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Microsoft's Kin saves a Roots show: a touching recollection by Questlove
The Kin may be dead and buried, but you can bet that the legacy of Microsoft's biggest failure in the phone market will live long in the minds of technophiles. What you probably wouldn't bet, however, is how it'll also live long in the mind of famed Roots drummer Questlove. You heard right -- the same beat maker that was caught FaceTiming with our own Josh Topolsky during a recent sit-down on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon has a special place in his heart for the fallen phone series, and he's taken the time to pen a memoir detailing the reasons why. Undoubtedly an avid visitor of the (temporarily down) Kin R.I.P. web memorial, Questlove was recently held up behind a team of brats at the airport. As the story goes, even arriving 75 minutes early to his flight wasn't enough to clear through on a flight to Canada, leaving him in quite the pickle. If he didn't hop on this bird, his band mates would be struggling to please fans sans a drummer. As is so often the case these days, Quest ran into a particularly perturbed airline agent who wasn't about to bend in order to get him onboard; rather than name-dropping himself, he simply agreed to have his photo taken with a smattering of fans who just happened to waltz by during his pleading. Suddenly, the light popped on in the mind of the agent: "OMG! You are the guy in the Kin commercial... I see that commercial all the time!" Needless to say, Quest's ego took a serious hit, but he did manage to catch his flight and make the show in the Great White North. He told his manager that it was the "Kin commercial he almost passed on" that got him to the show, and closed with a simple remark: "R.I.P. Kin." Hit those source links for the full skinny -- it's a compelling read, we assure you. Oh, and that aforesaid ad is embedded just past the break.
Sunday Morning Funnies: Bubble deeps
This week's discussion topic will focus on pointing out the comic that you think has most improved over time. Feel free to illustrate your choice with a link to an early example and a link to a newer entry that really showcases the artistic development. As always, leave any tips for new WoW-related comics in the comments section! Heading into the first week of summer, here's your regularly scheduled comic relief: Beyond the Tree: I Spy, You Spy. Quest: Death Grip. WoW, eh?: Operation: Scorched Earth. Torment of the Week: Divine Plea Case. Awkward Zombie: Socket to Me. NPC: A Nice Night for a Stroll. Also: Mutation Sensation and Domineered. Coffin Comics: Timelost Lost. Daily Quest: Best Served Cold. Teh Gladiators: Attack of the Spin-Snatchin' Vallant Clone. Hit next to see part two! Byron, the Tauren Rogue. Tales from the Crossroads: Fishin' with DOD. Slash AFK: You Summoned? Also: No Girlie Stuff and Pets Rock. LFG #365 and #366. Dark Legacy Comics: Innovation. Out of World #19. Complex Actions: It's a Bear-Form Market. Equinox and His Drinking Buddy. Away From Reality: Broken Healer. K's Grab Bag: They've Eaten More.... Guilded Age.
Sunday Morning Funnies: Bears for literacy
It's almost June, but where I'm living, it's been feeling like late July. I hope everyone has been out enjoying the weather, especially during this pre-Cataclysm slump. Before you head out today for your picnic, BBQ, walk in the park, or afternoon raid, SMF has quite a sizable list of comics for your enjoyment. We even have two brand-spanking new-to-the-list comics this week, thanks to a couple of tipsters. Don't forget to make suggestions for comic inclusions in the comment section! This week's discussion topic is a free-for-all. Talk about your favorite character, an artist's shading technique, suggest a future discussion topic, or whatever else is on your mind.
EQ2 Storyteller system detailed
Sony Online Entertainment has revealed another feature of their Halas Reborn content update for EverQuest II. Coming later this month, the patch will include a new mechanic called the Storyteller system. The unfortunately named system is not a robust set of roleplay tools like the one in Star Wars Galaxies, but rather a modification to the game's existing quest journal. The system adds a tab to the quest journal user interface that consolidates the story of each major quest. Additionally, the Storylines tab will chronicle your position in EverQuest II's lengthy quest chains, provide clues to completion, and add a bit of narrative flavor to the long-running fantasy MMORPG. The Storyteller system is a work in progress, as SOE will not have all of the game's quest loaded into the system when the patch launches. "What you see when Halas Reborn reaches the live servers will only be a starting point, and other quests will be connected and looped as we progress the feature. If you don't see your favorite quest right now, don't worry! It will be there soon," says the official press release. Check out the release and the associated discussion thread on the official boards for more information.
