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More ideas for future mmo's and choice. I think there should be a choice of quests you'd like to undertake, and not controlled by not accepting it from the quest-giver.

A way in which this could be implemented, would be a quest-giver gives you the option to hunt wild animals to:

Get supplies for a wedding
or
Helping the war effort

The player gets to choose what quest route/quest they'd like to undertake, and possibly (to facilitate the belief that the parts of the animal doesn't cross over into the other quest) a tool (ie quest item)is given to the player to loot appropriately. Rewards should be randomized and not displayed to the player until completion, unlike most quests these days which show the player the reward before the quest is accepted. If rewards aren't randomized, choice is taken away from the player, who will more likely take the quest with the better reward or if similar, the one that requires less effort.

This system can easily branch and form more decisions which can provide greater varieties of rewards/loot.

Choice is good.

Shield Mechanics

I want to see an mmo where the use of equipment will dictate how the battle works.

For example, the shield; all we do these days in mmo's is look at whether it has the greatest armor/defense value and then if looking at something comparible, to then compare any additional stats (strength, endurance, +%chance to block).

There are 3 main kinds of shields that I can think of:
- Buckler
- Kite
- Tower

If I was designing a mechanic to go with shields, i would make:

Bucklers
- lower defence value (meaning more damage taken when not blocked), but a greater chance to block against everything but a 2-h weapon
- very good maneuvrability, as if no shield is equipped
- possibly even small bucklers that attach by the elbow meaning the warrior can use a 2h weapon
- low chance to block ranged missles

Kite
- medium defence value, ok chance to block against 1-h and 2-h
- average maneuvrability, a little bit slower than average running speed
- good chance to block ranged missles

Tower
- highest defence value, greatest chance to block both 1-h and 2-h weapons
- lowest maneuvrability; no sprinting while equipped; walking speed only; restrictions to certain agility
-related abilities
- greatest chance to block ranged missles

With that kind of though put into shields, it would cause me to think about the battle ahead and keep more shields in my armory, depending on the situation.

No Rift Preview

Sorry.
I must be the only person in the blogosphere that doesn't have a preview/review/opinion on the Rift beta; good reading material though today ;) It looks interesting and at the glacial rate that NCSoft is delivering information on Guild Wars 2, it doesn't look like it'll come out till next fall. So this might be the next big mmo that ill purchase (not really into Star Wars) to tide me over.

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Have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays friends =)

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New D&D game coming for 360, PS3 and PC
http://kotaku.com/5715988/dungeons--dragons-does-digital-download-with-daggerdale
Looks 'interesting'..

Game Design

When you encounter a cliff where falling, normally means instant death, game designers allow one of 2 things:
- to fall to your death
- put in an invisible wall
What you never really see is the ability to somehow survive the fall (maybe falling into water doesn't hurt; or featherfall spell).. but have nothing of particular use down there, and give an arduous and painful walk alllllll the way back up (hence punishing the player). We're a curious creature.. and given the chance, most of us would plummet into the unknown with the knowledge that the penalty isn't too great.

What reduces the penalty if there is nothing of value and being able to survive a huge fall is recall stones.. just think though if we didn't have that convenience..

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Guild Wars 1 expansion: Eye of the North
Is on sale on Steam.. if you wanted it
I can't bring myself to play Guild Wars 1...soooooooo I won't get it.

Unless someone can convince me its worth 20$

If Blizzard makes a new MMO..

Actually, it doesn't need to be Blizzard, but I don't know of any new mmo's being announced with limited information on what is the basic premise. Lets hope their new Titan game is similar to Freelancer:

- spacefaring game; with your avatar being an upgradeable ship
- a sandbox game with a great storyline- a huge gaming universe, with protected jumpgates and hidden worm holes
- mining for resources, and trading resources (buying low, selling high, with fluctuating prices) would be main non-battle related sources of income
- debris, asteroid fields, radioactive areas

Take a look; find a place to buy it; it should be rather cheap now. It played great and had an immersive storyline, but the quests were rather grindey and repetitive (granted there is technically less to do in space than one could do with an avatar on land).

