Biggs' Zone

A Gamer Geek's Cogitations, Conjectures and other Cortical Experiences

Tag: player garrisons

Let My Home Be My Garrison

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On November 5, 2015

In Gaming, World of Warcraft

pax_east_garrison_580Will there be no love lost between players and their garrisons when Legion comes out, or will folks, like me, lament leaving their garrison back on Draenor? Actually, I take that back, I will not be leaving my garrison in the dust, to be forgotten like Sunsong Ranch. The garrison is a gold farm. If all you do is send your out followers just to sell whatever they bring back, and harvest your ore and herbs, only to vendor it, those small amounts will add up quickly.

I kind of wonder if Blizzard expects people to do this since they gave us a separate hearthstone specifically for our garrison. I really don’t think the garrison was a bad idea, I rather enjoyed my private little area carved out of the world. It was the closest thing we had to player housing. Unless BlizzCon proves to me that Class Halls will be a much more interesting experience than my garrison, I can’t see myself spending a lot of time there.

murlocI don’t play on an RPG server nor do I really RPG anymore but I can see how the garrison would even appeal to someone that does take the extra initiative to RPG with their characters. Why go back to a main city or a “class hall” at the end of an adventure when you can return to a garrison with your trophies and monuments on display and an army of followers awaiting their next mission from their General?

I’m curious what the rest of you think. Will you keep returning to your garrison in Legion or do you think Class Halls will give you a new home to hearth to?

The MMO Times … Returns!

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On May 19, 2015

In Gaming, MMO Times, MMORPG

darth-vader-lukeIssue 115: The MMO Times is coming back. The gaming news just seemed to come to an abrupt halt where there just wasn’t anything interesting to share. I didn’t want to try to dig up menial stories that have little to no credibility just to keep providing a new post/email. I’m not interested in filling up your inboxes with junk. Of course then various real life events quickly exacerbated that hiatus; but hopefully we are back in full swing for a while. It has been about 6 weeks as the last MMO Times post was back when we lost our beloved Mr. Spock. Rest In Peace, Leonard Nimoy!

Upon our return it seems the interesting news is predominately Blizzard titles; primarily WoW and Diablo III (including some Warcraft movie news). The rumor mill has churned out a few things, specifically for WildStar. There is also some exciting news for a classic title (though it is not MMO related). Hopefully there is something you didn’t know about in the links below. In the meantime, KCGO.

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WoW: Garrisons [Revisited]

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On January 12, 2015

In Gaming, World of Warcraft

pax_east_garrison_580I am way behind the curve as I haven’t been able to start playing the expansion upon its release. In fact I’ve probably only been at it for a few weeks with only brief moments to play in the evenings. I have finally hit 100 (on my main toon) just prior to Christmas and so far, I have to say, I’m Addicted to My Garrison! I have already brought two other alts up just far enough to unlock their garrison just so I can check out the different profession buildings. I have been researching guides on how to acquire additional followers or unlock other special easter eggs to make my garrison more unique.

I can’t help but think that Blizzard took a few notes from the companion system in SWTOR, which doesn’t really irritate me as the companions in SWTOR is one of my favorite mechanics of SWTOR. I’m still discovering new hidden treasures of garrisons but here are a few of my favorites:

Follower Missions

Sometimes I log in just to complete missions and send my followers back out on new missions. I have followers on one alt who are almost level 100 but my toon is only a level 93. I’m excited to be able to send my followers on Highmaul missions which has the chance to reward Highmaul gear. It is a little disconcerting that my followers are starting to have a higher iLevel then my main toon but the trade off will be that I can acquire gear without the repair bill. I really don’t like the fact that you can only have 20-25 active followers because I like all my followers. How can I be expected to play favorites and “deactivate” someone??!

Another item on my “follower wish list” is to see visible changes in my follower as I upgrade their gear. A follower with a gear score of 600 should not look exactly the same when their gear score has been boosted up to 645.

The Mine and Herb Garden

This particular mechanic is kind of a double edged sword for me. Every garrison will get a Mine and an Herb Garden, regardless of whether your toon has mining and herbalism. So that means all your toons will have access to their own person stash of herbs and ore; no need to worry about those annoying ninja’s that pilfer your node or herb while you are fighting the nearby mob. You do not need the mining or herbalism skill to harvest herbs from the herb garden and ore from the mine, however you will still need those skills to harvest them outside your garrison. Obviously this marginalizes the mining and herbalism skills; especially if you have sufficient cash to be able to purchase the needed materials to level a crafting skill that would require mining or herbalism.

Stables

This building allows you to “tame mounts” and as an avid mount collector you can imagine my excitement. Granted I have not yet constructed this building as my need for raid gear supersedes my desire for more mounts, however I am currently leveling an alt that will have this building (since mounts are account bound). Based on some of my research it looks like you are limited to specific species and a specific number of mounts but I think it might be a good start to getting some cool mounts.