Sunday Evening Funnies: Dramatic rescue
Welcome to the late-day edition of Sunday Morning Funnies! It's probably breakfast time somewhere, right? This week's list is pretty long, but you can always help make it longer by dropping off tips about new WoW-related comics or ones that I've missed in the comments section. This week's participation challenge: Which comic haven't you seen on the list lately (most likely because it isn't updating) that you really miss and why? My answer: The Scout Report and The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf. Don't forget to list your favorite one-liner from this week's selection of comics!
Sunday Morning Funnies: Awkward
Fun fact! Six comics on the list this week end their titles with an exclamation mark. Well, five, plus the fact that Byron, the Tauren Rogue, has one inherently. You'll also find a couple of comics that are new to the list, and hopefully this will help dry your tears over your missing favorites. A surprising number of comic artists are too busy this week, but promise to be back soon. Last week, commenters picked out their favorite one-liners from the selection of comics. This week, I challenge you to do it again; but this time, add in what you're doing, or what you usually do, while reading SMF. It'll be like our own personal "state your name and tell us something about you" awkward round-the-table banter! Either that, or it'll strangely remind you of your Twitter feed. A random, confusing, but somehow hilarious phrase coupled with a TMI about your breakfast habits - how could it be wrong? That, or you know, debate the merits of the new sparkle horse. Dealer's choice.
Sunday Morning Funnies: Bun bun
There are no newcomers to the list this week, but it does seem to have been overrun with bunnies. There is even an entry that was posted on a certain tricky day earlier in the month, so beware! Don't forget to leave tips about WoW-related webcomics in the comments section, or send an email to the team. As for last week's challenge, several people gave their opinions about the artwork from that week's list. Thanks for participating! This week, drop in a comment describing your favorite line from any comic on today's list. Whether it is funny, awkward, or profound, we want to hear about it.
Sunday Morning Funnies: Shlorp
Happy holiday weekend - and Noblegarden, of course. This week's selection is pretty varied, although there are no newcomers this week. Only you can change this. Send us tips! Also, let everyone know if I missed an updated comic in the comments section. It happens. Thanks to everyone who posted various comic archives last week for the perusal of those who hadn't heard of them. For next week's challenge: What percentage of the comics listed will be about Noblegarden? Guess. Predict the future. Challenge #2: I'll add a second one, since the first one is pretty... well, based in nothing. Whose artwork really struck you this week, and why?
Sunday Morning Funnies: Drink the satisfaction
This week's list is long and full of new things as well as old favorites. As always, if you have any tips, leave a comment. I'm always on the lookout for WoW-related comics! Don't forget to read through the comments section; this week, there are a couple of comics that haven't updated. Often, the artists will stop by and leave a link if the comic was only a little bit late getting posted. In a related note, Manic Graffiti is back sort of! It isn't on a regular schedule of updates, but every now and then, something will come up. This week's challenge: In the comments section, leave a link or two from your favorite WoW-related artist, or for a comic that perhaps no longer updates; because if other people haven't seen it, it's new to them.
Sunday Morning Funnies: Do hug ghosts
I've been laid up all week with a nasty case of the flu. Fortunately, I think I have managed to avoid passing it on to anyone by staying indoors and suffering in silence. Here's hoping that all of your weekends have been better! We have a couple of new comics to add to the list this week, as well as some updates from comics that only refresh sporadically. What do you guys think about the newbies? To compensate for my lack of trivia inspiration this week, I shall send everyone "flu immunity" vibes. That has to be at least as good, right? You'll also be happy to note that Battlemasters is back! Zack, coincidentally, had the flu a couple of weeks ago. Isn't spring wonderful?
Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Upcoming profession changes
There are a number of profession changes being introduced in patch 3.3.3. Most of these changes revolve around the speeding up process of crafting. For example, the cooldown and location requirements for Tailoring items like Moonshroud, Spellweave and Ebonweave? Gone! Some craftable items have had their costs reduced. More changes after the break!
