Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Weekly Character Update

    Airholen
              Not done much with him. Completed running all the LFR wings. Farming has been consistently running. Got all of the Tier gear that I need. Herbs have been dumped into guild bank for Asmodea's use.

    Asmodea
              Still level 86. Have been making Living Metal on only a couple days so far. Made a slew of Potions and Flasks and put them up on the Auction house. No takers so far. Hopefully they will sell to make me some money.

    Zombee, Sisteric and Danic
               All three have completed the Crystalline Catastrophe event and got the 50K Dilithium and such. After that I have mainly been just rotating the DOFF missions. Except for Danic, who is still trying to complete all of the Storyline quests. Finished the Dominion and Borg questlines and now working on the Breen questline. After that is the Undine questline then it will be taking Zombee off to grind Romulan Rep.

Tune in next time for the next blog. The story blog will return, just encountered technical difficulties this week.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

The Week in STO

      So more Dev Blog's and Interviews have been released. Also the closed Beta has been fired up to.

      The Beta was limited and by invite only to experience the beginning Romulan faction missions. I did not get an invite. But the feed back on the forums for this has been positive. So positive that people are actually upset that there isn't more content. People are upset when they reach the progress wall. This bodes very well for the missions and writing inside those missions. If the story is this compelling and well written, it means that they can proceed with revamping many other stories to make them better. We also will possibly get to see new stories with more compelling story that pushes the story line further along. And don't forget that as long as the Romulans do well, then more factions will get added. Which opens for more good writing to occur.

        News about the Romulan ships have been released. What ships come out at what Tiers. What kind of abilities they have and how the cloaking technology works. All well and good info, but not anything that is of groundbreaking note. All Rom ships will have cloaking capabilities. All Rom ships have Singularity cores with powers that can be activated.

        The Interviews have involved different employees of Cryptic giving usually vague answers to pointed questions. Though the one dealing with Al Rivera by PodcastUGC was different. That interview is very long and covers many subjects, and Al answered the pointed questions with nearly as pointed answers. Good or bad the answer may be, I appreciated the directness of the answer the most. I think that Al should do more of these kinds of interviews because he is a much more of an answer man than the others have been.

         So that's what I have for now. Tune in next time to find out what I have to say next.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

The Week in WOW

    So here we go to the WOW news and updates.

                 Experience gets a 33% reduction to get to the next level. So getting to the next level will come faster. Alts will be more of a reality for me now. And Asmodea will start to get up there now.
                 Lesser Charms will be trade 50 for 3 Mogu Charms. This will make getting LFR loot easier for me. That and the bad streak protection they are putting in will possibly gear my Alts in a more reasonable time frame for me. At least I hope so.
                 Loot Specialization will be coming in 5.3. SO now, as you get do things you can preset if you want your gear rewards to be based on main spec or off spec. Your choice. Will make off spec gearing easier for sure, for those class that actually have a difference between their specs as far as gear and stats requirements.
               
                 Hunters are getting a few new things. I have already mentioned about more stable slots. Good for those Hunters that like to collect. And for allowing for room to get the new pets in the new expansion. But Aspect of the Hawk got a buff. The attack power got pushed from 15 to 25%. Since all Hunters should be sitting in Hawk Aspect, this will up our DPS to some degree. Revive Pet also gets a buff of lowering the cast time by 2 seconds, going from 6 to 4 secs.
                 Talents get some adjustments too. Iron Hawk gets the to 10% buff to attack power too. Binding Shot gets pulled from talents and given to Marksmen at level 30. Blink Strike gets an s added to it's name, 50% increase damage, used from 30 yards away, and cause the pet to teleport behind the target. Intimidation is pulled from Beast Masters and replaces Binding Shot in the talent shot.This sucks for BM hunters because they have to give up their intimidate  for Silencing Shot. This is a loss of utility for BM's that I think that more BM's will find it more of an issue than they may think now.
                  Beast Cleave increases to 75% damage, up from 50%. This will give us more AOE damage, which is sorely needed with BM's. Marksmen will get a buff for Bombardment that will do more damage with Multi-shot, from 30% to 60% in fact.
                 
                 Rogues get Shuriken toss nerfed hard. No more double damage over 10 yards and doubled the energy cost to use it. Two Glyph's get nerfed too. Cheap Shot Glyph looses a half second from it's duration buff, and Garrote Glyph looses a half second on it's duration buff. Rogues are getting punched down again and really doesn't make sense to me. They don't put up the DPS numbers that Mages or Warlocks do, yet they get nothing but nerfs and they get buffs to their abilities. They outperform Rogues, yet they feel that Rogues need to do less and Mages more. I really have a hard time understanding why.

                 Tune in tomorrow to find out the new changes that have been presented for STO.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Weekly Character Update

     Airholen
            Airholen has downed all of the bosses in Throne of Thunder. The loot gained has gotten me to all four of my Tier 15 peices that I need for optimization. I have gemmed, enchanted and reforged everything to what Mr. Robot has said I should do. I also have been collecting herbs for Asmodea.

