Newslist For MMOValue

The only people who stop RP is… well… you.

The other notion — the one that all RP is going to die in a fire thanks to this move — is just as silly. Why? Well, the only people who can truly stop the RP are the RPers.

I’m not saying this frivolously — I know exactly how frustrating it is when some jerk attempts to troll your RP events. I’ve dealt with my share across many, many games. But, I know that my guild and I just hit the ignore button on the jerk, and we kept on going. We didn’t stop because someone was jumping around, and that actually drove him off faster than engaging him.

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Catherine Lord of the Rings Online

With the highly anticipated June version update just around the corner, the last thing that Final Fantasy XI players want is something to distract them from the promise of wonderful things in the near future. But it’s hard to ignore something as significant as a security breach, and that appears to be what has happened to the game. According to an official statement from Square-Enix, an external attack on their servers resulted in a potential compromise of some of the game’s account information, although the statement was quick to point out that no payment information was violated.

That alone would be bad, but the actions taken by Square-Enix to inform players have been a bit haphazard, including prolonged outages of the North American customer service department. Many players have had their passwords reset, in some cases resulting in their accounts being outright locked with no way to regain access. Players are encouraged to check their email and ensure that they can still log in to the game as before, and to contact customer service if they’re unable to log in to Final Fantasy XI or the PlayOnline service.

Catherine Final Fantasy XI

We’re in June now, and as the name would suggest, Final Fantasy XI’s June version update is on its way to bring food and water and smite our enemies. It also will bring the first increase to the level cap in a long time, which means new subjobs, new areas for leveling, and new weaponskills. The last item on the list is something so obvious that it’s almost fallen by the wayside, but Square-Enix made sure to return our attention to the upgrades via a new video on the official site.

In the event that you don’t feel like waiting on the download, we’ve taken the liberty of putting the video available for your viewing after the break. Some of the actual weapon animations look a bit standard, but others use the more dramatic animations reserved for high-end attacks (such as Bora Axe). While we don’t yet know important tidbits such as which elements the skills will be for skillchain purposes, take a look past the cut to get some impression of what your job of choice in Final Fantasy XI will gain with its new levels.

Catherine Final Fantasy XI

Zarhym hit the forums earlier this evening to announce a change coming to the dungeon finder in the upcoming Patch 3.3.5. For those who behave themselves, the cooldown for starting a vote to kick a player from your party will be removed. For those who kick players out of those parties more frequently, the cooldown will remain. The quote:

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Catherine World of Warcraft

It’s here, finally! The latest items on the 3.3.5 PTR are the quests for Operation: Gnomeregan and Zalazane’s Fall, now playable and perfectly operational. After playing through the Zalazane storyline all I can say is Blizzard really outdid themselves with this one — the lore and chain of quests are not only interesting from beginning to end, but seem to be bug-free. Check out the gallery for screenshots from the entire Zalazane questline, and check after the break for more information on the Zalazane’s Fall chain, but be warned — there are spoilers ahead!

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Catherine World of Warcraft

There have been a lot of ship designs in Star Trek over the years, so it’s understandable that not every design was in Star Trek Online at launch. The game’s division of ship tiers into customizable batches is no doubt part of the reason, as well. But that doesn’t mean that the developers aren’t well aware of the gaps in ship classes, and that’s the reasoning behind the latest poll on the official site, asking players which ship design they’d like to see enter the game next, quite possibly as a lower-tier ship.

Of the classes available, four are past or future designs for the ubiquitous Enterprise lineage, including the often-seen Excelsior class and the rarely-seen Ambassador class. There’s also the far-future Enterprise-J design and the far-past NX design, both seen in Star Trek: Enterprise. The other two classes are somewhat less flashy but somewhat more notable omissions — the Nebula class, a frequently-seen workhorse design that resembles a pared-down Galaxy class, and the Oberth class, a general-purpose medical and scientific vessel from the same area. The Excelsior class is currently in the lead, so Star Trek Online fans are encouraged to vote for their favorites.

Catherine Star Trek Online

Every Sunday, while Fox Van Allen is still passed out in a cloud of his own Dispersion, Dawn Moore picks up Spiritual Guidance and gives it a warm bath to wash off all the residue from Wednesday. After a hot meal, a glass of apple cider and a cookie, the column is back to its old self. Joint custody allowing, Spiritual Guidance will help healing priests master discipline and holy.

I feel like such an elitist jerk this week.

You see, the other day I made my weekly trip over to WoW Progress to scope out the growing list of guilds that have killed the Lich King on 25-man heroic mode. At the time, I was trying to distract myself from the fact that I had no clue what to write for this week’s Spiritual Guidance. With that in my mind, as I looked over the list of guilds that just barely spanned two pages, a thought popped into my mind: I wonder how many guilds have killed Lich King on any difficulty? I hopped over to look at 10-man progression and found only about 30% of the guilds listed on the site had defeated Arthas. The percentages surprised me; that meant the majority of raiders haven’t defeated the Lich King yet.

