LOTRO: Beer fight!

//Skirmish System

I've been playing LOTRO a lot more now since they had the Mirkwood expansion update. So far it's been fun but the Skirmish system is slightly difficult to solo if you are a squishy. First off, the Skirmish system are instances where you can either do as a party, raid or solo. So far there are 3 that are offered for my current level, which involves protecting weathertop, a dwarf fortress and a small hobbit town called truckburogh in the shire. The enemies are always random except for the last boss and there are hidden extra bosses in the instances that you can take on for extra loot.
The rewards are pretty niffty. It's a bit like Warhammer where you collect medallions to trade for gear/weapons, but you can purchase skills for your NPC solider, crafting items and reputation tokens.

Only issue that I have encountered so far is the NPC solider you control gets stuck everywhere and he sometimes ignores me when I'm getting pummeled to death. And the death penalty is pretty steep too. The more you die, the more they deduct skirmish tokens from your loot table. It's not easy mode like other games, that's for sure.

//Fly you fools!!!

For the Yule festival, there is a new event called the Beer Fight. If you go to Thorin's Hall and under the throne room, you will find a party area. The beer fight starts every 10 min. You flag the quest from the Dwarf then as soon as the event starts, make sure you quickslot the Club weapon given to you. The objective is to interact with the party keg that randomly spawns on any of the 3 tables and hit people that get in your way. The club weapon knocks people back a good 5 feet and it's called "Fly you fools!". It's pretty hilarious to watch and it was a lot of fun. The quest is repeatable too and you get yule tokens and a "Party Keg" replica to put inside your house.

Gnomon School of Visual Effects

This is a bit off-topic but... I'm currently enrolled in a Maya class at Gnomon. It's a private school that has instructors that work in the Game and Movie Industry. My class is actually taught by my coworker, which is amusing in a way since I tend to give him a hard time in class.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool that employees from Blur studios are teaching classes there now. They worked on the Warhammer Online trailer and also the Star Wars: The Old Republic Trailer for E3. Their work is pretty phenomenal. I plan to take more classes in the future as well, but it's really difficult since I basically have no weekend since I have class and homework on top of working full time.




For my final project I have selected the Starship enterprise-D since I'm a Star Trek fan and it's a lot easier to do 'mechanical' objects opposed to organic forms. This is my current progress. I still have a long ways to go :(
Anyway, I highly recommend Gnomon as a school. It's pretty pricey but well worth it. They are a govt. accredited school as well, so I am able to take the class for free since 'the mouse' is paying it for me.

I hate NURBS!!!

UI game design

Currently I am creating the User Interface for the POTCO new inventory system. I can't go into details but it will be a huge upgrade for the game. Do you think it's redundant to have a character page that displays your armor while your character on screen displays the same exact thing? I see it done in Warhammer, WoW, LOTRO, Dragonica and in most games that I have played but I'm not sure if it's the most practical.
I like Warhammer's inventory bags because it stacks together into one panel...where as LOTRO has floating bags, which gets in the way sometimes.

It's been pretty tough to work out the kinks, but I'm curious on how other people feel about game UI's and which ones do you think is the most intuitive.

//warhammer - no wai?

This from last week, but when Order was invading IC, I was solo defending the Monolith BO cuz everyone else was in the center dying. This SM named Reggimus starts attacking me while I was alt tabbed. I tab back and start fighting back. We were at it for a good 5-10 min..and it was getting tiresome. He was barely getting hurt by me and whenever my HP dropped, I just healed myself so it was getting no where fast. Finally, a group of Order shows up and obliterates me. I was kinda glad tho cuz the fight was probably be going on forever. I admit that I'm not the greatest DoK.. I consider myself more of a support job with the way I'm spec'ed but it's good to know I can last against a Swordmaster who was only a few RR levels below me.