     Zombee and Sisteric
          Both of these guys have downed the crystaline entity enough times to collect 11 crystal shards. They have also been cycling DOFF mssions.

     Danic
           He has collected 11 crystal shards. He has also cycled all of the DOFF's. I also completed the Cardassian missions and now started on the Borg cycle of missions. Have not started them as yet.

     Aloris and Xandyn
          These two were played in the past, so the stories are currently just trying to catch up at the moment. Once caught up, I will started updatin them here.

     Tune in tomorrow to find out what I think about the WOW news.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

TOTE: Xandyn's Lesson

              “Hey boss, wake up!” yells Bizrot while jumping on Xandyn’s head. “You’re gonna be late!”
                Xandyn stretches his arms and yawns. He had fallen asleep at his desk while trying to prepare what he learned for the Magestrix. Suddenly he sits straight up. He gathers himself up, puts his clothes on, including the new sash, and takes off running to kitchen to get some breakfast. Stuffing his mouth as fast as he can, he takes off running to the Magestrix. When he knows he is close, he stops calms himself and then walks the rest of the way.
                “I am here, Magestrix Erona.” He looks at here noting the stern look and tapping foot.
                “I see. So what did you learn?” She obviously looks annoyed.
                “I learned that magic is no good when your target is near, that my staff is better for that. And Bizrot would never take a strike for me, if he has a choice.”
                “Dam right!, heheheheh”, laughed Bizrot. Xandyn gave him a swift kick. “Hey!” BIzrot dodge the kick.
                “Your effort, yesterday, has made something clear that, honestly, I wish were not true. The unchecked power of the Burning Crystals has maligned a much larger swath of the Isle’s natural balance that I thought. We must now take on more unfortunate measures to reclaim control.”
                The nearby lynxes have succumbed to the influence of the crystals, and they must be put down. Bring their collars, Xandyn, as I may yet be able to fashion a magical restraint to turn some back from being uncontrolled.”
                “As for your lessons, you need to look outside of your self for the lessons to be learned. The big picture will bring you greater understanding and wisdom than inner reflection.” The Magestrix then turns to speak with another apprentice that has arrived.
                Xandyn bows and turns.  Bizrot danced and laughed as he somberly walked out of the Sunspires grounds.  They walked for a bit when started to see signs of the lynxes. Once he saw one on a rise, he closed in and soon as he thought he was in ranged he started cast spells at it. Bizrot joined in with his fire. And soon the Springclaw was dead. He rummaged the body for the collar. He continued to sneak around and targeting the cubs from range til late afternoon. And then he headed back. It was hard work finding the lynxes. He was only able to collect 6 collars by the time he had to head home.
                Once back in Sunspire, he went to Magestrix  Erona and presented her the collars. “This is all that I could find today. Will this suffice?” Bizot stuck out his tongue and made farting noises.
                “The tower and surrounding areas should now be relatively secure, though only for the time being. You have done well in providing us with a buffer of security, but we will need to reassert control over the entire isle if we are to survive here in the long run. This will involve tackling much greater threats than errant mana wyrms and lynxes.”
                “Take this, Xandyn – you will no doubt make good use of it for the tasks to come. Go rest and in the morrow I will have new missions for you to complete.” Magestrix Erona smiles and then leaves to attend to other matters.
                Xandyn looks at what was given him, a pouch of coins and some black and red bracers. He slips them one and cinches them up. They looked good. As he head back into town, he notices his apprentice robes are damaged with gaping holes from where the brush has ripped them. It was going to be costly to repair, so he found a tailor and swapped out the robes and some coins for a little stronger cloth robe. They were blue, but he didn’t have any other selection.  He also decided to upgrade his boots to more rugged ones too. He then ate a nice meal and went to sleep, dreaming of his coming heroic adventures. And Bizrot just danced and laughed all the night long.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

