tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359108732012-02-16T19:26:43.137-08:00Opinions and comments on games, gamers and those who love them.Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.comBlogger1521100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-71476189658474427932011-01-25T07:55:00.000-08:002011-02-03T20:06:42.220-08:00

I spent some time playing the Rift Beta last week. Specifically, I had the opportunity to participate in Rift Beta 5 from Tuesday through Friday. I chose to play a Defiant Warrior. In those four days I managed to reach level 19, completed a buttload of quests, helped close many rifts and joined in on some PvP action. Below are my first impressions. Probably the first thing I noticed when

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-13327620749094172942011-01-17T10:16:00.001-08:002011-01-17T12:21:47.030-08:00

Looking at the history of posts on this blog, it's readily apparent that I have been slacking over the past year. This is mainly due to the fact that most of my creative energy has been directed towards creating a new mod for the popular Fall from Heaven mod for Civ IV. My mod mainly focuses on bug fixes and improving the woeful AI. Details can be found hereI plan on continuing to work on this

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-74185043962394150272010-12-02T18:05:00.000-08:002010-12-03T17:40:41.653-08:00

Who knew that trying to survive against hordes of zombies while being cooped up with complete strangers, many of them a bit insane, could be so much fun?Die2Night, a new web-based, zombie survival game, lets you do just that. Thrown into a town with 39 other folks, your mission is to work together to survive the horrible, zombie-filled nights ahead for as long as possible.The game is free to play

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-32459131039918237482010-07-20T10:56:00.001-07:002010-07-20T11:26:03.396-07:00

The Dawntide beta client has finally reached a point of stability for me where I can actually play the game! Below are a few thoughts cobbled together from notes I jotted down over the past few days (some I may have mentioned previously).You eat bread and water for some reason, though I see no visible change to my stats or messages telling me that I'm fatigued due to hunger/thirstFood is eaten

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-25015653086718578332010-07-10T15:04:00.000-07:002010-07-11T15:49:27.868-07:00

Note: These experiences are from the weekend on July 2-5th, 2010.For various reasons, it's been a while since I've checked in on the Dawntide beta. But now that the game has officially entered open beta, I thought it was time to pay it another visit.After the expected patching and updating (which went very smoothly), I logged in to find my old characters had been deleted. No big deal. I quickly

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-53000694784873059112010-06-16T10:26:00.000-07:002010-06-16T10:36:31.539-07:00

So new info about the upcoming Bioware MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic has surfaced from E3. Based on this interview with Rich Vogel and this preview from Massively, let's see what sort of info they're giving us...Player ships that don't actually fly anywhere. Instead they are glorified apartments and transportation hubs (kind of like a personal flight master)War Zones = BattlegroundsCrafting

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-4910774039827084582010-03-06T12:14:00.000-08:002010-03-15T12:11:53.317-07:00

After two frustrating weeks of not being able to login successfully, they finally patch the servers with a fix that works! For the first time ever, I am able to interact with the game world and do stuff!My first goal in this game was to check out the crafting side of things and see if I could manage to craft a set of bow and arrows for myself!So I created a new character and gave them as many

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-78280956065824815422010-02-20T17:13:00.000-08:002010-02-20T17:16:16.316-08:00

Still have yet to successfully login to the Dawntide beta, despite numerous attempts with more than one character over the past two weeks.

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-9460361833853399942010-02-05T10:09:00.000-08:002010-02-05T10:18:47.977-08:00

Both games severely disappointed me yesterday.First off, Mortal Online had a new patch on Wednesday, but alas, despite trying a good dozen times throughout the day on Thursday, I was unable to ever connect to the patch server. Actually a fairly typical beta experience (though it shouldn't be for a game that claims it will be releasing within two weeks), but still frustrating nonetheless.Dawntide

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-30239138048987332632010-02-03T17:34:00.000-08:002010-02-03T17:40:39.833-08:00

Day Two was a bit less exciting than Day One. Again I was only able to spend less than an hour in-game.I logged into my character who was still standing by a tree near a respawn point. Initial load was extremely laggy, as before. With a plan in mind to craft a bow, I set about whacking at the tree. To chop a tree you have to be in combat mode with your axe in hand. Then, when you interact with

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-57698070746329454692010-02-02T17:44:00.000-08:002010-02-02T19:14:07.738-08:00

This writeup was originally titled First Impressions, but I've ended up playing much longer than I had planned on before posting this, so First Impressions no longer applies. I would call it a Review, but I feel like that term would be a disservice unless I had finished the game or played through a significant portion as well as experienced the content with different starting characters. But,

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-76788509419251987402010-02-02T10:30:00.000-08:002010-02-02T11:37:46.188-08:00

So the Open Beta for Mortal Online began yesterday. The client was available via torrent, but it seems today they simply have a direct download link.Anyway, I had no technical issues with my setup. The download worked fine the first time around, installation was simply extracting the files from the zip, the updater ran, showed me the most recent patch notes and downloaded everything successfully

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-84117819720107562692010-01-29T11:53:00.000-08:002010-01-29T11:54:54.059-08:00

After what seemed an overly long hiatus (to bloodthirsty orcs anyway), Season Three of the Clomp! Cup was organized and ready to rumble. The Greenskins of Azh's Bashas gnashed their teeth in anticipation of the first day's match against the opposing Orc team, the Zerkr'z.A bit worried about facing off against the veteran Bashas team, the Zerkr'z opted to hire a Star Player by the name of Varag