P.S. Also to the lamers from Neighborhood Wankers, hope you enjoyed your stay on Iron Rock. You'll be running and cryin' back to DC soon enuff. ;)

// The Lord of the Rings Online - Balrog

LOTRO had a pumpkin carving contest and I entered. I did a sketch first then my hubby did most of the carving of the pumpkin. Didn't win, but here's 3 hours of effort!


My Sketch (pencils to photoshop)


The pumpkin, end result

:D

//Warhammer // I'm in your SC's, Pwning yer arse

So I rolled an Alt Marauder (named Hyoga) for fun in Tier 1 of Iron Rock. I heard about it being busy since a lot of people from DC and trial testers were in there. Order seemed to not know what the hell was going on in the SC's. ORVR seemed a lil better but wow, Destro Roflstomped Order hard in SC after SC. My favorite SC of all time is Khaine's Embrace. So fun and watch ppl get obliterated by Khaine. heh.

Tier 4 is the opposite. Destro PuG's haven't a clue what to do in the SC's I have been in lately. I'm the only one ever at the BO's. >.>

//Warhammer - The Land of the Dead outtakes

I was stuck in the Land of the Dead PQ (hall of heavens) for a good 10 min because we fell into the pool that turns you into skeletons but we didn't die.. wtf..
/stuck didn't work either..so a CSR had to come punt us out..
lol.

//Warhammer 1.3.2 patch is coming

Soooo..I know that I have been gone for awhile but I'm back and playing the game a lot more now than before. Reason being, the previous patch took out a lot of unnecessary CC's that had crippled the game. Now, I can actually live for longer than 5 seconds without seeing the "you are disabled, you are disabled" text repeating and then I get knocked down. I purchased a skill that blocks CC's for 10 sec with Renown points and it seems to help as well.

I am Currently Level 40 Renown 48 DoK and I have nearly the entire Conqueror set, sans the chest piece. Destro always avoided forts, but lately they have been doing it even though we wipe 90% of the time. I think it's good that Mythic is taking out forts. Forts are awful and bugged to heck. One ramp with a sh*t ton of NPCs that run everywhere. If we ever win at forts, it's cuz Order doesn't show up to defend and that is a rare occasion.

So, Patch 1.3.2 should be coming in soon along with the daemon moon event. I'm still waiting for Bright Wizards to be nerfed though. I die less now to them but if there's a lot, it is problematic for us.

Here's a link to my gear set up

Here's an embarrasing picture..

I'm still here, killing order

Hey Guys.. sorry for the loooong delay. Work has been pretty crazy for me and I haven't had much free time to post. I resubbed Warhammer for another 3 months in hopes it will get better. I hit level 40 a few weeks ago too..I've been working on getting the rest of my conq/invader gear and trying to push forts. I have yet to see the Order city Altdorf, but I've been in plenty of IC defense parties.

Can't wait for the wild hunt event.. LOTD is getting boring for me cuz no one is doing runs for the lairs. Think we really need to have a 3rd faction and rest of the captial cities to spice things up more. I'm also thinking of resetting my skill tree to pure Melee cuz i'm sick and tired of ppl complaining about not getting heals. >.< Right now I'm half Melee and half healer spec.

//Warhammer - Proof that Mythic Favors Order

So...no one got the joke I guess.

Official Forums Post: Proof that Mythic Favors Order

I guess my post is more trolling than helpful but I thought it would be funny to point that out since the login screen does to go Order's side first. ;p Anyway, I LOL'd.

//Warhammer - Land of the Dead

//Beyond the Sands...

In the land of scorching heat and swirling sands, the undead pharaohs await in their trap laden tombs for unsuspecting victims.

