jousting
Latest
Breakfast Topic: What game mechanic will WoW borrow next?
One of the most fascinating things about World of Warcraft is its wide variety of minigames and nods to classic games incorporated into the traditional narrative. The original game had an entire quest line dedicated to The Legend of Zelda. The Burning Crusade gave us chess and a flight simulator. Wrath of the Lich King added mounted combat in a big way, from drake fighting in the Oculus (boo), to storming the gates of Ulduar in steam tanks (yay), and finally medieval-style jousting (double boo). Cataclysm, of course, brought the absolutely sublime Plants vs. Zombies homage, and Mists of Pandaria will bring us the don't-call-them-Pokemon Pet Battles and FarmVille. So, dear readers, come 2014 (or so) and the next WoW expansion, what new minigame will we all be discussing? I'm leaning toward a miniature fictional world, where we hop from place to place persuading the inhabitants to unite against a greater force. That could be cool -- or maybe not, as it likely wouldn't end well. What would you like to see?
The Road to Mordor: Ride to ruin and the world's ending!
Mounted combat's been on my mind a lot lately, particularly when I was galloping around Dunland and various clansmen knocked me off my horse. It was then that I wished I had a skill called "Trample to a Bloody Pulp -- For Rohan!" and that Turbine would finally earn that AO rating it's always craved. Barring that skill, I would just love a massive war horse that would send enemies fleeing from me instead of making a beeline for my knees (which are a prime target for arrows). I'm both excited and nervous about the mounted combat system coming in Riders of Rohan. I'm excited that it will open up a new style of gameplay in this five-year-old game and nervous that it'll drag Lord of the Rings Online down if it's not done right. Whatever type of horseback combat we might envision will surely be different than the final product, and that uncertainty leaves me feeling in limbo. More than anything else, Riders of Rohan is about mounted combat. Turbine's centering the expansion around it, dedicating an entire zone to it, and developing loads of assets and skills for it, and the company will undoubtedly be hyping it strongly over the course of the summer. It's a bold step to take but a necessary one as well, as the IP and nation of Rohan are steeped in mounted combat, and it's been a little weird that we've had to dismount to swing a sword ever since leaving the shire. So will mounted combat prevail, fail, or muddle in the middle?
Behind the Mask: The Art of War, tanking edition
Recently, my girlfriend told me that Behind the Mask hasn't had enough "fun" articles lately. What is "fun," anyway? And why is my girlfriend nerdy enough to actually understand what CON and PRE are? She doesn't even play Champions Online! However, I did promise this week I'd do an article on CO tanking techniques. It'll include very little on specific powers and more on how to use those specific powers. I had a video guide planned, but my project file got corrupted. Hopefully the information presented here is enough for you to get a good idea of what to do. One key element of of my techniques is that they are heavily geared toward a character with Acrobatics. If you do not have Acrobatics, you are at a massive disadvantage compared to a tank who does. In-battle mobility is extremely important for a tank!
Visualized: jousting on a Segway
Remember the olden days? When honor and valor were the only things that mattered and vast metallic armor suits were less of a laughing matter and more of a practical necessity? Neither do we, but that doesn't stop us from enjoying a good video gaming romp through such settings when we have the time for it. We don't know that we'd necessarily care to reenact medieval battle scenes physically, but that's exactly what a witty new marketing campaign for Washington's Lottery has done. It asks simply "what have you and your friends always wanted to do" and then answers its own query with the nutty answer of Segway jousting. See the resulting video, which was partially shot in Phantom slow-mo, after the break.
Argent Tournament gains will not transfer between factions
Just a heads up for you faction transfers, though you've probably already realized this if you have made a transfer: many of your faction reputations will transfer over just fine, but not so for any Argent Tournament progress you've made. Argent Tournament reputation and gains will not transfer over if you change factions. Kisirani says that Blizzard couldn't think of a way to do it technically, and so (as we understand it), anyone who transfers factions will lose all of their current Argent Tournament standing, and have to make their way back up through the ranks to Champion. Many other reputations have changed just fine, and you can find a list of all the changes as you cross over from one faction to another on the faction change FAQ. You will bring items over with you -- any seals earned on one side are still valid on the other. But if you want to grind out more, you'll have to go through the ranks again.Seems like a bummer for faction changers (especially those who didn't know about the problem before they did the transfer), but on the other hand, I don't believe Blizzard would have let this go if they had any way to fix it. Short of just granting ranks to all players who transfer, assuming they have no way to track where players were at in terms of which cities they'd champion-ed for, I don't know what other solution there would be.Update: A little more information: you also lose all of your Silver Covenant or Sunreavers rep as well, so you'll have to re-earn that from the beginning, too. As players have said in the thread below, it's not a huge loss, but it's an annoyance for sure.