Great Updates

Result: I bought a Kia Forte Koup 2010 from Kia Markham

It should look roughly like this; it'll be red, with tinted windows and Xeon lights. Kia Markham did a great job and fought hard (and fairly)for my business.

Note: Do not go to Kia Oakville; worst sales manager there EVAR. They have some reps there that 'seem' nice, but the one we got was horrible.

My last post on cars will be pics of the actual car.. I promise; then only gaming ;)
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Taken from Spinks:

Wouldn't it be cool if the next town was north west of the northern pass of that map, the road path (leading East) is much safer but a longer route, while going through the wilderness will have more dangerous mobs but is much shorter. Choices.

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I want this Tron limited edition 360 controller.

Looks sick.

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I've been playing alot of Left 4 Dead 2 on pc; i found out that by lowering the graphic's settings it allowed my pc to run and couldn't tell the difference. Great game; love fast scary zombies.

Downloaded Magic: The Gathering from Steam.. and every time I log into it, 2 minutes into the game, it'll cause my monitor to go black and tell me that no data is flowing.. but i can clearly hear the game music in the background. BLAH. Glad I only paid 2.50$ for it.. but its sad.

Big Steam sale right now; buyer beware; its a good platform.. but it has its problems.. :P

One more try

I go to buy my new car tomorrow in about 15ish hours.. wish me well; I hope the haggling is a quick, easy and smooth process. Sorry about the non-gaming stuff.. its all I can think about nearly every waking hour..

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I don't know how viable it would be, but i'd like to see greater cooperation required in regards to crafting. I want to be able to combine my skills in the same or related crafting profession with another player, AT THE SAME TIME, to be able to create something. All mmos these days, have it that we don't need the other person other than for the crafting resource. I remember in Allod's Online, they had a small crafting game which resulted in a wide variety of items being created. I wish they would do that in an mmo where both players could participate together in a way that simultaneous interaction is needed to craft something.

Maybe i get this idea from playing the facebook game Cityville. I normally detest facebook games and feel sorry for my mouse when my gf plays them on my pc due to the sheer volume of constant clicking; but the way they designed it, to be successful in the game, you need help from other players. You can still be effective to a certain degree, but not as much as one who has alot of help.

Bronze chest piece no. 18 and counting..

Enjoying the new crafting in WoW?
No one has really gone into detail from the blog sites that i frequent to let me know how it works.. not 'that' interested though since i'm not playing.

It got me thinking of how crafting isn't normally that useful in mmos that i've played. Its fun and gives different things to do in the game, but they rarely can be used to an effective degree. By time you can make it, you have better and it is worthless; you can't really sell it b/c you need to make the same thing 20 times and hundreds of other people are leveling their skill too which have diluted the sale price. I've developed a small organization chart of how valuable a loot drop should be worth: Most valuable at the top, worthless at the bottom.

Dungeon rare drops
Extreme rare drop open world (0.10-0.25% chance of ever dropping)
Dungeon boss kill/major reward drop
Pvp skill drop (if applicable)
Crafting - dungeon quest normal reward drops - rare drop (1-2% chance) - pvp normal influence gear
Dungeon normal drops, dynamic event influence reward, end of chain quest reward
Quest reward drop

Normal drop

Vendor Trash

With that kind of chart, I think it makes crafting more viable and useful; in my time with WoW (pre 1st expansion), only the end game items (so max skill) would be useful.. everything else by time you had the resources and skill to make it, was way below useable level. The item would be nice for your alt, but is that the reason why you went into crafting?? In Warhammer, the crafting is .... not robust to say the least.. I found cultivation was fun and useful when we were waiting in keeps or objectives.. b/c as well all know there is ALOT of waiting around in Warhammer. How to implement the system above? I dunno. Goodluck developers!