I logged on last night and got a taste of the new LoTD zone that was added on Monday. Destruction had access to the zone at the time so I lucked out. First Impression was it looked dazzling. I really like how much effort they put into the design of the place and it's a huge contrast to the other existing zones. I started out trying to cross the river in the middle but ended up drowning because the river was filled with poison. Note to self, avoid the purple river. My Guild started doing the PQ in front of the Largest Pyramid, I ferget what it's called but it looked like "necropolis of STFU" but it's actually SETFU or something. Friggen HUGE skeleton of the undead Pharaoh came out to stomp on us. Apparently the only way to defeat it is if you pull it and fight it on the "glyphs" stones on the floor. Tricky, huh? It didn't help that some Order bursted out of the temple to attack us but we rolled them since there was a huge Zerg of Destruction in LotD, must have been between 500-1000 people in the zone.



So after doing that and being stuck in the Pyramid door for about 15 min, we were inside the Pyramid lair instance. The lairs are filled with booby traps, ala Indiana Jones so you have to figure out how to disable them. There was a hallway filled with swinging sharp axes that you have to run thru and if you get it, it's an insta-death.
All the sudden we got booted from the instance. I don't know why but some people rage-quited the WB due to it.



Anyhoo, so the premise of getting access to the lairs are that you need to have specific glyphs that you earn from doing certain PQ's. You can check your tome of Knowledge for that. There are 2 annoying PQ's that are mobile, so you need to track them down. You can earn 'scarab' currency from drops to trade in for amazing gear. I already got myself a Blue named Chalice and an Egyptian Trophy.



When the opposite faction unlocks the LoTD, you have to get back to your WC asap cuz if you die and release, you will be sent back to your capital city. So you'll need to get back to the WC asap to defend against the invaders.

and..that is my first look at the LotD. More later!

//Warhammer - Iron Rock Server

Yea so, we lost the LOTD live event to Order.

I have been disappointed with ORVR as of late. Order outnumbers us in TIV by many so it seems like the zerg always wins in this game. I die nearly instantly from BW's and WH's. No one listens and there is a huge lack of organization in warbands. Last night around midnight, Order attacked Inevitable City and people were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Plus, during the last stage of the PQ, there was a bug with the Lieutenant/Lord's guards and they kept despawning if they were pulled out too far. Everyone kept pulling them too far and they'd despawn even though the leader was telling people to not stray too far. To make things worse, we all got booted out to the maw when the gold chest popped. So no one got their bags of lewt.

// Cry Moar Lamers of the Week //

Destro: Faaty
This guy robbed us of many items in our guild vault. He also did the same to other guilds. Beware of him.

Order: Jaycub
This guy is a KOTBS and while he may be a good at his class, he could use better tact. He spams emotes at the person he kills and seems like a real jerk.

Warhammer Online - Age of Crafting

// Scavenging and Talisman making 101

I didn't pick up crafting until I was level 30, out of sheer laziness and ignorance. It however is very useful and brings in some income for us RVR'ers who spend a lot of money on gear, medical healing and traveling. I chose the pairing of Scavenging and Talisman making since it seems to go hand-in-hand. At first was confusing to me, since I didn't even know where to start, so I thought writing a guide would be helpful for those interested in crafting. There are crafting NPC's are located in Inevitable City (Destruction).

Scavenging NPCS: Lorne Foulsteel & Diedrick Goedbloed - Inevitable City, Map Markers: 17575, 24323

Talisman NPC: Dripnose Shinymaka - Da War Maker

From then on, you will be able to collect items from corpses from PVE or RVR. Simply loot the corpse first then a cursor that looks like pliers will appear and you can scavenge the corpse. There are 5 types of items you can get and they should appear in your "new" crafting bags post patch 1.3. To start, go to your abilities panel, to the last page and click the Talisman making icon. You need to drag and drop the a container into the slot first in order to begin. Then drag the rest of the items into the appropriate slot and then click "fuse" to craft the talisman. When you first start off, the talismans are very weak and only last for a certain amount of time, i.E. 8 hours, but as you level your skill, the power of the talismans will increase. If you need to buy any items, there are crafting NPC's located near the AH and also the Camp Merchant near the crafting NPC's sells them too.

