Biggs' Zone

A Geek's Cogitations, Conjectures and other Cortical Experiences

The MMO Times: Merry Christmas!

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On December 24, 2011

In Gaming, MMO Times, MMORPG

Hello again, gamers! I hope you all can tear yourselves away from SWTOR to check out the following articles that I found interesting over the past week. This will be the last one I do before Christmas so Merry Christmas all! Enjoy!

Guild Wars 2 Enters Closed Beta

December 16th, 2011 – Guild Wars 2 will be entering closed beta. NCSoft will be running an internal selection process to determine who will be in the beta. There won’t be any public application process. I’m sure, regardless, fans are excited. Check out more at the Massively article
Massively article

Aion Going F2P in Europe

I was excited when I first read about Aion going Free-2-Play because I thought it would be for all servers. Apparently, at the time that I am writing this, it is only going F2P on the European servers. This is scheduled to happen in February, so there is still time for NCSoft to change their mind about the NA servers.
Massively article

Farewell SWG

Well, the first ever Star Wars MMO is officially shutdown. December 15th was the last day for Star Wars Galaxies. I never played it, I thought about it, but I didn’t know anyone that was playing so I didn’t partake. Despite the fact that I never played it, a part of me is still sad to see it go. Jef Reahard, of Massively, gave SWG a very well written farewell.
Massively article

Previewing MechWarrior Online

Massively has a pretty decent article that covers some of the “nuts and bolts” of the upcoming MechWarrior Online MMO. There are several images of some concept art in the post. I never played MechWarrior, but I knew of it. Some are claiming that this is their most anticipated game of 2012 (which means it has a release date of sometime next year). Check out the article and tell me what you think.
Massively article

Marvel Universe MMO Renamed

Gazillion’s newest project, Marvel Universe, has been given a new name. It makes sense, they want to differentiate their game from the DC version. It is now called “Marvel Heroes”. I found the post on an MMO News site. There still isn’t a lot of details provided about the game. Check it out if you are interested.
MMONews post

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Tis the Season

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On December 21, 2011

In General Cogitation

I am not a politically correct person, so I am not going to wish you Happy Holidays.

I most certainly will not use the ridiculous phrase “Season’s Greetings!”

I don’t have time to figure out if you celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, or Winter Veil!

I’m going to use the phrase that, to me, best expresses the joy of the season.

I’m not trying to force religion, or my religion on you by using it.

So if what I am about to say offends you, all I can say is … Buck Up, Sally!!!

Biggs On: SOPA

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On December 21, 2011

In Biggs On, General Cogitation

SOPA, for anyone that isn’t familiar with it, is a bill soon to be voted on by Congress. It stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. I’m not an advocate for or against online piracy but I thought I would weigh in on this SOPA bill.

Online piracy is a Pandora’s box, no matter what the MPAA or RIAA try to do, they can’t stop it. The more they try to establish litigation and laws to prevent piracy, the harder it will be to stop. I have to side with those that are saying the SOPA law is flawed. Today I got a chuckle from all of the people out there posting ways you can get around what SOPA would attempt to suppress. I love that people are already developing browser addons that would automate those processes. In fact one of the guys developing an addon is from MIT. What makes these lawmakers think they can outsmart someone from MIT? Its kinda ludicrous when you think about it.

In my opinion there are two things that the MPAA and RIAA can do to fight this piracy thing. First, stop trying to prevent piracy with silly bills like SOPA, that just pisses off the pirates and increases their motivation. Instead I would find ways to track them down to prosecute them. I’m sorry but copyright infringement and piracy is still a crime so I’m going to side with other guys there.

Second, and this is the big one, Lower Your Prices!!! RIAA is already trying to play this game a little bit. One dollar for a song, or ten dollars for an album, from iTunes is a pretty good deal in my opinion. However, nine bucks a person to see a movie, that is ridiculous!! It’s bad enough that the quality of the movies these days is in the tank and the 3D gimmick isn’t improving the quality. In my opinion, anyone that is downloading a movie is missing out on the video and sound quality you could get if you watched it on blu-ray. I scoff at anyone that claims the movie they download is actually “HD quality” or comparable to watching the actual blu-ray.

So I agree, SOPA is a waste of time and taxpayer money. It won’t work; no matter what lame brain plan they come up with, there are hundreds of smarter people that already know a way around it, and they are ready to share their idea with everyone on the Internet.

Oh, and one final note, SOPA will NOT kill, maim, break or disembowel the Internet; that’s just a little too mellow dramatic folks.

Cheers!

SWTOR: May The Queues Be With You

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On December 18, 2011

In Gaming, MMORPG, SWTOR

Tuesday is going to be an interesting day for Bioware. Early access has been running for nearly a week now and the queues started forming Thursday night. As I’m writing this post I am 141 in queue, I started at 401 about 15 minutes ago.

I hope Bioware is using the staggering of the early access to accumulate statistics on peak time and estimated volume so they can, hopefully, be better prepared for Tuesday’s launch. I have noticed, though, that despite the queues to get in, once I am in the game I notice very little lag. I remember when Aion started, I could be in queue for 20-30 minutes and once I got it, my character would “rubber-band” all the time. (If you don’t know what I mean by rubber-band, that is when, while running, you think you have gone X distance and suddenly you snap backwards quite a ways).

