patience
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DDO Eberron Unlimited beta now available to all active subscribers
It's beta madness in the MMO industry all of a sudden! Both Global Agenda and Champions Online are running some major beta events this weekend, and we've gotten word that Dungeons and Dragons Online has some news on the beta front as well with Eberron Unlimited (often simply referred to as "DDO Unlimited"). The beta for Turbine's free-to-play version of DDO is now open to all active subscribers. Turbine Senior Community Manager, Patience, writes: "We're pleased to announce that the DDO Unlimited Beta is now open to all players with active DDO subscriptions. If you have a paid DDO account in good standing you're no longer required to have a VIP key to access the Lamannia server or post on the beta forums! Your account will convert to VIP when DDO Unlimited launches."%Gallery-66994%
Raid Rx: Are you ready to be the healer leader?
Raid Rx has returned from retirement! Every Thursday (usually), Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. Today, it is all about the healing leader and what you need to know if want to do it. Organizing healers is often difficult (and sometimes) a thankless job. Having a healing leader to quarterback and direct the efforts of the other healers in your raid increases the overall survivability of the raid instead of just having healers on free for all healing. I've handled healing assignments in no less than 4 different guilds and it becomes a new experience every time.
Breakfast topic: Of Newbies and n00bs
Amazingly enough, there are still many new players coming into the game that need some tutoring. I consider myself to be downright patient. If someone asks for help or advice, I'm there. If I don't have the answer, I point them to one of the many WoW resources that will assist them. At one point in time we were all rookies, and many of us still have many nuances of the game to pick up. I love to watch people learn and grow.Bear in mind that WoW has a variable learning curve based on familiarity with MMORPGs, time spent playing, coaches, and aptitude. There comes a time though, when folks should be pretty self-sufficient. The argument "I'm new" no longer holds water. For example, it goes without saying that hunters should always check their ammo supplies before going into instances and in general, clothies should let the tank pull.
Officers' Quarters: Waiting at 80
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Lately I've gotten a lot of e-mail from readers with a similar theme. People ask me, "Should I stick with my guild even though we aren't raiding yet?" They say, "We just lost five members because we haven't cleared Naxx." They tell me, "I hate PUGs, but I can't even run a Heroic with my guild because only two people are 80."They ask me to weigh their guild against their desire to run group content. And the fact of the matter is this: I can't answer that question for you. And I'll tell you why.
Turbine party at GenCon Indy
It's always exciting to hear when dev companies find a way to casually mingle with their communities at gaming expos, more than just sitting behind a booth or at a panel talking and answering questions. Since August is somehow designated as the month for gaming conventions, we are overwhelmed by the after-party announcements popping up for next month's expos.Turbine joins the fray with a recent announcement about their GenCon after-party. It will be held at Jillians in Indianapolis, IN from 8-10PM on Friday, August 15th. You will have the opportunity to meet Eldorudo, Tolero, Patience, Kate Paiz and more from the Turbine team. There will also be food, games, fun and swag for all in attendance. They'd like anyone planning on attending to RSVP for a proper headcount.
LotRO fans find an official home on Facebook
We've been hearing a lot lately about how Facebook is becoming a big gaming platform. But social networking has its roots in marketing and promotion, not game-playing. It's a great place to promote products of all kinds. MMO juggernaut Turbine knows this, of course.Over at the The Lord of the Rings Online forums, Turbine community manager Patience plugged the official LotRO Facebook page. If you're a member of Facebook, you can "Become a Fan" to communicate with other fans, get regular updates, or just let everyone know you like the game. It's currently sitting just shy of 2,000 fans, but we're sure it'll hit the mark promptly.While it may be Turbine that's promoting its fan page right now, we want to make sure we're all about equal opportunity here. So be sure and check out the World of Warcraft and EVE Online pages too, or search for another game; lots of them have pages. We already reported on NCsoft's Facebook invasion.
Breakfast Topic: Time or money?
I recently posted about how I dropped Mining in order to take up Enchanting to better contribute to my PvP efforts. As of this writing, I've got my Enchanting at an unexciting 245 (update: now at 350). All our banked low-level mats have been used up and I'm hitting a barrier with lacking more than a few Nether Essences. I do have the option of buying them from the Auction House, which will certainly help me skill up faster, but it will also end up breaking my already quite broke(n) back. On the other hand, my wife leveled her Enchanting rather patiently, refusing to rewrite enchantments on gear except for the most inexpensive ones. She would diligently inspect people and their gear in major cities and offer free enchantments. Over time, she acquired enough raw materials and enchanted enough people to hit 375 -- all without spending a single Copper coin.I'm not quite as patient. Actually, I'm impatient as heck. My wife refuses to Buyout anything from the Auction Houses, instead waiting patiently for Auctions to end, getting things for the lowest possible price. The only time she uses Buyout is when it's an incredibly good deal (thanks to Auctioneer). I, on the other hand, Buyout pretty much everything, more interested in getting the item/s right away than saving Gold. I guess that's why I don't have much and my wife, well, has more than quite a bit. So, here's my question. Are you the kind of player who would rather save your time or your money? Are you patient enough to wait for auctions to end, or the kind who clicks the Buy Now option on eBay? Would you rather farm your raw materials or buy them off the Auction House -- Buyout style?
A case for patience on the PTRs
You'll forgive me for trying to inject a little reason into a nerf debate (an impossible task, probably), but that's what I'm about to try and do anyway.Yesterday, mages, warlocks, and shadow priests were up in arms about the changes on the test realm to the tailoring epic outfits. Blizzard was experimenting with adding ability stats to the armor while nerfing spell damage, and tailors went ballistic over the changes. And so, within a matter of hours, Eyonix announced on the forums that the changes had already been reverted and would not go to the live servers.Now, yesterday I said the nerfs weren't that big a deal, and since then, I've seen some good points that say they were-- lots of people spent lots of time and gold getting just these recipes together (some even leveled tailoring for just these pieces), and it definitely presents a problem to make serious changes to gear that people have already sacrificed a lot for.On the other hand, there were good reasons behind the changes as well. As even a few tailors have said, these crafted pieces matched up to the Tier 4 and 5 pieces, and I see problems with basically requiring clothies to be tailors to be competitive in the endgame. Many warlocks cried the most about the changes, but because +spell damage doesn't translate directly to most of their DOT spells, in many cases, they would actually be the least affected (Update: In hindsight, I shouldn't have judged how affected anyone was by this change. But that's not the point of this article-- read on.)But my point now isn't to argue whether these sets should have been changed or not. What I want to point out now is that being outraged on the forums and yelling at Blizzard about something that's happening on the test realms will actually impede the developers' abilities to make good changes on the live ones.