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-75510305646530688262010-01-29T11:49:00.000-08:002010-01-29T11:55:33.525-08:00

And Season Three of the Clomp! Cup is off and running! After the trouble encountered last season where a number of teams went MIA, it was decided that Season Three would be limited to veteran coaches who had already proven their reliability. This season will also be the first to use the newly implemented playoff feature for multiplayer tournaments.Many teams from Season Two returned for another

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-30533309714309366812010-01-08T21:22:00.000-08:002010-01-08T21:26:51.145-08:00

The Day 8 match against the Dwarven team, Ground Round, was resolved 1-0 in favor of Azh's Bashas due to a no-show by the Dwarves.On the final day of the second season of he Clomp! Cup Tournament, Azh's Bashas, in the running for one of the top two spots in the division, square off against the equally tough Altdorf Avengers and one of the most violent players in the league, Borgrut Lucky.First

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-29355821676854531822009-12-02T14:41:00.000-08:002009-12-02T15:11:04.678-08:00

As evening closed in on day seven of season two of the Clomp! tournament, crowds gathered in the stadium for what had been dubbed 'The Greenskin Bowl', as the two mighty orc teams of Division Two, Azh's Bashas and the Blood Fang Boyz, squared off for what was expected to be a brutal, dirty game. In other words, a perfect Blood Bowl match!First Half:Start of the game saw the opening kickoff going

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-46507562637445764392009-11-23T11:23:00.000-08:002009-11-23T11:31:32.476-08:00

Coming off their first and only loss, Azh's Bashas were looking to recover their place at the top of the division when they faced off against the potent offense of the Plaguebringaz, league leaders in pass attempts, catches, passing yards, rushing yards, touchdowns, and surprisingly, knockouts!Embarrassed by the ease with which Orion the Titans had routed his team last week, Azh decided that he

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-68012456446883755942009-11-18T14:29:00.000-08:002009-11-18T14:35:11.866-08:00

Day Five dawned and Azh's Bashas were feeling cocky. Their next opponent was the human team of the Waterdeep Warriors, and the Bashas had always had success when playing humans in the past. Little did they know that the ominous signs in the shaman's mushroom tea that morning were not something to be ignored.The teams faced off for the coin flip. Across from the Bashas stood one human in

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-86765387054755699882009-11-18T14:22:00.000-08:002009-11-18T14:25:35.314-08:00

In the closing hours of Day Four of Season Two of the Clomp! Cup, the proud Orcs of Azh's Bashas meet up with the Skaven team, SneakyVermin, one of the offensive powerhouses in Division Two.First Half:Opening kickoff sails out of bounds. SneakyVermin chooses to give the ball to Kriik, the veteran thrower for the Skaven team.Quyuthc the Stormvermin, blitzes the left side, pushing back an Orc

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-36659823317388262242009-11-13T09:44:00.000-08:002010-01-29T13:31:45.106-08:00

On Day Three, the Bashas face off against the Wood Elves of the Tree Rats team, who oddly enough, are 'coached' by a frothing orc they keep in a cage! A bit confused by the situation, but eager to bash in some elf heads, Azh's Bashas crack their knuckles in anticipation of the upcoming carnage.First Half:Bashas get the kickoff. The ball sails deep, landing a few feet from the endzone. The

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-34341113458371515802009-11-13T09:40:00.000-08:002009-11-13T09:44:42.161-08:00

The reformed Chaos team, Malal'z Marauders, marched into the Basha stadium, eager to meet their foe in an epic clash of strength. And speaking of strength, one Beastman bulged suspiciously with muscle. So much so that Azhog was convinced that some secret chaos mojo had been used to grant him extra power. But nonetheless, the orcs of Azh's Bashas were undaunted and ready for battle

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-21590037911841880032009-10-09T14:40:00.001-07:002009-10-09T14:40:49.169-07:00

The crowds roared for the opening day of Season Two of the Clomp! league. This would be one of the featured matchups of the day, pitting the Lizard team of Bufo Draconis against the Orcs of Azh's Bashas. The two teams had met in Season One, and both teams were eager to prove themselves in the rematch.First Half:The Bashas win the coin toss and choose to receive the ball, placing it in the hands

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-77414664087667483142009-10-09T09:40:00.000-07:002010-01-29T13:35:38.945-08:00

After a short hiatus, the league reforms for Season Two. Several coaches decide to cut their losses and pick new teams to play with, while a number of new coaches flock to sign up, having heard of the potential glory waiting for them in the trenches of the Clomp! league!It was decided that new teams could play up to five games before Season Two started, to catch up with the teams that were

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-11857873386291428712009-09-29T11:30:00.000-07:002009-09-29T11:32:31.856-07:00

I recently delved into the world of modding. To be more specific, I started designing and coding a minor mod for the Civ IV mod, Fall from Heaven II. It is a small, simple mod whose only purpose is to check the terrain around a city when a unit is built. There is a small chance that the unit will receive a special, bonus promotion that increases their strength in that terrain.A couple of

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-73077239116770633322009-09-15T14:53:00.001-07:002009-10-09T09:40:16.988-07:00

On the final day of the season, Azh's Bashas eagerly awaited the arrival of the elven team, Errandir's Earthweavers.And waited. And waited some more.The Orcs, not overly known for their patience, began to get restless as the minutes ticked by and no sign of the elven team was seen. Coach Azhog tried to keep them focused on the upcoming game, but the Bashas began to brawl with each other. After a

