Friday, February 28, 2014

Science News and Views

Star Trek Online
      So several things have been happening in STO. The Community Manager position had a change. Branflakes moved on to a Comunity Team Lead and Capt. Smirk became the new Community Manager. Smirk was just a Podcaster before this and so not a Cryptic employee.
      Each faction got three versions of the Dyson Science Destroyer. Each one comes with a unique console that can be combined together with the secondary deflector dish for new 4 piece console set. These are all surrounding protonic energy weapons and anti-Voth abilities. These ships can be bought on the C-Store with Zen points.
      New ship material has been released for free for both Federation and Klingon ships. For people who need a new look this is good for them. I have never been upset with my choices so far.
      They have announced that they have revamped the Galaxy class ships and updated the animations and added consoles to the. They also have added a Fleet version of the ship to so the Galaxy Dreadnought has finally been brought in line with all other dreadnoughts. The community has been complaining about this ship for some time and now it's has been done. This just shows that they do listen to the community work to address the issues that is getting vocal recognition. Until I try playing the ship I will not say if the these changes are significant enough or not,
      They have also announced that more personal storage and bank space has been given for free. not only that, but they have also expand the number of additional purchase slots from 4 to 12. This is close to a 100 additional slots in the bank and 40 slots in personal storage. This is a very necessary upgrade because of the changes to ship loadouts.
      Ship loadouts has been implemented. Loadouts is a system implemented to save ship setups of gear, BOFF's and tray setups. Every ship got 2 for free and you can purchase more from the C-store (I Think) so that you can add more loadout options on a per ship basis. These loadout will place the parts into your personal storage everytime you switch loadouts. And that's why they had to increase the storage space for each character.

     So this is the all I had for now for Science News and Views. Until next time, Enjoy!

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Fantasy News and Views

World of Warcraft
      $60 to get a Level 90. Really? This is too much for me, so I will never be buying a level 90. But that price point will make sure that the world will not be flooded by large number of newbie 90's that don't have a clue on how to play those characters. So this will be good.
       Not a lot of new information has come out about Warlords yet. So this is short and sweet this week.

Elder Scrolls Online
     So a new round of Weekend Beta has been announced. This time, you not only get to join in but you can invite one more person to come join you. I have the Beta invite, and no one interested to join me in ESO so I will be going it alone again. I will report more on what I encounter in the game this time again.

Neverwinter Online
     Expansion 3 is under construction and centers on making the PVP experience better. With the adding of an anti-burst damage stat on gear to more clearly separating the differences between PVP and PVE gear. They are also working on the matchmaking for PVP too. Having had played the PVP in the game a few times, I do like the general idea of what they are doing, but I don't like the idea of diverging gear into PVP and PVE. The thing that I did like about Neverwinter PVP was the fact that Gear was same across all play types. Nothing bothers me more than the fact that I have to maintain for different places to play. It's not very good design to require gear based on anything other that class and skill selection. I am disappointed in this driving effort in all MMO's to have different gear for PVP and PVE. The rest of what they are doing is just the effort to balance the PVP experience to be more fun for everyone. And this is a good plan. But I will wait and see exactly how this plays out.

    So that's it for this week. So go out there and Enjoy!

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Weekly Character Update

Airholen the Explorer
     Ran Ordos and Celestials and got only gold. Poor Airholen, I may never get him all geared before the next expansion comes out. This is the very reason why I want to change the gearing progression from random drops to the buying process that PVP has, by gaining resources from doing the content to buy the pieces you want/need.

Brewmaster Asmodea
     Ran, Ordos, Celestials, Wing 1 and Wing 3 of Siege and got one piece of gear that was lesser than what I currently have. SO again, no progress made. And this really does bite. I hate this gearing to no effect. Waiting for a drop to "grace" me with that which I want. I really wish this random model of raid gear would go away. On the bright side, Asmodea has bought the farm and opened the last four plots. So now I have to plan out the farming effort.

Ambassador Strayleaf
     Ran Ordos and Celestials and got only gold. Rinse and repeat previous statements of dislike of random gearing.

Dreadwind of the Nightfall
     Played partially one day. Got close to level 87 but not there yet. Still having fun with Blood spec. Yay!

Admiral Zombee
     Completed New Romulan and Task Force Omega Tier 5 reputations. Played the scenario at the end of the New Romulan rep and that now makes more sense why I am treated so well in the Season 8 and 8.5 Featured Events scenarios. And explains why they suddenly had an Iconian Gateway to work with. Still another 5 days till Nukara Strikeforce is completed, at least. While working on the reps, I also have been trying to get the space set from the Dyson Rep for the USS Fry and started on the Reman Prototype space set for the USS Curren, I have the complete list of what sets I am putting on what ships, but I will add it in another post.

