legolas
Latest
Dawn of the Hunter Rangers: Touring Neverwinter's Shadowmantle module
Considering all of the exciting reveals of Neverwinter's second module, Shadowmantle, I think it's prudent to start with the unknowns. No, we don't have a specific date of release (although it will be "by the end of the year"). No, we don't know whether Druids or Warlocks or any other Dungeons and Dragons classes are in development for next year. And no, we can't tell whether there's a massive honey badger conspiracy in the city of Neverwinter. With that said, there's plenty that Lead Designer Andy Velasquez had to reveal to us for this upcoming module. For starters, it's 100% free, just in case you were wondering. Sure, Cryptic will continue to run a robust store (and doesn't seem to have any inclination to rein in the lockbox invasion), but all of the content of Shadowmantle will be available to the entire playerbase on day one. It's shaping up to be an even meatier update than Fury of the Faewild, believe it or not. The big star of Shadowmantle is the first new post-launch class: the Hunter Ranger. But this flexible fighter won't be hogging the entire spotlight; Neverwinter will also be adding a new zone, additional paragon paths, and a spiffy artifact skill system. So read on and prepare for the stampede of players rushing to be the next online Legolas-slash-Drizzt.
The Hobbit makes Unexpected Journey to browsers, mobile in Armies of the Third Age
Kabam has launched a new free-to-play browser tie-in, called The Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age, in which players build strongholds and wage war.Three factions – Orcs, Elves and Dwarves – are in the game, which is playable on a PC web browser or through a free app on both iOS and Android. Popular figures from the Tolkien universe like Legolas and Thorin can be seen taking the field, though we suggest maybe fighting far away from them. If you've seen either dude throw down in their respective movies, then you just know their prowess is only gonna make you look bad on the battlefield.
Riding into Rohan: LotRO maps out 2012
In the words of Frank Sinatra, 2011 "was a very good year" for Lord of the Rings Online. Executive Producer Kate Paiz and Director of Communications Adam Mersky sat down with us to talk about the future of the game, but before they got to the juicy details, they wanted to give a quick recap of the previous year for the game and the studio. The big emphasis for LotRO in 2011 was the unifying of the global community and the release of the game's third (and best-selling) expansion, Rise of Isengard. While the aforementioned unification of the NA and EU sides of the game presented many challenges for the team including localization, it paid off in spades. Turbine plans to continue to add more payment options for those used to methods other than the ones currently available. The team was most proud of unveiling Saruman "in all of his glory" and the inclusion of free players into the sphere of Monster Play. "The game definitely grew last year," Mersky said in response to a question about the current number of players. He noted that the playerbase has changed somewhat in the past two years, becoming more casual in some respects. But it's time to move forward! Turbine is prepared to take LotRO players on a dizzying chase around the wilds of Middle-earth with a few significant changes and additions to the game -- and the release of the brand-new expansion later this year, Riders of Rohan. Mounted combat, ho!
The Road to Mordor: Finding the Fellowship
It's not uncommon for new players to come to Lord of the Rings Online with the full expectation that they'll be treated to a front-row seat of the Fellowship's adventures. The movies, the books and even other Lord of the Rings video games certainly feature Aragorn, Legolas and Gandalf practically non-stop, which is why LotRO's approach to showing these famous characters takes some getting used to. Instead of bending the lore so hard it breaks by shoehorning players into the Fellowship itself, Turbine decided to have the players go on their own epic quests that sometimes parallel the main story of the books. In effect, we the players are on the periphery of the Fellowship, and the Fellowship is on the periphery of us. Sometimes we cross paths, sometimes our actions influence each other, and sometimes we simply go our separate ways. Still, players may get frustrated when they spend a lot of time in the game without seeing any of these major characters, wondering whether some of them even exist at all. This is complicated by the fact that these characters appear in different places relative to the player's own journey through the story. So if you've ever been curious where your favorite character is and how you can go on adventures with him or her, hit the jump and I'll hook you up!
Widget shows character name statistics
If you've ever been fascinated by the MMORPG statistics provided at sites like the Daedalus Project, here's something right up your alley; the WoW Armory Character Distribution widget, programmed to comb both the U.S. and E.U. Armories and capture data on the popularity of character names across race, class, faction, and sex. The project is still in the testing stage, and it's a bit finicky about how you enter character names. Make sure you're always hitting the submit button and not using your enter key, as otherwise the widget will keep searching for the last name you looked for instead of your new query. Its creator, Emilis, also wrote to warn that it uses live information from both armories and will occasionally be slow as a result. I imagine it might also be inaccurate if either Armory is having problems.The widget is tremendously fun to play with and has yielded some rather interesting results even with the completely random names I keep trying. "John" and "Mary," as you might expect, are overwhelmingly Human toons, whereas the greater share of people playing a "Sergei" and "Yekaterina" are Draenei. 3 people with a "Brutus" are actually playing female characters, and 1 person with a "Laura" is playing a male character (Emilis notes that gender-bending names are surprisingly common, although from what I can tell so far this seems to be a lot more true of male names for female toons than the other way around). Most people with a "Killer" are playing a Hunter, Rogue, or Warrior. Characters named "Bank" are mostly Human Warriors, but "Banktoon(s)" are mostly Orcs. And, yes, most of the people playing a toon named Legolas are Night Elf Hunters. Are you really that surprised?Thanks to Emilis for writing in!
