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About David

David Holloway has been involved with gaming since the early 1970′s and with virtual worlds since heavy use of a MOO in 1993 – he even admits to having owned a Vic 20 and used it heavily to play cassette-based roleplaying games. As far as Star Wars goes, he still owns his original set of Star Wars figures and can vouch for the fact that a 1978 Stormtrooper can be blown to bits by shooting it with a slug gun from a distance. He’s also played Star Wars games as far back as the Super Nintendo console and to this day is devastated by the accidental erasure of all his progress on Lego Star Wars on the Wii.

Guild Wars 2 Patch Notes: 25th September 2012

September 26, 2012 by

Guild Wars 2 Patch NotesAnother big update from ArenaNet – kudos to them for the speed in which they’re getting a lot of these fixes in.

The full patch notes for you:

General
• Fixes to LOD on numerous objects in the world.
• Fixes to maps to prevent players from moving outside of the playable area.
• Fixed a bug that made pet footsteps excessively loud, especially in water.
• Fixed a bug with assists not working in keg brawl.
• Fixed numerous blocked events.
• Updated text and functionality when purchasing bank slots.
• Fixed loud sounds on portals to the Underworld in Godslost Swamp.
• Fixed several bugs that were preventing some skill challenges from resetting properly.
• All recipe items are now account bound. Many were previously soulbound.
• Updated Superior Rune of the Ogre Rock Dog so that it doesn’t summon when the player is underwater.
• Updated Sigil of Demon Summoning so that it doesn’t summon when the player is underwater.
• Summoned rock dogs and fleshreavers die when they enter water.
• Removed the lone 1 copper from city map completion rewards.
• Removed Mystic Forge recipes that were being used to reduce surplus supplies.
• Enemies in tutorial areas will no long drop loot. Instead, an award of 72 copper has been added to the rewards for completing the tutorial. This is to dissuade players from lingering in tutorial instances to farm the creatures in them.
• Obsidian Shards are now account bound.
• Box of Berserker’s Draconian Armor and Box of Rampager’s Draconian Armor now reward the proper items.
• Fixed various crash bugs.
• Added the rank 30-39 wolf finishing move.
• Fixed recipes for the Mystic Artifact, Mystic Barricade, and Mystic Trident.
• Fixed visible map completion percentage errors and the achievement not completing.
• Applied 10-second cooldown to Bowl of Saffron-scented Poultry Soup buff. This was done to keep elementalists from spamming condition removal with Signet of Restoration.

Black Lion Trading Company
• Added functionality and improvements to the Black Lion Chests, including a chance to receive new items like a permanent version of the Black Lion Trader Express.
• Black Lion Salvage Kits now properly display the correct percentages for rare materials.

Story
• Adjusted difficulty for the following story steps: “A Fragile Peace,” “Breaking the Bone Ship,” “Killing Fields,” “Political Homicide,” “Sabotage,” “Set to Blow,” “Stand By Your Krewe,” “The Ringmaster,” “The Stone Sheath,” “Track the Seraph,” “Unscheduled Delay,” “Unwelcome Visitors,” and “Welcome Home.”
• Fixed bugs in the following story steps: “A Fragile Peace,” “Against the Corruption,” “Bad Blood,” “Forging the Pact,” “Stand By Your Krewe,” and “Tower Down.”
• Fixed exploits in “The Sound of Psi-Lance.”
• End of Story Loot Bags:
o These have been improved to only give green or better gear of level 78 or higher.
o The number of bags received has been reduced from 5 to 3.
o More improvements will be made in coming weeks. Players who complete the story before the final update will be equally compensated once the new rewards are in.

Dungeons
General
• Updated vendors in the Ascalonian Catacombs and Caudecus’s Manor to sell level 80 versions of their unique skins rather than level 60 and 70. Players who purchased the level 60 and 70 versions will soon be given the opportunity to upgrade those to level 80 without having to use transmutation stones.
Citadel of Flame
• Fixed an exploit in Magg’s chain that was allowing players to skip the entire dungeon and still be rewarded.
• In Magg’s chain, if Magg happens to die in the lava field, he’ll teleport himself to the start of the area just outside it.
• In Magg’s chain, Magg must be much closer to things to draw their initial aggro. This only affects the escort to the magmacyte rock.
Caudecus’s Manor
• Fixed an exploit that was allowing players to skip content.
Honor of the Waves
• Fixed a bug in the Butcher’s chain that prevented a boss from spawning.
Arah
• Fixed a blocking issue.
Ascalonian Catacombs
• Fixed blocking bugs in Detha’s chain.

