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The Daily Grind: Does quest reward realism matter?
While playing Star Wars: The Old Republic this week, my quest partner and I ran into something odd: A group of anti-Jedi Twi'lek pilgrims handed over an elite Jedi robe to his Consular. What were these pilgrims doing with expensive gear from their enemies, and if the quest-givers had looted the garb from Jedi corpses, why would they consider such wearables worthy gifts for us? In a game as story-driven as SWTOR, you'd think the quest rewards would match the lore, right? Of course, BioWare's new epic isn't alone in these weird quirks. Think about how many fantasy games have monsters that drop abnormal numbers of body parts, or worse, money, when you know that ghost couldn't carry a sack of gold and you're pretty darn sure that bat had two eyes, not just one. But does it bother you? Are your immersions disrupted by such inanities, or do you chalk them up to game mechanics and go about your MMO business, happily accepting illogical quest rewards and looting ridiculous items (like furniture!) from any old white-con mob that wanders into your crosshairs? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Addon Spotlight: Loot addons 2
Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. There's a whole lotta loot going around these days, if you haven't noticed. New loot, loot that looks like tentacles, armor pieces, armor set pieces, transmogrification gear, upgrade gear, heroic gear, Raid Finder loot ... you name it, it's dropping. As players complete the Dragon Soul raid on every difficulty, they are learning what a nightmare loot can be in a raiding environment. Let's make loot a bit more manageable, yes? Loot addons are a fun category of addon to talk about because they don't really clog up your screen or add much to the user interface in a notable way -- well, until you open up a chest full of loot and you get to clicking. teksLoot Yes, teksLoot still works. Sure, it hasn't been updated in almost a year. It's still one of my favorite addons, dammit. I'll be using teksLoot until it horribly falls apart in my hands, reduced to a small mound of dust at my feet ... clinging to the last, hopeless rolls I will make in the Raid Finder for that cool sword off of Madness of Deathwing.
Healing Morchok and Warlord Zon'ozz
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast. A new month and a new patch means new raid bosses to learn! It means new mechanics to learn, new players to work with (for some of you) and new challenges. I'm pretty sure that it's safe to say most of us were getting a little ... burned out on Firelands. The opening bosses should present a nice warmup for the rest of the instance. We'll start with quick healing setups for Morchok and Warlord Zon'ozz. The Raid Finder iteration of these bosses shouldn't be a problem for you if you already have a history of raiding. Normal versions might present a bit of a step up.
Pro Tip: Don't exploit loot rules in LFR's Dragon Soul
A stern but necessary warning from Bashiok today: Dragon Soul loot exploit If you are getting loot off of a boss twice then it is an exploit. This has always been the case in World of Warcraft, and we expect players to know better. We're in the process of implementing a hotfix to fix the exploit, and are deciding what steps we'll be taking for the gear that was already obtained. source We're not going to post about what people are doing (we never have and never will post exactly how the serious exploits are done), but there is a clear and intentional way people are getting a lot of loot out of the Dragon Soul raid using the Raid Finder. This method they're using gets around the "one shot at loot per week" rule, and it's something that Blizzard clearly from the get-go didn't want to happen. Bashiok is absolutely right as well -- it's well known amongst WoW's experienced playerbase that such exploits are never to be done. There are reports that some people who've exploited the system are getting the exploited gear stripped from them in the EU; however there is no official announcement yet as to what's happening. Once that's announced, we'll let you know.
PSA: Iron Brigade (formerly Trenched) available worldwide now
Double Fine has announced that Iron Brigade (which is the updated version of Trenched, renamed and revamped for sale overseas) is now available worldwide on Xbox Live Arcade. The game is available for 1200 Microsoft Points (about $15). Double Fine is also selling an official release day I-shirt (not a T-shirt, they say -- "that would get us sued") for $20 on its website. Anyone who already owns Trenched will find an update when they log into the game, changing the name and adding new items, leaderboards on which to compete, and a new survival mode. We loved Trenched back when it released in June, and we're sure that by spending a little sit-down time with Iron Brigade, we can probably learn to love it too.
