Star Wars Episode 7 – What?

Just saw this via my feedreader from GeekoSystem and gulped coffee too fast. Star Wars episode 7 in planned for 2015 after Disney buys LucasFilms.

Did this get posted around the first of April but somehow only get live today? 4 Billion purchase price is no joke.

In news we didn’t exactly see coming on the even of Halloween, NBA opening night, and the day after Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New York and New Jersey, The Walt Disney Company just announced that they’re set to acquire Lucasfilm, and that the next official Star Wars trilogy, starting with episode seven, is projected to kick off in 2015. Yes, you can now make the joke that Leia is a Disney princess.

George Lucas, whether you think he lost his genius years ago, or still has some sense somewhere deep down, issued a statement of confidence:

“For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next. It’s now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I’ve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime. I’m confident that with Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come.”

Don’t forget, Disney bought Marvel not too long ago, and they own ESPN, so it can now add Lucasfilm to its stable of prominent properties under its belt.

Strange days ahead if true.

Speaking of Bag space, Hats!

The math on the number of combinations of gear slots, bag spaces, and the server space needed to store it all is unknown – but would be a high number. Extraporlate the variance when reforging and enchantment is added.

I liked this Cartoon and the Trenches is worth a read.

We can show/hide Hats in WoW, perhaps this feature is even better – add many Hats.

A few more Blue comments, Bag Space, and random linkage

Those Blue posters really do put up with a heck of a lot of splatter and vitriol from the community. Thankfully the mess is easy to find and enjoy. This time Bag Space is something I’ve got some thoughts on at the end, which the Blues seem to think cannot be solved by adding space.

• Apparently post trolling for “survey feedback” on Dailies is not productive. Fair.
• No AHs in the Pandaria zones. Consistent with other expansions. Fair, and the OP phrased it well enough to sound like a request too. +1.
• WoW custom Monopoly has been released. I don’t get it, but can accept it. Fair.
• A DPS comparison with Blue, via Noxic. Hmm. Not what I’m seeing.
• I am not the only one (surprise!) that dislikes the Loot-Need rolls in 5 mans, but it is working as intended. That makes it just more evidence that the folks I hate who proceed to take everything are doing nothing “wrong” and everything selfishly. They have great gear though. Again here.
• Blue confirmed that bigger bags won’t help the issue of no space in the long term. Ahem. That does not mean that larger bags, or better stacking of items in stacks larger than 20 (for most buff food for example) won’t significantly help. I think there is a bit of snarkin the Blue’s response where they offer that bigger bags is such a good suggestion. How about:
  • Make all things that stack to 20 now go up to 100 instead (or maybe 99 if you must). Food, ingredients, crystals, herbs, ore, mats for enchants, cloth, etc. All of it. We’ll have heaps more bag space, with no change in the size of the variable in the DB which stored the stack count.
  • Give me an item (yes it will use a bag slot) that allows me to DE. Sell it as a special Rep item from the Consortium as an Exalted special. That way we can DE as we go too.
  • Make lesser charms stack to 900+.
  • The the quest items for Dailies that I do not have auto-disappear when the Daily is dropped or complete (Duh).

  

Angsty about gearing

Another loot & gear post…this time its as the rounding to the holiday event for Hallow’s Eve and the disparagingly lackluster experience trying to keep pace with a set of regular raiders.

Firstly I am sunk but not surprised that I didn’t get the Horseman’s Helm update this time around. It was a long shot that the daily goodie bag would drop the damn thing, and the fact that it is one of the better available gear items at the moment only makes it more bitter. Yes, some of the item level 463 gear are not far behind in terms of itemisation, but they are also rare and they get rolled on by all the asshats in randoms. frankly the time spent doing HH was better than getting Need rolled by a random who should know better. Yup, its happened.

Secondly I am sliding backward down the gear rank, with the raid team leaving me behind as they progress through Mogu’Shan Vaults. I expected this, but hate the sensation. I can grind/sell/buy/farm my way through another good item (the blacksmith craftable gloves) and keep saving for a Valor upgrade sometime in two weeks (Trinket, Helm, Belt, and Gloves, and the gloves will be from BS), but more than that I cannot plan for. Unless I get bloody lucky in a LFR run, or some ungodly rare world drop I won’t have a set worth speaking about in a month’s time. I’ll be out geared for Heroics, but not geared enough to be doing progression on the last of the raid bosses. Damn it.

