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EVE Evolved: Fitting battleships for PvP in Odyssey
Tech 1 ships in EVE Online used to be arranged in tiers that determined the cost and power of the ship and what level of the appropriate skill was required to fly it. This gave a sense of progression back in 2004 when all we had was frigates, cruisers, and battleships, but developers have since filled in the gaps between ship classes with destroyers, battlecruisers, strategic cruisers, and tech 2 ships of all shapes and sizes. In a recent game design initiative, CCP has been removing the tiers from within each tech 1 ship class by buffing the lower-tier ships up to the same rough power level as the largest ship in its class. The recent Odyssey expansion saw the humble battleship buffed beyond all recognition. The Megathron, Raven, Tempest, and Apocalypse all became extreme damage-dealing powerhouses, but the Dominix, Scorpion, Typhoon, and Armageddon were buffed the most. Each of them can now fit several monster setups, dealing upward of 1,000 damage per second or completely disabling enemy ships with energy neutralisers and electronic warfare. The build costs of these tier one battleships were more than doubled in the expansion, but prices are only slowly rising due to the existing stock on the market. That makes the tier one battleships incredibly cost-effective PvP powerhouses at the moment, and players are beginning to take advantage of it. In this week's EVE Evolved, I experiment with PvP setups for the newly revamped Typhoon, Armageddon, Scorpion, and Dominix battleships.
Neverwinter dares you to conquer the Caverns of Gauntlgrym
When Neverwinter officially launches on June 20th, those players who are already congregating at the level cap will have a new challenge to overcome: the Caverns of Gauntlgrym. Cryptic posted a new article to highlight the level 60 dungeon that offers both PvP and PvE content. Promising "something for everyone" with Gauntlgrym, Cryptic will dare players to jump into the dungeon and pursue the Dwarf King's treasure. What's interesting about the instance is that not only does it offer both PvP and PvE modes as players fight for a faction, but actions taken or missed will affect each phase of the journey. Tier 2 rewards lie in wait for the winning team, although tier 1 rewards will be given to all teams that make it to the end. The dungeon is for level 60 players who are in a guild, but that's the only qualification to enter; there is no gear score check for Gauntlgrym. We already saw the trailer a few days ago, but this article gives more concrete details about what to expect.
The beauty of classic WoW's Molten Core
Back in the days of WoW's original release, Molten Core was, in many ways, the raid. It wasn't the only raid, and it certainly wasn't the only raid that left a lasting impression on the consciousness of WoW players. Nonetheless, if you were raiding in classic WoW, you started with Molten Core, and that experience inevitably shaped the way raiding has been perceived ever since. What was it exactly about Molten Core? Was it the sprawling, maze-like dungeon (which didn't have a map at the time)? Was it the memorable boss fights and quotes? Was it the iconic gear drops? Was it dealing with the reality of trying to organize 40 players into their different roles and individual responsibilities? I'd say all of the above, to an extent. The first time you do anything new, be it visiting a city or raiding in a video game, there is a certain significance to the occasion that can never truly be replicated. As the first big raid most classic WoW players experienced, Molten Core has had a special place in our collective hearts for a long time now. Let's take a trip down memory lane with a look at some of the unique and fun aspects of Molten Core, many of which I miss but honestly would not want to have to deal with again.
RIFT details upcoming Expert Mode dungeon changes
RIFT's patch 1.7: Carnival of the Ascended is bringing with it some pretty neat things, such as in-game marriage, PvP improvements, and the eponymous Carnival of the Ascended. But long-time, high-level players are probably most curious about the changes coming to Expert Mode dungeons. Tier 1 and tier 2 Expert Mode dungeons are merging into a single Expert tier. What this means is that all players with tier 1 gear will keep that gear (which will be improved by item changes being introduced in the patch), but it will never drop again. The upgraded versions of tier 1 gear will drop in its stead. Previous tier 1 dungeons have had their difficulty increased to be more on par with tier 2 dungeons, and Trion Worlds has also "turned the dials up a bit higher on some encounters to keep things interesting with your flashy new gear." For the full details on all of the changes coming to the Expert Mode system and the endgame gear system, just click on through the link below to the RIFT official site.