All the World's a Stage: Inspiration
All the World's a Stage is a source for roleplaying ideas, suggestions, and discussions. It is published every Sunday evening.You've probably heard that no story is completely original, that everything is copied from somewhere, and nothing anyone ever thinks or says is really unique. It's an awfully pessimistic way of looking at the creative endeavor, but there's a degree of truth in it.Any time you make up a new character, you are sure to be inspired by something you observed somewhere else. Perhaps you wondered, "What if there were a dwarven rogue, whose personality was a mix between Sherlock Holmes and Jack Sparrow?" or "My undead warrior is a lot like Frankenstein's monster, not evil so much as tragically neglected and rejected. He also likes to play with dolls." All this is fine and good for roleplaying, as long as you recognize the essential differences between your character and his or her inspirational anscestors. After all, every creative endeavor basically consists of mix-and-matching pre-existing knowledge in new and useful ways. In the same way a painter doesn't need to invent new colors, color palettes, or even new color matching techniques to make an beautiful, a storyteller doesn't need to create entirely new characteristics for each character in his or her story, only mix-and-match qualities real people already have in order to create someone compelling and interesting for other characters to interact with. Jump on in to find some great inspirations for WoW characters.
The Daily Grind: What's in a name?
We recently talked over some of the games we are playing amongst the team, and we found that everyone's take on names was quite varied. Some of our staff like to go for authenticity in regards to whatever character archetype they're making, and thus won't start characters until they have the perfect name. Others of the staff like making up silly names, and jump in with wild abandon. Some of the rest of us take names we've either used before, or names we've picked up along the way -- from popular culture, books, even history. For me, personally, I tend to be fond of names gleaned from books and history, with a particular leaning towards Egyptian names or cyberpunk novels. I have friends that I know who have carried the same names from game to game. On the other hand, there are those poor folks who use the most common elements in gaming/pop culture and name themselves one of the "new-player-alert" names, such as Sephiroth, Drizzt, Gimlii, or Legolas -- or any variants thereof. How about you? What's your favorite character's name, and where did you take the inspiration for it? Have you ever refused to group with someone due to an overused or goofy name (such as "Dethrouge" on a rogue) or have you found yourself complimenting people on using cool names? Is naming really that important to you, or do you just kind of smack whatever on your character so you can get into the game?
All the World's a Stage: And your life is a mine rich in gems
All the World's a Stage is a weekly column by David Bowers, now published on Sundays, investigating the explorative performance art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.For some, the whole process takes 5 minutes. They log in, click on "create new character," choose a race, a class, painstakingly compare each and every face and hairstyle, type in a name, click "accept," and they're done. Some take their time by paying a visit to the forums of each class, or asking their friends about which race is best -- but who sits down and makes up a story idea, a personality, and actual characteristics for characters these days?Roleplayers do, of course. But how? What if you'd like to try out roleplaying but you just don't know where to begin creating an actual character, rather than just an avatar for yourself in the game? Each roleplayer tends to have his or her own way, but there are are a number of things they have in common. One of the first things to remember about designing your character concept, is to make your character essentially human, relatable, based on real experiences that you know about.Mine your life. Think of what kinds of experiences you are familiar with, and which of them could be used as the foundation for another person's life, a new character with a story to tell, and a personality to engage other people's interest. Today, I'll give you a couple examples of how I tried to do this, and explain some of the pitfalls people often fall into when trying to make up an interesting character.