Drama Mamas: Loot drama redux
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. Recipe for smelly loot drama: Have clear rules that are only followed at the whim of the raid leader. Eww. Dear Drama Mamas, I just wanted to get your thoughts about some drama that has recently unfolded in the guild. We have been raiding Firelands for a couple months now but have been having some disagreements about loot. The guild leader and her boyfriend lead the raid and I assist as the main tank, my wife is also in the raid. A couple of weeks ago a ring dropped and the guild leader's boyfriend won the roll. The following week the item dropped again and he rolled and won again. I was confused so I inquired about it, he had given it to his girlfriend.
PlayStation Home lets friends watch free movies together now, UStream and radio next month
Sony's recently redesigned PlayStation Home project has always been about bringing online social experiences to the PS3 that mirror their real-world counterparts: hanging out in your apartment with friends, window shopping at the mall, Quincying. Now it can add one more notch to its virtual world experience belt by offering the ability to view full length movies for free, streamed by Sony's Crackle network. If you're a frequent user of Xbox Live's Netflix Movie Parties this may sound like old hat (were we the only ones using that feature?), but now all PS Home users -- in North America -- can do social viewing with up to 60 users or private parties with up to 11 at a time. Crackle's selection of movies and TV shows are available today, while live broadcast UStream events (Engadget podcast party anyone?) and musical stations provided by RadioIO are scheduled to debut in December. Press play on the video above for a quick preview or check after the break for a celebratory press release.
Shifting Perspectives: In which Allison makes a stupid prediction
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we take a risk. Well, I'm bushed. Post-BlizzCon, I reached that dreamy level of fatigue allowing me to hallucinate that I am on a Thai beach being served fizzy drinks by men in loincloths, and that was lovely while it lasted. But just as I had recovered from the delusion that this was ever going to happen, a freak snowstorm hit the American northeast and killed every tree and power line in sight. Folks, I spent a week without power or internet, and I am mad at the world. Let's see. What did I have on the docket for this week? Responsibly and rationally evaluating what we learned at BlizzCon 2011? The hell with that. Let's start off by completely ignoring the new talents announced, and then getting into a quite possibly asinine prediction that I will try to pretend never happened if it doesn't come true.
New EVE dev diary talks PvE content
CCP has fired off another EVE Online press release, this time extolling the virtues of the PvE content coming in the winter expansion. New DED complexes are on the way, as are new bosses, modules, and "more reasons to generate massive explosions in space," according to CCP Affinity. Anomalies will feature increased payouts and more NPCs, and consequently more ISK for the players. Magnometric sites will also see their overall value increase, and CCP is even adding a minimize function for dungeon-related pop-up messages to improve capsuleer quality of life. Read all about it on the official EVE website.
Star Trek Online strengthening the fight against the Borg
Since launch, Star Trek Online has always used the Borg as a major threat. This is evidenced by the Borg's position in several of the game's Strategic Task Forces, top-end challenges for the best of the best in the Federation and the KDF. The conversion to free-to-play will include improvements and updates for these STFs, starting with a change explained in the latest installment of the Path to F2P blog series. The first change is the shift to two separate difficulty modes, Normal and Elite. STFs are also being added to the PvE queue feature so that players can more easily assemble a group. Last but not least, the missions will feature special rewards that can be traded for a variety of anti-Borg equipment, allowing successful players the chance to better tune their ships for future runs. These updates won't reduce the threat level of the Borg, but they should help more players face off against one of the game's marquee opponents.
Wasteland Diaries: Player-run economy
The economy in Fallen Earth has been stagnant for a while. The auction house has been just a place for trader clones (with maxed social skill) to post wares with a small markup from the NPC vendors prices. In some cases, these traders would post mats that could only be bought in PvP conflict towns or found in secret or dangerous scavenging spots. It was hard to be competitive in a market like that. Every resource had an unlimited supply thanks to the vendors. There were a few items that actually worked on the supply and demand principle, like vibrant and volatile chemicals and pre-fall tech. These items had prices that were dictated completely by the players. Through competition, the prices got pretty reasonable (and I even bought a few pre-fall techs to allieviate the Citadel grind). All that has changed now, and the Fallen Earth team has made some massive changes to the way the economy works. In this post, I'll take a look at what has changed. I'll try to give my best guess about what will happen to the economy in the coming weeks. A great many players are already freaking out about this concept on the forums and in global chat. While I admit it's too early to tell what will become of us in the near future, there's no need to panic. People were rage-quitting the game mere hours after the changes were made. If you ask me, it's a bit premature to make a decision like that. Nobody really knows what will happen, but click past the cut to see my best guesses.