    Those were the only characters I touched upon this past week. I am elated that the grinding is drawing to a close for Admiral Zombee and Admiral Danic will be the next one I work on. But for now, Enjoy!

Monday, February 24, 2014

Fantasy News and Views

World of Warcraft
     So lots of news has been released for Warlords of Draenor and WoW in general. First on that list, to me, is the fact that WoW has gained 200K Subscribers. Past few reports have been about sub losses, so this upswing is encouraging news for the eventual longevity of the game. And the talk is this is mostly from changes in the recruitment rewards and upcoming release of Warlords. All good things I think.
     New artwork for character models came out. The changes to the character models are such that running a high res screen they will look good again. With moving fingers and flowing hair, the animations have stepped up quite a few notches too.
     One of the bad things I see coming though is this requirement to get to silver in Proving Grounds for the role before you can run Looking For Dungeon Heroic at level 100. This sucks because they don't have that balanced out right so that every class can complete the Silver level. It will only be good once they have that balance issue fixed. But until then, Casual Players like me will be barred from getting into Heroic. Not a good choice since I am just as competent with my main and any other hardcore player. I hope that they change this before release.
     Other changes are occurring to stats and button bloat but I haven't poured over the exact numbers yet. So when I get the time to read those changes and figure out what they mean I will say something here. I really don't have much else to say at this time for what has been announced so I will end it here. Enjoy everyone!

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Weekly Character Update

   Sorry about the lateness of this update. I have been sick and so not up to writing. But I am feeling better now and ready to write.
    Before we get into the characters, I have been having some thoughts on my gaming time in WOW and what I want to do there. And I have decided on a plan. I am going to gear out only the characters that I am having fun playing. The ones not geared will still do the Ordos, Celestials and Timeless Isle runs but I will rarely take them into the raids except for one time in LFR. I want to get more of my characters to 90 before Draenor drops. I also am going to have one main in Horde and Alliance. Alliance will be Airholen, but the Horde I have yet to find. Well, onto the updates now.

Airholen the Explorer
     Ran Ordos and Celestials, still only getting gold. This really and truly sucks since I am still using the coins to get extra rolls. Such a waste of effort and purely only supports my desire for a more progressive gearing options than random drops.

Brewmaster Asmodea
     Ran Ordos, Celestials, First and Third wings of Siege of Ogrimmar and still no loot. Also worked on cooking and Tillers Rep but have yet to open the fourth plot or buy the farm. Getting close though. I have not been getting enough Lesser coins to get the rerolls for Siege so haven't been getting my second roll.

Ambassador Strayleaf
     As my only Horde toon at 90, she will be the focus for the Horde efforts till I get another Horde ranked up. But I don't plan to rank another Horde toon till all of the alliance toons are at 90. Even so, I do not have fun running her, both tanking and healing are just not intuitive to me. So I will be doing Ordos and Celestials for now with her as a healer till I get all the healing and Tanking gear. Then I will try to get through one sequence of the LFR Siege and then stop worring about her gear. I will finish up her Herbalism and Inscriptions skills and finish off the Tiller rep for farm plots. And then she will be a farmer for me as I look into what other Horde character will be my main. I have sneaking suspicion that my orc hunter will be that character as I have so much fun with Hunter's. But Strayleaf will be just there to keep everybody in glyph's.

Dreadwind of the Nightfall
       This is my Draenei Death Knight. In one night I got him from 85 to 86 and had so much fun I didn't realize that I had leveled him. I run him in Blood Spec. So this guy is going to see more action. He is the next guy I am going to get to 90. This is going to be run. And the skills rotation to me is so intuitive that it's not hard at all. This will be my first true tanking dude for me.

Vice Admiral Zombee
        Tonight I will complete the 4th Anniversary rep grind and get the reward ship for him. I also have completed Tier V of the Dyson Sphere Rep too. So only 3 more reps to complete and his grinding days are over. At least till the next rep comes out. Which means I need to start figuring out what gear I am getting for each ship. I know that I will have to plan this out a bit so it should be interesting. Once I have it sorted out I will probably put it up on here.

Vice Admiral Danic
         Completed the Anniversary grind and got the ship. Made the Dyson Science Destroyer his main ship with the Solonae Space Set in place. But for now he gets parked til Zombee gets all of the reps done. I think he will be the one I do after Zombee for rep grinds. Should go a lot faster with the double rep points buff and the ability for Zombee to craft gear for the rep grinds.

Lieutenant General Sisteric and Vice Admiral Grell
           Completed the Anniversary grind. got the ship. Parking till his turn to rep grind.