Relic boxes:
Container to hold the talisman

Fragments:
Various items collected and are the base of the Talisman power, NPC's don't carry much, if any of these.

Curios:
They are usally coins, watches and the "odd" items that you will scavenge

Essence:
Magical Essence that can be bought from the NPC or looted

Gold Dust:
Gold Dust can be bought from NPC's or looted.

Once you start collecting materials, your bags will be full often so it's best to keep everything organized by level and type. Have fun!

Warhammer Blog Challenge, The Answer!

Warhammer Solve the Hieroglyphic Codes Blog Challenge

Quick! The amount of free scarab pets are going fast!
There are still some available for the code of LUTIMHUTT / LUTIMKHUTT (Massively.com's Cartouche).

Kotaku.com = XEMAN_OBEK
I think the Kotaku one is still borked, missing something in-between, could be a conjunction of 2 letters, as it is possible in the Egyptian Language.

MMORPG.com = DJHADTUMNA but all the codes are gone already.


There are still 2 more cartouches/Rossetta stones yet to be revealed. Enter the codes after you log into the account center on the warhammeronline site.
Good luck!!!

// Special E3 2009 Report

INTOPIXEL Gallery: Warhammer Art

I was able to attend E3 @ the La Convention Center this past Tuesday on company time and it was a big deal since E3 went away from awhile and then all the sudden it came back this year. It's not as grand as it used to be (pre 2006), as it seems they are testing the waters and were holding back a bit. Most of the cool news came from the Press conferences, which is only open to press and execs. On the exhibit hall floor, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Square-Enix, EA and many more companies were displaying their latest products and games.



The biggest shockers for me at E3 are as follows:
- Microsoft: Natal technology
- Nintendo: Metriod Other M
- Final Fantasy XIV Online
- LucasArts: Monkey Island
- Metal Gear Rising on Xbox 360
- Facebook on DSi and Xbox 360!

Most Impressive:
- EA / Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic
If you haven't seen the trailer yet, GO SEE IT!! To add even more awesomeness, EA had a bunch of Sith come out on stage during the press conference.




// MMO Report:
So..I am pretty shocked about Square Enix's announcement about Final Fantasy XIV. I thought they were done milking the series but I guess not. From the Q n' A, it appears that it is not based on the world of Vanadiel, but the character races are similar. Some people are skeptical since the game looks similar but we were only shown a short teaser trailer and there was no demo on the floor for us to try out. I'm guessing it will probably come out in 2011. I'm still happily playing FFXI so I'm not in a hurry to quit that game.

I haven't had much time to try out other MMO's besides Jade Empire, which was pretty mediocre but I liked the combo system. I also tried out Free Realms but I wasn't too impressed. The card game is confusing and boring. Then again, the only card game I liked was Triple Triad from Final Fantasy VIII and magic the gathering. Nothing Warhammer related was being shown on the floor by EA either. There was also a lack of Blizzard presence in E3, as they are probably going to show everything at Blizzcon.

//Exhibit Hall Photos:

Playstation's Both


Nintendo's sleek booth - They were demoing Wii Sport Resort and a bunch of DS titles such as the new bowser game.


The new King of Fighters XII!


Assassin's Creed II and Splinter Cell giant posters outside


FFXIII's Lighting Figure


INTOPIXEL Gallery: Guild Wars Concept Art

E3: Electronic Entertainment Expo, June 2-4

Hey all, just a reminder that I will be covering E3 this year.

I will be attending just one day but I'll be sure to take photos and do a report for you all. Disney Online Studios won't be exhibiting, (a lot of us will be in attendance though) but Disney Interactive will have a booth. Stay Tuned!