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-3212313587636616602009-09-11T14:33:00.000-07:002009-09-15T14:55:58.759-07:00

In a clash of titans, two undefeated teams meet in what is sure to be a battle royale as Azh's Bashas take on the Stormvald Horde led by Anar the Terrible!Pre-game:In a deep rugged canyon, covered in effigies of Gork and Mork, the two undefeated teams of Division Two squared off. The Chaos Warriors and Beastman of the Stormvald Horde gestured across the field at the Orcs of Azh's Bashas, who

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-7821171643762966652009-09-11T11:36:00.000-07:002009-09-17T13:08:19.319-07:00

In Day Three of Season One, the undefeated Bashas face off against the lizardmen of Bufo Draconis.First Half:The Bashas get the ball to begin the game. Their thrower, Gugfak, grabs the ball off the turf and moves up the center of the field, looking to the left side where the Black Orc Galnak Break'zom is busy knocking a little Skink to the ground. The Orcs rumble forward and with a sharp, angry

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-81465546385936711302009-09-10T14:42:00.000-07:002009-09-11T11:52:06.009-07:00

Matchup: Azh's Bashas (Orc) vs the Timerbland Treehuggers (Wood Elf)In a suspicious set of coincidences, both an Orc Blizter and the sole Thrower for the elven team suffer training mishaps right before the start of the match. The Bashas calls heads (of course), but the Treehuggers win the toss, electing to receive the opening kickoff.1st Half:In a move that was to set the tone for the entire game

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-53111283270454663202009-09-08T10:42:00.000-07:002009-09-11T11:51:44.188-07:00

Here is a recounting of the first game of rookie coach Azhog's career as he takes Azh's Bashas into a game against the human team of the Altdorf Avengers!The night sweated with excitement as the crowd awaited the start of one of the most anticipated matches of the day.Azh, coach of the Bashas, knew more about smashing stuntie heads than he did about the game of Blood Bowl, but he figured some of

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-43091249947479061372009-09-08T09:59:00.000-07:002009-09-08T10:41:18.786-07:00

Shadowclan has been hosting a small Blood Bowl League for the past few weeks. The name of the league is Clomp! and I will be recounting the exploits of my team, Azh's Bashas with some additional commentary on results from the other teams in the league.

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-87145660824918110022009-08-20T13:06:00.000-07:002009-08-20T13:08:52.440-07:00

Follow the link below for my further thoughts and experiences in the Fallen Earth beta.My Kingdom for a HorseSo here I was, still at Embry Crossroads. I had completed a good portion of the quests in the area, but my main focus was on crafting, and that semi-confusing, overly-complex system had taken most of my time and all of my chips (which is the currency used in Fallen Earth). But it was time

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-89079525522243411632009-08-18T10:09:00.000-07:002009-08-18T10:15:42.644-07:00

I have been in the Fallen Earth beta for about a month. Unfortunately, due to other distractions, my time in game was relatively limited. However, I have written up my initial impressions about the game, which you can find below. This is Part I, which covers levels 1-7. I'll have a 2nd post about my time after that (levels 7 - almost 10), as well as a general summary that will go up within a day

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-78768231585080010142009-06-14T15:11:00.001-07:002009-06-14T15:23:42.707-07:00

As a followup to my attempt to roleplay the Khazad civilization in Fall from Heaven II as a reclusive people focused and acquiring and maintaining enough gold to fill their vaults (the story of which can be read here), I decided to try it again, only this time I was going to use Fall Further, a mod of the Fall from Heaven mod (so a modmod, I guess).Fall Further is interesting. He basically took

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-29823630511971856662009-06-14T14:57:00.000-07:002009-06-14T15:26:55.511-07:00

I've blogged before about a mod for Civilization IV called Fall from Heaven II. In short, it's a major overhaul to the game, focused on a fantasy-oriented game with demons, elves, magic and of course, dwarves!It's a very fun mod, and I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in a fantasy-based strategic game.Anyway, on the Civfanatic forums, one player by the name of Shatner posted a

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-33872463222827139752009-05-12T16:51:00.000-07:002009-05-12T16:58:59.745-07:00

Title pretty much says it all. Avoid any dealings with them if you can! If anyone is interested in hearing the details of my experience, follow the link below...So I've used Steam for years, though only recently have I ever made a purchase through their system. Over the holidays, I bought several games during their New Years's sale. One of them, Mosby's Confederacy, never would work. It always

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-57103560404556534592009-05-12T15:35:00.000-07:002009-05-12T15:40:58.044-07:00

My first post about improving RvR in Warhammer Online dealt with Battlefield Objectives and suggestions to make them worth taking and defending beyond the simple desire for free bonus renown and influence. In this post, I'll delve into the keeps and my suggestions for improving keep battles, both for offense and defense. Though some of this applies to fortresses as well, I think that Fortress

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-55490072908251196052009-05-07T12:40:00.000-07:002009-05-12T15:42:07.869-07:00

In case anyone doesn't keep up with these things, Eurogamer gave Darkfall a 2/10 score on their review. Obviously, Adventurine wasn't too happy about this score and after trying to sort it out with Eurogamer, took things public.Tasos' first post.To which Eurogamer responded, which prompted a followup post from Tasos yesterday, and then a 'final' post on the issue today.I think Tasos comes off as

