Not just one Overton window
6 hours ago
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Tis The Season.
That's right folks, it's the season to be merry fa la la la la and so so onnn.
Offline, well work has been busy. Life has been busy and there's all that stuff next month.
Yeep I haven't gotten any gifts or put up the tree. Lazy I know. Fortunately (in a very odd sense) my laziness includes the interwebs. Not only do I have to still do proper Christmas out in the real world, granted I have been listening to Phil Spectors Christmas Albumn, I have to poke my head in on the two events around in my games.
City of Heroes brings the Winter EVent with the now traditional Ski Chalet and Warhammer Online brings beer, booms and boasts with Kegs End.
Winter in City of Heroes means a few things.
There are presents everywhere that when opened could have something good or a bunch of snowmen. Naughty or Nice, opening 200 presents gets the Toy Collector Badge.
Never again will I grind that. Once was enough.
The snowmen are annoying, but every so often you can get the Giant Monster class Winter Lord. Thar be a badge there as well and as Shannon has discovered, two merits per kill. Granted I've not looked at the Merit system but I don't think that's a particularly impressive haul. The right team and he's down faster than a catgirl in Atlas.
Candy Canes! Oh yes. Oh yes indeed. There are various temporary power rewards for the candy canes. They're a clever bit of work. Previously if you missed an event and it's badges, they were gone. Badge whores abhor such things. Candy canes however were introduced...last year I think? With them you can get the temp powers, but you can also get badges that you may have missed from earlier Winter Events (y'know, by not being there or not working for 'em) that are otherwise no longer available. This year they've also thrown in a Halo aura. Naughty or nice, you can now complete the Angel or Devil look.
I'm tempted to put it on my possibly Holy powered, certainly wing sporting Dual Blades Tanker just to annoy people and further confuse the whole "She is not an Angel stop asking" issue.
Mostly though I bet they'll be used in Pocket D to signal being cyberbait. That's just me being cynical.
The only thing that has got my attention at the moment (and yes I am glossing over other details like the Winter Event only Universal Travel IO set, in game roleplay events and the hideous looking Baby New Year in his own mission from Father Time) is the redesign to the Ski Chalet.I say now that I am not interested in the badges, I claim that the Tome Of Knowledge has now moved into that obsessive centre of my brain/heart and reigns supreme but... well there's a giant snow slide with a time challenge. Going to have to give that a go.
Warhammer Online is bringing in the Kegs End, or rather by the time I post this it is live. I've not heard much about it myself having been busy lately. However I caught some highlights thanks to the Herald mostly and Massively in general.
Heres what I learned.
1) Beer, explosions and /boast.I mostly play Dwarfs, so all three are fantastic. (In a moment of subverting Paul Barnett, while I adore Dwarfs, I don't drink, I am 6'6'' and I'm not that hairy. I do however love tunnels.)
/Boast is something that I think is good. Sure making fun of people you whomp in PvP or RvR can go either way. Sometimes it's in the spirit of the thing (What won't Goblins/Orcs laugh at?) and sometimes it's clear that the guys clustered around your corpse are wishing for a /teabag.Still in the interests of fostering rivalries (not discord) being able to boast over the broken bodies of foes who had previously been laughing their greenie faces off appeals to me.
Bloody grobi.
2) Rewards.Live Events have thus far always given me something worth having. It may not be the basic reward (Though the title and see through effect of the Witching potion was fun), it may not be the advanced (though the capes from both events are wonderful with interesting bits) but by the Elite I've had something well worth having.
This time around?I can get a Trophy. They're always good to have. In fact I want more trophys and pocket items.
I can get a title, The Drunkard. Norri tends to be either sozzled or convinced he's a master scout. Sounds like they've got the title for him.I can get a recall spell. No idea if it has limited uses, but the ability to zap myself all the way back to a City Pub? Fantastic! Especially if you're after the Auction House.
3) Last bits.
There'll be mobs, there'll be things occuring. There will be interesting effects and new sights to see. Third live event they've had and they are still pulling out new things. I love this.
The two last sticky out in memory bits then.
The Golden Stein? Well... on that I am ambivalent. I don't know if it's something everyone can have, and even if they can, I have Furds Bottomless Mug already. Still..if it's goin' beggin'...