On to Tier IV

//Warhammer: Age of Zerging

So I finally hit level 32 and I have been enjoying Tier IV ORVR thus far. I think my favorite RVR lake is Praag because the burning buildings, the sheer amount of hiding places and overall look and variety of the zone. The large number of BO's keeps the lake very busy with activity. There are a lot of skirmishes resulting from ninja-ing of them and I think it's entertaining. I die a lot now because I'm lower level than most people :( but...level 33 is close though. I caved in and bought my Devastator boots on the AH. That thing would not drop for me at all. Well..at least my Devastator set is now complete!

I tried out a dungeon for the first time with my guild. A place called the Bastion stairs. I think it's not as fun as RVR though. It was a nice change of pace however.


Fooling around with my Skaven Cloak that I recived for purchasing a WAR poster. it looks really neat and it turns you into a Skaven (rat humanoid) for a short amount of time. People seemed really confused by it..

I also have the Command and Conquer hat which turns you into a white bear. I didn't know that you had some emotes as a bear and one of them is /dance. He started busting out break dancing moves! Another person with the hat joined me as a bear and it was hilarious seeing us break dance in IC. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't breathe.


Good times in IC

FFXI: Players V.S. The RMT

Dealing with the RMT (Real money traders) within Final Fantasy XI has always been a problem. They are more abundant in this game because the fact that making gil is a bit difficult.

I had a recent run in with RMT a week or so ago in Bastok Mines (one of the main cities). I was watching a group of level 1 players with randomized names like "abcdefg" go to the noob gear npc then trade among them selves for hours on end. They are basically gil laundering to throw off the GM's. The trick to distrupt them is to instigate a trade with them so they are blocked from trading with others until someone cancels the trade. I've seen other players make mules just to disrupt them!

To further confuse them, I stripped down to my underoos to look like them and I mimicked their motions by going the noob gear NPC and trying to trade with the one of the RMT. One of them almost gave me 700,000 gil! He must have thought I was one of them. LOL. Another time, one of them traded me brass pots on accident. He realized what he did and tried to get it back but I ignored him, lol (threw away the pots later). I think they are growing craft ingredients to sell on the Auction House.

Anyway, So I reported them and got a message a few days ago from the GM saying that other people have reported it and are now investigating. There would be no need for RMT if there was no demand so I urge everyone to not buy accounts/gil/services if you want the FFXI economy to not suck.

Land of the Dead

Warhammer // Beyond the Sands recap

The live event came to a close today but you are still able to collect your rewards by visiting the city heralds. I think this event was the most successful of all live events thus far but there were times where it became frustrating. I was going to write a guide but I didn't know the event ended so soon before I can collect all the data :(. Luckily, I finished it last night and received my pimp aviator goggles!



So basically we were all forced to participate in RVR in order to complete the tasks to receive the rewards, which created huge battles and skirmishes all day/night long. The quests start in IC and led me to the Badlands at Tier 3. Lucky for us, the area was close to our warcamp, but that did not prevent Order from camping the area and farming solo Destro as they tried to finish the event. It was pretty hard to finish the quests without having a warband to escort and protect you. I was getting frustrated because I was doing the quest solo at first and Order kept popping out as I was attacking the skeletons. Later on, I realized that part of the live event task is to kill 25 players in RVR. Well..no wonder people were camping.

In turn, I also camped Order players with a Magus by the name of Farfrompukin. We waited and hid behind the rocks near the warcamp, jumping unsuspecting Order players as they exited the camp. We were doing fine for awhile until they brought more friends. Being level 31 helped with completion of the event, since I was able to kill a lot of players that tried to attack me 1 on 1. Hitting the 25 player quota was pretty easy by holding the "staff of kings". The light beam drew the Order to us like a moth to a flame! Down they went, one by one.

So far, I am pretty excited about the Land of the Dead. The lore is interesting and the aspect of how only one faction is able to control it at a time.

oh, don't forget to order your Warhammer Priest & Chosen poster! You get a free in-game very cool cloak with it.