The Dead Forest

Let me share a thought on a design of a future dynamic event.

- an area surrounded by high canopy trees
- the setting is a dark forest where normally, locals that have used a nearby road have been beset by bandits but recently there have been kidnappings and other foul magic
- the prince has set out for glory with an entourage of elite knights, but only a bedraggled survivor makes it back to ask for help
- as the adventurers venture deeper in the forest, the fog thickens and arcane symbols are sketched into the trees and rock

The goal of the first stage of the dynamic event:
- scattered around the outskirts of the forest are bandits and survivors, the hero's job is to kill X amount of bandits and heal the survivors/escort them back to camp which has been made on the other side of the road
- the bandits consist of weak ranged mobs with better melee abilities
- additional influence can be gained by destroying/disabling bear traps

In the second stage of the dynamic event:
- the heroes need to move deeper in the forest where strung up Elite guards of the prince is being tortured by evil cultists
- the cultists are powerful magic ranged mobs that have the ability to summon zombies and undead
- the cultists have stronger melee bandits to protect them
- the goal is to defeat the cultists and rescur X Elite guards and escort them back to camp while being beseiged by bandits on the way

The last stage:
- there is a massive dead tree in the middle of the forest with the prince bound to the tree as well
- the cultists summon a lich which is able to in turn summon hoards of zombies
- the lich draws power from the cultists and the cultists get their power from the life force of the prince
- the lich is invulnerable until the cultists are defeated; the heroes must wade through the throngs of zombies and attack the cultists at the same time
- all the while, the Prince is slowly losing health; there is a timer which counts down
- if the cultists are killed, the Prince joins you in a fight with the lich, and though the lich isn't able to summon as many zombies now, it is able to cast devastating single target spells and cause fear in it's targets
- if the prince dies, he becomes a Death Knight; he kills the cultists but sides up with the lich to defeat the adventurers, he's fast, tough and does alot of aoe swipe damage with his great sword

With either outcome, the hero is awarded by:
Magic users: looting the lich
Melee users: looting the Death Knight
Hybrid users: looting a treasure pile by the base of the tree

Search and Buy

Thanks for the support friends; i've been hanging on and trying to do as much car research as possible; meaning 8 hours at work and an additional 4 hours sometimes at home. I feel brain matter leaking out of my ears.

I'm currently (but don't tell it to the car salesman!) looking at 3 cars:

Mini Cooper Classic

Mitsubishi Lancer

(Maybe) Kia Forte Koup

Any advice, suggestions, opinions on the cars, buying, deals, etc?
I just feel overwhelmed with the amount of data that no amount of zombie killing in Left for Dead 2 (yes i got it to work; was all about lowering video settings) will ease it.

Oh crap <--before I got hit

Hey Readers..

There will be a significant drop in entries the next week or so; my car got T-Boned by a careless driver who ran her red while I was making a left turn on Friday. My car is probably a write-off which has resulted in massive car research and needing to divert my attention elsewhere. Gaming couldn't even relieve the amount of stress i'm going through.

Hope all is well, Happy Holidays, I hope to be back soon!

Jomu

Slow week going fast

Yeah that doesn't make sense.. a week where nothing really happens and you're just waiting for the weekend to come. Everything right now seems to hinge on my trip to the Bahamas at the beginning of January, but thats another story.

No real gaming news; WoW Cataclysm comes out next week; will NOT be buying it. YOU CAN"T FORCE ME!! lol It just seems too old an mmo, though I always have a hankering to play Ultima Online ;)

Haven't been playing much; been going through my photos that i've taken and getting rid of crappy or blurry photos. I did pick up Archon from Steam; its probably the only game that doesn't crash besides Civ5. I intend on possibly upgrading my RAM by Christmas.

I'm totally on Team Meat

Though PETA likes to have nude models to get their point across... Tie score.