TOTE: Aloris and the Fel Moss

                In the morning, Aloris rose, ate and then head out to meet with Ithalaine. His new gloves felt good. Aeris followed along. Once he got to where Ithalaine was, he presented himself to the older elf. “I am here as you requested.”
                Ithalaine smiles. “Yes you are. See that branch on that tree over there, the one with an arrow sticking out of it? Shoot it.” Ithalaine pointed at the branch.
                Stringing his bow, Aloris knocked his arrow and fired. He missed but was close. He fired three more times with varying degrees of success.
                “Alright, that’s enough.” Ithalaine pulls out his own bow. “Watch me. See where I place my hands. See how I draw the string. See how I stand and move. “ And with that he fires four arrows into the branch. “Now you try it with what you have seen.”
                Aloris tries standing as the old elf. Gripped his bow and drew the string. Ithalaine walked around him, parts of him here and there till he was satisfied with the form. “Remember this, and practice it” is all that Ithalaine said as he walked away.
                Aloris spent the rest of the day plinking at the branch till he was sore. He felt good though, since it looked liked more arrows where in the branch than on the ground around it.
                The next morning, Aloris sought out Ithalaine again. But Ithalaine looked busy and troubled. “Ah, young Hunter, just in time.” Ithalaine straitened and looked at him. “You seem to knowwhat you’re doing. Perhaps I can task you with something a little more important.”
                “As you may well know, the corruption in Teldrassil was supposedly wiped away. Yet something lingers. The creatures have not calmed and all manner of problems still plague us.”
                “I need you to deal with the grelkin to the west, and while you’re there, I want you to search for fel moss. This will help me determine from where this continuing corruption stems.” Ithalaine then turns back to a table to stare at his map.
                Scratching the head of Aeris, the two turned and head to the grelkin territory. After a few hours, Aloris started seeing signs of grelkin. Nasty little buggers, the grelkin were imp-like humanoids that danced around a lot and ate whatever they could catch. Mostly harmless to elves, they do like to play tricks on people. As they traveled through the region, Aloris looked for the fel moss. This sickly green plant was generally not good for anything. As they searched, a few of the grelkin tested Aloris’s skill at the bow. It was easier than before to hit his mark.  After collecting several patches,  Aloris headed home.
                When he got back into town, he handed the moss over to Ithalaine.
                “Your service to the creatures of Shadowglen is worthy of reward, Aloris.” Ithalaine hands him a small bag containing more coins and some herbs.  He also hands him some green leather leggings.
                Ithalaine looks the moss over.” You confirmed my fears, however. The grelkin are still tainted by felmoss, despite Teldrassil’s blessing. Something sinister remains within the tree. I can only hope that the Gnarlpine tribe of furbolgs are free of the corruption, or we are still in grave danger.”
                “I will look into this further and contact those who might be of aid. Thank you, hunter.”
               Aloris went into the outpost tree to patch up some of his clothes and rid himself of some of the things he had collected along the way.  Then he found a place to rest for the night.

Friday, April 19, 2013

Loot and RNG in WOW

     Recently I have been on the WOW forums talking about the loot system. It has been a lively discussion and has also wandered off to cover things about a particular characters gear setup.

    My premise has been that RNG on raid bosses only reward the lucky. There is no amount of planing, strategizing or skill that will get you the coveted gear. It is purely dependent upon a RNG program deciding it's your lucky day and gives you what you want or need.

    What I want to do is to take the RNG out of the equation for Raids. Make it a thing you have to buy with Valor. Also gate it behind a certain number of kills. So lets say you want the bow that drops off of Tortos. Instead of having a RNG tell you when you can have it or not, you have to slaughter Tortos 10 times. You also have to spend 3500 VP to get it. So you have to go kill Tortos 10 times. Not something most people do in a night, or even a week. But now you also have to spend little over three weeks to get those points from 0.

     From a player point of view, you know what you have to do to get the gear. You know how long it's going to take you to do this. And you can plan your game time to effectively work towards this. And once you have that done, you can retarget yourself for the next piece and the next piece till you have every piece you want. You don't feel slighted. You don't feel like you have wasted your time. And you can enjoy the content more because you don't feel like your being forced to run content just to be denied loot of any worth to you.

     From a business model standpoint, you get a happier fan base. You have a gearing path in place that you can manipulate and control how quickly fully decked out characters become. Since it is similar enough to the PVP gearing process it becomes easier to balance the two sides gear. Making it also easier to make sure that gear equals out and become competitive with each other, while still making sure that each side has the advantage in their fields. This could then removed the level capping in the Arenas and Battlegrounds, I think. By controlling the Arms race, and how quickly content comes out, they can ensure that people either never are fully geared, or only fully geared for a short period of time before the next content patch or expansion comes out. This would ensure that people would always be playing the game. It would allow players with Alts feel like they can take time to play their alts and not fall behind the eight-ball on the gear efforts. And everyone will get the gear they feel they want at a speed in which Blizzard is comfortable with.

     Scenarios, Dungeons, Challenge Modes, Questing, World Bosses and random mobs could still use the RNG for giving out blues and greens which will allow people to gear up outside of raiding for just storyline progression. And Crafting and Rep Grinding can still be utilized for gearing up with a focus to get into raids and such.

     As an Idea and a plan I think it has great merit. But you guys let me know. Tune in tomorrow for another chapter into Aloris's adventures.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Weekly STO Update

   So Dev blogs are up to #7 at this time. The blogs I am going to cover talked about the new character creation system and the new talents system.

      The talent system is for the racial talents. We are going to get more of them. Nine in total, in fact. At character creation you get to have 4 traits. One is taken by your race and the other three you get to pick. You have a choice of space, ground and career based talents. Then once every 10 levels you will get another trait again. Alien Races, the player made race, got all four to chose anyway they wanted it to be. The skills are being revamped so that no one skill will rule them all. Hopefully they will be able to do this, but I don't think it will happen. There are just some capabilities that are must haves no matter what your play style is. I think this is a very good step in the right direction, and will allow for some greater customization for players.

