not an expert on Star Wars lore or TOR's gameplay? What if you don't know the first thing about purple lightsabers, astromechs, and the Kessel Run? What if you can't decide which class to play? When do you get a starship? Can you really romance your companions? How do flashpoints work? And why are there no bathrooms on Coruscant?! Relax, young Padawan. Put your blast-shield down and let Massively be your guide... literally. We've rounded up a massive collection of helpful introductory guides for each of the eight classes, along with overviews of gameplay mechanics like companions, starships, flashpoints, warzones, and crafting. We've also curated the most illuminating lore essays from our regular SWTOR column, Hyperspace Beacon, in addition to our extensive hands-on previews from the last few years. Take your first step into a larger world...
Ten levels of RIFT: A guide to your first day in Telara
With two RIFT beta events under my belt, I was given the supreme honor of creating a guide to the first 10 levels of the game. Naturally, I fell apart under the stress, assumed the fetal position for a couple days while whimpering about "frame rates," and then was prodded into action by our editors. That's quite literally "prodded," mind you -- Massively purchased a pair of cattle prods last year at a police auction. It's going to be years until the scorch marks fade from my spine. The purpose of this guide is two-fold. First, we want to give anyone who's interested in RIFT but couldn't get into the beta a chance to vicariously experience RIFT's newbie path. Second, while RIFT is careful to hold your hand during your first steps into Telara, there are always a lot of things that can be easily missed while one is partaking in the wonders of a new virtual world. So this guide is here to share a few tips and pointers that beta testers may have missed. What are you waiting for? Roll up a new character by hitting the jump!
Final Fantasy XIV updates official site with a guide to interactions and guildleves
Despite the in-game tutorial, players in Final Fantasy XIV aren't given a straightforward idea of where to go after the first few steps in the game. Early adopters have been gamely figuring out what comes next as they go, but Square-Enix has put together a small primer for new players covering two of the essentials -- interacting with objects (including the all-important aetheryte) and the specifics of acquiring guildleves and carrying out local leves. Some of the facts within the most recent dispatch will be familiar to players who have been in the game since the beginning, but the guide still includes interesting facts for all players, such as a map of the NPCs required for materials for some local leves. Veteran players can also appreciate the newly implemented History feature for individual characters, allowing one to track the progress of a character across Eorzea. Final Fantasy XIV newbies still won't have a straight line to walk through the game, but the addition of another guide should certainly help.
The Light and How to Swing It: The low level tank part 1
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown. For the next couple weeks we'll be taking a look at low level dungeon runners. Cross-realm instancing is coming in patch 3.3 and along with it will be the ability for low level characters to finally find those level appropriate groups for old world dungeons. Being that those parties will need tanks, we thought we'd take a look at what an up and coming paladin needs to know about dungeons as well as what types of gear and stats to be on the lookout for. We're going to start with tanking and then move on to healing and damage-dealing in the weeks to come.
Breakfast Topic: What tutorial would you add?
With the addition of sixty new tutorials for helping out new players starting out in World of Warcraft on the 3.3 PTR, I started thinking about what tutorials some of the level 80 players I've seen still need... like the above. There could be the "Hit rating is your friend" tutorial explaining that if you can't hit the boss, you can't DPS. There is also the "Stay out of the boss's cleave" for those people that want to stand next to the tank during Onyxia. Speaking of Onyxia, we could also just do a general "Dragons: Where not to stand" tutorial telling people to avoid the front and back. There is also one that most new healers run into "A dead healer can't heal the tank" explaining that you also need to keep track of your own health as AoE damage can kill the healer. While some of those were meant to be sarcastic, other ones we tend to take for granted. Some new level 80 characters have never experienced the game mechanics we often feel should be general knowledge. So, I take the question to you: What new tutorials do you think should be added into the game?
Patch 3.3 PTR: New tutorial gallery
As we've mentioned in a previous post, there are a new set of tutorials on the public test realm designed to help out new players when patch 3.3 launches. This should help smooth the overall experience for people who are completely new to the world of both MMOs as well as video games in general. While they aren't nearly as amusing as the fake one I posted above (although, that one needs to get added at some point), they do walk characters through a lot of the major tasks. Currently, there are sixty different tutorial windows explaining things from food to durability loss. There is still plenty of room for additions, but these are a great start. While my gallery may not show it, a lot of the tutorials highlight parts of your screen like your enemy health bars, your minimap, or your action bars themselves to help show what new players are supposed to be looking at. Just a reminder that this is the PTR and these might end up changing or getting re-worded before they hit the live realms. If you have any constructive feedback on any of the tutorials in the gallery, please be sure to hit the US PTR forum or the EU PTR forum and let Blizzard know your thoughts on what they've already done or should add in the future. %Gallery-76529% Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Ten great tips for new Second Life users
Over the last couple of weeks, a larger number of our readers than usual have decided to give Second Life a try (in some cases, a second try after some years). It seems appropriate therefore to lay out some essential tidbits to help you get to grips with your first few hours in Second Life. From quick graphical tune-ups to how to get help, we've got the stuff you need to know first.
Starting out in Vana'diel: The Fields of Valor
Hello there Adventurers! I hope everything is going well for you in Final Fantasy XI since we last spoke. Where we last left off, we were speaking with the initial NPC trainer and getting through the opening "tutorial."However, as reader Dana noticed, "They want me to go out and grind dagger skill... so... more endless grinding." Well, you're right and wrong, Dana! You're right, they do want you to go out and level up your dagger skill and that can be a bit boring. But the endless grinding has been lessened by the advent of a new system -- one that could easily be missed by long-term players. Today's article will be focusing on that brand new system, the Fields of Valor.What makes this system so good? How does it help you in the lower levels? How do I use it? These answers and more are a short distance below, across the divide manned by the pretty blue "continue reading" link.
New Players' Guide: Your life as a Hunter.
The WoW Insider New Player's Guide is a series of features designed to help those brand new to World of WarCraft get up to speed as fast as possible. It's our way of giving back to the community, without the paparazzi mob that usually follows celebrities when they try this.As a Hunter, your primary role will be to provide ranged damage-per-second and crowd control with your traps. Actually, I lied, your primary role will be spent convincing everyone you group with you're not one of those brainless morons that seem to end up playing Hunters.You see, Hunters, hands down, are the easiest class to level in the game. At level 10 you get your first pet. This pet will tank for you while you stand back and hail arrows at your target. This means that your overall deaths and repair bills will be lower than other classes, while at the same time your kills will be faster since your pet adds to your damage output.Combat with your Hunter is fairly straightforward: send in your pet, wait a few seconds for it to build sufficient aggro and then start plinking away. It's worth installing an add-on like Omen so you can tell when you're in danger of out-aggroing your pet. You will need to do some damage yourself to get xp or be able to loot the corpse, so even if you're just out farming easy mobs, make sure you hit it once or twice with your bow.
