In which I ponder the lure of the world’s firsts

Gravity notes today that Premonition got a world first kill on Heroic Ruby Sanctum (this is a link to the tankspot strategy guide). This is the new raid instance which was patched into the US WoW servers yesterday and is being patched into ours today. I think my casual raid guild actually got a server [...]

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Blue Booking, PvE Grind, and what do we do in games inbetween scheduled groups?

I have been thinking recently about the patterns in which I tend to play MMOs. I’ve been spending more time in LOTRO recently, and my guild there is mostly made up of older players. They’re grumpy and proud, and they are very very good at organising their gaming to fit lifestyles which involve kids, non-gaming [...]

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So how is ‘bring the player, not the class’ working out for you?

One of Blizzard’s mottoes for raiding in Wrath was, “Bring the player, not the class.” Previously, Blizzard had attempted (with varying success) to encourage raid leaders to bring a variety of classes  — which mostly worked until one ability was so suited to a raid that experienced players were ditched so that alts or inexperienced [...]

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[Cataclysm] Why I hate heirlooms, and what’s in store for them in Cataclysm.

Oh the angst! Oh the torment! Oh the purples and the blues! Last week Blizzard CMs commented that they will aim to return to the ‘blues from heroics, epics from raids’ model in Cataclysm. I had thought that this was fairly unremarkable as announcements go – raid gear has always been better than heroic gear [...]

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Gaming News: Landmarks for Wizard 101 and Free Realms, Rumour Control (SWTOR beta, DCUO pricing, APB adverts), CoH expansion dated, Blizzard writing contest

If you have somehow escaped knowing this, Steam have a really good sale on at the moment. Also, we’re about to lose at football again. Is that really news? Numbers are up for Free Realms and Wizard 101 Good news everyone! Kid friendly non-subscription MMOs have posted some great numbers this week. Wizard 101 registered [...]

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Games for Women: Hidden in Plain Sight

Have you ever noticed that the types of games on offer in retail game shops are just different from the games you can pick up on sites like Steam? If you’ve read about a game in your magazine/ website/ bboard of choice then the chances are that you’ll see it on shelves eventually. But especially [...]

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[Old Azeroth] Memories of the old times

Now this is what a rare gathering spawn used to look like. Only four of these babies ever spawned at a time, they had a wide variety of spawn locations which were spread over a variety of high level zones. And you couldn’t make flasks without them.

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Thought of the day: On ownership of group achievements

Assume that you turn up to a PUG one evening which downs the first few bosses in a raid. The next day, the raid leader continues with a different bunch of people and clears the rest. Do you feel that it was a joint achievement – we cleared raid instance X? How about if it [...]

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The problem of stealth in MMOs

Melmoth writes about his fabulous Warden in LOTRO – it’s a very powerful and capable class, and great for both solo and group work. It can tank a bit, has some self heals, ranged as well as melee attacks, gets some AE capability, and can even teleport around the map (very useful in LOTRO, which [...]

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Being alone in a MMO

Alejandra Mavroski@Flickr So the rumours are increasing that patch 3.3.5 is due to drop imminently in WoW, and with it the RealID integration that could potentially make privacy  a thing of the past. One of my reservations about the new scheme is that if you swap RealIDs with a friend, they can see who all [...]

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