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-80679828172568963752009-04-29T14:55:00.000-07:002009-04-29T14:59:05.579-07:00

I've played a lot or RTS games, starting with Dune 2, and proceeding through a plethora of others including Warcraft, Command and Conquer, and many more. But in recent years, it seems that the emphasis has shifted towards more and more micro-management and base baby-sitting, which I don't get a lot of enjoyment from. One of the best variations (and one of my favorite games of all-time) was the

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-76533306831331665002009-04-22T14:39:00.000-07:002009-05-14T15:07:53.624-07:00

Another in my series of WAR guides, attempting to explain Mythic's poorly documented RvR schemes.The latest RvR system change comes at us with recently released patch 1.2.1. As of this patch, there is now an additional way to acquire the RvR set gear. These items can still be found in gold reward bags from keep/fort/city captures, but now you can also collect the new medallions, and use these to

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-9070236740667299572009-03-04T16:27:00.000-08:002009-04-30T15:23:11.393-07:00

With the release of patch 1.2 yesterday came the new Zone Domination system for Tier 4 RvR areas. As a supplement to my previous post about How to Lock a Zone in Warhammer Online, I present my summary of how this new system works...First off, I find Mythic's mention of 'points' in the domination system is kind of misleading. There really is no accumulation of domination points. You can't save

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-44306779151299223842009-03-04T15:39:00.000-08:002009-06-14T15:10:15.182-07:00

Here are some random thoughts from my 4 hour play session, of which ~90% of that time was in the RvR areas.Seems like load times for zoning have decreased. My lag was about the same as usual. I didn't have any of the crashes that a lot of players were complaining about last night.The Twisting Tower scenario is interesting, though it does seem overly laggy. Also, I'm really tired of the whole

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-84711196563306739122009-03-01T16:42:00.000-08:002009-03-01T16:49:22.253-08:00

Time for another installment of links and minor commentary on a variety of small and independent games.First off, we'll start with a couple of purchasable games. Both of the following games have downloadable demos available.Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble - This is an odd sort of game. Kind of an unholy union of Clue and the Choose Your Own Adventure books. You control a gang of girls in a

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-304988439251531542009-02-24T15:18:00.000-08:002009-02-24T15:21:20.108-08:00

Over on Broken Toys, Scott Jennings made a post stating that players don't really want hardcore PvP in an MMO.While I agree that his basic arguments are correct, I think much of the crash that PvP-oriented MMOs have regularly suffered there is simply due to lackluster and/or half-assed implementations. There is definitely a lot to be said for doing a game 'right'. If someone would make a

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-10664100108670476582009-02-17T11:08:00.000-08:002009-02-17T11:09:05.543-08:00

Last week we were given the first iteration of the patch notes for Warhammer's much anticipated 1.2 patch. And, as of today, the PTS is up and running, though character transfers are not yet available. My comments below are from simply reading the patch notes. I have not yet seen any of the changes in action myself.Overall an interesting set of patch notes. No real major changes to classes, but

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-45895323335620147992009-01-27T11:19:00.000-08:002009-01-27T11:20:22.053-08:00

A little MMO called Darkfall is looming on the horizon, with its release date currently slated for February 25th, 2009.This game has been in development for many years and has made enough promises to make it seem like it will combine the best aspects of Ultima Online, Shadowbane and Age of Conan. A skill-based character development system, the ability to build towns and villages, ship and mounted

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-70044829676321118112009-01-23T13:53:00.000-08:002009-01-23T14:04:25.902-08:00

This is the first in a series of posts with details about how to improve and embiggen Open RvR in Warhammer Online. This post deals with everyone's favorite renown farm, Battlefield Objectives! For this post, I'm not going to deal with whether or not BO's should given renown/influence/experience. Instead, I want to focus on making Battlefield Objectives a meaningful and important part of Open RvR

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-12192394349086411052009-01-22T14:54:00.000-08:002009-01-22T15:19:14.704-08:00

I figured it was about time for a followup to my initial post about altering the UI for WAR. Unfortunately, Mythic hasn't done much of anything to address UI issues and make their default UI more acceptable (in fact they made it worse by introducing an annoying global cooldown flash that appears on ALL your buttons EVERYTIME you use an ability. I had to download an addon just to disable that '

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-29841129219299128952009-01-13T13:31:00.001-08:002009-01-13T13:37:43.645-08:00

I wrote up this little RP story about one weekend afternoon when the Destruction forces on the Ostermark server locked the Black Crag zone, pushing Order back to Thunder Mountain. Now zone locks have become rather common on our server and occur daily at this point, but the reason this particular one stood out for me was twofold.1) Order had pushed the conflict into Black Crag and controlled

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-52882992143662547322009-01-08T11:53:00.000-08:002009-06-22T16:52:20.398-07:00

6/22/09 Note: This post is about locking via victory points. If you are looking for information about locking a zone via domination, please see my other blog entry on the subject.In Warhammer Online's RvR endgame, locking zones is the key to pushing the war front closer to your enemies and opening up fortresses and capitols to assault. However, the way this is done is not especially intuitive. So

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-81137379841645546512008-12-21T11:02:00.000-08:002009-02-24T16:08:49.561-08:00