And yes, pull my finger out and raid I hear the audience say – I’d love to. I really would. If Elegon and Emperor were melee friendly I might get a spot, but while we have raid team regulars I won’t be wasting sub-geared toon on progression fights unless I am filler. A range character on those fights can do more active switching, and a range who uses significant DoTs is probably going to do exceedingly well. Nobody likes being filler. Harrumph.

I think too that the broad expectation to stay geared by comparison to a 10 man raider is not reasonable. In fact if it was possible I’d wonder why bother raiding. This early in the expansion a very lucky or very dedicated person can be very far ahead, and a person with terrible luck can be well behind. I was hoping that luck and sweat might keep gearing levels closer for a while longer, and it was always a stretch. I cannot hold that position once Heroic raids are out, and it will be certainly harder once all the instances are open in a week or two. So many more opportunities for all players means the dedicated few will accelerate – perhaps this comes from misplaced jealously, or a want for what I cannot get (yet).

I did find a good resource at Wowhead – with a breakdown by source for loot for each clas/role. Saving that for later reading.

Happy Killing.

ps – Maint for 30 Oct is only an hour or so outage, starting from 10am PDT Tuesday, which for the Aussies is 4am on Wednesday morning. Yeehaw!

Random stuff from MMO Champ and Blue Posts

An assembly of trivia from readings around the place, mostly from a MMO Champ post..

Mists of Pandaria Flying for Alts – “WTB Book of Pandaren Flying (BoA – requires level 90 to purchase) = 2400gold, PST.”

“We’re not sure if we’ll be doing this. The tome worked out well enough for Wrath of the Lich King as an experiment, but so much of the experience we spent a lot of time and effort shaping in Pandaria is negated by flying. In addition to the upcoming reputation changes for alts (when a character on the account hits Revered), we’ll consider other methods of potentially speeding up the leveling process for alts, but we don’t think “allow flying” is necessarily the best answer.”

Meh, either way. It would be nice but also not a game breaker to walk while leveling. It really didn’t feel restricted to me. When I bring an Alt through it will be nice to see the content faster, and perhaps level in a manner I enjoy, or have more control of. Nice, but not a drama. By the 3rd Alt I can see their point.

Updated Raid Schedule Heart of Fear & Terrace

• Oct 30: Heart of Fear (N)
• Nov 6: Heart of Fear Part 1 (LFR), Heart of Fear (H)
• Nov 13: Terrace of Endless Spring (N), Heart of Fear Part 2 (LFR)
• Nov 20: Terrace of Endless Spring (LFR), Terrace of Endless Spring (H)

Are you guys happy with the daily system playing such a large role in end-game content? (via Blizzard twitter)

“I think the valor and charms feel good because you can cap them. I think rep itself would be better with a cap.”

Idiocy. Inspired idiocy. Only a fool is happy with the gating on Valor and Valor gear.

There is almost nothing worth getting until Exalted with each gear faction, and by 90 all the other rewards are moot. Justice Points are useless as far as I can tell, and if anyone knows what Justice can be used for except for buying odd gear for alts then let me know. Please.

This post demonstrates the general feeling of linking dailies to Valor, and the time it takes. The fact that it is written in caps does nothing to dismiss that the sentiment is correct.

HEY BLIZZARD – IT SUCKS.

The charms are fine. It’s not meant to be 100% loot, its meant to be an extra roll of the dice. The dailies themselves are OK in repeat, but what they grant access to is non-nonsensical. For example I’d love to buy an upgrade now that I am Revered with the Klaxxi which was higher than item level 463 and didn’t cost Valor. Instead I keep grinding that out until Exalted so I can get an upgrade quest reward. Then I will not be doing anything for the bugs again, and would go back and kill them in the name of the Empress if given the chance.

What is trolling (post)? Well behaving like a dickhead when somebody else is affected. If you are irritating somebody, you’re trolling. If you are not sure, you’re trolling.

Here is a  happy player, with renewed faith. If sarcastic then weird, if not then why post?

A poster suggested removing rewards from LFR. Yes, I think he’s a troll, but he got 3x Blue responses, so he’s good at it. Apparently.

Old Raids and Scenarios tweaks in p5.1

A few announcements in patch 5.1 which are really cool…(src), two of the best are:

(a) No raid-group needed to get into old raid content.

Well let me just say we’ll be farming more old stuff like madmen. It was not a huge deal to begin with, but it was sometimes a pain to get a raid formed. Kudos.