Patchwork enforcement on the naming policy
Pepe has done an informal but (as he says) "real FREAKIN interesting" little study of supposedly inappropriate names via the Armory. Blizzard's naming policy, as you'll know if you've ever run afoul of it, is pretty stringent-- you're not allowed to create obscene names at all (obviously), names based on real-life or well-known sources (so no trademarks or references to celebrities or Blizzard employees-- Legolas is completely out), harassing words or phrases, or "partial or complete sentences."Now, you can't really argue with most of that. The obscene stuff is a given, of course, though where Blizzard gets their criteria for obscene is anyone's guess-- one of my guildies had an undead warrior named "Skinflayer" that Blizz forced him to rename (he renamed it to Tenderheart, actually). And the copyright and famous names seems a little silly, but it's most likely just Blizzard covering their backside-- you never know what copyright holders will do when it comes to user-created content. But harassing phrases? No l33tsp33k? How can Blizzard possibly track this stuff?The fact is, as Pepe points out very effectively, that they can't (except on Blizzard employees, strangely enough). Reported names, of course, will probably get a message that they must be changed, but there's no way that Blizzard actually examines the rolls name by name to figure out which are compliant with the ToS and which aren't. The problem, then, becomes who gets punished and who doesn't, and what whims that comes by. While I'm with Blizzard on the player bans, I'm not with them on this one-- either they need to stick to their naming policy or change it. As Pepe shows, just a few minutes of Armory browsing yields hundreds of "violations." I've included all of Pepe's links after the break-- be warned that some of the names are in fact obscene according to Blizzard's policy, and thus might be offensive to some of our readers.
Breakfast topic: What have you learned from the Armory?
We've got some great tools for guilds. We've got generated signatures, lots of Legolasses (and Legolads), some liars revealed, and even the worst players (that last one is from an official Mike Schramm Troll Post (TM)(C)).So in the two weeks since it was introduced, what have you learned from the Armory? Have you figured out something new by checking out someone else's spec, or learned something about your guild from theirs? Have you gotten a good tip on an item you can't live without, or found one that you later asked a guildie about? Have you checked out a "famous" WoW player, or checked how many players have the same name that you do?Blizzard has put one of the most comprehensive tools online for any MMORPG. It's only been around for a few weeks, and it's only in Beta, so we're apt to see more functionality arise for it yet. But here in the beginning, just what are you using it for?
Fun with the Armory
Now that the Armory is finally up and working (it was crushed by requests when it was first posted), I've had a chance to look at it, and I have to say, I think it's the coolest thing I've ever seen on an MMO's website ever. The Camelot Herald was cool (for those of you who know about that), but, privacy issues aside, the Armory is going to become a terrific tool for players, guilds, Alliance and Horde all over the world.Already, it's showing us things about the game that we'd never known otherwise. There are apparently 22 pages of Legolas toons, although Leroyjenkins doesn't have the showing I'd have thought (50 entries, none of which are above 60 as of this writing). Maybe he wipes too much. While there are tons and tons of "alliance" guilds, there's only a few for "horde." Death and Taxes either has 20 chapters, or 19 wannabes-- Nihilum doesn't have any. And while arena teams are fairly new, lots of people didn't get too creative with them-- there's 165 teams with "arena" in the name. I tried to see if our friend Juffowup, the naked troll hunter, was still naked, but he hasn't been on a while. Antitweak, the naked druid, is only 20, but she is-- yup, still naked.And there's lots of cool personal stuff in here, too. My shaman, Shamanic, shares a name with lots of people, but from what I can see, he's number one (the one from Thunderhorn) on the list-- confirming what I already knew, ahem. And I think it's particularly cool that on every character screen, they even show, in the right corner, the buffs you have on the character at the time. Now that's real-time! Unfortunately, they also show your professions, so everyone in the world can see that I've been slacking off. But overall, I love the Armory. You guys seen anything funny or cool in there yet?
A toon by any other name
... would crit as high? We've talked a lot about guild names, heard lots of good examples of pet names, even checked out server names and NPC names, but we haven't (ok we have, but it's been a while) yet talked about your name. Your character's name, that is. How'd you come up with it? Was it what you wanted or what you settled on? You know, when "Legolass" was taken for your female NE hunter.Terra Nova's latest article takes a quick look at how we create our online identities through our nicknames. For some people, it's serious stuff-- we want our online identities to be a close approximation of what our real-life identities are, and you get names like Lindsay, Ralph, and Drewster. For others, it's a joke-- we still use a reflection of ourselves, but it's through such a dark glass that even guildies might need some explanation if they met us in real-life (Jessirogue, Dakstalker). And still other people care even less-- they jump onto a pop culture identity (Leggolas again, or Vaderrogue) or other social reference (TN's example of "FlirtyGrl91") and try to make their online personality completely seperate from anything that represents them in real life.I'll let you decide which category I'm in-- my two current mains are a gnome warrior named Tankey and a orc shaman named Shamanic. I'm also working on a UD PVP twink rogue named Punishment (my favorite names, I've found, are just one single word) and a human shadow priest named Shadowgirl (female, obviously). Then again, maybe I'm all three types of namers. What's in your name(s)? Do your character's names reflect who you are as a player, or something else, or nothing at all? Would my guildmates treat me differently (or, more likely, see me differently) if they all called me Mike instead?