Patch 4.3: Raid Finder loot rules updated
Blizzard has just posted a detailed explanation of how loot rolls will work in the forthcoming Raid Finder feature in patch 4.3. With the new feature, players whose currently assigned class role, be it DPS, tank, or healer, will get a +100 added to their loot roll. Loot rolls for items with parry or dodge on them, for instance, will award the tanks in the group who roll need +100 to their roll. The system will only be looking at class role and not spec yet, but Blizzard is considering adding to the system and even potentially implementing this type of roll bonus to the Dungeon Finder as well. We will have more information as it becomes available, but at first glance, this system seems to fit very well within what Blizzard is trying to go for in terms of Raid Finder accessibility. Tanks get to roll on tank gear, DPSers get to roll on DPS gear, and healers get to roll on healing gear. Greed rolls are still available for off-spec gear and do not function like the need rolls, so if no tank needs something, for example, the greed roll system will still work as intended. I think these will be positive changes.
PlayStation Home gets 1.55 update this Thursday in advance of relaunch
Yes, yes, we know the relaunch is coming, but don't expect it this Thursday. PlayStation Home community manager "Locust_Star" posted on the PlayStation Blog today, announcing the 1.55 update and some patch features arriving prior to the big relaunch. Included in 1.55 are an improved "start-up flow," some wardrobe and furniture browser tweaks and the ability to manually clear the PlayStation Home cache on your HDD. Outside of technical stuff, Home has also added some new costumes, spaces and Loot, a game that lets players record and download their own custom videos right to their hard drives. There's also YouTube functionality for those must-share Quincying moments.
Officers' Quarters: Secret farmers of the Firelands
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. In the Firelands, red fire and black ash rain from the sky. Meanwhile, purple axes, scalpels, scales, mysterious apparati, and even scraps of purple parchment rain from its dying denizens. Another raid has brought with it the opportunity to kill scores of trash mobs for high-ilevel loot, much like players did in tier 11 with the Bastion of Twilight's first-room trash-athon. The purple recipes hearken back to the days of the Sunwell Plateau. Yes, trash farming has a long and illustrious history in WoW. With such great opportunities for both loot and gold, it's hard to blame players for getting in there and farming away. WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley even wrote a guide about how to do it. But should your members ask permission before they use the guild's raid ID for such runs? This week, one guild leader found out that some members have been venturing in without telling anyone. Hi. The basics. I run a decently good 10-man raid guild. We have a guild-master, me, a few officers, a few semi-officers, and raiders. The semi-officers are guildmembers that are very good at their class and been in the guild for a long time. You could say very valued members or maybe classleaders and they have some areas of responsibilty in the raids and guild. We often seek their advice but they dont have decision making rights like the GM and the Officers. The background. We killed Shannox and some other bosses the first week of Firelands, and we have done so every week up to date. We recently learned that since the first week a few of the semi-officers has been going in to the guilds Firelands instance, between raid days and farmed trash. The drops [have] been used to gear themself and their alts, but the stuff they havent had any use for, odd drops recipies, has been sold on the AH for quite alot of gold.
WoW TCG: Aftermath: Throne of the Tides adds monsters to the mix
As the Worldbreaker series comes to an end, we now turn to the aftermath of Deathwing's destructive awakening into Azeroth and the continued battle against the elements and the Twilight Hammer Cult. The newest WoW TCG expansion, Aftermath: Throne of the Tides, puts players in control of murloc, naga, and ogre heroes as exciting new additions to the WoW TCG hero lineup. Playing as some of the more monstrous races in the World of Warcraft universe is pretty cool, with all new keywords and abilities to take advantage of during gameplay. In addition, Throne of the Tides has been built from the ground up to be a smoother draft and sealed play experience, preparing even the newest players for fun, engaging tournament play. Read on to learn about the Epic Collection and the new in-game goodies that await TCG fans.
