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Leaderboard: Spider vs. pig
If you search the loftiest heights of fantasy, the dank dungeons of horror, the far-out locales of sci-fi, or the war-torn post-apocalyptic highways, chances are you'll stumble upon two creatures that are near-universal in MMOs. Whether you be swinging a sword or firing off compressed photonic bursts, chances are sooner or later you'll face off against a giant spider. And, later on, a giant pig. Pigs and spiders, spiders and pigs: MMO devs do love both equally. They're convenient fodder for heroes to use as training on their way up to slaying dragons, as nobody likes spiders and everyone likes ham and bacon. And while they almost never stand a chance against the never-ending player onslaught, what would happen if spider fought pig in-game? Who would emerge triumphant and who would slink back to its trough/web in shame? Take some time to weigh the pros and cons of each contestant, and let us know which you think would win in a one-on-one scuffle! (And for those of you out there itching to make a spider-pig reference in the comments, I'm preempting you. Booyah.)
The Road to Mordor: For want of a horseshoe, my sanity was lost
So a while back I was at an art fair with some friends when I commented on how much I liked a strange piece and one of the guys with me said, "Justin, you know what? You're kind of esoteric, ain't ya?" I agreed wholeheartedly and then rushed home to look up "esoteric" in the dictionary. And yeah, it sort of fit. Sometimes I get obsessed with small details that get shrugged off by others, a habit which extends into my MMO playing career. So you'll forgive me if today's post is a little more esoteric than usual, because this topic is honestly driving me up the wall. I think many of you already know what I'm talking about from the column title up there. Today, we're going to talk about a horseshoe. A very interesting, very confounding, very obtuse horseshoe. It may even be the biggest smallest mystery that Lord of the Rings Online has to offer. I haven't stopped obsessing over it since I first found out about it. So it's better for me to exorcise my demons here than keeping them bottled up inside.
The Daily Grind: What in-game food do you wish you could eat?
I'll admit it, I'm oddly fascinated with food in MMOs. It's not just because boars are -- for whatever reason -- carrying fully cooked casseroles around. It's not even because our characters don't seem to eat for sustenance but rather gorge themselves for temporary stats. And it surely goes beyond the fact that we can eat whatever we want and never, ever get fat. No, I'm fascinated with MMO food because it always seems so dang tasty. Those cute little icons with their rump roasts and their bacon 'n' eggs... those tantalizing descriptions of how the stew emits an aroma of heady pleasure... the animations that your character goes through as he chows down on hearty fare. I've always wondered what these foods taste like, which is perhaps why I'm captivated by the cooking posts over at A Casual Stroll to Mordor. So if you are odd like I am and have occasionally wished that you could reach into your game and pull out a food, what would it be and why? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
New pets from the Wrath beta
Our favorite Hunter (although BRK comes close), Mania, has had some help from the Wrath beta, and has now updated the great Petopia with all the new pets seen in Northrend so far. No penguins yet, but there are some great new bears in there, and some awesome wolves (is it just me, or are wolves underrated as pets?). Unfortunately, there are no new families up yet, but Mania says updates are coming, and of course Wrath is still in beta anyway.She's also got a Beta pet FAQ up, with everything you'd ever want to know about being a Hunter in the beta, from pet talents to "exotic pets" (the real ones, not the ones BRK dreamed up for us).It's going to be an exciting time to be a Hunter in Northrend. Pet versatility makes Hunters one of the most interesting classes in the game, and it looks like Blizzard is set to open it up wide in the expansion.