The Keg backpack?
Two words. DO WANT!
City of Heroes, I still enjoy you and I will come to play in the snow, but if anyone wants me and I'm not on the slide, I'm in the Warhammer world chasing down a Beerpack or two. It'll be a blast.
Offline, well work has been busy. Life has been busy and there's all that stuff next month.
Yeep I haven't gotten any gifts or put up the tree. Lazy I know. Fortunately (in a very odd sense) my laziness includes the interwebs. Not only do I have to still do proper Christmas out in the real world, granted I have been listening to Phil Spectors Christmas Albumn, I have to poke my head in on the two events around in my games.
City of Heroes brings the Winter EVent with the now traditional Ski Chalet and Warhammer Online brings beer, booms and boasts with Kegs End.
Winter in City of Heroes means a few things.
There are presents everywhere that when opened could have something good or a bunch of snowmen. Naughty or Nice, opening 200 presents gets the Toy Collector Badge.
Never again will I grind that. Once was enough.
The snowmen are annoying, but every so often you can get the Giant Monster class Winter Lord. Thar be a badge there as well and as Shannon has discovered, two merits per kill. Granted I've not looked at the Merit system but I don't think that's a particularly impressive haul. The right team and he's down faster than a catgirl in Atlas.
Candy Canes! Oh yes. Oh yes indeed. There are various temporary power rewards for the candy canes. They're a clever bit of work. Previously if you missed an event and it's badges, they were gone. Badge whores abhor such things. Candy canes however were introduced...last year I think? With them you can get the temp powers, but you can also get badges that you may have missed from earlier Winter Events (y'know, by not being there or not working for 'em) that are otherwise no longer available. This year they've also thrown in a Halo aura. Naughty or nice, you can now complete the Angel or Devil look.
I'm tempted to put it on my possibly Holy powered, certainly wing sporting Dual Blades Tanker just to annoy people and further confuse the whole "She is not an Angel stop asking" issue.
Mostly though I bet they'll be used in Pocket D to signal being cyberbait. That's just me being cynical.
The only thing that has got my attention at the moment (and yes I am glossing over other details like the Winter Event only Universal Travel IO set, in game roleplay events and the hideous looking Baby New Year in his own mission from Father Time) is the redesign to the Ski Chalet.I say now that I am not interested in the badges, I claim that the Tome Of Knowledge has now moved into that obsessive centre of my brain/heart and reigns supreme but... well there's a giant snow slide with a time challenge. Going to have to give that a go.
Warhammer Online is bringing in the Kegs End, or rather by the time I post this it is live. I've not heard much about it myself having been busy lately. However I caught some highlights thanks to the Herald mostly and Massively in general.
Heres what I learned.
1) Beer, explosions and /boast.I mostly play Dwarfs, so all three are fantastic. (In a moment of subverting Paul Barnett, while I adore Dwarfs, I don't drink, I am 6'6'' and I'm not that hairy. I do however love tunnels.)
/Boast is something that I think is good. Sure making fun of people you whomp in PvP or RvR can go either way. Sometimes it's in the spirit of the thing (What won't Goblins/Orcs laugh at?) and sometimes it's clear that the guys clustered around your corpse are wishing for a /teabag.Still in the interests of fostering rivalries (not discord) being able to boast over the broken bodies of foes who had previously been laughing their greenie faces off appeals to me.
Bloody grobi.
2) Rewards.Live Events have thus far always given me something worth having. It may not be the basic reward (Though the title and see through effect of the Witching potion was fun), it may not be the advanced (though the capes from both events are wonderful with interesting bits) but by the Elite I've had something well worth having.
This time around?I can get a Trophy. They're always good to have. In fact I want more trophys and pocket items.
I can get a title, The Drunkard. Norri tends to be either sozzled or convinced he's a master scout. Sounds like they've got the title for him.I can get a recall spell. No idea if it has limited uses, but the ability to zap myself all the way back to a City Pub? Fantastic! Especially if you're after the Auction House.
3) Last bits.
There'll be mobs, there'll be things occuring. There will be interesting effects and new sights to see. Third live event they've had and they are still pulling out new things. I love this.
The two last sticky out in memory bits then.