Tales of Fantasy expansion brings new PvP and dungeon content
Tales of Fantasy has a new expansion on the way, and Veil of Darkness is all about the PvP. A new IGG press release has given us a bit of a heads-up on the new content which centers around an area known as Coiling Hollow. The hollow is basically a PvP-enabled zone where players can engage in wanton slaughter without fear of a death penalty (and rack up a bunch of honor points for disposing of members of the opposing faction). That's not all, as Coiling Hollow also features something of a mother lode when it comes to loot. IGG tells us that the Serpent Shrine adventure area is "filled with the discarded treasure of a thousand warriors who dropped everything and ran for the exit," presumably due to the unimaginable horrors contained within. While there's no definitive release date for the Veil of Darkness content as of yet, you can keep an eye on the official Tales of Fantasy website, and Massively, for all the latest details.
New LotRO dev diary outlines future itemization improvements
Some days we feel like Paul Revere, riding our 120% mounts through towns and shouting announcements like "Rise of Isengard is coming! Rise of Isengard is coming!" It's OK, people probably prefer to get their news shouted at them by cyber equestrian newsies than any other method, right? And in the case of Lord of the Rings Online's latest expansion, it's good we do so, because a whole host of itemization improvements is coming to the game. In a new dev diary, the LotRO systems team lays out the path for itemization improvements, including where we've been in the game and where we're going with gear. Two of the biggest concerns that the team identified to fix were minute increments between gear upgrades and the inability to predict what combination of equipment players would use to hit the stat caps. Therefore, the caps will be removed and players should see more substantial gear upgrades with the expansion. The diary goes on to share how different segments of the player community will be able to access top-of-the-line gear in the future, including solo players, crafters, casual groupers, and raiders. Other interesting tidbits include desirable yellow gear, gear dropping in instance chests, and the addition of a non-gating stat called Finesse.
The Queue: Bubble bubble pop pop
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mathew McCurley will be your host today. Oh boy, The Queue! Have I told you guys how much I love writing The Queue? When I'm not YouTubing or twittering, some of my most wonderful memories are sitting at my computer and browsing through your questions and ... Ooooh, looks like someone just put a link into Mumble ... ... ... ... Bubble bubble bubble pop. Happy Monday, ya'll. jamie9966 asked: At the start of the Burning Crusade, blood elf paladins got their powers by bending the light to their will, through M'uru who they held captive at the time. Since they no longer have M'uru in captivity, where do they now get their power from? In the beginning, M'uru was the source of the Blood Knights' powers. It was thought to have been stolen, being ripped from the naaru forcibly. I was always a fan of the ruthless, almost sadistic way the blood elves bent the very light to their will because, well, at the time, it fit the race. After it was revealed that the naaru sort of sent M'uru, who full well knew what he was doing by letting the blood elves take some of his power to create the Blood Knights, that sadism sort of fell to the wayside.
Behind the Mask: The incentives are backwards
This week in Behind the Mask, we will not be discussing Aftershock, the new Comic Series adventure that started several weeks ago. I intend to talk about Aftershock after it's finished -- if I talked about each new issue of Aftershock, I wouldn't be able to talk about other things, since there's a new issue every week. Instead, I'm going to talk about the broad aspect of teaming in Champions Online, and more importantly, the rewards for teaming. Teaming in CO is as fun as in other MMORPGs because playing with other people is generally a fun activity. Unfortunately, there isn't much material incentive to team. It's faster to get experience and gear solo, making lairs the only real reason to team. I team all the time, though -- entirely because it's more fun to play with friends.
Global Chat: Surprisingly not all about E3 edition
Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat! Sure, we spent a lot of time on E3 last week, and it certainly dominated the news scene. Our readers found time to ponder non-E3 general gaming talk in addition to E3 talk, so follow along after the jump to see some of what they had to say this week.
