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2011 has come and gone, giving an idea of what we can expect in the year to come.  Cataclysm has become the expansion Blizzard wants to forget.  A nobody developer came out of nowhere with Rift to show just how hungry players are for an alternative to World of Warcraft.  The much hyped Star Wars: The Old Republic was released at the eleventh hour much to the relief of the C-3PO cos-players.  Sony released its DC Universe only to have it go free-to-play six months later.  If you were one of those suckers that shelled out the $200 for the lifetime subscription, you got butt-raped by Sony, no lube or nothing.  This next year, there will be some additions to the gang of ankle biters trying to take down World of Warcraft from its pedestal.  Will any of them deal a mortal wound or will Blizzard’s Mists of Pandaria be the redeemer and be a bitch slap to the upstart competitors?

World of Warcraft

It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the room, or panda in this case. I had a lot of hopes with some major game fixing announcements to be made at Blizzcon.  So when the panda expansion was announced, my reaction was along the lines of, “What… the… fuck!?” This was the exact opposite of what it was going to take to keep me from unsubbing and my fling with The Old Republic.  Pet battle system? I wasn’t aware Nintendo had swallowed Blizzard whole.  And I swear we’ve heard this “We’re fixing the talent trees for reals this time!” conversation before. Looks like the Cataclysm “simplified” talent trees weren’t moron-proof enough.  The fact that we still haven’t heard anything on the Big Bad of this expansion is disconcerting. Metzen’s speech about WAR!!!! being the bad guy sounds like a cop out to me. I think the rest of the Blizzard devs had no idea what to say with this so just turned to Metzen and told him, “Dude, just go out there and do your thing.  Say something epic.”  I’d think they learned their lesson not to do that after 2010′s “GEEK IS!”  Read more…

Cataclysm drastically changed WoW’s raiding structure for me.  With 10 and 25-mans dropping the same level of gear, we’ve been watching the slow death of 25-man raiding over the past year.  Add to that the system of regular and heroic modes, it can be somewhat tedious.  If you ask me, Blizzard had a good idea with what they did with Ulduar different levels of difficulty.  It just needed some more structure.  The binary rigidness of regular and heroic was their answer to that.  Why couldn’t they take the time to scale it with different levels of difficulty, steps if you will other than the sometimes easy mode of regular to the “kick-in-your-teeth” of some heroic modes.  The “Window-Licker” mode coming with 4.3’s raid finder seems more for the extreme casual player.  Enter The Old Republic’s lockout system and their different raid modes.

Different Lockouts for 8 and 16?

During my time in the last beta weekend, I kind of stumbled on the lockout system in the UI menus.  And I was pleasantly surprised to see what looks to be a different lock out for 8 and 16 player raids.  Does separate lockouts mean different levels of gear from each?  If so, the JOY!!!  In WoW, 25-man raiding is dying.  Honestly, just face it and like it or not, it’s through Blizzard’s own design by taking away any extra incentive to do the 25-man content.  10-mans are simply easier.  Less chance for a weak link in your raid team to miss a mechanic, less boss health, hits like a girl and the number of effective mechanics are usually cut in half.  So unless you like the larger scope of being in a 25-man raid team and want to get a few extra Valor badges each boss kill, why bother?  With TOR’s NDA gone the way of the dodo bird, we’ll be seeing more and more of the gear that drops, but I remain hopeful by this sign.  Now to the levels of hard modes. Read more…

We’ve all been in the position at least once before, starting up a new game and having absolutely no idea behind the mechanics of our class.  I’m sure there are some of us that even rolled a hunter in WoW and ran up to Raptor Strike the first mob they saw.  Don’t be that guy, but walk into the world of The Old Republic with some basic knowledge of the classes and their capabilities.  It’s important that the first class you play in a new game is one you’re familiar with.  Otherwise, you could be that guy that usually does hunter classes but plays WoW for the first time and rolls a ret Pally, only to uninstall after a couple hours.  Remember, it’s not the game’s fault you’re a moron.

The Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior

Ah, the iconic JedI and Sith we’ve all seen in the movies, but just what can they do in this game?  Well, they both hit on things with laser swords.  If you want any more in depth than that, you’ll have too look at them once they split up into their advanced classes.  The Sentinel/Marauder are your pure melee dps classes.  Dual-wielding light sabers, these are you experts in jumping in and causing complete destruction.  All three of their specs have different play styles, it depends on the player on which one of these trees you go down.  The other half of this light stick wielders is the Guardian/Juggernaut.  Think of Darth Vader or Darth Malgus from the cinematics and know that those are your typical one of these guys.  Armored to the teeth and damage reduction abilities, they can take a lot of damage, but they can dish it out as well.  While they may be known for tanking, that’s only one of their specs, the other two being for damage.  Now let’s get into the lesser known classes. Read more…

If you ordered the live stream of the nerdgasm that is BlizzCon, then log in and check your in-game mail for your pet. Also, if you are there at BlizzCon and somehow find internet, your pet is waiting too.

BTW if you are there you are supposed to be drunk by now.

Thanks to Caritheri on Argent Dawn. Not only did she spy the Rawrcast van, but she pointed out that her pet was standing right next to mine.

After twenty-eight years of war between the Empire and Republic, the Emperor sent an offer of peace between the two sides.  The war going badly for the Republic, the offer was too promising to turn down.  Little did they know that it was a ruse.  High-ranking Sith Lord, Darth Andral was placed in command of a force to catch the Republic by surprise and take the capital planet of Coruscant.  Malgus was given the privilege of leading the attack on the Jedi Temple.  Not pleased to have a rival, Lord Andraas, accompanying the small strike team of Sith, Malgus was all too happy to be the one given the honor of destroying the center of the Jedi order.  Accompanied only by his wife Eleena, Malgus walked right in the front door of the Jedi Temple, killing any guards that stood in his way.  Upon entering, Malgus and Eleena were confronted by a the small force of Jedi in the Temple, most of the Jedi were on Alderaan for the peace negotiations.  The Jedi surrounded the two, only seeing the shuttle filled with Sith warriors flying straight towards them only as it was about to come crashing through the door.  Everyone in the main hall area fled, all except Malgus and Eleena and a single Jedi, Master Zallow.  Instead of run from the shuttle as it rammed through the door and skidding to a halt behind Malgus, Zallow took his eyes from him.  No fear, Malgus approved and nodded to him in a show of respect.

The Sith forces coming from the wrecked shuttle, the Jedi returning from their positions of safety from the crash, the two sides seemed evenly matched.  The Sith, however, had the advantages of surprise and a Mandalorian bounty hunter whom was silently taking out Jedi forces in the Temple even before the shuttle’s crash.  Malgus had reason enough to want to kill Zallow.  He was Jedi, killing him would be a boom to his reputation within the Sith heirachy.  Seeing Zallow force push Eleena into a wall before she took a blaster shot to the chest was enough to send his rage to boiling.  Sith derive their power from emotion, and he used the rage inside him to make him only more stronger, faster and think more clearly as he directed his hate towards Zallow.  The Jedi fought well. but Malgus knew patience would eventually lead Zallow to make a mistake.  Growing confident after a strike which knocked Malgus’ respirator loose, Zallow attempted to finish him off but only found Malgus’ lightsaber driving through him.  “It’s all going to burn,” Malgus told him as he pulled his weapon free, the Jedi’s last thought being, “I’ve failed,” while Imperial forces sacked the crown jewel of the Republic.  Eleena survived, only because Malgus fought the Empire policy of treating aliens in their first-class facilities.  The seeds of Malgus’ disdain for the Empire were being sown. Read more…