Newslist For MMOValue

So you’ve unlocked your sub-jobs and you’ve leveled through the Valkurm Dunes in the jobs you wish to carry on with? Then it’s time to move on to the next areas. The previous part of this guide was focused on getting yourself acquainted with the partying and leveling system, unlocking sub-jobs, and generally getting used to the activities that you’ll be immersing yourself in for the rest of your life here in Vana’diel. This final installment will be focused on moving on to the different leveling areas, and should inform on the things one needs to do until they reach level 30, and many new doors are opened to you in the form of over a dozen new advanced jobs!

After getting out of the Valkurm Dunes, the next area most commonly used for partying is an area named Qufim Island, located right off of Jeuno. The tricky party here is reaching Jeuno without dying repeatedly. To get to Jeuno you’ll have to travel through one of three routes, depending on your starting country. If you’re from San d’Oria, you’ll go through the La Theine Plateau to the Northeast, and follow the road through Jugner Forest right into Batallia Downs. Once there, travel to the East, avoiding monsters all the while, and eventually you will come across the gates into Jeuno.

If you’re from Windurst, you’re looking at one of the more rough routes. Through Sarutabaruta and North through Tahrongi Canyon until you reach the Meriphataud Mountains. Sticking to the left side of the road through the Meriphataud Mountains should keep you safe from most enemies, but the next area, Sauromugue Champaign, is notoriously difficult to navigate. Not only will you have the displeasure of evading Goblins, Yagudo, and Dancing Weapons, you’ll have to avoid several dinosaur monsters and tigers as well. Taking it slow and sticking to the left most of the time, you should be able to reach Jeuno with some patience.

From Bastok, it’s somewhat difficult, but anything is easier than the Windurstian route! Heading through South Gustaberg, go straight through North Gustaberg and travel Northeast through the Konschtat Highlands into Pashhow Marshlands. This is the only abnormally difficult area on the Bastokan route, really, as every which way is crowded with monsters. There are three paths through the marsh, a small passage sticking to the left side, the main passage through the middle that is rather large, and a smaller passage sticking to the right, and neither way is easy. To the left you’ll run into fungaur, bees, among other things, in large quantities, crowding the passage. The main passage is wider, giving you more room to maneuver, but the larger area also holds larger monsters such as Goobbue, Marlboro, and several other disasters waiting to happen. This one is probably your best bet. Once out of the marsh, just follow the road up through Rolanberry Fields, avoiding Quadav when needed of course, and you’ll reach Lower Jeuno in no time. Head down through Port Jeuno and descend another set of stairs and you’re in Qufim Island.
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sarah2009 Final Fantasy XI Final Fantasy XI

A lot of people who play Final Fantasy games or RPGs in general do so for the
story. And that’s what Rise of the Zilart is trying to give here: a story.
That, and the good feeling of killing something that’s been blocking your story
progression.

If playing Final Fantasy XI for the story isn’t what you’re looking for, then
you’re probably better off playing World of Warcraft or Guild Wars.

===================
A Note on Positions
===================

Throughout my guide, I’ll be using coordinates, such as G-7 or L-2. These
coordinates refer to your position on your map. You can check your position
by typing <pos> or by looking at your map by using the /map command. Note that
if you have no map for the current area you’re in, it will simply display a
map page with “No Map”in capital letters across the center. Your position
will still appear in the upper left area of the map.

=====
Terms
=====

Here’s a brief explanation of some game terms I’ll be using in this guide.

Aggro: A monster that will attack you while you either stand, sit, heal, or
cast magic close enough in front of it.

Buff: Casting spells that are beneficial to the party, such as protect, shell,
and haste.

