Spoiler Alert: Discussion of Mage changes in patch 12759. In this article, I’ll also be focusing on Impact, Pyromaniac and AoE talents and how they’ll work together in a solo, dungeon and raid environment. A whole slew of mage changes came out in the most recent patch. The main ones were around armour specialisations and…
Tag: design
A Good Beta Tester?
I started writing this topic in response to a blue post from Ghostcrawler. It seems that while the beta programme is proceeding at pace, the quality of feedback they’re getting is dropping. Rather than trying to paraphrase the Crab himself, I’ll let you read his words directly. I hate to go all forum moderator on…
Games Within Games Within Games
I used to exclusively play single-player games, drifting from title to title from month to month. After I’d finished eating through the content that the developers had created, the game was finished for me. Achievements or multiplayer modes didn’t exist nearly as much back then, so there wasn’t really anything else left to play for….
Early Look: Mage Talent Revamp
Spoiler Alert: There’s a fair bit of discussion about the new Mage talent trees. It’s limited to theory, analysis and scenario discussion. Fairly strict game mechanics focus. The most recent Cataclysm beta push brought with it the overhaul to class talent trees. It’s all part of a grand design – remove the talents that everyone…
The Growing Yet Shrinking World
One of the signs a game is on the decline is when servers are switched off. It doesn’t matter if they’re called realms, shards or any one of a number of different descriptions – mergers and closures are a sure-fire sign that a MMO’s playerbase is shrinking. No game is immune to the effects of…
Website Wizardry… Ish
Apologies for the rather pompous title, but I thought I should actually put a post up about a handful of changes that have either happened or are going to be happening to Mana Obscura over the coming days and weeks. Some of the changes have been a long time coming (well, since the release of…
RealID – What The Forums?
You’ve probably already heard the big announcement about how RealID is going to be introduced to the forums. As we approach Cataclysm, the official Blizzard-run Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo forums will be upgraded to use a player’s real name whenever they post. There’s already a huge amount of discussion on the merits of the idea…
Polymorph or Polydeath?
Spoiler Alert: Discussion of Mage talents in Cataclysm, focusing on one new talent in particular. I feel like I’m almost betraying my class by raising this discussion. We’ve been handed a gift almost, a rare glimmering tool that would be oh-so-nice to have. But I don’t like it and really hope that it doesn’t make…
Under the Hood
Spoiler alert: In-depth discussion of the planned changes to Cataclysm, primarily focusing on mechanics and core engine changes, leveling experience and endgame experience. All information here is public knowledge unless specified. Over the weekend an avalanche of news came out about how development on Cataclysm is progressing. In an interesting change the majority of information…
Choose Your Weapons
A while back I mentioned that I had four different weapon sets on my mage and was having trouble choosing which one was the best. Theorycrafting wasn’t really helping me much, with no clear winner emerging. In the end I decided that the best way to test them was to go out, do some target…