This is a followup to my first post. Click the link below to see some links and thoughts about a few interesting, independent, free games that you may never have heard of.First off, we have two constructor set type puzzle games. You use the tools provided to put together machines that accomplish certain goals. Fantastic Contraption - Assemble a self-propelled contraption to move past obstacles

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-27360157793808508242008-12-11T14:58:00.000-08:002008-12-11T15:03:48.740-08:00

It was with heavy heart that I read this interview with Adam Gershowitz and Josh Drescher where they stated that there were no plans to work on additional careers for Warhammer Online! Which means, that the Dwarfs and Greenskins are left out in the cold. Not only do we not have the racial capitols available for either race, but they are also both short one class, that of the melee DPS

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-53808279899991002172008-11-26T14:32:00.000-08:002009-06-14T15:09:54.213-07:00

Mark Jacobs made a big announcement yesterday about Mythic's plans to focus on changing and fixing the RvR portion of Warhammer Online. It sounds like their brains are moving in the right direction, but I think there needs to be some significant changes to RvR in WAR aside from simply adding in an influence system.Below are some various thoughts and ideas I've had about Open RvR and Keep Sieges

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-92113076947610232972008-11-01T11:34:00.000-07:002008-11-01T11:49:06.756-07:00

After a month of getting by with the default UI options, I finally broke down and looked into installing some player made addons. My general goal when looking at addons is giving myself more empty screen real estate and a cleaner, more streamlined UI. I like to do as much as I can with the built-in interface options and find addons that are simple and to the point, without a lot of extra fluff

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-6283292533134685752008-10-02T15:56:00.000-07:002008-10-02T15:58:04.617-07:00

It's been exactly two weeks since the official launch of Warhammer Online (not including the head start). And I thought it was about time for another post. Most of it will be complaints (because the annoying bits seem to stick in my memory), but I give the game a thumbs up rating overall!In my last post I bitched about the dumb way that Mythic decided to roll out their servers, and I still stand

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-87254515712379413282008-09-23T10:32:00.000-07:002008-09-23T10:35:23.991-07:00

1) Purposefully stagger your server launch so that the initial ones are overly full and the later ones are ghost towns.2) Make copies of the full ones a couple of days later and encourage players to play on the new copies instead of allowing/encouraging transfers to the ghost town servers.

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-37645640872231517572008-08-26T11:32:00.000-07:002008-08-26T11:33:08.443-07:00

Played some over this weekend, though I tried out a lot of different classes using my newly patented Smash 'Em leveling technique (queue for scenarios constantly as soon as you log in, doing quests while waiting in line. I hit level 5 and renown rank 5 in under an hour using this technique).Here are some random thoughts and comments in no particular order.I noticed that a lot more low-level items

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-45019679841384997732008-08-23T17:14:00.000-07:002008-08-23T17:22:58.800-07:00

Phase 3.3 saw the opening of the Tier 4 zones, along with character wipes and the ability to make level 31, templated characters.Seeing the Tier 4 zones and getting a chance to try and push the zone control so that your side can assault new zones was interesting, but it also revealed some flaws with the system.For example, its possible for your side to gain control of all the objectives and keeps

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-81132348100006346542008-08-22T13:49:00.000-07:002008-08-22T13:52:34.610-07:00

Here is the second of my beta impressions from the Guild Beta. This post is kind of short, since this phase only lasted a week. This was labeled Beta 3.2 and opened up the Tier 3 zones. My random thoughts are below in no particular order.Note: This was written in mid to late July.===========In addition to continuing to play my Black Orc, I also played a bit in the starting zones for the Empire

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-17301872969712192582008-08-19T13:26:00.000-07:002008-08-19T13:31:15.670-07:00

Note: These are my initial impressions from the Guild Beta and were written a month ago. A lot has changed in the game since then. More recent thoughts will follow over the next couple of days.=======================I'm not going to be able to post this before the NDA is lifted, but I wanted to gather my thoughts together from Day one onwards. This initial writeup was made from my experiences

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-87497534124756986932008-07-31T14:33:00.000-07:002008-07-31T14:34:33.104-07:00

This post is actually several weeks late, as I canceled my World of Warcraft account last month and the subscription expired on July 11th. So, I will likely have very little, if nothing to post about WoW in the foreseeable future, which is a bit unfortunate as my posts about the interface and Heroic Mechanar are the most popular ones on this site. However, in replacement I hope to have an ongoing

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-29613653685735296612008-07-21T12:10:00.000-07:002008-07-21T12:12:53.828-07:00

I played Age of Conan during the 'open' beta and did not really enjoy it that much, so I decided to give it some time to see if Funcom would end up crashing and burning or if they would manage to pull their act together and quickly take care of the major issues. So, here we are, 2 months later and I found myself purchasing and installing a copy of AoC.I'm hoping to document my progression through

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-10639842697466208412008-07-12T13:58:00.000-07:002008-07-12T14:12:08.082-07:00

In a very surprising announcement yesterday, Mark Jacobs informed the Warhammer community that Warhammer Online was cutting out some pretty major parts of their game, including all capitol cities except for Inevitable City (Chaos) and Altdorf (Empire) and four careers! Holy Feature-Cut Batman! I don't think I've ever seen such a major gutting of game features since the great MMO disappointment

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-25882152771726405622008-07-05T12:53:00.000-07:002008-07-05T12:57:35.098-07:00