The Golden Stein? Well... on that I am ambivalent. I don't know if it's something everyone can have, and even if they can, I have Furds Bottomless Mug already. Still..if it's goin' beggin'...
The Keg backpack?
Two words. DO WANT!
City of Heroes, I still enjoy you and I will come to play in the snow, but if anyone wants me and I'm not on the slide, I'm in the Warhammer world chasing down a Beerpack or two. It'll be a blast.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
A Knight, a Cop and a Centurion...
..walk into an instanced mission and no one bats an eye.
Issue 13 recently hit for City of Heroes and there are some fun bits in it. Granted alot of people are looking forward to the Mission Architect in I14 and the big carrot on a stick that is I15 (Will the 5th be back back back?!).
There are a few things in Issue 13 that I am enjoying but they're hardly stellar. That said, let's go through 'em. (Clarification : There are more aspects to I13 than those below, these are just the ones I am currently interested in/affected by)
Dual Builds
Now in City of Heroes you can have dual builds. You can't change AT, primary or secondary powersets or side. You can however pick powers and slots in a new order. The idea is you could have a grouping build and a soloing build.
I'm sure some people will love that, especially the "I have one attack" Empaths. It doesn't do a whole lot for me. Mostly because I pick what I am going to do and stick to it. My Bubbler doesn't need a pvp spec or a soloing spec because he has teammates for that.
However I am using it on my VEAT (villain epic at) as they branch down two different paths and this allows my Crab Spider VEAT to hit a button and become a Bane Spider. From a Pet-ish Blaster-ish tough guy (well robot) into a mace wielding blastery Stalker.
In those situations, sure it makes sense and is useful even. The thing is... I like my Crab Spider. That's why I chose Crab Spider. Being able to swap is nice but I survived without before. Mostly I think that whole thing is for PvP.
Levelling pact
I'm doing this one with Shannon right now. Duos, trios and superteams are a feature of City Of Heroes. Moving in levelstep is something you do. I have a lvl 46 controller with a good friend of mine (my God I must make time for her and get us to 50) and they've been the same level and played at the same time all the way up the ladder. Without Stamina either.
Anyway I am still a little unclear on all the ins and outs of levelling pact. Since CoH redesigned its site and patcher and whatnot, they seem to have gone to shorthand. I don't know about other people, but I love pages of patch notes. It's nice to see all the little tweaks. Seeing that 1.06 stretched over two pages on the Herald made me grin like a loon. Sure most of it wasnt applicable to things I played, but it shows what they've worked hard for.
Anyway. Levelling pact. Your exp is shared. If I play 100 hours and Shannon plays 10, we'll still be the same level. It keeps us level and rewards playing with a particular player. At the moment the pact is only open below level 5 and only for two people at a time. I do see it being expanded and wait for the day that a Supergroup is started, hardcores and casuals together all linked in a pact.
Given how much bigger the Plume of Awesome is at 50, I'd pay to see 8 simultaneous dings at 50.
Day Jobs
I don't like 'em. The Tome Of Knowledge has cured my badge whoring in City of Heroes. Badges have nothing on the Tome. So I wont grind them out (30 days offline in a particular location per badge) on people. If they introduced it several issues ago when I had few alts and a hard time picking who to play, I'd have been all for it. The rewards, while nice, are just that. Nice. It is an incentive to make alts and to not play all your characters. Neglect some, then come back to goodies. Make alts and grind out rewards for later use. I see it more as a cynical means of extending the games lifespan by rewarding players for not playing but still paying.
The Patrol XP (Rest xp basically) is tasty though. You can get one bar of 1.5xp per day logged out. So even over night you'll get a little boost when you start playing. If you've had a busy week and no play, come back to a faster levelling. This I approve of.
Shields
Sooo many cops. This is all the art guys fault. He put a Nightstick option in for War Mace and a Riot Shield. If it's not cops, it's knights. If it's not knights, it's centurions. There do seem to be a few going for the tech options and a few going for interesting combinations, but not as many as you'd like. That's life with a new powerset. Hell that's life in a current MMO. New Class? MUST HAVE! Style and thought go out the window usually, just want to play NAO!
That said, Sheilds are very interesting. Some nice powers I like, some aspects I don't. It's essentially Super Reflexes with a dash of Willpower-style and a teleporting attack like EM's Lightning Rod (of which I am jealous). But a few of the powers, granting defense buffs and gaining your own for being close up with other players (ideally in melee) look tasty for Shield players who stick together.