Breakfast topic: Quest detritus
Anne talked recently about all the bits and pieces that tend to accumulate in a packrat's bank vault, and I'm one of the guilty parties. I'm a hardcore collector of feral staves, tier sets, tabards, and assorted items that I just can't bring myself to delete (Seal of Ascension -- seriously, why do I still have this?). Unfortunately, the tendency carries over into quests as well. Over the course of doing Loremaster, I knocked off most of the older quests littering my log, and now I'm left with two. One's a nightmare to finish -- The Good News and The Bad News, which is part of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands line and an enormous pain in the ass due to the 10 Elementium Ores required. I've resigned myself to the quite-likely possibility that it'll be there for months to come. The other one, much like the stuff clogging my bank, is something I can't force myself to drop. Echoes of War sent people to the original version of Naxxramas, and was required for the tier 3 questline. Incredibly enough, it was even shareable when Wrath came out, and our early Naxx raids at 80 had a good laugh over it. But I'm afraid to turn it in -- not just because the follow-up quest probably isn't there anymore, but also for some reason I don't think I can articulate very well. If I turned it in, I guess I'd feel like another little piece of old Azeroth was gone forever. Do you have any quests like this sitting around in your log, and what keeps you from turning them in?
EverQuest II unveils a new puzzle upon Norrath, and we've got some pieces of it
Once again, we've gotten another package from that strange community Dark Elf, Kiara. This time, however, instead of sending us a set of tablets, we've gotten sheets of paper containing some foreign language! We're told that once the language is successfully deciphered, it should provide clues to a brand new questing opportunity to those who play EverQuest II. If you've been itching for more information on Sentinel's Fate, then look no further than these various scripts to provide you with information -- if you can crack them. We've placed our four sections of writing in the article after the break, so be sure to click on the continue reading button to get a glimpse of the stuff you'll need to understand. We hear you'll need a big forehead to beat this one. *wink wink*
Ogre Battle 64 on Japanese Virtual Console in January
[GameFAQS] Ogre Battle, the greatest Queen-influenced strategy game series of all time, will make another appearance on the Virtual Console in Japan next month, following the 2009 release of Ogre Battle for SNES (which made its way around the world). Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber will be released on Virtual Console some time in January, according to Nintendo's most recent Virtual Console schedule. Siliconera notes that releasing international versions may not be as simple for Ogre Battle 64: developer Quest was an independent studio at the time of the Atlus-published game's creation, but is now owned by Square Enix. If Quest (and therefore Square Enix) has the rights to the IP, then Atlus may not be able to publish the VC release Stateside. Perhaps the two companies can come to an agreement over the right to upload a file to a server. See the rest of the Virtual Console offerings for Japan after the break.
The ups and downs of the Battered Hilt
Yesterday, Bornakk said clearly that the Battered Hilt drop that starts the Quel'delar questline was dropping at the right rate, which is much less than when the patch first hit. And then of course, in last night's fixes, they went ahead and increased the drop rate anyway. He also claimed there were no plans to make it BoP, but who knows what'll happen in the future? For now, however, you can still buy and sell the quest item for quite a bit of gold. We'll have to see where the price eventually ends up -- on the staff here, we've seen anything from 8,000g to over 23,000g, and Twitter tells us that people are paying an average of around 12k or so, going up to as high as 30k (or even shady real money offers in online classified ads). Our own Matt Low has actually seen the drop three different times, and lost every roll. It drops off of any of the mobs in the Heroic versions of the Frozen Halls 5-mans, and as Bornakk says, any class can use it to come up with a pretty solid weapon, so the competition will probably keep the price high, depending on where the drop rate ends up. The silver lining, if you really want one, have terrible luck, and don't ever expect to have all that money, is that the price will probably go down eventually. Bornakk says that as people move up into Icecrown and start picking up weapons that are even better than the sister blade, demand is likely to drop off a bit. But he also says that Blizzard does want this to be a special and relatively rare item, so you'll still have to probably either be lucky or ready to grind it out. Good luck -- I'm out there searching for one with you.