Patch 3.2.2: 5-man Coliseum jousting woes to be addressed
I'm sure a lot of us have had this experience: You finish up jousting down the three champions in the first encounter of the 5-man Trial of the Champions, then all hell breaks loose. Your tank goes to lock down the Warrior, but in the meantime, the Rogue, who fell on the other side of the coliseum, makes a beeline to your healer, who was the person who dismounted him. Then the Mage, who's on yet a third side of the arena, starts blasting down your Mage who never seems to get any stamina on his gear. Your tank tries to rein everybody in, but since the bosses still have the aggro they built up from the jousting stage, they're near impossible to peel. Everyone dies.
Player reaction to the 5-man Trial
All right -- patch 3.2 has been out for a few days now, and I would say that most people who are interested have had a chance to go in and run the brand new 5-man instance. Of course it's not the only change in the patch (far from it), but it's the one I was most looking forward to, and unlike the raid instances, it's all in there and doable, ready for our judgment. So what did we think?I tried it yesterday, and my first impression was "underwhelmed." I definitely don't feel that way about 3.2 as a whole, but the instance itself seems less than impressive, a one-room fight with almost as many boring moments as there are exciting ones. The fights themselves are actually pretty commonplace for a Heroic -- the jousting fight is probably the least-liked among the playerbase (seriously, whoever really loves the jousting mechanic over at Blizzard needs to take a good long look in the mirror for some self reflection), while the best is of course the Argent Confessor, who summons a random figure from our "past memories" to fight. I got Illidan and Onyxia the first few times I ran the instance, but of course Hogger and Van Cleef and Heigan the Unclean also have a chance at making an appearance. I did like the fight, but I was kind of bummed the old memories didn't bring any of their abilities with them -- they all have the same three abilities to throw at the group.
TurpsterVision: Jousting for Dummies
We can't believe it either – Turpster has been let loose on WoW.com to bring you videos from in and around the World of Warcraft! You've heard him on the WoW Insider Show, and now see him on TurpsterVision right here on WoW.com.Patch 3.2 brings us many, many great ways for us to get our hands on Champions Seals along with some awesome things to spend them on! One of the easiest ways to get your hands on some of these new items is by completing the daily quests offered up in Ice Crown at the Argent Tournament. Now the Tournament has been around for quite some time now, but loads of people have told me that they either haven't taken part in it or just don't know how to Joust. If you are a Jousting n00b then this TurpsterVision is for you.
Breakfast Topic: Did the Patch 3.2 news bring you back to the Tournament?
As you've probably seen on the site before, I grew bored of the Argent Tournament really fast. I still think the mind-numbing repetition is a pretty big step backwards in their world design thus far, but all of the recent Patch 3.2 news has been making me hopeful that it won't always be the overly repetitive mess I see it as right now. It's driven me back to doing the Tournament quests, even!The fact that the Crusader title and Exalted with the Sunreavers/Silver Covenant are required to take part in the new Argent Tournament solo content is playing a big role in my decision to play through the current dailies again. I stopped doing them just shy of Crusader, with no real intent to go and finish it off. As much as I wanted the title, I really could not bear doing those dailies anymore. One can only joust so much! I'm very much interested in the new content and items though, so with those two goals being the gateways to it, I'm not given much of an option. Crusader or bust. I do not like to bust.
Breakfast Topic: What do you want to see in the Argent Tournament?
So here's the deal. We've been told we have more Argent Tournament content coming, that's a given. As late as a couple days ago, Blues were telling us, for example, that we'll definitely see more ways to earn Champion's Seals. In short, come 3.2, it seems more than likely that we can expect the Goblins to be done building that coliseum, and the next phase of the tourney to be underway. So the question is, what exactly will we see?
Kisirani calls for focused testing on the Argent Tournament
The Argent Tournament has been overshadowed quite a bit by Ulduar in patch 3.1, it hasn't been talked about a whole lot since the first thrill of finding out it was actually there in Icecrown. Since that rush a whole lot of things have changed with the Tournament, but beyond the dedicated few, I have my doubts it was receiving as much testing as it needed. That's probably why Kisirani has put out a call for focused testing on the Argent Tournament, asking for as much feedback as you can supply.Kisirani's thread on the official forums lays out a few things: First, a lot has changed since the early PTR. This means that if you only did the quests in the first week or two of the Tournament, you should try them again before submitting feedback. If you've never been to the Tournament before, Jean Pierre Poulain awaits you on Krasus' Landing in Dalaran. He'll send you out there for free. If you want to do it yourself, the Tournament is just north of Sindragosa's Fall.%Gallery-45851%
