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The Art of Wushu: Learning the basics of combat
Many readers balked when I said Age of Wushu had the best combat in an MMO ever back when I did my first impressions piece. I admit, it was a bold claim. However, even after playing Guild Wars 2, TERA, and numerous other games with "deep MMO combat," I stand by what I said back then. Age of Wushu's PvP combat is the best in any MMO. If you're coming from a mostly MMO background, combat in Age of Wushu is a bit daunting at first. It's really nothing like combat in any other MMO. It has a bit slower pace than a typical action-MMO, but it is the first to really employ tempo control. Attacking recklessly is a patch to a quick defeat, forcing players to make tough tactical decisions. If you're like me and came to MMOs from a fighting game background, things readily click into place. Baiting common reactions and punishing them, punishing actions on reaction, and getting in the head of your opponent is better-rewarded than in any other MMO combat system. I don't want to badmouth games like GW2 that have great combat, so don't get me wrong; many other games have excellent combat. Age of Wushu's battle system is just even more fantastic. When I win a fight against an even-leveled opponent (or higher level, though that's rare) without taking an unblocked hit, I feel like a total beast.
10 apps you should install FIRST on your iPhone
You've taken the plunge and bought your first iPhone. You've activated your service with your local wireless carrier, connected and synced it with your main computer for the first time, and brought over as much music, photos, and videos as you can squeeze onto it. Maybe you've even played around with Apple's default apps a bit. "Now what?" you may be asking yourself. "I've heard about all the great apps that are available for the iPhone, but where do I start?" That's a very good question, and it's one that gets harder and harder to answer the more apps make their way into Apple's App Store. With hundreds of thousands of apps now available for the iPhone, it may seem overwhelming trying to sift through them all if this is your first few hours with an iPhone. Not to worry, because we've got you covered. We put our heads together and came up with a list of the apps you should install first on your brand-new, factory-fresh iPhone. Keeping in mind that people from all over the world use iPhones and read TUAW, we excluded from consideration any apps that don't have full international functionality. This meant leaving a number of very cool and useful apps out of consideration, but we wanted to make sure this is a list that applies to everyone, not just US or UK readers. We also kept this list pretty simple; if you're familiar with the way iTunes separates music collections into The Basics, Next Steps, and Deep Cuts, you'll see that we very much went for The Basics for this go-around. Click "Read More" to see the full list of recommended apps for first-time iPhone users and our rationale for choosing each one.
Two Growl styles worth a serious look
Designer/Developer Christopher Lobay has been hard at work making some excellent Styles for the system notification app, Growl. Growl displays temporary, floating notification windows above your desktop to let you know about things like new messages, completed downloads, changes in Skype availability, etc. Many applications have Growl support built in, so if you're not using it already, you should check it out. Once you do, you'll want to customize the way it looks, and that's where Christopher, among legions of others, comes in. Published a while back, the first Growl style I want to highlight is "Basics." Basics provides a very minimalist black background on which it animates the icon of the application responsible for the notification. If you, like me, have grown all too accustomed to notifications popping up around your desktop, this little bit of animation (just a slide across the bar) can make the popups much more eye-catching, without being distracting. It is, as its name implies, basic, but has an air of class not always seen in Growl styles. Second -- and brand new right now -- is "Mono." This latest one is even more subdued, with a very nice bezel and it's the text that animates rather than the icon. This has much the same eye-attracting effect but is even less distracting. It's some great work by Christopher, and definitely worth a peek if you're using Growl. Both styles are available for free, so go get 'em!
Defeating the anxiety of running your first instance
One of my favorite WoW blogs, HoTs and DoTs, has a great post up about Dungeon Groups 101 -- the very basics of running instances. You may think that there's nothing more basic to the game than getting in an instance with four people and taking down a few bosses and trash, but you'd be surprised. Even in a social game like this, one of the first hurdles newbies have to deal with is joining a group to play together. They worry that they'll do things wrong and that other people will make fun of what they're wearing or playing, and that worry keeps them from enjoying my absolute favorite part of the game. Cassandri's writeup is an excellent read for anyone who feels that way (and feel free to pass on this post to any friends or relatives you know who've been too leery to join an instance yet). She does do some basic knowledge stuff in there, just hints on the classes and what they can all do -- and our WoW Rookie posts will help out with that stuff too -- but more importantly, she says what lots of new players need to hear: that messing up in an instance isn't that big a deal, and that playing together with others (which is the reason why we're all playing an MMO rather than a single player game in the first place) is more than worth getting past any anxiety around joining a group. I've read a lot of comments like the one Cassandri quotes in her post, too, and I'm here to tell you: if you haven't run an instance yet, it's time to stop worrying about what it'll be like and give it a try.