Disguising the grind
Believe it or not, grind is an essential part of an MMO and we might be pretty lost without it. Repetitive content is the cornerstone of the MMO genre but it's not all just smacking monsters over the head for hours on end or completing yet another "kill ten rats" quest. The repetitive elements in an MMO give us predictable gameplay in a form we can digest. We don't feel lost when we pick up a quest because it uses similar mechanics to previous quests we've done. From a development standpoint, the amount of time it takes to create new and unique gameplay for an MMO is quite large and it's just not feasible to churn out unique gameplay with every new piece of content. Instead, developers are forced to re-use the same gameplay mechanics over and over again. So if we genuinely appreciate predictable, repetitive gameplay and it's not feasible to do otherwise, why are we always so up-in-arms about the evils of grinding? In this probative opinion piece, I look at why we need repetitive gameplay in MMOs and the various ways developers disguise grind to keep the game entertaining. Update: Link to page 2 fixed. Thanks Brian!
Disguising the grind, part 2
Other quests may require you to kill a named monster but to get to him you have to go through several passageways full of other monsters. The core idea here is pretty solid -- the quest isn't the mundane task of running from A to B or killing some monsters. The quest has another goal entirely and the mundane tasks of travel and killing monsters are challenges to overcome in accomplishing that goal.
Patch 3.3: Blizzard previews new quest tracking UI
Looks like the newly-renamed Dungeon Finder isn't the only new UI feature we have to look forward to in Patch 3.3 -- Blizzard just released an official preview of its new Quest Tracking feature, and it looks great. It seems to have a number of the features that ZorbaTHut's great QuestHelper addon does, which follows Blizzard's pattern of poaching the best third-party UIs for use in the stock UI. Our UI whiz Gregg Reece covered the feature briefly last week, based on what was active on the PTR. For those who haven't fiddled with it, new additions to the UI include: Enhanced World Map: The large world map is now separated into four active panes. Quests are automatically tracked on the map and listed to its side. The quest log entry for the selected quest is located below the map. Areas of Interest: Shows what area on the map your quest's points of interest can be found, represented with a blue polygon. If mobs populate a large area, the map will indicate it. If you need to find one specific doodad, that'll be on there too. If there are multiple spawn areas for a mob or doodad, the map will automatically locate the one closest to you. Pop-out Map: Players can utilize a smaller zone map outside of the normal full-screen map to track progress and get their bearings. Better Tracking: Tracked quests outside the map will now indicate your progress with a number for items found or mobs killed and will indicate whether you've already completed it. And more! The main thing I notice is missing (so far) is the arrow that indicates where you should head next on the World Map, like QuestHelper or Carbonite, but who knows if that'll even make it in. Blizzard says that the new UI will work with nearly every quest in the game, regardless of type. You can check out the official preview here. %Gallery-77572% Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Patch 3.3 PTR: Quest tracking feature
The new quest tracker was released as part of Thursday's PTR build. This is different than the one that they included last time they made an attempt in this area. Previously, they used various types of icons to tell you what type of quest was in that area. This time, they've gone with a simpler approach. Instead of using different types of icons, you simply get a numbered circle that matches up with the same number in a quest window attached to your map. If the quest objective is scattered across a larger area a little glowing overlay is put up covering that area. It also puts a question mark on the map marking your turn in location. We've put together a smaller gallery showing these features for you all to enjoy. %Gallery-77572% Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Patch 3.3 PTR: Patch notes updated
New patch notes have been release for the patch 3.3 PTR. The changes present in this iteration of the notes will be active when the PTR comes up this evening after the latest patch is applied to your client. While there are a handful of changes to a few classes, there are two major areas which everyone will be talking about for a few days. First, you no longer have to clear Naxxramas to get to Sapphiron's lair. Tha means that raids will now be able to go directly to Sapphiron, and (presumably) subsequently Kel'Thuzad. Secondly, quest objective tracking is now present in this PTR build. This was originally present in the initial patch 3.2 builds, but was taken out by Blizzard after issues crept up with it. We'll have more on this new feature later this evening or tomorrow. The entire list of patch notes changes after the break.
