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The Daily Grind: Should character collision matter?
The first MMO I ever played was Final Fantasy XI, which had something like a collision mechanic. Running into another player would stop my movement for a moment, but after a second both characters would pass through one another. At the time, I didn't understand that this was done to prevent griefing by preventing players from literally blocking off important locations or walling people in, something that was a minor issue anyway because of the game's nonexistent PvP at the time. Many games now available do away with collision altogether, letting players occupy the same space without a thought for logic. On the one hand, this means that crowded spaces are more easily navigated, unlike the fleet area in Star Wars: The Old Republic's, in which movement is a series of desperate jumps as you try to reach anything. On the other hand, there's something to be said for having physical space play a larger role and forcing players to consider the size of what they're running around. So today we ask you: Should character collision matter? Or should we all just run straight through one another without a care in the world? 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!
The Daily Grind: Which game has the worst armor clipping?
Armor clipping really unsettles me because there's few ways that a game can show me how hollow and fake my characters are than by having my shoulder gear slice through my neck with no repercussions. Now, I can't imagine how difficult it is for the art team and animators to create such a wide variety of armor while keeping it all from crashing through each other. Factor in weapons that are strapped on and flowing cloaks, and it has to be a nightmare to get right. But you know what? They have to get it right. They just have to. Otherwise I wake up in the middle of my sleep with night terrors. So now that I have that rant out of my system, which game do you find has the worst armor clipping? Tell me now that I may avoid it! 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!
How to use Photoshop's Lens Blur tool with masking (Part 2 of 2)
Yesterday, I showed you how to simulate a photograph taken with a tilt-shift lens by using Photoshop CS3's Lens Blur tool. Today, we'll do something a bit more practical: clipping out an object that's not entirely in focus. Clipping out objects that are out of focus can be something of a chore: either you have a hard, dark edge somewhere you don't want, or you have to settle for feathering the whole thing, leaving edges that should be sharp a little too blurry. We'll be clipping out this old book, and dropping it on a new surface.
Scattered Shots: New and improved abilities
Scattered Shots: noun. 1. (Scatter Shot, singular) An ability used by Marksmanship hunters, especially to annoy other players in PvP. 2. (Scattered Shots, plural) A column at WoW Insider about anything even loosely related to hunters, except for high-level raiding and completely improper, sometimes libelous personal commentary.Hunters are getting quite a few changes in Wrath of the Lich King, but so far haven't covered them all. Today I'd like to go through the newest abilities and discuss them in greater detail.New Baseline Hunter Abilities:Nope, no Camouflage. We talked about this before, but it looks like the devs read our article, "Do hunters need Camouflage?" and decided the answer was no. So, instead we have a couple other new abilities to look forward to:Kill Shot: This is the new level 80 hunter ability, and it provides us with a bit of utility that help us to stand out and perform better in various situations:
An "insightful and thoughtful" look at Hunter DPS from the forums
Despite the fact that my level 70 Hunter isn't technically my main, she's probably my favorite character. A lot of people will tell you that a Hunter is an overly easy class: sic your pet, turn on Auto Shot, and you're done. While having a built-in tank that you can even heal a bit gives you a pretty strong advantage when going it alone, I'd have to say they oversimplify things a bit. The largest area where the complexity of the Hunter class shows is in end-game DPS. If you want to be the most effective DPSer possible, it takes quite a bit of work. The way that you must weave shots in between your auto shots is a complicated dance that requires split second timing that can mean vast differences in DPS totals between Hunters. Cheeky of the Khadgar-US server (author of the famous Cheeky's Spreadsheet) posted a very concise and well-stated summary of some of the problems with Hunter DPS on the official US forums here a few months back. The post was originally written by Lactose of the Talnivarr-EU Server, who posted it on the EU forms here, where it got some blue love today a while back.