     The Character Creation System is getting an overhaul in appearance and ease of use. It also will streamline the creation process for those you just want to play, and allows for the massive customization that the current system does for those who want it. As long as they create a way to retain my personal uniform design so that I don't have to write it down somewhere for my BOFF's, then this upgrade will finally be all that I need it to be. The requirements to tracking the uniform color and style setup is such a pain currently. They also added a new feature to the loading screen so that you see you Captain and his away teams in an action pose based on the movie posters. I think this is a cool idea. And hope that it goes well for them.

    I do want to mention that the whole UI is getting a cleaner revamp. They are shrinking some of the icon sizes and also allowing you to further customize not only the position of things, like now, but the color scheme too. I like this in principle, but unsure of how much use I will actually give it. I will see once I get into the game itself.

   Thanks for reading. Tune in tomorrow to find out what next I will talk about.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Updates for the Week

     First off, I would like to publicly say how much I feel for those who have suffered through the events at the Boston Marathon. I couldn't bring myself to blog as I was to interested and upset over what had happened. I hope that those who have done this are brought to justice. And those who are forever scarred by this, I wish you all the best in the world to speedy recoveries in both mind and soul.

     Now, on to Character Updates.
     Airholen
         I have made more runs through the LFR. I have bought my bracers from the Shado Pan. I have been farming herbs for Asmodea. But otherwise, not much. This patch has not been very moving for me overall. It initially was nice to do new things, but as the patch has gone along, it just has not been fun. Especially the gearing issue.

     Asmodea
         She is level 86. I have maxed out the Alchemy skill and don't seem to be getting any new recipe's. Herbalism is still being worked on. I am transmuting trillium to living metal regularly. I haven't done much else.

     Zombee
         I have been running the Crystalline Catastrophe missions. Have collected five crystal shards to date. I have been running in and Oddysey, but I have redone things to try the Patrol Escort on the next attempt. DOFF's are continued to be cycled.

     Sisteric
         My Gorn has been keeping up with Zombee in Crystal Shard collection and DOFF's cycling. Not much else to report.

     Danic
         He has reached level 50 and now is a Vice Admiral. Some progress has been done on the story line. He has also been keeping time with Zombee on the crystal shards and DOFF cycling.

WOW Updates.

      LFR 4th wing opens today. So expect me to run the new wing tonight with Airholen. The rest of the release info for 5.3 stuff is still swishing around in my head. I haven't really figured out how it all affects me. Next week I will have answers to all of the stuff.

Tune in tomorrow to find out my feelings on the latest news in STO.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Tale of Two Elves: Xandyn meets Magistrix Erona

                “C’mon Bizrot. Move it. We don’t have all day.” Xandyn whines at his imp companion.  Since getting to Eversong Woods, the red haired warlock has been wanting to start his lessons. The magic that coursed through him was passed down to him from his father.  The spell that brought Bizrot to him was taught to him by his father. But more had to be learned, and his father sent him here. Magistrix Erona told him to report in the morning, and he didn’t want to be late.
                “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” Bizrot yelled back.
                Magestrix was certainly pretty enough to look at. Like all blood elves whe was tall and thin. She had long flowing golden hair. But Xandyn was more interested in the lessons to learn than the pretty face before him.
                As she looked over Xandyn, a stern frown came to her face. “ The sooner you begin your education, Xandyn, the better for us all. There is little room for error, so listen closely.”
                “The Burning Crystals – the green floating objects to the west of the Sunspire here – have long been used to power the isle’s experimentations. The mana wyrms were their guardians,  but the Scourge Invasion of Quel’Thalas has driven them errant from our lack of magical control over them.”
                “There is little choice but to thin their numbers for reclamation. Do this, then return to me.”  She then turns to another apprentice and starts to give him his chore.
                “Well, la-de-da. Shall we go jump in the lake?” grumbles Bizrot.
                “Shut up. You heard her, he have to kill some wyrms”, says Xandyn. “Lets go.” This was not unusal to Xandyn. His father did the same thing to him, sent him out to do various chores. Once the task was completed, some tidbit of information was then given in payment.  Everything had a price, he said, and so you must pay, either in service or coin, you always have to pay. So his first lessons payment was to kill wyrms.
                Heading over to The Burning Crystals, big floating green crystals of magical energy, didn’t take much time. The wyrms are not aggressive but are in large numbers.  Lining up on one, he let go with an attack spell his father taught him. Bizrot joined in with fellfire balls. Bizrot loved hurting things. Wyrms are apparently tough because it shrugged off the first couple attacks and floated over to Xandyn to take a taste. Trying his best to dodge the attacks, he switched to swinging his staff at the beast till it dropped out of the air. “Whew! I guess father was right when he told me that the staff was more than a symbol. It’s uses were necessary when magic fails you”, he laughed at the recollection. His father taught him the basics of staff usage.
                Targeting his next wyrm, Xandyn tried again, with better success. Hit it more often this time around and was able to down it before it got to him. As he continued to do this, wyrm after wyrm, he figured the best distance  to start the fight so that they were downed by magic and fellfire before they got to him. In the ashes of the wyrms he collected scales and glowing eyes to prove his kills.
                Xandyn returned to Magestrx Erona triumphantly. Displaying his trophies, he calmly says “I have slaughtered the wyrms, Magestrix. Should I go back for more?”
                Bizrot danced and giggled behind him, breaking his triumphant mood he was trying to set.
                “Very well, that is enough for today. Go meditate on the battles and return to me in the morrow. And then, Xandyn, you shall tell me what you have learned from this.” She makes a simple gesture and the scales and eyes go up in smoke. “One more thing, take this for your efforts.” She hands him a sash and a small pouch of coins.
                Xandyn bows and leaves. He had never been payed before. The sash would come in handy to keep his robe in check and store things in it. He went back into the Sunspire to his room to prepare his answer for the Magistrix.