So suddenly I felt like a jerk. For weeks now, I had disregarded writing a priest guide to healing the Lich King because I thought no one would want one. Maybe I’m just oblivious? Whatever it is, I guess my perception was off; probably has something to do with the cancer I’m getting from bubble spam. (Everything causes cancer these days, after all.)

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Catherine World of Warcraft

Everyone’s favorite apocalyptic wasteland got a little bit livelier with today’s patch. Version 1.3.11 of Icarus’ Fallen Earth brings several noteworthy additions to the residents of the Grand Canyon province, including a new dueling system, the first stage of the New Gallows conflict town revamp, and a new fatigue system. The update also brings a laundry list of tweaks and bug fixes, as well as the curious decision to reduce vehicle crafting XP by 50% and research book crafting XP by 80%.

Massively also managed to snag the non-combat pet pictured above, but sadly the doggies have since been removed from the in-game vendors. We’ll unravel the mystery of when and where you can expect to get your own post-apocalyptic pooch as soon as we confirm the details with Icarus. In the meantime, check out the update announcement and the patch notes, and don’t forget about our previous coverage of the additions from the test server.

Catherine World of Warcraft

In Autumn 2005, EVE Online became one of the only MMOs out there with its own dedicated print magazine. Under contract from CCP Games, MMM Publishing has worked tirelessly ever since to produce EVE’s official magazine “E-ON.” Four times per year, we’re blessed with a dose of the latest and greatest things from New Eden in a comfortingly solid format. The magazine covers everything from strategy guides and ship fitting advice to sneak peaks at upcoming expansions, interviews with CCP staff and incredible fiction set in the EVE universe.

E-ON differs from other game magazines in that they don’t any make money from advertising. In an effort to keep the magazine all about EVE, they’ve taken the unusual but apparently successful route of publishing full-page adverts from in-game corporations and organisations. Advertisers buy space in the magazine with ISK, the in-game currency, and adverts must be for strictly in-game purposes. The ISK is then used to pay volunteer writers, who create most of the magazine’s content and produce important things like guides from a true player’s perspective. There’s even a scheme in the works to reward advertisers with discount coupon codes for the magazine to gift their corpmates. Now nearing their fifth year of publishing, E-ON issue 19 has recently been released. As usual, this issue is absolutely packed full of everything we’ve come to expect from the mag.

Catherine EVE Online

Valafar of on Exodar couldn’t wait for Carnival to get some beaded trinkets this year. Donning a glittery costume, complete with angry-drama-guy mask, he headed out to the Eye of Eternity for the weekly raid quest and walked away with five Emblems of Frost and Emblems of Triumph. And unlike at Mardi Gras, he didn’t even have to take his top off to get them.

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.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, Val’kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here.

Catherine World of Warcraft

Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we cross our fingers and hope there are more fights like the gunship battle up ahead.

Hail, druids. I’ll be continuing a look at Balance gear whenever the gear lists on Wowhead start behaving themselves (down, boy!), which I sincerely hope is going to start happening soon. Right now they’re kind of a mess post-patch. In the meantime, I’ve been able to return to raiding with the benefit of a new computer, and the guild stomped through Icecrown Citadel last night (with, as I previously vowed, Jaina Proudmoore’s coin in my packs because it is awesome and lore-appropriate and I could not be a bigger nerd).

As with Ulduar, I’d like to do a series of class-specific tips for each encounter. Again, I go into these assuming you have a basic understanding of the fight’s mechanics, and then delve into more druid-specific commentary. Before the next set of Icecrown bosses hits, I hope to have covered Marrowgar (here), Lady Deathwhisper (in which binding Remove Curse to all of your hotkeys plays a significant role in the raid’s success), the gunship battle (we wanted to wipe the raid so we could come back and do it again, that’s how awesome it was), and Saurfang (who, for some incomprehensible reason, lacks a Cleave ability. Maybe it’s a recessive gene).

We’ll start with Lord Marrowgar, who will probably be the most commonly-seen Icecrown Citadel boss due to his inclusion in the weekly raid quest. Experienced Burning Crusade raiders will recognize this encounter as an unholy mating of Leotheras, Mother Shahraz, and Naj’entus. It sounds complicated, but it’s really not.
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Catherine World of Warcraft

Trial of the Champion, the latest dungeon, has quickly become a popular daily destination. It’s no wonder why; in under half an hour, with little difficulty, you can begin outfitting your character(s) with epics of Ulduar quality!

At first, I wasn’t sure if I agreed with Blizzard’s decision to start handing out welfare epics again. Surely we can’t be that close to the next expansion, Cataclysm!

Then I realized how easily I could now gear one of my alts, which was something previously impossible to me. Being a main healer, I knew I would never have the opportunity to bring an alt to a raid, so my favorites have not even hit 80 yet. Now that I know I could get them Ulduar-ready in such a short time, I have renewed interest in leveling them.

I can also see why Blizzard would want to help players gear up at this point in time. In Burning Crusade, so few people got to see Sunwell and experience what the expansion was all about, that this time around, they seem to be gunning for the general raiding population to reach Arthas (Icecrown Citadel).

Having accepted this acceleration in “progress,” I was left with one major qualm.

