MMORPG

The second round of closed beta has begun, all the old characters were wiped away (well, at least mine were), so I started up a new mage and brought her through level 5 so that she could become a Void Seer. Void Seers were, I thought, going to be pretty close to a basic healer. This isn’t the case – not at level 5, anyway. The only heals she has are the heals all mages get (and every class gets some kind of heal, even if it’s self only). Mage heals are curses placed on a monster, and when that monster gets hit with melee, ranged, or magic (depending on the curse), the group gets healed. To heal in Spellborn, you don’t spam the “more healing” button. You attack more. ...

It’s the wave of the future. No, it’s not the wave of the future. Handing the level making tools to the players is the wave of the past, and it’s made game after game stick around for years past the “sell by” date. Half Life, Warcraft III, Unreal 2… It doesn’t take a genius to see that tapping the boundless enthusiasm and creativity of your players can be a good thing. ...

Malistaire has gotten a really bad rep. Sure, he destroyed parts of Wizard City, stole the Krokonomicon from Krokotopia, plotted with Marleybone’s nefarious Dr. Katzenstein, nearly killed the Moo Shu Emperor, and teamed up with the Dragon Titan whose army destroyed Dragonspyre, but really. Can you blame him? Think of what Wizard City was like, pre-Death professor going berserk. “Oh, hello, new students. Here’s your wand. There are no monsters wandering the streets of Wizard City, so go about your business. Don’t worry about Professor Malistaire, he may seem gruff, but he likes puppies and loves his wife. If he should happen to go insane, I’m sure your experience never casting the one spell you have will be adequate to stop him.” ...

I was teleporting around Cap du Diablo and this story came to me, pretty much exactly as it is here. Sometimes they just come like that, fully formed, and then it’s just a matter of putting the pieces together. Enjoy :)

This isn’t going to be a new player’s preview to the Chronicles of Spellborn – you can find links to that sort of information after this post that point to my experiences playing on the EU servers prior to the Acclaim closed beta, or take a look at Dragonchasers’ excellent initial impressions. On the EU servers, I played a Rune Mage. My special power: Special tattoos that could be triggered to cause explosions. Rune mages are the EQ2 warlocks (or WoW frost mages) of Spellborn, and since many of my damage spells also triggered instant heals or heals over time, I felt very comfortable mostly tanking things, moving only to get out of enemy AOEs, but mostly just building and executing combos through the skill deck. ...

Name: Mad Money Power: Mad Money uses his infamy and notoriety to manipulate the financial markets of the Rogue Isles. Once a lowly hedge fund manager, the Complicit Netherworld Broadcasting Corporation recruited him and now use his powers for their own nefarious ends. Weaknesses: He wilts in the face of laughter. Supergroup affiliation: Minion and sometimes spokesman for the Complicit Netherworld Broadcasting Corporation. Kasul and I finished up our missions in Mercy Island last night and headed in to Port Oakes. Port Oakes is where the game world expands – you get the newspaper missions, the mayhem missions, teams are easily available at a wide range of levels. Leveling to eight wasn’t too hard. I’d had a date with Thomas, the Friendly Necromancer to do the second half of the assault on Malistaire’s Lair in Wizard 101, so i ducked out for a few minutes to save Dragonspyre, again, from the reawakened Dragon Titan. Kasul had to work today, so he decided to head to bed. ...

Way back in December, SOE mentioned offhandedly that they would be adding a NEW server to EverQuest – the first since the two progression servers from a couple of years ago. A couple of days ago, while writing about the “Classic EQ Petition” that was going around, Egat mentioned in the comments that there was now a poll when you logged into EverQuest, putting it to the players what kind of server they wanted to see. ...

… No, please, just give me a second … I remember it, at least I think I do … Dammit, someone turn out the lights. Oh, that’s the sun? Then could someone PLEASE TURN OFF THE SUN? Gah. My head … Oh, you want to know what I did on Brewday? Damned if I know. The last thing I remember was getting together with the drummer from the band after a few of their songs and … ...

The Chronicles of Spellborn will gain a (metric) tonne of features in its upcoming patch, 1.03. A lot of dreams players have are coming true. Unfortunately (for me), the letter I got from Spellborn was in German. I’ll try to do a little bit of (probably wildly wrong) translation above the fold, and the full letter is in the original German afterward. Called “The Scroll of Swords & Münzen”. ...

A funny little man dressed in green dragged me to my computer. “Log in! To Wizard 101!” he insisted. And when I started to do just that, he slapped my hands rudely from the keyboard. “No! Log in to the TEST SERVER! There all the new St. Patty’s Day things you will see!” “Gee,” I said. “Thanks, Yoda.” I did find the new St. Patty’s Day stuff. But I also stopped in on my friend Zeke the Prospector and found that he now carried new items for the discriminating shopper. ...