Crafting has always been a system that has attracted my attention, especially from a design standpoint. Partially because most games seem to relegate it to a sidebin. As serendipity would have it, there has been some minor discussion from three different games in development about their crafting systems. Those being Warhammer, Earthrise and Darkfall.WAR released a podcast several weeks ago where

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-20403690476860648092008-06-24T12:14:00.001-07:002008-06-24T12:14:56.705-07:00

Last night I gathered together four guildmates to head into Heroic Slave Pens and take on the new seasonal boss, Ahune. Getting to him was easy enough, though he appears towards the middle of the first large cavern, which meant that we had to clear out a couple of extra mob groups.I won't delve into his abilities too much since that's already covered elsewhere, but I will say that we had several

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-19871548793300838252008-06-24T11:23:00.000-07:002008-06-24T11:27:11.602-07:00

So there's been some buzz going around lately about Richard Bartle's latest interview. Most of it coming from enraged Warhammer fans who take umbrage at his comment that he wont play WAR because he already played it and it was called WoW. I think that statement is fair enough, and in fact, I hope that WAR is similar to WoW in many ways, because WoW does do a lot of things right. Anyway, there has

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-79117221104173898832008-06-06T11:02:00.000-07:002009-06-14T15:08:33.979-07:00

So I finally got around to trying out the Fall from Heaven mod for Civ IV and I have to say that I am impressed. It's a pretty major reworking of the game, giving it a distinct fantasy feel that fills that longtime void left by Master of Magic.First off, a disclaimer. This is an alpha work in progress (they're currently on version 0.32), so there are plenty of bugs and balance issues as well as a

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-40145629132716824982008-05-27T14:22:00.000-07:002009-06-14T15:10:15.183-07:00

I've recently gotten into the whole RSS feed thing lately, and have been subscribed to a number of gaming blogs, which in turn have led me to a plethora of independent games, a very large side of gaming that doesn't get a lot of press but can generate some amazing results. These links have been gathering in various emails and such, and in organizing everything, I decided I should share them

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-41300182061228606622008-05-12T17:05:00.000-07:002008-05-13T10:05:11.738-07:00

I had expected to get a few days to play around in the AoC beta after the boost to level 20, but, apparently, this was a one-day only event (thanks for letting us know ahead of time Funcom!).So here are some various extra observation snippets to go along with my Initial Beta Impressions post.Open PvP - Funcom has some serious design flaws if they really plan on having open PvP as it was on

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-40349925697119554242008-05-12T14:40:00.000-07:002008-05-12T14:45:55.856-07:00

Not, its not really a question. At least not for me.I've thought about this a couple of times in the past but then I always come back to the fact that the whole process of 'twinking' is specifically to unbalance the competition and make the game easier for the 'twink'. Before video games, this was usually the other way around. In order to make the game more fun and engaging, the experienced

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-69211182469588030662008-05-06T17:16:00.000-07:002008-05-06T17:20:04.151-07:00

Here are my initial impressions of Age of Conan, assembled after playing in the 'Open Beta'* . I started as a barbarian, read nothing about how to play, instead realying on the in-game help and my personal gaming experience. My barbarian has hit the level cap of 13, completed her destiny quest as far as she can in this beta and has participated in a half dozen PvP matches.*Funcom's concept of

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-33472010305067111722008-04-24T12:15:00.000-07:002008-04-24T12:16:47.695-07:00

Fileplanet has keys available for the AoC 'Open Beta'. Not really sure how open it is when you have to pay for a fileplanet subscription to get hold of them! Actually, the beta keys are available elsewhere, but it seems most sites are having various contests whereas Fileplanet is using a first come first served method.I bit the bullet and shelled out the $16 for a quarterly Fileplanet

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-63228344930728570952008-04-18T16:06:00.000-07:002008-04-18T16:08:44.311-07:00

Age of Conan? Nope. AoC will be a niche game. Heavy graphics requirements, its mature rating and its attempt to have a PvP-focused game while still appealing to the raid AND the 'casual' crowd at the same time will keep its population low.Warhammer Online? Nope, though I expect WAR to be in 2nd place in number of subscribers for a Western MMO unless they just really drop the ball or lose focus on

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-9507792940084148182008-04-18T12:21:00.000-07:002008-04-18T16:08:59.196-07:00

Mythic has been giving us a lot of good info about RvR and City sieges lately. But after my experiences with Shadowbane and WoW, I've come to the realization that players will cheat, lie, scam and abuse every loophole they can find if there is some gain in it for them. I can only assume that Mythic has seen some of the issues that have arisen elsewhere, but they still have left a lot of questions

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-82243519664741731222008-04-08T14:10:00.000-07:002008-04-08T14:28:26.651-07:00

Note: The initial draft of this was written a week agoNot a whole lot in this patch that affects a blacksmithing warrior directly, so I'll mainly focus on the new quests and the Shattered Sun Offensive.First off, the new 'World PvP' quests are a bust. Especially the one for the Spirit Towers in the Bone Wastes. That quest tasks you with the incredibly difficult job of taking one, thats right one,

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-75154342770767182622008-03-12T17:00:00.000-07:002008-03-12T17:01:56.952-07:00

This post was inspired by a quote I saw from a Blizzard talk at DICE '08"A lot of studios wouldn’t do QA, tech support, PR internally..."Really? Well no wonder so many games turn out crappy. How can you adequately perform any of those roles if you aren't invested with the product? And how can you be invested if you don't work closely with it. All of that interaction amongst departments is vital.

