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A small defense skill change in 2.4 could herald larger things
It seems like a small change, but it could be the herald of something larger. It's a change to the way the defense skill is described in-game in patch 2.4, as reported by World of Raids. I'll let them describe it: * Old value: Higher defense makes you harder to hit and makes monsters less likely to land a crushing blow. * New value: Higher defense improves your chance to dodge, parry, and block attacks, makes you harder to hit, and makes monsters less likely to land a critical strike against you. So what does this mean? They've added things that have always been part of the skill, but have not been explicitly mentioned on the defense tab before, but what's most intriguing is what they've taken away. I'll explain after the jump.
Next Monday is "Ask a LotRO dev a question day"
If you're a Lord of the Rings Online player interested in asking the developers as many questions as you can think up, then this should interest you greatly. An open topic developer chat is scheduled for this coming Monday, February 11th at 5pm Pacific (or 8pm Eastern). We're sure that there are plenty of you out there looking to fire your hot, molten questions at the LotRO developers. Information on how to get into the chat can be found over at Stratics -- where the chat is being hosted.Usually when players are unleashed upon developers, many questions about future updates and content are asked. Maybe we'll get a juicy hint or two at possible things to expect from the next patch after Book 12. You never know, sometimes developers can be swayed by hordes of adoring players.
And the first EQ2 player to reach level 80 is...
Stratics reports that the first player to reach level 80 on EverQuest II's live servers is the Monk Taucher of the guild Second Dawn on the Najena server. The word is that Taucher reached level 80 at 7:37 AM EST on Thursday the 15th of November; that's approximately 36 hours after Rise of Kunark -- the expansion that raised the level cap from 70 to 80 -- went live.Taucher won a $100 reward from the community for being the first to level 80. He wrote a couple of brief posts in the contest's stickied thread at the EQ2Flames forum. He said in his post announcing his accomplishment, "I'm sure I'll have a lot to say when I wake up at some point, but right now I've been playing for pretty much 39 hours straight and I just want to go to bed."This is not the first time a power gamer has blown everyone away with a marathon play session to reach a new level cap. Back when The Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft came out, a 24-year-old Frenchman progressed from level 60 to level 70 in just 28 hours with the help of his guild mates.
Stratics interviews Stargate Worlds' Kevin Balentine
When Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment revealed back in March that it would be outsourcing some of its game design jobs for Stargate Worlds, a lot of people took that as a bad sign. Outsourcing game design? That's kind of like the Conan O'Brien sketch in which Conan absurdly outsourced the show's writing to India (though, if the WGA strike keeps going for too long, you never know what might happen).Stratics interviewed Kevin Balentine this week, and he defended the decision to outsource design by saying that it cuts back on a lot of the detail-oriented busywork that consumes lead designers' time, so that time can be spent designing more unique, story-based missions or quests. Maybe that will alleviate some people's fears. The interview is fairly short, but Balentine also talks about instancing, squad-based combat, and a couple of other things.
Tabula Rasa crafting 101
Over at Stratics, there's a good guide for learning how to craft, modify and disassemble items in Tabula Rasa.Crafting was relatively broken in the Tabula Rasa beta, so I'm looking forward to creating enough paint to drive Dulux out of business. Delicious, delicious paint.Several TR veterans have also recommended you start disassembling weapons for their components immediately -- whilst it loses you some credits in the short term, it'll give you a wider range of modification ingredients when you're a higher level and with a Supersonic Rocket Launcher Flamethrower of Doom that you want to upgrade. Try it out.Be sure to read the end of the guide too, if you've been curious what the numbers next to a weapon attribute mean!EDIT: fixed link, tricksy blogsmith
Stratics interviews Awake from Nihilum, too
Stratics has posted their own Nihilum interview (here's ours, from last week), and while the piece doesn't actually appear to be in interview format (?), it does have some good info from Awake about how to manage a huge guild, whether PvE players will be able to go professional in the future, and how Nihilum stays on track and GTD.Not too much is new since last week, but Awake does offer up some new info about Nihilum's PvP plans-- they're trying to bring at least two teams into WSVG. Also, Awake mentions that they'll be at Blizzcon in some form (so will WoW Insider, of course, and if you don't have your tickets yet, be sure to watch for our contests all week), and hints that it might have something to do with... Leeroy Jenkins?So there's not too much to learn if you read last week's interview (or if you're just tired of hearing about Nihilum-- yes, I know there are some of you out there), but if you just can't get enough Nihilum, go check it out.
Stratics Chat: Live with the Devs
As promised, I'll be reporting on anything and everything going on in the Stratics chat. I'm hopeful that the devs will pick some of the truly tasty questions that have been offered up to answer. For those who want to join us on IRC for this, you can get all the pertinent information here. For those of you who are unable to get on IRC but still wanting to keep up with the action, just refresh this post periodically. I'll add my running commentary here via edits as the chat progresses. (Please note that all timestamps are EST.) Pre-show: Had a lovely chat with TotalBiscuit from WoWRadio and caught some of his Devchat pre-show while waiting. Great guy -- and a great site. If you haven't checked them out, be sure to do so! 5:45 pm: Drink? Check. Snack? Oh man. I knew I forgot something...5:50 pm: Wow, this channel is packed. There are easily several hundred in here. Of course, considering the guests of honor, that's really no surprise.6:00 pm: Brannoc has said they'll begin shortly. So far, so good. Eyonix, Drysc, Neth are here as well as Kalgan and Tigole. More official people seem to be joining.6:07 pm: They're going through the introductions now. -- Ah, first question. Wants to know when Azeroth will begin getting a significant revamp as it's a ghost town now.6:09 pm: Tigole says that they're looking at revamping some older zones at some point. Also planning future expansions, mentions Karazhan and CoT as examples of future content plans. (The rest lives behind the jump)
Get your questions in for the Stratics chat
I wrote a week ago about Stratics hosting an IRC chat with WoW's lead designers, and now they day has come. You've still got several hours to submit your questions to Stratics' army of question taker bots; the chat will start at 6 PM Eastern time (3 PM Pacific). In fact, since I'm such a nice guy, if you don't feel like going over to IRC yourself and sending in your question, post it here and I'll submit it for you, as long as the bots keep accepting questions. If you do want to join in the madness, point your IRC client at irc.stratics.com, port 6668. The chat itself will take place in #StraticsHoC, and discussion can be had in #worldofwarcraft. And don't forget, I'll be covering the chat live as soon as it starts, so check back on our home page for updates.