Damage Dealer: Any job that can dish out the damage. Jobs sought out as
damage dealers are ninjas, samurais, dark knights, thieves,
black mages, red mages, warriors, monks, and beastmasters, but
it can pretty much include any job depending on what type of
partying you’ll be doing (i.e. skill up party, experience
party, etc.)
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sarah2009 Final Fantasy XI Final Fantasy XI

CCP Games, EVE Online has been available for years as a download, and next month it,s making its grand return to retail store shelves. The retail box version will hit store shelves on March 10, 2009 for $35.

EVE Online

EVE Online is a massively multiplayer online game set in outer space. It debuted for the Macintosh late in 2007. The game puts you in the cockpit of an interstellar spacecraft and is a “sandbox”-style MMO that lets you do whatever you want – you can be a pirate, lead trading missions, engage in research and development, manufacturing and many other activities. There,s also a strong emphasis on commerce – the game features a very detailed trading market with commodities, skills, finished goods and more available for in-game sale.
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dreadmage MMOPRG News eve

MMO Champion has posted all of the in-game maps for the new Northrend dungeons. We’d heard a while back that they’d be added in, and though there was no mention of them in the 3.1 patch notes, sure enough, they’re out on the PTR.

They obviously use the same style as all of the other in-game maps, with labels of each area and concept art of the dungeon itself behind each layout. But here’s something we didn’t expect: each map has a skull placed where the bosses are, so with just a glance at the map you can see where the big bad guys are found. Right now, obviously, we know where they all are, but that will be interesting when maps of future instances become available.

And right now, on the world map, areas get drawn in as you discover them, but we’d guess that these maps will be opened up as soon as you enter the instance (you don’t discover parts of an instance, you discover the whole thing). It’ll be interesting to see, next time we explore some new instanced content, just how these maps can affect gameplay.

Kins World of Warcraft Blizzard, bosses, Expansions, Odds and ends, ptr, raiding, raids, wow-ptr

The 2009 Arena Tournament officially begun yesterday, kicking of a six-week qualifying period to find the best Arena players who will earn the chance to win prizes totaling over $200,000. Registration was opened a little over a week ago, with Blizzard enticing aspiring Gladiators with the Vanquisher title and a Murloc vanity pet that will translate over to the live realms. The tournament will consist of one round of regional qualifiers, followed by the regional finals, and winners of those finals will compete against each other for the top prize.

Registering for the tournament, which costs $20 or £15, will grant players access to the tournament realms where they can create Level 80 characters of any race and class. These characters will be outfitted with the best Arena gear available — Deadly Gladiator items from Season 5 — and will have access to other epic items as well as enchants, gems, and glyphs allowing them to customize their character as they see fit.

Players whose teams finish in the Top 1000 at the end of the qualifiers will receive the Vanquisher title for all their characters over Level 70. Casual players who don’t play Arenas seriously still have some incentive as the only requirement to obtain the Murloc pet — Murkimus the Gladiator, according to the Patch 3.1 files — is to play 200 games over the six-week qualifying period with one team regardless of record. Players must have an active subscription in order to register.

Castille World of Warcraft Arena, Deadly-Gladiator, News items, PvP, Season-5, Vanquisher

Despite EA’s Warhammer Online tallying 300,000 subscribers to World of Warcraft’s 11 million, ex-Blizzard boss Bill Roper has said you simply can’t write-off Mythic’s challenger just yet.

Roper, now employed by Champions Online developer Cryptic, says he is surprised to see people disparaging Warhammer’s subscriber levels, assuring: “I know many games out there that would love to have 300,000 subscribers.”
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dreadmage MMOPRG News news, warhammer

If you didn’t know before, you know now: Galaxy Online’s alpha-test is officially underwa. The news was embargoed until a pacific time of the day and now we’re making sure you all are well aware about the alpha-test for the next EVE Online. The difference, however, is that Galaxy Online is free-to-play.

The alpha-test for Galaxy Online has probably appeared on Blend Games more often than any other game that conducted an alpha-test. No worries, though, because Blend Games’ own Andy Keener will have a write-up ready for those of you who may be skeptical about this game.

