legacy
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Badges unbound
Badges of Justice: I love them. It's brilliant that you can go to a raid, down a boss, and have everyone walk away with a piece of an epic (albeit a fairly small piece). It really cuts back on the angst of not having what you want drop, as well as giving Blizzard a way to provide for uncommon specs without too much loot table bloat. And with the relatively recent system that has all raid bosses dropping badges, and some pretty great new badge rewards, the system is now quite strong. However, in my view, they do have one defect: they're soulbound. Now there's a strong argument to be put for the concept that if a character can't do a raid, they shouldn't get the reward. And I certainly agree that badges should not be salable on the AH. However, I do think we should be able to send them between alts. I have one character who needs very little in the way of badge gear, and correspondingly rakes in badges like nobody's business by tearing through Karazhan. My character that really needs the gear is typically not taken on raids, or not "A-group" raids anyway. It would be nice to be able to send all my badges over to that toon to get an undergeared character geared up, without being able to give them to just anybody on the AH.
Death Knights and legacy content
Merdrah had an intriguing question on the forums a few days ago: will Death Knights get a callout for Nefarian? During the Nefarian fight in Blackwing Lair, each class gets called out by the boss, and the raid has to deal with abilities that define that class (ie for Warlocks, each Warlock "accidentally" summons two Infernals that the raid has to AoE down). Bornakk, kind of surprisingly, says that yes, Blizzard will "probably" add in callouts for Death Knights.And that's interesting, because it means that, at least right now, Blizzard is committed to implementing Death Knights throughout the entire game. Though they're only a Hero Class, Death Knights are the first "new class" that WoW has ever seen, and so we'll definitely see some interesting changes throughout Azeroth. Every class has their moment to shine in each instance, and so if Blizzard wants to give Death Knights their chance to step up in even the "old" instances like Blackwing Lair, lots of changes are probably coming.Of course, one factor of this, however, is that Death Knights won't start at level one-- they'll be starting at a higher level when first rolled. From what we know, Blizzard hasn't actually chosen that level yet (remember as well that when Death Knights appear ingame, the highest level will be 80), but if they're planning on changing around a level 60 instance to include Death Knights, odds are that you'll have at least twenty levels to go on your Death Knight before you can reach level 80.
Virtually Overlooked Special: A bunch of NES games I get mixed up with each other
Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative. Last week, I asked for reader suggestions for this week's Virtually Overlooked. One reader suggested The Guardian Legend, and I thought that was a perfectly reasonable suggestion. The Guardian Legend was one of the biggest sleeper hits of the NES era, and something that is definitely worth checking out, especially for fans of Ys and Faxanadu.It was only later that I realized that I was thinking of Legacy of the Wizard. I get those two mixed up a lot. They both fall into that "sleeper" category, they were both published by Brøderbund, and they both have "Leg" in the title. They're practically the same game, except that one's a hybrid vertical shooter/Zelda-style adventure developed by Compile, and the other is a side-scrolling action RPG from Nihon Falcom. But other than that, the same game.Inspired by my inability to keep two similar things separate, I thought this week we could look at some more NES games I get confused about, either because they're so similar or because I'm so dumb.
Star Trek: Legacy goes the wrong way
Reviews for Star Trek: Legacy are all over the map. They range from 40 to 91 on Metacritic and the game averages 67% on Game Rankings. Bad reviews focus on difficult controls and repetitive gameplay, while good reviews mention the epic battles and storyline. Naturally, Star Trek fans will probably find the most to like about this title. Or will they? Two new trailers for the game have appeared on Marketplace, and we were unimpressed. It's not that the game doesn't look decent, it's just that it really doesn't seem to fit the Trek universe. We put the game in our rental queue just to make sure, but it seems like basing a Star Trek game entirely on space combat isn't really a good idea. By and large, people watch Star Trek for the stories and characters, not epic space battles. Sure, Star Trek has its share of battles, but it's not Star Wars. Most of the fun Trek games we remember (PC and 16-bit era) involved controlling the characters themselves, essentially enacting new episodes of the show. These missions were often punctuated by space battles, but battle was never the sole purpose of the game.Have any of you played Legacy yet? Is it good, or should we regret putting it in our queue?
Cingular slaps surcharge on TDMA accounts
We trust folks frequenting Engadget Mobile don't fall into this category (do they?), but for the 4.7 million Cingular customers soldiering on with legacy AMPS and TDMA hardware, the pressure to upgrade is about to get kicked up a notch. Starting next month this, uh, very special contingent of users will find a new $4.99 monthly charge on their bill, having committed no crime other than failing to make the switch to GSM. What's more, Cingular seems to be offering little or no incentive for folks hoping to avoid the surcharge by getting a new handset, saying only that "some customers will qualify for discounts on their new phones." If anyone was still in doubt that Cingular was thumbing their nose at their pending TDMA class action suit, this pretty much seals the deal.[Thanks, BeeRT and Tim UF]
Viva System 7
The first Mac I bought (though I'd been using them since the LC days) was a PowerMac 7100/66 in 1994, and it was my dream. I even paid extra for the GeoPort modem (remember those gnarly beasties). It shipped with a special version of System 7 (v7.1.2) that was optimized for the new PPC chips to which Apple had just transitioned. And wow, was I happy with the speed and stability of System 7 on my new 7100. Believe it or not, it was actually possible to have a stable System 7 working environment--I did for years. Myst on this baby was one of the first truly surreal experiences I'd ever had with a computer.I haven't actively used System 7 since I got rid of my PowerBook 100 back in 1998 but was pleased to find that some people are still championing this breakthrough OS. Dan Palka is a student at Bradley University and has set up a hobbyist site called System 7 Today, and maintains a fairly complete list of tips, tools, and tricks you can use to tweak out your System 7-equipped Mac.And, who knew you can still order a boxed copy of System 7.6 from Apple? Go figure!