Despite my complaint, I'd love to see a super team of all Centurions Phalanxing it up a notch.
Midweek I play City of. Weekends are WAR time. Let's see how long the midweek play lasts. So far, so good.
Then again I am in a Shield duo in a level pact. It pays to play.
Issue 13 recently hit for City of Heroes and there are some fun bits in it. Granted alot of people are looking forward to the Mission Architect in I14 and the big carrot on a stick that is I15 (Will the 5th be back back back?!).
There are a few things in Issue 13 that I am enjoying but they're hardly stellar. That said, let's go through 'em. (Clarification : There are more aspects to I13 than those below, these are just the ones I am currently interested in/affected by)
Dual Builds
Now in City of Heroes you can have dual builds. You can't change AT, primary or secondary powersets or side. You can however pick powers and slots in a new order. The idea is you could have a grouping build and a soloing build.
I'm sure some people will love that, especially the "I have one attack" Empaths. It doesn't do a whole lot for me. Mostly because I pick what I am going to do and stick to it. My Bubbler doesn't need a pvp spec or a soloing spec because he has teammates for that.
However I am using it on my VEAT (villain epic at) as they branch down two different paths and this allows my Crab Spider VEAT to hit a button and become a Bane Spider. From a Pet-ish Blaster-ish tough guy (well robot) into a mace wielding blastery Stalker.
In those situations, sure it makes sense and is useful even. The thing is... I like my Crab Spider. That's why I chose Crab Spider. Being able to swap is nice but I survived without before. Mostly I think that whole thing is for PvP.
Levelling pact
I'm doing this one with Shannon right now. Duos, trios and superteams are a feature of City Of Heroes. Moving in levelstep is something you do. I have a lvl 46 controller with a good friend of mine (my God I must make time for her and get us to 50) and they've been the same level and played at the same time all the way up the ladder. Without Stamina either.
Anyway I am still a little unclear on all the ins and outs of levelling pact. Since CoH redesigned its site and patcher and whatnot, they seem to have gone to shorthand. I don't know about other people, but I love pages of patch notes. It's nice to see all the little tweaks. Seeing that 1.06 stretched over two pages on the Herald made me grin like a loon. Sure most of it wasnt applicable to things I played, but it shows what they've worked hard for.
Anyway. Levelling pact. Your exp is shared. If I play 100 hours and Shannon plays 10, we'll still be the same level. It keeps us level and rewards playing with a particular player. At the moment the pact is only open below level 5 and only for two people at a time. I do see it being expanded and wait for the day that a Supergroup is started, hardcores and casuals together all linked in a pact.
Given how much bigger the Plume of Awesome is at 50, I'd pay to see 8 simultaneous dings at 50.
Day Jobs
I don't like 'em. The Tome Of Knowledge has cured my badge whoring in City of Heroes. Badges have nothing on the Tome. So I wont grind them out (30 days offline in a particular location per badge) on people. If they introduced it several issues ago when I had few alts and a hard time picking who to play, I'd have been all for it. The rewards, while nice, are just that. Nice. It is an incentive to make alts and to not play all your characters. Neglect some, then come back to goodies. Make alts and grind out rewards for later use. I see it more as a cynical means of extending the games lifespan by rewarding players for not playing but still paying.
The Patrol XP (Rest xp basically) is tasty though. You can get one bar of 1.5xp per day logged out. So even over night you'll get a little boost when you start playing. If you've had a busy week and no play, come back to a faster levelling. This I approve of.
Shields
Sooo many cops. This is all the art guys fault. He put a Nightstick option in for War Mace and a Riot Shield. If it's not cops, it's knights. If it's not knights, it's centurions. There do seem to be a few going for the tech options and a few going for interesting combinations, but not as many as you'd like. That's life with a new powerset. Hell that's life in a current MMO. New Class? MUST HAVE! Style and thought go out the window usually, just want to play NAO!
That said, Sheilds are very interesting. Some nice powers I like, some aspects I don't. It's essentially Super Reflexes with a dash of Willpower-style and a teleporting attack like EM's Lightning Rod (of which I am jealous). But a few of the powers, granting defense buffs and gaining your own for being close up with other players (ideally in melee) look tasty for Shield players who stick together.
