Coercer (and Warlock) Love in Update 45 April 16, 2008
Posted by Kendricke in Everquest 2.Tags: Aeralik, coercer, enchanter, GU45, illusionist, warlock
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If Update 44 was the Ranger patch, then Coercers should keep a sharp eye out for Update 45.
In this post made earlier this week by Chris “Aeralik” Kozak, he starts out by stating “[Game Update] 45 will see some significant changes to the coercer class.” He goes on to outline the upcoming changes, which seem designed to address much, if not most of the complaints the coercer community has been griping about for some time now.
Now, for the handful of you who still haven’t tried out Everquest II (and seriously, what’s wrong with you!?), the Coercer is the dark counterpart to the Illusionist class. Coercers are primarily a control and support class right now, with a great deal of their damage coming indirectly (either through the control of a charmed monster or by way of “reactive” damage spells placed on other members of their group).
Coercers get some remarkable support spells, but as a general rule, they have a lot of trouble hitting parses (typically considered the poorest damage dealer - by far - of all mage classes).
The changes being outlined are ambitious, to say the least, and in some ways will revamp the class more dramatically than any other updates since early 2006.
In addition, at least one of the changes will affect ALL Enchanters, Coercers and Illusionists alike. The Volatile Magic achievement (which greatly increases spell damage if the caster is below 30% power) is going to be altered to provide less benefit, but all of the time. This should mean we’ll see an end to enchanters sprinting on raids just to burn through their power.
More on the specific changes after the break.
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Memory Leak Fix Incoming for Everquest II April 16, 2008
Posted by Kendricke in Everquest 2.Tags: autenil, C++, coding, memory leak, programming, Veeshan's Peak
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For a fascinating look into the world of live MMO coding, take a peek at the personal blog of Everquest II’s Technical Director, Josh “Autenil” Kriegshauer. Earlier this week in an article at The Joshua Tree, Josh pulls back the curtain on an issue he’s been working with regarding memory leaks.
It’s a refreshing post, because he dives right on in to the actual code changes he’s hoping to make instead of making vague corporate-safe proclamations that “he’s working on it” or “it’s on their list of issues to look into”. If you’re into programming, you’ll love the post all the more.
For the rest of us, the quick summary is this: While looking at a problem with lag in Veeshan’s Peak, Josh found a solution that should hopefully help fix quite a bit of lag throughout the entire Everquest II client.
Source: “Leaking memory by the kilo[byte]“ at The Joshua Tree by Josh “Autenil” Kriegshauer
Shard of Hate Exploit? You Decide. April 15, 2008
Posted by Kendricke in Everquest 2.Tags: Exploit, Raiding, Shard of Hate
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Let’s say there are these five hateful sisters in the Shard of Hate.
Now, let’s say that if you happen to wipe while killing these sisters, all five of the sisters respawn. Obviously, this is to prevent you from putting your entire raid force’s resources into killing one sister at a time, wiping, then trying again on the next sister.
Let’s say that when you kill one of these hateful sisters, you can potentially loot an item from their corpse (not chest loot, mind you, but just a body drop) that triggers a one step quest that provides you with a choice of really nice fabled items.
Now, let’s say - just for the sake of argument - that you can kill one or two of these sisters and then wipe, which resets all five of the sisters, but now you have bodies on the ground from the previous kills. Let’s say these bodies have body drops on them which starts the one step quest which provides you with a choice of really nice fabled items.
Now, let’s say those quests are repeatable.
See the problem? Several guilds are already exploiting this little loophole to stock up on quested fabled items (which can then be munged, donated, vendored, etc).
The only real question is whether or not it’s an “exploit”, just shady, or perfectly acceptable. What do you think?
Why the Shard of Hate is TOO Good April 15, 2008
Posted by Kendricke in Everquest 2.Tags: Progression, Raiding, Shard of Hate
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I’m about to make a post which is not likely to earn me any favor with a majority of guilds out there, but I think the early stages of Shard of Hate is too easy for the loot which is dropping.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not heading up some 5 night a week ubermetaraid guild here. We’re a second tier T8 raid guild right now - we haven’t even made it to Veeshan’s Peak yet. So I’m not coming down on the Shard of Hate from some sort of elitist ivory tower, condescending my considerable opinion upon the rabble. No, we’re fairly typical of what many players might consider the more casual of the raid guild spectrum.
I’m also very much in favor of better content for beginning raid guilds. I’m a huge fan of zones which have easier starting content that scales up to more difficult content. I don’t think the Shard of Hate should be built around ridiculous entry requirements, either (you must be THIS uber to raid this zone).