They might do population control in the form of limiting which servers new users can create characters on. While this will help some of the queues, they still will likely face the issue of players who hadn’t pre-ordered, wanting to play on a friends server who had.

To be honest, I hope people will be patient and understanding. I know that is asking a lot of the gaming community, but when you have a major title going live, you have to allow for software company to work out the kinks and standard growing pains. They will stabilize the queues and it may take a week or so. I just urge everyone to be patient and let Bioware work the problem. Of course I know there will be those disgruntled, impatient “nubs” that demand perfection on the first day.

Ah, my queue has finished. Time to log in!

Cheers!

The MMO Times: The Force Has Arrived!

By

On December 12, 2011

In Gaming, MMO Times, MMORPG

Issue 23

Welcome back gamers to another MMO Times. We have some exciting stuff in this issue so I hope you enjoy what I have provided for you! I thinking about renaming the MMO Times to The MMO Pulse; not sure if I like the sound of it yet.

Diablo III Cinematic

So many people are excited about Diablo III. I haven’t even played the first two and I am excited so I can’t imagine what the people who are fans are feeling right now. Blizzard released the official opening cinematic for Diablo III so enjoy (because it looks frakking awesome!)
Massively article
Diablo Fans website

Updated MoP Talents

Blizzard recently updated the talent trees for the Mists of Pandaria talent system. The new system is receiving a lot of criticism from the player base. It seems many are upset that they are taking away the granular talent trees to the more versatile version Blizzard introduced. I’d be interested in some of your thoughts so please feel free to leave a comment on the post with your thoughts. The link I provided is to the actual talent calculator.
MoP Talent Calculator

SWTOR Tips & Tricks

This is another shameless plug. I wrote a post with some tips for getting started in SWTOR. These are some of the things that are often asked by people in the global channels and things I often forgot to do myself when I had to start toons over. I hope anyone playing SWTOR finds them useful.
Biggs Zone post

EverQuest II Goes F2P

Yes, you read that right. SOE announced Monday, 12/12/11, that EverQuest II is now Free-2-Play. You can now download, install and play EverQuest II without being charged, however you will be limited on what you can do. Things like races, bags, spell tiers, character slots are restricted for those playing for free. I found the article on The Daily BLAM.
The Daily BLAM article

SWTOR Launch Guide

I would still highly recommend checking out my post on starter tips for SWTOR, but Massively has assembled a launch guide for SWTOR. I haven’t gone through the entire post but just looking at it briefly it seems pretty comprehensive. Check it out and tell me your thoughts.
Massively SWTOR Launch Guide

Top 5 Biggest MMO Flops

Piki Geek has a list of, what they consider to be, the top 5 biggest MMO Flops. I only recognized like two of these titles, and I was a little surprised to see that Lego Universe didn’t make the list. Check out the list and see if any of them is something you tried out.
Piki Geek post

I also provide The MMO Times in an e-mail. If you are interested in receiving the e-mail version please subscribe.

SWTOR: Tips to Get You Started

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On December 11, 2011

In Gaming, SWTOR

As I alluded to in a previous post, I decided to put together a list of tips and tricks for SWTOR. Some of these tips you will want to use after you have experienced more of the content. Also, be aware that some of these may not actually work when the game goes live.

  • Spacebar Helps the Long Winded – I highly recommend that you don’t skip any of the conversations when you are picking up quests for the first time. The stories in the game are very rich and listening to the NPC conversations helps bring the game to life. However, if you start to level another toon and you want to get through the dialog of the common quests, use the space bar to speed up the conversation.
  • Companions Add Value – Before you pick up your crew skills, make sure that you read about your companion. All companions have a bonus to some crew skill and it might help you decide which one to pick if you are torn between two. Remember, you can only have one crafting skill.
  • Class Story Is Paramount – Every class will receive companions at different times as well as their space ship. Completing the quests associated with your class story is the key to unlocking companions and ships. So you want to focus on the completing those quests the most.
  • Fulfill You Destiny – I’m sure you know that level 10 is when you can pick up your Advanced Class. Make this choice carefully, you cannot change it. You will not be able to pick up the quest until you get to Kaas City or Coruscant and an NPC along the way to your trainer should have the quest for your AC.
  • Always The Last Place You Look – Just like any other MMORPG there are some quests where the NPC gives you an item you need to use in order to complete the quest. You may often find yourself searching your bags trying to find the item you were given. Your inventory has a separate tab for quest specific items.
  • Sexy And They Know It – You can change the gear of your companion too. Make sure you take note of what kind of armor they wear so when something drops you don’t pass on an item that your companion could have used. Also, keep in mind that proper etiquette might dictate that rolling Need on an item for a companion is probably uncouth especially if someone needed the item for their character.

I think that’s enough to get you all started. If anyone has some additional tips they would like to add please feel free to post a comment with your tip. Good luck to everyone that will be playing Star Wars: The Old Republic and May The Force Be With You!

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