Tale of Two Elves: Aloris meets the trainer

                Aloris walked into the village. Simple enough act as things go. And simple acts usually don’t require much thought. But this simple act would change his life forever. If he’s had known what was going to happen, he might have turned around and gone back. But he didn’t, and so we get our tale.
                Aldrassil was like most Night Elf outpost, small and built into a tree. From the market at the base to the leadership at the top, everything was ordered yet natural. Easy to see and feel and relax in. Aloris’s father had sent him here, told him that he needed to learn a few things from Ithalaine. So he set out across the Shadowglen to Aldrassil to find this master.
                Ithalaine was a bearded elf. Fair in hair and skin, that is if you consider tourquise hair as fair and light purplish skin as fair too. As Aloris approached him, he took stock of the young man, noting the bow, trappers gear and his saber cat companion.
                “Greetings, Aloris, I am Ithalaine. My purpose in Shadowglen is to train young hunters like you, and to be ensure that the balance of nature is maintained.”
                “The spring rains were particulary heavy this year, causing some of the forest’s beasts to flourish while others suffered. Unfortunately the nightsaber numbers grew too large, and they will devastate the other populations if they are not culled. “
                “Journey forth, young hunter, and thin the saber populations so that nature’s harmony will be preserved.” And with that, Ithalaine seemed to dismiss him.
                Shrugging his shoulders, Aloris turned to his nightsaber, Aeris. “Let’s go meet these relatives of yours.” He scratched an ear and they traveled off into the woods of Shadowglen.
                It didn’t take them long to find the nightsabers. Like Ithalaine said, there numbers were grater than the glen could support.  Aloris took aim at a young nightsaber that was alone and shot. His aim was good and hit the target. Aeris saw the young nightsaber bounding to his friend and ran to intercept the juvenile beast. Aloris gave this no thought as he reloaded his bow. Aeris and him have been traveling like this since Aeris was a cub. The bond they shared they questioned or wondered it about. It was eating to them, it seemed natural and necessary. Aloris’s father smiled at them when they traveled together. He had gone out into the world and had returned to marry his mother. His father, though worldly, never seemed to be upset or surprised by his son’s choice of friend. After a few shots and a few rakes from Aeris, the first saber was down. He skinned the animal and moved on, leaving the meat for the other sabers and scavengers of the forest.
                They did this five more times before they returned to Aldrassil. Carrying the pelts as proof, Aloris approached Ithalaine. “here is my proof of what I have done.”
                “Good work, young hunter. Return to me in the morning and I will show you a thing or two. And take this for your efforts.” Ithalaine hands him a small pouch and a pair of brown leather gloves. “It would be best to have the right gear for training”, and with that, another dismissal.
                Aloris had never had archery gloves before. He tried them on, the fit well enough. The pouch contained some coins, which he used to get home and board at the local inn. They innkeeper only looked at Aeris once but said nothing as they went to bed. “I guess we passed the test, Aeris” he said as they bedded down for the night.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Story Time....coming soon (Sooner than Blizzard Soon)

    SO after thinking about, I will be doing the two elves story line. So I am going to introduce the two characters.

Aloris on The Scryers
     Night Elf     Hunter     Blue Skin     Long Dark Blue Hair     Yellow Eyes  Male
     6ft Tall    190lbs. Weight    
    Aeris     White Striped Sabre Cat    Male    3.5ft tall    6ft long   250lbs
     
    Planned skills for character, Skinning, Leather-working, First Aide and Cooking.

Xandyn on The Scryers
     Blood Elf     Warlock     Reddish Skin     Long Red Hair     Green Eyes     Male
     6ft     190lbs
    Bizrot      Imp     2.5ft Tall    35lbs

      Planned skills for the character, Tailor, Enchanting, First Aide and Cooking.