World of Wardrobe: Plate tier look-alikes for death knights
Heading back to pick up some awesome armor sets from vanilla WoW or that dazzling weapon that'll have your enemies cowering in fear? Transmogrification makes it possible -- and World of Wardrobe shows you how. I feel kind of bad for the death knight class. While every other class in the game has had tier sets galore, death knights got a late start. So all those lovely tier sets from vanilla through The Burning Crusade are specifically for all the other classes, while death knights are left in the lurch with nothing to call their own. But that's not really the case, actually -- scattered throughout The Burning Crusade are recolored versions of most of the old sets. For death knights, these sets have to be plate, but other than that, they don't really have a requirement. Death knights can look like whichever class they prefer, paladin or warrior ... only dead. Since all prior World of Wardrobe columns have been focused on every other class, we're going to give the death knights out there a little love -- and a little advice on where to go if you want some cool old-school gear. Paladins and warriors, if you'd like a little plate variety, this one is for you, too!
Enter at Your Own Rift: Finally 50
As an MMO player, I'm generally behind the curve when it comes to leveling and cutting-edge content exploration. Pushing myself to level quickly is far less fun to me than taking my time and exploring all the nooks and crannies, and my available playtime is far less than it used to be. Ergo, while many of have been at the level cap for months and are either elite PvPers or Raiders of the Lost Hammerknell, I've just hit 50 this past week for the first time in RIFT. In a way, being behind the curve is a blessing because others have gone before you and forged a path so that coming from behind is much easier. That said, I still felt overwhelmed when the final ding happened because my previously clear goals evaporated in a second. What do I do now? How do I gear up? What does one do at level 50, anyway? Fortunately, I'm part of a guild that's full of seasoned 50s, not to mention that I'm friends with plenty of bloggers who were 50 when I was still in diapers. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Ahem. So for this week's Enter at Your Own Rift, I posited them this question: What do you and should you do when you hit 50 in the game? They came back to me with excellent responses that I'm now going to share with you. PREPARE YOURSELF FOR IMMINENT KNOWLEDGE!
Choose My Adventure: I da popular ork
Klurgind may not be the smartest ork in Warhammer Online nor the strongest one, but he's certainly a popular greenskin. What is it about him? That beady, penetrating stare? The way he eulogizes Squig Herders on the fields of Nordland? His sharply alluring green-blue skin and bright orange tattoos? Or just the fact that everyone knew he was my character, thus ensuring that every regular reader went out of the way to shower him with praise, advice, and adulation? I don't know. But I do know that special thanks go out to Tsavonglah for some excellent in-game advice and a veritable wall of information in the comments, Daswagga for a large pile of Strength talismans, and the many people who gave me a wave or cheer for bring a touch of Massively WAAAAGH to the game. So read on past the break for talk about my adventures in the twilight of Tier 1, the dawn of Tier 2, scenarios, open RvR, and the general stages of the Choppocalypse.
Behind the Mask: The first order of business
Sometimes we make mistakes. Last week, I talked about Champions Online's new archetypes, and while most of the criticisms are valid, I made several statements about incorrect stat selections that were untrue due to passives now scaling to superstats. This is actually a pretty big change to the way the game works, enough that I could almost write a whole article on that subject alone. It makes a whole mess of builds viable in vastly different ways, which is exciting. Although it does raise some concerns (polarization of builds towards CON, INT, and END), those issues really outweigh the dramatic increase in viability for some passives, particularly PFF and Seraphim. This week though, I'm going to talk about the first tier of powers. T1 is the first layer of powers that players come across after their energy builders and weak T0 attacks. There's a huge disparity in balance between various T1 powers; some are basically worthless once T2 has unlocked, while others compete with the best T3 has to offer. I'm here to mostly talk about the latter, and about how you can squeeze every bit of potential by making those required picks in T1 count.
Medal of Honor really wants you to know about Tier 1
These Tier 1 guys, they sure know how to ... umm ... remind us that Medal of Honor is a modern war game -- you know, in the sense that they're tough looking and are clearly armed to the teeth. Heck, amidst all the danger they're in, they don't even shed tear one!
Medal of Honor's Tier 1 consultants stress gravity of gameplay
Medal of Honor is going to treat war seriously. No, really! EA doesn't want there to be any doubt in your mind that the game will respectfully display the kind of battles that actual Tier 1 operators experience on a regular basis. In fact, EA and DICE went as far as to get the actual Tier 1 operators that consulted on the game to explain as much in their latest trailer. As secretive and stealthy as these guys are, their faces aren't actually made of blurred pixels -- that's just EA concealing identities for security purposes, silly! Anyway, if these very serious gentleman speaking about their consulting positions very seriously doesn't convince you of MOH's seriousness, we're not sure what will. Perhaps this Linkin Park single?