Mania on the Growl change
Mania is quickly becoming the voice of choice for analysis on Hunter changes, and her latest take on the Growl changes recently released in the patch 2.4.2 notes is no exception. From what Mania can see, Growl's threat isn't scaling with Hunter Attack Power at all, but Blizzard claims it is, so she's chalking her findings in that direction up to faulty data. What she does determine, from both her research and Blizzard's posts on the subject, is that the change here has nothing to do with Hunter's RAP or AP values -- it only has to do with the pet's AP values. Before, if pet AP got a bonus, so did Growl's threat. After 2.4.2, any bonus to pet AP won't affect Growl's threat.So Hunters who routinely get their pet buffed are probably going to feel this change a little bit (though in most situations where pets get group buffs, I'd imagine Growl would be turned off anyway, in order for the tank to control threat). And Hunters who use boars, of course -- as Daniel explained, that extra AP from Charge doesn't work for Growl any more. Mania doesn't stop there, however -- since we know now that the only thing affecting Growl is the Hunter's Attack Power, she's determined to figure out just how much AP can scale Growl up (she's guessing it starts at 1955, we'll see what she comes up with).Of course, some players have found that this works pretty well -- especially MM Hunters, who generally have more attack power (thanks to talents which increase it), have no problems with drawing aggro away from their growling pets. Blizzard's reasoning on this may have been solid -- to make the abilities of the pet rely on Hunter stats, not any temporary pet buffs. Hunters with Boars won't get that nice burst any more, but Hunters with a high RAP will do just fine.
Comic Watch: Action Trip orbits NASA
As recently announced, NASA's in the planning stages of crafting their own MMO. Action Trip has commented nicely on this with their comic 'Pigs in Space'. World of Warcraft layers transparently over a trip to what appears to be Mars, with humorous results. Something I love about this comic is the astronaut gamely going about his grinding duties; he seems to actually kind of enjoy it all. Also, maybe it's an orc in that suit -- the planet looks like the Valley of Trials, especially with the boars there. Go check it out and enjoy!
"A challenge based on an influenced probability reliant on time investment"
What is that crazy assortment of buzzwords in the title of this post, you ask? You already know-- you probably spent a lot of time playing it this weekend. That, says Drysc, is what WoW is.When Nickleplate of Bloodscalp posted the perennial question of why we're still stuck killing n boars for x eyes, Drysc responds with a pretty insightful (some might say cynical) comment: we're doing it to waste time. Why doesn't every vulture you kill drop a tailfeather to collect? Because quests are designed to take time to do them, and to reward you when you invest that time.Now, I hope Drysc doesn't really think that about this game-- saying quests are designed to steal free time is like saying Jack Bauer defeats terrorists because the script says so. Jack Bauer defeats terrorists because he's Jack Bauer, and we're completing quests because in WoW, we're heroes and that's what heroes do. We aren't really "waiting for those eyes to drop"-- we're supposed to be collecting them to save a village or earn a new faction's respect so we can better save the world.But leave it to Drysc to rain on the parade. Most players, I think, want and get more out of WoW than just a simple timesink-- they want to have fun with (or play against) friends, experience building a character in a story, or simply develop a strategy (... on how better to obtain boar eyes, maybe, but a strategy nonetheless). I ask for more than "a challenge based on an influenced probability reliant on time investment" from WoW, and most of the time, I get it. Do you ask for more? And do you get it?
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Liverless boars and other Azerothian freaks of nature
People have long noted that quests to gather animal parts usually have illogically low drop rates. There are enough hoofless zhevras, talonless harpies, eyeless buzzards, and brainless basilisks running around Azeroth to confuse a whole university of evolutionary biologists. ("Hey, maybe they knew adventurers were killing them for their horns, so they evolved illusionary horns! Huh? Huh?") Strangely, bosses always have their organs, but only if you're on a quest for them. Maybe that's how they got to be bosses, because they weren't randomly missing their hearts and ears and such. The lore's explanation for this is that when you're fighting the beasts and demons, a lot of their organs get squished into an unusable state. So if you don't find a horn on that satyr, you chopped it in half with your sword, and if you don't find a brain in that ogre, you used Mind Flay one too many times. This works for most things, but one of the Hellfire Peninsula quests really tests this idea. You're supposed to return orc blood to an apothecary. A warrior guildmate of mine got extremely frustrated by the low drop rate, and asked, "I'm hitting these orcs with an axe. Shouldn't there be blood all over?" Try as we might, we couldn't think of an explanation for it. A mage might have fried up all the blood with a fireball, and maybe a warlock or hunter's pet could have drank the blood before the character got to it (ew), but a warrior can't really do anything to keep blood from being unusable. Can you think of a reason why the blood might not have been there? Have you run into anything as confusing as this while looking for various body parts?