(b) Scenarios now have all the features that other randoms have.

God at last. I hated having players drop from scenarios and then the remaining players either leave too, or solo it. Should have been that way at release, but at least it is in the first major patch.

Raids, Dungeons and Scenarios

• Raid groups are no longer necessary to enter pre-Mists of Pandara raid dungeons.
• The Statistics page now tracks and displays 10-player and 25-player raid boss kills separately.
• Cooldown timers greater than 5 minutes will now reset between attempts on Challenge Mode dungeons.

• Scenarios

  • Scenarios now include Dungeon Finder queue features, including leaders, backfill, vote to kick, and deserter debuffs. Roles are still not required.

And I assume that DKs are pretty much where they want us given no notes in the patch? Good. Nice.

A Few Silly Things

As wow game time flies by, the odd silly thoughts appear…

• What is a Lightwell? – click to adjust the light in the area briefly for the perfect screenshot. Strange that it is a Priest power, but then they are of the light.
• As a Melee dps I think my role in the last two encounters of the Mogu’shan Vaults will be spear-carrier and pop-pop-waver. Encounters designed to make range dps easy and melee dps difficult is something well beyond a meme by now. The designers of those fights can get stuffed. I bet they play warlocks.
• After each patch spam a Pally for buffs stating that they have changed. Chances are that either (a) they have, or (b) the pally won’t know that they have not – given how much Paladins change each update. You can also still snigger when somebody asks for “Wisdom”.
• I don’t troll /Trade as a rule, but someday I’d like to ask, “since patch which spec is better for aoe grinding guardian or sentinel?”.
• Or offer a gold seller a great deal on a Spirit of Harmony, say 530g per, but only if they can supply 25 of them. Hopefully/maybe they don’t understand the BoP nature and go off farming.

Is the bundle sale a sign for Mists?

I’m preempting the calls from forum trolls everywhere that will say the Mists + Cata bundle is a sales driven desperate search for the remaining 10 geeks hidden in a bunker who have not played Warcraft. The game must be failing! See proof! Exclamation!

Get back in your bloody basement and play Farmville (oh, wait).

Or I could suggest that they are looking to convert a few players cheaply so that they continue to play, or return to play. Well der-derp-duh. Good on them. If I was pondering a return I might do this too. This is not Age of Conan, and it is a silly thought to think that wow is anywhere near a decline.

The active players I know are mostly happy. A few bitch and hate some aspects (dailies, valor gates, etc), but for the most part are entertaining themselves and others on a daily basis. Money grab? Maybe. Dead? Bah humbug.

Yes, bad mood today. Rants will continue until the alcohol arrives.

PaxAus will be July 2013

I’m excited that PaxAus (aka Pax Downunder, or PaxTailJob) will be in Melbourne in July next year. Registrations are open for the keen and adventurous.

I’ll check the running sheet before plop’ing down cash, but 3x days of nerd-game-fun looks good to me. Event coordinators also have a sense of Australian sense of humour too…

Just remember the three things to be wary of when visiting Australia:

1. Drop Bears.
2. Second Rate Animal Wildlife hosts.
3. that a really thick American accent is sometimes viewed poorly, especially if you’re whinging. English accents while whinging will get you thrown into the secret dungeon beneath Parliament House.

My first guild raid and a boss kill

Sunday I joined the Insidious regulars for a set of attempts on the Four Kings encounter (aka Spirit Kings) in Mogu’shan vaults, and we killed him. Yup, that’s me in the middle of the screen doing a Guild first boss kill.

Now to be humble, I have no idea of actually how I performed other than to say I stayed alive and didn’t wipe us, and the World of Logs might show me running in fire for all I can tell – but the four stinky old spirits were vanquished successfully.

I am darn excited to have done it.

New Heirloom Weapons – Claws!

The new one player battle area called the Brawlers Guild will offer at the very least some rep, a ranking, and allow purchase of a new heirloom – Brawler’s Razor Claws!

Standard heirloom stuff – level 1-80, with Hit and Haste as the two stats offered; costing 2175 Justice Points. Very nice little addition to the heirloom toolset.

Rawr!

Related articles

• These Heirlooms smell Monky
• Wowheads preview of the Brawler’s Guild.

Ars Magica Computer Game Kickstarter

Its no secret that I’m a huge fan of Ars Magica and also of computer games, and  now an agreement between Atlas Games and Black Chicken Studios is seeking to combine those two wonderful hobbies.