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-16768740252051102332008-03-07T15:57:00.000-08:002008-03-07T16:00:43.685-08:00

So this recent quote from Blizzard once again proves to me how little they understand the concept of meaningful PvP:"Based on the information we already know, I think Lake Wintergrasp will be more active than Halaa because one of the things that hurt Halaa was the Diminishing Returns on honor points. With this removed in patch 2.4 people will be able to continue piling up honor points until

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-48677643184652877292008-02-13T16:41:00.000-08:002008-02-13T16:43:38.510-08:00

Dwarf Fortress. If you don't know what it is, you should, so I'll start out with a few links.Dwarf Fortress HomepageDwarf Fortress WikiDwarf Fortress Graphical PackInterview with Tarn Adams (Dwarf Fotress developer)It had been a while since a played Dwarf Fortress. You can see my previous blog entries on the subject here. But recently there have been a number of changes, the most notable of

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-43988527675935441252008-02-08T12:47:00.000-08:002008-11-26T14:39:17.528-08:00

At its most basic form, favor is simply a more detailed reputation system. Actions committed by players can have a positive and/or negative effect on their standing with individual NPCs, villages, towns, nations, or even whole races of beings.Some single-player games such as Morrowind have put forth effort into making their NPCs react to what the player does in a meaningful way, but this really

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-64147246464293822032008-01-16T15:55:00.000-08:002008-01-16T15:58:00.296-08:00

Made a guild run through Heroic Mechanar last night and defeated all the bosses, including Sepethrea, which is a first for me. And we did it with one healer (restoration shaman) and four melee (protection warrior, arms warrior (me) and two rogues), which is really surprising given how much AoE is in that instance. So I thought I would follow up my initial Quick Tips for Heroic Mechanar with some

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-48898288999501791322008-01-03T11:32:00.000-08:002008-01-03T11:51:56.478-08:00

Pirates of the Burning Seas has just completed their open Beta and will open the live servers in mid-January.POTBS is a game that I have been eying for quite a while now. From the various dev notes and sneak peeks over the past couple of years, it seemed like they were making a cross between Eve and DAoC, except that it was set upon the open seas of the 18th century Carribean.I didn't play it as

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-33421116182031955782007-12-28T12:51:00.000-08:002008-11-26T14:39:17.530-08:00

One thing that was always a standard in fantasy settings has been the fact that abandoned points of interest such as the old wizard's tower or the ancient dwarven city is that they always attract new inhabitants, usually the unsavory kind. Given that my concept of mob placement and spawning involves dynamic, mobile spawn points as well as mobs that can be permanently defeated, this feature ties

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-84244744155873055182007-12-28T10:46:00.000-08:002007-12-28T10:49:16.755-08:00

More people are jumping into the fray of trying to make Dwarf Fortress look pretty. The latest is a Map Visualizer created by Sinoth. You can find the beta download as well as some screenshots in this thread.

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-40923413776822261452007-12-15T20:01:00.000-08:002007-12-15T20:16:57.176-08:00

So it's been several weeks since the much lauded patch to fix Alterac Valley, and once again, we're back to the same old, zerg-the-enemy-base-ignore-opposing-players strategy. I blame both the developers for creating a crappy setup that promotes that sort of strategy, and the players who are too scared to actually engage the enemy in what is supposed to be a PvP instance!

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-71830757294902678212007-12-06T17:08:00.000-08:002008-11-26T14:39:17.531-08:00

Dynamic AI and spawn systems are something that has always intrigued me. UO tried it back when they were in beta testing, but the calculations required brought the servers to their knees and the concept was abandoned.And no, increasing the spawn rate based on number of players in the vicinity does not count as dynamic in my book.I've tried on numerous occasions to collate my notes into some sort

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-63893974323580242952007-11-28T16:14:00.000-08:002007-11-28T16:16:25.480-08:00

My guild is pretty casual overall. And relatively small. So while we do a lot of 5-mans and PvP and other various events, we haven't experienced any of the Outlands raid content until we hit Zul'aman a week ago. We went to Zul'aman mainly because it didn't have any prerequisites for entry. We knew that Karazhan was officially the entry-level raid instance, but making sure that everyone did the 12

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-35772436844841747742007-11-27T10:45:00.000-08:002007-11-28T16:16:40.211-08:00

So I picked up the Orange Box before the turkey-based holiday. It was getting nothing but rave reviews and since I hadn't played anything new since the last Civ IV expansion, I needed something different.Installed on Wednesday night and have played for about 15 hours total.Portal is neat game. It's definitely nice to see an innovative game that is willing to take a chance on new ideas. And it's

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-21573839921227285212007-11-19T16:39:00.000-08:002007-11-19T16:40:41.518-08:00

With the recent release of patch 2.3 comes the first raid content since Upper Blackrock Spire that doesn't require crazy attunement/key quests.Since out guild is very casual, we've never been to Karazhan and have only done a handful of heroics. So this was our first chance to try out a raiding instance in the Outlands. I'm speaking of the troll-infested Zul'man of course.We knew going into it

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-63784187295861539432007-11-15T11:22:00.000-08:002007-11-15T11:25:33.484-08:00