Waging WAR: Revisiting the new player experience
Waging WAR moves a step backward this week to take a fresh look at the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning new player experience. Greg gives us his take on what he thinks we can expect from the Endless Trial or a Re-enlistment subscription with a new character. He takes us through his experience over a few casual days of play and tells us about the leveling process, scenarios, RvR, twinking and more. Lately, I have spent quite a bit of my time on my rank 40/70 Archmage, focusing on emblem collection and participating in the newly formatted Tier 4 city sieges. Earlier this week, as I considered topics for this weekend's column, I realized that it had been a while since I had experienced the low-level content. Conveniently enough, I was just starting to suffer a bit from healer's burn-out (thanklessly healing day after day can wear a person down), and decided I would take a break and tool around on a lowbie for some fresh kicks and giggles.
FigurePrints price reduction, armor sets available
Our friends over at FigurePrints have a few pieces of news to share this weekend: first of all, they've dropped the price in the EU from €129.95 (which was about $166) to €99.95, which lines up with the US price of $129.95. The reason given for the original higher price was exchange rates, but they now say things have settled down enough where they can line up the prices. No word on if EU people who ordered them at the higher price will be getting a refund, so I'd assume they won't.Also, they have now implemented the Tier armor sets we were told about in our interview at BlizzCon -- instead of ordering a FigurePrint with your usual gear on it, you can instead choose to dress your character in Tier 1, 2, or 3, dungeon set 1 or 2, or the original PvP Rare or Epic armor sets. That's designed so that characters don't have to go back and collect all of those pieces -- if you'd rather remember your character in that original armor from the vanilla game, there you go.
WoW Rookie: Hear, hear for tier gear
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the resources they need to get acclimated. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic.Reader Nick writes in with a question we've been planning to tackle here at WoW Rookie for a while now: "Hey, I'm semi-new to the game, but I don't understand what a 'tier' is. My bro has a level 80 Blood Elf Hunter, and he's always saying 'Oh, he has Tier 5; I got Tier 8.' What does that mean?"The answer to all this math is nothing more complex than the progression of class-specific armor sets. (Oh, and tell your brother he can't possibly have T8 on the live servers yet -- that's going to drop in Ulduar.) Over the course of the game, Blizzard has introduced three-, five- and eight-piece armor sets for each class. These are the so-called "Tier #" or "T#" sets that you hear so much about, all obtained by raiding. Distinguishing between the sets grew confusing as new dungeons, raids and expansions were added, so players began referring to these armor sets in numerical order.
Tiers: The past, present, and future of dungeon and raid sets
Tier gear is a concept that has been with WoW since the beginning. In Molten Core, the very first WoW raid, each class had a set of gear that looked good together, could only be equipped by that class and that was, supposedly, specially tuned to that class's stat requirements. Priests had Prophecy, Warriors had Might, and so forth. This was called tier 1. Classic WoW had three official raid tiers: tier 1 came from Molten Core, tier 2 from (mostly) Blackwing Lair, and tier 3 from Naxxramas. T3 is notable for a few reasons: It was obtained via multi-class tokens. The bosses would drop, say, the belt token for Priest, Mage, and Warlock. You'd then have to take the token, some mats dropped by Naxx trash, and some crafting mats to an NPC to get the gear. This was useful because the boss drops became more flexible: if your priests all had their belt already, you could give the token to a mage or a warlock; if it had just been a straight drop of the priest T3 belt, you'd have to disenchant it. T1 and T2 filled eight slots, while T3 filled nine, adding a ring. However, the highest bonus was for eight pieces, so you could choose which piece you wanted to leave out and still get the set bonus. This is continued in BC with five-piece sets, but only two- and four-piece bonuses. When Wrath of the Lich King goes live (or possibly when patch 3.0.2 does) you will no longer be able to acquire T3. Naxxramas is being moved from its current location up to Northrend, where it will become the entry-level raid for level 80. Those who already have T3 will get to keep it.