Black Chicken Studios, working under license from Atlas Games, is delighted to present a new simulation role-playing game for the PC. After 25 years and 5 editions, Ars Magica will at long last be paid tribute in a single-player, turn-based video game.

Authentic to the original, this is a faithful, beautiful, and accurate depiction of covenant gameplay and the RPG’s legendary magic system during a dangerous century in the Stonehenge Tribunal. With your help, we’ll bring Ars Magica: Years of Conquest and its tapestry of wars, intrigue, invasion and, above all, magic to life!

The Ars Magica – Years of Conquest game is seeking backing via a kickstarter campaign.

I can only rave about how passionate Atlas Games are about Ars Magica, and really hope this concept gets through to reality.

If you are a fan of either, spread the word.

Re-posting: Ars Magica Computer Game Kickstarter, on the The Iron-Bound Tome.

Angry about outdated loot rules

Angry. More Hallows Eve runs than I can shake a stick at, and I have more to do. I want that bloody rare helm. I want a Strength Ring. And I want to defenestrate the greedy bastards in Warcraft.

It is hardly 2005 when the behaviour of the community might have not been totally predictable.

Change the bloody rolls in Randoms, so that they mean what (I think) they should mean:

• Main Role: valid for the role you joined in.
• Alt Role: valid if you can use it.
• Transmog: because you like pretty things.
• Gold: because you are going to vendor it anyway, just give the character the cash.
• Disenchant: because you’d like the mats.

Main gets priority, then Alt Role, then the other three are all at the same level. The use of the word Role will be a direct lever for teaching the idiots that they should not try to queue as one role and roll for loot for others.

OK, I understand that it might be too much to have 5 options in some runs, and that might confuse some of the soft brained screen-lickers, but to hell with them. Then take out transmog, that’s a shitty reason to roll against somebody and Alt would do in a push. It will likely only be 3-4 options, and if the game designers cannot find a way to impart that design graphically to communicate the level of consideration then they should not be designing interfaces for a living.

Note to self – Stretch goal for gear is ilevel 470

My new long term stretch goal for gear is ilevel 470 as that is what is needed for the new LFRs soon. Well I did say stretch goal, meaning well beyond expectation.

I’m currently 462. Bugger. With a 437 trinket and 3x 450s on Head Shoulder, and Legs there is 4 items to be replaced.So if I make the trinket a 450 using the Dragonling, and then get 463s in the other three spots … then I’m still miles short, as each item boost is adding at best 1 point. This means that epic gear is really required in many slots to get to that item level.

Double bugger. Hopefully the Hallows End event will ramp with the Band of Petrified Pumpkin 463 ring up to 470. Oh, and the ring from the Final Klaxxi quest when you get Exalted, which is a 489 reward!

Ps. the required LFR item levels are:

• Both Mogushan Vaults: 460
• Heart of Fear: 470
• Terrace of Endless Spring: 470

Related articles

• With 460 ilevel, now for LFR… (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• LFR Gearing Hyperboost in Mogu’shun Vaults (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• Gearing can take a while for some (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• Mogu’shan Vaults LFR Requirement (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)

LFR Gearing Hyperboost in Mogu’shun Vaults

After getting to the right ilevel I joined an LFR run of Mogu’shun Vaults. It was interesting. I saw a few bosses, but due to the reset I was unable to see a complete run. That said, I gained 2x epic items (raid finder 476s) in that run through a combination of loot drops and using the extra special roll tokens. My gear is still poor though, being that I have a terrible trinket and three  ilevel 450 items. I’ll dance a jog when I can get all slots to 463, and probably scream like a pansy when I’m epic’ed out.

The gearing plan is to continue to get Valor until I can afford to buy a new Trinket (must buy or craft a Dragonling asap), and craft either the Chest or Gloves. Also continue the dailies for rep and the minor tokens, and perhaps the gear that is unlocked. Bloody motes. That is a long road. Perhaps I’ll get another shot at the Sha of Anger too.

Fight styles in LFR and mechanics are self-evident most of the time. eg. the burning chain that joins two players is obviously bad, so stay next to each other. Or bad stuff in the floor, or announcements before AoE effects, or don’t stand in front of the boss as your dps drops and it breathes, cleaves and makes mince meat of characters.

The overall performance of a player in LFR is as per previous, and strat wise LFR is not teaching much about the fight mechanics properly. The Doggies were tanked and nuked, which is not how I think its supposed to be.