Despite my complaint, I'd love to see a super team of all Centurions Phalanxing it up a notch.
Midweek I play City of. Weekends are WAR time. Let's see how long the midweek play lasts. So far, so good.
Then again I am in a Shield duo in a level pact. It pays to play.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
I should blog more
It's true. I should.
However work and life oppose me at every turn.
Anyway. On with the show.
My idea mentioned below. The little get together for a small group to start a fight night...
Well as you can guess I got a little busy before I was supposed to haunt forums. So that has been put back. Add to that this little nugget from Wizards & Wenches.
Sorry to be the party-pooper here, but arranging duels like this isn’t allowed. This is so for a few reasons. To start with, it doesn’t go well with the WAR setting; Order and Destruction aren’t enemies due to mere ideological or political reasons but rather are bitter and irrevocable enemies where kill-on-sight is the the norm. There’s also the aspect of renown and victory points to consider. Although duels don’t have a large impact on zone locking mechanisms, they do contribute and again, it’s just not the way these things are meant to work.
This doesn’t mean that RvR can’t be pre-arranged. It’s perfectly fine to say “we’ll roam this-and-this zone tomorrow evening from 8pm and we’ll kill anyone entering it!”. Basically, as long as the RvR taking place make sense within the WAR setting it’s fine.
Currently, players cought participating in what is clearly arranged duels risk being penalized for this.
I will argue one point. The Non RP servers outnumber the RP servers. There are by definition more people not concerned with the setting than there are those who are. That's not an absolute garuntee, but there are likely players on other servers who haven't a clue who Sigmar is or what the whole WAAAGH thing is about.
Even with that little warning in mind, the idea of an Ostermark fight night will move ahead. If I am quick about it, I'll be able to entice the second round of Knights and Blackguards to participate as they come up the ranks.
Contribution!
They admit it's borked
Colin gets one back
That's all that needs to be said there. Sure some people thought it was in poor taste, but I saw what they were trying to say and enjoyed the video. The second one is similarly amusing.
Last WAR bit
All in all, I do need to blog more. With any luck I shall be. Certainly I got to spend some decent time in WAR lately. Keep watching.
Oh and My friend Seph has also started blogging. If he can bother me, I can advertise him :P
However work and life oppose me at every turn.
Anyway. On with the show.
My idea mentioned below. The little get together for a small group to start a fight night...
Well as you can guess I got a little busy before I was supposed to haunt forums. So that has been put back. Add to that this little nugget from Wizards & Wenches.
Sorry to be the party-pooper here, but arranging duels like this isn’t allowed. This is so for a few reasons. To start with, it doesn’t go well with the WAR setting; Order and Destruction aren’t enemies due to mere ideological or political reasons but rather are bitter and irrevocable enemies where kill-on-sight is the the norm. There’s also the aspect of renown and victory points to consider. Although duels don’t have a large impact on zone locking mechanisms, they do contribute and again, it’s just not the way these things are meant to work.
This doesn’t mean that RvR can’t be pre-arranged. It’s perfectly fine to say “we’ll roam this-and-this zone tomorrow evening from 8pm and we’ll kill anyone entering it!”. Basically, as long as the RvR taking place make sense within the WAR setting it’s fine.
Currently, players cought participating in what is clearly arranged duels risk being penalized for this.
I will argue one point. The Non RP servers outnumber the RP servers. There are by definition more people not concerned with the setting than there are those who are. That's not an absolute garuntee, but there are likely players on other servers who haven't a clue who Sigmar is or what the whole WAAAGH thing is about.
Even with that little warning in mind, the idea of an Ostermark fight night will move ahead. If I am quick about it, I'll be able to entice the second round of Knights and Blackguards to participate as they come up the ranks.
Contribution!
They admit it's borked
Colin gets one back
That's all that needs to be said there. Sure some people thought it was in poor taste, but I saw what they were trying to say and enjoyed the video. The second one is similarly amusing.
Last WAR bit
All in all, I do need to blog more. With any luck I shall be. Certainly I got to spend some decent time in WAR lately. Keep watching.
Oh and My friend Seph has also started blogging. If he can bother me, I can advertise him :P
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