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dreadmage MMOPRG News eve, galaxy

It seems that patch 3.10 for World of Warcraft, the biggest since the release of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, in the last months of 2008, has just entered testing at Blizzard. Based on the previous track record of the company, it appears that MMO players will have to wait between four and six weeks, as the patch is being thoroughly tested before it goes live on all the game servers.

The biggest piece of content added through the patch will be a new raid instance, Ulduar, but the patch will come with a pretty big list of tweaks and modifications. Listing it all is pretty futile at the moment, as Blizzard is testing it so that it can make more changes, as the release date is drawing near. Still, there are some big features that are unlikely to be cut during the testing period.
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dreadmage World of Warcraft Blizzard, MMO, patch 3.10, test realms, World of Warcraft

The devs have been telling us for some time that they’re not happy with the current state of (most) healers having infinite mana, and it looks like the reckoning is going to come in 3.1. And make no mistake, we’re getting hit hard.

Outside-of-5-second-rule regeneration is decreasing. They think the combination of HoTs and clearcasting let us stay OO5SR too long and get too much mana back.
Mana regenerated by Spirit is being decreased “across the board.”
However, talents that boost while-casting regen (specifically, Arcane Meditation, Improved Spirit Tap, Intensity, Mage Armor, Meditation, Pyromaniac, and Spirit Tap) are being buffed.
Since Paladins don’t really use Spirit for regen, they’re getting a different nerf: the healing penalty on Divine Plea is getting raised from 20% to 50%. Spiritual Attunement is also going to be nerfed for Holy paladins somehow.
They’re “taking a close look” at clearcasting abilities. “One likely outcome” is changing them so they restore mana instead of making spells free to cast, which would still give you mana back, but would not kick you OO5SR.
It has finally been spelled out that they balance around even 10-man raids having Replenishment. Although I think this is silly (why not just remove it from the game, if everyone should have it all the time), it makes me feel a bit better that they said they are “likely to offer this ability to additional classes” (it’s already been announced for Destruction warlocks, for instance).
Overall, although this feels very “sky-is-falling,” it’s important to remember that Blizzard is not trying to make healers sad, or break the game, or ruin your class. As they spell out at the bottom of the post, this is for the purposes of giving encounter designers more room to play. If healers can’t run out of mana, they only way to make the encounter hard for them is to throw huge amounts of raid damage around, which is not always the best choice for an encounter.

This will be going up on the PTR, of course, so we’ll get a chance to see exactly how it plays out. But I know a certain Holy paladin who will probably want to stop completely avoiding gear with MP5 on it in the near future.

Castiglione World of Warcraft healing, mana, patch-3.1

Curse is running an excellent story about their time spent last evening with Blizzard developers Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton. There’s a few things we didn’t know before that are in the article. The major ones are:
Patch 3.1 is already done (says Kaplan). Will release Ulduar 10-man and 25-man raids.
Patch 3.2 will contain a yet to be announced raid instance. Hopefully more on this over the next two day. Release date / timeframe is unknown.
Patch 3.3 will continue the Ashbringer storyline. Release date / timeframe is unknown.
Dance studio to be released after WotLK.
Guild ratings, where guilds get a rating based on PvE/PvP achievements. The idea is being “tossed around.”
The other interesting note is that the development team is three patch cycles ahead of the live game. That’s amazing, in my opinion. And beyond that, they’re also working on the next expansion. Doesn’t that raise your eyebrow just a bit? Perhaps we’ll hear something major in the next few hours…

Castres World of Warcraft developers, development, guild, guild-ratings, patch-3.1, patch-3.2, patch-3.3, patches

The FINAL FANTASY XI Fan Festival 2008, held last December in California, hosted a plethora of thrilling events that captured the hearts and minds of all in attendance, with the festival-closing live concert once again proving to be a runaway hit with the fans. Now, official footage from last year’s edition of the concert is available for your viewing and listening pleasure via the Square Enix Channel on Youtube!