Tabula Rasa to hold back-to-basics Q&A event
Even though Tabula Rasa has just reached its one-year anniversary, there are certainly new players coming into the game constantly. Whether people have heard about the newest crafting changes, the return to Earth or are simply coming back into the game after a long hiatus, they may need a bit of a brushing up on their skills. Luckily, there's an upcoming event to explain the basics of the game to us.This Tabula Rasa 101 Q&A session will be held in-game at Alia Das in Wilderness 1 during the following times: Monday, November 10th, 2:00 PM CT - Centaurus Monday, November 10th, 8:00 PM CT - Orion Tuesday, November 11th, 8:00 PM CT - Cassiopeia Wednesday, November 12th, 8:00 PM CT - Pegasus Once there, new recruits can meet up with GM_Vagabond to fire away any basic mechanics or gameplay questions you may have. Good luck, soldiers!
A fundamental guide to crafting in Warhammer Online
By now, you've probably spilled just enough blood in Warhammer Online to keep up that thirst for more, and crafting might be the last thing on your mind. Fortunately, the crafting system in WAR is effective and functional enough to interest the brightest of the Bright Wizards and easy enough that any Greenskin can get the hang of it very soon. We're willing to also bet that most players haven't really paid attention to the crafting system until they realized that their inventory is quickly filling up with all these crazy seeds and pieces of ruined equipment. Crafting in Warhammer Online can be broken down into a few fundamentals: you have the actual "production" crafting trade skills themselves and then you have the "gathering" skills that help produce or harvest materials for the production crafting skills. As of right now, there are only two production trade skills (Apothecary and Talisman Making) and four gathering skills (Magical Salvaging, Cultivation, Butchering and Scavenging). As with most MMO crafting systems, the crafting skills and ingredients overlap. This means that if you want to get serious about crafting later in the game, you'll need to either make friends with the opposing skills you need, make a few alts, or prepare to spend a lot of money on the Auction House. The Apothecary >>
Getting started in Tabula Rasa
Whether you've been playing since beta or are interested in trying out Tabula Rasa for the first time, it's always a good idea to see what others have to say about playing the game effectively. Over at Eurogamer, they've assembled a hefty 3-page guide on the basics of TR, complete with beginner's tips, bootcamp advice and beyond. An interesting theory we picked up from this article is the fact that Eurogamer created this guide to help those people who may have either heard bad press about the game, or maybe even tried it out and were so overwhelmed by the game's innovation, it turned them off. With the recently lowered price of the game, and this handy guide in hand (or on monitor), you might want to give the game a shot! Pun intended.
iPhone 101: Updating your "Sent from my iPhone" email signature
Is that "Sent from my iPhone" message starting to get on your nerves? By default, every email sent from your iPhone gets appended by a signature specified in Settings > Mail > Signature. To clear out this signature entirely, delete all the text from the Signature text field. Your emails will lose that "Sent from my iPhone" tag. Of course, if signatures don't particularly bother you, you might want to add a more personalized quote or even some contact information (although preferably not using unnecessary ASCII art). Or, you can put on your antipersonnel hat and start messing with people's minds, e.g. "Sent from my Blueberry." How do you intend to sign your emails?
The Creamy GUI Center: Addon basics
Each week Matthew Porter contributes The Creamy GUI Center, a column aimed at helping you enhance your WoW experience by offering an in depth guide to addons, macros and other tools we use to play WoW, along with commentary on issues that affect how we all play.Howdy folks and welcome to this week's edition of The Creamy GUI Center. I know last week I mentioned I was going to write about addon compilations; however some advice from my editors and comments left by readers got my attention. So instead, this week I'm going to take a step back and cover the basics of WoW interface customization and addons. I believe I should have covered this topic sooner and I appreciate my editors and readers for pointing it out to me. Much like the eager party member who pulls that group of mobs without warning, I dived into addon reviews and interface mumbo jumbo without covering the basics. Let's remedy that with a breakdown of WoW interface terminology as well as how to safely find, download, and install addons.
