Most MMORPGs offer a system for looting meant to cut down on the amount of discussion needed. The general concept is simple and meant to mimic the conversations that were theoretically taking place after every kill.

“Do you need this? Does anyone? Is it an upgrade or just for selling?”

Need is usually accepted as meaning “I can and will use this item.” This way, items that are upgrades go to the people who actually need them, with the rest being randomly distributed amongst the group as cash loot.

Sounds simple - so what is going wrong? [More…]

Posted by Taymar on http://mmorpg-info.org.

I’ve not seen I am Legend yet - I can’t quite see how the book could make a full-length feature film and so I strongly suspect I’ll hate it. If anyone who has read the story has seen the film, do let me know what you thought of it in the comments, please.

Meanwhile, we can have fun replaying the plot on Norrath as a Vampire Slayer extraordinaire. There are a number of ways you can increase your damage against the blood-sucking beasts, making you the darling of Mistmoore Castle raids.

Vampire Master Strike

Vampires don’t have a Lore and Legend quest like most of the other primary races. I suppose this is because they crumble into dust rather than leaving body parts for us to harvest.

At any rate, to gain the master strike you need to complete the Bloodline Chronicles. This is an adventure pack so although I believe it is included free as a part of the Kunark all-in-one expansion, you may find you need to purchase it separately. The adventure pack consists of an extended quest-line from either the Hand of Marr or the Brethren of the Night. The two quest-lines are very similar and aimed at groups but you can do the quests solo (gray) from around around level 45 onwards. [More…]

Posted by Taymar on http://mmorpg-info.org.

Via Raph Koster’s blog is an interesting news story about Chinese gold sellers in serious trouble. It seems that following a dispute, one man reported his partner … ending up with them both getting some unwanted attention. [More…]

Posted by Taymar on http://mmorpg-info.org.

My son reminded me that I promised a quick overview of my experience with Age of Conan on the PvP weekend! I’d like to reiterate that this was a cut-down version of the client and that we were limited to the tutorial (levels 1-5) and PvP instances (beta-buffed to 20). This means that I (and the others who took part in this PvP weekend) did not get a full view of the game.

Starting Up

Accepting that it was not the real game but simply a cut-down version, my initial response was good. The character creation process allowed for a fair amount of customisation - you could go for basic choices (tall broad woman with a “resolute” face) or you could dive into the advanced character creation and twiddle with the details, such as mouth width and eye angle. [More…]

Posted by Taymar on http://mmorpg-info.org.

The /use_equipped_item is a very useful command because it enables you to to equip and then use an item in a macro. The “Use Item” macro step fails in this instance as it does not recognise that you’ve equipped the item. However, you can add a Command step and use the command line prompt in order to use the items immediately as they’ve been equipped, in the same macro. For an insta-cast item, this means that you can equip the item, cast it and then equip the original piece in a single macro. For non-insta-cast items, you can only do the first two steps, else the cast will be interrupted by the re-equipping. However, it is still useful to quickly equip and cast an item using macros rather than searching for the item in your inventory. [More…]

Posted by Taymar on http://mmorpg-info.org.

A huge benefit of macros to me is the ability to use and switch my gear quickly to meet the situation, without having to rummage through my backpacks trying to find the right items and hoping that I don’t miss any of them. Once you’ve set up your macros, you can put equipment on or take it off, use items and change your appearance slots at the touch of a button. It’s important to remember to update your macros as you get upgrades to your equipment but it doesn’t take long to get into the habit of dropping the new items in as you receive them. [More…]

Posted by Taymar on http://mmorpg-info.org.

It’s been 20 years since the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was released as an adventure game on 5¼” floppy disks.

20 years, and I’ve still not finished it.

This time, I’m going to crack it. The BBC have released two editions based on the results of a contest to supply graphics for the classic game. Edition One is with graphics by Nolan Worthington, who won the competition, while Edition Two is predominantly illustrated by runner-up Andrew Wyld but also includes favorite location images from other entrants. The saved games are not tied to the editions, so you can swap back and forth as often as you like.

The original hints are included as a link but if that’s not enough for you (and it certainly wasn’t enough for me when I bought the original version), the big difference between then and now is that it’s easy to look up a walk-through. I’ll be avoiding reading it to start but if I get stuck on the Heart of Gold again, you can bet I’ll take a quick peek. Wow, it’s been twenty years and I still know exactly where I threw in the towel.

I’ll be slogging along at this on the evenings when I’m not in the mood for multi-player. Let me know if you are playing too and we can share tips!

Posted by Taymar on http://mmorpg-info.org.

Kylong Plains has a secondary faction that can be worked up: the Gwalnax Brigade. The Brigade is in charge of Di’Zokian clandestine operations in Kunark but they are not on the same faction as the Di’Zok. You’ll find the Gwalnax Brigade in the western Kylong Plains, near the entrance to Chardok.

You begin with threatening faction (-30,000) and you won’t be able to see the quest line offered by them until you have raised this to indifferent. Gaining faction and the initial quests are all solo. [More…]

Posted by Taymar on http://mmorpg-info.org.

Why there are still corporates who consider ghettoizing European players as acceptable is beyond me. I was leery when I found that by buying Lord of the Rings in Europe, I could only play on European servers. In fact, I looked into having a US box shipped to me but in the end decided I was being silly and picked up a local copy of the game.

I regretted it almost immediately. [More…]

Posted by Taymar on http://mmorpg-info.org.

Tipa is ahead of the game once again, posting the latest trademark filing by Sony : Everquest II: The Shadow of Odyssey which will be the fifth expansion for the game. She predicted that the next expansion would be Luclin - and I hope she’s right with this description:

Well, no, I didn’t love Luclin as it was in EQ1. I love the idea of what Luclin will be NOW — blown apart, flying between the shards of the moon, an entirely new landscape and a chance for EQ2 to finally break from EQ1 and do something totally original.

Doesn’t that sound awesome?

But then there have been the recent lore articles posted, telling the tale of the Escape from Guk and the Flight of the Mudskipper. Odyssey could quite simply be a reference to Odus, known to be a favorite of Vhalen, who has recently left Sony but confirmed that the lore for the next expansion is complete.

Certainly it’s not sounding like Velious, which had been the most common guess.

Now that the speculation has started, hopefully it won’t take long before we get some real information!

Edit: Tipa points out in the comments that Cyanbane from EQ2-Daily made the find - and if you are interested in speculation you should keep an eye out for her piece in Massively.

Posted by Taymar on http://mmorpg-info.org.