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dreadmage MMOPRG News fan, ffxi

As you may know, we have been investigating the issue of lag in Faction Warfare for a while.

We have looked at the server side of this issue, and now we need to look at the client side. This means that we need you, the community, to help us. To get accurate information on what is going on with the client, we need information from users experiencing the issues
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dreadmage MMOPRG News eve, news

I can appreciate this display of grief from Swea of <Once> on Sunstrider-EU, particularly since death knights tend towards the emotionless side. But what did she think was going to happen? Sure, we no longer have to hold our horses in our enormous, invisible backpacks, but there’s not exactly a ton of breathing room in those tiny little squares in our Pets tab. If we don’t take them out enough, our mounts and minipets will inevitably turn on each other. This little guy was probably the second to be eaten, after the hawkstrider.

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word “Azeroth” in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, double-mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran.

Catalans World of Warcraft

Yep, another PTR post. For all we know, the recent frenzy surrounding the PTR has been manufactured by Blizzard as a practical joke while their programmers are out playing skee-ball. We don’t have the foggiest idea of when it’s going to hit, but back-channel discussion here at WoW Insider HQ currently has the smart money on “whenever Elizabeth Wachowski is away from her computer.”
My real reason for writing this is that a lot of people in the beta seemed to treat the server as an extended vacation from the live realms, and this upset a lot of old PTR hands who assumed people knew they were supposed to submit feedback, and not just play with all the cool new toys. Yes, you should have fun, and you can contemplate the trippy philosophical notion of your character’s existence in an alternate universe (duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!), but you can do a lot of things to help patch 3.1 launch without issues. The point of the test realms’ existence is for Blizzard to test everything new with as large a population of players as possible. If you’re uninterested in submitting polite, honest, and frequent feedback, you’re making it harder for them to get an accurate sense of the patch’s impact on live realms.

If you find a bug, reporting it is good. Being able to reproduce it is even better.
It’s hard to get an accurate sense of the seriousness and frequency of a bug unless everyone who encounters it reports in. Blizzard tests internally, but it’s not always possible to extrapolate results to a population of 11 million players. Even the PTR isn’t always a good statistical sample, but you can help improve that by submitting bug reports whenever you encounter one, and providing as much information as possible on the bug’s context and (most importantly) whether you can reproduce it. The inability to reproduce a bug makes figuring out what’s causing it a lot harder.

If you don’t like something, say so and give reasons. If you like something, say so and give reasons. If you’re indifferent, say so and give reasons.
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gmaxwell World of Warcraft

The good folks over at the OC (don’t call it that) Register’s Blizzard blog have gotten some more information about that recent flap with many MMOs being unrated and thus legally unable to be sold there. They talked to Daniel Gleeson of the Australian Attorney General’s department, and he said that yes, the MMO games like World of Warcraft will have to be rated to be sold in the country. But he also reiterated what we’d heard a little while after Massively posted their story: that games were still being sold on store shelves, regardless of the actual legal tangles.

The Blizzard Blog also spoke with the IEAA, the classification board down there for games, and they were told the same thing that Massively was: while the board thought that MMOs did not require a rating, it has since become clear that they do. The difference, says the AG guy, is that the IEAA believed that “games” like WoW were actually services, not games, and thus didn’t fall into the classification system.

But now it’s clear to everyone that they do, so we’ll expect to see the IEAA pass out a rating for World of Warcraft and the other MMOs on sale down there, and then this will all be over. It’s interesting to note that ratings may be a very cultural thing — here in America, ratings are pretty strictly issued by the ESRB, partially because the videogame industry is worried about governement intervention in the system (if the industry can’t police themselves, angry parents may ask the government to step in). But in Australia, the government obviously seems largely unconcerned about the ratings. Then again, Aussies aren’t completely laid back about everything having to do with MMOs.

Castres World of Warcraft