WoW Rookie: Pre-Burning Crusade endgame reputations
WoW Rookie is brought to our readers to help our newest players get acclimated to the game. Make sure you send a note to WoW Insider if you have suggestions for what new players need to know. For the last couple of week's we've been discussing reputations here on WoW Rookie. By leveling up reputation with factions you will open yourself up to special content, rewards, and discounts. Last week we examined some of the factions encountered while leveling from 1 to 60 in Azeroth. Some people still rep up with these factions, but for the most part these NPCs have been pretty lonely since the expansion. When the level cap was at 60, prior to the Burning Crusade, players spent a most of their time at level 60 repping up with PvP and raid factions. Many players gain reputation with these factions for the right to purchase crafting patterns from their vendors.
TTH resource gathering guide: Bree-Land
In this next installment of TenTonHammer's Lord of the Rings Online resource collecting guides, the focus shifts to Bree-Land, which contains tier 1, 2 and even tier 3 materials. The guide informs us that Bree-Land is a veritable gold mine (so to speak) when it comes to finding tier 1 and 2 resources, but although it does contain some tier 3 nodes, it is best to think of these as a nice bonus rather than to visit the zone particularly to find them. There are once again some notes explaining different areas in-depth, but here are the real pro tips: for tier 2 resources, head to the Eastern Bree-Fields, and for tier 1, the Midgewater Marshes have what you need. Of course, on most resource runs you'll need to hit more than just a single area, especially when you're not the only one out there collecting, so check out the Bree-Land guide for another handy table and the rest of the hints for harvesting there.
TTH resource gathering guide: Ered Luin
Ahh, Ered Luin. Not a bad harvesting zone, not really a good one either -- just average. The next in the series of the Lord of the Rings Online resource guides at TenTonHammer examines the fairly ordinary Ered Luin. Although it doesn't really shine for any particular resource, if you happen to be there anyway (for example, if you're leveling a character there) there is no reason that you shouldn't know a little more about where to find what you're looking for.The guide's resource chart for Ered Luin shows that only one area scores an "Excellent" rating for any material, and that is Light Hides at the Vale of the Thrain. The Lowlands, north of Gondamon, also has a decent supply of Rowan wood. Apart from these exceptions, most other parts of the zone rate as "Fair" for each resource type -- but don't expect to find tier 2 materials in any great number. The full guide has some notes for each area, so take a look if you are thinking of hitting up Ered Luin for resources.
TTH features in-depth LotRO resource gathering guide for The Shire
There's an odd feeling of satisfaction that comes from a really productive resource-gathering run -- knowing that you've spent your time at maximum efficiency and have picked up what you need to break into a new tradeskill tier, and can retire to the crafting area for the simple combines. Well, TenTonHammer can help streamline this process, with a series of resource gathering tutorials for Lord of the Rings Online that joins their other guides, and we'll first have a look at The Shire.The guide is more than just fluff, with a resource chart that rates each area of The Shire's usefulness for any particular material that you wish to harvest. You will find both tier 1 and 2 resources in this zone, and the guide has a breakdown of various areas with some specific tips as well -- for example, Rushock Bog is supposedly the best place in The Shire to harvest ore, whereas the southern Shire areas are just very poor for resources in general, so steer clear. The full guide contains other tips that will fill your bags to the brim with useful materials in no time, so have a look before your next resource run.
Tons of runs, for not a lotta loots...
An interesting forum topic has popped up on the World of Warcraft general forum today. It reflects on the amount of time we spend trying to gain one or two specific pieces of loot, only to have the gods of random drop-rates look unfavorably down upon us. It is a vicious cycle of farming that has eaten away at hours upon hours of our lives, but we still do it. We still go after that one elusive item that taunts us from the virtual nether. "I have a 25% drop rate, but you can run this place a hundred times and never see me! Mwahahaha!..." Players are recalling their 50+ runs for class chest from Upper Blackrock Spire, or their class helm from Scholomance. Mindtap Talisman seems to be a recurring theme, as well as the Tidal Charm. My worst experience was on my 67th run through UBRS for my Lightforge Shoulders from The Beast. They finally dropped, everyone congratulated me, and then the fury warrior rolled need. Ah well, water under the bridge as they say, especially since in my first Botanica run, I received the Spaulders of the Righteous.
New Armor Sets Revealed
Blizzard has updated the official site with a page for the new Tier 1 & Tier 2 Raid Armor sets, so all of you can put down your Twinkies & go drool over them for a half-hour, or however long it takes you. Since I know this is probably the only time I will ever get a good up-close look at these armor sets, I might just take a little longer.As to whether they're any good or not? Well, they're better than what I have....
