experience-grind
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Limits on guild leveling and reputation removed in patch 5.0.4
Patch 5.0.4 appears to have made a major change to the way guilds level and the way characters earn guild reputation. The daily and weekly caps for guild leveling and guild reputation game have been removed entirely, allowing players to grind reputation and experience to their heart's content. With a Renowned Guild Tabard, my alt was gaining a whopping 367 guild reputation per quest turned in, making the grind to exalted a relatively quick one. But there's more than just the cap removal. Apparently, the reputation and guild experience you gain is no longer limited by level, either -- which means that were I to make a new level 1 and slap on that tabard, I'd still be making 367 reputation per quest completed. Speaking of alts, my bank alt completed a couple of quests in Azshara just to test this theory. Not only did she get a sizeable reputation gain, but she also earned a whopping 60,000 guild experience per quest turned in. This makes it much, much easier for guilds to level, whether you're part of a small friends and family guild or just wanting to level a guild for your bank alt. In either case, guilds should have a much easier time hitting level 25 before Mists officially launches in September. [Thanks to Matt for the tip!] It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Anti-Aliased: Don't worry, it gets better in time
You know, I had no clue what to write about this week until I realized it was a topic that had been haunting me forever. It's a topic that everyone can relate to, and one that I'm sure we've all experienced at least once. Personally, it's a topic that I never hear the end of. Any review, any game impressions that I write up almost inevitably will be shot with this line: "What, you didn't play until [insert level X or time requirement here]?!?! Then you didn't experience the game!" You know what, let me say it straight. I'm sick and tired of hearing that line. Completely sick of it. I played your game, it was bad. And you want to know why it was bad? Let me tell you, in full detail, why it was bad, and let me go on to tell all of you why "it gets better in time" is a really, really lame line.
One month: Aion October community address
Aion has officially been out for one full month and NCsoft just released an October community address in response. The notice reads less like a giant pat on the back and more like a checklist of major issues they are working on, which is bound to churn up speculation about how well the title is doing. Oh, we're sure Aion is doing quite well even though we haven't heard the official numbers yet, but developers usually use these opportunities to shout about their accomplishments rather than their shortcomings.The top three issues mentioned in the letter are experience curves, client performance, and spammers/botters. Most players will agree that it can feel like a part-time job to level your character at times. Some players have had performance issues specifically related to "Cryssystem.dll." And finally, everyone has been forced to /ignore the odd spammer... or fifty. NCsoft is using this opportunity to yet again tell players they are aware of these issues and fixes are on the way. We're curious how this may relate to differences between eastern and western gaming cultures. Aion has been released for nearly a year in Asia and yet only the outcry from European and North American players against experience grinds and gold spamming specifically seems to be sparking a change.