Dungeon Rewards
We’ve made some significant updates to dungeon rewards. I wanted to try and clarify them here. All of these changes have been the result of an original exploit which was letting players receive upwards of 20 levels by completing a single dungeon run. We initially closed this exploit, which caused some new problems. The result is this new system which should increase dungeon rewards for players who play though them normally but help curb inflation of rewards for those who are using exploitative methods to farm them.

1) Dungeon tokens are now rewarded at the end of an explorable chain. This was done to stop players from repeatedly entering a chain and farming the first boss that dropped tokens rather than playing the entire chain. At some point in the near future, we will make up for this by making dungeon tokens a rare drop so that even players who are not completing a chain can make partial progress toward the rewards.
2) Dungeons reward 20 tokens for completion and now reward an additional 40 tokens for the first time they are completed each day. This means that if players can complete all 3 chains of a dungeon in a day, they’ll receive a total of 180 tokens, which is enough to purchase some of the smaller rewards.
3) Dungeon tokens should be account bound. This will allow players to have a single character farm tokens for their other characters.
4) Last week, to limit the most extreme cases of dungeon speed-clearing, we introduced a system to limit rewards for rapidly repeating dungeon clears. However, a bug in that system caused it to impact more players than intended. This week, we’re updating the system to not impact clearing different chains of the same dungeon. We’ll continue to evaluate this system in coming weeks.

Professions
General
• Implemented a fix to make Heartseeker, Lightning Leap, Flame Leap, and Monarch’s Leap hit more reliably.

Elementalist
• Fixed bugs with Flamestrike and Ice Shards so they can’t be fired behind the player.
• Quick Glyphs: This Air Magic trait has been updated to apply 20% recharge reduction to the elite skill Glyph of Elementals.

Engineer
• Grenade Barrage: This Grenade Kit skill should now be usable underwater.
• Short Fuse: This trait is no longer overwritten by the Grenadier trait. Also, this trait now works with underwater grenades.
• Speedy Kits: Added a 5-second recharge to the trigger for this trait. This was to prevent players from exploiting it to gain vigor buffs of extreme duration.
• Invigorating Speed: Added a 5-second recharge to the trigger for this trait. This was to prevent players from exploiting it to gain vigor buffs of extreme duration.

Guardian
• Merciful Intervention: This skill has been updated to work with the Meditation Mastery trait. The tooltip for this skill has also been updated to display the healing amount when affected by traits.
• Elusive Power: This trait has been updated to not grant might when aegis was blocked.

Mesmer
• Fixed text on “readied” mantra buffs.
• Veil: This glamour skill has been updated to show the appropriate active duration when not affected by traits.

Necromancer
• Taste of Death: This skill’s healing fact has been updated.
• Spectral Wall: This skill has been updated to apply the correct amount of vulnerability (10).
• Vampiric: Fixed a bug with this trait so that it now functions with projectiles.
• Close to Death: This trait has been updated to provide its listed 20% boost instead of the previous (unlisted) 10% boost.
• Banshee’s Wail: This Curses trait has been updated to apply extra swiftness.
• Spectral Walk: This skill has been updated to be more active and to work properly with its recharge trait. Also, Sever Spectral Bond has been changed to Spectral Recall.
• Minion Master: This Death Magic trait has been updated to properly affect the elite skill Summon Flesh Golem.
• Putrid Mark: This skill has been fixed to make it properly unblockable with the Greater Marks trait.
• Mark of Evasion: This trait can now trigger the Soul Marks trait.
• Reaper’s Protection: This trait has been updated to properly work with a variety of crowd-control effects.
Thief
• Bountiful Theft: This strait has been fixed so that it doesn’t apply 15 seconds of vigor twice.

Races
Norn
• Call Wurm: Autocasting has been removed from this skill to prevent an exploit. Additionally, the skill may now be cast on the move.

Player versus Player
• Legacy of the Foefire: Fixed an exploit that was allowing players to teleport past one of the gates.

World versus World
• Experimental Rifle: This item is no longer usable in World versus World.

Filed Under: General News, Guild Wars 2 Tagged With:

My Attempt At A WoW Realm-First

September 25, 2012 by

Mists of Pandaria is now a reality, and being my third expansion playing the game (I started during Burning Crusade), I wanted to do something a little different this time.

I thought about trying for a realm-first achievement rather than wading through the huge crowds of toons in the starting areas. I settled on trying to be the first person on my server to level Fishing to 600. I perused the Bible of WoW fishing, spend quite a while making sure I had empty bags and my fishing gear ready to fire off – I had an Arcanite Fishing Rod from winning the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza so I felt I was in with a fighting chance. After some investigation of locations to park myself near a Fishing Trainer, I chose the dock at Menethil Harbor because it was quiet and the trainer was nice and close to the water.