That said, the initial stages of the Shard of Hate are practically a gimme. If you don’t believe me, here’s a quick guide to the first two named of the Shard of Hate…
When You Wish Upon a Star… April 15, 2008
Posted by Kendricke in The Gaming Industry.Tags: Disney VMK
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Browsing through the morning news sites, I was surprised to find this headline posted on the front page of CNN.com: Thousands fight closing of online game
“More than 11,000 people have signed a petition to save Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) after an announcement was made that the site will be closing.” -WKMG
Some of the most heart wrenching stories are coming out of this one. Children and parents are angered - ANGERED - by Disney’s decision to close this online world. Disney’s not only missing the boat on another opportunity to nab kids, but this type of action is exactly the sort of thing parents will remember when they look for other online worlds for their children to participate in.
Visit http://www.savevmktoday.com/ for more details.
Question of the Week: What Happens When You Petition Other Players? April 14, 2008
Posted by Kendricke in Question of the Week.4 comments
It happens all the time. You come across a pain-in-the-neck player who’s spamming for gold in your LFG channel, or you find yourself the target of a feign-training griefer, or you just can’t stand the name of the guy who’s waltzing around spouting profane statements about his favorite anatomical puns.
So you file an in-game petition. Then what?
Most of the time, you hear nothing. You hear nothing at all, actually. If the player was warned, you don’t know. If the player was suspended, you won’t find out. If your petition was blithely ignored, you’re just as much in the dark.
There’s plenty of reasons why game studios are generally mum on the subject of “what happened to your petition against so-and-so”. However, let’s assume for a moment that there is no such legal ramifications. For the purposes of this discussion, assume there’s no liability issues at stake here.
At Clockwork Gamer, we want to know what you think this week:
Do you think CSRs should tell you how they handled your petitions against other players?
Friday Factoid: Bye-bye Macro Bug April 11, 2008
Posted by zobek in Everquest 2, Friday Factoid.add a comment
Game Update 44 hit the live servers for EverQuest II this week, opening the new Shard of Hate raid zone and introducing a whole slew of combat changes, especially for the Ranger class. A quieter change, though, was an update to the way the EQ2 client parses macros and commands, rendering many macros useless…
Hernandez v. IGE April 7, 2008
Posted by Kendricke in Uncategorized.10 comments
As mentioned by Scott Jennings this morning, it seems that Antonio Hernandez, a player of World of Warcraft, is suing IGE. Moreover, he’s trying to have his suit certified as a class action lawsuit.
Oddly enough, IGE’s position is that the lawsuit has no merit because players “have no standing to sue because they have no ownership or property rights within World of Warcraft“.
So wait, if players have no ownership or property rights, what exactly was it that IGE was selling all this time? More to the point, what exactly were they buying in the first place (the gold came from somewhere, right?). If the players didn’t have rights to ownership or property, what exactly was IGE paying players for?
Question of the Week: Separate Roleplay Servers? April 7, 2008
Posted by Kendricke in General Game Concepts, Question of the Week.3 comments
Many of the biggest MMO’s these days still set aside servers specifically tagged for “roleplaying”. Very few of these roleplay servers are set up with a different rule set, and generally speaking these servers invariably end up being popular with non-roleplayers as well.
Even roleplayers can’t seem to agree on what exactly roleplaying actually…is. For some, the idea of roleplaying is based around simply playing a game “in character” whereas others feel that there should be fairly strict rules on race/class selection and even group choices.
Studios themselves seem to stay out of the actual semantical muck and mire, and essentially wash their hands of the concept even while they set aside the servers themselves. Let’s face it, if the developers starting getting involved in helping to define roleplay, wouldn’t they then be obligated to help enforce it?
It’s a daunting situation from any angle, and it’s certainly got our gears grinding just thinking about it.
So, our Clockwork Gamer Question of the Week for April 7th, 2008 is this: Should MMO’s have separate Roleplay Servers?
Let us know what you think.
Too Much Random April 4, 2008
Posted by Xeavn in General Game Concepts.4 comments
I may be the only person that feels this way, but to me it seems like the random number generator is over used in the modern MMO. There seems to be a huge reliance on chance. Do I hit a enemy, does he hit me, how much damage do either of us do, what loot drops if I win, do I finish my quest? The list could probably go on for quite a while. Why is random chance used so much? Is it really necessary? I hope I can answer at least a few of those questions, and show why I think it should be used less.
I realize that part of the reason for using random chance to determine outcome likely goes back to the days of table top gaming where players rolled dice to see if a weapon hit or if they dodged that attack. It worked well for games such as D&D and Battle Tech, and while it isn’t horrible for today’s current massive multiplayer games, I think it is overused. Everything becomes this random roll on the dice, do my resists save me from that spell, what loot do I get from that chest, did that blow kill me? At least when gathered around the table, rolling dice with friends, you still got to physically roll the dice. In your favorite MMO you usually just see the result, miss, dodge, resist, hit, etc.
