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Wasteland Diaries: Serendipity tour
There are three new serendipity drops in Fallen Earth, one per sector. While few have been found, even fewer have been reported. The old serendipity mobs usually spawn in the same general vicinity, making them easier to harvest. That almost takes the luck factor right out of the equation. But the new mobs can spawn in different locations, possibly even at random. This adds a bit more chance to these encounters and makes them a bit more, well... serendipitous. The old serendipity mobs in Fallen Earth have been around for quite a while now, and it's entirely possible that some of them remain to be found. Many that aren't publicly acknowledged could still be closely guarded secrets only known to certain clans or persons. But I have gathered a good deal of information on the mobs and their locations, and I would like to give you a tour of the serendipity encounters that I was able to dig up. After the cut, we will start in the southern edge of Sector 1 and work our way to Deadfall. Follow along!
Breakfast Topic: Moments of pleasant surprise
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Everyone who plays WoW has horror stories. Awful PUGs, bad groups, guild drama, the time you got that item ninjaed. We often pull out these horror stories in games of one-upmanship about who has had the worst experience with friends and guildies. Or when recruiting a new member to your guild, the bad memories often outweigh the good when it comes to certain players. However, if WoW were merely a collection of awful experiences and drama, there would not be millions of people paying 15 bucks a month to keep playing it. This is about those moments in which you were pleasantly surprised. I have had several throughout the six years of WoW, varying from random, in-game good luck to things that resonate in real life. One of the most pleasant surprises for me was meeting an-in game friend during a dungeon, eventually joining his guild and becoming a main tank for that guild -- the guild I still raid with to this day. I also got Undying on an 8-man Naxx run the day I turned 80 on my paladin tank alt. Friends of mine met through WoW and are now married. One of my relatives went to BlizzCon only to find a coworker also there; neither of them had known the other played, and they found out they are on the same server. Even recently, a doctor of mine saw a WoW shirt I was wearing and asked what server and faction I was, then made a joke about not knowing if he could heal me since I play Alliance. So what are your moments in which you were pleasantly surprised? What moments have made your day or left you feeling relieved and happy? Have you had the simple, in-game moments of joy that bring a smile to your face, or have you had in-game moments that affected your real life as well?
Wasteland Diaries: A year? Already?
Has it been a year already? I guess it has been. Fallen Earth launched on September 22nd, the same day as Aion. But by launch day I was already working my way to Sector 3. I pre-ordered and got to start playing on the 9th. My performance at work suffered that first week as I tried to keep up with the power-levelers. Ultimately, I couldn't. But on launch day I was nearly level 30 and still, to this day, I couldn't tell you why I was rushing. I made it to the level cap of 45 a couple of weeks after the official launch. My next three trips through the wastes would be more slow-paced and lackadaisical. While Fallen Earth is still the same game, it has changed drastically since launch day. Drastic change can be good or bad, but in FE's case, it's all good. The game has gotten nothing but better. Sure, the developers have added some mediocre content, but overall the game has been improving by leaps and bounds. And there seems to be no end in sight for these improvements. Let's take a look back at Fallen Earth's transformation from buggy, beta-like MMO to a first-rate gaming experience. After the cut, I'll break it down by patches.
Wasteland Diaries: Passing the time
With what looks to be a brand-new combat system on the way, there is a lot of anticipation for the next few incarnations of Fallen Earth. Well, I'm anticipating them, anyway. Dave "Archangel" Haydysch himself says the team will be "gutting" the combat system, for one. There are bound to be some major changes to Fallen Earth in the coming months. These changes include, but are not limited to, the combat system, factions, and PvP objectives. Not to mention that Icarus has verified that we will be getting PvE group instances to romp around in. There's a lot of goodness on the way, but it's still several weeks or a couple of months off in the future. We will know more with the September state of the game announcement. In the meantime, many of us are at the level cap (I have three level 50 characters myself), and many of us are running out of things to do. Even with PvP-flagging, which allows PvP anywhere, there is very little endgame PvP. Most of the action seems to be in sector 2. I blame the combat system for that, but that's another story. With Deadfall looking like a ghost-town, sometimes the apocalypse can be a lonely place, at least for those of us who have hit the level 50 brick wall a couple times. After the cut, I'll throw you some ideas to pass the time until the next content update.
Wasteland Diaries: Patch 1.5
It's patch time again, and the developers of Fallen Earth have given us more great, free content. Most importantly, we have been given a fast-travel system. Also, the craftable items have been expanded, and the new equipment will rival, in fact, surpass the Death Toll and Faction gear. There are a few new ways to get faction reputation more quickly that don't involve a PvP zone. There are new, rare drops available through the "serendipity" system just waiting to be collected. There is a new weather system that includes rain, thunder and lightning, and even puddles on the ground. There is a new Blood Sport type called assault, which has several objectives rather than a single one as in Capture the Flag. Get more details on all of this neat, new stuff after the cut.
Fallen Earth patch 1.5 drops tomorrow
If you enjoy the post-apocalyptic environment that Fallen Earth offers, you can't help but look forward to each new patch as it comes along. Patch 1.5 promises to bring fast travel systems for higher-level characters, a new Blood Sports combat type, and the new "serendipity" system to generate more varied and interesting equipment drops for players. They're all enticing additions, and as a result it should be welcome news that the patch is slated to go live tomorrow. Naturally, this comes with a bit of extra downtime for the servers -- in this case, between 6 AM to 11 AM EST. There's also a warning that any clones in the Deadfall region tomorrow might want to keep their eyes open for Outsider activity or other suspicious goings-on. Take a look at the full patch notes if you're logged in to the Fallen Earth forums, and get ready for tomorrow's patch and all the associated festivities.
