Biggs' Zone

A Geek's Cogitations, Conjectures and other Cortical Experiences

Category: Gaming Page 18 of 44

Thoughts and ponderings about PC and consoling gaming.

Save Joystiq and Massively!!!

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On January 30, 2015

In Fulmination, Gaming, General Cogitation

overworked-290x290I am beyond upset with the folks at AOL (who, ironically, haven’t been relevant since the 90s). I just read devastating news on Massively.com that AOL (or some VP at AOL that performed a “Ghostcrawler nerf” to Joystiq’s budget) will be shutting down Joystiq and all its affiliate sites. This includes Massively and potentially WoW Insider (though I have not heard anything officially posted by the WoW Insider staff).

Massively and Joystiq have been my primary go-to sites for gaming news and they are my primary sources for my MMO Times posts. The gaming industry is booming and will only grow bigger as gamers have children gamers (like me). This is a mistake that will have rippling affects, but I guess AOL is use to making ignorant mistakes.

A petition has been started and you should head over there and sign it immediately. There is also hashtags for twitter that you should start using immedately: #SaveJoystiq, #SaveMassively.

Hopefully there is some organization out there that still supports gamers and the gaming industry that might be willing to pick up these sites and not only give us our community back but give the great writers at Joystiq/Massively/etc their jobs back!

Update: Unfortunately WoW Insider is also going away. It is a solemn and lonely moment; however Adam Holisky (writer for WoW Insider) just tweeted this (there is hope):

/endsoapbox

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

MMO Times: Stood in the Fire

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On January 29, 2015

In Gaming, MMO Times, MMORPG

Stood In The FireIssue 112: Greetings and welcome to 2015 … oh wait, I’m nearly a month late! It looks like I stood in the fire too long and thus had an epic fail with posting some MMO news! This is what I get for not having good raid awareness. I have learned my lesson. In all actuality, between various family engagements, holidays and fending off every flu and cold virus known to man, I didn’t have the time or the energy to write up my usual posts. I apologize for the lapse in MMO tidings. Hopefully the following list of headlines will make up for it.

PAX South took place recently so there are a few surprises that came out of San Antonio, including some expansion announcements and subscription changes. Blizzard is already working on some new content for the current expansion (I say already but I’ve been so far behind lately I guess it is about time for more content). There is also a limited time, free music download you want to check out as soon as you read this!

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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: Keep Calm and Game On

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On October 30, 2014

In Gaming, MMO Times, MMORPG

Happy Halloween!!Issue 111: In the previous issue, if you were paying close attention, you may have noticed the letters “KCGO”. If you paid even closer attention you noticed the footnote that explained what those letters mean – Keep Calm and Game On. It’s a new tag I am trying out for my gaming posts, because if gaming is done right, its calming and everything is about “Keeping Calm” these days.It’s Halloween this week, so if you happen to have little gamers-in-the-making (aka kids) you are probably going out to trick-or-treat which has its own loot rewards. If you don’t have kids, and you’re not out participating in some wild Monster Mash, then you’re probably gaming (because … why not). In any event, I hope all of you have a safe and enjoyable Halloween, and perhaps the following news tidbits will enhance said enjoyment.

World of Speed (a racing game currently in beta) has given us all a glimpse at a car none of us will ever own, but it might make you drool. There is also expansion news for TERA, a milestone for Marvel Heroes and some more Warlords of Draenor expansion tidbits to satiate your WoD yearnings. I’ve also found a couple of non-PC related (and even something non-MMO) posts but they are, nonetheless, just as interesting. KCGO!

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The MMO Times: Five Hundred and Nine!

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On October 23, 2014

In Gaming, MMO Times, MMORPG

orc_yellIssue 110: Oh, wait, no, we’re just at one hundred and ten. I guess I have to move to Denver and nearly break my neck to get to 509. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, unless you are an NFL fan (the real thing, not the EA Sports kind) don’t worry about it. A completely random numerical title with a cultural reference just seemed like a fun thing to do. In any event, Warlords of Draenor pre-expansion patch is officially live. We all are having to learn how to play our characters again and we have to get used to the stat squish. Of course if you’re not playing WoW then all of that information is completely moot, but keep reading because I’m going stop referencing WoW now 🙂

There might be a Hearthstone clone in the works, STO and RIFT have some expansions that have gone live, a big BlizzCon announcement are just a few of the headlines that might catch your attention today. I found an article from September that talked about what Titan might have been so some of you might find that to be an interesting article to read. KCGO** 

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WoW: Fare-thee-well Pandaria

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On October 13, 2014

In Gaming, World of Warcraft

gate-of-the-setting-sunThis week the 6.0.2 patch is released, which contains pretty much all the expansion changes except the new zones. We will essentially be bidding farewell to Pandaria as everyone prepares for Warlords of Draenor by grinding the three new instances (and acclimating to the item squish and class changes). So as we bid adieu to Pandaria I want to reflect on my likes and dislikes of this expansion.

First, Mists of Pandaria was not my favorite expansion. Wrath of the Lich King is still the forerunner but a huge margin and I’d probably say that I liked Cataclysm more than Mists of Pandaria so it probably falls in about third place among the expansions. MoP had some highs and lows.

The Highs

– I loved the Asian theme. I think Blizzard’s art department did an amazing job integrating the storyline and new Pandarian race with a Chinese motif. Speaking of the Pandarian race, I really did enjoy them more than I thought I would in fact if Pandaren could be Paladin’s, I probably would have race changed my main.

– I did like the introduction of Flex raiding. We would struggle a lot to gather enough people for a full raid team, Flex helped us kill some raid content without having to constantly put enough butts-in-seats.

– I seriously loved Sunsong Ranch. I completely unlocked all 16 plots on all my max level toons. I was fairly diligent in planting things daily on all my toons as well. I think my enjoyment of the farm will transfer to my garrison.

The Lows

– I was never a fan of the name of the expansion (for starters) and I’m still not the biggest fan of it. It never seem to fit in with the inauspicious titles of all the previous expansions. It was definitely too … fluffy!

– This expansion was way too long. Blizzard released content too quickly and left all of us twiddling our thumbs for about 8 months.

– I couldn’t really get into the story. Blizzard definitely succeeded by making all of us despise Garrosh but his ultimate plan seemed anti-climatic.

– In the end, I did not like how everything became a grind-fest. 20 of these bobbins for the legendary,  then 10 more of these others, etc. The Timeless Isle became the epitome of the old school rep-grind.

Despite the fact that I have more bullets that describe things I didn’t like, the points that I did like count as double. It was enough to keep me coming back most days to keep playing some of the content. I imagine its difficult for Blizzard to find that happy medium between releasing content too quickly and avoiding long content gaps.

During WotLK it was difficult keeping 25 people happy in a raid, I cannot even begin to imagine what its like to keep 7 million happy. Everyone plays at their own pace, how do you appease those that finish content much faster than the others. One thing is for sure, I’m glad that’s a conundrum that I don’t have to figure out.

/cheers

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