     So that is what I got accomplished on my characters this past week. Hope you liked it and see you soon. Enjoy!

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Fantasy News and Views

World of Warcraft
     New artwork for the new zones and for the Garrisons have come out. I like what I see here. The zones look good and just alien enough to say that they are not Azeroth. And also just familiar enough to say that they are Outlands. I look forward to seeing more art for the zones.
     The Garrison artwork is less impressive to me. It came along with the information that there is a Alliance and a Horde version. The garrisons will not be racial in style. I see this is a bad direction to head. The different phases of there buildings though are good.
     
Elder Scrolls Online
     So I played the Beta last weekend. I found it very involving storywise. It was hard to get used to the keybind selections and playstyle use of abilities. The crafting in the game was difficult for me to do. Not intuitive at all as far as I am concerned. And it was hard to know what I needed. I did like how the voice acting changed based on what race I was. So as I talked to Argonians as an Argonian was better and more distinct than when I saw Dark Elves talking to the same NPC. The only real thing I thought was hard was when I ran inside caves that required a reload that it was still a shared experience with others. Which I felt it took away from the mood the setting was trying to set. It should have been instanced off. Other than that, the combat experience is not as easy as it should have been. I hard a hard time figuring out when I should do one type of attack over another. And the key placement was not easy for me to work with.
      All in all, I think ESO is going in the right direction and will be a fine addition to MMO's and to the Elder Scrolls line.

That's what I have reviewed this week in fantasy. Enjoy!

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Weekly Character Update

     So I had some internet issues. So my time online was limited to some extent. But here we go with I did do.

Elder Scrolls Online   Made a Argonian Male Nightblade called Airholen. Played for a few hours on way day till the internet issue occurred. I know that I made a few levels and was able to "morph" two of my skills. I had a lot of fun with the game and it was very faithful to the Tamriel lore as I know it. The graphics was very good too.

Airholen the Explorer   Ran Ordos and Celestials. Got nothing but gold.

Vice Admiral Zombee   Gathered all of the Space sets and all of the Environmental Suites. Got the Paladin set for him from the Lobi Store. Continued to work on the Special Event and now 7 days away from the prize. Also, Cryptic handed out a free shuttle and lobi for one character per account this past weekend and I was able to gather this up to on him. Still working on all of the reps. But at least they are all at Level IV now.

Vice Admiral Danic      Have all of the space set, so just worked on the event. 7 more days to go to completion.

Lieutenant General Sisteric     Got the space set. Working on the event, have 8 days to go.

Vice Admiral Grell        Have the space set. Bought the Sentinel Environmental Suite. Have 7 days to go on the event.

     Like I said earlier, I didn't have a lot of time due to connectivity issues. Everything has been cleared up this week. So next week will be better for me and my characters. So see you next time and Enjoy!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Fantasy News and Views

Elder Scrolls Online has stated that they will being a stress test of their Beta Servers starting on Friday. I have the Beta Key for it, so am going to give it whirl. I will report back my impressions of the game next week.

World of Warcraft has not done to much. They have announced that the current PVP season should end in the next couple of weeks. They are still fine tuning Warrior abilities to reduced the number of Crowd Control effects they have accessible at any one time. Otherwise I am waiting on more news for this game.

Have not done any research on any other Fantasy Games at this time. Enjoy!

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Weekly Character Updates

Airholen the Explorer
           Ran Ordos and Celestials. Gained gold. Did nothing else cause I have to many others to do.

Brewmaster Asmodea
          Ran Ordos, Celestials, and Wings 1 and 3 of Siege of Ogrimmar. Gained no useful pieces so made gold out of it. Also did a couple things with the farm and worked on raising the Tiller reps.

Ambassador Strayleaf
           Ran Celestials and got only gold. Didn't really do anything else because of Star Trek Online.

Vice Admiral Zombee
           Star Trek Online is having their 4th Anniversary Celebration. So if you log in every day and run this one mission you will get a ship as reward after 15 times. Zombee has run it enough times to get 4 days knocked out. Collected all three of the special Tier 12 purple ship gear, and two of the Dyson Environmental Suites out of three. Zombee has also advanced Nukara Rep to IV. And the rest of the reps are being ground out to level V. Should be another 20 some odd days.

Vice Admiral Danic
            Ran the special missions so fay to have only 11 days to go for the ship. Got two of the three Ship Gear and Enviromental Suites.

Brigadier General Sisteric
          Ran the same missions and is now 10 days away from the ship. Got all three pieces of the Ship gear and have two suites.

Admiral Grell
          Ran the missions too. Only 10 days more to go. Have all three Ship Pieces and Suites. Now have to find the Lobi Vendor and upgrade the suites to the enhanced version.