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Why I Play: Vindictus
I've noticed a curious trend among the Massively staff when it comes to the Why I Play column: The writers here tend to choose games you wouldn't necessarily expect them to choose. MJ Guthrie, who is the wind beneath our Wings Over Atreia, wrote about why she plays the Secret World. Patrick Mackey, our former Champions Online caped crusader and lately our League of Legends legend, wrote about why he plays Global Agenda. Shawn Schuster, our boss-in-chief, wrote about the little MMO that could, WURM Online. Jef Reahard, our stalwart sandbox supporter, wrote about Lord of the Rings Online. And Larry Everett, our Jedi master, wrote about, well, Star Wars The Old Republic, but my point is that the Why I Play column seems to be a place for us to write about the games we play when we're not "gaming." That brings me to my choice for this week: Vindictus. Each week, I express my fondness for RIFT, EverQuest II, and various kid-friendly MMOs, but about a year ago, I began to do an MMO walkabout and sampled a bunch of games, many of which I livestreamed with Massively's Jeremy Stratton. I really enjoyed most of the MMOs we played, but one that stood out for me was Vindictus. There's something about the game that makes it my favorite game away from gaming, and I'll attempt to explain why in this week's Why I Play.
A look at Brell's Rest from EverQuest: Underfoot
The focus of the next EverQuest expansion Underfoot is the Plane of Underfoot and its cavernous areas, which the god Brell Serilis created and filled with inhabitants. An update on the EverQuest Players website has given us an early look at one zone from the new expansion, "Brell's Rest". Apparently, the most devout followers of Brell are brought to Brell's Rest upon their demise. Since a healthy mix of races pay homage to the Duke of Below, this means that the area is home to quite a few different factions, including dwarves, gnomes, gnolls and kobolds. While the dwarves and gnomes tend to live a peaceful life in the Shining City section of Brell's Rest, the gnolls and kobolds have traditionally enjoyed ripping each other apart for all eternity. However, in recent times the gnolls have begun to withdraw from their beloved skirmishes, whispering about "The Destroyer" and "The Undying One". That's all we're going to find out for now, but it sounds like an interesting quest-line to look into when the expansion is released. The zone is also said to feature an arena for some good old-fashioned warrior games. Along with this chunk of lore, the EverQuest Players site had a handful of Brell's Rest screenshots to show off. We've put them all together for easy viewing in the gallery below.%Gallery-73586%
Breakfast Topic: The easy/hard grind
I'm currently working through Zangarmarsh on my Hunter, and this weekend I spent a lot of time grinding two completely different kinds of mobs. The Withered Bog Lords in northern Zangarmarsh were cake for my Hunter -- they weren't exactly gentle with my pet, but he was able to eat the damage, and I could have grinded right away on them all day. At the exact opposite end of the grinding scale, however, were those stupid Umbrafen Eels -- not only were they under water (always annoying), but they've got this on-hit electrical damage thing that just drove me nuts. I stayed to play with the Bog Lords for a long time, racking up the XP, but as soon as I was done with the Eels, I got out of the water and stayed out.Fighting these two back to back got me thinking: what's the easiest/hardest mob to grind on? Some mobs (like the tigers in Stranglethorn or the bears/spiders in Ashenvale) are super easy to grind -- they have no special abilities, they're spaced out, and they go down fast. But others -- most gnolls, in my experience, and lots of casters -- are just annoying as all get out; they run around, pull others, heal up when they're almost dead, and give you lots of headaches while taking them down. Those are the mobs you don't sit around and grind on -- they're the ones you avoid completely after you've done whatever quest requires you to kill them.What are your favorite or least favorite mobs to just grind on in the game?
Your least favorite races
We all have our favorite races, whether we actively play them or not. Personally, I have a thing for playing Humans and I desperately want to play an Ethereal one day. At the very least, have an Ethereal presence in Wrath, even a small one.What about your least favorite races, though? We all have those, too. We don't always have good explanations for it, but for one reason or another there's just something that drives us absolutely crazy. My #1 most hated race in Warcraft would have to be Gnolls. What do they even do? Their most famous member is Hogger, who doesn't even do anything. Okay okay, they kill people and that's bad, but they don't do do anything. At least Kobolds mine stuff up.Tell you what, I'll go ahead and give my Top 5 after the jump. If you're interested, go ahead and read on!