I’ve been sitting on this post for a while because I keep thinking there is more I want to say about garrisons. I really do enjoy this feature of the game. I almost wish they had more to customize, like the homesteads in SWTOR. I also wonder if this swell of excitement will ebb as the expansion moves on and I level more and more alts to unlock their level 3 garrisons. In the meantime I will continue to bask in the glory of my garrison.

minion_keboard_smI could get so much more accomplished if I only had minions!

The MMO Times: Huolon Is Mine!

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On August 26, 2014

In Gaming, MMO Times, MMORPG

huolon_mountIssue 106: Sorry for the boastful title, as I was finishing up this post, I happened to kill Huolon and the mount dropped. I was quite excited.

Player housing seems to be the theme in this issue. I’m curious if any of you have checked out the strongholds in SWTOR. This issue does seem to contain more headlines about WoW again, I guess because there isn’t much else going on right now. After a summer of silence coming from Blizzard, since the announcement of the expansion release date, there seems to be more to talk about.

As summer wanes and the kiddies return to school (which means trade chat will be mildly more intelligent during the day), we get ready for the fall content releases, expansions and new titles. As I said, lots of WoW stuff, but there is also a couple of interesting articles too (including Blizzard’s response to the Robin Williams NPC). Actually you might be surprised that there are just as many interesting things to read as there are game announcements so I hope you enjoy the slight change in content. Enjoy!!

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WoW: Thoughts On Garrisons

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On August 7, 2014

In Gaming, World of Warcraft

pax_east_garrison_580In my last MMO Times post I provided a link to an article that described the Garrisons feature of Warlords of Draenor to be “disappointing” (thus far). Assuming that Blizzard isn’t hindering folks from sharing their thoughts of the beta testing, and I’m currently in the beta, then I think its warranted for me to share my thoughts on Garrisons (as I have unlocked my garrison in the beta).

Blizzard did promise us the proverbial, yet elusive pony again with Garrisons. Originally they told players that your garrison can be placed in any zone of your choosing, however, thus far in the beta, that is not the case. Instead the garrison has been integrated into the main story line; granted I haven’t quested much beyond the first zone so I don’t know if your garrison can move or if, in the end, you can choose any place you want. You never know, that could be the case and Blizzard is using the main story line to familiarize the player with their garrison.

I have to admit, I am starting to like the garrisons more and more. The fact that you can recruit NPCs (some of which are familiar names) to be a follower and then send them on missions is very similar to the way you can utilize your companions in SWTOR. The biggest difference being that you cannot ask them to accompany you and fight at your side. You get a “garrison hearthstone” which is different then the normal hearthstone and does not have a cooldown (nor does it trigger the cooldown of the normal one). Granted this might be just a beta-only mechanic, I have no idea if that will change when the game goes live. This is especially handy when you need to return to your garrison immediately either to turn in a quest for more resources or to complete the quest your follower just returned from.

Also, during the time in which I was writing this post, a WoW Insider post had shown up with some additional details about garrisons. You may get the option to choose the style of your buildings as well as your guards depending on which of the vanilla reputations with whom you are exalted. I think this is really cool, though I don’t know if I trust my garrison to be properly protected by a bunch of gnomes in mechanical ostriches – my assailants may have too much fun punting my guards (j/k gnomes!!). Be that as it may, this is a great idea to finally utilize those vanilla reputations other than acquiring their mounts.

I think there is still a lot of potential for garrisons and I’m a little excited to see where they take them. I’m sure there will be many out there who will whine that garrisons are not more then they are but you can’t expect Blizzard to get it exactly the way you want it if you don’t lend them your mad programming skills!

/cheers

MMO Times: Post-Blizzcon

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On November 12, 2013

In Gaming, MMO Times, MMORPG

mmotimesheaderIIIssue 92: Sorry for the lengthy delay; between work, the website becoming compromised and various other IRL stuff I haven’t been able to post a recent MMO Times. The hidden benefit though is that now that Blizzcon is over you know there should be plenty to talk about *cough*garrisons*cough*. MMO-Champion is probably going to get a lot of love in this issue because they seem to have the best overview of all that came out of Blizzcon this year. Therefore, if you are curious about what is new with World of Warcraft then I would recommend reading the headlines/posts in this issue from MMO-Champion.

I didn’t just find articles about what Blizzard announced and revealed at Blizzcon so don’t go anywhere. There are plenty of other things happening to read about. In fact if you stick around you will see that a new event will be starting for Final Fantasy XIV players as well as the next iteration for Marvel Heroes (which provides some godly, and demi-godly, additions). Plus Trion teases players with some recent domain registration activity. Read on and game on, friends.

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