Fallen Earth pushes fast travel, Serendipity to PTS
Fallen Earth's public test server (PTS) has some new content for intrepid wasteland bug-hunters. The updates take the form of fast travel, Blood Sports Assault, and a new system called Serendipity. Serendipity is designed to add a bit more variety to the game's PvE and loot tables. It will be "introducing rare spawns throughout the world. Upon their demise you will have the chance to receive new gear never seen in the game before, so be on the lookout -- you don't know what you will find," says producer Dave Haydysch. The fast travel is pretty self-explanatory, while Assault is a new Blood Sport PvP game type that features two teams of up to eight players as well as attack and defense objectives. Check out the full press release over at the official website.
Forecast for Fallen Earth calls for fast travel, rare spawns and harsh weather
It may be the end of the world, but that's no excuse to stop striving for perfection in a Fallen Earth. Using the recent, successful Blood Sports patch as a springboard, Icarus have their eyes fixed on the horizon as they share up-and-coming content in a new State of the Game address. Dev "Archangel" highlights the three big improvements headed to Fallen Earth in the near future: rare spawns, a limited travel system, and weather. Once in place, the Serendipity system will spawn rare mobs with unique loot for the fortunate traveler who travels off the beaten path. The fast travel system, a much-demanded feature, will become available to players level 20 and higher after completing a quest chain. You can hop between major towns using bus stops at specific locations. Finally, atmospheric lighting and the addition of weather to the game -- in the form of rain, thunder, and lightning -- may not be banner features, but they've always been warmly welcomed in other MMOs, and there's no reason to think that'll be different in Fallen Earth. There's a lot more to this State of the Game, including crafting improvements and the formation of T.E.M.P.S. (we won't spoil the surprise), so head on over to the site for the full report -- but not before you hit the jump for an awesome new Fallen Earth trailer from IGN.
Patch 3.1 PTR build 9658 Priest changes
As I'm sure many of you have heard already, another build has hit the PTR this afternoon. Information on what's contained within is still slowly filtering in, but many of the class changes are already known thanks to Boubouille. Most of the Priest changes are just number tweaks, but there's some good stuff in there for potential Holy Priest PvP viability. Yes, Holy PvP! Let's dig into what we've got.Shadow Shadowform now gives the the periodic damage from your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch spells the ability to critically hit for 100% increased damage.
A look at the stated Priest changes for patch 3.1
By now you've seen that Eyonix has started announcing some class changes for the upcoming patch 3.1. Priests were actually the first class up to bat this time around, and there are a handful of really cool changes in there. Some of them way cooler than they really need to be, so we'll see how things work out. Let's take a look, eh? Divine Spirit - this spell is now a core ability available to all Priests. Adding Divine Spirit to every Priest's repertoire is, by itself, a pretty fantastic change. Now that Spirit is used by more classes than just the Priests themselves, Divine Spirit has awesome group utility. I suspect Improved Divine Spirit will remain a talent, but even without the improved version of the spell, it's a great little boost. I love this change so much that I'm actively looking for problems with it, so I can curb my enthusiasm. Hmm. Oh, I know! This will make me spend more money on reagents. Ugh, clearly this is just another money sink. How dare they! Slap in the face!Nah, it's pretty cool.
Spiritual Guidance: Holy talents - Did we get the shaft in Wrath?
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is now Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. Matt scored a beta key and busied himself speccing and respeccing his Priest multiple times. This week, he takes time off to answer an important question about the Holy tree: Is it worth getting excited over? Generally, the new Holy Priests' talents in WotLK beta seem pretty underwhelming. Compare the flashy things some classes are getting, and take a look at Holy Priests... did we really need a THIRD talent to increase healing of some spells by 10%? Especially since the second one (Empowered Healing) was nerfed to always be weaker then the first one (Spiritual Healing). Yet another +healing talent for a different set of spells just smells like "we needed a talent to fill this spot and had absolutely no ideas." The way it looks right now, I expect that I'll be healing pretty much exactly the same way at 80 as I am right now - except without down ranking. So, how about it, WI? Has anything really changed for Holy Priest healing? The short answer would be no.
Priests in Wrath: Analysis of Alpha talents
I would like to take a moment to talk about the leaked Priest spells and talents from the Wrath friends and family alpha. We have decided not to keep this information on the site for legal reasons, but there are many other places on the internet to find it, such as this wiki (which, by the way, seems to have been semi-locked to prevent recurrences of Tuesday night's rampant vandalization). Note that these are alpha leaks (for those not conversant with software testing, alpha comes before beta, and beta comes before release), and most of these talents and spells will change before Wrath goes live. Some of them will probably not be recognizably the same, or even there at all. Nevertheless, it's certainly something to talk about in a game that, in my opinion, has had far too little change over the past couple of years.
Is the Givori Serendipity the world's ugliest cellphone?
We've never really understood the luxury cellphone market, but color us flat-out confused (and nauseated) by Givori's latest ultra-high-end handset, the Serendipity. We're not certain what upgrades you get over a standard Nokia N76 for the $3,077 asking price, but let us just suggest that you save the money and hand your existing phone off to a kid with a Bedazzler. No one will know the difference.[Via Luxurylaunches]
