Newslist For MMOValue

Do you feel fine?

In the final days of the countdown to server merges in Aion this Wednesday, a mixture of emotions are on display on both sides of the battle. While some are feeling excitement, others are cautious, yet bridled with apprehension, and others still are simmering with discontent about the upcoming changes in Atreia. Some apathy has even reared up, as participation in fortress battles wane and the Balaur slowly re-establish their grip of power. Many simply feel a mixture of different emotions at different times (depending which side of the most recent ganking they came out on).

Although the physical make-up of the land is not going to change like it will when patch 2.0 goes live and the Balaur homeland is introduced, the landscape will still be changed. The player base — the very atmosphere — of each new server will be markedly different. The population explosion, the economy, abyss rankings, and even tracking reputations will all be affected by the merges. No question about it, life in Aion is going to be altered for every player — though for better or for worse may be more at the discretion of each individual player, their own attitudes, and preparation.

Read more…

Mustapha Aion

Well, we finally have some insight into how warrior talents and abilities are changing in Cataclysm. While it’s fair to say that we’re not getting a ton of new abilities, what we are getting are worth discussing, and some of the talents have changed pretty dramatically from their current implementation.

Just one example to start us: Shield Slam no longer uses block value in any way, shape or form, since block value is going away. Now, Shield Slam is purely dependent on attack power, which is of course derived from strength. The stronger your warrior is, the harder he or she hits things with a shield. In other words, if you want to hit hard with your Shield Slams? Stack strength. It really shouldn’t be all that hard to do. Frankly, removing the whole shield block value conversion to this ability is welcome from my perspective.

Read more…

Mustapha World of Warcraft

We learned quite a bit about the upcoming Final Fantasy XIV during E3, but there’s still quite a bit left still to learn before its release later this year. One of the more obvious questions is what, exactly, players will be squaring off against on the field of battle; in a series partly defined by its memorable recurring adversaries, it’s reasonable to wonder what will return and what won’t.

Most of the newly revealed monsters have a storied history in the series as a whole, and several are direct exports from Final Fantasy XI, including the deceptively fearsome Goobbue making a triumphant return. Funguar also return, although looking very different from Vana’diel’s odd mushroom-frog hybrids. Each of the monsters has a brief write-up describing its size, behavior, and habitat, so Final Fantasy XIV fans would be well served by taking a look at what they’re going to have to deal with during their journeys.

Mustapha Final Fantasy XI

It is possible to heal through Arthas with a less than ideal composition — my first kill with 25 players was done without the presence of any holy paladins. If your guild is still struggling with it and the issue might be from the healing side of things, maybe I can help you out here with some additional pointers. If you’re not quite sure about the overall mechanics of the encounter, refer to Kinasthesia’s awesome tutorial videos: Part 1 and Part 2.

I hope you’re familiar with the general encounter mechanics and the strategy as outlined. I’m just going to stick to addressing any aspects that will affect you directly as the healer.

Read more…

Mustapha World of Warcraft

Fantasy MMOs may be a dime — or less — a dozen, so there’s something special about a game that sets the action in a historical period instead. It’s always a side bonus to learn something educational in MMOs, if only to use as ammunition when you want a loved one to pony up cash for another month’s subscription (”But I’m learning, mom!”) Players looking to stomp around ancient China will have their chance on May 18th, when Kingdom Heroes smashes into closed beta.

Kingdom Heroes is striving to hit a sweet spot with engrossing PvP, topping the usual buffet of choices with a few choice gems, such as ship battles, siege engines and customizable armies. Four classes — warrior, conjurer, tactician and fencer — and four body types (hm, do you want to be a “maiden” or a “beauty”?) are the tip of the customization Kingdom Heroes sports. The game is set in the era of the Three Kingdoms, and players will choose which kingdom and dynasty to fight for and (repeatedly) die in their name.

An ancient Chinese secret no longer, gamers can get their mitts on Kingdom Heroes by signing up for the beta and counting down the days until closed beta on May 18!

Mustapha World of Warcraft

the official World of Warcraft website, the Night Elf mohawk is returning in-game.

FrostJackalopes and the moon landing might be myths – but the Night Elf Mohawk is real, suckas! For a limited time, Mr. T’s Night Elf Mohawk returns to Azeroth to hand out his signature grenades while a new nationally televised commercial takes over the airwaves. Watch the new spot at Blizzard’s YouTube Channel or click to learn more about the mohawk grenade and how you can claim your own in-game.

source

The video above is a new nationally televised commercial.

Players can get the Mohawk Grenades from characters positioned outside the starting zone. We’re checking now to see if the grenades are active in the game yet (again). They were originally in Azeroth as part of WoW’s five year anniversary celebration.