I was banking on Stormwind being a laggy mess, so I didn’t have a daily fishing quest ready to hand in to get a 2-point head-start, instead gambling on getting cracking on casting straight away. I was logged in and waiting to start 15 minutes early, which was a good thing as Blizzard flicked the switch to Mists of Pandaria at 4 minutes to 5pm local time. I trained up, blinked to the spot I wanted to fish at, and…. pressed the wrong key and put myself in an Ice Block. I lost 5 or 6 seconds there cancelling it but otherwise started on time.

There started 1 hour and 50 minutes of tedium although I found it surprisingly enjoyable knowing the prize at the end (plus my GM had offered 10K gold to the first guildy who got a realm-first). As had been predicted, the average casts per skill point was around the 5 mark. Only once did my skill points go up 2 points, the rest were singles. I stuffed up two casts by clicking too early but otherwise had a smooth run. I also used lures half a dozen times but they don’t take more than a few seconds to attach. All up I would have lost one minute max on a perfect run.

I got from 525 to 592 when the dreaded realm-first notice went out – that person obviously had some good luck with the cast ratios and had probably handed in a daily as well. About ten minutes later I pinged 600, at least getting a guild-first. Here’s what I had fished up (I had fished up 3 fish before launch, hence the discrepancy in total numbers):

So there it was – it was disappointing not to pull off the realm-first but not being close made it easier in some ways. And hell, if anyone needs 258 Rainbow Fin Albacore, I’m the guy to see.

What I’ve learnt for next time (if there is one!):

1. Do have an old fishing daily ready to hand in to get a head-start
2. Don’t bother adding a lure to your rod unless you care about the fish you’re catching – it just adds time
3. The whole thing is luck of the draw – if you have a bunch of 2 or 3 cast per skill points you are in with a chance, otherwise you’re pushing it up-hill.

Over to you: did you attempt any realm-firsts and if so, how did you go?

Filed Under: General News, Opinion, WoW Tagged With: ,

Mists Of Pandaria Is Go

September 25, 2012 by

Just a few minutes ago, the latest World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria, went live.  There was a slightly different approach this time, with no logout required to access the new content. Blizzard have wrangled the servers in a way that allows the transition to occur so that the new content ‘appears’, including the new quest to start the journey to Pandaria. (If you’re after all the info on how to get going with the expansion, this is a good start)

So far it appears that things have gone smoothly although some servers are likely to be experiencing queues. Unlike Cataclysm, I’m not planning on starting my Pandaria questing quite yet. I’m actually going to attempt a ‘server first’. The one I’m attempting matches my lack of ability in end-game: I’m going to try and be the first person on my server to level up my fishing to the cap. I have a quiet spot next to one of the lesser known fishing trainers, and for the first 2-3 hours of MoP I’ll be doing nothing but casting a fishing line. Wish me luck!

More importantly though, how have YOU found the MoP experience so far in these early hours and days? Will you be rolling a Pandaren and/or a Monk early on? What’s got you particularly excited about the new content?

Also don’t forget our own WoW guru Luke has written a nice retrospective on Cataclysm and he’ll be bringing plenty of his impressions of MoP over the coming weeks and months.

Filed Under: General News, WoW Tagged With: ,

SWTOR: No Server Maintenance Tonight

September 25, 2012 by

It’s a maintenance-free Tuesday evening, so enjoy some quality game-time while your fellow MMO-players over at WoW battle the huge crowds trying to complete a quest!
While we have you – we’d love it if you could rate our podcast!

Filed Under: General News, Servers, SWTOR

Joel Bylos Appointed TSW’s Game Director

September 24, 2012 by

Hot off the Funcom PR presses is the announcement that The Secret World‘s Lead Content Designer has taken a step up to be Game Director.

Here’s the full announcement:

Funcom is excited to announce that Joel Bylos has taken the new position as Game Director on ‘The Secret World’,the company’s recently launched massively multiplayer online game (MMO). Mr. Bylos will work together with Creative Director Ragnar Tørnquist on expanding and enhancing the game through quality post-launch content. The team has already launched two major content updates in just over two months following launch, and focus going forward will be to expand the storyline, introduce entire new areas such as the upcoming New York raid, and much more.

Ragnar Tørnquist will continue in his role as Creative Director with even more focus on the overall setting and story for the game.