The introduction to Trial of the Champion, which must be endured each run, is way too long. Unbearably long. Go and make a triple-decker sandwich long.

Then a few guildmates and I discovered that there is indeed a way to hasten the process.

While the other members of your party are finishing up their battleground, taking a bio break, and insisting on making that sandwich, all it takes is for one member to get there early.

Walk in, start up the introduction, and saunter back out. Go raid the fridge or make some coffee. Start piling random objects on your cat.

When your whole group finally arrives, the enemy will be lined up neatly waiting for you. They will sit quietly while you mount your steeds, buff up, and talk strategy. Feel free to proceed as normal; you’ll be able to pull each group at a time, and nothing about the dungeon will be amiss.

Catherine World of Warcraft trial-of-the-champion

It’s the middle of the week again and once more unto the breach, my friends. Yes, tomorrow is maintenance Wednesday for European players. Fortunately, we told you this morning how EU Blue Wryxian had spilled the beans on the reason for all the recent rolling restarts and weeks of extended maintenance for a few select realms. I always find it’s easier to exercise more patience once someone proffers a reason.

So, this week it’s time for some rolling restarts. These will take place on all realms between 5:00am and 7:00am CEST, with the usual fifteen minute warning. The following realms (the same will be undergoing an extended maintenance from 3:00am until 11:00 am CEST.

Balnazzar, Bloodfeather, Darksorrow, Defias Brotherhood, Earthen Ring, Frostwhisper, Genjuros, Haomarush, Hellscream, Laughing Skull, Lightning’s Blade, Magtheridon, Neptulon, Nordrassil, Quel’Thalas, Ragnaros, Ravencrest, Runetotem, Shadowsong, Shattered Hand, Silvermoon, Skullcrusher, Spinebreaker, Stormrage, Stormreaver, Stormscale, Sylvanas, Terenas, The Maelstrom, The Venture Co., Thunderhorn, Turalyon, Twisting Nether and Vashj.

As usual, I intend to sleep right on through the rolling restarts. My cats probably have other ideas though. If you’re bored and looking for something to do, don’t forget to check out Daniel W’s helpful post collecting up all the important news from the last week.

Catherine World of Warcraft Blizzard, europe

This morning’s EU loot card giveaway had over 1500 entries! Not bad for the hottest day of the year and midweek! I’m quite impressed and there were some pretty funny comments in there as well. A lot of people want the giant, er, male rooster.

Well we /rolled and came up with three lucky winners who will be receiving an email shortly. You might want to check out Turpster’s informative video post from this last night which walks you through how redeem loot cards as well as gratuiteous scenes of a giant chicken being ridden by a gnome. Definitely NSFW.

So, without further a do, /drumroll. The lucky winners are:

Max is the proud owner of the must-have chicken mount El Pollo Grande
Chickyhines can now bash the Ogre Pinata to his heart’s content
Maephisto has bagged the groovy Path of Cenarius
Congratulations to all and thanks once again to Tom at Upper Deck International’s UK office.

Catherine World of Warcraft Contests

Snowyfox of the US Vek’nilash server recently brought up a point on the forums which is near and dear to my heart: 5-mans really feel like they’ve lost their heart. In both Vanilla WoW and Burning Crusade, you could usually count on having the motivation and reward for running a 5 man no matter what your level. In Vanilla WoW, you might do a tribute run for potions and buffs or a Stratholme run for Abomination stitchings for an enchant. In BC, you’d run for badges. In Wrath of the Lich King… not so much. Badges don’t stretch so far since most of the good stuff requires badges only obtained in raid dungeons, and even the daily quests aren’t even close to as lucrative as just heading up to the Argent Tournament or over to the Sons of Hodir and doing some dailies.

Yet 5-mans, in many ways, are the heart of the game. They’re where you cut your teeth on group mechanics and really learning your class. While there are many PuG horror stories, they can also be a place to meet new friends and prospective guild members. They’re a nice way to get together and do something with friends in game that’s a little less intensive than raiding but can be done with everyone on the same page more easily than trying to synchronize quests. I know I have quite a few great memories of doing 5-man dungeons with friends, myself.

The nice thing is, Ghostcrawler chimed in to say that things may have not fallen completely on deaf ears. They did stuff like making end-game raiding more accessible and segregating badge rewards so that raiders wouldn’t feel like they were obligated to run 5-mans, he says, but in the process they may have made 5-mans too easy to graduate from, and thus they may want to strike a balance in the future.

I’d love to see 5-man progression more open-ended and rewarding in the future. Being able to work toward more badge gear and even cool cosmetic rewards like the Argent Tournament mounts and pets would be amazing, as would a wider variety of daily quests with interesting storylines (Something beyond kill me the boss and bring me this drop) and solid rewards that make them more enticing than the soloable dailies. Since it seems Blizzard has this idea in their heads, perhaps we’ll see the first fruits of it in patch 3.2. I’d love to see more interesting daily quests or rewards come out of the 5-man Argent Coliseum and even out of other older dungeons that would inspire me to log on and run them again.

Catherine World of Warcraft 5-man, ghostcrawler, snowyfox