     It looks and this point that Aloris will be more narrative nature as he is quieter person with a non-talking pet. Xandyn has the annoying little imp, Bizrot, around so will have more vocal interactions. I will update the weekly Character Updates spot as to level and progress of the characters. I am still getting a feel of the characters and writing will get done on Saturday and Sunday. I plain to Post Aloris's story on Saturdays and Xandyn's on Sundays. I would like to have feed back as to if I doing good or need to alter things some. I also do not plan on them joining any guilds or doing and any kind of raids or dungeons with groups. If I get them to level cap. I very much figure that I will run the old raids in Solo. Gearing for these characters will not involve raiding but would possibly include the World bosses. Not sure yet. But otherwise they will be doing Rep grinds for gear. I will pick mounts early. I also have got to pick pets and battle pets for them so that they will do some of that too.
    So tune in tomorrow to read the first story involving Aloris.
   


Thursday, April 11, 2013

Weekly STO News

  So today starts the new event Crystalline Catastrophe. Once a day you can get a crystal shard if you kill the Crystalline entity. Collect 14 of these shards and you can turn it in for 50k Dilithium, 1k of Fleet Marks and a Crystaline Entity Pet. The pet can't do anything for you so fail to see why to have. If a an object does no game effect for me, then why have it take the extremely limited bag space that STO provides. Shards collected after that can be turned in for 100 Fleet Marks. All of this is very good. Also, there is a scoring system built into the event. Each time you take on the CE, your individual performance will be tracked and graded. Those who get 1st, 2nd or 3rd place get a trophy. Trophies you can put on display in your ship. I like things like that. Pets that just float around you while you are in space are of no actual use to me, and a hindrance to my field of view. To me the pet has serve a function, or not just disappear every time I enter a new instance for me to want to put it out.
   They also released a new Dev Blog about Empress Sela today. Most of the info is a rehash of the story line to date. The only really new thing is that She is out to get the new Republic destroyed. She may have made a deal with the Iconians, as implied by the ominous ending, and the cooperative nature of the Tal Shiar.
    They also release more info about the Romulan ships in the previous Dev Blog. You will start with an original series Warbird and then get to progress up through the tiers in ever newer and stronger Warbird designs. The D'Deridex Warbird is Tier 4 and a new design, the Ha'apex advanced Warbird is the final iteration. The artist rendering has the new depicted in a way that it looks like it can split into to ships. It is also stated that the ships are heavier than their tier counterparts in the Federation. Which means they will move slower and turn more sluggishly. But it also means that they should be able to suffer more punishment. All warbirds come equipped with cloaking devices and Singularity cores. The Singularity Core has a a secondary effect that you can release once it builds up enough of a charge. And all Romulan Captains will get a bonus when using any ship that has a cloaking device on it.
    It also has been clearly stated that the Romulans will be able to use the allies ships, but the allies will not be able to use Romulan ships. Whether this is limited to just Fleet Ships or all ships has not been clearly and officially stated, though the speculation is that it's limited to the Fleet Ships. Personally, I would like to see no crossing faction ship command going on. But with various lockboxes out their, this is already happened. I would like to see them maybe keep only the Tier 4 and 5 out of the other factions hands, but I may be a minority in this too.
   May 21st is approaching quickly, so I will continue to keep my eye open for what is coming up. Tune in tomorrow to see what I will talk about next.
   

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Azerothian Tales

   So last week I wrote that I was going to start a writing project based in Azeroth using characters as they quest. I even sent a tweet daily for requests on what those characters race and classes. But only one person ever responded on the subject.
    His suggestions was Gnome and Goblin for race, and he first suggested that they be Death Knights for class. His secondary selection was Warrior for both of them. My other thought was to use my two characters I once was going to do this with, Night Elf Hunter and Blood Elf Warlock. So I am unsure how to go about this.
   The Elf based story has the advantage of already having some ground work laid. The characters are ready, and some of the play has already has been done. So all I have to do is start the conversion to story format. The disadvantage is that the the hunter class is nothing new to me, would be my fourth hunter. Also, the race and class doesn't even resemble the input that I received.
   The Death Knight story line has the advantage of avoiding 50 levels of play. Has the freedom of a more open back story before play. And is a suggested class. The disadvantage is that I only have one Death Knight, and have a darker slant to their presence as a whole.
   The Warrior story line has the the advantage of have been suggested. The play style doesn't involve magic. The concepts involved would be easy to convey. The disadvantages would be the fact that it's to easy to make it a generic swords based fantasy. It lacks uniqueness. Not a class that I have done much with.
    The Goblin/Gnome story line has the advantage in it's uniqueness in race view. The cultural representations in the game would be interesting to develop. The disadvantage would be the difficulty in maintaining the realism of these characters and avoiding the cliche's.
    So I am not sure what to do yet. I really wish that I had gotten more input. I am going to get the first stories out on Saturday and Sunday. Alliance on Saturday and Horde on Sunday. Which means that I have to make my choice and run them by thursday night. Please tweet me at @ZombeeDan to help me with any suggestions. And thank you EpicInsanity for your input.
    Tune in tomorrow to hear what the scoop is for STO News.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

