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Breakfast Topic: What was your first world drop epic?
The video above is slightly NSFW-ish for some strong language -- but man, is it a hoot! Torrg over on the official forums posed a very nostalgic question: What was your first epic world drop? Sadly, my first purple was something I couldn't use. I was leveling my very first character to 70 during The Burning Crusade, a night elf druid, and I was doing some quests in Tanaris. I was just outside of one of the hives of silithid working my way in, sneaking around in cat form trying to avoid as many of those horrid bugs as possible, when I backed right into one of the suckers. It was an epic battle as I fumbled with keybinds, running around the mob trying to Shred it (OK, perhaps I wasn't the brightest druid out there). Somehow I came out on top -- and what do you know, the creepy crawler dropped a Gut Ripper. I was crushed when I found out that I couldn't use it, so I sold it on the Auction House for a couple of hundred gold. That kind of money is a decent chunk of change for a new player in their 40s, but with the daunting cost of flying mounts and training later on, it wasn't much more than a drop in the bucket. So what was your first Professor Plum?
Behind the Mask: The incentives are backwards
This week in Behind the Mask, we will not be discussing Aftershock, the new Comic Series adventure that started several weeks ago. I intend to talk about Aftershock after it's finished -- if I talked about each new issue of Aftershock, I wouldn't be able to talk about other things, since there's a new issue every week. Instead, I'm going to talk about the broad aspect of teaming in Champions Online, and more importantly, the rewards for teaming. Teaming in CO is as fun as in other MMORPGs because playing with other people is generally a fun activity. Unfortunately, there isn't much material incentive to team. It's faster to get experience and gear solo, making lairs the only real reason to team. I team all the time, though -- entirely because it's more fun to play with friends.
Tabula Rasa in an equipment bind once again
About a month ago, I wrote an editorial about the controversy surrounding a change that Destination Games was planning to make to the itemization in their hit sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa. At the core of contention was the proposed change that would make items have basic armor and weapon damage bonuses commensurate with the item's rarity. This was to be an important first-step to jump-starting Tabula Rasa's economy with the introduction of the Military Surplus. I came out strongly backing the fix, because I thought it would add some value to Tabula Rasa's credits and get the crafter aspect of the game kick-started.I'm sad to report that things didn't work quite as I expected. The Military Surplus has seen a huge volume of business since it was put in, but once the initial price bubble for rare items burst, it became clear that the market for equipment in Tabula Rasa was broken, and for one simple reason: the game still lacks a mechanism where items are bind on equip. The consequence? The Military Surplus is flooded with rare item drops and quest rewards, and the market is only getting more saturated as players use their items, out-level them, then put them up for sale. The crafting element of the game, where items are taken apart for components that can be used to upgrade other items, isn't taking items off the MS fast enough. While it's made finding 1337 equipment an easy task for even the most casual player, the quest for gear has fallen into the general background noise of the game. It's gotten to the point where it's scarcely worth putting items on the Military Surplus at all anymore, because one can make more money just grinding in the time it would take to list them. While I implore Paul Sage and company to continue to make the end-game the priority, I think it might also be in their best interest to slap a Bind on Equip sticker on items in the meantime.
The itemization bug bites Tabula Rasa
As you should already well know, Destination Games is hard at work on patching up some common complaints in their new sci-fi epic Tabula Rasa. Though the most significant part of the patch for most players was Rage getting whacked with the nerf bat and the promise of a free respec, that wasn't all that Paul Sage and crew had in mind. An easily overlooked part of the patch notes says, and here I quote, "We have also fixed another problem where item rarity was not affecting damage bonuses on the items. Now green weapons will do more damage than their white counterparts of the same level. Blues will do more than greens." Itemization is getting tweaked, and it's going to have huge ramifications.As things of this nature usually do, the change has spawned a heated discussion within the TR community, with some feeling that the difference in itemization (which, if you'll note, is called a "fix" not a "change") is going to have profound implications for the way players approach equipment and the game in general. As the game exists now, damage is entirely independent of item quality, and the only advantages conferred by rare items (which follows the popular rarity scheme of white < green < blue < purple) are that they have their mod slots filled. In most cases an item bought at a vendor is basically equal to a purple of the same level that you can get either as a rare drop or as a quest reward. Why is that a problem?
Forum Post of the Day: I have never looted an epic
I am impressed by EU forumgoer Yippi. Despite having two characters at level 70, one at level 69, two more at 60, and a host of lower levels, Yippi has never even seen a world drop epic. That's enough to make you wonder if the darn things even exist! Even though, in my experience, I have to say that they do -- while leveling, I've gotten Robes of Insight, an Underworld Band, a Jeweled Amulet of Cainwyn, and I've seen (though I didn't win) a Krol Blade. Maybe I'm as lucky as Yippi is unlucky? But, I don't know... like the guys over at Penny Arcade say -- green is the new purple. Maybe missing out on those world drop epics isn't that bad after all.Interested in more forumgoer opinions? Take a look at previous forum posts of the day!