FFXI: A Crystalline Prophecy

Square Enix has released one of the three story based content expansions recently called A Crystalline Prophecy. You will see some familiar faces in the cutscenes and references to the opening movie sequence. Square has always been known as one of the best storytellers in the game business and you will not be disappointed in this latest installment.

So far my Linkshell has completed half of the missions and although some parts were tedious (quest item drop rates were abysmal), the boss fights have been pretty interesting. We just completed the BCNM (Burning circle) boss fight for Those Who Lurk in Shadows (II) and despite what other players said about needing a full party of level 75 and such...it was pretty easy. So I don't understand why people were crying about it being difficult.

We killed off the Yagudo (WHM) first followed by the Quadav (RDM), Orc (WAR), and Goblin (THF). If you stick to that order, it will be a breeze. Plus I went in as a level 70 Paladin subbed gimped Ninja (level 30) and I was doing fine. Dual-wielding with my Espadon +1 and Gluttony sword was pretty awesome. All my party members were subbed Ninja except for the RDM. If you cast gravity on the mobs, it will help a lot. If you are having trouble early on, kiting the Goblin will help. I think the Goblin THF is the most difficult one to deal with since he randomly teleports behind you and has the nasty Saucepan move. I don't suggest eating any food prior, since Saucepan will switch your food into a -10 stat debuff.

Back in Battle!

//Warhammer Online: The Bloodshed Continues!!

I apologize for the long hiatus, but I am back in the fray and enjoying the new updates we've received in WAR. So far, I haven't been able to try out the Slayer or Choppa class but I have encountered the Slayer during RVR and my opinion is that it's overpowered and needs some adjustment. One Slayer was guarding a keep and he managed to kill 6-7 of us with a few swings of his axe. A bit unfair, don't you think?

Other then that, gameplay appears to be a lot smoother and there has been tons of RVR activity on Iron Rock as of late. I'd log in around midnight and there would be warbands on the move. Also, there is a "welcome back to WAR" campaign currently. You can pick up the quest in IC from one of the NPC's near the flight Master. You earn Talismans and Trophies for completing the tasks bestowed upon you in warcamps. It seems the buffs from the Talismans are very helpful (meaning I don't die as fast now!).


New Dell laptop - now I can run it on high res

I will be leaving Tier 3 soon and I'm a bit sad since that's supposedly the best Tier. Ah wells ;/ Can't stay level 30 forever..

Game Bugs:
I've had this graphical glitch on both my old Dell laptop and the new Dell. If I change into and out of Fullscreen to windowed, I get texture mapping issues. Textures would be missing in the game or replaced with something very strange looking. Trees would look like sea urchins with sharp spikes. Also the Windowed version still kinda lags.

Hiatus

Hey Folks.. Sorry I haven't been updating as of late. I'm getting hitched (yeah, in real life..) so I'll be gone for a few weeks. I'm excited about Warhammer's big update but I haven't had much time to play any games at all. Kill some Order for me while I'm gone!

FFXI has a big update coming as well. I forgot that my Credit Card changed, so my account got canceled on accident. I'll reactive as soon as I get back!

^o^/ I bid thee Adieu!

Ding, level 30

//Warhammer Patch 1.2

Some exciting things are happening in the world of Warhammer. New patch, bug fixes, a new scenario, two new jobs and most important (to me) New mounts! As you can see in my screenshot, I choose the Green Cold One. I want the epic guild mount but unfortunately my Guild was left on Red Eye Mountain. Server transfers occurred yet again and I found myself on Iron Rock with the name of "Snakeeeyez" since someone on Order has a "Snakeeyes" already.

At first the patch was crashing my game whenever I was in either a Scenario or in ORVR. I got really annoyed one night and gave up in logging in since I was just gonna crash out again. So far in the new patch, I noticed that keeps are a lot more difficult to take now. We had nearly a full Warband and we wiped twice. It didn't help that the Warband was disorganized too. I don't know if pulling to the pad has been nerfed yet since we're having trouble even getting up the ramp.