WOW Weekly News

     So Ra-Den has a bug in it that has spoiled the 'Race for World First' efforts. The group that found it, reported it and have not personally claimed the World First title. I think that this group, whose name I have only seen in Chinese script, is very respectable and needs our support for being these kind of people. I wish I knew their name but I can't read Chinese.
     Hunters get a healthier resistance to the pushback with Focused Shot passive. A good thing, since we loose so much when we suffer pushback. And this is a major increase. Serpent Sting also dropped it's cost by 10 focus. This makes it not such a pain to use. Powershot also gets 25% decrease in damage, cast time, cost and cooldown. Not sure if that will save it yet. For patch 5.3 though.
    Rogues Shuriken Toss got it's cost damage doubled. Not sure if this is good or bad. But does give Rogues a little more umph at range. For patch 5.3 only.
     Durumu got easier in the latest hotfix. It was a needed change as you died because of the inability to see the environment, not lack of skill.
    Tune in tomorrow to see what I talk about next.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Weekly Character Updates

   Airholen
           So I ran all the open wings of LFR now. No loot. I do have to say that the Dark Animus battle is very interesting. But the Dorummu fight was very different for me. I was able to valor cap and work on some more pvp missions. The fourth stage of the Isle was opened up. Sneaking aboard a Mogu ship and disrupting their efforts and even going ashore and getting the gates open for the alliance to get in and take the Zandalari/Mogu faction. I also finally got to attack Galleon. It was fun but, since I am over geared for it, it gained nothing but the achievement. I also been running enigma seeds at the ranch. These are then put in the guild bank for Asmodea.
   
      Asmodea
              I got her to level 86. She is roaming farther into the Jade Forest and getting her Herbalism and Alchemy leveled up. I also finally got her geared up enough to be able run Pandarian Dungeons and the Cata LFR. She also is working on getting all of the recipe's. I have made great strides in this area too.

     Zombee
              I started running the New Romulus mission trying to max his Romulan Rep. In fact my plans are to max out Rom Rep with Zombee, Danic will get the Omega Rep and my yet to be made final Fed Character will get the Tholian Rep. I will do the same setup with The Roms and the KDF. Zombee is still cycling the DOFF Duties too.

    Sisteric and Danic
               I barely did anything with these guys, basically just cycling the DOFF's is all.

Tune in tomorrow to find out what news in WOW I have taken an interest in.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

STO: Legacy of Romulus Update

     STO, or Star Trek Online, is getting it's first expansion, Legacy of Romulus. They are added the Romulans as a playable faction, and adding lots of content for Klingons and Romulans. But there has been a HUGE amount of talk about this expansion and what it actually is. As an avid STOer and major fan of the Romulans in the Star Trek Universe, I had to wade through all of the talk to find out what is really happening, and how I feel about it. So here is my review of it now.
       Romulans as a Faction.
           The story line for the Romulans has been harsh. Romulus and Remus have been destroyed by the Hobus supernova. The Supernova was not of natural origin and is really not understood, but it's effects are felt through out the Romulan Star Empire. With the home worlds destroyed, the Empire is thrown into disarray, Empress Sela tries to hold it altogether but an unknown ship (assumed Iconian) grabs her and whisk her away through newly revealed Iconian Gateway. And you destroy the gateway so that the aliens do not return. The Tal'Shiar, or the covert secret police and intelligence group, are confirmed as being a puppet of the Iconians, through Hakeev. The Tal'Shiar are trying to rebuild the Empire with them in charge. They do this through covert black ops and out-right terrorist activities. With the Empire falling apart, the Reman slave race have risen up and try to gain independence. Obisek, the Reman leader, has done everything he can to get help from the Feds and KDF with help from your character. He is using banned Thalaron weaponry which, apparently, can weaken normal space. So he is branded as a terrorist too. And now you come into the picture joining the new Romulan Republic formed by a student of Spock's, the Romulan D'Tan. He is trying to form a peaceful democratic society that allows all species an equal place in the Republic. Now people are complaining that this faction is not Romulan Star Empire (RSE) and the The Romulan Republic (RR) is just Fed-Light. The Dev's have clearly stated that the RSE is not the direction they have planed for their story arc. And I am O.K. with that. The RR is also asking for help from the Feds and the KDF to resist Empress Sela and the Tal'Shiar. It looks like that Obisek is at least in talks with D'Tan on New Romulus and so may be joining the RR. You will get level up as a Romulan but gain access to your chosen allies resources.  For you must choose a ally in either the Feds or the KDF at level 10. So the Romulans are a faction, but very weak when compared to the current Factions and so are relying heavily upon their allies to stay alive.Fitting for a new nation trying to get their feet under them after such a devastating blow to their peoples psyche.
     Playable Races at Start
            Unfortunately the Dev's have stated that Romulans is the only race you get at start. Remans are possible after a rep grind. And Aliens are only for C-Store buy or Membership level unlock. This sucks. This will make the Romulans the only faction that you can start with only ONE option for a race. Both the KDF and Feds have their Iconic races and player made races available from start. Why this is not true for the Romulans makes no sense. And it truly weakens the experience overall.
     Klingons Fully Fleshed from 1 to 50
               This has been an issue for the KDF from launch. Initially you had run as a Fed Character till level 25 and then you open the KDF charcter slot. The KDF character started at level 6. The down side of this was that you couldn't make your KDF character first. According to the announcement, you can start a character at level 1 with ANY of the three factions. This is a huge change. Not only does the KDF get all new content, but now you don't HAVE to be a Fed first. And since this means that you also get content from level 1 to 20, which currently doesn't exist., it means that the KDF become more like the Feds as a fully defined and fleshed out faction. There are so many people afraid that this will be nothing but reskinned Fed missions. Even if this is true, which I highly doubt, it still means that you don't have to have a Fed Character to make your Klingons anymore. And this should help balance the number of Feds and KDF's in the game.