Mr. Bylos, who has been instrumental in shaping ‘The Secret World’ as Lead Content Designer’ throughout development, has extensive experience with developing post-launch content for MMOs. This includes serving as Lead Designer on the critically acclaimed ‘Rise of the Godslayer’ expansion pack for Funcom’s previous MMO launch ‘Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’. Mr. Bylos will manage the development team together with Scott Junior, who continues in his position as Producer on the game.

“Being given the opportunity to lead the game into a bold, new future is definitely a dream come true for me,” says Joel Bylos, Game Director on ‘The Secret World’. “I am very proud of what we as a team have created with ‘The Secret World’, and it is truly a brilliant canvas that will allow us to create more groundbreaking MMO experiences for many years to come. ‘The Secret World’ is only really getting started, and with a game world that draws upon our own,real world, there is no limit to what sort of amazing stories we can tell and fantastic locations we can visit in the upcoming content updates.”

“Joel and I have worked together for many years, and I cannot think of anyone more suited to maintain the vision and lead the game going forward than him,” says Ragnar Tørnquist, Creative Director on ‘The Secret World’. “I look forward to continue working with Joel on bringing the game forward through many, exciting post-launch updates, and I especially look forward to spending more time expanding on what I truly enjoy the most about ‘The Secret World’: the story, characters and the setting itself.”

The development team is currently working on wrapping up ‘Issue #3: The Cat God’, the latest content update for ‘The Secret World’, and production on‘Issue #4’ is also well under way. This update puts players in the middle of a devastated New York City where they have to battle an enormous monster crawling up from the depths of the New York subway system and onto the streets of Times Square.

Aside from the news of the promotion, which seems a positive thing, the other interesting aspect is the Issue #3 and #4 mentions, although with no timelines. It’s always good to see the future updates laid out and hopefully we’re seeing a more settled team that will grow the game.

What’s your take on the announcement?

Filed Under: General News, The Secret World Tagged With:

SWTOR: Oceanic Servers To Be Consolidated?

September 23, 2012 by

As you probably already know, the last update to SWTOR saw all servers get 12 character slots – except the three oceanic servers. It’s obviously a problem, and one that BioWare have fully acknowledged:

Folks, I wanted to take some time to let you know that we are listening to your concerns and that they’re important to us. Oceanic servers WILL be getting 12 slots, just like the other servers and we’re going to implement this change the next opportunity that we have.

Additionally, we’ve seen your concerns about Oceanic server populations and we’re going to be evaluating this in the next few days.

We’re listening, and I know you’ve all been patient with us, and for that, I thank you. As soon as I get any update to this, I will let you know here.

Thanks again.

 

The more interesting part for me is the additional acknowledgement of the issue of server populations locally. They’re going to evaluate and I’d be surprised if the decision wasn’t to knock the three servers down to 2, or even a single server. That said, I’d imagine they’d wait until F2P hits fully before deciding.

It also flags an ongoing issue locally in that there to date has been bugger-all promotion of SWTOR and that’s not likely to improve. Go into your local games store and see if you can find a copy of SWTOR still on the shelves – I know I’ve tried with two stores in the past week and have come up blank. It’s hard to see anything but a decline in local servers, F2P or not, unless something changes in that regard.

Hell, the pessimistic side of me thinks the call may be made to close all oceanic servers and let people take their chances on the US or EU ones. I’d like to think that’s definitely very pessismistic though.

What’s your take – do you want to see the larger server populations and if so how do you think it should be done?

Filed Under: General News, Servers, SWTOR Tagged With:

Mists of Pandaria Help Guide: Assorted Bits

September 22, 2012 by

Below are some simple solutions to issues I encountered on my journey from Level 85 to Level 90. Hope some of it helps you!

Where is the First Aid Trainer in Pandaria? – it’s Mishka the SI:7 agent standing near the fountain in the middle of Paw’don Village.

The Fall of Ga’trul – how do I hand in the quest? – after killing Ga’trul you need to read the red book on the altar then Rell Nightwind will appear at the door to hand it in. It took me two goes i.e. the first time Rell didn’t appear so had to try again by abandoning the quest.

Where is the Inscription Trainer in Pandaria? It’s Inkmaster Wei at the Arboretum on the east coast about half-way up on the map.

Jaded Heart Quest – where are the celestial jade chunks? They’re lying on the groun in amongst the Sha Echoes – just collect them and right click on one to weaken the Remnant.

Where is Jogu The Drunk? He’s sitting by the pond at the southern end of Halfhill

Where is the Flight Trainer in Pandaria? If you’re Alliance, it’s Cloudrunner Leng at the Shrine of Seven Stars in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. He’s right next to the Flight Master there, sitting on a cloud serpent. If Horde, you’re after Skydancer Shun in the Shrine of Two Moons.