So the new patch has now been out for two days and I wanted to give my initial impressions.A lot of the class changes I wont have any comments on since 90% of my WoW play time is spent on my level 70 orc warrior. But I have had a chance to investigate the new Daily Quests, the Guild Bank, the changes to Alterac Valley and more! Keep reading for details.The Daily Battleground quests are great! A

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-3375088974908186642007-11-09T14:58:00.000-08:002007-11-09T15:02:40.506-08:00

So the latest buzz on the MMO scene is about the possible development of Elder Scrolls Online.While a lot of fans are overly excited about this announcement, Bethseda is either going to have to seriously water down their worldy gameplay or accept the fact that they'll be a relatively niche game. There is no way that they'll 'challenge WoW' as some pundits are proclaiming.Why? Well lets look at

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-31749720112895732962007-11-05T15:12:00.000-08:002008-11-26T14:39:17.532-08:00

One of the common occurrences in online, quest-based games, and WoW especially, is the fact that veteran players tend to skip reading the quest text, instead simply focusing on the pertinent parts, ie, who do I kill and what rewards do I get! I find myself even doing this with new quests that I haven't seen before. Just a quick skim to see who needs to be eviscerated and where they live and what

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-69353047874641090112007-11-01T10:37:00.000-07:002007-11-01T10:47:02.697-07:00

So the latest version of Dwarf Fortress has finally been release. You can find it here. It has been in development for quite a while and includes a z-axis, alterations to temperature exchange and water flow and more!Unfortunately, the game's interface is still pretty horrid. But for those who are put off by the ASCII graphics, there is hope! First of all, take a look at this mockup! Pretty sweet!

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-43554377450438197702007-10-23T10:53:00.000-07:002007-10-23T10:54:37.519-07:00

So my previous post about the Resurrection of Alterac Valley seems to have been a bit premature. Sure, there are more AV matches running now than there were before, but the PvP has quickly vanished in the wake of honor farming.Alterac Valley has returned to how it was a year ago, both sides rushing the enemy base, with little to no contact between the 'warring' players. In fact, the players work

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-10805491697704355992007-10-13T13:25:00.000-07:002007-10-13T13:49:22.745-07:00

So a while back, Blizzard introduced a 'matchmaking' system for determining who you would fight against in the battlegrounds. This system was supposed to weigh your gear and whether or not you were joining in a group to determine the matchups.I played some Arathi Basin today, joining by myself, and six out of six times, I was placed into a battleground with a bunch of random Horde from various

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-85320809512536773452007-10-11T14:06:00.000-07:002008-11-26T14:39:17.533-08:00

Back in the days of Counterstrike, when a good friend and I used to cart our computers up to his office at the university so we could play together over their T3 lines, there came along a little mod that didn't receive as much attention as Counterstrike did, but still had a lot of charm, enough so that it was eventually released as its own box set. That mod was called Day of Defeat. I was hooked

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-24444934413080513752007-10-10T15:31:00.000-07:002007-10-10T15:33:37.214-07:00

The big news of the day is the 'indefinite hold' that Perpetual has put on Gods and Heroes.I've been in the beta for 2 months and to be honest, it didn't really capture my attention. I played for at most 10 hours, and only got to level 7 with a Gladiator character, so any information I have to share will be limited.I was actually very excited when I got a beta acceptance email for Gods and Heroes

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-48476895786406667402007-10-05T11:23:00.000-07:002008-11-26T14:39:17.535-08:00

Raph, as usual, has been talking a lot about virtual worlds and what defines a virtual world. So that got me to thinking. I decided to attempt to break down and define what I consider to be the Primary Layers of Online Virtual Worlds. Every Online Virtual World will have at least one foot in each of the Primary Layers listed below.The Three Primary Layers of an Online Virtual World are: Social,

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-87441707649209115642007-09-26T12:05:00.000-07:002007-09-26T12:07:47.242-07:00

So Patch 2.2 for World of Warcraft is finally here, and with it the addition of the ability to report AFKers in the Battlegrounds. And I have to say, the immediate impact is pretty amazing!I played seven matches last night, and there wasn't a single character idling in the cave. There were a couple of AFKers who tried to hide in other parts of the map, but they were quickly identified and marked

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-87301725293461254872007-08-30T16:11:00.000-07:002007-08-31T09:31:29.143-07:00

So I talked a bit yesterday about things that WoW has done right. And I'm still playing and enjoying the game to this day. However, I fully expect that my WoW days will come to an abrupt ending when Warhammer is released. So I thought I'd talk a bit about why I would be giving up one addiction for a new one. Well obviously, simply the idea of a new experience has some draw, as well as the fact

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-30315482791195600762007-08-29T16:11:00.000-07:002007-08-29T16:13:56.305-07:00

I've written quite a few rants, complaints and suggestions regarding World of Warcraft, so I decided to take a step back and praise its good points. After all, I have been playing it for all but a few months out of the past three years, so something must be right!1. Flexible Interface. This is by far my favorite part of WoW. Unfortunately, a lot of the flexibility requires third-party addons, but

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35910873.post-44589996656194299152007-08-27T14:17:00.000-07:002008-11-26T14:39:17.536-08:00

This post is in response to Blizzard's press release about their next expansion which includes the first (and only) hero class, the infamous Death Knight. While many are excited to see Blizzard finally getting around to implementing something that has been hinted at since launch, I find their design idea for heroes pretty, damn, lame.Note: This is not a full-fledged design idea, nor is it

Tholalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13602552885840666836noreply@blogger.com0