Related articles

• With 460 ilevel, now for LFR… (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• Mogu’shan Vaults LFR Requirement (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• All LFR bosses. (ownedcore.com)

Hallow’s End – Free rings!

Update: The Petrified Band (str ring) is bloody rare for me. I’ve seen it drop twice in 22 runs. And watched as a Druid got the Plate Helm from the goodie bag. That is seriously stupid.

Hallow’s End should arrive soon (18 Oct), and that means we get the opportunity for a few “free” rings for our characters. If the same events and rewards hold there will be rings, plate helms, and agi swords up fro grabs again this year (see Wowhead’s old page and event page).

“It is over, your search is done! Let fate choose now, the righteous one!”

There is a chance I suppose that some items will not be updated, like one handed kegs from Brewfest were not updated. I’ll cry foul as that Plate Helm would be bloody wonderful for my Death Knight, even better if I can find a few of them for both tanking and dps roles.

It also might mean that given the switch in Scarlet Mon for the new instances that some other trash might be present, but probably not.

Boss Loot (please don’t be a total ass and roll on gear you’re not queued up for!).

The Str ring is good for DK dps, and might also be better for Tanking that what we have (especially after reforging), but in all seriousness it seems a dps item. I want that ring, a helm, and I’d take a Agi Sword so that I have a nice set for reforging.

Old stats:

• Agi with Hit/Crit – Band of Ghoulish Glee
• Str with Crit/Haste – Seal of the Petrified Pumpkin
• Int with Hit – The Horseman’s Signet
• Int with Spirit – Wicked Witch’s Ring

Loot-Filled Pumpkin Loot

• Sword: The Horseman’s Sinister Saber
• Helm: The Horseman’s Horrific Helmet

The strategy for the fight is very simple two phase fight, which repeats between the phases until either you are dead or he is.

• Phase One: Kill the Horseman. The tank tanks, the healers heal, and dps nuke him back into the smoldering corrupted earth. You might need to avoid the fire on the ground, and even splash damage / AoE the adds so they don’t kill the tank, but generally it is an easy phase.
• Phase Two: Kill the Head. The head detaches from the body, and the body becomes immune. It is in this phase that heavy damage is done to the head as your team chase it around the graveyard, and you’ll need to get through a few of the P2 sessions to get the job done.

Happy Killing, running, looting, and sharing.

With 460 ilevel, now for LFR…

I finally got to average 460 ilevel last night just after midnight, and I’m now drooling for an LFR run. On the same night I was able to turn in the quest to make 3 magic tokens, to increase the loot chance. Getting to that gear level was totally random luck, with a Gloves from from SC heroic. I’m up to the bit where I enchant and gem the gear, which is expensive but really worth it.

Next challenge is explaining to my wife why I want to login on a non-wow night to do an LFR run, just because it resets today. That’s a tougher boss than Alganon when you’re wearing nothing except Northrend blues (ok, bad wife joke. sorry).

Related articles

• Mogu’shan Vaults LFR Requirement (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• What a few nights a week can do? A lot actually. (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• LFR Loot System (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)
• Gearing can take a while for some (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)

Gearing can take a while for some

After a night of solid instance grinding I’ve added new Neck and Chest to my DK’s Dps set, and new Boots and Neck to his Tank set, all 463 ilevel. Frustratingly its added almost nothing in terms of getting to the ilevel for Raid Finder. I’m thinking of doing SM and SH specifically soon instead of doing randoms and just seeing what drops. There was a huge amount of gear that went to Greed in the past few runs.

I am very pleased to say that I didn’t have to Need roll over others, as the group of 5 I randomly found was excellent, and we repeat ran quite a few instances. It is alarming how much of a difference a good team will make.

Even though my luck was not there in terms of drops, I’d say the gearing is not slow. It took me a while, but that is not to say a player cannot gear quickly. In fact I’d say it is easy given gold and huge amounts of time to be well geared very quickly. If I had the time I’d just farm Motes of harmony and craft my way to some nice gear. Alas.

A few years ago I blogged…

As a navel dazing distraction, here are a few posts from this blog over the years at or just around mid-October. Blog has been going since late 2006.

That’s a lot of ranting, even for me.

Questgiver PSA

Source: Random / Funny / Weird Image Thread version 2.2 – Page 67 – General Yappin’ – My ExtraLife Forum.