Find Han Stormstout quest – how do I get past the streams? If you’re a windwalker then you can go over them, otherwise just go to the left or right down the ramp far enough you can get under the stream then walk back up the ramp – do that a second time and you’ll find Han encased in amber just opposite Chen Stormstout.

Where is the Motherseed Pit in Rikkitun Village? This one drove me mad for a few minutes – it’s actually just down the hill from where you pick up the quest. Head downhill toward the water and you’ll see a bunch of the seeds where you drop it off.

Filed Under: How-To, WoW

Guild Wars 2 and Hackers: How To Secure Your Account

September 22, 2012 by

Mike O’Brien, who is GW2’s Executive Producer and who is also President of ArenaNet, has posted a nifty overview of account security.

It covers everything from:

– two-factor authentication (they were working on a mobile app but have chosen to change direction and go with Google Authenticator instead)
– password strength (surprise, surprise, people still set lame passwords)
– fighting hackers (they have 20+ million passwords on a blacklist that hackers have attempted to use with particular email addresses – you won’t be able to use these passwords if they are linked to an email that a hacker has tried. It’s reduced hacked acocunts from 1.5% to 0.1%)
– database breaches (they haven’t had any – yet)
– hitting the hackers where it hurts by not buying gold from third-party gold sellers

You can read the full post here – it’s not just for the noobs and has some interesting insights.

Filed Under: General News, Guild Wars 2 Tagged With: , ,

The Secret World: Free 3-Day Trial On Offer

September 22, 2012 by

Funcom have continued their run of offering free trials of TSW.

The latest option is a 3-day trial, with an extension to 5 days if you complete 30 missions. Here’s the details:

 

You can play as much as you want for three days and experience anything you like in the game.

Immerse yourself in the deep story and unravel the mysteries in The Secret World. Choose a Secret Society and take part in the brutal war between the Templars, the Illuminati and the Dragon. Team up with your friends and take on the challangening and exciting Dungeons in the game, such as a wrecked cargo ship off the coast of New England, called The Polaris or venture into Hell itself.

  • Complete 30 Missions to get two extra free days of playing time. Any new player which completes this challenge also gets 1200 Bonus Points (equal to 10 USD/EUR) which can be used in our in-game store.
  • Defeat the fearsome Ur-Draug boss and complete the first dungeon in The Secret World, The Polaris, to get a unique reward – The Whispering Demon Ring. Equip this powerful ring to increase your stats and get an XP bonus in the early parts of the game.

Just sign up for the trial on www.thesecretworld.com and fill in your information on the lower right side of the page.

 

We’ve said it before in our review of TSW, and we’ll say it again: this is one of the best MMOs out there. Now  you can check it out for free – so get cracking!

Filed Under: General News, The Secret World Tagged With:

Oceanic Soap Box: First Hour in WoW

September 21, 2012 by

It’s T-Minus 5 days until Mists of Pandaria drops, and whether you’re a WoW player or not, there’s no doubt this release will shape the MMO industry just like previous ones have. Beyond that though, there’s some great fun over the coming week for those who do play.

Hence the topic of this week’s soap box: what will you do for your first hour in WoW after the servers go live – and you can successfully log in? (Click here for all the details of local launch times)

Will you be jumping straight to Pandaria or will you be going for a realm-first in some other area? As I’ve bored my fellow WoW players to death with, I’m attempted a realm first in… fishing.

Jump in: what’s in store for you those first 60 minutes?

Filed Under: General News, Op-Ed Tagged With:

Mists of Pandaria: Detailed Preview

September 20, 2012 by

Blizzard are pumping up the PR engine in a big way in the final few days until Mists of Pandaria launches. The latest salvo is a nearly seven minute preview of what’s coming in MoP. It’ll be of particular interest to any WoW players who haven’t played the beta for MoP.

Enjoy:

I’ve had beta access and have purposely avoided the new zones so the surprise isn’t ruined too much. I have to say I like what I see – what about you?

Filed Under: General News, WoW Tagged With:

Golden Joystick Awards: SWTOR and TSW Get Nominations

September 20, 2012 by

Voting for the 30th Annual Golden Joystick Awards is open, and amongst others, SWTOR and TSW have got nominations.

SWTOR has picked up nominations in the Best MMO and Ultimate Game of the Year awards, whilst TSW has picked up a Best MMO nomination.

Other nominees in the MMO category include EVE Online, League of Legends, LOTRO, Rift, Runescape, Tera and World of Tanks.

If you want to lodge a vote, here’s where to go. I was torn with my vote in the Best MO category but ended up going with TSW. What about you?

Filed Under: General News Tagged With: ,
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