I have a concern, and it’s about the high price of MMO ‘founders packs.’ For a strong title that’s still early in development, it’s a great way to raise funds and bring in eager gamers to test the game out. But the status of being an early adopter comes with a cost, and it’s usually…
Tag: stats
SWTOR: The Broken Mess of Crew Skills
Over the last few days I’ve been digging into the crafting system in Star Wars: The Old Republic. This isn’t something I really got into during beta – I was too busy waving around my lightsaber and shooting lightning from my fingertips to be concerned with harvesting materials and making pointless items. I’m regretting that…
The Unknown Warcraft Subscriber
There’s been a flurry of commentary recently on the recent earnings call by Activision Blizzard, where they provide some highlights on their third quarter performance. If you’re interested in reading through the entire transcript of the call you can find it at Seeking Alpha. There are a couple of quick facts to pull out: Warcraft…
The Gates of Compelling Rewards
Do you ever get the feeling that you’re somehow missing something when you read a particular piece of news? That’s how I felt when I was reading over Ghostcrawler’s latest blogppost where he talks about item stat inflation and the problem it presents. While it’s a great article that hints at some difficult choices ahead,…
Mage Stat Priority in 4.0
For many of us, January marks the beginning of Cataclysm raiding. It’s time to start getting those gear upgrades from heroic dungeons, digging out those gems and finishing everything off with a nice coat of enchants. This can be fairly expensive, so it’s worth doing properly rather than wasting money on mistakes. I’m hearing that…
Mage Tier 11 Preview
With the new Cataclysm raids comes a new set of armour for Mages to drool over. The Firelord’s Vestments have certainly won praise for their looks, but how does it stack up as a fully-fledged dungeon set? Will the complete outfit be worn by most mages, or will the bare minimum be used? Firstly, it’s…
Entering Beta: The 80 Fire Mage
Spoiler Alert: Discussion of the latest changes to fire mages in build 12694. Also covering a few general and mage related UI changes and some speculation around what they indicate. The latest beta realm patch was recently released, bringing with it a range of changes to the Mage fire tree (full notes in the forums)….
The Flaming Boomerang
Ever since patch 3.3.3 was released I’ve been thinking of switching back to my Fire spec. It made me feel nostalgic about the early days of Warcraft, where I originally levelled as a fire mage. I only deviated from this spec for parts of both Molten Core and Naxxramas, sticking with fire throughout Burning Crusade….
Hit It Like You Mean It
Ask a mage to talk about the Hit Cap, and you’ll probably get a tirade of ranting. They’ll start to froth at the mouth as this haze of madness descends upon them, a rage of arguments involving calculations and forecasts that seem like some encrypted mathematical riddle. It’s a horrible stat that never feels ‘useful’,…
What the stat?
One of the things that really irritates me sometimes is the huge number of stats that accompany games these days. You tend to expect it a lot in RPGs, where each attribute can be measured, quantified and manipulated by your choice of character class or equipment. Don’t get me wrong, I like the ability to…