The twisting tower scenario seems like it's fresh and innovated. However, dying when there are no Rezzers around kinda sucks cuz it takes awhile to get back to the main area. I still don't know what the objective is, I am too busy killing order and healing team-mates to even worry about it x.x; Seems a bit chaotic at times...

City Sieges and Live Quests

//Warhammer - Night of Murder is not yet over!

Don't Fret! For those folks who haven't had much time to play last week, Mythic is extending the live quest time until 2/20 (Friday) for all the slackers who didn't get to finish the quest. Lately, it's been difficult to get any RVR done since it seems like there wasn't many Destro Warbands around but I'm slowly but surely getting the Live quest done. Also, Red Eye Mountain has had it's first City siege on the Order city of Altdorf over the weekend. I traveled all the way to Reikland to attempt to join in but it kept saying it was either full or I think I am too low level. :( It was rather difficult to get there because I kept getting one-shotted by Order NPC's, so maybe it wasn't such a good idea.. x.x;.

//Final Fantasy XI - Moblin Maze Mongers & FOV



I have been loging on FFXI more often these days since a few friends came back and are now playing and need assistance. There have been some recent updates that have been enticing for me to stay online, such as Fields of Valor and Moblin Maze Mongers. Fields of Valor is the biggest savior when it comes to EXP grinding. Now, you not only can get cheap buffs, but you can get bonus EXP from completing 'training' missions, and it will only take about 15 min or so to complete. Moblin Maze Mongers is another way to get EXP and loot. You can customize your own scenarios by adjusting the level of difficulty and amount of monsters in the maze.



I've been also Notorious Monster hunting. With a help from friends, I was able to get my Ninja a Chakram finally and while I was hunting that NM, I ran into Rampaging Ram, which is the place holder for Steelfleece. Unfortunately, He didn't pop after I killed Rampaging Ram though..

Out of the pan and into the fire

Caption This!


//Warhammer Musings: I've been longing in late and there seems to be a surprising decline in Destro numbers compared to Order. There hasn't been much ORVR activity either, so I've been stuck on rank 28 for some time now. I also wonder how the Russian Launch is doing. I mean, do they get their own servers or what? I would love to play with international people since I do in LOTRO. Hopefully the night of murder event will bring in more people for ORVR. I'm pretty excited about it and the upcoming content expansions.



Tier 4 RVR? - I peeked into the zone really quick and saw that the entire zone is nearly all RVR. That's pretty neat. I'm a few levels away from experiencing it but from what I hear, T1-T3 are the best RVR. We shall see. I need to complete my Devastator set before I got T4 though. I'm not sure how since the rest of the equip is not dropping for me :(.

Night of Murder, here I come!!!

A call to arms!

//Warhammer - Expansion Announcement

Around noon it was announced that there will be free content expansions along with 2 new DPS classes in these coming months. Dwarf Slayer and Greenskin Choppa will be introduced in March. There will be Monthly live events along with a new scenario and RVR area called the Land of the Dead. Pretty exciting news! Check the Herald for details.

If you are in the New York area next week, be sure to check out the Mythic booth at the Comic Con New York. Apparently you can win prizes too. I am dying to go but alas, I live on the West coast...


//Pirates of the Caribbean Online

News hit us at DOS (Disney Online studios) of some layoffs in both the ABC studios sector, Disney Interactive and Internet divisions. I was able to dodge the bullet for now but I have a feeling that Pirates Online isn't meeting expectations. I'm a bit surprised that the game isn't bringing a slew of people, cuz heck..it's free. Some good news is that the New Port Royal redesign is bringing people back to the test server. I'll be on the test server as Jade Seawalker. You can come up to me and chat, friend me and go on quests if you like. I don't advertise anywhere else that I am Disney staff or anything because I am trying to enjoy the game from a guest's point of view. Just trying to keep it low-key. Anyhoo, hope to see you in game sometime. I'm usually on during work hours/lunch time.