Mustapha World of Warcraft

Over the past few hours, I have come to the realization that I have purchased a $25 imaginary space horse. To be honest, I do not regret my horse purchase. I do not have horse remorse. What I have gleaned, however, is a keen understanding of the nature of video games moving forward, in particular the massively multiplayer genre.

World of Warcraft is not new to the world of microtransactions, or in this case, macrotransactions. I do not believe anyone considers $25 to be a microtransaction, which seems like a healthy bit of cash. A few thoughts came to my mind. First, we now have the Blizzard price list for all sorts of purchased add-on content and the range of money we will be shelling out in the future. Pets are $10; mounts are $25. The celestial horse’s success yesterday proved beyond a doubt that the $25 pricetag was not a deterrent for many purchasers, as the queue pushed over 100,000 people at times in the U.S. store alone. Early sales were estimated to be in the 400,000 area, with more climbing steadily. This horse is a hit.

My second thought was how drastically the dynamic has changed for Blizzard and why, potentially, it has changed. This past year showed a stagnation in the number of accounts created for World of Warcraft, leaving Blizzard with the same number to tell shareholders at their next meeting a year later. With new ways to monetize the player base other than the number of accounts, Blizzard has essentially given shareholders the go on holding onto increasingly valuable Activision Blizzard stock and to expect wonderful new profit generators. New ways to monetize existing subscriber bases are always being explored, and the Celestial Steed has cemented the pet and mount store as one of the absolutely critical endeavors.

This is only the beginning for macrotransactions in World of Warcraft. As long as the items up for sale do not give another player an advantage and stay purely cosmetic (with the exception of the race change, which has the potential to alter balance), I am confident Blizzard will provide some compelling additions to the already mind-blowingly successful pet and mount store.

Mustapha World of Warcraft

According to the old saying, March should be shuffling out meekly like a lamb at the moment, but the March version update to Final Fantasy XI has just come roaring on to the live servers. Usually we get a bit more warning from Square-Enix before a patch goes live, but with all of the information we’d heard about the contents of the update from VanaFest 2010 it came with no warning other than an early rumor. That means that trivia contest winners and attendees of the festival will gain access to their special hats, and it means that everyone gets a huge load of content added to the game.

The latest patch’s inclusion of Odin and Alexander as summons was well-known, as was the continuation of the Wings of the Goddess storyline as it nears its conclusion. Less sweeping but still significant is a number of boosts to Puppetmasters, including an upgrade in hand-to-hand skill to B+ level and the removal of range-based calculations from automaton ranged attacks. There are also new Notorious Monsters and new Campaign locations for players to enjoy, so if you’re a Final Fantasy XI player you should probably get to downloading the update.

Mustapha Final Fantasy XI

No! They are not! A common fallacy I read sometimes is people arguing that since they farmed part of whatever it is they’re selling, it’s cheaper for them to make than it is for me to make. This is, quite simply, not true. It’s easy to see where the error comes from, but much harder to win an argument about it.

Opportunity cost
If you farm herbs, you mill them, create inks, and then use those to make armor vellum, those vellums are not free, nor are they the cost of the vendor paper. The farmed materials can be sold a certain amount, and many people neglect to factor this. Farming feels like getting something for free — after all, you’re playing a game, and then when you finish playing, you have goods you didn’t have before.

Opportunity cost is, simply, what something would have been worth had you done something differently. The opportunity cost of going to law school is not the tuition, but the money you would have made had you not been studying law. Add that to the direct cost (tuition, books, bribes, what have you), and you get the total cost. Compare this to the profits at the end of the run to determine whether it’s worth it.

In game, the opportunity cost of using goods you farm (or earn, or get for free), is what you could have sold them for. Of course, if you are processing these farmed goods in some way, you are probably doing it to increase the final amount of money you get. If you still have to farm, this can be a valuable use of your time. If, however, you find yourself having to cut your prices below that the value of the unprocessed goods, you’re officially wasting your time. You just took your mats, spent time to turn them into a finished product, and are now selling it for less than you would have gotten by not bothering.

Never tell yourself that you can afford to go below the total cost of your product just because you farmed for the ingredients of whatever you are selling.

Mustapha World of Warcraft

Blizzard has released a rather detailed look into a new feature coming in Cataclysm that we first heard about at BlizzCon 2009 — the mastery system. The system will “allow players to become better at what makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique.” Mastery bonuses are passive and are tied to each talent tree for every class. The more talent points you put in the tree, the more your mastery for that tree will increase. Each talent tree will have three mastery bonuses:

Bonus 1: Increase to damage, healing, or survivability Bonus 2: Increase to a stat that’s relevant to the given talent tree Bonus 3: A completely unique effect to the given talent tree The mastery statistic on gear you’ll get from 80 to 85 will increase the effect of bonus #3. Mechanically, the point of the mastery system is to remove talents like “6% more damage” and regulate those effects into the entire tree.

