Worlds Of Warcraft, Everquest2 or Guild Wars?
I have friends peeing their frilly white panties over each and everyone of these games. Blonde Hottie Faye has been waiting three years for Everquest2 and I got an advertisement for it at the movie theater last week! I think with ads in place, the game will be opening soon. EQ2 sounds like EQ1 with talking bad guys. You can already pre-order the game. Here is the contest page if you want to register but I think you need to look at the page inside with like red lenses or something.
http://clients.eprize.net/sony/everquest2/
Here is the beta page for Everquest2
http://everquest2.station.sony.com/#beta
Everquest2 has the huge backing of Sony who has had the terrific hit "Star Wars Galaxy.
Cytra and Smooches tell me they are peeing for World Of Warcraft. The warcraft series was very popular and this game is highly anticipated. What worries me a little is the lack of noise from the beta community. Hopefully we'll all get into the stress-test beta and get to test it out for ourselved. Pirate Sid and I both had currupted downloads of the beta. If this happens to you, one thing that fixed it for me was to use winzip9 beta. You can download it here.
The lesser known of the big three is Guild Wars. Sid and I believe this is going to be the surprise hit. A few of us got into the Guild Wars alpha test at E3 and that alpha test was more stable than There on a good night! ROFL. Guild Wars is produced by NCsoft and that's a good indication that it will be innovative and fun. Here are some quotes that catch my eye...
"Guild Wars takes the best elements of today's massively multiplayer online games and combines them with a new mission-based design that eliminates the tedium of those games."
"You don't have to spend countless hours on a leveling treadmill to get to the interesting parts of the game, because combat is designed to be strategically interesting and challenging right from the beginning."
"unique streaming technology forever eliminates the concept of patching a game. You don't have to wait a month for the next big patch to experience new content. Instead, the game constantly and intelligently streams new content to your computer in the background."
I like what I am reading. I really like how There was "one world", where Sims Online and City of Heros are multiple servers. Guild Wars is one world! You just downloaded the WoW game and it was like 2 fucking gigs! LoL, the Guild Wars client was tiny! Seriously, I was shocked it even ran but it did! And it downloaded elements of the game as we played. That is very sweet technology.
GW is almost available for pre-order as well
http://www.guildwars.com/preview/wpe-faq.html
CoH Tip No.4 - Maxing XP
For me, maxing XP is about not wasting time. Here are my comments and opinions :)
Groups
Hunting Vs Missions Vs Task Force
Foes and AoE
Loops
Groups
You can make XP solo-ing or in a group. Solo-ing is often boring, but can make more XP at the higher levels. Right now I just want to blab about groups. The best groups are "small" groups. The only time big groups make great xp is when you are in a group with maybe 3 levels (14 15 16) and you are the 14, or when you are in an eight man group and sk'd. Generally speaking, smaller groups are the most efficient.
The problem is wasted time. When you have eight people together, you will get far more:
gotta pee
gotta feed dog
brb beer bio
phone call, one sec
gotta sell
This wastes time and the groups ends up carrying one or two slackers or ends up standing around a lot. If someone dies, and people often die, you waste more time. Big groups are ok if you all know each other and all like hunting as a special team, but big random groups are usually hit and miss for xp. You might have the crazy "charrrrrge!!! kill kill kill" maniacs that have a team death wish, combined with the slow and calm fighting strategists. Big teams are fun and social and interesting, but they are not great xp.
Small teams are tight and fast, and bond together quickly. My favorite teams are 2, 3 and 4 players. Raizer, Starley, Snow Flurries and I used to regularily team and would go slide missions smoothly and efficienly. Small teams communicate well and work together well to maximixe fun and xp.
Hunting Vs Missions Vs Task Force
Maxing xp is often about efficient use of time.
Missions simply waste a lot of time because they incorporate
go see contact
tell group and run through two maps and a park
find door and don't die on way
fight through mission
get back through two cities to contact
this added crap and the start and end of all missions simply wastes time. Missions are a lot of fun and they are interesting, but sometimes you watch that pink bar and it doesn't move and you think "what could I do to move this bar?" What you could do is join a hunting party for a night or two and give that a try and see how you like it, rather than 100% missions.
Task Force Missions are better XP, simply because they force you to play CoH for five hours straight. ROFL :) If you forced yourself to street hunt for five hours, you would have hella xp as well. So Task Force missions are good XP, simply because the time committment. The thing I hate about TFs is again the fiddle-fucking around at the start. I've waited 30-60 minutes for a TF to get started on more than one occasion. I think too many TF organizers want 8 players. I personally believe a well oiled 5 man team does as well on a TF as a wild and wooly 8 man team. A TF can raise you up an entire level in one night during the earlier TF levels. Just becareful...if you are the weakest member of the team, try and get sk'd. I don't know the stats but I'm guessing 25%-33% of TFs seem to give up early when they get slapped on the first map. If you are the strongest member of the TF, you won't get much xp...try to be in the middle for a balance of xp and safety.
Street Hunting is often the best xp simply because there is no time being wasted going from map to map and contact to contact. You are "Go! Go! Go! Kill! Kill! Kill!". The biggest dangers in street hunting are team leaders that try to kill too-dangerous of targets. It's ok to quit psycho teams. :)
Foes and AoE
Who you attack also has an effect on xp. AOE is area of effect or point blank area of effect...these are weapons that hit more than one bad guy. More on this in a minute. You have three choices:
kill small numbers of tough bad guys
kill medium numbers of medium bad guys
kill large numbers of weak bad guys
For XP, I rank them:
1. kill many weak
2. kill few tough
3. kill medium medium
The best xp is always in "minion bowling". When you can find 10-12 minions, white, blue or yellow, maybe orange, and then get everyone ready, then hit the AOE attacks, this is great xp and you are also in less danger of dying since you are fighting weaker opponents. Almost all heros can have some sort of AOE attack. The key to AOE weapons is
they should be six slotted with lots of damage
using more than one at once helps
they need the aid of AIM or BUILD up for more damage
Attacking minions in this way helps level sooner. If you don't have an aoe attack available, the next best choice is to attack one or two higher level monsters. You can use your regular weapons to beat them down. This can be good xp, but you are at greater risk of dying, and I personally go through inspirations at a much faster rate this way.
Loops
I don't like to think too hard when I'm street hunting and so I am always trying to find street loops that I can repeat over and over. This is kind of like using the pattern in pacman. lol You don't have to boldly adventure through every street in a city when you hunt, find a 2-4 block area and run it over and over. Bad guys spawn ultra quick so there is no need to jog 100 miles. Again, the goal is to not waste time. I always loop near the tram when I am new to a city. This is safer (run to mister police drone when I'm scared) and easier to sell when I am full of enhancments. As you level, you move one or two blocks away each level. Simple loops work and your team will get faster and faster as you develop a rythm with where you are hunting.
Sims2 Has Gone Gold!
It will be shipping any day now.