     It is worth pointing out that the Feds and the KDF are in a state of active aggression against each other, and all of the PVP material is centered around the Two faction war. The RR will not be a third faction but will be joining their allies in the PVP arena. So if at level 10 you picked Feds, then all of your PVP experience will be from the Fed side of the war.

  Tune in tomorrow to find out what WOW stuff I will talk about.
   

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Things to do in Azeroth...and beyond

      So I have been kicking around this idea of writing stories based on the adventures of my characters in WOW. And while I have attempted it. I failed to be consistent because I had no place to put the stories. But with this blog here I figure that I could do it. In fact I would take Monday nights and run the a horde character and an alliance character on the same server.
      But which race? And what class? Should I choose based on what I like or some other criteria? I don't know. But as I think about this more, I saw a new way of choosing these things, you guys. SO I am going to put up a tweet asking which class and race for Horde and Alliance I should do. Hopefully I will get enough feed back to get a clear winner for each side. And then on Monday I will pick a server (PVE type) and build the characters.
      Of course I will take any feedback for this from anybody who leaves an email or comment on my blog too. So chime in everyone.
      Tune in tomorrow to see my thoughts on the latest news fr the New STO expansion, Legacy of Romulus.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

WOW Weekly News

       So ToT LFR part 3 going to be open today. I hate this waiting for two weeks for each of the last 2 wings to open. But it does make the LFR easier to get done as you are doing in snippets. Just wish that it was all open at the same time.
      It's been announced that 30 more stable slots are open for Hunters. Yeah!!! As a collector of beast, this makes it easier for me to keep all the pets that I want to have for one reason or another. But this feature change is not for all hunters, for not all hunters collect all the pets.
       5.3 has the Darkspear trolls in open revolt to Garrosh. The Alliance will be conducting clandestine operations against Ogrimmar. Heroic Scenarios will be added as well as PVP gets a bit of a overall. The story line progress is very good in that the Horde and the Alliance are doing very different things to advance the story. The changes in PVP is stepping in the right direction, but I just have a personal issue with hard capping the Item Levels on PVP content. If they just would scale the PVP gear to be on par with PVE gear but oriented towards PVP. Things like putting more PVP Power on it and giving set bonuses that reduce stuns, slows and root effectiveness.
      That's all I have for now. Tune in tomorrow to find out what I talk about next.
     

Monday, April 1, 2013

Update on Characters 5

    Airholen has not been too busy. I bought two more pieces of my optimized valor gear. So I have all the trinkets and one ring and one neck piece. I maxed Valor and started collecting conquest from the PVP dailies. I did run both LFR's but got only loot that helped but not the loot that optimizes me, per Ask Mr. Robot. So the hunt continues.
     Asmodea has made level 85 and started the Pandarian content. But I am going to have to go back to Tol Barad Peninsula to level my Hebalism skill. Once that is done, it will be back to the Pandarian Content. Jade Forest s here she comes!
     Zombee and Sisteric have been running the Duty Officers hardcore. I also have been working on the reputation system with them to gain all the dilithium that I can get. I am down to my last 40 or so Zen Points to get my 4 character Slots opened.
     Danic has been adventuring as well as pushing the Duty Officers hard. He is now level 49. One more level and he will be maxed. Then I just need to finish out the storyline and then I will go back to Zombee to do the high level content to push my dilithium gathering harder still.
     All other characters have been on a holding pattern.
     Tune in tomorrow to find out what I am going to talk about next.