Mustapha World of Warcraft

We know from the lore of Guild Wars 2 that Ascalon will become what is literally a ghost town thanks to King Adelbern, his sword Magdaer, and his last-ditch effort to drive out the Charr in a cataclysm known as Foefire.

The effects of the event reach farther than anyone would have thought in the first Guild Wars 2 novel, now officially titled Ghosts of Ascalon. The ghosts of slain Ascalon soldiers are the only inhabitants of the area now, defending their home from invaders and generally making it a pretty unwelcoming place.

In Ghosts of Ascalon, Queen Jennah is attempting a treaty with the Charr, who are unwilling to deal until the Charr artifact the Claw of the Khan-Ur is retrieved from — where else — Ascalon City. A small band of adventurers sets out for Old Ascalon to retrieve the artifact from a dangerous land and an unwilling ghostly king. (Since Lion’s Arch is gone, we assume they couldn’t find anyone to run them.)

The book is scheduled for release this summer in North America and Europe. For now, check out the FAQ on the Guild Wars 2 site.

Mustapha Aion

It looks like we’re getting another version update to Final Fantasy XI in March. The update’s existence was broken by the official site today, promising more information when VanaFest rolls around in only five days. All we know at the moment is that it will feature expanded missions and improvements across the board, which is more or less standard fare for the game’s large updates.

Of course, that means the update certainly isn’t the big news that’s promised at the upcoming fan festival. But there’s a rumor flying around that we might want to enjoy this update a lot. Square-Enix, it’s hinted, won’t have the game slowly bleed out as Final Fantasy XIV comes into its own — they’re going to outright shut the game down. An employee posted and then retracted a statement implying that the venerable game would shut its doors to make way for Final Fantasy XIV.

Confirmed? Not by a long shot. Square has stated they’ve got more in store for the game, and more than a few players are hoping that a new expansion is the big secret to be revealed at the fan festival. Still, we’ll find out soon enough what the future holds for Final Fantasy XI… and perhaps we’d best treasure our time with it now, just in case.

Mustapha Final Fantasy XI

Planet Calypso continues to bring in the big spenders. At the end of December, word got around that a Planet Calypso player had won an auction for the Crystal Palace Space Station, paying $330,000 real world cash for the item. A few years ago, another player mortgaged his home to pay around $100,000 for a virtual nightclub in Planet Calypso. Hold off on the laughter, though: the nightclub wound up turning quite a profit, and the space station looks to be well on its way to the same.

Now another player is following in the footsteps of those two, taking a chance on the mysterious Atrox Queen Egg. David “Deathifier” Storey purchased the egg in a public auction, paying the equivalent of $69,696 for the item. The egg has been around since 2006, and players don’t know when it will hatch, or even what exactly is inside. Deathifier is taking a bit of a chance with his purchase, perhaps hoping it will turn the same sort of profit as previous newsmaking purchases in the game.

Mustapha World of Warcraft

Although this probably won’t affect too many of us in the near future, Blizzard is already tinkering with many of the stats supplied by the Lich King’s weapon drops. A community manager on the Korean site posted about upcoming changes to one Lich King-10 and four Lich King-25 weapons, and Boubouille’s posted a translation with help from user Locriani. A lot of raiders had been surprised at the itemization decisions, and as a raiding healer, I’ve seen a lot of commentary concerning the uninspiring presence of MP5 on the Royal Scepter of Terenas II. Blizzard’s specifically addressing these concerns.

The following is the list of changes Blizzard’s planning to make to Lich King-25 weapons:

Royal Scepter of Terenas II: MP5 replaced with haste rating.
Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas: Critical strike rating replaced with haste rating.
Heaven’s Fall, Kryss of a Thousand Lies: Armor penetration replaced with haste rating.
Fal’inrush, Defender of Quel’thalas: Haste rating replaced with armor penetration.
And on Lich King-10: Stormfury, Black Blade of the Betrayer: Armor penetration replaced with expertise.
We’re not sure when these changes are going to go live, but we’ll update you when they do.

EDIT: The changes have been confirmed by Ancilorn on the EU forums now as well.

Mustapha World of Warcraft

It’s fairly common knowledge that Blizzard has kept updating the Armory with new features and new apps. Now, Bornakk comes forth with news of an app that will be to the armory what a giant Steve Allen pog was to pogs: behold, the ultimate feature! In the glorious future, we’ll be able to work our auctions from the Armory itself or apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. Yes, one more step closer to actually living full time in Azeroth. I have my eyes on a nice cottage outside of Elwynn, myself.

In all seriousness, I know a lot of people who would probably club me over the head and hand me over to a cabal of secretive necromancers for this feature. No news yet on exactly how it’s going to work, and Bornakk does point out that with the amount of work it will be to develop, you’re probably going to have to pay extra for it.
Read more…

Mustapha World of Warcraft