Read Kotaku's Article

Pure Pwnage

//Warhammer - Ambush!

I logged on WAR last night at 11PM for 30 min and there was still some ORVR activity despite it being late at night. I joined a half-full Warband of players in Avelorn and was debriefed on the situation. Apparently a large Warband of the Order players were going around and taking the BO's + Keeps in Avelorn/Saphery and the small WB on the Destro side was the only defense. The leader tells us that they will most likely take the Wood Choppa's camp next so we quickly gather behind the log pile to ambush them. I jumped into the water to hide. Sure enough, Order shows up and tries to take the BO and all the sudden we pop out of the woodwork and attack. It was pure..pwnage and annihilation! Not one Order survived the attack. This goes to show that zerging doesn't always win. Large numbers does not always mean victory. When I logged, I felt very satisfied :).

//The Lord of the Rings Online



I finally archived Rank 6 in Monster play due to the help of a fellow guildie by the name of Logitech. He logged on his Freep character and let me kill him a few times so I can get the last missing points to get the rank up. Thanks Logitech, You rock!

Warhammer - LULZ!! dorf ROFLcopters

I yoinked this image from the web cuz it's hard for me to take a pic of a Dwarf on their mounts without dying in the process.

As you can guess from the picture, the discussion today is about Warhammer mounts, specifically the Dwarven Mount. All other races have interesting, powerful and menacing mounts such as the raptor-like Cold Ones for the Dark Elves, midnight black steeds for the chaos and the mangy wolf for the goblins. What do the Dwarves get? They get a comical looking contraption called a Gyro harness which the players have lovingly dubbed the ROFLcopter.

I mean..it is kinda cool in a way, since no other MMO's have this but still, I think it breaks the lore a bit. The Gyro harness still seems not as cool as it could be since it only hovers and does not technically fly. Other people suggested that the Dwarves be given a less comical mount such as a ram, pony or *lol* a beer tank. I have to agree on this since whenever I see a Dwarf on their mount, I think it's quite hilarious. There's a entertaining thread on the Gyro harness here:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188747

The mounts in the game are not that spectacular, aside from riding around on the dinosaur which I think is why I rolled a Dark Elf. I wish there were more ways to customize our mounts though. It's annoying that everyone has the same colored dinosaur as I do. It's like buying a car not being able to customize it.

I hope this year that we'll be able to get this feature in the game. Mythic - Pretty please, with a cherry on top?

{ AFK }

Sorry guys, I haven't been posting lately due to craziness in my life. Anyway, back to Warhammer babbling....

When Mythic did a hotfix to tweak the UI, I think they altered some of the keyboard shortcuts along with it. Finally got my screenshots button to function properly. Now the only thing that bothers me is the lack of a zoom in / out button shortcut. I play on a laptop so there are some limitations, but it's not that bad despite some lag during keep seiges (mainly in the lord room) and lag from AoE spells. I have 2 gigs of ram but my video card is pretty ancient.

// Late Night ORVR - Order V.S. Destruction
I've been logging on late at night but the server is still bustling with ORVR activity - many warbands were on the move, conquering keeps, one after another. Lately the Order have been putting up a good fight and even managed to display tactical prowess by flanking and surrounding our WB while we were taking busy attacking a keep. Inside the keep, half the Warband was stuck on the bottom floor for a long period of time since the doors/gates closed us in. We made a long last stand until Order decided to come down the ramp and zerged us. Despite losing, I still felt pretty satisfied because the Order actually fights back now instead of turning tail and running away at the sight of any Destro.

// Looting system broke?
It seems like it's a hit or miss, random, broke system. I basically didn't do that much one time and I still got a high roll and another time I really gave it my all and I ended up 21st. Another annoyance is that whenever I get the massive loot bags, it turns out that I have that item already. I only have the Devastator Helm and Body piece, yet I keep getting the SAME DANG thing every time!! What gives??